Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1)

by James L. Weaver

  Flickers of yellow moved through the front windows but she kept moving forward. What was she doing? It reminded her of those crappy slasher movies she sometimes watched with Mom. They made fun of the bimbos who just had to find the source of the commotion. Blood dripping through the ceiling? Hmmm, let’s go upstairs and look. Home alone in the dark, a loud thump comes from the basement. Better go investigate. Yet here she stood, being that bimbo.

  Her mother’s voice saying “curiosity killed the cat” rang in her head, yet Halle crept along the tree line of the clearing, approaching the house from a blind spot on the side. As she reached the front porch, she glanced to the pickup. Two pairs of feet stuck out of the truck bed. Her heart stuck in her throat and her hand shot to her mouth. Oh my God! There are dead people in that truck. Then one of them raised a leg and spat a rattling fart.

  Every fiber screamed at her to get the hell out of there. Instead, she slid to the sagging porch, carefully setting her weight toward the edges where the rotting wood was best supported and less likely to groan and give her away. She inched to the window.

  Inside, two figures worked elbow to elbow amongst tables of pots, tubes and beakers, dressed in yellow plastic suits she recognized from the movies whenever someone waded through hazardous waste. They wore gas masks under the hoods and one swung a hammer, smashing something on the table. The other one grabbed handfuls or red crystals and weighed them in quart-sized Ziploc bags. With her attention fixed on the crystals, she failed to notice the figure doing the hammering had stopped and now stared straight at her.

  Halle’s heart thundered, and her face grew hot and flushed. The man with the hammer pulled back the hood and removed the gas mask, his face crunched in disbelief, as if he needed an unimpeded vision to believe what he saw before him. She recognized him and had a pretty good idea the content of those baggies wasn’t rock candy.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Willie Banks mouthed. He moved toward the front door and Halle ran like a bat out of hell past the back of the house and into the woods.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The manager told Jake it would take them a little while to get Stony situated in his room. She suggested he hang out in the waiting room or go get something to eat. Outside, he soaked in the sun when his cell rang. Dwight.

  “What do you have?” Jake asked.

  “Did you know some of this shit is flagged by the FBI? The FBI, Caldwell.”

  Interesting. “So did you get it?”

  “Yeah, but this wipes our slate clean. In fact, you should be paying me with whatever proceeds you’re gettin’ from whatever the hell it is you’re doing.”

  “Come on, Dwight. Just give me the info and we’re even.”

  “Okay, Marion Holdings is the one the Feds flagged. It’s an ownership group with a shitload of properties including a chain of restaurants, bars, car washes, convenience stores, warehouses and a car dealership.”

  “What dealership?” Jake asked.

  He heard a shuffle of papers. “Langston Motors in Sedalia. This holding company also owns title on the Global Distribution Center you mentioned.”

  “Why was it flagged by the Feds?”

  “I had to hack into the FBI database to do it and you can’t hang around there too long. You can only bounce your signal around so many times. Best I could see it was for concerns with drugs and money laundering. The thing is, the FBI files are all about Marion Holdings. Nothing about this Global Distribution Center.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense,” Jake said.

  “I see it all the time. The spectrum of competency in the FBI is broad. Everything was flagged except for the Global Distribution Center. It’s a new site in the last six months. Doesn’t look like they’ve either put two and two together, or done another search since the new site came into the picture. Gotta love the efficiency of our government.”

  “What about Shane Langston? He’s the owner of Langston Motors.”

  “Langston Motors? Hell, he’s the principal of the holding company. He owns all of it. Guy’s a freaking millionaire.”

  “You found it that easy?”

  “Easy? Hell no. I had to look through six different databases to connect the dots. You’re lucky I have OCD. Doubt anyone else could’ve found it. We even now?”

  “Yeah, you did good, Dwight. Stay away from the casinos.”

  He checked his watch. He had about an hour to kill so decided to head over to the warehouse. His time was running out with Keats. If he couldn’t get to Langston or chickened out of killing him, maybe he could come up with something to hang Langston out to dry.

