There was only one place they’d be able to get that much cash that quickly. The float. The float and the city’s cash account at the bank. We’d work it so they had to take the money out of the bank but wouldn’t be able to return it the same day.
St. Thomas, who ran the loan-sharking business, kept his stash at the City Hall, in the city clerk’s safe. We figured they’d put the hundred thousand in the same place, for safekeeping until the banks reopened Monday.
If we could get the cash out, Marvel would be at the capitol. When we called, she’d go straight in to see the governor’s hatchet man. He’d turn out the cops and accountants, and by Saturday night the council would be trying to explain what had happened to a hundred thousand dollars in cash—and why it’d been taken out of the bank in the first place.
Marvel and her friends would have delivered the doctored printout detailing Longstreet corruption and would also be singing a quiet chorus in the background. A hundred thousand? Probably dope, she’d say. Cocaine and crack. Run through the fire department. And with Marvel providing the details, there’d be enough meat on that bone to interest the state.
“I WORRY about you, Harold,” I said as we were leaving. “It all sounds good in theory, but these guys… you don’t run a machine like Longstreet’s without being tough. They might not roll over so easy.”
“I grew up in Longstreet,” Harold said with an unhappy grin. “I know how it works. I can take care of myself. And Marvel thinks—”
“Yeah. Well. Good luck.”
BACK IN LONGSTREET, LuEllen and I climbed up on top of the Fanny’s cabin with gin and tonics, to watch the sun go down, and I told her about the change of plans.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “I’m getting spooked. In the bad old days, if I got spooked, I called off whatever I was doing. Walked away. I figured there might be a reason for being spooked, something unconscious.… If Harold can blackmail Dessusdelit and St. Thomas and Rebeck off the council, more power to him. We won’t have to hit City Hall.”
A small boat’s bow light appeared downriver and cut an arc through the darkness as it came into the marina. A commercial catfisherman in a fat green jon boat. His wife was waiting up the levee with their station wagon and a stack of drywall buckets for the catch.
“I don’t know,” I said, finishing the drink. I crunched the ice cube between my teeth and sucked on the pieces. “It doesn’t feel right.”
We sat for a couple more minutes in silence; then LuEllen scraped her chair back and stood up. “Mosquitoes coming out,” she said.
As I looked out at the river, in the hot, humid night, with the water burbling under the hull and the sound of car radio rock ‘n’ roll floating down the levee wall, it was hard to remember that winter always comes.
JOHN CALLED AN hour later.
“Harold talked to Dessusdelit. She says she’ll see him at her house tomorrow morning.”
“Did he tell her—”
“No. He just said it was important, that it involved corruption and high city officials. She agreed right away—nervous, I guess. He’s supposed to be there at ten o’clock.”
“Terrific,” I said. John sounded unnaturally cheerful, and I heard Marvel’s voice in the background. “Is that Marvel?”
“Yeah, I’m at her place.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“Just a minute,” he said. I heard him call her; then there was a delay; then he came back on and said, “You gotta wait a minute; she can’t talk to you unless she got her pants on.”
I heard Marvel squeal and John laughing; then Marvel came on, somewhat breathless, and said, “You don’t pay any attention to this liar.”
“Hey, he’s a good guy,” I said.
She laughed and said, in an aside to John, “Quit that,” and then to me, “He’s been hanging over me since that first night. You know what finally did it? I think it was those fuckin’ wing tips of his. He looked so cute in them.”
“Jesus, that is perverted.”
“That’s me.”
“I don’t mean to bring you down, but something occurred to me. This woman out at animal control…”
“Sherrie?”
“Yeah. A black guy’s going to show up at Dessusdelit’s place tomorrow with a copy of the secret books. The question may arise, Where did he get them?”
“Oh, shit,” she said. There was another pause. “I can handle it, I think.”
“OK.”
“I can tell her… to get sick, or something. If I tell her it’s important, she’ll do it.”
“With no questions?”
“Nothing I’ll answer. She’s not too bright.… I can handle it.”
“OK. I just thought I’d mention it.”
“Good thought,” she said.
“And listen… take care of John.”
“Better’n he could possibly believe,” she said.
LUELLEN AND I went to bed, LuEllen speculating about John and Marvel. Would they get married? Would it be a church wedding? Would Marvel wear a formal white wedding gown, and would that be right at her age? Would we be invited, and if we were, could we come?
She went on for a while, while I listened distractedly. Finally I got out of bed, picked up the phone, and called Bobby on a voice line. I outlined what we were doing and asked if he could monitor Dessusdelit’s phones in the morning.
“We’re putting a lot of pressure on her,” I said. “If something goes wrong, or if she decides to run for it or figures out some kind of double cross…”
“I’ll monitor it,” he said. “If anything happens, I’ll get back to you.”
“Why do you want him to do that?” LuEllen asked when I hung up.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It seems like a good idea.”
I WAS SOUND ASLEEP when the phone rang the next morning. I groaned, sat up, looked at the clock. Ten-thirty. I got to the phone on the fifth ring.
“This Kidd?” Bobby, his voice urgent, harsh, not waiting even for my “hello?”
