UnderCover
Page 14
This man and woman were a blessing, and they gave her hope. Even if she could no longer assist Cheryl directly, in one way or another, she had managed through little Mandy to put some pieces in place. Easing back into what she called meditation, that condition where there was no space or time, Martha McGill smiled.
It was nearly a half hour before Satin returned to the kitchen. Owl-eyed, she schlepped in through the sliding doors and flopped into a chair. Cheryl appeared to be a little startled.
“You okay?” Crockett asked.
Satin blinked at him. “She’s out there.”
“What?”
“Uh, Martha. She’s out there, Crockett. I felt her. Just like you can feel somebody come into the room behind you, even if they don’t make any noise. I felt her. It was real. She was just right there. There’s so much love in her. Wow.”
With tears welling in her eyes, Cheryl turned to Satin. “Can I hug you?” she asked.
Satin was so groggy that Crockett loaded her up shortly after she returned from her encounter with Martha and headed home. They hadn’t gone five miles before she was asleep, her head lolling with the motion of the truck. Even his satellite phone ringing didn’t disturb her.
“Hey, son! How’s things among the country tribes?”
“Good to hear from you, Texican. What’s up?”
“I been diggin’ a little. I ain’t got much, but I got some.”
“Shoot.”
“Ya’ll remember I told ya about that kid name a Daryl Hansen they found out your way been kicked around, then shot?”
“Yeah.”
“The boy, accordin’ to the autopsy, had trace amounts a whatever the stuff is that comes from morphine or heroin in his system.”
“No shit?”
“Yessir. They wasn’t enough to contribute to his death or nothin’, but the boy was a casual user. Had a track or two on his forearms. Just poppin’, not mainlinin’. That boils down to heroin, son.”
“That’s gotta mean something, Clete. I just wonder what.”
“In that same vein, Crockett, I told ya about Michael Leoni and Leoni’s Cycles. And that Michael had been in Afghanistan?”
“Yeah.”
“He was a civilian. Worked for Kellogg, Brown, and Root in Khandahar for a little over two years. He was in utilities vertical.”
“Utilities vertical?”
“Yeah. Buildin’ things above ground.”
“Oh. How does that tie in with anything?”
“Where the hell do you think a shitload of the world’s opium comes from, son?”
“Lemme see. Possibly Afghanistan?”
“Give that man a cigar.”
“A Macanudo would be nice.”
“At least seventy percent of the entire world’s supply of opium poppies are grown in Afghanistan, son. Maybe as much as ninety percent.”
“And from the little poppy does the mighty heroin spring.”
“You got that right.”
“So you think there’s a drug connection with the motorcycle place?”
“How the hell do I know? Could mean somethin’. Could mean nothin’. But if your trooper that vanished did get dusted, it takes some purty good motivation to cancel a cop, for chrissakes. That there is what is known as the gravest extreme.”
Crockett grinned. “Kind of an intense vocabulary you got there, Texican.”
“I ate a book once. Where do we go from here?”
“Did you ever tell Stitch to call me?”
“Shit. I forgot. Hold on, I’ll git him for ya.”
“No. I’m on the road right now. Ask him to call me in about an hour.”
“Okay. What’s on your mind?”
“Check and see if he knows anything about motorcycles.”
“You figger on installin’ a agent among the opposition?”
“Possibly.”
“Ha! Ol’ Stitch’ll love that. Lemme know what’s goin’ on and if you need anything else. See ya.”
After they arrived home, Satin bumbled around for a while, petted Dundee for a while, sat on the deck for a while, then announced to Crockett she was going to nap for a while.
“Okay by me,” he said watching her weave her way toward the stairs. “That encounter with Martha McGill knocked the shit outa you, huh?”
“I just can’t get past it. I feel like I’m wrapped in cobwebs or something.”
“Sleep it off. You’ll feel more together when you wake up.”
Satin stopped on the third step and peered at him. “You’re connected to all this,” she said.
“What?”
