by George Wier
It was my turn for silence. I looked at Julie. She was petting Dingo. Also, she was biting her lower lip.
“How did he die?” I asked.
“Somebody put a very large caliber bullet through his neck. Like to have cut his head off.”
“Well damn,” I said.
“That’s ancient history. What I want to know is where she put it.”
“I thought he died last week,” I said.
“Last week and a million years ago are about the same. Dead is dead. I repeat: so where did she put it?”
“Put what?” For a moment my question was sincere. I had forgotten about the money. Then I got the picture in my head: the close lightning and the fat drops of rain and the grating metal-on-metal sound of the vent cover opening and two million sliding down into oblivion.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “I want that money.”
“Oh… That money. Well. That’s also why I’m calling. To open negotiations.”
“I won’t negotiate,” Carpin said.
“That’s what Julie said. But people can change, Archie,” I said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a deal,” I said.
I noticed Hank looking at me rather studiously. He nodded his head “no”.
“The money first, then we talk,” Carpin said.
“No way,” I said. I didn’t have to hesitate.
“I know she stashed it somewhere,” he said. “There’s a certain little girl who will attest she didn’t have it the last time she saw her.”
“What little girl?” I looked at Julie. Her eyes went wide as I watched.
“You don’t know?” Carpin asked. He laughed; a great hollow chuckle with about as much humor as a lynching party. “Hah! That figures. Tell Julie the kid is safe right here with me. Ain’t that right, little darlin’?” his voice had become distant. He was holding the mouthpiece away. I pressed the phone against my ear so hard that it hurt, but I couldn’t make out a response.
“Carpin,” I said quickly. “You’re related to the Signal Hill bunch, aren’t you?”
“Hell yeah I am. That was my granddaddy.”
“Not that I want to win friends and influence people or anything, but your granddaddy was low-life scum of the earth. I’m surprised you never changed your name in shame. A sorrier cutthroat never walked,” I said, and hung up.
“Who’s the kid?” I asked Julie, immediately upon hanging up.
“Oh God,” Julie said. “I put her on the bus. I watched the bus leave that night. He’s lying. He can’t have her.”
“Have who?” Hank asked.
“Jessica.”
Isn’t it interesting how when you think you’ve got things pretty well nailed down, they start jumping around again? For me that normally doesn’t happen. I don’t like it much.
The room was still, but things were jumping.
She was about to lose it. I could tell. Another minute, maybe ten seconds, and she’d lose it for sure.
I reached out to her, grabbed her arm just as she was pushing herself up from the couch. Her wrists were bony and delicate, so I made sure not to break them. I’ve got a pretty good grip.
“Julie,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “you can tell us all about Jessica, and that’s probably a lot more important than any amount of money right now, but I want to know one thing first.”
I could see the terror in her eyes, the indecision. She looked toward Hank, who sat stock still.
“What?” She said.
“I have to know. The guy you called… The guy who helped you… Ernest Neil? He’s dead. It happened a few days before you and I met. Carpin said that you killed him. Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“Bill… I-no! I didn’t kill him. I haven’t killed anybody, ever- except- my parents.”
“You were away,” I said, “in rehab. You weren’t home when they were murdered.”
She was either going to hit me or start crying. I wished she’d do one or the other and get it over. I watched the war of conflicting emotions play itself out in her features. “I know,” she said, finally. “But I should have been there.”
“Bill told me about that,” Hank said. “If you’d been there, you’d have been dead too.”
“Do you know how Ernest Neil died?” I asked her.
“Of course I know,” she said. Her face was flushed, as I’d seen it only a few nights before after I’d awakened her from the nightmare. “He died in my arms.”
“Are you ready, Hank?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s saddle up,” I said.
The hammering rain had slackened down to a steady drizzle.
We all climbed back into Dock’s suburban.
“Which way are we headed?” Hank asked.
“North,” I said.
Julie took the front seat. Chevrolet makes Suburbans wide, and it seemed like a mile across to where she was sitting. That was okay. Just at the moment she wasn’t my number one pal.
Within ten minutes we were back on the Interstate, headed north and into the drab, gray curtain the world had become.
When we stopped at Hank’s place it was ostensibly for supplies, but when Hank caught on to my real why, he wasn’t having any of it.
“Goddammit, Bill. I’m going with you. I’m not staying here.”
“Thanks, Buddy,” I told him. “I appreciate everything, really, but you didn’t sign up for what we’re headed into. Hell, you’re about as bunged up as I am. You should take it easy for a few days. If I need you I’ll call.”
Hank stepped around me and dropped a case of water bottles into the back of the Suburban. There in the growing stack was also a couple of boxes of ammunition for the stack of rifles and shotguns in the rear cargo area.
Hank whistled to Dingo and made a motion with his arm. Dingo hopped up into the back, turned and regarded me and barked once.
“See,” Hank said. “Dingo agrees with me. We’re going.”
Up front Julie turned back my way and smiled.