“Yeah, Bobby? What’s going on?”
“Get over to Dessusdelit’s house,” he snapped. “Something bad’s happening.”
“What?” I asked. LuEllen sat up, watching, roused by the tone of my voice.
“I was monitoring her line. About two, three minutes ago, the dogcatcher—”
“Duane Hill—”
“Yeah. He made a call. He was at her house. He called this St. Thomas guy, told him to get his ass over there, they had an emergency and he had to drive a car. That sounds like trouble to me. Hill wasn’t even supposed to be there, was he?”
“No…”
“Anyway, St. Thomas said he’d be right there.”
“All right, we’re on the way. Call John, try his motel and Marvel’s place… tell him…”
“OK.”
EVEN WHEN you’re in a hurry, it takes a long time to get going. We dressed, rushing, but it still took six or seven minutes to get to the car. Add that to the two or three between the time Hill hung up and Bobby got to us.… And I got us lost, trying to improvise a shortcut. We got tangled in a series of cul-de-sacs on the wrong side of the municipal golf course, and we had to go back out to my first wrong turn.
“What’re we going to do when we get there?” LuEllen said. “We just can’t come busting up to the door.”
“We could do that,” I said. “Tell her we were in the neighborhood and just thought we’d stop by.…”
“She’s too smart,” LuEllen argued. “She’d make a connection. We’re still strangers, too friendly too fast. Then Harold comes out of the blue.…”
“Maybe Marvel will think of something. When Bobby explains, all she’ll have to do is call Dessusdelit, and say, ‘Listen, we know you got him.’”
“Hope she does,” LuEllen said. “Hope she does…”
SHE DIDN’T. And we were late. A white Ford turned out of the lane from the country club as we were approaching.
“That’s the car Harold drove to
Greenville,” I said. We’d stood next to it for a few minutes, talking, before I left.
“Well, shit, maybe he’s out,” she said.
I accelerated, went on past the country club road, and closed on the Ford. There was a man inside, in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t see him that clearly, and closed further.
“No, no,” LuEllen said. “Back off, back off. Take that turn.”
“What, what?” I braked and swerved down a turnoff.
“That was St. Thomas, the guy who was killing the cats.”
“Sure?” But I had no real doubt.
“Yeah, didn’t you see the red hair?”
I hadn’t, but I believed her and turned the car around, stopping at the highway, uncertain which way to go. “So where’s Harold? In the trunk?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What?”
I put the car on the highway, headed back toward the country club. I’d answered my own question. “If Harold drove that car to Dessusdelit’s, he’d park either in her driveway or in front of the place,” I explained. “If they whacked him, they wouldn’t be carrying his body across the lawn to put it in the trunk.”
“So…”
“So look for Hill’s panel truck. It’s white, and it says ‘Animal Control’ on the side. A Chevy—”
“There it is,” LuEllen said immediately, pointing back over my shoulder. The van was winding through the country club streets, still a block or so away, but moving toward the stone pillars that marked the entrance road. I slowed and took the first turn on the opposite side of the road.
“Now what?” LuEllen asked. The van hesitated before turning onto the highway, then accelerated away, after the white Ford.
“I don’t know. Follow. See what happens… If we had a gun…”
“If pigs had wings…” Hill’s van went past an obvious turnoff to animal control.
“Where’s he going? Why’s he going through town?”
“I don’t know.”
We found out five minutes later, after a nerve-wrenching job of tailing the white van through light traffic. On the northern highway business strip, just at the edge of town, the van slowed and turned into the Wal-Mart parking lot. We watched from the shoulder of the road as the van stopped at the front entrance. St. Thomas was waiting inside. He walked out and climbed in the driver’s side of the van, which then started back out. By that time I’d made a U-turn and was parked behind the gas pumps in the Shell station.
“They ditched Harold’s car in the Wal-Mart lot,” LuEllen said.
“Let’s call the cops.”
“And tell them what?”
“That a guy was kidnapped—”
“We’ll be on a tape—”
“Jesus, LuEllen.”
The van went past on the highway, headed back into town. I waited a few seconds and pulled out after them.
“He’s going out to animal control,” LuEllen said.
“Yeah. Can’t get too close out there. There’s nothing else around.”
I put several cars between us and the panel truck and, when there was no longer any question where it was headed, pulled over to a drive-up phone outside a convenience store. I dialed Marvel’s place, then John’s, and got no answer at either.
“Let’s go,” said LuEllen.
We continued on to the animal control complex and spotted the van parked outside.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t go in,” I said, continuing past the turnoff. We were on a gravel road that had some traffic, but not much. Even going by the place was a risk. “If they’ve killed him… or are planning to… there wouldn’t be any reason not to do us.”
“Maybe they’re just talking to him,” LuEllen said. She didn’t believe it.
“Maybe Hitler was only kidding.”
“All right. Let’s ditch the car.”
Four hundred yards farther on, a track left the main road to the right, away from the river, and a sign said LEVI CREEK PUBLIC HUNTING. It didn’t look as if it had been used since duck season. I drove far enough down that a passerby couldn’t see the car from the road, killed the engine, and we scrambled out. As I closed the door I noticed LuEllen’s camera bag in the back seat.
