by Brett Baker
“Good morning,” she said. “How’d you sleep? We’ve got the best beds on the gulf coast, you know. Years ago we had a big billboard out front that claimed as much, but when they widened the road we had to take it down. We planned to put it back up, but the construction company misunderstood and sent it off for scrap.”
“The bed must have been fine, because I slept like a baby,” I said. Ashtray smiled and nodded. “And just like a baby, I woke up in the middle of the night, wide awake.”
“You should have come to see me. I’ve got a few bottles that always help me go to bed at night,” Ashtray laughed as if she’d never heard anything so funny.
“You were here all night?” I asked.
“This is my place,” she said. “I’m here all the time. If I’m not here, the place isn’t open.”
“I see. Then maybe you can help me. Did anyone come in here last night looking for me?”
“Looking for you?” she asked. “Were you expecting someone?”
“No. I don’t think anyone knows that I’m here. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here. So it shocked the hell out of me when two men came looking for me last night.”
“What do you mean? They came to your room?” I nodded. “Well I didn’t talk to anyone. But as you can see, there are very few fellow travelers here with you. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you’ve got to be in one of these rooms, and only two other rooms are occupied.”
“So no one came looking for me, and you didn’t tell anyone I was in room 13?” Ashtray shook her head. “Did you see any other cars in the parking lot? Anyone walking around?”
“No, but I was in the back most of the night. I only come out when I get a customer.”
“Fair enough. Erline’s not coming today, right?”
“That’s right,” Ashtray said. “You don’t need her, do you?”
“No, I don’t need her,” I said. “Just making sure.”
“Your friends don’t need a room, do they?”
“No, they don’t need a room.”
“You’re staying tonight, right?”
“I think so,” I said. “Seems like I might have plenty of work to do around here.”
Ashtray smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
With Erline’s absence confirmed, I thanked Ashtray for her help and left. I walked around the perimeter of the El Hombre without much of an idea of what I was looking for. The grounds looked desolate, the weeded rear of the building undisturbed. As I came around the corner on the far side of the building, behind the wing opposite my room, I caught a glimpse of the car. A late model muscle car, it had a double black stripe running across the trunk, roof, and hood, dividing the car lengthwise. The pumpkin orange paint that covered the rest of the car helped give it a jack-o’-lantern look, as if it existed for no other reason than conspicuousness. It was parked on the other side of a wooded area behind the motel, on the shoulder of a road that ran perpendicular to the highway. Although they couldn’t have chosen a better place to park if they planned to sneak away and kill someone, if this car belonged to Scooby and Tootsie then trying to kill me with a pillow was no longer their worst decision.
Neither of the men carried identification with them when they came into the room. That’s standard procedure for most of the criminals I encounter. I can handle people shooting at me, or trying to smother me with pillows, or trying to slit my throat, but the least they could do is carry some identification with them so I can identify them when they’re dead. Most of these poor mistaken souls leave their identification elsewhere because the last thing they want to do is drop their wallet and leave behind a clue for investigators. They’re too short-sighted and naïve to understand that when they encounter me their identification serves the same purpose as dog tags in a war zone.
If Jack-o’-lantern belonged to my attackers, then I hoped to find something inside to reveal their identity. I approached the car, checking over my shoulder as I caromed through the thicket. A vehicle passed just as I reached the car, and I fell flat to my stomach on the ground to avoid detection. Until I could ascertain who the car belonged to I figured it best not to be seen near it. A hundred yards to the north a steady stream of traffic passed on the highway, but I saw no cars in either direction down the heavily-wooded side street where Jack was parked. I peered through the driver’s side window of the two-door coupe. Along with some loose change, three packs of cigarettes sat upright in the center console. A black zippo lighter, the front of which had a yellow triangle on the left half, with the Gadsden flag, complete with the famous “Don’t Tread on Me” sat atop the cigarettes. A dozen beer cans littered the floorboard of the passenger seat, but other than that, the car looked pristine inside. I pulled the door handle, and much to my surprise, it opened. I kneeled on the front seat and checked the storage space between the two seats and the glove compartment, before looking in the backseat. No identification. Nothing. Not even a car registration. I looked both ways down the street, and with no cars around I pushed the button to pop the trunk. I raced outside, lifted the lid to the trunk. As barren as the rest of the car. I closed the trunk. The license plate had been removed from the back of the car, which is another amateur mistake with a car so unique. Anyone who saw the car parked in the woods would remember it, license plate or not. The only thing they accomplished by removing the license plate was to arise suspicion of police while it was parked there, and to make it more difficult for me to identify them. I opened the driver’s side door again, fell to my knees on the earth, and looked under the front seat, but again saw nothing.
Back on my feet, I rushed back into the woods and through to the rear of the motel. I completed my loop around the back of the building, crossed around the side, and walked across the parking lot. As I walked, I scanned the parking lot and the highway to ensure no one watched me. I got back to my room, opened the door, hustled in, and closed the door behind me. I stood to the side of the window and peeked through the curtains to make sure no one followed me. Nothing looked suspicious after ten minutes, so I left the window.
