Code Name: Crescent: A Matt Preston Novel

by Paul Shadinger

  That explained a lot. This young lady was stoned out of her gourd. “So, Kim didn’t do any drugs at all?” I asked again.

  “Well, she did speed when we had to pull an all-nighter, but everybody does speed. That ain’t doin’ drugs,” she explained to me like I was mentally deficient.

  “Can I leave my card and if you see Kim, please ask her to call me or her parents? It really is important.”

  “Sure, put it over there,” and she pointed to a countertop. As I turned to go, she reached out and grabbed my arm. “Are you sure you don’t want a brownie? They’re really strong!”

  “Thanks!” I smiled. “Next time, okay?”

  “Okay, next time. I’m going back to bed. I’m tired.”

  The young lady turned and as she started to head in the direction Bennie had gone, I noticed a tattoo at the base of her spine. A tramp stamp. I thought to myself if there was one gal who deserved her tattoo, it was this one. And even before I finished that thought, I felt badly. Who was I to judge this young lady? It was her life and she was entitled to live it as she pleased. Maybe she was an honor student and had a 4.0 grade point average. But to be honest, I kinda doubted it.

  I thought of one last question. “Before you go, what was Kim’s boyfriend’s name?”

  Sam turned back to look at me. “Claude Cox,” she said and then added, “But they call him Bud.” She smiled sweetly at me and turned away. As I left the apartment, I was totally rattled. I knew who Bud Cox was. Bud Cox was the star running back on the varsity football team. Bud Cox was most of the reason the U won the national championship last year.

  Last year I went to several games, and one of my favorite memories of Bud was when they played Alabama and all by himself he rolled right over The Tide. It was beautiful! I had really enjoyed watching Bud run up and down the field, but after what I had just heard, now I wasn’t such a big Bud fan.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  I sat in my truck for a while, going over the conversation with Kim’s roommate. Her information about Bud really upset me. I really liked watching Cox and it bothered me to think he might be a rapist.

  Normally when I want to think about things, I head over to my man cave, as it would be called nowadays. My man cave is the top floor of a building where I store my collection of old cars. The city recently sent me a letter notifying me the building had been condemned, but several property owners on the block have taken the city to court and are fighting it. The city wants to raze all of the buildings in a two-block area and build new multi-use fancy condos with retail space in the lower levels. As I said, we’re trying to fight it, but just in case, I’m looking for a place to move my collection. I’d also sold a couple of the cars to make it easier in case I have to find temporary storage. I decided I wanted to head for my hideout.

  I reached out and turned the key in the ignition to start my truck. The motor didn’t catch right away and in order to restart the vehicle, you have to turn the key to ‘off’ and then turn it ‘on’ to try and restart. In the quiet between turning the key to off and then on again, I heard the sound of another vehicle starting. Most Chrysler products produce a very distinctive sound when you engage the starter. I always thought it sounded like a threshing machine. By the sound, I knew somewhere somebody had just fired up a Chrysler product.

  Looking back down the line of cars I spotted a dark gray van sitting on the other side of the street facing my way. It was a large Dodge with darkened windows. I waited a few seconds longer to see if it pulled out and when it didn’t, I started my truck and pulled away from the curb. When I turned left at the end of the street, I saw the gray van had pulled out behind me.

  I kept looking back as I drove and the van matched me turn for turn. Remembering my feeling from earlier this morning, I decided to see if this van was actually following me. When I got to a street that would take me over to the freeway, I turned. The van followed. I got on the freeway, stayed in the far right lane, and watched as the van did the same. This was getting too weird. I took the next exit and tried to time a couple of lights to turn red just as I was going through. When I looked up, the van was still back there. I decided to drive through my old neighborhood where I knew various strange little streets and if you didn’t know what you were doing, you could get lost fairly easily.

  I came to the alley I was looking for and quickly sped up. A fast left, then a right, then a left and down another alley. Partway down the street I had entered from the alley I made a quick left turn, which headed down a steep hill and turned into a sharp right turn. Another right turn and back up a little hill and another tight right and I pulled into Mrs. Spring’s old garage. Mrs. Spring had been our next door neighbor when I was a kid. She had since passed away and her house burned down shortly after her death. The old stand-alone garage is still there and it was this garage I was using to hide from the gray van. I shut off the motor, slipped out of my truck and waited. Unless you pulled in behind the garage, my truck was totally hidden. I was not surprised when the van drove by one way and then minutes later drove back the other way. As the van passed by, I copied down the license number, thinking I would ask my buddy down at the cop shop to run the plate through DOL. I waited for about fifteen minutes and then pulled out carefully. I kept to as many back roads as I could and when I got close to my apartment, I parked a block up behind it, near the vacant lot.