I gave her my best withering frown. She laughed.
I was at first certain that Jessica was Julie’s daughter, only to find out differently. Julie had had a close friend named Lindsey, a high-dollar prostitute in Vegas. Lindsey had been murdered by one of her clients, a Silicon Valley millionaire turned playboy named Horace Farkner who spent nearly every weekend in Vegas when he should have been home with his wife and kids. Farkner had fallen into a fatal attraction for Julie’s friend back in the late 1990s and Julie was there for Jessica from the moment they both heard about Lindsey’s death. Apparently, when Lindsey demurred one time too many in the face of Farkner’s continuous pleas to run away with him, the man decided that if he couldn’t possess her then no one could. During a heated argument in which furniture was smashed and mirrors broken the man attempted to separate her head from her body with a six inch piece of shattered glass.
The five year-old half-Anglo, half-Samoan girl, had stayed with Julie from that night forward.
As we tore along the Interstate toward Dallas and Fort Worth, I did a little mental math. Jessica would be eleven years old now, or thereabouts. It was good information to plan with. Kids that age can think, and sometimes they can act.
On the outskirts of Fort Worth, I remembered something. I sent Julie and Hank into a Cracker Barrel restaurant just off the Interstate, found a pay phone for myself and started dialing.
I got Kathy on the first ring. When you live in a town as long as I had lived in Austin you get to know a lot of people. There might be a million people living in the city, but I’d found you couldn’t go anywhere without running into someone you knew. My friend Kathy was one of those people. I tended to bump into her around town and at the oddest of places, which in itself was passing strange, given Kathy’s profession. She was a librarian at the University of Texas Center for American History.
“Hello, Library.”
“Kathy, it’s Bill Travis.”
“Hi Bill Travis, what can I do for you today, since you’re not actively stalking me.”
“Hey,” I said. “Last time I looked up from my favorite bar stool you were coming in the door, so I wonder who has been stalking whom.”
“Touche. What’cha need, Bill?”
“A little research. Signal Hill. It was an oil boomtown up near Borger. The Texas Rangers shut the town down around 1927. There was a fellow named Carpin running half the town up there.”
“Carpin. Got it.”
“Good. I’d like to know when he died. Also, I’d like to know what happened after the town was shut down. Where all the money went. That sort of thing. I seem to remember something about a U.S. Marshal who went in there and never made it back out. Anything you can dig up would be helpful.”
“Okay, Bill. You gonna do me a favor some time?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Dinner.”
“Um. Okay. I’ll buy you dinner, Kathy. Should I wait a few days for the information?”
I could hear her flipping pages of some kind. Maybe she was reading about Indian incursions against the settlers or something.
“Nah,” she said. “Call me tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks, Kathy. You’re a peach.”
“I don’t like peaches. Can I be something else?”
“Okay, when I see you next you can pick your fruit.”
“Bye, Bill Travis.”
“Bye, Kathy.”
We hung up. I heard a bark and looked back toward the suburban. Dingo had her head out the driver’s window and her front paws on the steering wheel.
“Dingo,” I said. “You’re a clown.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Julie got up during dinner for a bathroom break. It was probably the only chance I’d get for a while to talk with Hank alone.
“Hank, either I’m the most gullible fellow you ever saw, or I’m missing something vitally important.”
“It’s both,” he said. “But what’s on your mind?”
“I feel like every move I make is the wrong one. Also I’ve got this itchy feeling on the back of my neck.”
“I know what you mean. My short hairs have been on end ever since those pot shots through my living room window.”
“So you understand me. I’m not going nuts.”
“I understand you, more than you know. And yeah, you’re pretty much a basket case, all right. She’s got a pretty short leash on you, Bill. Now don’t puff up like a toad. Any man-well, a lot of fellows would gladly trade places with you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s for sure.”
Outside the sky had turned a soft shade of purple with clouds thinning down to thin puffs. The sun was going down somewhere out of sight.
“You know, Hank, this might sound… different, but this is sort of what I dreamed my life would be like when I was a kid.”
“What? People shooting at you and houses blowing up in your face-correction, my face-and heading off into the dangerous unknown?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” Hank said, and sipped his coffee.
“So what’s the important thing I’m missing?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know, since you’re feeling so fine at the moment.”
I thought about it.
“Try me,” I said.
“Okay, hotshot,” Hank said, and looked off into space. “It’s what I was missing right up until we left your house today.”
“And that is?”
“Who are the cops that are following us?”
“What? Not again.”
“Hold on, there, Texas. As far as I can tell, they’re not Austin locals. I got one good look when we split up to make your last call. They’re feds. I’m almost sure of it.”
I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“You don’t look so good,” Hank said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t feel exactly wonderful.”
“Not what you wanted your life to be like?” he asked.
“Thank you, Mr. Sarcasm.”
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Let’s just move on, Bill. Let’s keep an eye on them and act like they’re not even there, for now. They may be following me, you know? That missing IRS agent?”
