The limousine turns off on a side road. The camera jiggles, and the screen goes blank again. When the picture returns, the camera is pointing down a brush-covered hill, a long lens apparently having been attached to the camera. The limousine is in view, at the bottom of the hill on a dirt road, a good distance away from the camera.
“Where they at?” asked Johnny Gee, studying the picture.
“Shh.” Sam pointed at the screen.
The limo’s doors open. Several men get out. One man is carrying a long cardboard tube. He opens the tube and withdraws a large sheet of paper and spreads it across the hood of the limo. Another man helps him hold the corners of the sheet down. The other men gather around the limo’s hood.
“What in hell is that?” Johnny Gee asked.
“Looks like a blueprint,” said Sam.
“You recognize anybody?” asked Johnny Gee.
“They’ve got their backs to us. I couldn’t make out any faces.” Sam leaned forward as the camera zoomed closer.
“It’s a blueprint,” Sam said. “I can see it now. That guy on the other side of the hood in the suit, he was the driver. I think he’s just a chauffeur.”
“One of ’em is pointin’ across that field,” said Johnny Gee.
The camera pans. The field has been staked by surveyors, and the stakes are tied together with plastic ribbon.
“You make any sense of that shift?” asked Johnny Gee.
“They’re gonna build something out there, and whatever it is, it is gonna be big.” Spicer drew on his cigar and coughed softly.
The camera pulls back, revealing the entire field. One set of stakes runs in a straight line over a small hill, disappearing in the distance. Another set runs at a right angle along the dirt road for a quarter mile, following the road into a woodline.
The camera zooms back on the men at the limousine. One man is doing most of the talking. He is wearing khaki trousers and a khaki shirt. The other men are wearing suits. The camera stays on the men at the limousine for a few minutes, then the screen goes blank.
When the picture returns, the man in khaki is rolling up the blueprint and shoving it back into the tube. The men in suits are walking across the field along one of the staked-out plastic ribbons. The chauffeur is leaning against the limousine, talking with the man in khaki.
The camera pulls back to take in the whole scene. The men in suits are standing in the middle of the field talking and pointing. One of the men, a fat man who looks like he weighs at least three hundred pounds, takes a cigar out of his pocket and lights up. He steps away from the other three men. They talk among themselves for a few minutes, then walk over to the fat man. There is some talk among them, then one of the men shakes hands with the fat man first, and with the others. The four men start walking back toward the limousine. The camera zooms in on the four.
“I seen the fat one before,” said Spicer.
“You’ve seen him?” asked Sam. “Where? When?”
“Yeah. I seen him. Long time ago. Can’t exactly recall where.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“Can’t rightly recall. All I know is, I seen him once.”
“What in hell are these guys doing in a field in Rock County?” asked Sam. “And why is somebody shooting the whole scene on videotape? I can’t figure it.”
“Me neither,” said Johnny Gee.
Everyone turned back to the Sony.
The four men are dilly-dallying in the field, taking their time walking back to the limousine. They’ve conducted some kind of business. Something is going to be built on the field. But what? And who are they?
The camera zooms in as they near the limousine.
“Do you recognize any of ’em?” asked Johnny Gee.
“I only seen the fat one. Rest of ’em mean nothin’ to me.”
The men are getting into the limousine when the screen goes blank again. The picture returns with a view of the limousine on the two-lane road, shot from the hillside.
“Hit the fast forward. I want to see where they’re going,” said Sam.
Spicer hit a button, and the screen flickered crazily. There was a whirring noise as the machine raced ahead.
“Stop the tape. Let’s have a look,” Sam said.
“Pussy next,” said Johnny Gee. “I wanna see who’s doin’ what to who at Corrine’s.”
“I want to see what else is on this tape, first.” Sam shot Johnny Gee a look.
“Okay, but pussy next,” said Johnny Gee, grinning. “You got to play fair.”
Spicer hit the stop button, then hit the one marked play. They turned to watch the Sony.
The screen flickered and went white. Time and date signature, lower left corner. August 5, 7 A.M.
