“We might be going about this the wrong way.”
“Why’d you say that?”
James rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think these kids have enough money for bus tickets to Dallas, let alone California. Pepper couldn’t save a dime. Every time she got any money, it’d burn a hole in her pocket until she spent it.”
“Maybe that little shit Cale had money.”
“He might, but do you think he’d have enough for two tickets?”
Ned drew a deep breath and thought. “It’s the only thing we can do right now. If they hitchhiked, they could be anywhere. I’m hoping for the bus right now, and we’ll see while I study on it.”
“What if we split up? One of us tries the bus station, and the other’n follows the highway. Let me do that while you hit the stations. They might have started out thumbing, and then decided to catch a bus, or the other way around.”
James watched Ned’s face. Then the old constable nodded. “A-ite. I need to move. I’ll follow the highway and you check the station in Dallas. We can keep in touch calling Miss Becky and leaving messages about where we are. We can meet somewhere along the way. Find our girl, Ned, before something happens.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Anna’s name came through the Motorola in her car. She picked up the microphone. “Go ahead, Cody.”
“Ned’s gone for a while and we got a theft report out of Center Springs. Run out there and talk to Oak Peterson. He owns the store with the gas pumps out front. Let me know what you find out.”
It aggravated Anna to no end to get off the trail she was on, but it wouldn’t hurt to be gone for a couple of hours. Chisum receded quickly as she followed the wet highway north through the country. A sign appeared through the rain, pointing the way to Center Springs over the new dam. Rain dripped from the needles of young pines recently planted along the two-lane road.
She emerged onto the dam, but it was hard to see the entire lake basin through the gray curtain of rain. All construction had stopped, and the dragline still rested far down below. Sanders Creek, stripped bare of vegetation, was already out of its ancient banks, and spreading. She wondered if the owners had good insurance, because it wouldn’t be long before the heavy machinery was drowned in the rising waters.
She passed the hill where Ned’s grandfather once lived. The house overlooking the creek bottom was long gone. Less than a mile further, the cotton gin belched smoke into the gray sky as it burned stems, leaves, and lint. The new road she followed dead-ended at the highway, directly in front of Oak’s store.
A handful of farmers in overalls and khaki pants sat out of the rain on benches under the porte cochere covering one side of the two gas pumps. Instead of driving under the shelter, Anna parked several feet from the covered area and walked through the falling weather.
“Hello, gentlemen.”
To a man, they all waved or said howdy. One of the farmers leaning back in a cane-bottom chair dropped it to all fours and touched the brim of his hat. She could feel their eyes on her as she passed, but it was part of being an attractive woman in uniform, and as common as men staring at her chest instead of making eye contact.
She stepped through the wooden screen busy with flies. Even if he’d been standing in the middle of a dozen men, Anna would have known Oak by his description. He was behind the register, a notepad held barely an inch from his good eye.
He scratched through gray hair that hadn’t been introduced to a comb or brush in months, and angled his head. “What can I do you for, ma’am?”
She glanced around the dark store. “Sheriff Parker sent me over while Mr. Ned’s out of town. Said you were robbed.”
He felt the countertop, and laid the pad down. Anna wondered how he could read the chicken scratches on the Big Chief pad. He dropped a yellow pencil beside it. “I was.”
“At gunpoint?”
“Oh, no ma’am, ’round here, somebody’d get shot for that, if they was anybody around. Most of those boys out there either got a pistol in their pocket, or a gun of some kind in their truck. Nobody in their right mind would come in here waving one around.
“It happened when I was back ’ere in the post office. Y’know I cain’t see good, but Cale Westlake was loafing around for a good while, and I believe he slipped around here and took money out of my cash box.”
“When was this?”
“Day or so ago.”
Anna saw the huge cast-iron cash register. “Didn’t it ring when he opened it?”
“Why, no. That’s small change in the register. I keep the bigger bills under the counter there in a cigar box. Cale’s been in here since he was little, so he knows where I keep the larger bills. I didn’t notice ’til I had to make change a little bit ago.”
