“Hurry,” he said when they were out of earshot of the others.
“I said I was sorry,” she said. “Your fault anyway, it was your foot I tripped over.”
“We’re not going back to the hotel,” he said when they were in the car, moving into traffic.
“What?”
“Those cops lost the clown,” Truman said. “The kidnappers aren’t going to just hand Chip over. I’ve got an idea.”
“What?” she said warily.
“Take me back to that tourist court,” Truman told her. “I want to see if Wade’s been back there. Maybe he’s got Chip.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, but she did as he said.
They parked near the manager’s office. “Now what?”
Jackie said. “That guy might have a gun. You think of that?”
Truman scanned the horseshoe-shaped courtyard. On the porch next to the manager’s office he saw a familiar face.
“Hey there, D’Antonio,” he said, getting out of the car.
The boy looked up from his paperback novel, Encyclopedia Brown.
“Y’all the police,” D’Antonio said, getting up and coming up to them.
“That’s right,” Truman said. “Have you been playing James Bond again, D’Antonio?”
The child looked warily around. “Y’all won’t tell my auntie?”
Truman and Jackleen promised.
“Wade been back here and now he got a girlfriend,” D’Antonio said. “That blond lady, the one with the black car? She come back over here and Wade be with her. They got another white dude with ‘em too.”
“When was this?” Truman asked eagerly.
The child screwed up his face and thought. “This week. After I saw y’all.”
“Did you look in the window?” Truman asked.
The child gave them a conspiratorial grin. “Uh-huh. Wade be typing on that computer, and the others be yelling at him, telling him to hurry up.”
“Say, D’Antonio,” Truman said. “You haven’t seen them with a little boy, have you? A blond-headed little boy?”
“Nah,” D’Antonio said. “They ain’t been back since then. I been watching too.”
Truman’s face sagged with disappointment. “All right.” He reached in his pocket. He brought out one of his old business cards, scribbled out the office number, and wrote in his number at the hotel. “If you see them again, you call me, okay? It’s really important. Can you do that?”
D’Antonio nodded eagerly. Truman took out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the child.
They were in the car, getting ready to leave, when D’Antonio ran up to them. “Hey, mister,” he said, showing them the back of his hand, the numbers written there in fading blue ink. “I wrote down that white lady’s license plate number, like the crime dog say on TV. You want that?”
He found a pay phone at a convenience store nearby and sent Jackie in with money to buy him a clean T-shirt.
“Gibby?”
“Hey, Truman,” Frank Gibhart sounded concerned. “I heard about your grandson. What the hell are you mixed up in over there?”
“Can’t talk right now, Gibby,” Truman said, glancing down at his watch. “I’m calling in another favor, Gibby. You still got a friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles?” He crossed his fingers.
“Yeah,” Gibby said. “I know a guy.”
“I need a license plate run,” Truman said. “I never needed anything more, Gibby. You understand?”
“It’s about Chip, isn’t it?” Gibhart said. “TK, this is horseshit. You’re not a reporter anymore. You let the cops handle this. Or you’ll get yourself and the kid killed.”
“The cops already bungled it,” Truman said tersely. “You gonna do this for me or not?”
“Give me the tag,” Gibby said. “And a number where I can reach you.”
Jackie came out of the store with a paper sack. “It’s all I could find,” she said apologetically.
Truman took out the T-shirt. It was a sleeveless muscle shirt, bright pink. He shrugged, pulled the stained sports shirt off, and put on the muscle shirt. There was a cold can of Coke in the bag, too.
“I thought you might be tired of Slurpee,” she said.
He took a pull on the Coke, then got back out of the car and again headed for the pay phone.
By the time the phone rang, he’d finished the Coke.
“Is the car a black ‘93 Firebird?”
“Something like that,” Truman said.
“It’s registered to a Tammi Stargell. The address is out on Sunset Beach, 1662 Harrell Avenue. Right off Gulf Boulevard.”