White. Still white. Then the camera pulls back to reveal the white side of a garbage truck. The truck is idling on a street next to a chain-link fence, waiting to turn right through a gate into a huge lot next to some kind of industrial complex. A low, flat-roofed, dark-colored building seems to go on forever, running off the left edge of the screen. A hydraulic crank arm opens the gate, and the white garbage truck turns into the lot. The truck has commercial plates.
The chain-link gates close, and the camera moves down the street, pans the side of the industrial building. No windows. No doors. Just aluminum siding.
“Place looks like a giant dumpster,” said Johnny Gee, taking a drag on his cigarette. “I’ve seen jails that looked better.”
A door appears at the left of the screen. The camera begins to zoom in on the door.
“Eeeeeep-eeeeep-eeeeep-eeeeep!” A loud buzzer sounded as the Sony’s screen went blank.
“What in hell is going on, Spicer?” yelled Sam. “That sounds like a damn fire alarm.”
“That’s my automated recordin’ system,” said Spicer. “Means a movie is comin’ on. Give it a minute. There it is.”
The familiar logo for HBO flickered on the screen and began its video special effects swirling dance. The sound came up. Synthesizer music.
“Lemme check the schedule. Yeah. Here it is,” said Spicer, bent over the HBO schedule.
Behind them two hundred video recorders whirred and began taping.
“What’s the movie, Spicer?”
“It’s that Elmore Leonard thing, ah, Stick with Burt Reynolds. I ain’t taped it yet, so I had this thing set on automatic to pick it up at ten-thirty. I heard today the thing ain’t movin’ so hot at the stores. I think I’ll cut my losses right here and now.”
Spicer got up and moved to the console. He punched a couple of buttons and the whirring noise of the video recorders closest to them ended.
“What did you do?”
“I just canceled half the machines. I was gonna make two hundred copies. Now we’ll just have a hundred to sell. Don’t make no difference anyhow. They don’t move, we’ll just tape another movie over this one and put new labels on the fuckers. What a business, huh? What’d I tell you?”
“Can you start our tape again and put it back on the Sony? Or do we have to watch Stick?” asked Sam.
“Easy.” Spicer punched a button, and the Sony went blank. He punched another, and the VCR on the console kicked into gear and the olive drab industrial building reappeared on the screen.
“Door’s got somethin’ written on it,” said Johnny Gee.
“Can’t read it,” said Spicer.
“I can’t either,” said Sam. “Stop the tape.”
“Wait a minute. Somethin’ else is comin’ on.” Johnny Gee nodded at the Sony, as the screen flickered, went white, then gray, then blank.
TIME SIGNATURE. AUGUST 7, 8:27 P.M. Out of focus, focusing, focusing.
Building appears. Big building. Nighttime. Lots of lights. Semicircular drive. Cabs waiting. Spotlit shrubs. Airport limo. Camera pulls back. Tall building, with balconies. Lots of balconies. Lots of rooms. Lots of lights.
“It’s a hotel,” Johnny Gee said, taking a swig of beer. “Downtown Sheraton, up in Springfield. See t
he sign in front?”
“Looks like any one of them shitholes to me,” said Spicer, choking on his words, coughing and laughing, coughing and laughing. “Know what I call them big fancy hotels? Buck-pluckers. That’s all they do to ya. Pluck bucks from your wallet. And what for? A fuckin’ yard for a bed and a bath? Who are they kiddin’?” Spicer dissolved into spasms of coughing, his cap falling over his face.
“They put a chocolate on your pillow at night, Spicer. That shit costs money.” Johnny Gee poked Spicer. “Kinda dough you’re makin’ with this scam, you gonna be able to afford a damn hotel suite, man.”
“Not this little red rooster,” said Spicer. “I get up too early in the mornin’ to be fooled by that shit.”
“You know what a suite is, Spicer? Huh?”
“No. I’ll play dumb. You tell me.”
“A bed and a bath and a pussy. That’s why they call it sweet.”
Spicer doubled over laughing. “Your friend, Butter. I’m startin’ to like him. You got to get yourself in deep shit, you could do worse for company.”
