by Bill WENHAM
If I was ‘Hon’, ‘Lover’ or even ‘Toy Boy’, then things were great between us or she was trying her best to wheedle something out of me. ‘Buster’, Pal’, or ‘Buddy Boy’ meant I was skating on some pretty thin ice here. It was when she called me ‘Spicer’ that I knew I’d fallen right through and was now up to my neck in some very deep crap! Ellie was very predictable. Her endearments were like a set of traffic lights and the very same rules applied.
Green, meant go right ahead, Lover. Amber, proceed with caution, Buddy Boy, and Red? Well, Red meant if you keep on the way you’re going, Spicer, then Lord help you!
Arguments between us were rare, rarely serious and never lasted more than a few hot words back and forth between us for a minute or two. Ellie never held grudges either, nor did she bring up things that had been the meat of an argument weeks before, as some people do. You’ll notice I say ‘people’ although what I really mean is women. Ellie has taught me to be a very diplomatic guy as well.
I’ve also learned to be a graceful loser since we’ve been going around together. If I value my relationship with her, which of course I do, loser seems to be my most normal and comfortable status these days, at least with Ellie. I don’t mind a bit though.
With Ellie, there are some excellent fringe benefits of losing an argument to her. So good in fact it’s even worth starting an argument, just to be able to lose it! Ellie has such a wonderful way to make me feel good again after losing. Come to think of it, under those circumstances, I just love losing!
All guys should be so lucky!
Chapter Twenty Four
The part of my plan I didn’t tell Ellie totally about was the part where the Butler found the Jeep. There was a very good reason for that. It was because I didn’t have a clue about it myself yet. I just knew our pursuers needed to find the Jeep in order for us to stay in touch with them and of course, them with us as well.
I pondered on this for the longest time without getting very far with it. When I finally figured out what to do, I couldn’t believe how goddamned simple the solution was.
They didn’t have to find the Jeep at all, or even us either for that matter, did they? Of course not, all they really needed to find was the bug!
I’d realized, after a lot of brain pounding, it was the bug they we tracking, not us personally. I realized too, finally, it shouldn’t make any difference which vehicle it was in, or even if it was in a vehicle at all. They were obviously only keeping track of the bug and where it was located. That was all. Our problem was, so far, we, the Jeep and the bug had always been together, ever since we’d picked the car up at the dealership.
Once I realized all they’d been tracking was the bug, everything changed.
I filled Ellie in immediately about what I’d figured out.
“So, Lover, you’re saying we could relocate the damned thing just about anywhere then. Is that right?”
“Right, Babe, anywhere at all,” I said. “Theoretically, we could pop it under their own car and have them driving around in circles for the rest of their lousy lives.”
As she thought about what I’d told her for a minute or two I waited patiently. I now knew from experience when Ellie thought about something, the results were usually well worth waiting for and listening to.
“I’ve got an idea, Hon. But we’re going to need some tape and a ‘Ziploc’ type of bag,” she said.
“Go on,” I encouraged her.
“You weren’t planning on staying here in San Antonio, were you?” she asked.
“Hell, no, Babe, as soon as we’ve got this idea of yours, whatever it is, set up, we’re outta here,” I told her.
“Good,” she said. “Then this is what we do, if you agree. The way I see it, you write him a note telling him where we plan to be next. And where is that, by the way, Hon?”
“As they say in the TV shows, Babe,” I said with a spread armed flourish, “You’re on your way to Vegas!”
“Vegas, eh? Okay, the note says Vegas then or whatever. We give them a date, a time and the location of our next stop and we put the note in the bag with the bug,” she said.
“What’s the bag for?” I asked. Dumb question!
“To keep it all waterproof, of course. Do I have to think of everything?” she said smugly.
“Okay, smart ass, and then what?” I growled.
“We put it in a place where they can easily find it…” she paused dramatically. “And then we sit back and observe them from a distance,” she added with a grin.