“Bring the camera,” I said.
“Got it,” LuEllen answered. We jogged through the heat waves coming off the road, through some nascent wildflowers, toward the base of the hill we’d climbed on our last trip out. From this side a definite track wound up to the top. LuEllen, who is both in better shape and a better athlete than I am, led the way. When I came over the crest, she was crouched on the far side, peering down at the animal control building.
“Nobody around,” she said.
I crawled up beside her and looked down. The van was twenty feet from the front door, which was closed.
“What is that noise?” I asked. Ooka-ooka-ooka. We’d heard it the first time we’d been there. It sounded like a broken pump.
“I don’t know,” she said. She opened the camera bag, took off the short lens she kept on the Nikon, and put on the biggest one she had, a 210mm zoom. Nothing moved. And the building stopped going ooka-ooka. Then started again. We lay on the bare patch, watching.
“If they beat him up, and if he’s in obviously bad shape, we want photos of him coming out with Hill. Maybe we could yell or scream or something, they wouldn’t know who we are, but they’d have to let him go.”
“Jesus, that worries me. Our security could be fucked.”
“Yeah, but—” It suddenly dawned on me what the sound was. Ooka-ooka. I half stood and stared down the hill. “Motherfucker.”
“What?”
“That’s the pump for the fuckin’ vacuum chamber. I bet that’s what it is.”
LuEllen didn’t say anything but just stared, and the pump stopped. “You think?” she asked in the silence.
“Maybe they’re trying to find out who else knows.”
“Jesus, no. I don’t believe it.…”
“We fucked up,” I said. “We’ve gotta get to the car and call the cops.… Or maybe we can call them, Hill and St. Thomas. I’ll try to disguise my voice, tell them we know they’ve got Harold.”
I was headed for the path down the hill when LuEllen whispered, “Wait… wait. Here we go.” She waved me back.
The door to the animal control building opened, and St. Thomas stepped out into the sun and looked around. There was nothing to see but the van in the driveway. He was agitated, jerking around when a dog suddenly started barking from the cages. He walked around the building, checking, then went back inside. A moment later he and Hill came out, carrying what looked like a body wrapped in a sheet. Hill used only his left hand; his right was around the arm of a black woman, who seemed to be weeping.
“Ah shit,” LuEllen said, shooting off a string of exposures.
They carried the body to the levee, walking fast, looking around, then along the land side of the levee, down from the crest where you couldn’t see them from the river. They went along until they got to the revetment where we’d tied up the boat. Erosion had cut a little notch out of the levee just above the concrete slabs. They dropped the body, both of them breathing hard, and St. Thomas stepped up to the top of the bank and scanned the river. They were in weeds and brush up to their shoulders, and there was nothing on the water. When he was sure it was clear, they unwrapped the body, dragged it over the levee, and heaved it in the river. It sank almost immediately.
With every step they took, LuEllen snapped another photograph.
With the body gone, the two men climbed back down the levee to where the black woman waited. She was half crouched, talking fast. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Hill laughed and shook his head. St. Thomas said something to her, then stood and offered his hand, and they climbed back up the levee to the path on top, and he gestured into the river.
“Telling her not to worry, the body’s gone,” LuEllen guessed, looking up at me.
�
��No, keep shooting,” I snapped.
She looked back through the viewfinder and triggered off a shot and then, without looking up, asked, “Why?”
“Because they’re going to kill her,” I said. I started to stand, thinking to shout, but Hill, already moving, stepped up behind the woman with his hand extended. It was holding the black automatic that St. Thomas had used on the cats. The woman never saw it coming. Hill fired a single shot into the back of her head, and she tumbled down the embankment like a broken doll.
“Motherfucker,” LuEllen groaned. She took shots of them going down the levee, pitching the woman’s body into the water, then coming back up. Hill was animated, laughing, and slapped St. Thomas on the shoulder. St. Thomas said something, and Hill took the pistol out of his belt, looked at it, and turned and pitched it into the river.
“Shoot it,” I blurted. LuEllen was still looking through the viewfinder and fired a last shot just as the pistol hit the water. I tried to mark the spot in my memory and then said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here. If they even get a smell of us or decide to check this place out…”
We ran back down the hill, down the road, and off onto the track.
“They’d know the car,” LuEllen said, looking back toward the hill as we got in it.
“They were a hundred yards away, and they’re both heavy guys, and they had no reason to run. Even if they’re going up the hill, they wouldn’t be more than halfway yet,” I said. I turned the car around, rolled it back to the road, and went out the opposite way.
WE ARGUED about the killings.
“We can’t tell anybody,” LuEllen said urgently. “I don’t want to quit, but I don’t want to get involved in any kind of murder investigation. That’d blow me, that’d blow you.”
“We can’t just sit on it,” I argued. “They fuckin’ murdered them.”
“So we handle it ourselves,” she said. “We did once before.”
I thought about the two bodies and what would be the now-rusty guns piled in the unmarked grave in West Virginia. Yeah, by God, we had handled it before, and it made me sick to think about. Not that we could have done anything different.
Kidd and LuEllen: Novels 1-4 Page 37