“Yeah?”
“Did Nick say anything about a helicopter?”
Before I could even ask what he was talking about, I heard the thump-thump-thump in the distance. When I turned around, I could see the spotlight shining down. It was way out beyond the road, but headed in our direction.
I think our first inclination might have been to leap into each other’s arms. But that quickly passed, and we set about the task of getting ourselves—and the bag—the hell out of there. The duffel must have weighed a hundred pounds, but we hardly felt it. We each threw a strap over our shoulders and headed back to the car. We ran like sturdy beasts, like a couple of those rhinos that we always watched on Wild Kingdom. By the time we tossed the bag between the barbed wire strands of the fence, the helicopter was hanging over the middle of the pasture, shining its light down on the drop zone. I told Rachel to crank the car while Dewey and I dumped the bag into the trunk.
I left the headlights off and turned around on the gravel road. I floored the little Peugeot and prayed to the Italian god of automobiles to please be kind and channel a little bit of Ferrari blood into that sled. The chopper’s beam was still dancing around in the field, searching for the bag of cocaine.
Dewey sat dead still beside me, his hands in his lap, staring straight out into the darkness. He appeared to be bracing himself for a sudden and terrible fate. Considering the situation, it was not very reassuring to see a 240-pound man in such a state.
I checked the rearview mirror for Rachel. She was sunk low in the corner of the backseat, clenching the sides of Dewey’s seat with both hands. Her eyes were following the spotlight as it danced behind the car.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“It’s gotta be the cops,” I said. “Maybe GBI, or FBI. It’s somebody with badges. I know that much.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna get us the hell out of here.”
I cut the wheel at the top of the gravel drive and slid onto the asphalt of Grimes Road. Without the headlights I could barely see beyond the hood of the car. But that was enough.
“Trust me,” I told them, “I could drive this road with my eyes closed.”
Without hesitation, Dewey reached for his lap belt. Rachel didn’t waste much time groping around for her own. But, thanks to Lyndell, I really did know the road well enough to drive it with my eyes closed. It was all about feel and recognition, knowing the bumps, curves, and dips. It really wasn’t all that different from Nick shutting his eyes when he played slide guitar. I’d probably covered a mile, when Rachel’s voice rose from the backseat.
“I think they’re gone. I don’t even see the light anymore.”
Dewey turned around and blew out a big breath. “She’s right,” he said. “I don’t see ‘em.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t have any cruisers out here,” I told them. “I’m gonna switch over to another road, just to be safe.”
I flipped on the cockeyed headlights, slowed to the speed limit, and cut over to Green Lake Road. It seemed an unlikely route for the county police to take if they’d been headed out to the stables.
“The cops know something,” Dewey said. “They’re gonna get that pilot. I guarantee you.”
“Somebody tipped them off,” I said. “That’s for sure. We’re just lucky they were a couple of minutes late.”
Rachel leaned up again. “Maybe we shouldn’t take the bag back to the house. What if they’re waiting there?”
“But what the hell are we gonna do with it?” Dewey asked.
He and I were staring at each other, trying to figure that one out, when Rachel screamed.
“Oh, shit! Look out!”
A set of high beams was barreling toward us, way over on our side of the road. Dewey grabbed the dash, and Rachel wrapped her arms around the back of Dewey’s seat, and I did the only thing I could do to avoid a head-on collision. The wheels clunked over the shoulder and the trees came into view. The trunks and limbs looked like bars on a cage. There were too many of them to count, too many even to consider the possibility of avoiding contact. I stomped the brake pedal, clenched my eyes shut, and waited for a blow to the head.
22
“Ho-lee shit! Are y’all all right in there?”
The guy was banging on the side window, looking in at me. Dewey, Rachel, and I were checking ourselves out to make sure that none of our bones was sticking through the skin.
Rachel stared at my head, cringing. When I reached up, I found a lump the size of a Titleist on my left temple. It throbbed like somebody was taking whacks at it with a sand wedge.
I asked Dewey and Rachel if they were okay.
“Forget us,” Dewey said. “What about the car? Is it driveable?”
