The road we were on went about a half mile before the town came into view.
“Kill the headlights,” instructed Goliath.
I pushed in the knob and drove by moonlight the next few minutes.
Morrison had me pull off the road just before it crossed some railroad tracks. I stopped the car at the top of a low hill. Just below us was a small railroad platform. On the far side of the tracks, running parallel, was another road that intersected the route we’d been on. Along this road were a few large warehouses and a small office park.
Morrison got out of the car and helped Goliath unbuckle himself. I followed them to the crest of the hill. Goliath had lit up one of the larger chunks of cigar and was contentedly shrouded in smoke. He pointed down toward the offices with the lit end of it.
“Anything about that place look strange to you?” he asked.
Goliath was right. There was something off about the office park. I couldn’t put my finger on it, though.
“The fence,” I finally said.
“Duh. Not too bright are you, fancy pants?”
“He took a few blows to the head, give the guy a break,” Morrison said, defending me.
“What about all the razor wire on the top of the fence? Seem a bit out of place here in the sticks?” asked Goliath.
Now that he pointed it out to me, it did. “So it’s no ordinary office park.”
From the buildup the F.B.R.M. compound had received, I was expecting more. Like maybe a villain’s lair out of a Bond film.
“Your deductive powers are astounding.”
Sarcasm from a midget isn’t funny.
Morrison pointed toward the largest of the buildings.
“That’s the main office,” Morrison said. “When we were brought in for relocation, they kept us there, filled us in on how the world changed during our extended holiday.”
I expected a note of bitterness in Morrison’s voice. If he really was the Jim Morrison, he’d been yanked out of his career at its peak and reduced to playing cover songs in a bar in the middle of nowhere. I was about to say something about it when Goliath yanked the cigar from his mouth and barked, “Duck!”
Morrison and I dropped to the ground. Goliath just started laughing.
“Morons,” he said, puffing away.
We both stood up, brushing dirt and leaves off of our clothes. Falling for Goliath’s little joke did make me feel like an idiot, but all the talk about not being seen had me a bit spooked.
“A government train brings in newcomers and staff,” Morrison said. “Stops right there at the platform.”
“The Berlin Wall came down decades ago. Hasn’t everyone been ‘relocated’ yet?” I asked.
“You’d think so,” Goliath said. “But the F.B.R.M. still drives most of Kresge’s population growth. I don’t know where they dig ’em up.”
“So what happens when they bring in someone new?” I asked.
“The dead celebrity is escorted into the F.B.R.M. offices where he or she remains for a few weeks before being set loose in our happy little town,” Morrison said.
“Is that what happened with you?” I asked.
“More or less,” he answered, rubbing at a spot of dirt on his knee.
He was holding something back. I would have pushed to find out what, but two Goons came out of one of the smaller buildings and walked to one of several identical Town Cars in the parking lot.
“That looks like your friends,” Goliath said.
From this distance, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter though. They couldn’t see us and I wasn’t about to go down and say hello.
“If Elvis was taken by the Soviets and sent back, they’d have records on him in one of those buildings?” I asked.
Morrison nodded.
“Would they have records on him if he wasn’t part of the program?” I asked.
“You don’t think he’s one of us?” asked Morrison.
I was about to tell Morrison and Goliath about the third Goon when a little voice inside my head told me not to. If Elvis was part of the program, why would they want me to find him?
The inner monologue is a classic cliché about private detectives. It warns us about danger. It gives us nudges in the right direction. But this little voice is really just a way to describe the gut instinct a detective develops over time. At least, he develops it if he’s good at his job.
It didn’t make sense not to trust these two with the instructions the Goon had given me, but I didn’t. So I covered.
“Elvis was spotted in a lot of places just after his death,” I said. “If he’d been taken, it seems like he should have just disappeared.”
I hoped it sounded convincing.
Morrison thought about it for a moment.
“Good point. So there’s no reason for you to try to break in,” he said.
I kept looking at the offices. There is another detective cliché. That we can talk our way into just about anywhere. This one is more or less true. Nobody notices water delivery, mail delivery, package delivery. Pizza delivery is a bad idea, though. The smell draws too much attention. Getting into most places is easy, unless the building is designed with security specifically in mind, like an airport or bank. With the exception of the fence, these offices didn’t look like they were in that category.
Elvis once said, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.” Maybe I could get in and figure out why someone besides Buddy believed Burrows was Elvis and wanted me looking for him. All it would take is some breaking and entering to find it. Alone, though. I wasn’t going to be the guy that put Morrison back on ice in Siberia.
Chapter Eighteen
It was a little after ten when we got back to the Bombay Club. Ricardo and his band were playing a rousing Samba version of “That Old Black Magic.” Most of the bar patrons were at their tables nodding along to the unusual mashup, enjoying their drinks. A young couple on the dance floor was waving their arms, jiggling their hips and spinning around each other in time to the music.
