A Quiet Man (Victor Book 9)

by Tom Wood

  ‘I’m glad I don’t need to repeat myself.’

  ‘So, given that we know people aren’t complicated, how do you know so much about how a missing person investigation is conducted?’

  ‘I watch TV.’

  She huffed. ‘Michelle works at the motel,’ Victor said. ‘So she works for the local gangster.’

  ‘My dad’s not a gangster.’

  Victor said, ‘She works for a business part-owned by the local gangster and her ex-boyfriend has a history of drug offences.’ There was no need to tell her he had seen this was not confined to the past. ‘It’s no leap of the imagination to see how Michelle might have got mixed up in something she shouldn’t have, or Joshua, not knowing any better, might have seen something he wasn’t supposed to see.’

  ‘Before you ask: no, my dad has nothing to do with drugs. I mean it. He’s in property and construction. Is he up to no good? You bet he is. But he’s a white-collar criminal. No drug dealing, nothing like that. He dresses the part and I’m sure he’s broken plenty of bones along the way to getting building permits and profitable county contracts, but he wouldn’t go anywhere near methamphetamine. He has too much to lose. It’s simply not his style.’

  ‘Then whose style is it?’

  She fidgeted with her fingers and he saw she was worried about whether she was saying too much. He didn’t press her because any pressure would tell her she was right.

  ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘What’s your next move?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll see if I can go buy some meth.’

  ‘That would be illegal.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you’re not going to tell me who runs drugs in this town then I don’t see any other way of finding out.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine,’ she said after a long moment of silence. ‘They call themselves the Nameless. They’re a biker gang. The real kind, I mean. Old school outlaws.’

  ‘Their leader?’

  ‘Why do you want to know? I’ve given you plenty already and I really don’t want you trying to speak to him. That would be a bad idea. I don’t want you getting yourself into trouble.’

  ‘So he’s a he,’ Victor said. ‘And he’s trouble.’

  ‘I’m trying to do you a favour here. Let me.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  She shook her head. ‘No way. Forget it.’ She stepped past him, heading for her cruiser. ‘I’ve said far too much and now I’m worried I’ve given you just enough information so that you can go get yourself in a whole lot of mischief you can’t get yourself out of again.’

  ‘You really don’t need to worry about me,’ Victor said.

  ‘Maybe I’m not worried about you,’ she said in return. ‘And maybe that’s part of the problem.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  For a few minutes no one spoke. No music played. Only the gentle murmur of the engine and the ambient noise from outside the car interrupted the silence within it. McAllan had his elbow up on the door, arm folded and fingers massaging the side of his skull. There was no pain there, no discomfort, but it helped relax him, it helped focus his mind.

  He said, ‘Are you all thinking what I’m thinking?’

  The man next to him in the back said, ‘I don’t like him.’

  The man in the passenger seat said, ‘Me either.’

  The driver said, ‘He’s all wrong.’

  McAllan nodded along. ‘But the question is: why?’

  ‘Why what?’ the man in the back asked.

  ‘Why don’t you like him? Why is he all wrong?’

  The driver said, ‘No guy on a fishing trip interrupts his vacation to go around looking for a missing mother and her kid he’s only just met.’

  ‘Why not?’ McAllan asked.

  The driver didn’t answer but the man in the passenger seat did. ‘Because he doesn’t know them.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he know them?’ McAllan asked.

  The driver said, ‘Not enough time. He’s only been here four days.’

  ‘More than enough time to fall in love,’ McAllan said. ‘Do you remember when you last fell in love? Might have taken you months to admit it but you felt it right away, yeah? The double whammy. Just thinking about her makes your heart beat faster and you beat your meat harder.’

  The guy in the back smirked and said, ‘He didn’t seem in love.’

  McAllan nodded. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. Maybe he’s a pure Boy Scout. The last of a dying breed of concerned citizens willing to go out on a limb to help their fellow humans.’

  ‘He didn’t seem concerned,’ the driver said.