“You, David Allen Crockett, are involved in all this somehow.”
“Well, yeah. I’m investigating the whole thing.”
Satin rubbed her forehead. “No, that’s not what I mean. It’s like what you told me about the Amazing Disappearing Woman thing you and Ruby went through. You were involved in that as an investigation, but also on a different level, too. That dead woman lived in your apartment before you were even born.”
“So?”
Satin rubbed her forehead again. “So, there’s another connection.”
“What connection?”
Satin grimaced. “I don’t know, Crockett. If I knew, I’d tell ya.”
Crockett smiled at her. “Got a headache, honey?”
Satin pressed her thumb into the center of her forehead, just above her eyebrows.
“What makes you ask?” she said, turning away to finish her climb to the bedroom.
As Crockett walked into the kitchen to make coffee, his satellite phone rang.
“Hey, dude! It’s me, man. Like Stitch, ya know?”
“Stitch! Good to hear from you.”
“Yeah, well ya gotta hear from somebody else first, man. Here’s, uh, Marta.”
Marta? Ivy’s psychic friend? What now? The noise of the phone being passed settled down, and she came on the line.
“David. How are you?”
“Fine, Marta. How’s the fortune telling business? Got your new parlor above the barbershop yet?”
Her laugh lilted in his ear. “I miss your wonderful energy, David. You must come to Ivy’s soon so we can sit, drink coffee, and insult each other.”
Crockett laughed. “I miss you, too, ghostbuster. What can I do for you?”
“It was not an idle greeting when I asked how you are. Is everything all right?”
“It’s just this case I’m working on.”
“Yes. Cletus has told me some things about it.”
“Satin and I went to the home in question for Sunday dinner, and she believes she had an encounter of some kind.”
“Ah! That’s the distress I’m feeling. She’s blocking. Tell her to lie on her back, close her eyes, and visualize her forehead as being liquid or whatever. She needs to release the pressure over her third eye. She’ll feel much better when she awakens.”
“Ah…okay.”
“Fine. I’ll tell Martin, I mean Stitch, you’ll return his call presently. Go with God, dear.”
Almost numb, Crockett peered at the dead phone for a moment, then climbed the steps to the bedroom. Satin, swathed in a sheet, was lying on her right side.
“You awake?”
“Uh-huh. Could you bring me thirty-one aspirins?”
“Try this. Lay on your back and visualize your forehead as not being solid. Make it feel like water, or like it’s transparent or something. You’re blocking.”
Satin rolled to her back and fixed him with a stare from one opened eye. She did not appear happy.
“I’m what?”
“You’re blocking. You need to remove the pressure on your third eye.”
“Oh, yeah? Sez who?”
“Marta.”
“Marta? Ivy’s Marta?”
“Yeah. I just talked to her on the phone.”
“You call her?”
“No. She felt a nipple in the farce and got in contact with me.”
Satin smiled. “A nipple
in the farce, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. I’ll try it. Go away.”
A stranger in a strange land, Crockett lurched downstairs, put on coffee, and sat down to call Stitch.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Like, what’s up, dude? Ol’ Clete said somethin’ about motorcycles?”
“Yeah. You know anything about ‘em?”
“Used to enduro on a Bultaco Matador, man. Had a 750 Honda for a while, a Harley Sportster, and a couple a other scooters over the years. I even wrenched at a Suzuki and Kawalski shop for ten or twelve months.”
“Kawalski?”
“Kawasaki, man. You know, one a them rice-propelled death traps. I did set-ups part time at a BMW dealer for a while back in the late seventies.”
“So, you know bikes.”
“I know the more I know about any of ‘em, the less I like all of ‘em, man.”
“How ‘bout Moto Guzzi?”
“Guzzis are okay. Italians build a couple a pretty good bikes, Crockett. Ducatis go real fast when they hold together. Guzzi builds a good scooter. Kinda a strange cylinder set-up, shaft drive. Go over the road okay. I don’t know much about the new ones, but I worked on a few back in days gone by. Had a little trouble with the shaft seals, as I remember.”
