by Alan Lee
Chapter Sixteen
I sat in my office, sneakers crossed on the desk, bouncing a Nerf ball off the window. The windows had been installed sometime during the Roman empire and the pane rattled threateningly. My coffee had gone cold and the last piece of bacon beckoned from my desk but so far I’d abstained. Bacon got even better the more you wanted it. My fantasy baseball stats were displayed prominently on the screen of my laptop and ‘90s alternative music came from the bluetooth speaker. Green Day at the moment.
I knew the Franklin County sheriff was a straight-laced man, ran things by the book, heart of gold, yada yada. He hadn’t sent Yopp on the sordid errand. Yopp had acted as an independent agent, trying to intimidate us because someone had tipped him off that he should. Perhaps Ruben Collier and his fields of weed? I doubted it. Weed might be the impetus but Ruben wouldn’t have been the one to call for the backup — didn’t strike me as the type. Someone else was worried about us and it wasn’t Calvin.
Probably Wayne, that bastion of nobility. He’d either spotted me or heard about my snooping.
Didn’t mean he was Calvin’s informant, though. The man could simply hate me. Or worry I would wreck his source of income.
My eyes fell to the list of names provided by Calvin. I had a few more to visit and then the real work began. I would pick a couple of the feeble-hearted and falsely inform them I knew they were the informant. Tell them that Calvin knew and he was furious. Rattle them and see what fell out. Either I was right or I was wrong, and if I was wrong then they might admit truths which would help me. Not exactly a virtuous method but it was tried and effective.
I didn’t want to do it yet, however. I was tired of Franklin County drives and needed a day off.
Perhaps I should visit Ronnie. And her couch.
No sir, to borrow her phrase. No sir, you’re dating Kristin Payne. Right?
Kristin.
I kept forgetting her.
I should probably invite her over. We hadn’t communicated since the ball game.
I texted her. Ever the gentleman.
Come over. Pick a night. I’ll cook.
No immediate response. So she wasn’t sitting around, bouncing a ball across her room and waiting on my text. Girls are weird.
The stairs squeaked and Clay Fleming came into my office. Clay Fleming, guy from Floyd. We’d played poker together. He was dressed in work boots, khakis, and a jean jacket, dirt stains ubiquitous.
I stood and shook his hand, which was rough-hewn and strong. A wedding band glinted on his left. I said, “Clay Fleming. You’re the redneck.”
“Redneck and damn proud of it. So you’re a true private detective with a true private detective office, just like Humphrey Bogart in those black and white movies.”
“Philip Marlowe. He was the best. And I, a mere simulacrum.”
“A mere simulacrum,” he said, sitting in one of my client chairs. “Whatever the hell that means. You need to get one of them doors with the glass, so the girl’s silhouette is visible through it. You know?”
“The femme fatale.”
“That’s the one, damsel in distress, big boobs hanging out, help me, Mack, I’m in trouble.”
“You’d be surprised how often that doesn’t happen.”
“Still. Probably better-looking girls than the heifers I hang out with.” He pointed at his mud-caked boots.
“But perhaps we deal with the same amount of crap,” I said. “Yours happens to be literal.”
“I like this office. Got a good feel to it. You’re a baseball fan.” He threw his hand toward my shelves.
“I am, but Bryce Harper leaves for the Yankees and it’ll test my mettle.”
“You even got a bible sitting over there,” he said. “You read that thing?”
“I do.”
“Used to go to church with my grandmother when I was a boy. Floyd Baptist. You a religious man?”
“I am not. Religion strikes me as a sort of rule-following to appease the powers that be. I’m not so great at following rules.”
“Then why read it?”
“I believe the documents within contain truth. Doesn’t mean I understand it, I must confess. But I’m desperate for truth. Most days I stare, hoping wisdom will impart itself. You know Jesus tells us to love our enemies?”
“He does?” Clay asked.
“Indeed.”
“The hell is that about?”
“Strikes me as the kind of thing God would say. Now I just gotta figure out why.”
