by W L Ripley
A strange look flashed across Candless’s face, but he recovered. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“So are you. You’re too eager to tie a can to my tail and too hesitant to link Winston to anything to suit me. I don’t like the way it lays and if you don’t get out of my way you’re going to have to use some of those Chinese dance moves you’re so proud of to keep me here.”
He rolled his shoulders as if his jacket needed adjustment. “You better bring the chemist in. All I’ve got to say.”
“No problem,” Chick said. “I feel his vibrations, smell his spoor, hear his heartbeat borne on the night wind…”
“Maybe we’ll find him ourselves, smart guy.”
“Good luck, darlin’. Wish you only the best. But you better find ’im quick.”
“Why do you say that?” Morrison asked.
“Whatever Roberts is going to do he’s going to do soon,” I said.
“Why do you think that?”
“Roberts’s attitude more than anything. He doesn’t appear to be worried about what we know, as if it’s too late to do anything about him.” I paused to let it sink in. The pale white hum of hospital was the only sound. “Another thing. I don’t think Roberts killed the sheriff. Maybe the sheriff’s death has nothing to do with dreamsicle. The timing of it is inconvenient to Roberts’s plans. And I think he’s too smart to kill a lawman.”
“Maybe he had to,” Morrison said.
“Possible,” Chick said. “And a man with the balls to whack a guy then assume his identity right under federal eyes is a guy capable of anything. He’s a king-hell danger freak. Can smell it on him. Likes it out there on the edge. He could do the sheriff, sure, but I don’t see what he’s gained from it. Roberts is a guy who thinks under the gun. Got it all covered. You blink and he’ll slip between your fingers. He’s even got an angle on the girl agent. I just can’t see what it is.”
“What would you know about it?” Candless said.
“Y’know, I’ve had about enough of your rude mouth, junior,” Chick said. “I heard you called me a coward, like you knew what it was like over there. You don’t know anything.”
“You ran away.”
Chick laughed. “That what they told you? Sounds like them. Tell you what, when this is all over we’ll get together and see what you got. But you dial my number, you better do it long distance.” His eyes were level. Hard.
Candless glared at him. Morrison said, “This isn’t accomplishing anything.”
“I can wait,” said Chick.
“One thing bothers me,” said Morrison. “What makes Roberts so confident? If he’s going to move large quantities of product, does he think he’s got such a fail-safe hiding place we can’t find it?”
That bothered me, also. It made no sense. There was risk involved, yet Roberts turned Tempestt over to us without batting an eye. Knew she was an agent and had to know feds were crawling all over the place. I was missing something. Something right under my nose. But what? He had the trucks and the network to move the stuff, but where was it?
And would we know in time to stop it?
TWENTY-EIGHT
The afternoon had lapsed into early evening by the time we left Agents Morrison and Candless with their badges hanging out. It was one of those incredible Missouri autumn evenings when the sky breaks into colors without names, the sun turns a warm gold, and you think you can live forever and might even want to.
We drove along Truman Trafficway, Chick smoking as I sifted through thoughts, looking for a thread to pull on. Roberts thought—no, Roberts knew he was going to get away with this, even with us watching for it. What made him so smug? It was quiet for several minutes before I broke the silence. “Can you find Prescott again?”
“I can find anybody,” Chick said. “They should’ve put me on Hoffa. I know where Prescott is staying, anyway.”
“Where?”
“Out at the Truck Hangar. How do you like that? But as to further revelations, I’ll need a beer to stimulate my thought processes. Pull into the Qwik-Trip over there.” He indicated the convenience store by gesturing with his cigarette.
I clicked on the indicator, pulled into the asphalt parking lot, and stopped between yellow painted lines. Chick opened his door and asked if I wanted anything. I asked for a Dr Pepper, and he left singing, “I’m a Pepper, you’re a Pepper…”
I left the motor running and unwrapped a cigar, using a pocket knife to cut the end of it. I lighted the Jamaican with the dash lighter, and the cab filled with the rich aroma. I rolled down the window to allow the smoke to escape. Something was tumbling around in my mind. I played “what if?” with what I knew so far, as I looked out the window. A large woman in pink sweats, blue-black hair, and too much makeup put a grocery bag in a white Chevrolet Caprice. A little less makeup and easier on the dye and she would be a more attractive woman. She stood up, slapped her forehead with a palm, and hurried back into the store for the thing she’d forgotten.