Scooby and Tootsie were still dead. I’d kicked the air conditioning up as high as it would go before I left the room. The last thing I needed was for the room to get hot so the smell of dead, incompetent hitmen permeated the air. A horrific cocktail of blood, urine, and feces saturated the carpet around the men as their bodies relaxed and released. The Summit had personnel responsible for getting rid of people who agents had eliminated. They most often showed up and took a body away without me even knowing how they’d found out about the death. As with many aspects of The Summit, I’d learned early on not to ask questions, and to just appreciate the help.
However, on the rare occasion when bodies didn’t just disappear like magic, they’d created a hotline to which agents could report the need for body disposal. Since the service often required a timely response to prevent detection, agents weren’t expected to travel to a Roost to make the call. Instead, we dialed a phone number which then forwarded through a maze of other phone lines and switches that made detecting the call almost impossible. The conversations were always short and to the point.
I dialed the number from the telephone in my room. A male voice answered. “Location and count.”
“United States. Cross City, Florida. El Hombre motel. Room 13. Two need to be removed.”
“Understood.”
That’s all it took. I wished that I could remain in the room to see how they’d remove two bodies from a small, single-entrance motel room that looked out upon a busy highway without being detected, but I knew they wouldn’t do the job if I were there. At some point I’d return to the room and the bodies just wouldn’t be there, and any sign of a struggle would disappear.
Before I said goodbye to Scooby and Tootsie forever, I did one last check for identification. As part of the process of body removal, The Summit would try to identify the bodies through numerous channels, but sometimes that took days during a time when seconds w
ere critical. I rifled through Scooby’s pockets first, and found nothing. I’d just given up finding anything in Tootsie’s pockets, when I noticed his belt and got an idea. There, just on his right hip, attached to his belt, was a brown leather pouch, the word zippopressed into the leather. I unsnapped the pouch, and felt inside. Nothing. I’d suspected that Jack belonged to Scooby and Tootsie, but Tootsie’s pouch confirmed it.
Polestar might find out the two men’s identity, but I didn’t know how long that would take. And since someone wanted me dead, I didn’t have time to wait.
But Jack’s ridiculous paint job was all the help I needed.
Chapter 9
Jack’s door wasn’t locked, and I didn’t find keys in Scooby or Tootsie’s pocket, which implied that the keys were still in the car. A lack of keys wouldn’t have presented much of a roadblock, but all things considered, I’d rather have the keys to a car than not. So when I crept back around the motel, made my way to Jack, and searched the car once again, I wasn’t surprised when the keys fell into my lap from the driver’s side visor. I started the car, merged onto the road, and drove to the U.S. highway that cut through town.
In a place as small as Cross City, I figured it a safe bet that people recognized Jack. And since I’d driven every road in town and saw no other car like him, he seemed alone in his eccentric design. I hoped that Jack would garner even more attention with me behind the wheel than it did with the usual driver.
Some well-meaning police officer might see me driving with no license plate and pull me over, so I had to find a plate before I did anything. I saw an automobile junk yard on the edge of town, so that seemed a good place to start. I followed a gravel road that snaked behind some trees and led to the junkyard, which was somewhat hidden from the main road. I pulled into the parking lot filled with a dozen old cars in various states of disrepair. Some seemed like new arrivals ready to take their place as prey for part-picking vultures, while others didn’t look quite decrepit enough, and likely belonged to employees or customers picking parts beyond the fence. I went inside and two men in grease-spotted coveralls stood behind a counter. One of the men had a long, dot-matrix printer sheet of paper spread before him and seemed to be reviewing some sort of information, and the other pounded away at a keyboard, every stroke sounding like it might obliterate the keys. He greeted me without looking at me.
“Two-dollar entry free. You have to pay for everything you pull. We check your bag on your way out.”
“Good to know,” I said. Both men looked up at me. They obviously hadn’t expected a female voice. “I’ve never been to one of these before. I wasn’t sure how it worked. If I need an alternator for a 2009 Cavalier, will I be able to find one?”
“Probably so,” the man at the screen said. “Cavaliers are a dime a dozen out there. 2009 is a little new, but I know there are a few out there. We’ve got one in the parking lot, I think.”
“I wondered about that,” I said. “Looks like they hit a wall with that front end. The whole thing’s bashed in.”
“Head-on with another car. Well, almost head-on. Damage is only on the left-hand side, so they must have swerved at the last minute. Still totaled the car.”
“All right. I don’t have time to do this today. I was just passing by and didn’t know how it worked. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Thanks for stopping by,” the man said as he waved.
I left the building and walked back toward Jack, but stopped at the totaled Cavalier parked beside me, which I’d noticed on the way in. I knelt behind the car, pulled a dime from my pocket, and used it to remove the screws holding the license plate. The two men inside couldn’t have seen me even if there were a window on the side of the building. Anyone else who saw me would have assumed the car was mine and I was just retrieving the plate, a common occurrence at a junk yard. The car’s owner would assume the junk yard had the plate, and the junk yard would assume the owner had it, but more likely it would never be missed.