“Showoffs,” Morrison said.
“I like it!” said Goliath, pushing a new cigar between his teeth. “Flame!”
He tossed his small silver lighter up in the air and I caught it on the way down.
“What’s the magic word?” I asked.
“Now.”
“My momma taught me manners.”
“My momma taught me how to break a clavicle with my thumb,” growled Goliath.
I put the lighter into my pocket and tried to whistle along to the music. I’m not a very good whistler.
Morrison looked at his fingernails.
“Please,” Goliath muttered it under his breath.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
Goliath took the cigar out from between his teeth and gave me a wide, forced grin.
“Would you please fire up my cigar?”
Malice dripped off every syllable like venom.
I took the lighter out of my pocket, bent over, and snapped open the lid.
“I’d be happy to.”
Without a word, Goliath put the cigar back between his teeth. I rolled the grinder against the flint and brought the flame to the tip. Goliath puffed until it was burning to his satisfaction.
“Thanks, Liberace.” He blew a thick smoke ring out as he exhaled, and I watched it float away. Which is why I wasn’t looking when he punched me in the back of the knee. The sudden blow knocked my leg completely out from under me and I collapsed in a black silk and leather heap.
Goliath stood over me. “Oh, sorry about that!” he said with mock sincerity. Then he held out a hand. “Let me help you up,” he offered.
I reached my hand out to the little man’s oversized pa
w and just as I was about to grasp it, he yanked it back, guffawing.
“What are you, a halfwit?”
Goliath shook his head in genuine amusement. “Dumbass pansy boy. Come get a drink at the bar if you can make it to your feet.”
He chuckled as he made his way beneath the tables and chairs to the pet door in the side of the bar. Being at the same general level as Goliath for the first time, I could see that he had a whole series of the doors installed in the walls, giving him direct access to the various rooms of the Club. He even had knives and saps strapped underneath several of the tables. Combative little bastard.
“Man, you are a sucker for punishment,” Morrison said.
“Are you going to give me a hand up?”
“Nope. I’m going to the bathroom.”
And without another word, Morrison turned his back on me and wound his way around the Club patrons who were getting to their feet, applauding the dancers, the band, or both.
I tried standing, but at the first ounce of weight, the knee Goliath had punched in buckled again.
The band struck up a Mariachi rendition of “Love and Marriage” and someone asked, “Need a hand?”
I looked up into Wanda’s beautiful eyes and fuzzy face. She was out of her beige officer uniform and wearing civvies. Her charcoal gray skirt flared down from a tapered waist, stopping just below her knees. The sheer, white long-sleeved top she wore beneath suspenders was tucked in tightly. The taut, bowed line of the suspenders left no doubt she was all woman despite the springy red curls resting on her collar.
“Thanks. I could, at that.”
Wanda reached down and helped me to my feet. I would have hit the floor again, but she quickly slid an arm around me and propped me up. It would have been slightly more enjoyable if she hadn’t grabbed my banged up ribs.
“Um, Wanda? Could you move your hand lower?”
“If you’re looking for a Christmas goose you’re not going to get one,” she said as she slid her arm further down. “Oh, are those the ribs Goliath cracked? Sorry!”
“They’re broken now, but it’s okay. Let’s just get me to a chair, huh?”
With my arm around her shoulders and hers around my waist, Wanda helped me limp over to an unoccupied table in the corner of the room.
I dropped into one of Goliath’s overstuffed chairs, trying not to groan. Wanda cocked her head and peered at my face.
“Has Goliath been beating on you again?” she asked.
“No, it was some other upstanding citizens of your fine town.”
So far, Wanda had been all woman, no sheriff. But now she stood upright, stiffened her spine, and put on the tight-lipped business face of a small-town law officer.
“I won’t have hooligans roughing up guests in my town. Did you get a good look at who did this?”
“I did. I can even tell you where they are, or at least where you can eventually find them.”
“There was more than one?”
“Yeah. Armed, too.”
“I’ll get a deputy. I like hooligans with guns even less,” she said grimly. Then, “You know you should have reported this right away.”
I think there was even a touch of concern for me in that statement.
Wanda had produced a small hand radio from somewhere on her person. I hadn’t seen it or felt it when she walked me over to the table. I guessed she probably had a large caliber handgun somewhere on her as well. I was kind of curious to find out.
“You said you know where I can find them?” she asked, holding the radio to her face, ready to issue orders to have the malcontents taken in by the boys in beige.
“It’s a little place on the edge of town, the F.B.R.M. offices. You know where they’re at?”
“What?”
“F.B.R.M. I think it stands for Federal Bureau of Roughing Up and Molesting? No, that’s not it...Relocation Management! A couple of their Goons beat the hell out of me in the parking lot.”
Wanda lowered the radio and secreted it somewhere in the folds of her skirt.
“Aren’t you going to call in your posse?”