Anna took a slender notepad from her pocket and pulled the cap off a Bic pen. “Can you describe Cale Westlake?”
Oak appeared surprised. “You don’t know him, do you?”
She tried not to stare at his wandering left eye. “No, I don’t.”
“Why, he’s the Baptist preacher’s son. Teenager with shaggy hair like them hippie kids grow today.”
“A kid stole money from you?”
“Yes, ma’am. When I come out from behind the post office window, he was gone. I didn’t know the money went with him ’til a little while ago, when I went to make change for Richard Sanderson out there. I swear, I wish he wouldn’t come in here with them fifty-dollar bills. I gen’ly don’t count the money ever night, ’cause it’s so hard to see and my head hurts bad enough from it at the end of the day as it is, without counting money.”
“Where does he live?”
Oak pointed back down the road. “Beside the Baptist church, but he ain’t there. You passed it if you came over the new dam road.”
“Where is he if he’s not home?”
“They say he run off with Pepper Parker, Ned’s granddaughter.”
Anna slipped the pen back in her shirt pocket. “You don’t know how much he took?”
“About a hunnerd and sixty dollars, I reckon.” He angled the pad around so she could see it and thumped it with a yellowed nail. “I always write down my sales on this, so’s I’ll have a record.”
Anna put two and two together and returned to her car to call in and tell both Cody and Ned that the kids were traveling with a pocket full of money. Then she went back to work on finding out what happened to the businessmen.
She didn’t pay any attention to Marty, John T., and Freddy sitting on the domino hall’s porch, talking with the other loafers about the runaways.
Chapter Twenty-five
The rain stayed on top of Ned all the way from Chisum to Dallas. Water stood in the middle of every plowed field, and the grassy bar ditches along both sides of the highway ran full. Swollen creeks threatened to escape their banks, evidence of even heavier rain only an hour west of Chisum.
As darkness approached, he stayed below the speed limit, uncomfortable with the increased traffic near the city. Highway 80 led him past the Sands Motel in the easternmost outskirts of Dallas. Only twenty years before, even that area was under cultivation by the children living at the Buckner Orphan’s Home. Now, it was bright with the new motel, a drive-in theater, and a huge department store called Sage.
When he passed the cutoff for Fair Park, the site for Dallas’ annual State Fair of Texas, gloomy low-hanging clouds hid the skyline and the red Mobil flying horse that was usually visible for miles.
He talked to himself as lightning fractured the clouds and thunder rolled through the city’s concrete canyons. People hurried along the sidewalks, some sheltered under umbrellas and others with wet newspapers held overhead.
“I’god, if them fellers would wear hats like they’re supposed to, they wouldn’t be a-runnin’ with wet papers on their heads.”
Another light caught him in front
of the Adolphus. The formerly grand hotel built in 1912 was so famous that Babe Ruth and Queen Elizabeth II once stayed there. Times hadn’t been good to the building or downtown Dallas.
Before the light could change, a cocky black youngster in a blue, wide-brimmed hat rapped the silver-covered head of an ebony cane against Ned’s window. “Hey, pops, you got a light?”
Ned rolled his window down and saw an unlit cigarette in the boy’s hand. “No, and you’re too young to smoke. How old are you, anyway?”
“Old enough to do what I want.” Tucking the cigarette back into his shirt pocket, the boy leaned in. “You look like you right off the farm. You need some action tonight?”
“Action?” Ned judged him to be no more than fourteen, the same age as Top and Pepper.
“Yeah, action. A date…a woman.”
“Lordy mercy.” Ned was no stranger to Dallas pimps, but in all the times he’d brought prisoners to the Dallas jail, he’d never seen one so young yet hard and experienced from life on the streets. Ned’s spirit fell when he realized his grandkids weren’t prepared for the big city where people like this were waiting for kids fresh from small towns. “You get outta here before I take that cane away from you and blister your little ass with it.”