I left the junk yard and drove down the road a quarter mile to an auto parts store and put the license plate on Jack in the parking lot.
After stealing the license plate, and avoiding attention from police, I was ready to be noticed.
I decided to start at the gas station where I stopped the day before. I parked the car and went inside. Noise from a blaring television assaulted me as soon as I opened the door, so I knew the same lady from the day before must have been behind the counter. I grabbed a bag of peanut M&M’s, a bottle of water, and went to the counter.
“You just can’t stay away can you?” said the lady behind the counter. “I don’t blame you. This place is paradise.”
I smiled. “That’s not what you were saying yesterday. Why the change in attitude?”
“It’s sarcasm, sugar tits.”
“I see. I thought maybe you had some sort of revelation in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Fuck that. Only thing revealed to me is that you’ve got a new car. And a fancy one at that.”
“Oh yeah, a friend is letting me use that. Mine is in the shop.”
“A friend? I thought you were just passing through. Now you’ve got friends here?”
“You’ve talked to me two days in a row now. You should know that I’m quick to make friends.”
“That car looks familiar. Who’s your friend?”
“His name’s Fred Jones. He’s from down the road in Old Town. Met him in a bar last night. I’m having some car trouble, so he said I could use his today to get some things done.”
“Fred Jones, huh?” I nodded, but said nothing. Her skepticism seemed to indicate I might have touched a nerve. “That looks an awful lot like a car I see driving around here, but it doesn’t belong to Fred Jones. That sounds like a name you just made up.”
“I thought the same thing when I met him! That he made up that name. Sounds like an alias, doesn’t it? It’s true though. He showed me his license.” I shook my head as if I’d just heard the most unbelievable story. “I can’t believe there’s another car like this around though. That’s crazy. Who owns the other one?”
“Cooper Oswalt is his name. His old man has a place out by the airport. Some big shot in the lumber industry. Cooper’s the typical spoiled rich kid. Thinks he owns the town because his dad’s got money. Be careful with the car though. Cops will be on you like white on rice. Cooper’s always getting in trouble for speeding, drag racing, dumb testosterone bullshit like that. Cops see the car they might think he’s driving and pay special attention to you. One wrong move and they’ll pull you over.”
“Good to know. Thanks,” I said.
“Cooper’s good looking though. I mean, he’s fifteen years younger than me, and I don’t usually go for younger guys, but he’s so damn cute I might make an exception, especially since they’ve got money. Good looks, and money? I’m sold! I don’t care if he’s some dumbass macho bro. I’ve gone to bed with worse.”
“Like your ex?” I asked.
“Yes. Just like him. What an asshole! Although he and Cooper have a lot in common. Except for the money. My ex never had a pot to piss in. Sure had the macho attitude and the macho car though.”
“Good that you’re rid of him,” I said, pushing my M&M’s and water toward her as a subtle way of asking her to get the show on the road. She took the hint and scanned both items.
I gave her five dollars, which barely paid for my items after the station’s highway robbery. I wished her a good day, and paused for a moment to give her a chance to thank me, but instead she looked past me, toward the car, nodded, and then turned back toward the television. It seemed like she’d made a mental note that she’d seen the car, as if she wouldn’t remember later whether she’d seen it or not without forcefully committing it to memory.
I left the gas station and decided to pay a visit to Cooper Oswalt. Or rather to Cooper Oswalt’s father. It seemed as though Cooper might be dead on my motel room floor. It only made sense to assume he was one of my victims s
ince the idiots had driven his car to carry out the job. Since no one except for me knew the fate of the two men in my room, I couldn’t predict how things would unfold when they saw me driving his car.
On the north side of the highway, a road barely wide enough to hold one lane in each direction, and without curbs like the rest of the roads in town, passed the Church of Christ. About a mile north I turned onto a road whose numbered name made it sound fancier and less gravelly than it was. It twisted into the woods, until it reached a straightaway of a few hundred feet, then made a sharp turn to the south. Just before the turn a brick paved driveway veered off at a forty-five degree angle. The address on the brick pillar at the base of the driveway matched the address I’d found on the internet, so I turned and drove past the pillars, curved this way and that as I disappeared into a dense forest, and then around the bend a clearing opened. A large green lawn interrupted the woodsy landscape, and the brick pavers led up to a four-car garage, with two additional parking spaces to the side. The garage was attached to a massive two-story craftsman-style home that had as much window space as wall space. I parked Jack in one of the spots next to the garage and walked to the front door, checking my surroundings as I approached.
I pushed the doorbell button and listened as it chimed and seemed to echo throughout the house. I was just about to push the button a second time when I saw movement near the back of the house through the door’s sidelight. Without knowing who was behind the door, or how they’d react when they saw me standing on their porch, I knew I had to be cautious. After taking a step back, I braced myself in a defensive position, half expecting the person who answered the door to either draw a weapon or hurl themselves at me.
The deadbolt on the door unlocked, locked, and then unlocked again, punctuated by a resounding, “Damnit.” The door opened slowly, and the tanned, attractive face of a young man peaked around the door.
