by Linda Ladd
Novak would have to be careful. If he showed up in areas where he wasn’t supposed to be, he’d raise suspicions. The people in charge of this operation were bumpkins, but that didn’t mean they weren’t watchful. Novak’s covert explorations would have to wait until after night fell and all Wilson’s boys were snoring in their bunks. While he was looking around the office, he found a duty list for Wilson’s men where it was tacked up on a bulletin board. Looked like about twenty-five, not thirty, and they worked alternating shifts. Each guy worked eight hours and was off eight hours. Most of them were off all night with just a skeleton crew closing and guarding the front gate until the morning crew arrived. They took turns working at the three clubs. Good enough; that would give Novak plenty of time to check out the place on his own.
The cook and waitress arrived at eight-thirty sharp, but they were supposed to show up at eight. Had some leniency with their work hours, apparently. The cook’s name was Mrs. Thornton, no first name given or required. She was an old-fashioned lady and dressed like an Appalachian grandma in the 1930s. She looked about ninety years old, too, and couldn’t hear a word he said, no matter how loud he spoke. She just nodded at everything anybody said and went about her business, pretty much oblivious. The waitress was more friendly and about seventy years younger than the cook. Novak had a feeling that she was the reason why all Wilson’s other guys wanted this job at the café. Ditto for the customers.
Yeah, the girl was definitely eye candy for any man with red blood pumping through his veins. She had on a skin-tight, pale pink waitress uniform, short enough to show off some shapely naked legs. The skirt reached well up on her thighs. She showed off pretty much everything she had to offer. And that amounted to a lot. The dress buttoned all the way up the front, but the top three buttons were undone. She didn’t appear to have put on anything underneath her sexy uniform.
Said waitress took to Novak right off. Then again, she looked like the kind of girl who would take to anybody boasting the male chromosome right off. She had a strong I’m-available-anywhere-anyplace vibe embedded inside her DNA, all right, and also in her big brown eyes when she got way up inside his personal space and smiled up into his face. She had that flirty, come-hither act down to an art form. Even better than Mariah. He smiled back. Maybe he had found his talker, the compound’s resident Oracle of Delphi. She wanted to talk to him, it seemed, and do a lot more than just talk, guessed at by the way she pressed the length of her slender body in that thin uniform right up against his loins. But he just might need an ally inside Wilson’s organization someday. He sure as hell hadn’t laid eyes on anybody else who’d lift a finger to help him out.
“Well, welcome to my parlor, big guy,” she murmured softly, her gaze warm enough to melt down a chunk of ice. She definitely meant it. She wrapped both hands around his right arm and squeezed his bicep. “Oooh, I bet you could pick little ol’ me up with just one arm. Go ahead. Try it. I don’t mind. I’d like that.”
Novak bet he could pick her up if he lay unconscious on the floor. “Maybe I will once we get to know each other better.”
“No need to wait. I like you already. We’re gonna get along real good.” She laughed, but she was good to go, no doubt about it. And judging by the hot come-on glowing inside her eyes, the sooner, the better.
Novak wondered how old she was. Looked to him as if she’d skipped freshman English class to show up for work. High school was not far behind her, if at all. She had on enough eye make up to impress Mariah, or anybody named Kardashian. But he could probably use her, and anyway he wanted, but there was only one thing he wanted out of the girl. Information. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Kiki Constantine. Kiki’s short for Katherine. But I’m not a kid. What’s yours?”
“Will Novak. Pleased to meet you.”
“Oh, yeah, I like meeting up with you, too, Will. That’s Hester back there in the kitchen. She’s old.”
Got himself another genius right here. All dewy eyed and wet mouthed and eager to climb right up on top of him. Wilson knew how to pick them, all right. “Yeah, but I bet she can cook the hell out of breakfast.”
