Jimmy Temple emerged from the back office, cleaning his hands on an old chamois. He always wore a suit, even when doubling as handyman. He was narrow of shoulder and white of hair, age taking its toll on both. His ruddy face brightened when he saw Lea. He never set foot in the Toproll—Jimmy Temple did his drinking in private—but he’d always had a soft spot for her. She liked him too.
Lea held up a gold watch by the leather strap. One of the last remaining artifacts from her old life. “Found this at the bar last night after we closed.”
Jimmy whistled. “That real gold? Looks expensive.”
You have no idea, Lea thought. “Doesn’t belong to any of our regulars. Anyone check in recently?”
“Oh, yes, several, actually.”
“Several?”
He smiled. “Must be my winning personality. They’ve been trickling in the last couple of days. And I’ve had calls for reservations for the next few weeks.”
“They know this is Niobe, right?” she joked.
He laughed. “I didn’t mention it.”
“Seriously, that’s great news. How many you got here now?”
“Well, let’s see, four men checked in yesterday.”
“Together?”
“Uh-huh, they did. Young fellows. Businessmen, I think. They were wearing jackets is why I say that. They weren’t too chatty, so that’s just me speculating.”
“Anyone else?”
“Yep, two more this morning, and an Asian gentleman has been here for a couple of days, nice fellow. Fisherman. From Ohio, I think. Couldn’t quite place his accent.” Jimmy pointed at the watch. “But I doubt that’s his. He was up at the crack of dawn. Headed over to the Elk River today, fishing trout. Doubt he’s spending time at the Toproll.”
“Well, ask around. It’ll be behind the bar if they can tell me the inscription.”
Although if anyone could tell her the inscription, that would frighten her to death.
Gibson and Swonger drove into Niobe along Tarte Street, which ran parallel to the Ohio River. Niobe was one of those towns whose reason for existing had long since passed into history, and its century-long contraction had left a swath of shuttered, abandoned buildings to mark high tide. According to their map, this was the center of Niobe’s historic district, but to Gibson most of the town looked like history at this point. Tarte Street was a stretch of brick buildings, some open, most closed permanently—windows bricked over like bandaged eyes. One bank, one hardware store, one drugstore. Three antique shops all in a row, possessed of a liberal definition of “antique” judging by the junk piled up in the windows. Four churches. A police station with one lonely cruiser parked in front. A dollar store and a Food Lion. A defiant liquor store called Niobe Spirits. Away to the right, the remnants of a bridge that once spanned the Ohio River rose into view, a grand old relic, beautiful in the way that American ruins could be.
A group of teenagers stood outside a service station that had been converted into a sandwich shop, not doing much of anything but waiting for someone to suggest somewhere else to stand. The lonely migration of small-town kids with nowhere to go and nothing to do when they got there. Swonger maneuvered around a beat-up mail truck double-parked outside what might be America’s last surviving video store. The mail truck caused something to click in Gibson’s head. The question wasn’t where Merrick had invested his money; it was how. If Merrick was managing investments from prison, he would need a computer. Gibson didn’t know if inmates had Internet access, but even if they did, Merrick couldn’t risk the prison network, which would certainly be monitored. So either he had a computer . . . no, that was stupid. Where was he going to hide a laptop in a prison? Even a tablet would be next to impossible. Gibson thought back to his time in jail, awaiting trial—how many times did the guards conduct random searches? There were only so many places to hide things in a cell, and the guards knew all of them.
What about a cell phone? No pun intended. Maybe. It was smaller but still a huge risk to take, and Merrick had a lot on the line. In his mind, Gibson drew a question mark next to it, but until he had a very good reason to believe otherwise, he was discounting the possibility that Charles Merrick had hidden a cell phone and charger for eight years without getting caught.
That meant Merrick had help. If Merrick couldn’t manage his accounts from the prison, then someone on the outside was executing transactions on his behalf. So how was Merrick communicating with them?
When you thought about it, it was bin Laden but in reverse.
In fact, Charles Merrick and Osama bin Laden had a lot in common. Both were prisoners. The only difference was bin Laden had built his own prison. Like Merrick, bin Laden couldn’t travel and couldn’t risk using modern communications technologies. Instead, bin Laden had relied on a sophisticated, low-tech courier network to communicate with the outside world. The United States knew what was being communicated and with whom; it just didn’t know how. It had taken years, but they had tracked bin Laden to Pakistan through those couriers.
In this instance, Gibson knew the location of his subject. Merrick was fixed and unmoving behind bars. That was the known. The unknowns were what was being communicated, with whom, and how. So who were Merrick’s couriers? How was he getting information in and out? As with bin Laden, it was probably a low-tech human network. If Gibson could find it and break into it, he could trace it back to the money. He smiled to himself. In this case, the money was the “bin Laden.” To find it, all he had to do was locate Merrick’s confederate on the outside.
Swonger pulled into the parking lot behind the Wolstenholme Hotel and threw the car into park.
“What are you grinning about?” Swonger asked. “Oh, you having one of them epiphanies. Whatcha got for me?”
Gibson waved him off. “I got nothing for you,” he said. “You’re here strictly in an observational capacity. Understand?”
