Sam reached for the phone.
“Look. Whatever happened, we’re both involved now, and we’re going to see somebody go to jail for Spicer’s death. Now, let me make my call.”
“Sure, man. Go ahead.”
Sam dialed Betsy’s home number and waited while the phone rang once, twice. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Betsy, it’s Sam. I’m sorry to be calling you so late …”
“Sam. I just heard from your mother. She said you might be calling. What’s wrong, Sam? Your mother told me you were in some kind of trouble. Where are you?”
“I’m at my grandparents’ old summer cottage on Lake Egypt. Remember? I brought you down here once when we were in high school.”
“I remember the place. God, that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”
“Seems like another life.”
“I’ll say. Your mother told me the man they found dead in Jerome the other day was a friend of yours. I looked up the story in the Carbondale paper. The police got an anonymous tip and found his body tied to a tree in some woods… .”
“Yeah. Did she say how he got killed? Did she tell you about the surveillance tapes?”
“No. All she told me was that you’re trying to find the man who killed your friend.”
Sam went back to the beginning and told her everything. When he was finished, there was a long pause before Betsy spoke.
“So you think Harlan Greene is behind your friend’s murder?”
“He’s the one who’s looking for us. He’s the major player on the surveillance tapes I saw. You put two and two together and it comes up Harlan Greene.”
“He’s a very powerful man in this state, Sam. I’m sure you know that.”
“Yeah, and I know he’s been crooked since he used to work for Paul Powell.”
“He’s never been indicted. No one has ever proven that he’s taken a dime, much less been mixed up in a murder, Sam. He was the key downstate person in Governor Taylor’s election committee, he’s always been very close to Secretary of State Offinger and the attorney general, Michael Kennedy. People may talk about him being corrupt, but as far as those men are concerned, come election day, he’s their best friend.”
“Unfortunately, I know what you say is true.”
“What about these surveillance tapes? What happened to them?”
“Spicer was supposed to send them to the attorney general.”
“To the attorney general! And you never heard anything more about them?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, neither have I, Sam. And I think if anything like the surveillance tapes you’re talking about had been received by the attorney general, the governor would certainly know about it, and I would have heard about it by now.”
“What are you saying? Spicer didn’t send them?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess I’m saying I don’t understand. This all sounds very, very strange to me… .”
“You think I’m making this up, Betsy? Come on.”
“I don’t think you’re making anything up, Sam. That’s not it at all. I just think the whole thing sounds farfetched.”
“I saw the tapes, Betsy. They’re not a figment of my imagination. They exist. Harlan Greene is right there, talking about paying off state reps and state senators for some big vote. He’s right there, standing in the middle of some field they’re surveying down in Rock County. I don’t know what it all adds up to. I was hoping you could help me with that.”
Betsy was silent for a moment before she answered.
“I can’t do anything tonight, Sam. But when I get to work tomorrow morning, there are some calls I can make. I’ve got a friend who works for the IBI …”
“The IBI?”
“The Illinois Bureau of Investigation. They’re an arm of the executive branch. A guy who worked on the governor’s campaign with me … he was the downstate advance man … he works over there now. I’ll call him tomorrow morning and feel him out, see if he’s heard anything about videotapes.”
“Jeez, Betsy, that would be great,” Sam said. “But be careful, will you? I don’t want you getting in any trouble over this.”
“Don’t worry. I think I know how to take care of myself by now.”
“I guess you do at that,” said Sam.
“This whole thing would be a lot easier if you still had those tapes.”
“I told you. I left them with Spicer, and he was to send them to the office of the attorney general. As far as I know, that’s where they are.”
“Okay. We’ll just have to take it from there.”
“I’m sorry to burden you, Betsy. I should have thought of calling you when I had the tapes in my possession.”
“Where will you be tomorrow about ten o’clock?”
“I’ll be here.” He gave her the phone number for the cottage.
“I’ll call you at ten exactly, Sam.”
“Thanks, Betsy.”
She hung up.
“Hey, Sam?” It was Johnny Gee. He was standing next to the counter separating the kitchen from the front room, sipping a beer.
“Yeah?”
“I think there’s somethin’ I ought to tell you that I haven’t told you, sort of.”
“What’s that?”
“I heard you talkin’ to her about the tapes, and she musta been askin’ you where they were, because you kept tellin’ her Spicer already sent them off.”
“So?”
“He didn’t send all of ’em.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, I kept one.”
“You did what?”
“I kept one of the tapes. I figured with us splittin’ up and all, if there was any trouble, I’d need it to deal my way out.”
“Christ, Johnny. Where is it? What did you do with it?”
“Well, that night way back when, I stuck it down the back of my pants when you guys weren’t lookin’, and I just took off with it when we split up. I’ve been real careful. I never kept it in my room or nothin’. I kept movin’ it around.”
“Which tape is it, and where the hell is it, Johnny?”
“It’s the Sheraton tape, where they’re all in that hotel room, remember? I got it stashed in a bus station locker.”
“Where?”