“How about the older English bikes?”
“BSA’s were okay. Triumphs went pretty fast but didn’t handle that good. Royal Endfields leaked oil. Ariel never did get the cooling right. Nortons were okay, especially after Paul Dunstall started takin’ ‘em out to eight-ten on his Domiracer. That old Norton Atlas and the Dominator were hellacious scooters for their day, man. Had forks and frame a lot like the old Manx roadracers. Handled better than almost anything on the road at the time. Why you interested in all the old shit, Crockett? They got bikes right outa the box that’ll eat them ol’ fuckers up. Hell, the average new Ricky-Roadracer rice-burner’ll run rings around anything from the sixties and seventies.”
“Call it nostalgia. I used to own an Atlas.”
“Wow! Bet you still miss that ol’ sled, huh?”
“Yeah, I do. At the time, the only thing that ever beat it was an old Norton Dominator 88, but it had had a lot of work.”
“They don’t make iron like that anymore, dude.”
“How would you feel about hanging around a motorcycle shop for a while and doing a little re-con?”
“I don’t mind motorheads, man, even if most of the little shits in the business now wouldn’t know a Goldstar or a Manx if it bit ‘em on the ass. It’s all factory today, dude. Ya don’t have to earn it and sweat over it anymore. Now you just buy it in the goddam box. Fuckin’ shame, Crockett, but that’s the way everything is. I’m getting’ old, I guess.”
“This shop sells new Moto Guzzis and does repair and restoration work on a lot of the old stuff.”
“Yeah. Clete let me in on some of the background. When do ya need me?”
“In a week or so. You feel like riding again?”
“Sure. Scooters are the next best thing to flyin’ a helo, man.”
“Good. I’m gonna need you as my front man, I think.”
“Whatdaya mean?”
“I’m not sure. Can you come up with an older Guzzi? Sixties or seventies vintage type?”
“There’a shops around Chicago that deal in that kinda thing. If not here, Clete’ll find something. Only one problem.”
“What?”
“Money. Bike like that could cost mucho kimchee, dude. It’d run me a little thin, y’know?”
“We’re not looking for something cherry. It should need a little work. Tell Clete to finance the enterprise and I’ll pay him back.”
“Sounds like benefits without liability for me, Crockett. Where you been all my life?”
Crockett smiled. “Part of the time yelling for help and waiting for you to lift my ass outa the grass, Blackbird.”
“Ah. The good old days, man.”
“More to come, Stitch.”
“Far out. Lemme get my shit together, come up with a sled, and I’m on my way. Be good to see ol’ Nudge again.” Crockett was left holding a dead phone.
Crockett spent a few minutes musing on his plan before confessing to himself that he really didn’t have a plan. His gut instinct pointed to Paul McGill’s Moto Guzzi as being the best connection to follow, a connection, from what little he knew about what Paul was doing that pointed at Leoni’s Cycles. To find out more, he picked up the phone and called his friend at Higgenbotham Realty.
“Lyle! Crockett here. How are you?”
“Able to be up and take nourishment, boy. I figgerd to git out your way a time or two lately, take another look at that big cat you got and share a little sightin’ oil with ya, but somethin’ allus come up. What kin I do fer ya?”
“You familiar with a place called Leoni’s Cycles around Liberty somewhere?”
“Clifford Leoni’s ol’ place. Shore. Ol’ Cliff was a purty good feller. I found him his first building. I was the realtor on the deal.”
“No kidding?”
“Nope. Cliff come here with his family from Italy a little after World War Two when he was just a baby. Got hisself wounded in Viet Nam. He come home with a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and a screwed up stomach. Vet’s hospital couldn’t do nothin’ for him, so he tried some medical center of some kind in Wisconsin someplace, I think it was. They screwed him up even more an’ he laid a law suit on ‘em. Won hisself a bunch a money, had two or three surgeries at a clinic out in Boston, felt a bunch better, come back to Liberty, got married, and set himself up in the motorcycle bidness. Sold Harleys as I recall.”
