VELOCITY

by Jude Hardin

  Slick patches of ice pocked the narrow gravel incline leading to Ted’s house, and I almost got stuck a couple of times. I finally made it up the hill and pulled into a slot next to the four-car garage. Everyone else parked there had pick-up trucks with big tires. There was a wooden staircase mounted to the side of the building. I climbed it and knocked. A man with slicked-back silver hair and a goatee answered.

  “You Nicholas?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Ted Grayson. Come on in.”

  The upstairs had been converted into an efficiency apartment. Galley kitchen, sofa and love seat, big screen TV. There was a large round table in the middle of the room and five whiskey barrels that had been converted into chairs. Ted introduced me to the men occupying three of them.

  “This here’s Chris Waite, Tim Yokum, and Bobby Greer,” he said.

  I nodded. “Gentlemen.”

  “Take your coat off, fix yourself a drink. We’ll be done with this hand in a minute and then we’ll deal you in.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung my coat on a rack in the corner, walked to the kitchen and poured two fingers of bourbon over some ice cubes. I sat on a stool and watched the game. Nobody was smoking, and there were no drinks on the table. The room was quiet except for the occasional kick you five and the clattering of chips added to the pile. No laughing and joking, no side conversations about football or race cars or women. I got the feeling I wasn’t going to get any information from these guys. They had come for a serious game of poker, and nothing else. I decided to relax and enjoy myself and try to win some money.

  Chris folded first, and then Bobby. After the three-raise maximum, Ted and Tim showed their hands and Tim took the pot with queens over deuces.

  “You get more boats than the navy,” Ted said. “Come on, Nicholas.”

  I set my whiskey glass on the counter and slid into the vacant chair at the table. I bought two hundred dollars in chips. We all anted up, and Ted dealt the hand.

  I got a pair of aces and opened with five dollars, which Tim immediately bumped to ten. He had a lot of chips and was playing aggressively. Everyone discarded, and Ted passed the new cards around. I got a third ace and a seven and a king. It was Tim’s bet. He bet ten and I raised him ten and Chris raised another ten after that. Nobody folded. There was over two hundred dollars in the pot.

  “Call,” I said, tossing another blue chip onto the pile.

  “Two pair,” Chris said. “Pair of fives, and another pair of fives.”

  He fanned the cards on the table for everyone to see. He had four-of-a-kind, which beats everything but a straight flush. He hooked his arm around the pot and started to rake the sizeable mound his way.

  “Hold on,” Tim said. “You called two pair.”

  “It was a joke,” Chris said. “You seen my hand.”

  “Nobody’s laughing. You called two pair, so that’s what you have.”

  “Come on, Tim,” Ted said. “Give the guy his pot. He won it fair and square.”

  Tim spread his cards out. “I got a ten-high straight. I believe that beats two pair.”

  “Dude, be reasonable,” Chris said.

  “Face it, man. You messed up.”

  “Okay, I messed up. But it’s still my pot. Give me a break. This is the first time in my life I ever got—”

  Someone banged on the door.

  From Tim’s direction came a click that could only have been the hammer of a handgun being pulled back.

  Ted went to the door and looked through the peephole.

  “It’s just Mike,” he said.

  He opened the door and a tall elderly man stepped in wearing a long wool coat and a hat made from black fur. He looked like he had gotten off a plane from Moscow in 1959.

  “It’s cold out there,” he said, his accent anything but Russian.

  “Thought you couldn’t make it tonight,” Ted said. “We already got a fifth player.”

  Mike squinted toward the table, his eyes still adjusting to brightness of the room. He pulled off his gloves, which appeared to be lined with the same fur that adorned his head gear.

  “Who’s that?” he said.

  “Nicholas Colt,” Ted said. “Out-of-towner. He’s all right. Beulah over at the motel vouched for him. Nicholas, this here’s Mike Musselman.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said.

  I kept Tim in my peripheral vision. His hands were still under the table.

  “Maybe you can settle a little dispute we have going here,” Ted said.

  He explained the situation to Mike.

  “Technically, Tim is correct,” Mike said. “If you call two pair, then that’s what you have. But we’re all friends here, right fellas?”

  “I reckon,” Tim said.

  He reached down and slid his gun back into his boot. It made me nervous that nobody seemed to find this unusual. Chris raked the chips to his side of the table and started organizing them into stacks.

  “I can sit out if you want to play a hand,” I said to Mike.

  I wanted to talk to him about Virgil Lamb, but this was neither the time nor the place.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” Mike said.

  “I’m sure.”

  I went to the kitchen, took a sip of my drink. Ted shuffled the cards while Mike took off his KGB costume. He was totally bald on top, with just a fringe of closely cropped gray hair on the sides.

  “Anybody got a cigarette?” I said.