  ‘This is more like it,’ McAllan said with a snap of his fingers. ‘He’s not in love. He’s not concerned. Then what is he?’

  The driver said, ‘That’s why he’s all wrong.’

  The man in the passenger seat turned around. ‘I’m lost.’

  McAllan explained: ‘A guy on a fishing trip looking for Michelle and Joshua is either in love with Michelle or he’s concerned about their wellbeing. If he’s neither, then he’s looking for them for some whole other reason entirely that has nothing to do with common decency.’

  ‘Money?’ the driver suggested.

  McAllan shrugged. ‘Could be money. Could be some other kind of debt. Her ex-boyfriend, Abe, works for Castel.’

  ‘The meth cook, right?’

  ‘What are the odds?’ McAllan said.

  Silence. Everyone thinking.

  The man in the back said, ‘This fisherman works for Castel?’

  ‘Does he look like a biker?’

  The driver said, ‘Could be a partner.’

  ‘Could be,’ McAllan said.

  The man in the passenger seat said, ‘From Las Vegas.’

  ‘Mob?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ McAllan said. ‘We’re quite the walk from the Strip. Mafiosos don’t need to come all this way to buy their sugar, do they?’

  Nods of agreement throughout the car.

  ‘What do we do?’ the driver asked.

  McAllan’s fingertips massaged his skull. ‘No one makes any moves until we know who this guy is and what he’s really doing here. Get on to our PI in Toronto. Give her this Wilson Murdoch’s details and tell her to go ape-shit on the case. I don’t care what she bills me so long as she gets me something. Castel or not, mob or not, this guy is no mere fisherman, and he’s definitely no do-gooder neither. Whoever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’s going to be trouble. I can feel it in my perineum.’

  The driver said, ‘Do we tell Fendy?’

  McAllan exhaled. ‘Not yet. We only escalate this when we know more. This stays with us until we deem it necessary to share.’

  The guy in the passenger seat took out his cell to call the PI in Toronto but paused because:

  ‘Did you see him when we rolled up?’ McAllan asked no one in particular. ‘Now I may be bordering on presentable but you three certainly miss that mark. With the greatest respect, you look like a trio of hulking Neanderthals who wrestle mammoths just for the fun of it when they’re not cannibalising their competition.’

  McAllan’s men waited for him to continue.

  ‘I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you’re an untouchable chief enforcer for the entire Nevada Cosa Nostra, the three of you show up without invitation you’re going to need a new pair of drawers. This guy? You see him?’

  McAllan’s men listened.

  He said, ‘Nothing. Not a tremor. What kind of man gets a surprise visit from three Neolithic savages and doesn’t so much as blink?’

  No one could answer.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Victor reverse-parked his truck in the bar’s lot so it faced the exit to the highway. Three other vehicles were spaced out on the rough square of asphalt. None had reverse-parked too so there were no professionals inside waiting for him.

  He remembered the
manager’s words, speculating that Michelle might have been hung-over on the sofa. Perhaps that had been more than a flippant comment. Could be that she was a regular. Victor hadn’t seen her there during his visits but he had only been in the area a few days and had only spent a couple of hours at the bar each night.

  The French barman had his back to the door as Victor entered. The wall-mounted television had the barman’s attention. A soccer game was underway.

  Victor’s gaze swept over the other occupants in the room to look for threats because he did the same for every room he stepped into. A glance was enough to highlight potentials without alerting them to his analysis. Then, another glance to see if any potential threats were threats.

  With only four people besides Victor present, the entire process took a little over a second.

  No threats.

  Not even close.

  That meant he could behave in a natural way. He could slide on to the closest stool at the bar without needing to concern himself with the two patrons behind him. The third was perched at the furthest end of the bar, which might have indicated a professional wanting to sit at the most advantageous position for observing the rest of the space, except the man sitting there was a few decades too old and a few dozen pounds too heavy to represent any kind of danger.