“Observe them and tail them! I love it, Babe,” I told her, and then I had a thought too. “One thing though. It’s close to twelve hundred miles from here to Vegas. That’s way too much to try to do in one leg of the trip. Especially tailing someone. I think we should break it up in say…Hang on a minute, Hon,” I said, as I dragged an AAA map of the Southwestern States out of the Jeep’s glove compartment. I was glad right then that I’d picked up as many maps as I could when we’d set out for Florida. You can never have too many maps. “I think that we should shoot for Stockton, Texas first. It’s about 300 miles but all on the one Interstate. What do you think?”
“I see a problem there, Sunshine,” she said. ‘Sunshine’, I thought. I wonder whereabouts in the traffic light system that one belongs? “Don’t forget once we do this, we’ll no longer have the bug, okay? If we lose them now, we’ve really lost them.”
“I’ve thought about that too, Sweetie,” I said. “If we do what I’m thinking, it is unlikely they’ll spot us. They’ll be looking for a Jeep, Hon.”
“And unless you hadn’t noticed, Buster, that’s what we’re driving,” she said sarcastically. “They’re hardly likely to miss a goddamned Jeep sitting on their tail now, are they?”
“Except it won’t be a Jeep, Babe,” I said, grinning at her. “It will be you that’ll be sitting on their tail, but driving a rental car.”
“A rental car?” Ellie echoed.
“Right, Babe, two cars,” I said. “You tail them in the rental and I’ll tail you a few cars back in the Jeep. They won’t even notice it.”
“You really are something else, Lover,” she said, “I’ve never known a guy who could come up with so many different excuses…” she paused, grinned at me and added, “to watch my ass!”
“The pleasure is all mine, lady, believe me,” I said gallantly.
“Okay, and then what?” she asked, getting serious again.
“We tail them to whatever place in Stockton we put on the note. We are fortunate the entire journey will take place on Interstate 10, at least until they reach Arizona. We’ll have to be particularly careful not to lose them there. I can’t really see them taking another route, but if they do, they do. We’ll just have to work around it, that’s all. From Phoenix, it’s just a short run for us up 93 into Vegas.”
“And, as I just said, then what?” Ellie said impatiently.
“Well, Hon, this is the place where the plan becomes a little tricky,” I said.
She rolled her eyes at me.
“Now you tell me that it’s going to be tricky. Jesus, Spicer, what’s going to be tricky?”
“Ah, yes,” I said hesitantly, because I really wasn’t sure at this point what might happen next. We needed to catch a break here. I took a deep breath and plunged right on into the red light district. “I’m thinking that when they get to the address or whatever we’ve given them, and we’re not there, they’re going to think they’ve beaten us to the rendezvous. That’s where we need to watch them very carefully. I am hoping they’ll go somewhere, for a meal or something and park the car. We need them to do that.”
“Why?” she asked.
I took another deep breath and blurted.
“We need to leave the next note on their windshield.”
“What? Are you crazy, Spicer? What if they see you?”
“I’m hoping they won’t,” I said lamely.
“Hoping they won’t? Oh, my God!” she said as tears formed in her e
yes. “Is that the only way?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” she said, suddenly all business again. “Just suppose we’re able to do this note on the windshield thing, then what, Genius?”
Oh, shit, I thought. I do believe that somehow ‘Genius’ is the very lowest level of her endearments, even worse than ‘Spicer’. It doesn’t have a very good sound to it at all!
“Once it’s done, we hightail it outta there for Nevada and wait for them to come to us,” I said.
“And you believe these guys, Delta trained and everything, are going to do that?”
“I don’t see they’ll have too much option, Hon, not if we’re gone and it’s them holding the tracking device, not us.” I’d made my case and now I just hoped it would stand up in front of the judge.
“You’re sure about this, Lover,” the judge asked. Thank God, I thought, I’m back to being ‘Lover’ again. I took a chance and shrugged.