  Bobby reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack.

  “You’ll have to go outside,” he said. “Ted don’t allow no smoking up here.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  I walked over and took a cigarette from the pack.

  “Need a light?” Chris said.

  He handed me a green disposable lighter.

  “Thanks. Be right back.”

  I grabbed my jacket from the brass coat rack and walked outside and down the stairs. I scanned the cigarette across my nostrils, absorbing its bouquet. I put it in my mouth and drew a lungful of frigid air through it. I was tempted to light it. I wanted to.

  I broke it and threw it on the ground.

  There was an older model Chevy Silverado parked behind one of the other trucks. It hadn’t been there earlier, so I knew it belonged to Mike Musselman. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the miniature flashlight I keep on my keychain. I switched it on and shined the light into Mike’s interior, careful to avoid touching the truck and possibly tripping an alarm. There were some Styrofoam cups on the passenger’s side floorboard from places like McDonald’s and Hardees and Dunkin Donuts. There was a cell phone on the console and a pair of sunglasses. The seat had a small rip on the driver’s side with some stuffing poking out.

  I walked around to the rear of the truck and memorized the license plate. If I could talk Beulah into letting me use the motel’s computer for a few minutes, it wouldn’t be hard to find Mike’s address by cross referencing the tag number. I wanted to watch his house for a couple of days. Maybe he and his buddy Virgil used the same loan shark. I still needed to check out New Love Ministries, but I had a hunch Derek Wahl had walked into a situation that had nothing to do with him personally. Wrong place, wrong time.

  I figured Virgil Lamb and Derek Wahl and Virgil’s grandson Joe Lamb were all dead, but I wanted to find out whatever I could to give Donna some closure. I was having serious doubts that the Harvest Angels had anything to do with anything. Juliet was probably right. The killings were probably done by a copycat, by some hired muscle trying to throw suspicion elsewhere.

  Thinking about Juliet reminded me I needed to call home. I checked my cell phone for a signal, saw that I had two bars, started to punch the speed dial for Juliet’s number when a voice behind me said, “Looking for something?”

  It was Chris. He had somehow made it down the stairs without me hearing him. He had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  “I used to own a truck like this,” I said. “I was just
checking it out.”

  “Can I have my lighter?”

  I handed it to him.

  “I’m going to head back up,” I said.

  “Who were you calling?”

  “My wife. I can’t get a signal over at the motel.”

  “Oh.”

  “She didn’t answer. I’ll try again later.”

  I walked around to the staircase and climbed back up to the apartment. Ted and Bobby and Tim and Mike were taking a break in the kitchen.

  “What are you drinking?” Ted asked.

  “Maker’s,” I said. “On the rocks.”

  He took a fresh glass from the cupboard, plunked a couple of ice cubes in it, filled it halfway with whiskey and handed it to me.

  “I make my ice cubes with Evian,” he said. “From the French Alps. Best water in the world. I can’t stand chlorine. Ruins the taste of good liquor.”

  “It’s excellent ice,” I said.

  “And that glass you’re drinking from is Waterford crystal. Seventy-five dollars apiece. I like having nice things. I like having the best.”

  I swirled the bourbon, causing the ice to make elegant little tinkling sounds.

  “You certainly have exquisite taste,” I said. “What kind of business are you in?”

  They all laughed.

  “You’re joking, right?” Ted said.

  “No, really. I’ve been wondering what people around here do for a living.”

  “A lot of them work for me. I own a meat processing plant. Grayson’s Meats. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  “Yeah, I have some of your bologna and olive loaf back at the motel. I just didn’t make the connection. I don’t think we have that brand in Florida.”

  “We distribute in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. For now. But we’re planning to expand. How about you, Nicholas? What kind of work do you do?”

  “I’m a musician. I had a band in the eighties called Colt Forty-Five. Southern rock and blues.”

  Ted snapped his fingers. “Nicholas Colt,” he said. “I thought the name sounded familiar. I have some of your records, man.”

  “You still playing?” Bobby said.

  “I have a little blues band. We play at a club in Jacksonville.”

  “I remember when the airplane went down,” Ted said. “Terrible. Just terrible. So what brings you to Tennessee?”

  The possibility that another Harvest Angels cell existed had brought me to Tennessee, but I didn’t tell Ted that.

  “I’m scouting fishing locations for spring,” I said. “If it ever gets here.”

  “You must be some kind of serious fisherman.”

  My stepfather had taught me how to shoot a gun, and he taught me how to fish. Those were the things we did, on the rare occasions he wasn’t too drunk to stand up. We never went to the movies and we never played catch and we never stepped foot inside a church. We fished and we shot guns. So I guess Ted was right. I guess I was some kind of serious fisherman. I guess I’d been one most of my life.

