“I just need a little more time. Truck and me, we go back.”
“Not far enough,” Gibson observed.
“Hey, how about you go to hell?”
Gibson went back to combing through dark-net sites without any luck.
Their new routine was to meet in Lea’s apartment above the Toproll every night after her shift to recap their progress. It didn’t make for long conversations. They were getting nowhere but fed up. Lea and Gibson were both losing faith in the mythical Truck Noble. Instead, they spent more and more of their time trying to scheme ways to get Merrick’s SIM card, which largely consisted of Lea and Gibson drawing up a plan to take it from Merrick in the prison, and Swonger shooting holes in it. Cue another argument.
But the real source of tension looming down over them all was the mysterious guest of the hotel’s fifth floor. No one in town had the first idea about who was up there. Well, Jimmy Temple knew, but he’d made his deal with the devil and wasn’t saying. However, his demeanor painted a grim picture, having turned jumpy, eyes red-rimmed, a white stubble settling across his jowls, as if sleep wasn’t coming so easy these days. The look of a good man who knew more than he cared to know. Even housekeeping had been banished from the fifth floor. Meals were delivered by the phalanx of bodyguards, who also collected fresh sheets and towels each morning.
In a town devoid of juicy gossip, the fifth floor had become the lead story. There was a sense of personal affront that an entire hotel floor had been booked for one guest. That kind of excess served only to remind Niobe of its own perpetual insolvency, stirring resentment. Resentment and curiosity as the identity of the guest on the fifth floor festered in the imagination of Niobe. And, as any good horror-film fan knew, the human imagination was its own worst enemy.
Most nights at the Toproll featured drunken talk of confronting the bodyguards and demanding an explanation, but whenever the bodyguards came around, the tough talkers made themselves scarce. The bodyguards favored the booth by the door, and anyone sitting there would vacate spontaneously when they arrived, the bar muted and sullen until they departed. One more thing in town the visitors in Niobe owned.
Gibson wasn’t surprised at the town’s reaction: the bodyguards gave off a professional, not-to-be-messed-with vibe and were definitely not in the question-answering business. Gibson felt hostile eyes on him too and had stopped visiting the Toproll except after hours. He might not be from the fifth floor, but he also didn’t belong, and, like white blood cells, the locals felt an indiscriminate need to excise any and all foreign bodies from their midst. Bottom line, the tension building in Niobe needed an outlet. There had been a steady uptick in the number of bar fights, petty theft, and domestic violence calls, and the drunk tank was standing room only most nights.
Niobe sheriff Fred Blake was a thin white man in his late sixties whose defining characteristic was a certain world-weariness. His default expression was the almost-imperceptible shake of the head of a man who couldn’t quite believe the incompetence surrounding him. Despite being a sheriff’s department of one, Fred moved at his own pace and of his own volition. If the town didn’t like it, they could get off their asses and hire him some deputies. So far the town hadn’t taken him up on his challenge. Thirty years in the Army as a transportation-management coordinator clearly informed his philosophy about law enforcement. His job was to keep the town running. Some town sheriffs resented outside interference, but according to Margo, Fred Blake was the first one on the phone to the state police on the rare occasions that something outside his typical purview occurred. Unfortunately, a full drunk tank didn’t warrant a call to the staties. So what to do? The sheriff had gone so far as to contemplate an outright shuttering of the Toproll for a week until people settled the hell down. That had not gone over well.
“Instead of threatening us, who live here, you need to go on over to the hotel and—” Old Charlie began.
“And what?” the sheriff shot back. “Arrest them for pissing you off? For renting more rooms than they need? Conspicuous consumption isn’t a crime, last I checked.”
“What about the women?”
Gibson hadn’t been the only one to note the steady stream of young working girls being escorted, two at a time, up to the fifth floor.
The sheriff shrugged at this too. “No law against that either.”
“They’re prostitutes. Everyone knows it.”
“Everyone knows? Well, hell, if everyone knows, then I should probably go arrest them,” the sheriff said with a patented shake of his head.