“Nothing’s sure, Babe. Let’s just say I have a very good feeling about the outcome, okay?”
“Alright, Lover, I’ll trust your judgment on this,” she said, but with a little less enthusiasm than I would’ve liked.
With our agreement made between us, we planted our package, taped to a dumpster in the corner of a large outdoor plaza in San Antonio. It was a location where we could keep it pretty well under observation without being seen ourselves. I’d bought a good pair of binoculars at a sports store earlier in the day.
What had seemed like a good idea to us, or me at least, turned out to be a very tedious wait for us. It was actually a day and a half before the Butler and his brother showed up. We’d obtained our rental car, a small Ford, and we’d bought a couple of large coolers, one in each of the cars. These we’d packed with non perishable foods and bottled water.
In the afternoon of the second day, we saw a Black Range Rover cruise around the plaza’s parking lot. We watched as it made another complete pass and finally zeroed in on the dumpster. A man got out of the Range Rover and snatched the taped package off the side of the dumpster. Then he got back into the car.
We didn’t need to see any more. We’d been watching from Ellie’s car. The Jeep was parked across the street from the plaza and Ellie drove me over to it. As soon as she saw the black Range Rover leave the plaza, she started off after it, several cars back. I followed her, several cars behind her as well.
We’d soon realized, before we even started, was that we were both probably going to have a problem. You can’t perform long term surveillance operations, to be followed immediately afterwards by what can only be described as a several hundred mile car chase, without taking into account your own need to perform regular and natural bodily functions along the way
Okay, we knew our quarries would have the same needs, but not the same need for secrecy as we would. They could just pull in just about anywhere. We didn’t have that luxury. We couldn’t let them know we were right behind them, and neither could we follow them into a highway rest station. We also couldn’t wait until they left for fear of losing them.
Our solution was to take a couple of covered buckets with us in our respective cars. Not the best of solutions and certainly not for Ellie. As it turned out, we managed to time our ‘necessity’ stops pretty much the same way our quarries had, and were able to park alongside the highway several hundred yards back from them.
Uncomfortable, awkward and extremely embarrassing but also necessary if we didn’t want to lose them. In one of our stops, I was able to park the Jeep right behind Ellie’s little Ford and I apologized to her for putting her in that kind of situation. She just grinned at me and said as far as she was aware, nobody had ever died of embarrassment yet and she didn’t plan to be the first one. I also managed to pass her the note I wanted placed on the Butler’s windshield at our next stop in Stockton.
Our plan worked out well although the trailing got a little hairy at times. Even over such a long distance, we still didn’t lose them. Ellie’s small rental, which we’d arranged to drop off in Stockton, got good gas mileage. In addition to that, I had two extra containers of gas in the Jeep and Ellie had one in the Ford.
We saw the brothers arrive at our designated ‘meeting’ point, a medium sized hotel we’d chosen at random from the AAA tour guide, of which we also had several, covering all of the southern states, including California.
They obviously, and erroneously, assumed we hadn’t arrived yet. They parked their car and the two of them entered the hotel foyer, just as I’d hoped they would.
We were both sitting in Ellie’s little rental and parked well away from the hotel’s front entrance. I was in the driver’s seat and kept the motor running as Ellie got out, raced over to the Range Rover, pushed the note under the wiper and raced back again. She was barely back in her seat before I had the car moving and was heading away from the hotel. Within minutes we were out of sight of the hotel, and if they couldn’t see us, they had no way of tracking us. Ellie and I were now in control of the ‘game’.
I call it that because I was sure it was what the Butler thought of it as.
We’d parked the Jeep on a side street and I drove by to pick it up. Then we both drove over to the car rental depot, whose location I’d gotten in San Antonio, to drop off and settle up for the Ford. We’d not seen any signs of pursuit, so we felt confident that we’d gained ourselves a little breathing space.
