When he reached the stoplight, he paused and looked south, then north. There were buildings trailing into the distance on the cross street which was labeled 1st Avenue. The only avenue, Ramage thought, and it struck him funny that the town’s only two streets would be so unartfully named. It also spoke to an amazing lack of history.
To the south on First there was a hotel, a brown building that looked like it had seen better days. The place had one window with a Castle Rock beer sign blinking in neon. There was no sign declaring the establishment’s name, or what it sold its customers. Ramage figured it was the local strip club. Where there were many men working long hours away from their families strip clubs supplied the locals with an opportunity to keep some of those paychecks in town.
He’d have to make a stop in there later for sure. If he was lucky, Chiclet, Piranha or the old man might be in there watching sagging tits while drinking flat ten-dollar beers. But first he needed to get setup in the hotel. Make sure he had a place to sleep. He was exhausted, the catnap of the prior night totally inadequate.
Ramage stood at the intersection and stared back the way he’d come. There were no cars, and nobody was following him. The road ahead trailed to the horizon and fell off the Earth, as did 1st Avenue in both directions. There were no other streets or crossings. No train station, and he’d seen no bus signs.
A sheriff’s car with the Ector County logo on it rolled slowly by, and Ramage didn’t look away. The cop watched him from behind mirrored sunglasses, and when he was past, he pulled to the side of the road.
That didn’t take long, Ramage thought. Good thing he’d left the gun in the car.
Ramage turned left and headed south toward the hotel. A lot filled with all types of equipment Ramage didn’t recognize opened to his right, and across the street was a run of empty storefronts ending with the brown building with no sign.
The morning sun warmed the right side of his face as Ramage headed south. He felt the cop staring holes in his back, but the officer didn’t stop him, or even bother to roll his window down and ask if he needed help.
The hotel was what Ramage expected. It had two wings that fanned off at thirty-degree angles from a central office that connected the two wings. The lot looked full, but the vacancy sign was out, and the glow of light leaked from the main office through a front window. The building was plain, made of concrete blocks that had been painted a neutral blue color, with black iron stairs leading to open breezeways on the second level. The place looked clean and well maintained.
A bell chimed when he entered the office, and a clerk sat behind the desk reading a Stephen King novel. Even though she was seated, Ramage saw she was a tall woman who easily looked six feet, with a willowy figure and hair the color of straw. She wore thick glasses that made her blue eyes huge, and she started and put a hand to her breast when she looked up and saw Ramage.
“May I help you?” the woman said.
“What’s a room cost?”
“Seventy-five dollars.”
Ramage made a show of looking around. The décor was eighties retro, at best, and the couch across from the counter was threadbare. A small pathetic fake Christmas tree with too much silver tinsel sat on an end table. “For a week?”
“Very funny. A night. Discounts are available for longer stays. How long are you going to be here?”
“Little steep, no?”
“You can go someplace else,” the woman said. Then she smiled. “Oh, yeah, you can’t because this is the only place in town.” Another smile that said if you don’t like it, piss off.
Ramage dug his cash out. He only had two hundred and seventy-five bucks left. He looked around and asked, “You got a cash machine?”
“Nope.”
“Know where one is?”
“Gas station up the road.”
Ramage peeled off ten twenties, two tens, a five, and slid them across the desk to the clerk and gave her his name. “Three nights. There taxes and stuff in that seventy-five?” He didn’t care, he was just busting shoes.
“All included.” She pursed her lips, picked up the money and put it in the register. Then she turned and took her time looking at a key rack. “Any preference up or down?”
Not that he thought he needed to worry about escaping, but ground floors were easy to slip out of, but provided less protection. Ramage would hear anyone who came up those metal steps. “Up,” he said.
The clerk pulled a key attached to a wooden plate with the number two hundred sixteen on it and handed it to him. “Second floor rear. You need a parking pass?”
“Sure.”
She pulled a card from a desk draw and wrote his room number on it. “License plate?”
He didn’t know. “It’s a rental and I don’t know what it is. I’ll fill it in.”
She looked at Ramage like he’d just suggested she rob a bank. “Mr. Ramage, that’s against protocol and I—”
“Don’t hurt your brain. I’ll come get it later when I have the plate number,” he said. He walked outside with his key and headed for his room, but habit and a hunch made him pause just outside the door and listen.
The clerk picked up the phone. He listened hard, blocking out the sound of the wind, the chime of insects, the rumble of cars and trucks, and faint music and TV noise coming from rooms. Despite this, he only heard the muffled voice of the clerk as she reported something to someone on the other end of the line. Then he heard the words “new guy.”
Chapter Eight
Ramage wandered back through town to his car and found a ticket on the windshield tucked under a wiper blade. Apparently, Ranchos was condemned, and he’d trespassed. The citation said it was a secured site off limits to the public, and sure enough it wasn’t a lie. When Ramage searched the front of the old motel he saw a small index card taped to the entrance door filled with legal bullshit in ant-sized type. Ramage crumbled the ticket and threw it on the ground. Larry was going to be pissed.