“You ever worry at night, when all is quiet and you’re falling asleep, about maybe you’ve got life all wrong? That you been aiming at stuff don’t matter?” he asked, staring at my desk and at the universe beyond.
“That’s precisely why I read the book.”
“You figure it all out, you let me know,” he said. “So how’s it coming, the Calvin Summers thing? Got some of us antsy, Calvin getting snitched on. Could happen to us, you know.”
“Slow and tedious work. Thus far no one has volunteered to take the fall,” I said.
“Don’t blame them. Whoever it is, he’s getting the shit kicked out of him and then shot,” Clay said.
“Think so?”
“Has to be. Snitches don’t get stitches, Mack, snitches get made an example. Look what happens, Calvin will say. Look what happens, you send me to prison.”
I liked Clay’s manner of speaking. It was without affect, straightforward. Kinda slow and polite, a twinge of the country accent on the vowels.
“Clay, you don’t strike me as the kinda guy to kick the shit out of someone and then shoot them,” I said. “You want coffee?”
“Thank you, no. Already had three cups. And you’re right, I ain’t the type. But I ain’t in the same work as the other guys.”
“What work are you in?”
“I raise beef cattle,” he said.
“Sure, Marcus Morgan likes to play cards with beef farmers. Makes sense.”
He grinned. “And I got a moonshine business.”
“Same as Calvin?”
“Summers is more diversified as me. As you’re probably discovering. But me? All I do is hooch.”
“Any money in it?” I asked.
“I run shine all over this part of the state. And parts of North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Hell yeah there’s money.”
“You don’t deal with wholesalers?”
“Naw, I like to sell directly to a handful of distributors,” he said. “Me or one of my boys.”
“Enlighten me,” I said. “I’m a simple pure-minded suburban episcopal. Seems to me like half of Franklin County brews their own shine. I don’t even know if brew is the right word. But it’s everywhere. How do you make money?”
“So yesterday I take a truck north up Interstate 81. Right? Got the truck loaded with strawberry shine. Little too sweet but it’ll do. I sell fifty jars for forty bucks a piece in Lexington. Fifty in Lynchburg. A hundred in Harrisonburg. And so on. Mostly to guys who got the taste but not enough time to make their own. They collect money from friends and meet me in the parking lot, or maybe they give them out as gifts, shit, I don’t care. I get home last night, I’ve sold five hundred jars.”
“Forty a piece, that’s twenty thousand dollars,” I said, hoping he’d notice my keen math skills.
“Twenty thousand dollars. After expenses, like materials and equipment and couple guys work with me, I keep about five bucks a jar. So yesterday I made twenty-five hundred. I’ll do it again next week, heading south. And then again, week after. So for me, Mack, I clear over ten grand a month. No taxes, just clean cold cash. And that’s on top of the beef.”
I laced my fingers over my stomach and leaned back in my chair. “Ten grand a month’s pretty good.”
“Ten grand in pure profit. That ain’t income, that’s after expenses. Guy in Floyd, like me, who already owns a cattle ranch, getting ten grand on top? I’ll retire at fifty-five with all I’ll ever need, me and my kids.”
“Lucky for me, virtue is its own reward. I’ll retire and live off all that goodwill.”
“Hah. Keep dreaming, partner.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “If it’s purely for my company, I understand. Lesser men and women than you have fallen prey to my appeal.”
“So. Listen, Mack. This has got to be off the record. Good?”
“No promises.”
“No promises?” he said.
“I’ll do my best. Won’t repeat unless I have to. But you should know it up front.”
“Yeah, well, Marcus trusts you. So listen. I produce and run shine. And it’s illegal. But I do it the right way. I’m a good man and I got a good business and I treat people right,” Clay said.
“So you’re an honest criminal,” I said.
“That’s right.”
I took a guess. “And Calvin isn’t?”
“Calvin’s okay. He’s into a lot. Lets others handle it for him. It’s not Calvin who worries me.”
I took another guess. “It’s Wayne.”
“It’s Wayne. Got me spooked. Wayne’s got aspirations. Wants to be a bigger player.”