The Peugeot had been smashed up pretty good, the hood buckled and steaming against the trunk of an oak. One headlight was out, the other shone toward the dark water’s edge.
“I don’t think so.”
The man knocked on the window again. “Hey! Is everybody okay in there?” He had a really loud voice, like an auctioneer.
“Who is that fucking idiot?” Rachel asked.
“Probably the asshole who ran us off the road,” Dewey said.
I held up my hand to signal that all was well, hoping the guy would pipe down. He finally stepped back and gave me a chance to climb out. I had to kick the door in order to open it.
As soon as I stepped onto the wet turf, the man rushed toward me. “God almighty, damn. I am so sorry.” He laid his hands on my shoulders and whistled at the size of the knot. “Goddamn, looks like you got tagged pretty good.”
The guy appeared to be in his fifties, tall and broad across the chest, with a thick neck and a hypertensive flush. He had a big head, too. It was crowned with a salt-and-pepper flattop.
I assured him that I was all right, that we were all just fine.
“Thank God for that,” he said. “These roads are fucking treacherous.”
He was obviously half in the bag, his breath practically flammable and his clothes (Bermuda shorts, boat shoes, and a tank top) best suited for a two-day bender.
“I must have hit an oil patch back there,” he said. “Pushed me right over to your side of the road. That was a hell of a piece of driving you did to miss me.”
He draped his arm around my shoulder and led me toward the road. From the looks of it, we’d slid a good thirty feet down the embankment before we hit the tree. Rachel and Dewey climbed out of the car and tramped up the hill behind us.
“Listen,” the man said. “I’m gonna be honest with you about something. I’ve had me a little bit to drink tonight. I’m not drunk, but I’d just as soon not get the police involved in this. You know how they can be.”
Dewey grunted. “Oh, yeah. I know how they can be.”
It was right about then I gazed over the man’s shoulder and caught my first glimpse of his car sitting by the side of the road. There was no ignoring it, not even in a time of crisis. It was a 1968 GT 390 Shelby Mustang, the same kind of car Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt. It was sitting there with the engine idling and the headlights glowing, sparkling under a blanket of rain.
“Holy shit,” I said, “is that victory green?”
The man jerked his head in a surprised way. His face beamed. He reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze like I was his son or something.
“That’s pretty damn good,” he said. “You know your cars.”
He led me toward the Shelby. For the first time, I noticed that he walked with a limp. He winced and jerked with every step like somebody was jabbing a pair of scissors into his hip.
“I bought that thing brand-new back when I was offensive line coach for the Rams.”
It all came together then: the big jaw, the limp, the thing about being a coach, and then, finally, the specialty plates on the back of the car: TBREX. We’d been run into the trees by none other than Lance Hillin, the T-Bone King himself: former All-American lineman for the U
niversity of Georgia and pioneer of the mega-all-you-can-eat food bar.
Hillin patted his pants pockets as though to make sure they were still full of money. “Listen, I think I can work this out. I got a friend who runs a garage. He takes care of my cars for me. So how about I get him out here first thing in the morning to haul your car in and fix it? All charges covered by me, of course. I can give y’all a ride back up to the house, and you can borrow one of my cars until the other one’s fixed.”
He turned and winked at me. “I ain’t loaning you the Shelby, though. So don’t ask.”
“I think we could live with that,” I told him. “But we’ve got some valuables in the trunk. We can’t just leave them out here like this.”
“What kind of valuables?” Hillin asked.
Naturally, he would have to be the curious sort.
“It’s birdhouses,” I replied, surprising myself with how easily the cover-up slid out.
Hillin cocked his head in a puzzled way. “Birdhouses?”
“Yeah. Rachel, over there, makes them. Her family’s been doing it for generations. They’re sort of famous for their birdhouses.”
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Hillin said. “Maybe I’ll buy a couple from you. I wouldn’t mind having some of those bat houses. I hear they run off the fucking mosquitoes in the summertime.”
He turned and slid the key into the trunk of the Shelby. When I looked back up, Dewey was shaking his head and Rachel was applauding in a silent and sarcastic way.