“Over in Lancaster. I stopped on my way down to your place. I’m sorry, man. Until I heard you talkin’ to her on the phone …”
“Lancaster? How far is that from here?”
“It’s just on the other side of Marion.”
“Let’s go get it,” said Sam. “If we’ve still got one of the tapes, that changes everything.”
They climbed into the Porsche and backed out of the drive. Sam headed up the gravel road until he hit a county blacktop and turned left. He went a couple of miles before he realized he was heading the wrong direction.
He made a U-turn and headed the other way. A few miles north, he turned left on State Route 35. They passed through Marion, took a right on State Route 18 and drove into Lancaster. On the right, a lump of decaying stucco had a sign on it: BUS DEPOT. He killed the engine and turned to Johnny Gee.
“Give me the key.”
Johnny Gee fished in his pocket and handed him the key to the bus locker.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Sam pushed open the door. Everything in the bus depot was yellow with age: yellowed walls, yellowed floors, yellowed vaulted ceiling, yellowed stucco support beams and yellowed fake granite columns, yellowed glass partition between the two ticket booths, yellowed marble counters. The years had not been kind to bus travel, and they seemed to have dealt the Lancaster depot a particularly vengeful blow.
Even the resident collection of depot denizens seemed further down on their luck than usual. Most of the old wooden benches in the waiting room had been taken. Homeless men were stretched out full length on piles of their worldly possessions. The sound of fitful wet snoring
filled the room. An odor of cheap wine hung over the benches like a low fog. Sam walked up to the row of lockers along the wall and found number 213. He inserted the key and turned it. The locker popped open a crack. He looked in and saw a small canvas overnight bag. As he was about to retrieve it, a nightstick pushed the locker closed.
“You mind telling me what you’ve got in there, pal?”
He turned around and came face to face with a Lancaster cop on night patrol. The cop was about forty, but a drinking problem had him looking closer to fifty. Sam could smell the cheap gin mixed with Sen-Sen on his breath.
“It’s my overnight bag, officer. I left it here earlier. I’m here to pick it up.”
“Where you headed?”
“Home, officer. I’m picking up my bag, and I’m going home.”
“You got a bus ticket?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Then how you traveling home, mister?” asked the officer, moving closer. The gin/Sen-Sen was almost overpowering.
“I’m driving, sir.” He stepped to the rear. His back hit the locker.
“We been having a lot of trouble ’round here with drugs coming into this town,” said the officer. “They been moving them drugs in here pretty regular. More’n once, we found drugs right in these here lockers. Did you know that, friend?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.” He looked past the officer, out the glass doors of the depot. He could see the Porsche idling across the street with Johnny Gee in the front seat. If this cop took one look out that door and saw what he saw … they’d be locked up first, and answer questions later.
He tried to smile nonchalantly. He hoped the smile didn’t come off as arrogant.
The officer tapped the locker door with his nightstick.
“Mind if I look in that locker of yours?” he asked, tapping the door.
“No, sir, I don’t.” He stepped aside.
The officer flipped the door open with his nightstick and peered inside. The overnight bag sat by itself at the front of the locker. The officer pushed it to one side with his nightstick and looked behind the bag. Nothing.
“You wouldn’t have no drugs in there, would you, mister?” asked the officer.
“No, sir, I wouldn’t.”
“Mind if I have a look in that bag of yours?”
Sam hesitated. He didn’t know precisely what was in the bag beside the surveillance tape. And if the cop seized the tape … he didn’t even want to think about it. He took a chance.
“No, sir, I don’t mind.”
“Open it up,” the officer commanded.
He took the bag out of the locker and unzipped it.
“What’s under them clothes, mister?”
He took one of Johnny Gee’s pairs of pants, a shirt, and some underwear from the bag. The officer looked inside.
“Got some videos there, I see,” said the officer.
“One. Yes, sir, I do.”
“There wouldn’t be no bags ‘a drugs hidin’ in that video box, would there now?”
Sam fished the videotape box from the bag, pulled the cassette from its cover, and showed it to the officer.
The officer nodded.
“You can zip it up,” he said.
Sam put everything back in the bag and closed it.
“You wouldn’t have no ID on you, would you?” asked the officer with a stupid grin.
Sam pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, showing his military ID. A set of Airborne wings and a Ranger tab were pinned inside the wallet across from the ID.
“You’re an army officer?” asked the officer.
“That’s right, sir.”
“Well, gee, I’m real sorry … uh … Major,” said the officer. “But we do have some drug runners through here, and you never know, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I served me a stretch in the army, myself,” said the officer, backing up slowly. “Plei Khu. Sixty-nine.”
“Vietnam, huh?”
“Viet-fuckin’-Nam,” said the officer, seemingly at a loss for words.
“I’m stationed down at Fort Campbell,” said Sam. “And I’d better get going or I’ll be AWOL.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” said the officer. He touched the brim of his cap with his nightstick in a mock salute. “Airborne Ranger, all the way,” he said, grinning drunkenly.