Unused to such a direct challenge, the kid’s eyes drifted to the gold badge on Ned’s shirt. “You ain’t doin’ shit, old man.” He tapped the brim of his hat with the cane and sauntered back onto the sidewalk and into the hotel.
Knowing where his temper would lead him if he followed the little smart-mouth inside, Ned decided it was best to go on. The light changed and he accelerated in the sluggish traffic. After a left on South Lamar, he found a parking spot at the curb outside of the brightly lit Greyhound station. Digging change from his pocket, Ned fed the wet parking meter and stepped through the revolving doors.
Unlike Chisum’s, the once-classy Dallas Greyhound station built after WWII was buzzing with activity as travelers passed through, loaded with suitcases and paper sacks. Now the word seedy came to mind. The cracked and dirty floor was pocked with missing tiles. Dingy light fixtures, cut and torn seats, grimy walls badly in need of a fresh coat of paint, and an unidentifiable, musty odor all served to drain the spark out the proud old building.
It was loud and full of scruffy, long-haired kids staying out of the weather. The number of traveling families was noticeably lower because the kids’ mere presence ran off the higher class customers, who in turn took to the skies and Braniff Airlines with their sparkling, sharply dressed stewardesses. To keep pace, the bus line introduced its own version of stewardesses who served sandwiches and light meals on longer trips, but it was too little and too late.
Ned’s spirits fell at the sight of so many travelers, and he realized Pepper could have gone through the station without being noticed. His gaze wandered through the station to linger on what he took for an Indian in a lone chair against a dingy cinder block wall. The taut, muscular young man in his early twenties had hair down past his shoulders. Appearing to doze with his head against the wall, his folded arms rose and fell as he breathed.
The white kids dressed like their idea of Indians, and the only Indian in the station looked for all the world like a down-on-his-luck cowboy.
An elderly black man with a dust pan and broom fought a losing battle to keep up with the trash and cigarette butts on the floor. Ned touched his shoulder. “Excuse me, old timer?”
The janitor raised up from his broom to see the little constable’s star on Ned’s shirt, then the pistol in the holster on his hip. He ducked his head, reminding Ned of Old Jules, the elevator man back in the Chisum courthouse. “Yes, boss.”
He held out Pepper’s photo. “Have you seen this little gal come through here in the last couple of days?”
The janitor paused. “She looks like most of these kids passin’ through.”
“I ’magine.”
“Nawsir, I ain’t seen her, but that don’t mean nothin’. I keeps my head down. She might have come through. Sometimes one’ll stay outside while another’n buys the tickets, and then they go ’round the outside and board that-a-way.”
Ned held out Cale’s photo. “How ’bout him?”
“Nawssir. Him neither.”
“All right then. Thank you.” Ned slipped a folded dollar into the old man’s hand.
“Thank you, sir.”
When he was sure they weren’t around, Ned threaded his way through people, legs, and luggage to join a line waiting to buy tickets.
A young man with long hair and the brightest clothes Ned had ever seen saw the Stetson and revolver. He raised a pair of granny glasses with blue lenses. “Hey man, you can’t be the fuzz, you look like my Papaw.”
Ned took in the long hair, the beard, beads, and sandals. He wondered if there was anyone in Dallas under the age of twenty-one who was respectful of their elders. “Fuzz?”
“Yeah, man. Like, pigs.”
“Pigs?”
“Dude, are you some hayseed or something?”
That was a word Ned understood, and he bristled. “What do you want, boy?”
“Nothin, man. Don’t go all ape on me. I’m diggin’ the gun and hat’s, all. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Nope. Chisum.”
“So you traveling?”
“No. I’m looking for a runaway girl.” Ned figured it wouldn’t hurt to show him the photos. He held them out. “Have you seen either of these two?”