“But he’s too stupid?”
“Not that he’s too stupid but that he’s too mean. And stupid. Our business, you don’t be mean unless you got to. No contracts in our world, no paperwork. Odd as it sounds it’s a gentleman’s world. You met Edgar Knight at poker? Edgar wants moonshine, which he does sometimes, then I take him at his word. A handshake. Treats me right, I treat him right. I haul weapons for him sometimes. Same with Marcus. Same with Calvin. But Wayne? Wayne’s a son of a bitch.”
“Why’s it seem like son of a bitches always trick big trucks?”
“Gotta disagree with you. I heard you at poker, joking about the mess in Franklin County. The broken Appalachian influence. And I can’t argue about some of it. But guys like me, I ain’t like that. I work from five in the morning until eight at night. And I drive a big-ass truck. So do most in Franklin and Floyd. To most of us it’s all about the paycheck. You pay your own way, you’re good by me. We work hard, take care of ourselves, take care of each other. It’s the got’damn freeloaders I got a problem with. Live off government. Get their cousins pregnant. And them boys don’t drive big-ass trucks. Can’t afford ’em. They drive rust buckets.”
“I apologize for my offensive comments. The result of ignorance and bias.”
He waved it off. “See, this is the trouble with Wayne. He works for the paycheck but he don’t help take care of his people. Don’t care about the community. Me, I’m a gentleman. Folks work with me. Wayne ain’t a gentleman. And soon Calvin’s gonna lose business. Start creating problems for us.”
“Who is us?”
“Calvin and me. Marcus don’t care. Edgar don’t care, because they aren’t country. Ain’t from around here. But I don’t like seeing generations of idiots falling down the same hole. And Wayne profits off it.”
“The same hole? Something other than moonshine and marijuana, I presume.”
“You’re right. I don’t mind the weed. And Franklin and Floyd don’t have much blow. It’s the prescription pills what kills us.”
“Opioids. Hydrocodone. Oxycontin.”
“That’s right,” he said.”
“Is Calvin involved with pills?”
“Naw. It’s Wayne. Pays off the docs or nurses or someone.”
“Why not tell Calvin?” I asked. “About the usurper within his ranks?”
“Like I said, it’s a gentleman’s world. We tend not to meddle. I’ve hinted to Calvin and it didn’t go over well.”
“Could Wayne be the informant?”
He shook his head. “Naw. Not Wayne’s style. Tattling to the feds, you kidding me? His hands are too dirty.”
“Shame. I hate the guy.”
“Loving your enemies is easier in theory than in practice, eh, Mack?”
“Truer words have never been spoken. I might get ‘Easier Said than Done’ etched on my tombstone.”
Chapter Seventeen
The FBI had a small office in Roanoke off Kirk Street. This section of Kirk was paved brick and narrow and had an old-world charm. I parked and walked haplessly in circles looking for the entrance until a nondescript door opened and Jamie Patton stuck his head out.
“Mackenzie August?”
“Oh thank goodness. I was lost and on the verge of sheepishness,” I said.
Jamie held the door for me. He looked early thirties, trim with broad shoulders, thinning brown hair. He had a friendly open face, wore a shirt and tie, pinstriped slacks and shiny black shoes. “Yeah, we’re hard to find.”
“Fidelity, bravery, and hidden doors.”
“We’re spooks and we can’t feel smug if we advertise with big signs and windows,” he said. Inside, he unlocked a heavy door using his handprint and we stepped into a security chamber. The door closed behind us and he unlocked the interior door with a retinal scanner and we emerged into a standard office hallway. Thin carpet. Five cubicles with sound-absorbing walls. Calendars hanging limply from pushpins. Someone was clicking quietly on a keyboard in the corner.
“Hallway is kind of a letdown after the secret entrance chamber of magic,” I said.
“I know. We need machine-gun nests in here or something,” he said.
“Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Sure. Your boy Manny Martinez and I had lunch last week. He put in a good word. And Sheriff Stackhouse asked me to meet with you as a favor.” He sat behind his laptop and indicated I take the other chair. His tiny space was cramped but neat and clean.