Hillin’s house sat way off the road on a big lot that fronted the lake. It was one of those rustic log cabin designs, but with four bedrooms, a Jacuzzi, central air, and a big satellite TV dish out front. Hillin had built a huge fucking garage beside the house.
“That’s the showroom,” he said as we climbed out of the Shelby.
And he wasn’t lying. He pulled up one of the garage doors and hit the light switch. Soon, we were standing amid an automotive paradise. There must have been fifteen classic cars in there, lined up side by side, poised to rush through the doors and wreak havoc on the streets: a ‘69 Corvette with side vents, a Plymouth ‘cuda, a Buick Wildcat, a pair of Porsche-outfitted VW Beetles, a GTO, an Olds 442, a Jaguar XKE. Hillin even owned a ‘66 Chevelle Super Sport—white with blue stripes—just like Lyndell’s. That one gave me a jolt.
Hillin limped over to a metal cabinet and rummaged through a drawer full of keys, finally fishing out a particular set. “I was thinking y’all could take my fishing vehicle, if you want. I’ve got insurance and everything on it. So you don’t have to worry about that.”
When he walked back over to me, I was staring into the Chevelle.
“You’ve got good taste,” he said.
I backed away from the car. “Yeah, it’s a favorite of mine.”
“I didn’t catch your name,” Hillin said.
“I’m Luke. Luke Fulmer. And that’s Dewey and Rachel.”
He gave them a friendly nod, then led us all the way down to the end of the garage. There, parked last in line, sat a long, mud-splattered Buick hearse. It was black, of course, and it appeared ready for a trip to the graveyard, except for the numerous fishing decals plastered all over the vehicle. There were largemouths in midleap on the side windows, bream, crappie, and catfish, too. The rear gate of the hearse was wall-to-wall bumper stickers. I’d Rather Be Fishing. Fishing Is My Religion. Let Me Tell You About My Grandfish. Hillin had also jacked up the rear end and slapped on a set of fat truck tires. The specialty plates read: GONFSHN.
Needless to say, I was underwhelmed by our new set of wheels. It was not the most understated way to haul around a large quantity of contraband. But considering the circumstances, I knew better than to complain.
Hillin handed the keys to Rachel. “You can take this for now. I should know something tomorrow about the Peugeot.”
Rachel returned Hillin’s jovial gaze with a sour expression. I thanked him profusely before she could object, and then I asked the King if he went out driving in his cars every night.
Hillin smiled as if we were kindred spirits. “I try to get out a couple nights a week,” he said. “It keeps the engines clean. More than that, it keeps my head clean.”
He finally bid us a farewell, heading back to the cabin to fix himself a beverage. Thankfully, he’d forgotten all about the birdhouses.
I gazed down the row of vehicles, savoring all the fine automobiles that we wouldn’t be driving, and then Dewey and I opened the trunk of the Shelby and lugged the bag of cocaine over to the hearse. Rachel held the rear gate open for us.
“I’m not driving this thing,” she said. “There is no fucking way.”
I told her to calm down. “It could be a lot worse,” I said.
Dewey and I were about to toss the bag into the back of the hearse, when I noticed all of the fishing gear inside: rods and reels and tackle boxes and Styrofoam ice chests. There must have been a dozen Budweiser cans scattered around as well. I told Dewey to drop the bag.
“Let me clear a spot first.”
I stuck my head inside the vehicle and was promptly assaulted by the most heinous odor I’d ever come across. The culprit was a Styrofoam bucket. Inside lay the spoiled fruits of an angler’s labors: four dead bream of a less-than-recent vintage. By the looks of things, Hillin had probably caught the fish a few months back. Removing them from the hearse must have slipped his mind.
We finally loaded the bag into the back of the hearse. Then we lowered the windows and jacked up the AC, trying to clear the air a little. As I pulled out of the garage, I felt something roll from under the seat and bump against my heel. It was a half-drained bottle of Jim Beam. Hot on its heels was a bottle of Listerine and a Popeil Pocket Fisherman.