His stomach twisted and reminded him it was time to eat. It was 10AM and the day was getting on, but there weren’t many people about as he drove down main street. He pulled into a parking space at the diner and killed the engine. There were only two other cars in the lot, a blue Sentra that looked like it wouldn’t move, and an in descript white pickup that could’ve been parked anywhere in the world.
He got out of the car and climbed the concrete steps to the diner’s entrance. The place didn’t have a name, and the sign above the door read simply Diner. The hours of operation stenciled on the glass window said OPEN twenty-four-seven, and a cardboard cutout of Santa Claus that said Merry Christmas was taped to the glass.
He paused before the glass door and peered into the establishment. It was a typical setup. Greeting station just inside the door, a lunch counter along the back wall, behind which was a window that opened into the kitchen. Booths with windows lined the exterior walls and tables with regular chairs filled in the center of the room. Behind the register liquor bottles were lined up on glass shelves, but most of them were empty and Ramage saw the dust on them from outside. Not a drinker’s place.
Two waitresses and three patrons were visible. One of the waitresses sat at the counter reading the paper, a cup of coffee before her. She was an older woman who looked like she’d been around. The other waitress was younger, and she moved with the energy of a person who still believed the diner was just a speedbump and not a destination on her highway of life. Both women looked tired. With the breakfast rush over, things would most likely remain calm until lunch.
Ramage noted that the three patrons were all sitting to the right of the cash register, and he figured the waitresses split the place down the middle. It was telling the only three customers were on the younger woman’s side.
He pushed open the door and a bell chimed and everyone in the place turned in his direction. He smiled, but he could only imagine what they must be thinking. He moved like he was broken, and his face had been used as a punching bag. He took a left, plantin
g himself in a booth with his back against the wall so he could see the entire dining room.
The other three customers stared at him, smiling like they knew something he didn’t. Two of the patrons were together, an older couple out of the house for their daily trip. The third person was a woman with short black hair and a dark complexion. She sat at the counter watching Ramage in the mirror.
The older waitress sighed and made a show of closing her paper and getting up. She didn’t come to Ramage’s table, but instead yelled across the diner. “Coffee?”
“Please,” he shouted.
She went behind the counter, got the pot of coffee, and came to his table. As she filled his mug, she said, “Know what you want, or do you need a menu?”
The woman’s nameplate read Ginger.
“You work here long, Ginger?” he asked.
She sighed and said nothing.
“Just trying to make a little conversation.”
“Then you should have sat on Janice’s side. Menu?”
“Naw. Three eggs sun up, whole-wheat toast, and a side of bacon and a side of ham.”
Order received, she turned to walk away.
“Hey,” Ramage said.
She turned back, annoyance imprinted on her face.
He placed a ten-dollar bill on the table, so she could see it. “Got a minute?”
The ten disappeared and he didn’t see her take it.
“What’s that place across the street?” He pointed through the diner’s window at the brown building.
This question generated a thin smile. “It’s a private club, hun.” She seemed to take pleasure in telling him it was a place his newbie ass couldn’t go to.
“Like, I’m not allowed to go in there?”
“That is what private means.”
“You know guys named Chiclet and Piranha?”
“You a cop?”
“No.”
“I don’t know shit about them, and even if I did it would cost you way more than ten bucks.”
Ramage noticed the woman sitting at the counter was paying close attention to his conversation. She leaned toward him like a child trying to hear what their parents were planning for Christmas.
Christmas. His trees—but before he could inquire, Ginger said, “Anything else? You want your food, right?”
“Yeah, one more thing. Who’s that?” Below the table where only the waitress could see he pointed at the woman at the lunch counter.
“That would be our local social justice warrior.” Ginger turned on a heel and headed for the kitchen.
Ramage sipped his coffee. He’d had better, and he’d had worse. The woman at the counter was doing her best not to look at him, but it was like he was an exotic animal at the zoo.
The old couple got up and Janice met them at the register with a smile and took their money, and they left. The woman at the counter went to the bathroom, and Janice disappeared into the kitchen.
Ramage was alone. He went to the cash register where he found a pen and a new order pad. He wrote, “Can I buy you a coffee?” and signed it ‘The Guy in the Booth.’ He put the note on the counter next to the woman’s plate and retreated.
The window rattled. Somewhere far off an explosion had rocked the ground.
Ginger came out with his eggs and meat steaming on a plate. She filled his coffee and seated herself back at the counter where she’d been when he entered.
Ramage dug in, head down, shoveling it in like he hadn’t eaten in days. Stress made him hungry, and he was worried about his truck. It could be chopped to parts by now. He was so busy eating he didn’t notice the woman standing next to his table until she said, “Coffee?”
He was surprised she’d taken him up on his offer. He’d expected her to read the note and flee the diner without a word. What good could come from talking to the new guy who was asking questions about locals? But as Ginger said, the woman was the local social justice warrior, the fly in the ointment, the person who didn’t fit in, and wasn’t part of the massive industry that controlled her town.
He said, “Sure. Have a seat. Name’s Ramage.”
“Anna Gutierrez.”
“Nice to meet you, Anna.” Then louder so Ginger could hear, “Can I get a refill over here?”