“Right. Airborne,” Sam echoed flatly, picking up the bag. He walked past the officer, pushed open the glass door, and walked across the street to the car. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
“What the fuck was that all about?” asked Johnny Gee. “I seen that cop headin’ for you … I seen the whole thing.”
“You don’t even want to know.”
“He seen the tape?”
“He saw everything. He was looking for drugs. He was also lit like a Roman candle.”
Sam started the Porsche and pulled into the traffic. He took the first right out of town.
“That cop coulda blown the whole thing,” said Johnny Gee.
“He sure could have, but he didn’t.”
“Where we goin’ now?”
“Back to the lake. Betsy’s calling tomorrow morning, and now we’ve got something we can show her. The fact that we’ve got one of the tapes makes a big difference. You were selfish to keep this thing, but it’s probably the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”
“I figured, you know, you always got to keep yourself close to an exit,” said Johnny Gee.
HE BENT THE Porsche through an easy curve, pressed the accelerator to the floor and watched the speedometer climb past ninety. They were leaving the farm country around Lancaster. Long straight passages of two-lane blacktop with winter wheat fields alongside towns spaced about fifteen miles apart. You could see them coming up ahead, even at night, a clump of lonely elms and oaks and a couple of grain elevators on the horizon against the sky. Sam slowed for the last farm town before they hit the rolling hills and woods around the lake. They coasted through the blinking yellow light at thirty. On the other side of town, he eased the Porsche back up to speed.
“What you thinkin’ about, Major?” asked Johnny Gee.
“I’m trying to figure out what having this tape in our possession does for us.”
“I thought you said this was gonna make things easier.”
“That’s what I thought at first. Now I’m not so sure.”
“What’s the problem?”
“We’re in the same spot we were in before. Technically, we’re in possession of something that doesn’t belong to us. If it was stolen, then we’re in possession of stolen property. And either way, having seen the tape, we probably have knowledge of a felony. This is what we were trying to solve when we gave the tapes to Spicer, so he could send them to the authorities.”
“Yeah, and you see where that got us. And where that got Spicer.”
“I know. We’ve got to break out of this loop we’re in. We’ve got to figure a way to land the whole business in Harlan Greene’s lap, where it belongs.”
“You got any new ideas?”
“That’s what worries me. Not a one.”
“Maybe your girl Betsy will come up with somethin’ tomorrow mornin’.”
“Maybe.” Sam turned off the county blacktop onto the gravel road leading to the lake. In a few moments, they could see the outline of the cottage through the trees. Sam parked the Porsche in the grove of pines on the far side of the cottage, and unlocked the front door. It was pitch dark inside. He flipped the light switch, and a floorlamp next to the sofa came on.
“I wish we had a TV and VCR out here. I sure would like to take another look at this tape,” he said.
“Hey, Major. You better come in here.” Johnny Gee was standing in the door leading to the bedrooms.
Sam strode quickly from the kitchen to the first bedroom. The bed had been turned over and the mattress knifed open. All of his grandfather’s old fishing and hunting clothes in the closet had been gone throug
h and tossed on the floor. They walked across the hall to the guest room. The mattress was shredded, leaning against the headboard, and Johnny Gee’s clothes were scattered across the bedsprings.
“Looks like we’ve had visitors,” said Johnny Gee.
The .45. The .45. Where is it? Sam panicked.
He ran down the hall through the front room and out the door to the car. He unlocked the driver’s door, felt under the seat until his hand landed on the pistol, and then silently blessed the day the army switched over from the Colt .45 to the 9 mm Beretta, giving all active duty officers the opportunity to purchase their sidearms surplus from the government for twenty-five dollars. He tucked the .45 in his waistband and returned to the cottage.
Switching on the light in the kitchen, he saw that the cabinets had been emptied and the garbage searched. One of the panes in the pantry window had been broken and the lock jimmied.
“Here’s where they got in. Come on, Johnny. We’re out of here.”
“Where we goin’, man?” asked Johnny Gee, hustling to the door. Sam turned off the lights and locked the front door.
“To my mother’s. If they know we’re here, they sure as hell know where she is, and I don’t like it, Johnny. I don’t like it at all. She doesn’t have anything to do with this, and the way things are going, she’s liable to get hurt.” He took a deep breath as he climbed into the Porsche.
“Or killed.”
Johnny Gee got into the seat next to him, and they hit the gravel road in second gear at forty. Sam kept up the pace through the woods, out of the Shawnee National Forest. The first time he slowed the Porsche below ninety was when he saw Harrisburg up ahead. As they neared the town, traffic picked up. It was pretty heavy traffic so late at night, he thought. What night was it? Of course! Wednesday, and this was midweek date traffic, movie traffic, dinner at the Sizzler traffic, driving around traffic, a relentless stream of headlights and taillights and jacked-up Camaros and tall-boy pickups and screeching tires and stoplight chatter and hamburgers and six-packs and Levis and bleached-blond flips and high heels and lipstick and high volume cassette player automotive rock ‘n’ roll. It was Wednesday night in southern Illinois, and Sam recognized every pounding corpuscle of it.
Rules of the Road Page 20