“All right,” Truman said shakily. “I know where that is. Little dinky houses. I covered a drug bust out there once. Okay. One more favor, Gibby?”
“What the hell,” Gibhart said. “You gonna give me an exclusive when this all comes down?”
“Sure,” Truman said. “You got a current crisscross directory?”
“Yeah.”
“Look up that address for me,” Truman said.
He was gone another five minutes.
“House belongs to somebody else,” he said. “Owner’s name is Mary Ellen Akers.”
“That neighborhood, the Stargell woman probably rents from her,” Truman said. “There a phone number in the crisscross?”
Gibhart gave it to him.
“I owe you, Gibby,” Truman said.
“Take care,” Gibby said. “Don’t be stupid.”
Truman dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed the number. It rang three times.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice. Truman hung up and raced for the car.
Chapter THIRTY-EIGHT
“I need a gun.” Truman slid into the front seat of the Nova.
“A gun? What you need a gun for?”
“I know where they’re keeping Chip. It’s that blond woman, the one who tried to kill me. He’s out in a house on Sunset Beach.”
Jackie signaled and pulled out into traffic. “That’s what the police are for, Mr. K. You let them handle this.”
Truman gestured to the backed-up traffic at the light just ahead. “I called Cheryl’s house. They’re not there. Must be stuck in this damned traffic.”
Jackie shook her head. “Call the police department. They got other cops.”
Truman snapped his fingers. “Ollie. He’s got a gun. Keeps it under the cash register. Take a right here.”
“This ain’t right,” Jackie said, but she pulled to a stop in back of the newsstand.
A minute later Truman was back, carrying a newspaper folded in half.
He unfolded the paper and showed her a tiny nickel-plated pistol. “It’s only a .22,” he said regretfully. “But it’s loaded.”
“Now what?”
“Sunset Beach,” Truman said. “Go out Central Avenue.”
She drove for a while. “I could stop at a phone booth. You could call.”
Truman’s jaw was set. “They let that clown get away. You saw it. No, I got Chip into this, I’ll have to get him out.”
“Lord.” Jackie sighed. “You got a plan?”
“I’m thinking,” he said. “Just let me think.”
Jackie maneuvered the car through the snarled downtown traffic and Truman laid his head against the back of the seat.
Once they got past downtown, it was a straight shot out Central Avenue toward the beaches.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Truman griped.
“Any faster, the transmission might fall out.”
They crossed the Central Avenue Causeway, looked out and saw the sailboats skimming along the bay.
“I’d like to learn how to sail,” Jackie said dreamily. “When I get rich, I’ll have me a sailboat. Sail all over the place, go places in the Caribbean. All that kind of stuff.”
“Sailboats go too slow,” Truman said. “I want a speedboat.”
They were at Treasure Island now. “Turn left here,” he said. “Sunset’s a couple miles down. We�
��re looking for Harrell Avenue.”
“You got that plan worked out?”
“I need to see the place first. Figure out where they’re keeping Chip. I don’t want him getting hurt.”
Sunset Beach was the smallest, cheapest, most laid-back of the Gulf Beach towns. A collection of bars, seafood restaurants, and mom-and-pop motels.
“Slow down,” he instructed her. “Here’s Harrell, right here.”
The houses were run-down, little more than shacks, set close together on tiny sandy lots.
“There’s the house. Sixteen sixty-two. Drive on past,” he said. Two houses down from the pink concrete-block house there was a For Sale sign in the yard. The front door of the house had a real estate lockbox hanging from it.
“Pull in this driveway right here.”
Jackie pulled the Nova into the driveway. “There’s a pay phone in front of that Majik Market back on Gulf Boulevard,” she said. “Those cops will be at Cheryl’s by now. Wondering where you went.”
“We’ll just look around. Then we’ll call the cops. Okay?”
“Now you’re talking,” Jackie said.