According to the note, now nestling under the Range Rover’s wiper, our next meeting was scheduled for three weeks from today. Three weeks would give us a whole lot of badly needed breathing space. I knew the delay would make the Butler hopping mad. At least, I sure hoped so. The madder he got, the more careless he was likely to be.
At the next stop, if everything went according to plan, we’d need all the help we could get.
Later that afternoon we pulled into a small motel in Demming, New Mexico. I checked us in deliberately as Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
We had also asked for a room at the back where the Jeep wouldn’t be visible from the road. Ellie grinned at me as we carried our suitcases into our room.
“Feeling lucky then, are you, Mr. Smith?” she said with a saucy smile.
“No, El, as a matter of fact, I’m feeling filthy,” I said.
I had a couple of day’s growth of beard, dirty clothes and I really didn’t smell too good either. We just hadn’t had the time or the opportunity for proper personal hygiene for days.
“All I want, believe it or not, Babe, is a shave and a nice long hot shower. A change of clothes might help a bit too.”
“Hallelujah! Glory be!” Ellie cried, “There’s hope for the man yet!”
“If you’re going to be like that, woman, and I wasn’t going to mention it, but you could do with a bloody good scrub yourself!”
She sniffed at the air around us and said, “Okay, Lover, let’s get to it.”
Less than an hour later, both of us nicely cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes, we were back in the lobby checking out again. The older woman behind the desk gave us a very disapproving look.
“I’m obliged to point out to you, Mr. Smith, this motel is not that kind of establishment,” she said with pursed lips.
“Well, gee, ma’am,” I said, “My wife and I had absolutely no idea that taking a shower and getting ourselves cleaned up was considered to be a crime in the State of New Mexico. We promise to stay dirty any time we’re ever passing this way again.”
She looked at us open mouthed, as we picked up our bags and went back out to the Jeep, both of us just about bursting with laughter.
We made a donation of our buckets, emptied, of course, to the trash bin at one of the service stations we’d stopped at along the way.
As we got into the Jeep, Ellie threw her arms around my neck.
“You smell almost good enough to kiss now,” she said.
“What’s with the ‘almost’,” I said, sniffing at my shirt and looking hurt.
“Kidding, Lover, just kidding, b
ut kissing is all we have time for right now.”
“Hey, Babe,” I said, “we’ve got three weeks all to ourselves now, and unless we happen to bump into those two accidentally, we won’t be seeing them until August 22nd. And I hate to say this, Hon, but I think the next time will be show time.”
“Showdown time is what it’s more likely to be isn’t it, and you know it too, don’t you?”
I nodded and squeezed her hand. We were still a long way from our destination but we, by our own choice, had three weeks to enjoy each other.
Then we’d meet up with the Butler, and if things went badly for us we could possibly both meet our maker as well.
We took the long way around to Las Vegas, cutting northwest out of Demming and taking the secondary roads into Phoenix. We decided to spend most of the three weeks in and around Phoenix, sightseeing and acting like any other tourists.
Until this thing was finally settled, one way or another, Ellie and I still felt terribly vulnerable. Even though we were both experienced cops, we knew that in any confrontation with the Cervantes brothers, they had the advantages of far superior training in the art of survival.
From Phoenix, we took 93 all the way up into Vegas where we checked into a small hotel in the old part of town, well off the Strip. We arrived there on August 20th, two days before we were due to meet up with the Butler and his brother.
Chapter Twenty Five
My message to the Butler had been as short, sweet and as terse as any of his had been to me.
“Hoover Dam, Thursday August 22nd. 4 a.m. Nevada time. Be there.” my note to him in Stockton had said. This was our second visit to the dam. The first had been on our way into Vegas from Phoenix.
This time, coming in from Boulder City, Ellie and I drove out into the middle of the dam and stopped. We got out of the Jeep and walked over to the north side of the dam, where we looked out at the broad expanse of the manmade Lake Mead being held in check by this incredible building and engineering feat.