by Ben Rehder
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GONE THE NEXT
BEN REHDER
Copyright © 2012 by Ben Rehder.
Cover art copyright © 2012 by Bijou Graphics & Design.
Cover photograph © Ben Rehder.
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
For Warren and Mirt Foster.
Acknowledgments
I am very much indebted to the following people for their help with this novel: Becky Rehder, Helen Haught Fanick, Mary Summerall, Stacia Hernstrom, Marsha Moyer, Greg Rosen, John Grace, Tommy Blackwell, Don Gray, Juanita Pichler, and David Martinez.
1
The woman he was watching this time was in her early thirties. Thirty-five at the oldest. White. Well dressed. Upper middle class. Reasonably attractive. Probably drove a nice car, like a Lexus or a BMW. She was shopping at Nordstrom in Barton Creek Square mall. Her daughter — Alexis, if he’d overheard the name correctly — appeared to be about seven years old. Brown hair, like her mother’s. The same cute nose. They were in the women’s clothing department, looking at swimsuits. Alexis was bored. Fidgety. Ready to go to McDonald’s, like Mom had promised. Amazing what you can hear if you keep your ears open.
He was across the aisle, in the men’s department, looking at Hawaiian shirts. They were all ugly, and he had no intention of buying one. He stood on the far side of the rack and held up a green shirt with palm trees on it. But he was really looking past it, at the woman, who had several one-piece swimsuits draped over her arm. Not bikinis, though she still had the figure for it. Maybe she had stretch marks, or the beginnings of a belly.
He replaced the green shirt and grabbed a blue one covered with coconuts. Just browsing, like a regular shopper might do.
Mom was walking over to a changing room now. Alexis followed, walking stiff-legged, maybe pretending she was a monster. A zombie. Amusing herself.
He moved closer, to a table piled high with neatly folded cargo shorts. He pretended to look for a pair in his size. But he was watching in his peripheral vision.
“Wait right here,” Mom said. She didn’t look around. She was oblivious to his presence. He might as well have been a mannequin.
Alexis said something in reply, but he couldn’t make it out.
“There isn’t room, Lexy. I’ll just be a minute.”
And she shut the door, leaving Alexis all by herself.
When he first began his research, he’d been surprised by what he’d found. He had expected the average parent to be watchful. Wary. Downright suspicious. That’s how he would be if he had a child. A little girl. He’d guard her like a priceless treasure. Every minute of the day. But his assumptions were wrong. Parents were sloppy. Careless. Just plain stupid.
He knew that now, because he’d watched hundreds of them. And their children. In restaurants. In shopping centers. Supermarkets. Playgrounds and parks. For three months he’d watched. Reconnaissance missions, like this one right now, with Alexis and her mom. Preparing. What he’d observed was encouraging. It wouldn’t be as difficult as he’d assumed. When the time came.
But he had to use his head. Plan it out. Use what he’d learned. Doing it in a public place, especially a retail establishment, would be risky, because there were video surveillance systems everywhere nowadays. Some places, like this mall, even had security guards. Daycare centers were often fenced, and the front doors were locked. Schools were always on the lookout for strangers who —
“You need help with anything?”
He jumped, ever so slightly.
A salesgirl had come up behind him. Wanting to be helpful. Calling attention to him. Ruining the moment.
That was a good lesson to remember. Just because he was watching, that didn’t mean he wasn’t being watched, too.
2
The first time I ever heard the name Tracy Turner — on a hot, cloudless Tuesday in June — I was tailing an obese, pyorrheic degenerate named Wally Crouch. I was fairly certain about the “degenerate” part, because Crouch had visited two adult bookstores and three strip clubs since noon. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little mature entertainment, but there’s a point when it goes from bawdy boys-will-be-boys recreation to creepy pathological fixation. The pyorrhea was pure conjecture on my part, based solely on the number of Twinkie wrappers Crouch had tossed out the window during his travels.
Crouch was a driver for UPS and, according to my biggest client, he was also a fraud who was riding the workers’ comp gravy train. In the course of a routine delivery seven weeks prior, Crouch had allegedly injured his lower back. A ruptured disk, the doctor said. Limited mobility and a twelve- to sixteen-week recovery period. In the meantime, Crouch couldn’t lift more than ten pounds without searing pain shooting up his spinal cord. But this particular quack had a checkered past filled with questionable diagnoses and reprimands from the medical board. My job was fairly simple, at least on paper: Follow Crouch discreetly until he proved himself a liar. Catch it on video. Testify, if necessary. Earn a nice paycheck. Continue to finance my sumptuous, razor’s-edge lifestyle.