They got out of the car and Truman stuck the .22 into the waistband of his jeans. The backyard of the empty house was a jungle. Overgrown grapefruit and orange trees, oleander bushes, and bougainvillea. Flies buzzed around rotting fruit on the ground. A shaggy hedge of sea grapes ran along the west side of the property.
Truman peered around the hedge. The backyard of the next house over was littered with junk, old cars, washing machines, bicycles, and lawn mowers, all of it layered with rust and festooned with a yellow-flowering vine. The centerpiece of the junk montage was an old motor home that rested on deflated tires, like a kneeling elephant.
Truman and Jackleen tiptoed into the yard, hiding behind the motor home.
“What if somebody’s home here?”
“Hush!” Truman whispered.
He peeped around the edge of the motor home. Another sea grape hedge ran along the side of the junk house, but through the leaves Truman could see bits and pieces of the pink house.
It had a concrete-block garage, and from the rear the bumper of a shiny black car poked out. There was a large boat in the yard, a weather-beaten Chris-Craft, maybe twenty- eight feet long, sitting on jury-rigged wooden scaffolding.
In the middle of the yard, stretched out on an aluminum chaise longue planted in the middle of a plastic wading pool, was the blonde.
She wore a tiny black bikini and her oiled hide gleamed in the sunlight. She was reading a thick paperback novel.
Truman scooted back to the cover of the motor home.
“She’s there,” he said. “The woman who tried to run me down. Sunbathing. The black car’s there too.”
He glanced in the direction of the pink house. “Chip’s in there. We’ve got to get him out.”
“We got to call the cops is what we got to do,” Jackie whispered.
“By the time they get here anything could happen,” Truman said. “Look, go over to the house. Ring the doorbell. See if she’ll answer it.”
“And what if she does? What if that country boy that tried to throttle me is in there?”
“Scream your head off. Run like hell. You’re young, you can outrun those two. But I think she’s alone.”
“You think. What are you gonna be doing?”
“If the girl gets up and goes in the house, I’ll go in the back way. Try to surprise her, put the gun on her, make her take me to Chip.”
“I don’t like it,” Jackie said.
“Just try to distract her, that’s all. Can you do that?”
“You’re gonna get us both killed,” Jackie said. But she walked around the front of the house.
Truman took the gun out of his waistband. It fit snugly in the palm of his hand. His sweating, trembling hand.
Five minutes passed. He kept his eyes on Tammi Stargell.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” The voice startled Truman. He peered around the hedge. Jackie was standing in the backyard. What was she doing?
Tammi Stargell sat up on the chaise longue. She squinted in the bright sunlight, then reached for her sunglasses.
“How’d you get back here? What do you want?”
Jackie flashed a bright, well-meaning smile. “I was looking at that house for sale, the one two doors down. I was wondering, do you know how much it is? It’s a cute little house.”
Truman stood up straight, poised to sprint into the yard.
“Do I look like a real estate agent?” Tammi snarled. She reached down under the beach towel on the chaise longue and brought out a large black .38. “Where’s the old man?”
It was now or never. Truman rushed at her, grabbing for her gun hand. But she was slippery, greasy from the suntan oil. His hand slid right off. She whirled around and chopped the .38 down on his forearm, sending his .22 sailing off into the sand.
She herded them inside the pink house at gunpoint.
“You tried to get cute,” she said. “People like you ought to know better than to get cute.”
“Where’s my grandson?” Truman asked, looking around the kitchen. A box of Trix cereal stood on the counter.
“He’s around,” Tammi said casually. She picked up an oversized black T-shirt and slipped it over her head, holding the gun aimed at both of them.
They heard the sound of a car pulling into the gravel driveway outside.
Truman glanced out the jalousie window and saw a green-and-white police cruiser roll to a stop inches from the rear bumper of the black car. He tensed, wondering what Tammi would do.
“In there,” she said, motioning to a hallway leading from the kitchen. “Quick.”
She forced them into a small darkened room. It was a living room, but the only furniture was a sofa, a television, and a stationary exercise bike.
