Midnight Rider

by D V Wolfe

  I pulled into the driveway and Stacks practically threw Noah out of the car and then dragged him up the incline to the garage door. The second they’d hoisted it high enough to clear Lucy’s cab, I gunned it and got inside. They jumped inside right behind Lucy’s tailgate and yanked the door down just as we heard the siren getting closer.

  I couldn’t see Stacks in the dark garage, but I could hear him breathing next to me. “Who are the Fergusons and how did you know they were gone?” I whispered.

  “I’m working on their computer. I said I’d have it done in a week but they said they’d pick it up in two because they were going on vacation. Yeah, the whole thing was clogged up with porn.”

  “More information than I needed,” I said.

  We stood together, waiting in the dark. I heard Noah shuffling around next to me and then a clatter followed by something like a bike bell.

  “You are the picture of stealth, Noah,” I muttered. There was silence. “You’re giving me the finger, aren’t you.”

  “As hard as I can,” Noah said.

  “Is the kid your apprentice or something?” Stacks asked me.

  “Nope, just a hitchhiker. I was outrunning Sister Smile at the time and I didn’t want to leave him on the road like a drive-through hamburger.”

  “And he thought it would be a good idea to get in the truck with you?” Stacks asked.

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  We were quiet again. “Do you think the coast is clear?” Noah asked.

  “Could be,” I said.

  We slowly rolled the door up. And stared down the barrels of a Glock and two shotguns.

  “Howdy Sheriff,” I said. “Deputy Dawg, Deputy Fife.”

  “You know you used the same line last time, Bane. Your sass is starting to wear thin,” Sheriff Orville said.

  “Sorry about that, Melvin. I’ll try to work on it while we all caravan down to the clink.”

  “That’s Sheriff Orville, Bane. What the hell are you doing in town?”

  “Good choice of words,” Stacks muttered beside me. I jabbed an elbow into his side.

  “Sight-seeing. Came to take this rascal out for a beer,” I said.

  “Alright, you three are coming with me. Arlo,” he turned to the red-headed deputy training his shotgun on us. “Drive that bucket of bolts to the impound lot.”

  I tried not to grin. “Keys are in the ignition.” Lucy had a long history of not liking anyone but me behind the wheel.

  “Cuff ‘em,” the Sheriff said to the other deputy. This one was young. He had blond, curly hair like Garfunkel and watery blue eyes. He looked about a day over eighteen and he didn’t frisk us before he cuffed us and put us in the car. He put Noah in first and then me and then stuffed Stacks in the seat next to me.

  “Now I’m stuck in the middle,” I said.

  The Sheriff got in behind the wheel and the Deputy went back to the second cop car.

  “Sheriff, I get car sick,” I said. “I don’t do so good sitting in the middle.”

  “Sounds like a ‘you and your buddies’ problem to me,” he said as he backed out of the driveway.

  “At first I suppose,” I said. “But then we get out of the car and it’s your little red wagon.”

  “Bane,” Orville said. “Do us all a favor and shut that smart mouth.”

  We watched from the curb as the deputy tried to get Lucy to turn over and then to shift into gear.

  “Your boy ever driven a stick before?” Stacks asked.

  “You can shut up too, Stacks,” the Sheriff said.

  After about twenty more minutes of watching the deputy fail, flood the engine, burn the clutch, and curse so loudly we could hear it through the closed windows, the Sheriff got out.

  “Well, how are we getting out of this one, Bane?” Stacks asked after the Sheriff’s door slammed shut.

  “Bobby pins. The pre-puberty deputy didn’t frisk me.” I leaned over Stacks’ lap so I could get my hands inside the back of my jeans. I always kept four or five on the waistband of my underwear in case I needed to pick a lock. I dropped one on the seat next to Noah and twisted to drop one next to Stacks. “In case they take us into separate interview rooms like last time. I hope I get the one with the good window downstairs this time. Jumping down without a fire escape last time sucked.”

  Noah didn’t pick up the bobby pin.

  “It’s pretty easy to do,” I said, reading Noah’s hesitance as worry about being able to do it.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Noah said. “Well, except trespassing in the Ferguson’s garage.”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” I said. “Stacks and I, well, let’s just say this ain’t our first rodeo.”

  Stacks groaned, “They’re going to go search my trailer.”

  “What have you got in there right now?” I asked.