Rachel was sitting between me and Dewey. She gazed down at the floorboard. “I’m guessing those are the basic tools of survival around this place.”
Dewey leaned over and took a gander. “One of ‘em sure as hell is.”
Before he could even ask, I’d already reached down and snagged the bottle of Beam. I took a long drink and then another before passing it along. Afterward, I sat there with the engine idling, considering the glow coming from the windows of Hillin’s cabin.
“So what do you think of his place?” I asked Rachel.
“Log cabins aren’t supposed to be that big,” she said. “I mean, that’s like a fucking log mansion. It’s all out of proportion. Just look at it.”
I sat there a while longer, thinking of houses and birdhouses and the like. Rachel finally nudged me.
“We better go,” she said.
23
There were no cops at Nick’s house, only Cash and Nick. They were in the bedroom, emptying money out of Nick’s golf bag. They spun around like a pair of gunslingers when we walked through the door.
Nick let out a big sigh. “Jesus Christ. Thank God you made it.”
Dewey frowned. “Well, if you didn’t think we were up to it, why’d you ask us to go?”
Nick shook his head. “I thought you were up to it. I just didn’t expect Chuck to get his ass pinched by the cops.”
Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised. “Yeah, a chopper showed up about two minutes behind Chuck. We knew something was up.”
Cash grunted. “How the fuck did y’all get out of there?”
“No headlights,” I said. “We flew under the radar.”
Cash pointed to the knot on my head. “I say you didn’t fly low enough.”
“Well, they found Chuck,” Nick said. “The dispatcher at the police station was saying they’d forced a plane to land at the Green Lake Airport. You should have heard all the chatter on that shortwave. They were calling in the GBI, the FBI, the ATF, everybody but fucking McCloud and the Texas Rangers.”
I asked about Muskgrave.
“He was on his way in. Cash posted my bond, and we got the hell out of there before he showed up.”
“So they don’t know that you and Chuck are working together?” I asked.<
br />
Nick tossed his golf bag onto the floor. He reached under the bed and pulled out his suitcase. “Fuck, no. I was in jail when they grabbed Chuck.”
He started pulling clothes out of his closet. “But if Chuck runs his mouth, it’s gonna be bad news for everybody.”
“But we picked up the bag,” Rachel said. “What can they do if there’s no evidence?”
Nick topped off his suitcase with jeans and T-shirts. He tossed his shooting wedge on top and zipped up the bag. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and fired up a Winston.
“Chuck had a planeful of those duffels,” he said. “He was supposed to make four drops tonight. I’m just one person in all of this. He probably still had a couple in there when they forced him down.”
Cash stood beside the bed trying, ever so subtly, to count the wad of bills that Nick had just given him for posting his bail.
Nick looked up at him. “It’s all there, asshole.”
Cash looked away like he was embarrassed. He rolled up the money real fast and stuffed it into his jeans. Then he looked at his watch. “You better hit the road,” he told Nick.
Nick sighed, took one last drag off his cigarette, and dropped it on top of an old Sports page that was lying at his feet. He crushed the Winston under his boot, stood up, and grabbed his golf bag and black Samsonite.
“Are you jumping bail?” I asked him.
“I might have to,” he said. “It’s just a possession charge. I can take care of that later, if need be. But if Chuck starts naming names, I damn sure can’t be around.”
We headed outside. Of course, the first thing Cash and Nick wanted to know was where the hell we had gotten the hearse.
“You mean you didn’t work out a deal for free steaks?” Cash asked. “How the fuck could you not get some free steaks out of this?”
Dewey and I looked at each other and frowned. We’d been under such a heavy burden that the possibilities of free beef had never even dawned on us.
We transferred the duffel to Nick’s car while Cash hot-wired the ignition. It only took a couple of minutes to get everything into place: the cocaine in the trunk and the motor humming. The rain had stopped, and the night had turned cool and damp. I took off Nick’s jacket and handed it to him. He tossed it into the car and pulled me aside to talk. Everyone else headed back inside the house.
Drive Like Hell: A Novel Page 23