You’d think Crouch, having a choice in the matter, would’ve avoided rush-hour traffic and had a few more beers instead, but he left Sugar’s Uptown Cabaret at ten after five and squeezed his way onto the interstate heading south. I followed in my seven-year-old Dodge Caravan. Beige. Try to find a vehicle less likely to catch someone’s eye. The windows are deeply tinted and a scanner antenna is mounted on the roof, which are the only clues that the driver isn’t a soccer mom toting her brats to practice.
Anyone whose vehicle doubles as a second home recognizes the value of a decent sound system. I’d installed a Blaupunkt, with Bose speakers front and rear. Total system set me back about two grand. Seems like overkill for talk radio, but that’s what I was listening to when I heard the familiar alarm signal of the Emergency Alert System. I’d never known the system to be used for anything other than weather warnings, but not this time. It was an Amber Alert. A local girl had gone missing from her affluent West Austin neighborhood. Tracy Turner: six years old, blond hair, green eyes, three feet tall, forty-five pounds, wearing denim shorts and a pink shirt. My palms went sweaty just thinking about it. Then I heard she might be in the company of Howard Turner — her non-custodial father, a resident of Los Angeles — and I breathed a small sigh of relief. Listeners, they said, should keep an eye out f
or a green Honda with California plates.
Easy to read between the lines. Tracy’s parents were divorced, and dad had decided he wanted to spend more time with his daughter, despite how the courts had ruled. Sad, but much better than a random abduction.
The announcer was repeating the message when my cell phone rang. I turned the radio volume down, answered, and my client — a senior claims adjuster at a big insurance company — said, “You nail him yet?”
“Christ, Heidi, it’s only the third day.”
“I thought you were good.”
“That’s a vicious rumor.”
“Yeah, and I think you started it yourself. I’m starting to think you get by on your looks alone.”
“That remark borders on sexual harassment, and you know how I feel about that.”
“You’re all for it.”
“Exactly. Anyway, relax, okay? I’m on him twenty-four seven.” Crouch had taken the Manor Road exit, and now he turned into his apartment complex, so I drove past, calling it a day. I didn’t like lying to Heidi, but I had a meeting with a man named Harvey Blaylock in thirty minutes.
“Well, you’d better get something soon, because I’ve got another one waiting,” Heidi said.
I didn’t say anything, because a jerk in an F-150 was edging over into my lane.
“Roy?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I have another one for you.”
“Have scientists come up with that device yet?”
“What device?”
“The one that allows you to be in two places at the same time.”
“You really crack you up.”
“Let me get this one squared away, then we’ll talk, okay?”
“The quicker the better. Where are you? Has Crouch even left the house?”
“Oh, yeah. Been wandering all afternoon.”
“Where to?”
“Uh, let’s just say he seems to have an inordinate appreciation for the female form.”
“Which means?”
“He’s been visiting gentlemen’s clubs.”
A pause. “You mean tittie bars?”
“That’s such a crass term. Oh, by the way, the Yellow Rose is looking for dancers. In case you decide to — ”
She hung up on me.
I had the phone in my hands, so I went ahead and called my best friend Mia Madison, who works at an establishment I used to do business with on occasion. She tends bar at a tavern on North Lamar.
Boiling it down to one sentence, Mia is smart, funny, optimistic, and easy on the eyes. Expanding on the last part, because it’s relevant, Mia stands about five ten and has long red hair that she likes to wear in a ponytail. Prominent cheekbones, with dimples beneath. The toned legs of a runner, though she doesn’t run, but must walk ten miles a day during an eight-hour shift. When Mia gets dolled up — what she calls “bringing it” — she goes from being an attractive woman you’d certainly notice to a world-class head turner.
On one occasion, she revealed that she has a tattoo. Wouldn’t show it to me, but she said — joking, I’m sure — that if I could guess what it was, and where it was, she’d let me have a look. Nearly a year later, I still hadn’t given up.
“Is it Muttley?” I asked when she answered.
“Muttley? Who the hell is Muttley?”
“You know, that cartoon dog with the sarcastic laugh.”
“You mean Scooby Doo?”
“No, the other one. Hangs with Dick Dastardly.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Before your time, I guess. Are you at work?”
“Not till six. Just got out of the shower. I’m drying off.”
“Need any help?”
“I think I can handle it,” she said.
“Okay, next question. Want to earn a hundred bucks the easy way?” I said.
“Love to,” she said. “When and where?”
3
Harvey Blaylock was maybe sixty, medium height, with neatly trimmed gray hair, black-framed glasses, a white short-sleeved shirt, and tan gabardine slacks. He looked like the kind of man who, if things had taken a slightly different turn, might’ve wound up as a forklift salesman, or, best case, a high-school principal in a small agrarian town.
In reality, however, Harvey Blaylock was a man who held tremendous sway over my future, near- and long-term. I intended to remain respectful and deferential.