  After somebody looking for some information had broken into my place, I’d had the steel mesh door fitted with the best lock I could buy. I was told that no lock was totally foolproof, but the lock I purchased was as close to pick proof as possible. Beanie and I crossed the lot and entered my apartment through the steel mesh door. Once we were in, I locked the thing back up again. I summoned the elevator and took it up to my rooftop. Stepping as close to the edge of the roof as I could manage, I looked down at the cars parked on the streets below. Halfway down the block, I saw it; a dark gray Dodge van with the windows blacked out. I wondered who was following me and why. I was planning to go to see my police friend, Jeff L. the next day and this was one more reason to do it. I wanted to know who owned that gray van. Who was taking such an interest in my life all of a sudden?

  I discovered I was hungry and I went back down to my apartment and opened up the fridge. I moaned as I looked over the slim pickings in front of me. I was going to see Jeff L. tomorrow, but right now I needed to do something about my empty larder.

  And then the phone rang and that idea went out the window.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Meeting

  The deep rumble from my motorcycle rolled around the hills surrounding the abandoned multi-purpose track and field as I rode up to the gap in the deteriorated fence that encircled the entire field. This was the field from my youth at my outdated and now vacant junior high school. Once upon a time the grassy patch in front of me had been a football field with a track surrounding the perimeter, but now the track was choked with weeds and completely overgrown, while the field was full of holes and rough sod. There would be no more games played on this field. The uprights for the goal posts still stood at each end of the field, but the crossbars were long gone. This was where I had watched my old friend Jeff quarterback the varsity team back in the day. This was a field loaded with a ton of memories.

  I stopped my bike in front of the bent and twisted remains of the dilapidated gate. One side was totally missing and what was left dangled on one rusty hinge. I leaned forward and turned off the bike and just sat there, looking around at the deserted field. It was quiet and the only sounds marring the evening were the “tink… tink” of the cooling metal of the bike’s motor.

  I looked around at what was left of the old school. The windows of the junior high were boarded up, and the doors covered with steel mesh, all padlocked to keep out unwanted visitors. The whole structure was just sitting there waiting to be demolished. The problem was there wasn’t even enough money in the budget to pull the old s
tructure down, so there it stood, once a proud school built just after the war to educate the baby-boomers,a but now it was no longer needed or wanted. I thought it was sad to see what “in the day” had been such an important part of my youth, now deteriorated and waiting to be razed.

  It had been a surprise when McNaulty, my visitor of the other night, had called me and told me they wanted to meet me, but when he told me to meet at my old junior high football field, I was flabbergasted. It seemed like a very strange place to have a meeting. On the phone, the colonel had told me he would meet me in the bleachers. Since there was only one small portion of the bleachers still remaining, it wasn’t difficult to ascertain where our meeting place was supposed to be. The one thing I did notice as I rode onto the school grounds was the field was empty, completely empty. I debated riding my bike across the field over to the remaining bleacher, but I also didn’t want to attract any undue attention. I had the feeling we were not supposed to be hanging around the old school.

  I parked the bike next to what was left of the gate and started walking across the field. When I got to the old bleacher, I saw there were only a couple of planks scattered among the remaining stands for anybody to sit on. Time and the weather had rotted out the rest of the wooden seats, and as I climbed to the top of the stand, I wondered if the remaining decayed wooden bench was going to hold my weight. I carefully sat on the top stoop, waiting for somebody to show up, still thinking this was without a doubt the weirdest place I had ever met with anybody.

  About twenty minutes later a van pulled slowly onto the field and headed directly toward me. When he turned the headlights off I could see it was a Dodge with blacked out windows. The back door slid open, spilling out the colonel and the suit. As they stepped to the bottom of the stand I thought to myself that that was one question answered. I now knew who the mysterious van belonged to. They stayed on the ground looking up at me for a long time.

  With a deep sigh, the colonel asked, “Are you coming down?”

  “Naw, I like the view from up here. Come on up and take a load off.”

  I could see no reason to put myself out. When they called earlier this afternoon they demanded I come to this deserted field and meet them at dusk. They had offered no reason why I should show up, just a veiled threat if I didn’t.

  The suit stayed on the field while the colonel crawled up to sit next to me. Tonight he was not wearing a uniform, but he made the slacks, shirt and light jacket he was wearing look like one. Again there were no pleasantries to start our conversation. “Do you know why we had you meet us here?” he asked me as he swept his hand, motioning towards the abandoned field.

  “I doubt if it’s cause you want me to turn out for the football team.” My smart assed remark got neither a smile nor a comment. I continued, “No, I don’t. But I’ll admit, I was wondering.”

  “This is where you went to junior high,” McNaulty told me as if he was sharing some great new revelation.

  “No shit.” I looked at him with as much disdain as I could. “I knew that, and if you had asked me on the phone I could have told you and we wouldn’t be out here now.”

  “Don’t get smart. We wanted to talk to you some more and we also wanted you to understand there’s nothing about you we don’t know. Your past, your present and your future.” I had to admit having me meet them out here on my old deserted junior high school playing field had rattled me, and it did make me wonder just how much they really might know about me.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay. Let’s say for the sake of argument I’m impressed. Why did you bring me out here, other than to show off your knowledge about my past?”

  “We want to ask you a question, and your answer will have consequences. We demand that you tell us. What do you know about Crescent?”