  #

  Minutes later, he turned into the empty lot of Global Distribution Center. Jake followed the side road around the corner of the warehouse, heading toward the back.

  He got out of the truck and checked the back door. Still locked. He checked the door frame but couldn’t see any alarm contacts, and, given the age of the building, decided to take a chance it wasn’t wired. He shoved his Glock into his waistband and pulled a sledgehammer from the back of the truck. With a grunt and a swing, he cracked off the doorknob, ready to bolt if sirens sounded. He pushed open the door and examined the frame. No wires, no alarm.

  The door opened into a small maintenance shop. A few workbenches were covered with tools and an overhead hoist hung above a grease spot on the floor. With nothing of interest there, Jake headed through the door on the opposite wall. It opened to a single, vast expanse, dark save for light filtering through cobwebbed windows set along the roofline. The lone occupant of the warehouse, a large John Deere tractor, rested along the west wall with an office area toward the front.

  He rummaged through the office and found nothing of interest except a thick layer of dust on the desks and chairs. He turned to leave when a muffler rumbled outside and the large bay door began rolling up. His slid behind the open office door, peering out to the warehouse floor through the crack. Seconds later, a black panel van drove inside and blocked his view of the tractor. The garage door screeched down, taking out the flood of sunlight. Jake slid the Glock from his waistband and held it by his leg, adrenaline surging.

  A bulky Hispanic man dressed in jeans and a beige jacket climbed out of the passenger side and walked around the front. He spoke in Spanish to the driver then climbed into the cab of the John Deere. The tractor fired up, its engine echoing in the empty warehouse. Over the top of the van, Jake watched the tractor roll forward a few feet and stop. The driver’s door squealed open and the man in the tractor climbed down. More doors creaked, probably the back of the van, followed by the scrape of dragging metal. Jake closed his dry mouth and he prayed they wouldn’t come this way.

  A few minutes later, the scraping metal sounded again followed by van doors slamming shut. Back in the tractor, the Hispanic man reversed it to its original spot. He got back in the truck, the bay door opened and they were gone. Jake waited until the door closed and the sound of the van faded into the distance.

  He emerged from behind the door, pointed the Glock and eased into the warehouse. Empty. Nothing but him and the tractor. What the hell were they moving it for? He crossed the warehouse and stood by the huge tractor tires. He pulled out his cell phone and turned on the flashlight feature. The bright LED lit up the dirty floor and revealed the source of the scraping sound. A large, orange grate which rested underneath the tractor tires. Jake shined the light through the gaps to an empty trough. Probably a drain for washing down equipment.

  He climbed into the tractor and fired it up. He’d never driven one and it took him a minute to figure out the controls. Those guys didn’t move this beast for the hell of it. Something must lay underneath. He managed to roll the tractor forward a few feet then killed the engine. Climbing down, he wrested the bulky grate from the floor without throwing out his back.

  Inside the empty trough, a rectangle shape outlined the metal with a small, circular ring at the top and a hinge on the opposite side. He knelt on the floor and yanked the ring. The metal
raised on the hinge revealing a compartment, about three feet long and a foot wide. Jake whistled at the contents.

  Inside, clear plastic bags of white powder glistened. Probably not baby powder. A cheap, black-leather duffel bag sat in the space. Jake leaned down and unzipped the top. Strapped bricks of dollar bills. He thumbed through the pile. Maybe fifty thousand. Now what the hell should he do?

  Langston owned the warehouse and this had to be one of his stashes. Jake should take the drugs and the money and get the hell out of there, but what would he do if he got stopped by the cops, several kilos of what he assumed to be cocaine in his truck? He left the drugs in the trench and grabbed the duffel bag. Heck, he needed the money more than Langston and considered the find the spoils of war.

  Jake set the duffel bag to the side, closed the lid and wrestled the grate back in place. He clambered up the ladder to the cab to back the tractor up, but figured he had just as good a chance of driving the thing through the warehouse wall. Leave well enough alone. Instead, he grabbed a rag, wiped down everywhere he touched and ran out the back door with the duffel bag, picking up his sledgehammer along the way. A minute later, he rolled out of the parking lot with the fifty grand locked in the tool box on his truck.