“Yeah, she surely can. Wish I could. My first husband thought my food tasted like dog food. Even told me so. Can you believe that? Right to my face, too. Just real smart-alecky, and stuff. So did my second husband. I always just asked them how they knew what dog food tasted like.” She giggled, nodding her head and wiggling herself against his legs. She smiled some more, very proud of her wit. When he didn’t bite or succumb to her obvious amorous wishes, she sobered a bit and looked peeved at his disinterest. “Hester can’t hear a word we say, you know. Maybe we ought to take advantage of that.”
Novak didn’t know what to say to that, so he just looked at her. Kiki winked one smoky dark eye at him and sashayed herself back to the kitchen. Really twisting her hips seductively, provoking Novak to watch her all the way to the kitchen, like every other man in the place would do. He obliged her. The girl was oversexed, big time. She needed to go home and let her parents lock her in her bedroom for the next, say, ten years. He wondered how many husbands the kid had gone through, and how many had first belonged to other women. Not more than the two already mentioned, he hoped, not unless she’d started at age twelve.
Novak was pretty sure she was a talker, one who would tell him just about anything he wanted to know. All he had to do was pay a bit of special attention to her. One major problem solved before nine o’clock. Added perk? Hester couldn’t hear anything he said, so his conversations with Kiki would be on the Q.T.
An eager herd of male customers started coming in for breakfast at fifteen minutes after nine. Mostly young professionals dressed in business suits, on their way to work at banks and accountant offices or attorney firms, maybe. He got the feeling that the appeal had more to do with Kiki and her attire than Hester’s loaded breakfast bar. Too long a drive up into the mountains from surrounding towns just to get a good morning meal. Novak took their cash or credit cards when they brought him their checks, made change, and eavesdropped on their conversations, which consisted mainly of sports scores and pissed-off wives and Kiki.
After the place had cleared out some, around ten o’clock, he sat down and ate a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, biscuits, and the thick sausage gravy that Hester had been kind enough to bring out to him. Another perk of the job. She had placed the big white plate down in front of him and then shuffled back to the kitchen in her filthy yet fluffy white house shoes shaped like baby lambs. She shuffled back a moment later with a large white stoneware mug of coffee. He took a couple of bites of the eggs. Okay, maybe the breakfast bar was the draw for the customers, after all. The food was damn good. So was the coffee.
Chapter Seventeen
The customers for the gun range started arriving in a fairly steady stream. Novak handled them easily enough. He had done some of the same things on army bases and more times than he could remember. Most of the guys were friendly, eager to act all macho with their big weekend gunplay. None of the customers were women. None of them asked for a shooting lesson but most of them should have. All of them, with the exception of one grizzled old Vietnam veteran, couldn’t hit a pickup truck if it was sitting five feet in front of them. They needed to practice, all right.
Sandy Boyer came back at three o’clock that afternoon with an overeager, camo-clad replacement to run the counter and watch Kiki bend over when she poured coffee for the customers. Sandy told Novak to come along because he needed to show him his cabin. Novak was ready to go. Kiki blew him a goodbye kiss that hinted of more pleasurable things to come, and then she went back to beguiling the new guy behind the desk. Hester still didn’t hear anything.
After they climbed into the Ford 150, Sandy headed back up the same way Novak had driven with Wilson the day before. “So, how’s it goin’ so far?” he asked Novak. Mr. Best Friend, all of a sudden.
“Okay. It’s not that hard to watch people eat and then take the
ir money.”
After that titillating tidbit of conversation, they rode in silence. Halfway up to the crest, Sandy veered the truck off to the left onto a road that Novak had noticed yesterday but hadn’t asked about. It was narrower but heavily graveled like all the other roads inside the compound. There were lots of game cameras on lots of trees, all focused on the road, and set apart every twenty yards or so. Wilson did not want uninvited company, that was for damn sure, but so many surveillance cameras were going to complicate Novak’s plans. No doubt about it.
Five minutes later, they reached a high narrow pasture with a small settlement of modern log buildings, each of which sported a green metal roof. There was a long bunkhouse that looked big enough to house most of Wilson’s guys. To one side of the bunkhouse were four smaller A-frame cabins, which were built out farther along the road on the edge of the surrounding woods. Not far down another offshoot road, Novak could see a larger lodge made out of logs. Bigger, fancier, probably more comfortable. Where the clients were lodged, he supposed.