“It’s wise to stay in her good graces,” I said.
“I’d scale Everest if she asked. She’s like a movie star, in my book. So, Mr. August, based on our brief phone conversation I’ve taken the liberty of accessing Calvin Summers’s email.”
I said, “Goodness you’re quick. And way outside the law.”
“None of this ever happened, you understand. But I assumed it would speed things up if I broke in.”
“How’d you do that? You computer hackers strike me as sorcerers.”
He shrugged and held out his hand, palm up. “I asked him his password and he told me.”
“Liar.”
“Well, that’s the short version. Essentially I sent him a message which looked like official Gmail correspondence and he entered his password into the box. Presto. The man is not technologically savvy.”
“He’s not the sharpest criminal overlord either. Did you find anything I can use?”
He shook his head and leaned backwards so I could see the screen. “Afraid not. Certainly nothing which would hold up in court. Illegal seizure, that kind of thing.”
“Technically I’m not after incriminating evidence. I want to know who opened that email he sent accidentally.”
“I found it. Didn’t take long. Calvin Summers doesn’t use email much. He sends notes to his daughter and to his accountant. Sends the occasional Happy Birthday email. That’s it. But there’s no way to see who opened that email. I checked. I would have had to track it real time or attach a read receipt request. He received a couple replies but that’s all we know for sure. A Mr. Stokes replied. So did Mr. Moss, who I believe operates his restaurant. They had nothing important to say. Can I ask what this is about?”
“I’m doing a job for him. Essentially trying to find out who betrayed him,” I said. “Sounds fishy, I know. But I took the job with the intention of ultimately protecting the identity of the government’s informant.”
“So you’re going to stab a mobster in the back,” Jamie said.
“Figuratively, yes.”
“I will bring flowers to your funeral.”
“Fret not. As I said, he’s not criminally proficient. He’s more of an investment mobster,” I said.
“Sorry I can’t be more help. The easiest way to discover your Judas would be to hack the email of each recipient, but that would require a lot of time and effort and I
cannot justify it.”
“Wouldn’t ask you to. I knew this was a long shot.”
He said things about computers and the dark net which I didn’t understand. In fact he filled an entire five minutes with esoteric nerd jargon, ultimately culminating with the fact that he couldn’t help me. He leaned back in his swivel chair and laced his hands over his flat stomach. “What will you do now?”
“Pester suspects.”
“That’s essentially what I do for the FBI.”
“We’re a one-trick pony, what it boils down to,” I said.
“You’re a large man. I’d hate to be the one being pestered.”
“Muscular. That’s the word you’re looking for. Not large.”
“I’m curious how this job of yours resolves itself. I’ll follow it with interest,” Jamie said and he stood up to let me out through the portal of techno terror.
“Just ask. Don’t hack into my phone.”
“Ah. How boring.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kristin Payne came over for dinner. She arrived barefoot, wearing short black shorts and a Lucky Brand pale blue tank top. She had the calves and quads of an athlete and she knew it. It was ten degrees too cool for her outfit but looking good is never easy.
I sprinkled salt and pepper onto our steaks while she drank a beer and bemoaned her academic responsibilities over the summer.
“And I don’t think it matters how much work I take on,” she was telling me. “I want to be a professor, I’ll have to switch colleges.”
“Being a professor is like getting tenure?”
“Yes, though it varies by institution. Point is you gotta get lucky and pay your dues, both. Can’t just fuck your way to the top.”
Kix sat in the high chair, watching her curiously over his cup of juice.
“Remember her sage advice, son. It’s a lesson we can’t learn soon enough,” I said.
He requested more bananas. I acquiesced and then put our steaks onto the grill. I came back and chopped boiled potatoes.
Kix threw the cup at Kristin. It landed on the floor.
“Your kid dropped his thing,” she said.
“I noticed. He’s playing hard to get.”
Manny came home. Said “Hola” to us both and went upstairs to change.