The tension in town continued to rise.
On the second day, Swonger lost contact with Truck Noble. A dozen text messages went unanswered without a word. It didn’t surprise Gibson. Noble had grown either tired or suspicious of Swonger’s insistence. Probably read it as desperate, which they were. Why would Noble risk exposure for a one-off deal that wasn’t going to see him retire to an island? Gibson said as much and left Swonger and Lea to argue among themselves.
It was past two a.m., but Gibson didn’t feel much like sleeping, so he walked down Tarte Street, hoping the night air would give him fresh eyes. He didn’t see anyone on the street and liked having the town to himself. His evening stroll didn’t last long, however, before Sheriff Blake’s cruiser pulled alongside.
“Evening, Sheriff. Can I help you?”
“Come on and get in. I’d be appreciative if you spared me making this difficult.”
The cruiser came to a halt, and Gibson heard the doors unlock.
“So don’t ask you what this is all about or if I’m in some kind of trouble? Just get in the back?”
“Like I said, I’d appreciate it.” Blake’s hand rested lightly on the grip of his service weapon.
Gibson looked up and down Tarte Street, suddenly wishing for a little more foot traffic. Whatever Blake wanted, it wasn’t official. Gibson felt curious to know if his suspicions were correct. He tried the passenger door.
“In back is good,” the sheriff said.
Gibson did as he was asked, and the doors locked behind him. The cruiser made a U-turn and drove back up Tarte Street. They stopped in front of the hotel. He’d been in the cruiser for less than a minute. Long enough to rattle him, which he guessed was the point.
“Inside,” Blake said as the doors unlocked.
In the lobby, a pair of men from the fifth floor patted him down and directed him to the oval parlor off the lobby. Gibson recognized the man at the chess table as the one who’d been reading a newspaper in the lobby the day he’d checked in. Gibson sat opposite, the board empty—not that they weren’t playing a game.
“I wonder . . . Will we get off on a good foot?” the man purred in a soft Mexican accent. “My name is Emerson Soto Flores.”
“Robert Quine,” Gibson said.
“It is good to meet you, Mr. Quine. Due to the nature of our visit in Niobe, I’ve taken the time to familiarize myself with all the hotel’s unusual guests. So many of them . . . One is tempted to hypothesize that Niobe must be very special to attract so many tourists at the same time. An exhibit or a festival perhaps. Or perhaps a celebrity. A man worth traveling a long way to meet.”
“Perhaps.”
“But such a famous man won’t have time to meet with everyone. So it will come down to who most deserves an audience with this man. A difficult question to answer, hence my interest in the guests here at the hotel. And, if I am honest, most of them are undeserving, their interests too prosaic. This is why you are here, Mr. Quine. Because there is no Mr. Quine, and that concerns me.”
With a disappointed flourish, the man placed a silver disk about the size of a hockey puck on the table. “Do you know what a rare-earth magnet does?”
Gibson’s heart sunk. “Yeah. I do.”
He’d stashed his real driver’s license in his hotel safe. Rare-earth magnets were incredibly powerful devices that could break into the average hotel safe in about ten seconds. To illustrate the point, Emerson Soto Flores slid
Gibson’s driver’s license across the chessboard.
“You have a very interesting history, Mr. Vaughn. I enjoyed reading about your exploits on the Internet. Especially Atlanta. However, I could not see any connection between you and Charles Merrick.”
“Are you the fifth floor?” Gibson asked.
“No, but I speak for her.”
“And what does she say?”
“She says that no one has come farther to see Charles Merrick. Anyone who attempts to interfere with her appointment will regret it.”
“Does that pass for a threat where you’re from?”
“Where I’m from we don’t make threats, but this is the nature of women, don’t you agree?”
“We must know different women,” Gibson said.
“No. Women believe in nothing but talk. She hopes you will take her threat seriously.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I believe I will have to kill you all,” Emerson said with such casual conviction that Gibson’s mouth went dry.
“So why bother delivering her message?”