“See that last cabin down that way? That’s yours, Novak. You’re lucky to get it, too. All of the other guys have to share. Most new guys don’t get special privileges.”
His tone indicated that Novak shouldn’t get them, either. A tacit put-down. Novak ignored it. “Who lives in the other cabins?”
“I do. In the one on this end. Kiki and Hester have the two in between.”
“So how do I rate a private cabin?”
“That’s what we all want to know. You tell me.”
Novak shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
“Don’t think it’s gonna give you other kinds of special privileges, ’cause it’s not. Got that?”
“I don’t expect special treatment.”
“Just so you remember. You’re the new guy out here, so you’re gonna have to prove you’re worth gettin’ our respect. Maybe the boss trusts you, but the rest of us are gonna need more persuading.”
Sandy motored on, past the buildings, heading for what looked like a big garage sitting off from the other structures and a good way past Novak’s cabin. It was made of logs, too. The clearing was surrounded by trees and thick tangled undergrowth, just like everywhere else. A steep outcropping rose up behind it. The edge of a perilous drop lay about fifty feet below the road they were on. But it looked as if the woods pretty much backed up to Novak’s cabin, which would make getting out undetected fairly easy to pull off.
“Boss says I gotta give you a vehicle. Your choice. The other guys don’t like that, either. Hate to be you, Novak.”
Right back at you, Novak thought.
Inside the big prefab maintenance building, twelve vehicles were lined up from which to choose, mostly Jeep Wranglers and Jeep Cherokees, but a few small pickups. Some black, some camouflaged. A wrecker with a winch sat at the far end.
“These are to use when you’re working. See anything you like?”
“Any of those Wranglers look okay. Why can’t I drive my own truck out here? You are.”
“That’s because I’m real special. You’re not. You use the Jeep to transport the clients. Your truck stays at your cabin while you’re working.”
Novak just looked at him. He and Sandy were never going to hit it off. The guy resented him, thought he was the boss’s new pet employee. Novak just didn’t like the guy. Didn’t have a reason. Didn’t need one.
“You can drive your truck when you go off the compound, too, but not with a client onboard. That’s the rule. Abide by it or take a hike.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Because the boss says so. That’s what difference it makes. And you do whatever he says, whenever he says it.”
“What’s with all the secrecy? Seems like overkill to me.”
“Know what? You need to learn to control your curiosity. It’s not going to help you fit in. Better curb it while you still can.”
The guy was beginning to get on Novak’s nerves. “I do what I want. Go where I want, when I want. Or I leave. Get used to it.”
“You’ll do what the boss wants you to do if you work here.”
Or for as long as it takes me to find the girl and her kid and get them both the hell out, Novak thought. He said nothing else on the subject. Sandy wasn’t a talker, but he liked to argue. Wield his authority over the other men, bluster about, scare the women, and beat his chest. The place was beginning to look more like a damn prison compound, sans the razor wire, but better guarded.
Sandy walked over to a pegboard on the wall beside the big rolling front door, got a key ring off a hook, and handed it to Novak. It was labeled with a number for the Jeep. Number 5. “You get meals in that small log building with the front porch and rocking chairs, the one between my cabin and the bunkhouse. Buffet-style, open all day. Staggered hours, and all that. Cook’s name is Ernie. He does okay sometimes. If Hester feels up to it, she does it. Boss said you’re free now for a while. Tomorrow morning’s when you get the dos and don’ts on the Hunt Club.”
“Can’t we do that now? It’s not dark yet. We have plenty of time.”
“Go get yourself something to eat and get some rest, if you want, because you’re on the night shift down at the Shoot Club. You start at seven p.m.”
“You actually let people shoot at night?”