  “Well, besides a system that is working on hacking through FBI files as we speak, I’ve also got some missing person profiles, a five-gallon drum of ether, the decapitated head of a Loogaroo...oh yeah and a burlap sack full of bloody stakes.”

  “What’s with the drum of ether?” I asked. We were all watching out the window now as the Sheriff dropped Lucy’s hood and told the deputy to get out.

  “Trying some concoction to deal with Djinns. Project for Devon.”

  “Who took down the Loogaroo?” I asked, trying not to laugh as we watched the Sheriff try to get Lucy to turn over.

  “Little Betty Schwartz. Can you believe that?” Stacks said. “The head was as big as her. She wanted me to do some research on it. You don’t really see those much outside of Haiti. She tracked this one to New Orleans.”

  Noah spoke up, “So is this the plan then? Make jokes and then go to jail? It’s easy for you Bane. You’re a woman. You’ll go to the girl jail. And Stacks, you’ve done this before so you know how to bargain for smokes and pay protection. But me….”

  We both just looked at Noah.

  “What kind of shit are they teaching you in school these days?” I asked.

  Noah shrugged. “You know, I’ve heard about these things.”

  “Don’t worry Noah,” I said. “I won’t let anyone make you their bitch.”

  The Sheriff stormed back down the driveway to us and pulled open his door.

  “Bane,” he barked. “What’s wrong with your piece of junk truck?”

  “I don’t know Sheriff, did you try turning it off and on again?” I glanced down at the seat next to me and saw the bobby pin was gone.

  “Aw to hell with it. We’ll just tow it in.” He straightened up and shouted to the deputy. “Nevermind Arlo, we’ll tow it in. Let’s go.”

  The building that the new Messina Police Station occupied had once been an ice cream parlor. The original police station burned down a year earlier when a rat chewed through the wiring. Or so the story goes.

  The Sheriff never believed the true explanation I’d given him for the fire, but he had no evidence to hold me responsible so he wasn’t able to pin that on me. Or Stacks, who had a more tainted background than I did in this town because he lived here and was constantly a person of interest. Luckily, good old Sheriff Orville and his crew of crack detectives didn’t pay much attention to the federal circulars and didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the charges Stacks and I had against us in federal court. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t happen in Messina, it’s not his mess.

  The Sheriff pulled around to the back entrance and opened the car door, pulling Stacks out, then me and motioning Noah to slide across the seat towards him. After Noah was out, the Sheriff opened the station door and marched us inside.

  “Go hit the patrol again, Arlo. I’ll call Jethro about that truck.” The deputy got behind the wheel of the squad car and motored off. We filed into the single holding cell in the middle of the room and the Sheriff closed the door.

  “Sheriff Orville,” A man’s voice called from the other end of the room. “I’d started to give up hope
of catching you today.” The man was clean-cut and dressed in a charcoal suit with a dark green tie. His hair was sandy blond and he wore a smile that stopped at his mouth.

  “Oh Reverend Simpson, good of you to stop by,” the Sheriff said. He looked uncomfortable as if he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “I had the pleasure of hearing your sermon in church last Sunday. Mighty fine lesson to us all.”

  “Yes,” the man said. “It’s about that very subject that we need to discuss a few things going on around here.”

  “Yessir,” the Sheriff said. He turned back to us. “Sit down and shut up.”

  He led Reverend Simpson to where there was a small room sectioned off. The door declared it to be the Sheriff’s Office. I looked around the station room. It was completely deserted. Not another cop in the building.

  “Huh,” I said. “Police coverage seems a little slim around here.”

  Stacks nodded. “Budget cuts apparently. There was an article in the paper about how they were having to let several of the cops go.”

  “Good news for us,” I said. I nodded at the Sheriff’s Office door. “Looks like he gave himself an upgrade with the new digs.” The voices grew louder inside the Sheriff’s office.

  Stacks was staring at the closed door. “Sounds like somebody’s in trouble. That’s the preacher over at this new church that opened up across town.”

  I snorted. “Probably found out old Orville has been having his guns cleaned by someone other than the Missus. On a more pressing topic, if it takes us an hour to get back on the road, you think we can make Indianapolis by ten?”

  Stacks nodded, working at the cuffs on his wrists. “Probably.”

  My cuffs popped first and I turned to Noah who wasn’t moving.

  “Let’s go Noah. I promise ‘jailbirding’ isn’t all Johnny Cash and Elvis made it out to be.” Noah looked torn and I saw the boy scout expression form on his face as he looked at the Sheriff’s office door. “You thinking about yelling and turning us in?” I asked.