A string tumbled down from the attic in my brain and I pulled on it. KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Chick returned with a twelve-pack of Budweiser and my Dr Pepper. Shutting the door, he handed me the bruised-purple can, and I backed out of the slot. I said, “If Willie Boy had the formula, would he need Prescott anymore?”
Chick opened the twelve-pack, snapped back a ring-tab on a red-and-white can. “Roberts isn’t a chemist. He needs Prescott to turn out a supply for him.”
Bingo! I had it. So obvious. So simple it was beautiful, and it fit Roberts’s sense of irony. “What if Roberts doesn’t intend to market dreamsicle? What if he sells the formula and then slides out from under the whole thing? Takes the money and retires.”
Chick sipped from the Budweiser can. He stopped and thought for a moment as I pulled into the traffic. He began to laugh. “It’s perfect,” he said. “Easier than selling drugs. No risk. He sells Prescott’s formula to the highest bidder and is set for life. No muss. No fuss. No picture in the post office. No cops with warrants. He’s out of the picture before anyone knows about the stuff. Dreamsicle isn’t even illegal yet. It may be the perfect crime.”
“Who would he sell it to?”
“The Sicilians. The Colombians. Anybody with a lot of cash and the apparatus to market it. It’d be worth millions to him and more to the people who had a monopoly on it. He could name his price. Ask for a onetime flat rate or get a big advance and then a percentage of the take. Either way it’s a beauty.”
“It’s the kind of thing appeals to someone who thinks like he does, isn’t it? Center stage. Feds everywhere. Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. Nothing up my sleeve. Presto. He could stay right here and even if it went sour…” I left it open.
“If it went sour,” said Chick, “then Roberts could become Max Beauchamps again. First sell Starr Industries, turn everything into cash, then become Max B. or someone new and move his twisted act somewhere else. Interesting thought, isn’t it?”
“What if?” Chick said. “While we’re playing this game, what if Roberts had a reason to give us the girl?”
“What do you mean?” I changed lanes to pass a red Cadillac.
“He gave us the girl too easy, like you said. Not like him to give anything unless he likes the cards he’s holding. You can bet Roberts was nowhere near when they grabbed the girl and sent her to the stars. But maybe he’s using the girl to blackmail someone. What if she’s got something on someone else in the inner circle? If nothing else, he’s got her out of the way for several hours, or maybe even days.”
“He keeps a lot of plates spinning.”
“Us too.” He took another beer from the carton. I thought about Tempestt. I felt like a Jonah. First the sheriff, now Tempestt. Funny how she had become a part of my thoughts and feelings so quickly. The stage fright I’d felt approaching tonight’s date with her was now replaced by a sense of loss. I needed to know—about her, about Sandy, about myself. Would I ever know now? Ten years from now I didn’t want to be visi
ted by nostalgic vapors of what might have been. I loved Sandy, but I had not been able to pin down what I felt for Tempestt. Friendship? Desire? Love? All of the above? Voltaire said love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by the imagination. Voltaire was right.
The thought of it whistled through my heart and head with gale force.
“So, what’s our next step?” asked Chick.
“Not sure. We’re running out of time and people who will talk to us. If we knew where to look for their lab, that would help.”
“Could be anywhere. At Roberts’s factory. His house. Maybe even out at the Truck Hangar, and that’s where Prescott is staying.”
“Might be interesting,” I said. “We haven’t checked it out, yet. About the last place to look. If nothing else, maybe Prescott is there.”
“What if he’s not?”
“We could hang around and be annoying.”
“Okay with me. I have an inborn talent for being annoying.”
“Yes. I know.”