Emerson considered the question. “Your parents are both dead, yes? Your mother when you were very young.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Only that a man like you cannot understand my duty. I deliver her warning because I must.”
They held each other’s gaze like two wolves meeting in an ancient forest. Gibson said nothing but, realizing that this was a staring contest that he shouldn’t win, forced his stare downward. He counted to five and glanced up again; Emerson was smiling. Go ahead and smile, Gibson thought.
“I’m glad we understand each other.”
“Are we done here?”
“I sincerely hope not, but I think . . . yes.”
Gibson stood to go.
“The elevator is out, so you’ll have to take the stairs.”
“What happened to it?”
“It’s an old hotel.” Emerson shrugged. “Things happen.”
On the morning of the sixth day, Lea woke to a text from Swonger to meet him at the hotel. They’d all traded numbers, but until now she’d communicated only with Gibson. Curious, she threw on clothes and poured herself coffee to go.
As booked as the hotel might be, the lobby felt oddly deserted. A choral arrangement of “Good King Wenceslas” echoed eerily through the space. Two of the fifth floor’s men in the parlor paused their chess match to look her over. One said something to the other that Lea couldn’t catch, but she could guess from the smirk on his companion’s face.
Jimmy Temple emerged from the office with a wrench in hand. “Looking for your friend?”
“Ah, yeah?”
“He’s in the back. Come on.”
Confused, Lea followed Jimmy down the hall, past the “Out of Order” sign that hung crookedly on the elevator, and into the kitchen. She gave Jimmy a puzzled look. Since shuttering the dining room five years ago, he had used the kitchen primarily for storage, and only housekeeping ever came back here to use the servants’ staircase. Jimmy had taken her on a tour of the hotel once and shown her the stairs, which were a historic feature of the hotel that predated elevators. The stairs had concealed exits on each floor through which servants had once attended to their responsibilities out of sight of the guests.
They threaded their way among stacks of boxes and around a central prep table. Swonger’s legs stuck out from behind the double oven, which had been pulled out from the wall. When he heard them, he sat up and grinned at Lea.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Been trying to help Mr. Temple get this stove working.”
“I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“We didn’t,” Jimmy said, handing Swonger the wrench. “But your friend introduced himself the other day, and he’s been a godsend.”
“Just needing to keep busy,” Swonger said and disappeared back behind the stove.
“Is that a fact?” she said and looked bemusedly at Swonger’s legs. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You texted me.”
“Oh, right.” Swonger sat back up. “Heard from Truck. We’re on.”
“We’re on? Just like that?”
“I told you. Me and Truck go back.”
They all met later at Lea’s apartment to discuss options. Truck Noble was coming to them, the meeting set for the next day at a state park on the Virginia–West Virginia state line. Lea expressed curiosity about Truck’s sudden reversal, and Gibson feared walking into some sort of trap. Swonger, however, clearly felt vindicated and insisted it would be fine so long as they played it straight and kept it to two.
“Small is good. Small ain’t threatening.”
Swonger knew Truck and Gibson knew the tech, so it made sense for it to be the two of them. Lea agreed to stay in Niobe and keep an eye on the fifth floor. With that decided, Gibson fetched beers and offered a toast. Swonger clinked bottles enthusiastically, and Lea drank her beer, feeling more optimistic than at any point since reading her father’s interview.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Swonger and Gibson left early, hoping to arrive before Truck and scope out the meeting site. It turned out to be an abandoned forest station, a perfect spot for conducting business. Isolated enough that no one will find our bodies for weeks if it goes badly, Gibson thought cheerily. Swonger, seeming considerably less concerned, fetched a cooler from the trunk and cracked open a Natty Light. He offered one to Gibson.
“It’s ten a.m., Swonger.”
Swonger didn’t see the relevance and hopped up on the hood of the car with his beer to wait.
Gibson asked him how he knew Truck Noble.
“We jailed together at Buckingham.”
“What were you in for?”
“Grand theft. I was boosting cars up in Charlottesville and delivering them to this crew in Richmond. Easy money.”
“They sent you to Buckingham for that? Were you carjacking them?”