  Noah looked back at me and his expression changed to resignation. “No.” He stood and turned his back to me. “Give me a hand with these things.”

  We all shifted seats on the bench and put Stacks closest to the cell door. The Sheriff stuck his head out of his office and glared at us. We all sat there with our hands behind our backs until he closed his door again.

  “I think the only private phone line in the place is in there,” Stacks said as he went back to working at the cell door. “More convenient when he’s calling his ladies.”

  “How are Marge and Tessa?” I asked Stacks. I turned to Noah. “Messina has two genuine prostitutes.”

  “They started a floating craps game that they run out of the back of their boutique on 2nd Street.”

  “Fancy,” I said.

  “Yeah, I got in on a game once,” Stacks said, gritting his teeth. We heard a mechanical click and the door swung open. “But they run their stakes pretty high.”

  We watched the Sheriff’s door. Nothing.

  “Now or never, right?” Noah breathed.

  “Yeah, let’s end this field trip,” I said.

  We backed our way to the station door at the rear of the building. As soon as we closed it behind us, we started jogging down a side street back the way we’d come.

  “What’s up with Messina these days?” I asked, catching up to Stacks. “There’s not a soul out. It’s only about what, eight?”

  “It’s the new preacher in town, I tell you. He preaches about the evils that go on at night and how evenings should be spent in prayer and with family.”

  “I never thought I’d live to see the day you were dragging your sorry hide to church,” I said.

  “I don’t. He’s got a column in the paper though and he’s started throwing his weight around. You saw him in there with the sheriff. He’s probably got ole Orville over his knee right now.”

  Noah caught up to us. “Where are we going now?”

  We turned down a back alley and slowed our jog. “To get Lucy. Hey, Stacks,” I whispered. “Is Timmy Green still the impound lot attendant.”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh,” I said with a grin. “This is going to be 'ages three and under’ easy.”

  The Messina impound was a vacant lot between the courthouse and the barbershop. An incomplete chain-link fence lined the front of the lot and a prefabricated shed that had seen better days squatted on the sidewalk next to the opening in the fence. A dim light was coming from the shed’s tiny window and I could see Timmy’s black hair resting on the table. Just in case the Messina police force had grown some gumption and put up surveillance, we skirted the single street light as we went into the lot.

  “What about the attendant?” Noah whispered next to me.

  “If humans and sloths could mate, Timmy Green would be their offspring,” I muttered to Noah, nodding at the shed. We looked around the motley assortment of cars.

  No Lucy.

  “Shit. They didn’t bring her in yet.” I looked at Stacks. “You think we can beat the tow truck to her?”

  Stacks rolled his eyes. “Knowing Jethro Dunny and his tow truck, they’re probably both over at The Rowdy Hole deep in conversation with a Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

  “Good enough for me,” I said. We took off for the Ferguson’s house. Twice Stacks had to redirect me. It had been a while since I’d been in Messina. The town appeared to be doing better than when I was last here. There was a lot more green in the lawns and a lot less trash on the streets. But something felt off about it. I just couldn’t put my finger on it and frankly at the moment, I didn’t have the time to ponder it.

  12

  “Stacks, have you noticed anything strange going on around here?” I asked.

  A street light flickered on as we jogged past an illuminated statue of the Virgin Mary in a nearby front yard.

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Just a feeling.”

  “Like an itchy sweater kind of feeling?” Stacks asked.

  “Or like someone stepped in something in your general vicinity but you’re not quite sure of the location, breed, or viscosity of said crap?” I asked.

  “That about covers it,” Stacks said. “Yeah, I haven’t been able to put my finger on it yet, but I know it’s there.”

  Lucy was still sitting in the open Ferguson’s garage. We climbed in and she rumbled to life on the first try. I kept my smirk to myself. When Hell told me I could have one possession that would be constant for this suicide mission, it had been an easy call. It was always going to be Lucy.

  Noah and I watched Stacks run back up the driveway and pull the garage door shut. He’d grabbed a dirty oil rag out of Lucy’s door pocket to wipe his prints off the garage’s manual handle. As he crossed back to the truck, he was staring down at the rag in disgust.

  “Dammit Bane,” he said, tossing the rag in through the open window before yanking the door open. “Is that some hellion’s blood all over that rag?”

  I shrugged. “Well, technically yes.” I put Lucy in gear. “It’s mine.”