Swonger rolled his eyes and made a lemon-sucking face. “This where we staying?”
“It’s where I’m staying. Did you make a reservation?”
“You an asshole, know what?”
The hotel rose five stories, but the dilapidated black fire escape that ran up the back of the building went only as high as the third floor. Gibson could see damage to the hotel’s exterior wall where the top two levels of the fire escape had wrenched loose of their moorings and collapsed. How did a hotel pass inspection with half a fire escape? Well . . . safety first.
Gibson carried his bag around to the front of the hotel and looked up and down Tarte Street. He didn’t trust a town without a diner. Across the street stood, or rather leaned, a windowless clapboard bar. Above its green door, a hand-painted sign read, “The Toproll.” Out front in the parking lot, a woman with a weight lifter’s build was having a serious heart-to-heart with a deliveryman. The deliveryman wanted no piece of her.
Inside, the hotel’s lobby had the run-down feel of a neglected museum, but it must have been grand in its day. Gibson didn’t know a thing about architecture, but even he could see that much. A vaulted ceiling soared twenty feet overhead, where a massive ceiling fan, like the propeller of a ship, chopped through the air. Crystal sconces glittered along dingy marble walls, although several were either cracked or missing entirely. Off to the right lay an oval sitting room, dark wood paneling the walls, with a fireplace, overstuffed chairs, and several chessboards. Through an archway to the left, he could see a shuttered dining room with chairs flipped upside down atop the tables. Somehow Gibson doubted his room included a complimentary breakfast.
Behind the counter stood an older man in a three-piece suit. He smiled in delight at the sight of them. Not even Swonger plopping the trash bag that served as his suitcase onto the counter could dampen his enthusiasm. He greeted them warmly and introduced himself as Mr. Temple, owner and proprietor.
“But call me Jimmy.”
Gibson liked him immediately and shook his hand over the counter. The same could not be said of the young woman who had been talkin
g to Jimmy Temple. As he’d walked in, Gibson had the impression that the two were wrapping up their conversation, but now she lingered at the counter, watching him with hard, unwelcoming eyes. He didn’t much care for it and turned to face her. She didn’t seem to care for it either and held his gaze. She didn’t strike him as the kind of person who ever looked away first.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Was going to ask you the same thing.”
Jimmy jumped in to intercede. “Ah, no, that would be my department. Lea, thanks for stopping by. I’ll talk to you soon.”
She didn’t take the hint and instead leaned against the counter defiantly like she was planting a flag. One hell of a welcome committee. And why is there Christmas music playing?
Gibson told Jimmy that his reservation had been on the fifth floor and asked if he could be moved down to three.
“As it turns out, the fifth floor is entirely booked,” said Jimmy. “We’ll be happy to find you a room on three.”
“All booked?” the hard-eyed woman asked. “Since when?”
“Just this morning. The four gentlemen. Isn’t it fantastic?”
“They needed a whole floor to themselves?”
“Well, they needed peace and quiet, so they took every room on the floor. I think they’re on some kind of retreat. They said some colleagues may be joining them. Whatever business they’re in, I want in,” Jimmy said with a conspiratorial wink.
“How long are they staying?” she asked.
“They left it open-ended but at least a week.”
“Wow. That’s great, Jimmy,” she said, not sounding like she thought it was great in any way, shape, or form. She held up a gold watch as she turned to leave. “Let me know if anyone lost this.”
Jimmy said he would and turned his attention back to his customers. “We have a nice room on two or three with a view of the river.”
“Anything out back?” Gibson asked.
“You want to look at our parking lot?”
“If you have it,” he said. “I like a sunrise.”
Jimmy gave a the-customer-is-always-right smile and checked the leather-bound registry. No computer. Jimmy Temple was old school. Gibson didn’t give a damn about a sunrise. But providing the remaining fire escape was still structurally sound, he liked the idea of having another way out. Just in case. Gibson checked in under the name Robert Quine and handed Jimmy an ID and credit card to match. After Atlanta, and with Jenn Charles still missing, it had seemed prudent to put together a scramble kit in case he needed to disappear in a hurry. They were quality fakes, and Gibson hated to burn them, but he wanted to leave as small a footprint in Niobe, West Virginia, as possible.
Jimmy Temple handed Gibson a key—an actual key, not an electronic key card. Old, old, old school.
“Does the hotel have Wi-Fi?” Gibson asked.
“Only in the lobby, I’m afraid. I’ve been meaning to wire the rest of the hotel, but you know how things are.” Jimmy smiled brightly. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Quine.”
Lea left the hotel, her false smile melting in the sunshine. She was in trouble and knew it. At least seven new arrivals in the last few days, plus those two clowns checking in now. She couldn’t be sure how many were here for Merrick, but those fifth-floor suits weren’t here for a retreat. One thing was for certain: she might have started ahead of the pack, but they’d run her down now, and she was in danger of being left behind. Unless she adapted, scrapped her plans, and took a realistic look at the situation as it evolved. Beyond that, she needed to decide what she really needed out of this. What she could live with.
After two years in Niobe, planning and biding her time, she ought to know the answer.
So what does she want?