She left the pot.
“So, you’re clearly not from around here,” Anna said.
“That obvious?”
“Like a shark in a tide pool.”
“Yeah, that a problem?”
“Depends on what you’re doing here asking about the Sandman’s son and his idiot sidekick.”
“Chasing a lead.” He had to decide what to tell this woman.
“You a cop?”
“No.”
“Private investigator?”
“No.”
She sighed. “What then?”
He liked this woman, though he’d just met her and knew nothing about her. He was a good judge of people, and believed most folks liked ten percent of the people they met, hated ten percent, with the remaining eighty percent requiring work. Anna fell into his ten percent like zone, so he decided to trust her. “Piranha and dipshit stole my truck.”
“They do that to your face?”
Ramage said nothing.
“Geez.”
“Why did Ginger call you a social justice warrior?”
“Because I don’t let bigwigs and assholes steal from me and strip my land. I fight the oil companies, which isn’t very popular around here.” Despite her tanned face, her cheeks reddened.
“Steal from you?”
“They steal sand from my property. Leave holes and all kinds of disarray and garbage behind.”
“Sand? Who the hell steals sand?”
“A lot of people. When frackers are paying a hundred dollars a ton for Texas sand every dope with a backhoe wants in on the action,” she said.
“Wait, what?”
She sighed longer and harder. “You don’t know shit, do you?”
He said nothing.
“Fracking sand is a proppant. Crucial to the process,” she said.
Ramage said nothing. He had no clue what she was talking about.
“Hydraulic fracking is an oil well stimulation technique. They inject fracking fluid into the wellbore at high pressure, and this creates fissures in deep-rock formations that allows oil to flow through the cracks,” she said.
“Fracking fluid? Sounds like robot blood.”
“In Texas, shale mines normally use water and sand, with a cocktail of chemicals. When they stop pumping fluid into the wellbore and it drains the sand particulates left behind get caught in the cracks and keep the shale fissures open so oil can bleed out.”
“Why Texas sand?”
She laughed. “It’s not good for fracking, really, but its close by and there’s a lot of it.”
Ramage nodded. “Sounds like it makes sense.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her full lips drew to a thin line. “It doesn’t make sense. Fracking causes ground and surface water contamination, earthquakes, and rapes the land like no mining process ever has.”
“I meant it makes sense that they’re stealing your sand. Why don’t you call the cops? Tell them what’s happening? Get paid for your sand?”
“First, why would they pay for something they’re getting for free? The cop,” she said, drawing out the word cop so he understood she was leaving off the plural s. “The law in this town is in the Sandman’s pocket. I’ve complained several times. Even taken the sheriff out to a dig site. You know what he said? The wind made the hole. Yeah, jackass, the wind carved out a ninety-degree cliff face.”
They fell silent.
The more he looked at her the prettier she became. His first impression of Anna had been harsh. Her short hair, jeans, men’s flannel shirt, it all screamed ‘I’m my own woman, so don’t screw with me.’ Now he saw he’d been wrong. She wore a light shade of rouge, eyeliner, a gold necklace and two rings. He was attracted to her and didn’t know w
hat to do about it. It had been a long time since he’d thought of any woman other than Joan, but Anna smelled so good. Like flowers, which was a departure in Prairie Home, where he hadn’t seen a single ornamental plant. Out here where water was scarce, he figured such things were a luxury people couldn’t afford or weren’t willing to pay for.
“You’re sure Piranha stole your truck? Sounds small time for him.”
“He was hurt and desperate. Looked like he’d been shot.”
“No surprise there. The Sandman deals with some shady customers.”
“You know where his place is?”
“Sure do. He has a compound where he stores the stock he steals.” She rocked back. “Hey, wait. What kind of truck do you… did you have?”
“Kenworth.”
“Dark blue?”
“Yeah. How did you—”
“Were you hauling Christmas trees?”
“Yup. You see my trees?”
“I saw them come in yesterday when I was out patrolling my ranch. Explains why Chiclet opened a tree lot.”
Ramage lifted his eyebrows. “They’re selling my trees?”
She nodded.
Ramage tossed a ten on the table and got up.
She looked up at him, confused, her bright face turning dark. “You’re going?” It was clear by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t happy about it.
“Yeah, you wanna come with?”
“Where are we going?” Anna asked.
“To buy you a Christmas tree.”
Chapter Nine
They took Anna’s pickup and she drove. Ramage figured the element of surprise could be preserved this way. Anna’s truck was well known around town and wouldn’t draw a second glance. Anger blossomed in Ramage’s stomach, heat reaching up his throat. These assholes thought they were so untouchable, and he so inept, they weren’t attempting to hide their theft. His hands shook, and he breathed deep. He needed to stay in control.
“What’s your full name?” Anna asked. They were heading north on 1st Avenue.
Questions, questions. When people he didn’t know asked him for personal information the palms of his hands sweat, and drips of perspiration slid down his back. He’d already told her his last name, so what did it matter? “Theodore Ramage. Only my mom calls me Theo.”
Quick Sands: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 1) Page 5