TWENTY-NINE
The Truck Hangar sat at the junction of Interstate 50 and U.S. Highway 61, eleven miles north of Paradise, where it sprawled across the county line into Ford County. Good location. It was a huge complex—restaurant, bar, gift shop, clothing shop, showers for truckers, six-lane bowling alley, thirty-six fuel pumps, twenty-four of which were for eighteen-wheelers, and a ten-unit motel located on the Ford County side, where goodwill was for rent. The motel interested me the most.
We stood momentarily, after getting out of the Bronco, and scanned the mammoth truck stop. “Where’s the rest of it?” said Chick.
“Jill said they run prostitutes here. Motel makes it easier. What do you think?”
“Let’s grab a road chippie and make her bark like a dog.”
“You know which unit Prescott’s in?”
“No. Can’t ask, either. They’ll be watching for me now. I doubt he’s still here. But it’s worth a look. We could go into the gift shop and buy a T-shirt that says Truckers Do It for the Long Haul. Go native.”
“Or,” I said, “we could hang around outside the motel and give hard Puritan stares to the truckers as they bring the snuff queens over to the motel.”
“Can we cluck our tongues and shake our heads when they walk past?”
“Part of the fun.”
We went into the truck stop’s restaurant-lounge. It was stainless steel and clean gingham tablecloths and waitresses in white nursing shoes. I bought a cup of coffee, black, to go. They poured it into a large Styrofoam cup; no concern for the environment. A Hank Williams, Jr., song belched from the lounge. Like I said, no concern for the environment. Chick walked into the darkened bar, was gone for several minutes, and reappeared with a long-neck Budweiser, which he stuck under his shirt as we left.
“There’s an open-container law in this county,” he explained.
“There’s beer in the truck,” I said.
“Where’s your sense of adventure? I don’t have to sneak those.”
“Very childish.”
“Keeps me young.”
We walked to the motel and took up positions in front. In order to get a room, Chick explained, the john had to get a key in the bar. “The connection is made there,” he said. “But no money changes hands. The girls hang around the bar waiting for the truckers to come in. The girls try to get the truckers to buy them a drink and then maneuver them to the motel to do the ultimate naughty. Either way, commerce occurs.”
The motel was blue cinder block and clean. Willie Boy was no fool. The nicer it looked, the less likely people were to hassle you. A family could pull into the restaurant, have dinner, bowl a few lines, and be on their way, without disturbance. I sat down on a brick planter and peeled the lid from the coffee cup, tasted its contents. It was fresh and delicious. Roberts was a good businessman. Smart. But he had a wire jammed in his brain. He could make it legitimately, but that wasn’t enough for him. Something drove him, whipsawed him to do things in a dark, unnatural way.
We’d only been there a few minutes when an overweight trucker in a well-worn camouflage down vest and a Peterbilt baseball cap walked in our direction, his arm around a nubile miss in a short skirt and a pair of strapless high-heeled shoes. I thought down vests and strapless heels were out of style, along with promiscuous sex. Chick and I stood when they came our way. The girl looked much better than I had expected. Much better.
“Outstanding talent,” Chick said. “I may have to get me a Ken-worth and pull in here.”
As the amorous couple neared, we moved to block the walkway. They slowed and stopped in front of us.
“We don’t want any trouble,” the trucker said. He looked uncertain. I noticed a ring on his left hand. Probably had a wife and kids. I didn’t like scaring him, but he shouldn’t avail himself of the road chippy. The girl was less uncertain.
“What do you guys want?” she said. She looked maybe nineteen, blond, with the kind of slim legs teenagers have, but with a great jawline and lovely sea-green eyes, slim waist.
“We’re from the militant branch of the Moral Majority,” I said. “And we’re here to advise you that paying for sex is a nopey-no and a health hazard.”
“Fuck you guys,” she said. Charming girl.
“No thanks,” Chick said. “I do that and you’ll follow me the rest of my life. Besides, I’m all out of penicillin.”