Across the street, Margo stood in the Toproll parking lot signing for a delivery. A full keg of beer weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, but her boss hefted one easily and walked it into the bar. Lea trotted across Tarte Street, picked up a case of longnecks, and followed her inside.
Margo looked back at her. “What did I tell you about hanging out at the bar in your free time?”
“I came to talk to you.”
“Oh? Well, make it quick. Your boyfriend is stopping by in a few,” Margo said. “Trying to get himself unbanned.”
“Tommy Hillwicky? Are you serious?”
“He’ll be sober so he’ll probably say the right things, and then later when he’s drunk again he’ll say the wrong ones again.”
“So why?”
“He drinks a piece more beer than you, flyweight.”
Lea shrugged. “You own the place.”
“Yeah, like the Indians owned Manhattan.” Margo set down the keg and shook her arms out. “So what do you want to talk about? ’Cause you’re not getting a raise.”
“Remember what you said about fighting battles?”
“Vaguely.”
“I might need your help with that after all.”
Margo regarded her with curiosity. “What kind of help?”
“What do you owe on the bar?”
Margo’s eyes narrowed. “Enough.”
“What if there was a way to square yourself with the bank? Would that be something that interested you?”
“I’m listening.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was turning into an ugly night at the Toproll. A festering, hostile energy swirled through the smoky rafters. Lea had seen two fights already, and it wasn’t quite nine yet. Reggie Weir and Cece James, the town lovebirds, had thrown down over nothing at all; Reggie had stormed out, leaving Cece in tears. Not much of a drinker, Cece was in the corner, aggressively nursing her third Long Island iced tea.
Everyone was drinking hard tonight, and that was saying something. Lea scrambled to keep up. She pushed four pints across the bar, took the twenty, and made change while scanning the bar for the next customer. The customer pocketed the bills and dropped the coins heavily, scattering them across the bar. Punishment for Tommy Hillwicky. The regulars had thought it over and found Tommy hard done by. They’d taken turns buying him drinks to welcome him back from his one-week suspension as if he were a returning war hero. Tommy hadn’t seen this much love when he’d gotten out of prison and was three sheets in search of a stiff breeze. He stood at the end of the bar, talking loudly about missing high-school football and the license it gave to hurt people.
“People knew better than to come across the middle, boy,” he said, eyes drifting to Lea. He clapped his hands together to suggest the violence of his collisions and called for another round of shots.
Lea had spent enough time in joints like this to know that bars had personalities, especially ones that depended on their regulars. Moods could take hold and spread from barstool to barstool like a bump in the back with no apology. No one was immune. The regulars were still a little on edge about Tommy, but the mood would have passed by on any other night. Tommy was a symptom rather than the cause.
The cause sat in the back room at Al Reynolds’s regular table. Al Reynolds had hosted a poker game at the same table for eight years. It wasn’t official, but everyone in town knew that come nine p.m., the table belonged to Al Reynolds. The same couldn’t be said for the four strangers from the fifth floor of the Wolstenholme. They’d come in around seven thirty for dinner and sat at Al’s table. The four ordered politely and weren’t bothering anyone, except they bothered everyone. Maybe it was their healthy, square-cut features. Maybe it was that none drank anything stronger than Diet Coke. Maybe it was that now, well past nine p.m., they still hadn’t reached for the check.
Lea could feel the room pressurizing, and normally, she would worry for four strangers in a bar full of hostile regulars, but something about the four men’s bearing made her think that it was the regulars who would regret starting anything. The regulars felt it too and milled about, unsure what to do about the situation. The accustomed ebb and flow of the Toproll had been disrupted. The established hierarchy, so critical to the peaceful coexiste
nce of a bar full of alcoholics, was under threat. Nothing was in its assigned place.
Earlier, Old Charlie had stuck his head in the door just far enough to see his stool was occupied, turned tail, and fled into the night. Might be the only wise thing that she’d ever seen him do. The men in Old Charlie’s space were actually wearing suits. The first two suits she’d ever seen in the Toproll. One of them had ordered, and was actually drinking, a glass of white wine. His companion kept playing songs on the jukebox that Lea had never heard in here before, which was amazing because Margo hadn’t put in a new CD the entire time Lea had worked there. He’d played about twenty dollars of music so far, and no one else’s stuff was getting played. A small thing, but in the delicate, alcohol-fueled hothouse of a bar, way over the line.
The two waitresses stood at the service bar and traded war stories while Lea made drinks for their tables. One had served a group of three men who’d ordered in faint Russian accents, then waited in eerie silence. The waitress was spooked. “They don’t say nothing. They just stare at each other like telepathy, you know? Weird.”
Down the bar, Margo was watching her crowded bar with a smile borrowed from Jimmy Temple. The place was busier than it had been in a year, and they were on the way to their best night in a long time. Anger had a way of making people thirsty.
“Did I miss where we became a tourist trap?” Lea asked when they bumped into each other at the cash register.
“Hey, their money spends.”
“’Nother beer, darling,” Tommy Hillwicky drawled over the din, enjoying having Lea fetch him things.
Margo winked at her. “Make nice. Money is money.”
Poisonfeather (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 2) Page 14