  I stared at the colonel with contempt. I could see no reason to hide it. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Are you telling me that’s why I had to meet you here?” I waved my hand towards the deserted school. I couldn’t hide the anger in my voice. “This is why we’re sitting here on a rotten old bleacher? You know, you two are really starting to piss me off. I told you before, I don’t know anything about Crescent.”

  I looked down at suit and raised my voice, “I don’t know a darn thing about Crescent. Can you hear me?” Suit just stood there looking up at me so I said it even louder. “Hello! Listen to me! I don’t know a darn thing about Crescent. Did you hear me this time?” Suit nodded and I looked back at the colonel as I continued, “I’m assuming it was some code word for something you think I was involved with in the past. But I’m telling you, as somebody famous once said, ‘read my lips.’ I know nothing about Crescent.”

  “What’s your involvement with Bill Tate?”

  That question surprised me. It surprised me because of the abrupt change in subjects and their knowledge of my assistance to Bill in finding Kim. But, I was still flipping them shit. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Preston, I won’t ask you again. What’s your involvement with Tate? Why are you asking around about his daughter?”

  I wondered how much they knew. I now knew it was the two of them who had been following me in the van. Is that how they had found out I had been looking for Tate’s daughter? I was just about out of patience but I told them, “I know Tate from our poker games. He plays with us from time to time. At the last game he asked me to help find his daughter.”

  “Why you?”

  “He thought I might be able to learn more than the police have so far.”

  “Why doesn’t he just file a missing person’s report?”

  “He doesn’t really know if she’s missing. The mother thinks Kim—that’s the daughter—has been home when she wasn’t there and picked up some of her clothes. The roommate also thinks she’s stopped by, but the roommate has this new boyfriend and spends all her time with him. Nobody’s seen the daughter for several days and Tate asked me to check it out.”

  “And…?”

  “And nothing. I’m going to leave messages in a couple of places for her to call me when I get a chance. Right now I’m trying to get the address where she may be hiding and convince her to come and stay at a better safe house than where she might be now. A place where she has access to somebody who can help her with the problems left over from her attempted rape.”

  “You mean your nurse friend.”

  I was impressed and dismayed by their knowledge of my life. “Yeah. Sharon works in the ER at one of the hospitals up on Pill Hill. She has a lot of training in dealing with rape victims.” I let the colonel stew on this bit of information for a while. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and I asked, “Why did you call this meeting? Other than to impress me you knew about my past?”

  My question was ignored once again. “Have you discussed Crescent with anybody?”

  I had enough and I exploded. “DAMN!” I screamed. “Are you guys some kind of ‘tards’?”

  The colonel looked at me with a quizzical look on his face. “Tards? What are tards?” he asked.

  I was still shouting. “You two! You’re both ‘tards. You know. ‘tards —as in retards, the people who ride the little bus to school and lick the windows. You ride in a van, do you lick the windows too?” I know I wasn’t being very PC, but I was pissed. I shouted my next question at both of them. “What is it with you two? How the hell can I discuss something I know nothing about?”

  “So you say…”

  I snapped back, “Well it just happens to be the truth.”

  “Did you discuss this with Walter McLaughlin?” the colonel asked.

  “Walter?” The colonel nodded. “What does he have to do with this? Why are you asking about him?” I was concerned when they asked about Walter, my old friend from my time in country, as he didn’t take to outsiders well and they could cause no end of trouble if they tried to go and talk to him.

 
; “Because you went and saw him right after you got out of the hospital.” I should have been surprised they knew this, but I wasn’t. I did wonder how they found out I was over on the peninsula.

  I wanted to keep Walter out of this if possible. “I just went over to check on him and see if he was doing okay, and also to talk to him about stuff. I do that every so often.”

  “Like what stuff?”

  “I fail to see how it’s any of your business,” I retorted.

  “Seems a bit strange you would go and see him right after you were released from the hospital. Did you discuss Crescent with him?”

  I sat for a moment and stared at them. When I finally spoke, my voice was dripping with anger. “Both of you, besides being really lame, are totally pissing me off.” I raised my voice. “I know nothing about Crescent.” A thought came to mind. “Why, do you think Walter knows something about Crescent?”

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  By now I was well beyond pissed. I exploded, “What is it with you two? I keep telling you I don’t know a thing about Crescent. You demand I come to a rundown, abandoned sports field at dusk just to prove you did your homework, and now you’re threatening me. I’m done with you two.” I looked at the colonel and then down at suit. Raising my voice, I said, “Leave me alone, both of you. I’m not military and you cannot give me orders.” I started to stand.

  “Sit down, Preston.” The colonel’s voice was cold.

  “No! I’m done with you two.” As I started to walk down the rickety stairs I saw suit reaching inside of his jacket. “What’s this, now? Mr. Pillsbury is going to shoot me?”

  Suit finally spoke, “What do you mean, Mr. Pillsbury?”

  This dude was dense. “I mean, as in Pillsbury Doughboy.” Normally I would never have been that cruel, but I was not in a good mood. The colonel looked at the suit when I mentioned him shooting me and he frowned and shook his head.