  Now what? He had Langston’s money, but what about the drugs? He headed back toward Hospice, searching the shops on the way. Finding Bigfoot would have been easier than finding a pay phone. Spotting one at the edge of a dilapidated strip mall, he called in an anonymous tip to the police, giving them the location of the warehouse and where to look. He wiped the phone down with a rag and drove away with a grin on his face. A rare win for the good guys.

  #

  By the time Jake got back to Hospice, Stony slept. The room was homey, with brown, threadbare carpet and wallpaper with flowers and vines. Sepia maybe, who knew. He never claimed to be an interior decorator. A basic dresser sat along the wall at the foot of the bed with a mid-sized, flat-panel television on one end of the wood. A ceiling fan rotated lazily overhead. Jake plopped in a recliner, running a visual circle between the window with a view of the sun-drenched parking lot, the spinning blades of the fan and his father who lay on his side, his face crunched in agony.

  A heavy-set nurse in pale blue scrubs floated silently into the room, checking the IV hooked into his father’s hand. After writing some things on a chart, she slid over to the chair where Jake sprawled, interrupting his attempts to come up with a way he might reveal to the cops Langston’s ties with the warehouse.

  “Hi,” she said in a soft, practiced manner. “I’m Judy and I’ll be looking after your father at night. If you need anything, let us know.” She patted Stony’s leg and slipped out of the room. Overall, Jake had to admit, an impressive display by the staff. Regular hospitals either acted like they didn’t care with a calculated indifference or they over-schmoozed to make you think they did. The rhythmic rocking of the chair and the cool breeze from the ceiling fan hypnotized him and he dozed off.

  He held an absurdly large fishing pole in his hand at the banks of the pond behind their house. The rod as thick as a small sapling and the reel as big as his head. A blood-red line dove into the murky water.

  Across the dock, Nicky sat on the edge fishing, his feet dangling in the water. His thick mane of black hair hung on his shoulders and he bobbed his head back and forth like he jammed to a tune. A needle gleamed in the sunlight next to him.

  “Nicky,” Jake yelled, but all that came out was a tiny squeak. A chill ran down Jake’s back as he realized what day this was even though he wasn’t here when it happened. The dock, the needle, the smile on Nicky’s face.

  Nicky’s head continued to bob to the music in his head. He picked up the syringe, examining the icy contents. Jake tried to move his feet, but they were buried to his ankles in the mud. The rod sang and burned in his hands; the buzzing of the cicadas grew in volume, every sense amplified a hundred fold. A sweaty sheen covered Nicky’s brow. Even across the lake, Jake could smell the heroin in the syringe, his panic rising.

  Nicky’s head stopped bobbing and the smile disappeared from his face. The song in his head had ended. He set the syringe on the dock and dropped his fishing pole in the water, peeling off his T-shirt and undoing the belt holding up his ratty, stained jeans. As he wrapped it around his skinny bicep and cinched it tight, Stony sauntered down the hill from the house toward the pond, a square bottle of Jack Daniels swinging by his side.

  “Dad,” Jake yelled, this time finding his voice. “Dad, help!”

  Simultaneously, his father and brother put their index fingers to their lips, shushing Jake. Nicky picked up the needle. Jake screamed and twisted, pulled and tugged. Nicky put the needle to his arm and pierced the bulging blue vein.

  Nicky’s thumb hovered over the plunger and he looked over to Jake. Sadness and gut-wrenching anguish draped his face. “Got no choice, little bro. You left me here to die.”

  Nicky pushed down. His brown eyes rolled back in his head, which lolled back and forth. His mouth gaped in a knowing grin as he lay gently back on to the weathered pine boards.

  At the same moment, the line on Jake’s rod and reel jerked, the top of the rod bending impossibly. Jake used all his strength to crank the handle, bringing in the line a few inches at a time. Across the way, Nicky coughed and twitched. The more his older brother sputtered and gagged, the faster Jake cranked the reel.