“Forget it, Bernice,” said the trucker. He was frightened. “Let’s just go back to the bar.”
“You assholes are screwin’ up big time,” she said, a fist jammed against a cantilevered hip.
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” I said. “It’s indelicate.”
“Bastards,” she spat. “We’ll see what Large Michael has to say about this.”
“Oh, please,” Chick said. “Anything but that.”
“Fuck you,” she said, turning on her heels to stomp away, Down Vest trailing her.
“Girl needs to expand her vocabulary,” Chick said.
“I want a master key,” I said. I wanted to see the inside of the units.
“Maybe Large What’s-his-name will bring us one.”
“He also serves who sits and waits.”
I drank more coffee. We talked about the Kansas City Chiefs’ chances of making the playoffs, talked about whether Clapton was a better guitarist than Hendrix. We both agreed Larry Bird had been the greatest to ever pull on a pair of sneakers, but Jordan might soon prove to be. “Bird, Russell, Jordan, and two warm bodies can whip anyone else,” Chick said.
I’d just mentioned Havlicek and Jerry West, my all-time fave, to complete the squad, when a contingent of well-wishers from the Truck Hangar walked in our direction. There were four of them.
“Lookit this,” said Chick. “Clubs ’n’ everything.”
“It’s because they think you’re Frankenstein.”
“Oh yeah? Where’re the torches, then?”
The sun had set when they moved into the pale light of the motel sign. I recognized the largest guy from the parking lot of the Silver Spur Lounge.
“Who the hell you guys think—” started Large Michael, then he recognized us. “Aw, shit. You guys again.” The other men were carrying short staves and tire irons. No match for two men with goodness as their shield.
“What’s happening, guys?” I said, conversational. Always nice to meet new people.
“The fuck you think you’re doing here?” asked Large Michael.
“Everybody says that,” said Chick.
“No imagination,” I said.
Large Michael began rapping his baton in his hand, rhythmically. “You guys are trespassing.”
“This from a guy who pimps for teenyboppers,” Chick said.
“We want a master key to these units,” I said. “Unless you want to tell me which room is Campbell’s.” They knew Prescott as Campbell.
Large Michael threw back his head and laughed. He turned to the other three and said, “They want a master key.” The
rest of the all-goon revue laughed with him. Chortled actually. It’d been a long time since I’d heard a good group chortle. They obviously didn’t realize we had them surrounded.
I turned to Chick. “I tried polite.”
“Nobody can say you didn’t do your best.”
“So now what?”
“How about Randolph Scott and John Wayne?”
“Sounds good to me.”
I pulled the 9-millimeter Browning automatic from its shoulder holster and Chick pulled the .380 Colt about a beat and a half before me. He was so quick I was beginning to suspect he had done this sort of thing before.
“Grab some sky, gents,” said Chick.
“Shit!” said Large Michael.
“Of course,” said Chick.
“The key,” I said. I held a hand out, palm up.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with,” said Large Michael, ever the bearer of news, good and otherwise.
“Neither do you,” said Chick, his gun hand seeming to point at nothing in particular, yet everywhere at once. “You got three seconds to put down your little sticks or you get to find out. Ready? One…two…”
Four batons rattled on the asphalt.
“Damn,” said Chick. “I never get to shoot anybody anymore.”
“Maybe we call the cops,” said Large Michael.
“That’s even funnier than me not shooting you, you calling the cops. Go ahead. It’s a slow night.”
“The key,” I said, my teeth starting to clench as I thought about Tempestt, left alone in a dirty motel, abused, and pumped full of chemicals. Sheriff Kennedy, father of two, honest lawman, killed for that honesty. I was way past my acceptable limit of crap like that.
“What if I refuse?” said Large Michael.
I slapped the side of the Browning across his cheek. He tried to get his hands up, tried to duck away, but if I wasn’t quicker than some fat local tough then I was further past retirement than I thought. The gun whipcracked along his jowls and I felt the scratchy texture of his beard. The trio with him jumped, startled by the sudden violence. The blow staggered him, but he didn’t fall.