“Over there,” she said, pointing with the gun to the sofa. “Now. And not a word out of you.”
A car door closed outside. They heard footsteps coming from the back of the house. The kitchen door opened. More footsteps, slow but steady.
Jackie held her breath, wanting to scream for help, but Tammi’s gun was pointed right at her chest.
The footsteps were coming down the hall. Tammi held the gun steady.
“What have we here?” Bobby Roberts, still in his police uniform, stood in the doorway, looking amused.
“Got a little surprise,” Tammi said, going over to greet him. She gave him a long, lingering kiss, daring Truman and Jackie to move.
“How long have they been here?”
“Just a few minutes.”
Bobby walked over to Truman and looked down at him. “You couldn’t stay out of it, could you?”
Truman glared back at him. “I could say the same thing of you.”
Tammi laughed. “Did you really think lover boy here had the hots for that daughter of yours?”
“I thought he was one of the good guys. I can see I was wrong.”
“Sticks and stones,” Bobby said lightly.
“We called the cops before we came out here,” Jackie said. “They’re on their way. Right now.”
“Don’t think so,” Bobby said. “I’ve been listening to the scanner. Even called over to Cheryl’s house. They’re all sitting around waiting for the phone call.”
He glanced over at Tammi. “You take a look at the disk? Everything check out okay?”
“Looks fine,” Tammi assured him. “Wade baby’s been busy all afternoon, filling out the charts. We’re all set.”
“You take care of him?”
“Oh yeah,” Tammi said. “Everything’s under control.”
Bobby walked into the kitchen and came back with a steak knife and a length of clothesline. While Tammi held the gun, Bobby tied their hands behind their backs.
“Get dressed,” he told Tammi. “I’ll take care of them.”
“Where’s Chip?” Truman asked through clenched teeth.
“I’m taking you t
o him right now.”
Bobby took his service revolver out of his holster. “Out the back door. Nice and slow. No tricks, okay? I’d hate to have to shoot two unarmed civilians in the back, but I will if I have to.”
When they were outside, he motioned toward the boat. “Over there. Around on the other side there’s a ladder. Slow. Right?”
He made Jackleen climb up first, then Truman, with Bobby following close behind.
It was an old wood-hulled Chris-Craft, probably from the fifties, Truman guessed. There was a cabin. Bobby opened the door and shoved them inside.
It was dark in the cabin, the only light coming from cracks in the wooden hull. The air smelled of mildew and rot. The cabin’s fittings had been torn out, leaving just the wooden hull, littered with junk. Curled up on a pile of faded orange life preservers, fast asleep with his knees drawn up to his chest, was Chip.
“What have you done to him?” Truman demanded.
“Cough medicine,” Bobby said. “He’s okay.”
Truman gave Bobby a murderous look. The pleasant face, brown eyes. He couldn’t believe his instincts had been so wrong.
“Son,” he said. “How’d you get mixed up with a piece of goods like her?”
“Tammi?” Bobby smiled. “I met her on the job. Last year. She got in a little fender bender downtown. I was the officer called to the scene. She’s something else, isn’t she? Took me aside, made me an offer if I’d fix the accident report to say it was the other guy’s fault. I told her I couldn’t take her money. That’d be a bribe.”
“Lemme guess,” Jackie said. “She offered you something sweeter.”
Roberts blushed like a schoolboy. “We saw each other a few times. Then this thing at the track came up, we decided to work together, if it had worked out like it was supposed to, nobody would have got hurt. What happened was, some folks got greedy.”
“You’re not the one who tried to mug me,” Jackie said, puzzled. “That other guy was taller.”
Roberts laughed. “That was that dumb shit Curtis. Tammi’s old boyfriend. Him and his old man were running around, trying to get hold of the disk too. You don’t have to worry about those two.”
“No,” Truman said quietly. “We just need to worry about somebody who’d beat up an old woman, try to run me down with a car, kill a boy, kill us, for money.”
Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split Page 23