  The barman, riveted by the soccer game, only noticed Victor was there once the guy at the far end of the bar gestured to tell him so.

  ‘Pardon, monsieur,’ the barman said after he had turned around. He was startled. ‘I didn’t hear you sneak up behind me.’

  ‘No one ever does.’

  ‘The fish … they aren’t biting today?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Victor said. ‘I was going to take someone out on the lake but they didn’t show.’

  The Frenchman hesitated. ‘No? Too bad. For you and for them. Beer?’

  Victor nodded. ‘Please.’

  ‘Import?’

  Victor nodded again.

  The Frenchman smiled. ‘Un homme de goût.’

  ‘And have one for yourself.’

  ‘Too kind, but I shall indeed.’

  Victor put cash on the bar while the barman fetched two bottles of beer from the cooler and twisted off their caps.

  When he returned, Victor said, ‘Do you know Michelle? She works at the motel.’

  The barman set the bottles down. ‘She has a kid, right?’

  ‘A son,’ Victor replied. ‘Joshua. I was supposed to teach them both how to fish this morning, only she didn’t show up to work.’

  ‘Oh,’ the barman said.

  ‘Does she ever drink here?’

  The barman shrugged, thinking. ‘A few times, but not often. Excuse me.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Victor sipped his beer as the barman went about his duties, checking under the bar for something Victor couldn’t see.

  The big guy at the end of the bar used the restroom, and when he came back he took the stool next to Victor. The man was maybe seventy, shoulders almost as wide as his midsection. He had a thin sweep of white hair and a haze of stubble.

  ‘You’re Wilson?’

  A guy on a fishing trip wouldn’t keep his name to himself so neither had Victor, but he still didn’t like it that someone he had never spoken to before knew his alias.

  ‘Who’s asking?’ Victor said.

  ‘I’m Big Pete.’

  Victor said, ‘What can I do for you, Big Pete?’

  Big Pete said, ‘Nothing at all you can do for me unless you happen to have a cure for sciatica tucked in your back pocket.’ He rubbed his lumbar region.

  ‘All out, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that just typical? Anyhow, I didn’t sidle over here to chew the fat, Wilson, although I’m sure you tell a mean fishing story. I’m wondering if your friends caught up with you okay?’

  Victor paused for a second, reading nothing in Big Pete’s tone or expression other than simple curiosity. No investment in the answer beyond an involvement in the question itself.

  So, Victor nodded. ‘If you’re asking then I guess someone came here earlier looking for me.’

  Big Pete nodded too. ‘That Jennifer sure has a pretty smile, doesn’t she?’

  Jennifer. Pretty smile.

  ‘She most certainly does.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Abe was waiting outside his trailer when Castel arrived. Abe had plenty of notice that Castel was about to pull up because the synchronous roar of several choppers was unlike no other and could be heard a mile away. Almost a pleasant sound at first – faraway surf – before rapidly becoming savage and animalistic, so loud and relentless the tidal waves of sound buffeted Abe’s trailer and rattled the dirty crockery festering in his sink.

  The noise of Castel’s approach gave Abe plenty of warning not to keep Castel waiting, and no one with half a brain kept Castel waiting.

  He was a beanpole of a man: thin shoulders, thin waist, with long limbs and a long neck. His skin was the colour of tanned leather except on the top of his head, where it had dark and light patches of sun damage. Unlike many of his crew, Castel never wore a bandana, and helmets were not only a sign of weakness but one of incompetence. Good riders didn’t come off their hogs, went the logic.

  Abe had a hog but almost never rode it. A truck did everything a chopper did and did it better, and a chopper couldn’t do half what a truck could.

  He kept such opinions to himself around Castel.

  He was the eldest but not old, despite the ring of long white hair that hung from the sides of his skull but no higher. He wore a cracked black leather duster over a denim shirt. His jeans were dark and ripped and clung to his narrow legs as a second skin. Abe had never seen Castel in any footwear other than his snakeskin boots with their shiny spurs.