  A figure rode below the surface of the pond, following the tiny wake from the thick fishing line as it sucked through the water. Jake spun the reel, drawing in the line as if Nicky’s life hung in the balance.

  With his catch mere feet from the bank, Nicky twitched one last time and the light disappeared from his eyes as if someone flipped a switch. Light to dark. Life to death. Fade to black. At the same moment, the figure launched itself out of the water and landed face to face with Jake. His father, waterlogged and motley skinned, the green lake water filling his eyes, a mouth full of jagged teeth and black ooze.

  “It should’ve been you, Jake,” Stony said.

  Jake yelled and jumped out of the recliner, frantically swiping away at imaginary threads of the dream. Nurse Judy rushed in.

  “Everything okay, Mr. Caldwell?”

  “Yeah,” Jake replied, sweaty and shaky. “Everything’s fine.”

  The dream rushed back and his mind’s eye saw Nicky dead on the dock. His mother’s grave with her fine blue dress draped over the headstone. The Dad-thing from the lake camped in Stony’s chair in the house, swinging a thick lead pipe in a scaly, muscular arm.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “No.” He grabbed his keys off the dresser and left without a glance back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Halle ran for her life down a rutted dirt path leading from the house and through the thick Ozark woods. Overgrown branches tore at her clothes and scratched her sun-kissed skin. The path narrowed, then serpentined, ever covered in a thick canopy of green. Sunlight penetrated the growth in splotches, lighting her escape route. Limbs cracked and snapped as they crashed through the brush behind her.

  Though her heart thundered with panic and frightened tears blurred her vision, she widened the gap from her pursuers. Hours of blasting around the track at school finally paid off. Another half mile to reach Highway 83 where there might be some traffic. Rounding a hook in the path leading to the final straightway stretch, she kicked in the afterburners and her hope snapped away with an agonizing pop in the hamstring of her right leg. She stumbled and fell, biting into dirt and leaves. As she tumbled to a stop, the shouts grew closer.

  Eyes darting to either side looking for cover, she scrambled to her feet and hobbled into the brush. She crawled in a few yards, found a protective oak and pulled herself to the other side away from the path. Her back bit into the sharp edges of the bark as she slid low and slumped against the base. One hand grabbed her injured leg, the other clamped against her mouth to stifle her frantic panting. She reached for her cell phone, then remembere
d it wasn’t there. She’d give anything to call Mom. Would she ever see her again?

  “Where’d she go?” the approaching voice said, gulping air between words, heavy feet pounding the ground. Sounded like Willie Banks.

  “She’s going for the highway,” another said in a heavy twanged accent. “Keep going. We gotta get her or it’s gonna be our asses.”

  The footsteps thumped on the path and she huddled in the brush. God, what could she do? She couldn’t stay here because they’d come back. She couldn’t go back to the abandoned house because the others might be there. The Cleary house up the hill on Poor Boy Road lay a good half mile away and would be tough going in the heavy woods on an injured leg. But what options did she have other than to dive deeper into the Ozark woods? With a whimper, she pushed to her feet, using the old tree for support, her hamstring screaming.

  She slid to the side and eyed the steep hill she needed to climb when a hand grabbed her by the throat. Steely fingers bit into her flesh and shoved her up against the tree. The dark eyes of her attacker bore into hers, the plastic suit crinkling. A wet, red tongue flicked over ragged teeth. The man pulled his face close to hers, his eyes wild and crazy.

  “Gotcha, bitch.”

  #

  Thirty-five miles away in Sedalia, Jake burst out the front door of Hospice House and gulped the fresh air greeting him. He clasped the back of his neck with both hands, heart thundering like he’d run a marathon. He’d heard about people having panic attacks. If this wasn’t one, it did a pretty damn good imitation. He would have been on the road back to Kansas City in the next sixty seconds had Maggie not strolled across the sparsely-filled parking lot toward him.

  Her strong, bronzed arms swung by her sides, hair bound in a French braid draped over her shoulder. Just her presence brought Jake back into focus. Her face scrunched with worry as she drew closer.