“We got good lights out here. Stay open till midnight every night of the week. You don’t close up till twelve-thirty. That’s when you put the receipts in the safe. Bank deposits go into town the next morning.”
“I do that, too?”
“No, I always do that. Questions?”
“Think I got it.”
Sandy didn’t respond, just walked back to his truck, climbed in, and took off back down toward the Shoot Club. Novak looked around some more, wondering where all the mechanics and maintenance people were. The Jeep turned out to be a relatively new model, maybe a year old at the most. It was open air except for a canvas top. He started it up and headed for his new little house on the prairie. He drove by the bunkhouse and saw no one anywhere, not at the kitchen, not at the bunkhouse, nowhere. Where was everybody?
The cabin he had been assigned was suitable enough, better than his room at the Avalon, that was for damn sure. Slightly austere, maybe, but he liked austere. Queen-sized bed, not long enough to accommodate his length, but comfortable enough. He didn’t plan to sleep much, anyway. Probably would be bad for his health. Two lamps made out of deer antlers. Burlap shades with little brown silhouettes of elk and deer on the rim. The bathroom had everything he needed, and so did the small kitchenette, and especially to his liking, there was a back door that led out to a raised stoop. Three steps down was a small concrete patio with a couple of Adirondack chairs with peeling white paint.
Six yards behind the patio was nothing but dense, overgrown, wooded wilderness. Thick with a multitude of big trees and saplings and brambles and fallen leaves carpeting the ground. He should be able to sneak out through those trees any time he wanted. He spent some time checking out the place for hidden cameras and microphones, didn’t find any, and he would’ve if they’d been there. He knew how to toss a room for bugs with the best of them. He was a little surprised that he didn’t find any. He didn’t think Wilson was careless or trusted him farther than he could throw him, no matter how much the man sang his praises. Novak knew he was going to be watched by somebody every hour of the day, but he had the training to spot that, too. And if he had to venture a guess, it would be Sandy who was to keep a close eye on him.
After a while, Novak lay down on the bed and thought long and hard about what he was going to do later that night. At five minutes to six that evening, he strolled down the gravel road to the mess hall. Some guy sat smoking out on the front steps. When he saw Novak coming, he hightailed it back inside to raise the alarm. Novak followed him through the front door. All conversation instantly ceased. Every man in the place stared at him and watched the entire time as he filled his plate at the buffet. Fried chicken, mas
hed potatoes and gravy, cream corn and green beans and homemade rolls.
Novak ignored all the other guys and found a table by himself. One positioned with his back against the wall and facing the door, because he wasn’t stupid. He took a bite of the crispy chicken, found the food fairly good, but not as good as Hester’s cooking. Everybody started talking again, but only after he took his first bite. What was with these guys? He hadn’t come to make friends, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to, not by the look of things. Except for Kiki. She was not fastidious. He had the necessary male equipment. Good enough for her.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to eat alone. About ten minutes after Novak had sat down and started his supper, Barrett Wilson himself strode in. Another dead silence prevailed for a few seconds, even deader than Novak’s un-welcome had been. The boss glanced around the tables, found Novak’s place, and then walked over and joined him. He sat down across the table from him. Everybody else remained silent until Wilson gave them a look. They apparently could interpret his looks. Life started up again, guys picked up forks, spoke in low tones, God had decreed it to be so. Every man in the room seemed deathly afraid of Wilson. No doubt about it. Why? What did this guy do to recalcitrant employees? Horsewhip them? Lock them in cells? Or just shoot them with his big shiny .357 and throw their bodies down that chasm in front of the garage?
“How’s it going for you so far, Mr. Novak?”
“No problems.”
Wilson just nodded and examined Novak’s face some more.
“Mind if I keep eating?” Novak asked.
“Please do, go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you from enjoying your meal.”
So, and with the same silent intense scrutiny, Wilson watched him eat his supper. Couldn’t be all that fascinating. Novak was beginning to get a bad feeling as to why the guy had come. He shifted slightly in the chair, where he could reach the .45 in his back waistband, if worse came to worst.