“I thought we weren’t talking about that,” I said.
“We’re not. Just bringing up possibilities.”
I noticed Hank’s eyes flick over my shoulder and then back to me.
“Julie?” I said.
He nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Mum’s the word.”
“Fine.”
A moment later I felt a delicate hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her and gave her my best smile as she sat down beside me.
On the way out of the restaurant, Hank tapped me on the shoulder and nodded. I glanced quickly where his eyes indicated, trying to be nonchalant, and saw them.
Two guys. One white, one black. They both had business suits on. One of the two-the white guy-was beefy, about two hundred and fifty pounds.
Feds.
I knew then what Hank meant. They exuded it like an aura.
We moved through Fort Worth and out the other side and up onto the wind-swept North Texas plains as night fell.
It was a dark night with a spread of stars over us and clear road ahead. Julie nuzzled into my shoulder, finding the most comfortable position for herself, and the most painful one for me. Such is life. I endured it for about twenty miles before shifting her slightly.
After an hour or so she awoke.
We passed through myriad small towns in the night and little communities with no name.
I heard snoring from the back seat and craned my neck. I’d thought it was Hank, but it was Dingo. Hank and I traded knowing nods.
My eyes were beginning to glaze by the time we made it to Dumas, Texas. We found a motel on the main drag, an Indian-run outfit that carried a light scent of curry, even outside.
Hank took the room next to me and the blond.
That night Julie and I made frantic love in the dark. We didn’t speak.
Several times during the night I awoke to get up and scan the parking lot. There was only one other vehicle, and it looked like it hadn’t moved from its spot in quite some time.
Finally, I was able to sleep the sleep of the just and had dreams of Julie, Hank and me in plaster casts. Dingo drove the Suburban and sang with Hank Williams, Jr.’s voice.
“Kathy, it’s Bill Travis.”
“Hi Bill Travis. You’re up early.”
“And you’re at work early. Did you even go home last night?”
“Of course. Contrary to popular belief, librarians do have a life.”
“But a quiet one,” I said.
“‘Tis true. ‘Tis true. Bill, that research you wanted me to do?”
“Yeah?”
“Interesting stuff.”
“Tell me more.”
“Well, for starters, there was a whole gang of people running that town up there, but you were right, two chiefly. Bryan ‘Whitey’ J. Walker and Matthew Carpin.”
“I know what happened to Walker. What about Carpin?”
“He went into hiding, then about ten years later he was suddenly legitimate. Made a killing racing horses. He was always watched, though. The J. Edgar Hoover crowd had his number.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. I looked over at Julie, still asleep under tousled covers. The light from the new day streamed through cracks between the window curtains.
“And money? According to the Amarillo Globe, in 1927 the two most profitable legitimate businesses were the sheriff’s office and the undertaker.”
“I’ll bet.”
“There’s more. You said something about a U.S. Marshal. There was one. He went into that den of thieves and was never seen again. I think that’s why Carpin was watched after all those years. I got copies of reports and letters from
the state archives. The FBI writing to the Governor’s office, demanding help with the continued investigation. Looks like they never found that poor man.”
“What was the marshal’s name, Kathy?”
“Jonathan Johannsen. They called him ‘Jack’, which was short for ‘Blackjack’.
“Thanks, Kathy. I owe you.”
“Sure do. Bye, Bill Travis.”
“Bye.”
I scanned the parking lot outside.
Nothing.
I got Julie up and by the time we were showered and cleaned up and ready to go, Hank and Dingo were sitting in the Suburban with the back flung open. Hank was tossing bacon strips into the air for Dingo to catch.
“Bacon?” I asked. “Where’d you get bacon?”
“Down the road. A little diner. Your kind of place, too.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Soul food,” he said and tossed another strip of fat bacon into the air. Dingo gobbled it down instantly.
“Oh,” I said. “You already had breakfast, then?”
“Nope. Waitin’ for you two. Had to feed the dog, though.”
“Okay,” Julie said. “I need coffee. Let’s go.”
We parked in front on a wall that was covered with a mass of ivy. The name of the restaurant was “Jerry’s Place”, an ancient brick and clapboard affair that looked as though it had started off life as a 1920s gas station and had gone through a long series of abandonments before finding its highest and best use as a soul food restaurant. The front door was little more than a couple of clapboards grafted onto steel mesh with baling wire, but the blue paint looked fairly fresh. It didn’t come off on my hands.
The hours were prominently displayed:
OPEN EARLY — CLOSE LATE
Walking into the place was like coming home. It had that day-old bread smell to it that is common among such establishments, but beyond that it had a shabbiness and a Spartan utility that combined in such a way as to command comfort. There were checkered tablecloths, though they were covered in thick clear plastic that had molded itself into a permanent shape, and smooth, straight-backed hardwood chairs. Also the lighting was slightly dim. We passed a table that had a box of yellowed dominoes on it that looked older than myself.