“Come on, you guys. Something is happening,” Sam interrupted. They watched the Sony.
A black limousine is pulling up the drive to the hotel. A stretched Checker cab moves out of the way. The hotel doorman opens the limousine’s rear door. A short man in a gray suit steps out and says something to the doorman. The doorman moves to the side. Then a tall man steps out of the limousine. He is wearing a tan suit, and he pauses to straighten his lapels and brush something from his sleeve.
Camera zooms in on the scene at the hotel door. The man’s hair shines in the lights from the awning overhead. The man leans in the door of the limousine, saying something to the driver. He stands up and straightens his suit again. Then he walks into the hotel.
The screen goes blank, flickering gray-black, gray-black. Then it lights up; hotel, drive, lights, shrubs, doorman.
“How’d you like to have that job,” said Spicer.
“What job?” asked Johnny Gee.
“Doorman. Standin’ around all day, all night in a fuckin’ monkey suit, openin’ doors, tippin’ your hat, takin’ fifty cents here, a skinny buck there. Now, there’s some real dignity in that gig, for sure. Can you feature that?”
“Probably clears more than the major here. How much you make, man?”
“Knock off the bullshit, will you?”
“Doorman’s probably union, probably makes as much as you do. How’s that make you feel?”
“I don’t care one way or the other.”
“Listen to this shit. Our major here ain’t makin’ as much as a fuckin’ doorman, and he don’t care one way or the other. Man could get sent to fuckin’ Nicaragua tomorrow, and he don’t give a shit that he’s gettin’ paid like the help at the Downtown Sheraton.”
“He’s probably makin’ more than the poor dudes in the van,” said Spicer. “How’d you like that job, sittin’ all fuckin’ day in a hot fuckin’ van, lookin’ through a little video lens, can’t even get out and stretch your fuckin’ legs. Whatdaya figure? They pee in their coke cans?” Spicer doubled over coughing and laughing, coughing and laughing.
When he recovered, he said: “We’re just joshin’ you, Butter. I got great respect for those in the nation’s service. We both do. Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah. We ain’t serious. I can’t remember the last time I was serious.”
“Shut up. The camera’s zooming in on something,” Sam said. His eyes had been glued to the screen the whole time.
“What do we got here?” asked Johnny Gee. “I don’t see nothin’.”
“Another car. See it?”
“That one? On the right?”
“That’s the one. See? They’re focusing on the license.”
“They sure as hell are.”
The car pulls to a stop at the door, and a slight, balding man gets out. He hands a dollar to the parking attendant and watches as the attendant drives off.
“See him?” asked Johnny Gee.
The camera zooms closer.
“Recognize the fucker?”
“I’m not sure …” said Sam.
“He was in the field lookin’ at all them stakes and shit. The bald guy.”
“Oh, I’ve got him now.”
“What time does it say on the screen?” Johnny Gee squinted and shook his head.
“Nine-oh-three P.M.”
“Same day?”
“Same day. August seven.”
The screen goes blank again.
The picture reappears: same scene, front of the Sheraton. The bald man is waiting for his car to be driven around. He gets in it and drives off. Time signature: August 7, 11:45 P.M. Screen goes blank.
Hotel appears again, in daylight, revealing the departure of the man with the shiny hair. Time signature: August 8, 9:32 A.M.
“Those poor fuckers in the van sat out there in front of that palace all night waitin’. What a gig.” Johnny Gee stubbed his cigarette out in a wagon wheel ashtray and shook his head. “They’re just plain torchin’ taxpayers’ dollars on this thing, that’s for sure.”
“We don’t even know that these are police tapes,” said Sam.
“They ain’t cop tapes, whose are they?” asked Johnny Gee.
“They could be industrial espionage. I read an article once that said big companies do it all the time.”
“Do what?”
“Spy on each other.”
“Lemme check the picture quality on my movie,” said Spicer, punching a button on the console. The VCR stopped, the screen went dark, then a bright color picture appeared. Burt Reynolds was walking across the lawn of a big estate somewhere in southern Florida. A beautiful blue bay was in the background. Burt was striding purposefully toward the camera. A girl appeared. Burt strode purposefully in the direction of the girl.