“No, man, no need for all that. All them rich college mooks? Easier to tail them home and take them while they slept. Lot of expensive engines in them campus parking lots. Lined up like Christmas. Nothing to it.”
“How’d you get caught, then?”
“Behind some bullshit, that’s how. This real pretty Porsche Cayenne. It was smooth—in and out in two minutes, no doubt. But some noodle-dick frat boy was railing a cheerleader in the backseat of a Tahoe down the way. Saw me jim the door and nine-one-one’d me.”
“What happened?”
“State’s attorney offered me a deal—St. Brides, if I gave up the crew.” Swonger opened another beer. “But I ain’t no snitch, so the DA sent my ass to Buckingham. The crew in Richmond hooked me up with Truck on the inside. Out of gratitude, you see, ’cause they knew I wasn’t no rat. Truck was my stand-up.”
“Stand-up?”
Swonger thought about how to explain. “Truck had my back. I was just a skinny fish, dog. Seventeen. Didn’t have no gang. No rep. No sleeves. I would have been someone’s bitch in under two minutes, no doubt. Truck showed me the ropes. Made sure my skinny white ass didn’t get thrown off the tier. Aryans didn’t like me hanging with a brother, but I ain’t down with all that white-power shit. And nobody fucks with the Truck.”
Swonger spoke the name reverentially. Nothing like the Swonger that Gibson knew. It made him wonder what was so special about Truck Noble.
Swonger saved him the trouble of having to ask.
“Yeah, so about Truck . . . he don’t have the most philosophical of natures. He like a bull. He see someone waving something at him, he don’t wonder why. He just gonna put you down for even contemplating that disrespect, know what I’m saying? So be cool and don’t give him any of your usual lip.”
“I’m hurt.”
“Yeah, just like that. I’m telling you, he don’t do so well with attitude. Especially from white boys. So maybe let me do the talking this time.” Swonger looked Gibson over to gauge if h
e was being taken seriously. “You ain’t racist, are you?”
“Not on purpose.”
“Then we probably all right. But if you feel something racist bubbling up, just put a gun in your mouth. It ain’t worth it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“His nickname’s Truck. It ain’t meant ironic.”
“So he’s big.”
“For starters. But you know how when you see a big guy, you think, well, at least I can outrun him? And that’s sort of comforting. Yeah, well, nobody outruns the Truck.”
“Play football?”
“They wanted him to, but his moms wouldn’t let him.”
“How come?”
“Concussions. Mrs. Noble a nurse, so that was that. Coaches begged on their knees every year. But she wasn’t having it. No one outruns the Truck, and no one moves Mrs. Noble, she don’t want to be moved.” He dropped his empty in the grass. “Where the hell they at?”
Gibson checked the time. Noble was late. Swonger went to piss in the bushes again, came back, and opened yet another beer. By the time Swonger’s phone finally buzzed with a text message, a pile of empty cans littered the ground at his feet. The meet was still on, but at a new location about fifteen minutes away. The message gave them ten. Swonger made it in seven.
“Why’d they move it, you think?” Swonger asked.
“Noble doesn’t trust us. The first spot was just to see if we were setting them up. They were probably watching us.”
“Damn, that’s cold.”
It was a smart play by Noble. The new location was an overgrown park trail that opened into a clearing. Gibson saw no one here either. His bad feeling crept back up his spine.
“Come on,” Swonger shouted, pounding the dash. “What I got to do to get some trust?”
As if to answer, a gray panel van pulled into the clearing behind them and rolled to a halt on their front bumper. If the meet went south, they were boxed in. A slight black woman got out of the van, maybe five foot and a hundred pounds. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-one years old. After all Swonger’s buildup about Truck, it was almost a letdown. She adjusted her oversized jean shorts, which stopped at her calves above worn combat boots. Her outfit was capped by an orange tank top with wide sleeve holes down to her hips that showed off an electric-purple bra. The sides of her head were shaved, and a tall, chaotic Mohawk was piled precariously atop her head.
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