Blaylock’s necktie — green, with bucking horses printed on it — rested on his paunch as he leaned back in his chair, scanning the contents of a manila folder. I knew it was my file, because it said ROY W. BALLARD on the outside, typed neatly on a rectangular label. I’m quick to notice things like that.
Five minutes went by. His office smelled like cigarettes and Old Spice. Rays of sun slanted in through horizontal blinds on the windows facing west. As far as I could tell, we were the only people left in the building.
“I really appreciate you staying late for this,” I said. “Would’ve been tough for me to make it earlier.”
He grunted and continued reading, one hand drumming slowly on his metal desk. The digital clock on the wall above him read 6:03. On the bookshelf, tucked among a row of wire-bound notebooks, was a framed photo of a young boy holding up a small fish on a line.
“Boy, was I surprised to hear that Joyce retired,” I said. “She seemed too young for that. So spry and youthful.” Joyce being Blaylock’s predecessor. My previous probation officer. A true bitch on wheels. Condescending. Domineering. No sense of humor. “I’ll have to send her a card,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound sarcastic.
Blaylock didn’t answer.
I was starting to wonder if he had a reading disability. I’m no angel — I wouldn’t have been in this predicament if I were — but my file couldn’t have been more than half a dozen pages long. I was surprised that a man in his position, with several hundred probationers in his charge, would spend more than thirty seconds on each.
Finally, Blaylock, still looking at the file, said, “Roy Wilson Ballard. Thirty-six years old. Divorced. Says you used to work as a news cameraman.” He had a thick piney-woods accent. Pure east Texas. He peered up at me, without moving his head. Apparently, it was my turn to talk.
“Yes, sir. Until about three years ago.”
“When you got fired.”
“My boss and I had a personality conflict,” I said, wondering how detailed my file was.
“Ernie Crenshaw.”
“That’s him.”
“You broke his nose with a microphone stand.”
Fairly detailed, apparently.
“Well, yeah, he, uh — ”
“You got an attitude problem, Ballard?”
“No, sir.”
“Temper?”
I started to lie, but decided against it. “Occasionally.”
“That what happened in this instance? Temper got the best of you?”
“He was rude to one of the reporters. He called her a name.”
“What name was that?”
“I’d rather not repeat it.”
“I’m asking you to.”
“Okay, then. He called her Doris. Her real name is Anne.”
His expression remained frozen. Tough crowd.
I said, “Okay. He called her a cunt.”
Blaylock’s expression still didn’t change. “To her face?”
“Behind her back. He was a coward. And she didn’t deserve it. This guy was a world-class jerk. Little weasel.”
“You heard him say it?”
“I was the one he was talking to. It set me off.”
“So you busted his nose.”
“I did, sir, yes.”
Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought Harvey Blaylock gave a nearly imperceptible nod of approval. He looked back at the file. “Now you’re self-employed. A legal videographer. What is that exactly?”
“Well, uh, that means I record depositions, wills, scenes of accidents. Thi
ngs like that. But proof of insurance fraud is my specialty. The majority of my business. Turns out I’m really good at it.”
“Describe it for me.”
“Sir?”
“Give me a typical day.”
I recited my standard courtroom answer. “Basically, I keep a subject under surveillance and hope to videotape him engaging in an activity that’s beyond his alleged physical limitations.” Then I added, “Maybe lifting weights, or dancing. Playing golf. Doing the hokey-pokey.”
No smile.
“Not a nine-to-five routine, then.”
“No, sir. More like five to nine.”
Blaylock mulled that over for a few seconds. “So you’re out there, working long hours, sometimes through the night, and you start taking pills to keep up with the pace. That how it went?”
Until you’ve been there, you have no idea how powerless and naked you feel when someone like Harvey Blaylock is authorized to dig through your personal failings with a salad fork.
“That sums it up pretty well,” I said.
“Did it work?”
“What, the pills?”
He nodded.
“Well, yeah. But coffee works pretty well, too.”
“You were also drinking. That’s why you got pulled over in the first place, and how they ended up finding the pills on you. You got a drinking problem?”
I thought of an old joke. Yeah, I got a drinking problem. Can’t pay my bar tab. “I hope not,” I said, which is about as honest as it gets. “At one point maybe I did, but I don’t know for sure. Probably not. But that’s what you’d expect someone with a drinking problem to say, right?”
“Had a drink since your court date?”
“No, sir. I’m not allowed to. Even though the Breathalyzer said I was legal.”
“Not even one drink?”
“Not a drop. Joyce, gave me a piss te — I mean a urine test, last month, and three in the past year. I passed them all. That should be in the file.”
“You miss it?” Blaylock asked. “The booze?”