“I think we have seen enough of Burt,” said Sam.
Spicer punched the button, the screen went dark, then popped up gray-black again.
“What the hell’s going on now?” hissed Johnny Gee, cigarette between his teeth. He was pointing at the Sony.
New time signature: August 10, 11:42 A.M.
A limousine is turning a corner about a stop light away from the surveillance van. The van takes the corner, following the limousine at a respectful distance. The limousine is heading into an industrial area along a river somewhere. The roadsides are littered with wood and metal scraps that have fallen from truck beds. Most of the buildings along the road are brick with rows of skylights like pup tents along their roofs. They come from an era when industries groaned and clanked and whistled, but now the riverside buildings are silent, and most of them appear long closed, their facades wounded by broken windows and cracked and faded corporate name signs, weeds poking through cracks in their parking lots, gates unlocked, fences broken. The limousine rushes past the brick buildings heading for a cluster of cylindrical oil tanks at the end of a road at the edge of a river.
The oil tanks are surrounded by low berms of compacted earth, and the limousine can be seen making its way around the first tank and the second, then it disappears. The van pulls up outside the gate to the tank complex. No corporate name sign.
The screen goes blank.
Picture back: A telephoto lens shows the back of the limousine and the door to a double-wide in the background of the shot. A sign next to the door reads HARDHAT AREA.
“What do you figure that place is?” asked Johnny Gee. “Some kind of oil refinery?”
“Those are storage tanks,” said Sam. “There isn’t any refining equipment there.”
The door to the double-wide opens, and out steps a short man in a gray suit, followed by a man wearing a wind-breaker and a hardhat. Then a tall man appears, blinking in the sun.
“Hey! That’s Frankie, from the other tape!” said Johnny Gee. “You remember. The big guy makin’ the payoff in the Ramada.”
“Who’s the other guy … the one in the suit?” asked Sam.
&nb
sp; “Isn’t he one of the guys at the hotel?”
“I think you’re right. The little guy, who got out of the limo first.”
“That’s the one. The other fucker looks like he works there.”
The three men stand talking at the side of the limousine for a few minutes, then the short man in the gray suit and the tall man called Frankie get in the limousine and drive off. The man in the hardhat walks over to a pickup truck, starts it up, and drives off. The camera swings back to the door of the double-wide. There are no other signs of life at the tank complex. The screen goes blank.
“What do you think that was all about?” asked Sam.
“Guy’s touring the waterfront, lookin’ for a location for his new restaurant,” said Spicer, coughing and laughing.
“I’m serious.”
“Who knows?” said Johnny Gee.
“Whatever they were doing, it had something to do with that field down in Rock County. The bald guy was in the field, and he was at the hotel. Now this guy was at the hotel, and he’s standing around with Frankie from the Ramada. It’s all connected somehow.”
“Let’s put on another tape. Here. Corrine’s cathouse next,” said Johnny Gee, handing the tape to Spicer. “I been hearin’ about that place for years. I heard once they got girls from seven different countries there. Guy told me they spend a grand a week on fuckin’ underwear. Whew.”
“No. I want to see the one that says Sheraton,” said Sam, flipping through the videos. He pulled out the Sheraton tape and gave it to Spicer, taking the one marked Corrine’s from Johnny Gee.
Spicer popped the Mobile Van tape out of the VCR and slipped the Sheraton tape in its place. He punched play.
The screen comes up gray, flickers, then the interior of a hotel room appears on the screen in black and white, shot through a wide angle lens. Time signature: August 7, 8:15 P.M. The minutes begin to tick off. 8:16. 8:17. 8:18.
The room looks like an ordinary living room. No bed. Kitchenette counter in the foreground. Dinette table and chairs. Sofa along left wall. Coffee table. Three bucket chairs. Lamps atop tables at either end of the sofa. Hanging lamp over dinette set. No signs of human occupation.
“Looks like one of them suites,” said Spicer, doubling over laughing and coughing. “How much you figure they get for one of them suites?”
Rules of the Road Page 11