She pulled out a chair for herself and gracefully settled into it. Then she leaned across the table to get a better look at my battle wounds and raised two fingers to touch the bruise on my cheek. The same bruise Mistress Thora the Teenage Danish Maiden had shown interest in.
“You know, we have a guy in town, Jun Fan, martial arts expert, he might be able to teach you a thing or two. Help you avoid getting clobbered next time.”
I wanted to believe that her sympathy was real, so I did. But I didn’t believe the woman I was talking to now was the same person who’d offered me a hand up off the floor. The first woman, Wanda, liked me. I think. Looked forward to seeing me. I hoped. The woman sitting across from me was Sheriff Kresge, though she was putting on a good show of being Wanda.
“You didn’t exactly answer my question. Not sending your boys out to make any arrests?”
Sheriff Kresge’s smile didn’t falter. She put her hand on mine and looked me in the eyes.
“I’m sure it was just some kind of misunderstanding. I’ll call them tomorrow and check into it. So...What did they want with you?”
“They wanted me to leave town. Stop looking for Burrows.”
I’m sure Sheriff Kresge is great at playing good cop or bad cop in an interrogation room, assuming cops actually do that. But she was far from being a Method-trained actress and the Wanda facade finally fell apart in a mixture of relief and new anxiety.
“Well the guy you’re looking for is dead, so that’s no problem, but you can’t leave yet because you haven’t found Roman.”
The grip on my hand got a little tighter.
“The council meeting is tomorrow. He has to be there,” she said.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “The government men that paid me a visit seemed pretty set on me leaving town right away.”
“I still need your help, Floyd.”
“I don’t think I’m in a position to give it. Who knows what they would do to me if I stayed? They could kill me.”
I wasn’t really thinking of leaving. I had a score to settle with the Goons. And I did want to help Wanda and the Kresge circus people. They seemed like good folk. But Sheriff Kresge had been holding things back since we met. Putting some pressure on her might help me find out what.
She let go of my hand and sat back in her chair.
“You’re right. You barely know me. And this town means nothing to you, so I’ve no right to ask you to help us. You’re not too far off the mark with the agents, you know. They could kill you.”
Wanda clasped her hands together in front of her, imploring.
“I have no right to ask, but I will anyway. Please help me find Roman before the council meeting. I don’t know how much I can do, but if it comes down to it, I’ll step in front of you if the agents come calling.”
I had what I wanted. Honest concern for the town. Honest concern for me. And a glimpse into what really motivated Wanda. I didn’t think it was protecting a government conspiracy.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“Is what it?” Wanda asked, confused.
“A simple plea? No offers of money, or maybe something else I might be interested in as you undo the top button on your blouse?”
Wanda blinked, trying to decide if I was serious or not. Finally she said, “You’re having fun with me now aren’t you?”
“Yeah. A little bit.”
Wanda closed her eyes and let out a long, relaxed sigh.
“Then you’ll help us?” she asked, opening her eyes again.
“I will. Just as soon as you tell me the truth about why you think Roman is missing and your role in what’s going on here.”
Her face ti
ghtened, but I was still speaking with Wanda, not the sheriff.
“Okay. I suppose that’s a reasonable request,” she said. But she didn’t go on.
“What appointment did Roman miss that started this whole hunt for him?” I prompted.
Wanda pressed her lips together tightly before she answered, as if she was afraid of what she might say.
“I lied. There wasn’t any appointment. Roman is a relo, like Morrison. I couldn’t risk him siding with the Oksvangers, so I tried to find him to make sure he was going to vote the right way.”
“But you didn’t find him?” I asked.
“No.”
“I don’t understand. If you couldn’t find him, he really was a missing person. Why drag me into things?”
“How much do you know about the F.B.R.M.?”
“Morrison told me everything,” I said. At least I hope he did.
“Did he tell you the sheriff’s office works with them?”
The surprise on my face was answer enough.
“I do,” she continued. “And I’m not supposed to interfere with Bureau business. I thought maybe they had un-relocated Roman. But there was a chance he was just avoiding me, or off with a girlfriend. I couldn’t look into it with the agents watching, so I needed someone like you to do it for me.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
But it didn’t. Not entirely. If they had taken Roman, I doubt one of their agents would enourage me to look for one of their dead celebrities. Especially the most famous dead celebrity of them all.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “If you work with the F.B.R.M., why were you going to help me find Jon Burrows? He could have been one of their clients.”
“I wasn’t,” she said. “I lied about that too. I was going to tell you I couldn’t find anything.”
Wanda was looking at me expectantly. She still wanted my help with Roman and she’d taken a chance being honest with me about Burrows. I was pissed at her for lying, but I’d found him anyway. And I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not Elvis had been part of the Happiness program.
“Since Burrows is dead, the F.B.R.M. shouldn’t object to you looking into his past a bit, right?” I asked.
Elvis Sightings (An Elvis Sightings Mystery) Page 18