  His crew had never had a name so eventually they began calling themselves the Nameless.

  Their insignia became a bone-white skull with a strip of duct tape across the mouth.

  Abe coughed a little as the exhaust gases washed across him in a dark cloud. Ignitions were turned off and kickstands lowered. Only Castel climbed from his ride at first. Despite the long limbs, despite the duster, it was a smooth, effortless movement.

  As both heels hit the ground he dropped into a fast squat then exploded up out of it on his heels and thrust his arms into the air as if celebrating the small act of arrival. He pumped his fists as if joyous, as if seeing Abe was a rare delight.

  Abe knew he was no delight.

  He stood still as Castel approached at a slow pace because he was dancing every step, spurs rattling as he clicked his fingers to some song only he could hear, head bobbing and elbows flaring to the beat of those clicks.

  Some of his crew smiled at this. Others remained stone-faced.

  Abe scratched his stubble. He didn’t like the fact Castel appeared to be in such a good mood.

  When Castel reached Abe he stopped, but only after spinning on the spot and bringing his hands together in a single, loud clap.

  The dance, the song, was over.

  Castel wore mirrored sunglasses, so Abe could see himself reflected back at him. He didn’t like the nervousness he saw in that reflection.

  Castel said, ‘You called.’

  Abe swallowed. Nodded.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Castel said, removing his sunglasses.

  He had arctic blue eyes, small and intense.

  ‘This guy came around looking for someone,’ Abe began, his throat already hoarse. ‘Asking all these questions.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘Asking this, asking that. Making excuses to case the lab.’

  Castel pursed his lips. ‘I see.’

  ‘I told him to get lost or I’d shoot him in the face.’

  ‘You threatened him?’

  Abe, thinking of his humiliation, felt better remembering he had scared the stalker away, if only temporarily.

  ‘Why would you threaten him?’ Castel asked.

  �
�Because he wouldn’t leave.’

  ‘And by threatening him you told him there was a reason worth staying for.’

  Abe was quick to say, ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘None of us have a choice,’ Castel replied. ‘Choice is an illusion. We’re flesh puppets dancing on a string.’

  He mimed this, arms outstretched and flailing wildly. His eyes were wide and almost glowing with craziness.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Abe said.

  Castel ceased the act and pointed. ‘Why is your front door broken?’

  Abe should have let it go.

  ‘Did the stranger break it down?’

  Abe had told himself to let it go.

  Castel’s long fingers squeezed Abe’s shoulders, full of tension, and the arctic blue eyes moved closer to Abe’s face.

  ‘Did he go inside your trailer?’

  Why did Abe let nothing go?

  ‘He saw the lab, didn’t he?’

  Abe couldn’t stop blinking. ‘Yeah.’

  Castel clicked his tongue and released Abe’s shoulders, then turned his gaze away to look at his closest man, sitting on a chopper. ‘Go collect all the crystal. Get any supplies worth carrying. We gotta be quick, so hustle.’

  The man said, ‘Sure thing, chief.’

  He swivelled off his hog and entered Abe’s trailer along with another of the Nameless.

  ‘He came inside your home,’ Castel said. ‘Yet you didn’t shoot him as you said you would.’

  ‘He … he took me by surprise. I was cooking your meth. I had my back turned. I can’t do everything at once, can I?’

  ‘Is he a cop?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘From a rival crew?’

  Abe said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Be a pal and tell me something that you do know.’

  ‘He’s staying at the motel near the lake.’ Abe described the stalker and his truck to the best of his memory.

  ‘Did he give you a name?’

  ‘Wilson Murdoch.’

  Castel thrust both fists high into the air. ‘Touchdown.’

  Abe didn’t know what to say so he kept his mouth shut.

  The two bikers who had gone into his trailer came out, one with a plastic shopping bag bulging with fresh sheets of unbroken meth. The second carried a nylon sports bag that was heavy with raw ingredients. Both headed back to their choppers.