“Harley-Davidsons?”
“Yep. Fer a while. Then a couple a other big shops opened up in the area, an’ he couldn’t compete. Kinda changed into a specialty shop. Vintage cycles, choppers, custom work, restoration a old bikes. Stuff like that. Did purty well. Had a boy named Mike, I think it was, worked with him. Kinda a smart-assed kid. Allus thought he knew mor’n he did. You know the type.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Mike got fed up an’ joined the Army. Got sent over to mess with them A-rabs an’ such, but he come home in less than a year. Got hisself a undesirable discharge. He worked with his dad for a little while, then went back overseas with one a them big civilian companies that works with the guvmint. He was gone for a year or two ‘til Cliff’s stomach finally caught up with him an’ he died. Then Mike come home an’ took over the cycle shop. Five or six year ago his momma passed on an’ he moved outa that little shop in Liberty to a bigger set-up off a ninety-sixth, a little north a one-fifty-two an’ one-sixty-nine, south a Smithville.”
“How’s business?”
“Purty good from the looks a things. Still does a lot of what his dad did, but he also sells new motorcycles, too. Got the name on the sign. Moto something’.”
“Moto Guzzi?”
“Yeah. That’s it. Eye-talian I reckon.”
“You reckon right. Know anything else about the kid?”
“Nope. I ain’t never done bidness with him myself. No big loss, though. The boy ain’t the man his daddy was. Not by a fair piece.”
“All right. Another question. If a fella wanted to set himself up in a big place out by Smithville Lake, for instance, and play at the rich life for a while, would you know any place like that to rent for a month or two?”
“How rich?”
“Aged fillet and twenty-five year old scotch rich. Mercedes and Cuban cigar rich. A young lovely on each arm rich. A guest apartment over the big-assed garage rich.”
“Crooked money rich?”
Crockett grinned. “You got it,” he said.
“Boy,” Lyle said, “I ain’t near dumb enough to ask ya what yer up to, but I am smart enough to wanna help. Lemme look around. Yer lookin’ at ten grand a month rent, maybe more. That okay?”
“Just fine.”
“Under what name?”
“Daniel Beckett, I guess.”
“Could be.”
“I’ll git back to ya in a day or two. Bound ta be somethin’ like that around. Got folks in that area with more money than mind. I’ll be in touch.”
Crockett was musing over his conversation with Lyle Higgenbotham, scratching Dundee’s ears and ignoring a growing appetite, when his phone went off again. Cletus.
“Just who the hell gave you the authority to approve a loan from me to Stitch?”
“Oops! Hi there, Texican. Have I ever told you how much I admire you?”
“Bull and shit. Ol’ Stitch walked in an’ said he needed umpteen thousand dollars to buy a motorcycle so he could ride down to see you, and that you’d pay me back if I loaned him the money to buy some kinda antique Moto Floosey.”
“Moto Guzzi, you dumbass hayshaker. Don’t you know anything?”
“I, by God, know when I’m bein’ slipped the ol’ maroon harpoon, son. What else ya need?”
“I don’t know yet. I may need to rent some big old place to convince people that I’m rich. I’m probably gonna need a couple of expensive cars and another motorcycle or two. Maybe even another identity.”
“You’re settin’ yourself up to con somebody, ain’t ya?”
“Could be.”
“Well, you got whatever ya need. Ivy overheard me talkin’ to Stitch. I told her what I knew of what was goin’ on. She, as usual, jumped right in the middle a the whole thing. You now have the backing of Cabot Enterprises. Said if ya need cash for anything on yer end, she expects ya to use that Cabot bank card she give ya a while back. Don’t want you takin’ no money oughta your pocket. Ain’t she a mess?”
“I love her, Clete. In that case, does Ivy have anything still going in California?”
“She’s sold a couple a things out that way. Still got a company called Big Sur Imports.”