The hippie examined the pictures over the top of his glasses with exaggerated facial expressions. Ned recognized a smell coming from his clothes and realized he’d been smoking marijuana. “Haven’t seen either one of them, but I wouldn’t rat her out anyway.”
“She might be in trouble, and I want to take her home.”
“She could be anywhere in this town, Gramps. She might have crashed at somebody’s pad when she got here, or bummed a ride or, don’t freak out, but maybe she’s somewhere on the make to pocket some bread. Who knows?”
“Don’t you speak English?”
The hippie spoke quietly. “All right, what I mean is she could be anywhere, staying with friends, or if she’s that kind of girl, she could be whoring to make enough cash to get by.”
Ned flashed.
He balled the hippie’s vest in his fist and pushed him out of the line. The guy’s sandals slipped on the tile floor as he struggled not to fall.
“She ain’t no whore! She’s just a baby!”
“Chill out, man. I didn’t mean nothing. What’s it to you?”
The fear in his eyes was enough to back Ned off. He glanced around to see passengers watching in fascination, but none made any move to get involved. It was Dallas. The expressionless Indian against the wall barely opened his eyes, and then closed them again.
Ned let go, breathing hard. The exertion caused his stomach wound to ache, and he suddenly felt weak. “She’s my granddaughter.”
“Aw man, I’m sorry. I’m sayin’ man, that there are some dudes in here that wait on young girls to come through. See that cat over there?”
Ned cut his eyes toward a young black man. Unlike the hippie, he was dressed in bell-bottom jeans and a tee-shirt. His eyes were hidden by shades.
“He’s a pimp. You know what that is, right, being the fuzz and all? He picks up one or two girls a week, on their way through to somewhere else. He gives ’em money or feeds ’em and gives ’em someplace to crash. He turns ’em on to heroin and pretty quick they work for him. You’re in the city, man. It’s that way.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Man, I been here for over a week, trying to bum enough bread for a ticket to San Francisco.” He grinned. “I guess I’ll have to thumb it, though, ’cause all the money I score goes for weed and the munchies.”
Ned didn’t bother to ask him for an explanat
ion. He started for the pimp who saw Ned heading in his direction. He jumped to his feet and quick-stepped outside.
Ned followed. “Hey, wait a minute, feller!”
Outside, the young man broke into a jog and disappeared into the dark alley behind the bus station. Ned followed much slower. In the dim lights, he saw another alley intersecting the first, half a block away. Polished shoes splashing in the stream of water flowing toward the gutters, he rounded the corner to find three men waiting with knives.
Ned stopped, holding the butt of his pistol. “Don’t.”
“What do you want old man?”
“I’m trying to find a missing child, that’s all.”
They snickered. Backlit by a yellow security light above a door, the pimp stepped forward. “So are we.” The heavy mist caught in their hair and reflected the light in tiny sparkles.
“Careful, boys. This six-shooter ain’t afraid of them knives.”
The pimp’s smile slipped. “I ain’t your boy!”
The barrel of a pistol jammed into the back of his head told Ned he’d made still another terrible mistake. He was about to die in a Dallas alley, and Pepper would be lost forever.
“This pistol’s in charge, old man.” The voice was dark and rich. “Don’t you pull that piece, or I’ll blow your brains all over this alley.”
Ned’s mouth went dry, but instead of feeling afraid, heat prickled his face. “Don’t want no trouble.”
The pimp slid forward in a loose shuffle. “Let me see that picture you’s wavin’ around in there.”
The man holding the gun to his head gave it a shove. “Turn loose of that pistol and give him the picture.”
Slowly so as not to aggravate the gunman, Ned took Pepper’s likeness from his shirt pocket and held it out. As he did, he felt the snap break on his holster and his pistol slip out.
The pimp flipped the photograph from Ned’s fingers. He turned it toward the yellow light from a bulb above the nearest door. “Nice piece.”
Ned’s forehead throbbed. “No call to talk about her like that. She’s a kid.”
Dark Places Page 10