  I thought about the pamphlet I’d looked at when I first got to the Mont Falcon motel and said, “I’m planning on taking home the twenty-five thousand dollar first prize at the Lake Timberland bass rodeo. You can’t just show up and expect to do well. You need a plan, plenty of prep time. Plus, it’s an excuse to get away from the old lady for a few days. If you know what I mean.”

  Ted chuckled. “Sure do. What kind of boat do you have?”

  “Ranger Z Intracoastal,” I lied. “With a two-fifty Yamaha.”

  “That’s a serious boat, all right. Well, good luck with the tournament.”

  “Thanks.” I looked at my watch. “Listen, guys, I hate to be a party pooper—”

  Chris opened the door. A blast of cold air whooshed in behind him.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  He was holding the broken cigarette I’d left on the ground. He came in and tossed it on the counter.

  “I can explain that,” I said, trying my best to remain calm.

  “He was out there nosing around Mike’s truck,” Chris said. “I saw him shine a flashlight through the window, and then he walked around to the tailgate and checked the license number. He just used the cigarette as an excuse to go outside.”

  “Like I told you, I used to own a truck like that. I was just looking it over. I walked to the rear to see what kind of tow package it had. As for the cigarette, I quit a couple of years ago, but I still have major cravings sometimes. I broke it and threw it away so I wouldn’t be tempted to light it.”

  “Chris, this here’s Nicholas Colt from the band Colt Forty-Five,” Ted said. “You’re probably too young to remember them, but they were big back in the day. Real big. Quit being so paranoid, boy. Every time a stranger comes to town—”

  “I’m telling you, he’s up to something,” Chris said. “I don’t trust him, not one bit.”

  “I’ll be leaving now, gentlemen,” I said. “Cash me in, Ted.”

  “It’s early. Come on, let’s play.”

  “Really. Cash me in.”

  “If you insist. Hey, if I walk over to the house and get one of your albums, would you mind signing it for me?”

  I waited and signed the album, and then I told everyone goodnight. Before I started the Camry and left Ted’s driveway, I called Juliet from my cell phone. From the sound of her voice, I could tell she had been crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “What’s not wrong is more like it. The washing machine quit working. It won’t even come on, so I have a pile of laundry a mile high. No clean uniforms for work tomorrow night. I drove all the way over to Green Cove and waited in line for an hour to get my driver’s license renewed, only to find out you have to have a ton of documents proving your identity now. So I have to get all that together and go back and spend another day dealing with that.”

  “Did you call someone about the washing machine?”

  “Yeah, it’s still under warranty, but they’re not going to come and look at it till Monday. I guess I’ll have to go to the Laundromat tomorrow, like I really have time. And Brittney is driving me nuts. Can I just go ahead and let her drive? I don’t think I can handle this for one more day, much less two weeks.”

  “I don’t think it would set a very good precedent to let her go ahead and drive,” I said. “She needs to finish out her two weeks.”

  “Then you need to come home and deal with her. You need to throw your stuff in the car and come home now, before I totally lose my mind.”

  “I can’t come home right now. I have a couple of more leads I need to follow up on.”

  “There’s absolutely no reason for you to be up there, Nicholas. Why are you? Because you’re obsessed with that militia group?”

  “I’m not obsessed with anything,” I said.

  But I was. The Harvest Angels were responsible for the plane crash that killed my wife Susan and daughter Harmony. Susan was from Jamaica. We were an interracial couple, and I was famous. We were on the covers of magazines as bride and groom. Susan and Harmony died because of their skin color. I was the sole survivor. Twenty years after the crash, I found out it wasn’t an accident. I found out while tracking a fifteen-year-old runaway who ended up becoming my adopted daughter. To say I was obsessed was an understatement.

  “You don’t even know it was them,” Juliet said.

  “But I’m here, and I’m going to find out.”

  She hung up. I tried to call her back, got voice mail. I left a message telling her to check the circuit breaker for the washing machine. I had a hunch that was the problem. Washing machines don’t usually die completely with no warning like that.

  I started the car and drove back to the motel.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I got up Saturday morning and started a pot of coffee and tried to call Juliet from the room phone. She still wasn’t answering. I tried Brittney’s number, got voice mail the first two times. I tried again and she finally picked up.

  “Daddy?”
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  “Hi sweetheart.”

  “What time is it?”

  “A little after ten,” I said. “You still asleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry. Just wanted to check on you guys.”

  She yawned. “We’re fine, I guess. When are you coming home?”

  “Soon. Is your mom around?”

  “She goes to the gym on Saturdays.”

  “That’s right. I forgot. I’ll try to call her later.”

  “Are you having fun up there?”

  “A blast. I think it’s about eighteen degrees outside this morning.”

  “That sucks,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s warmed up some down here. Supposed to be in the sixties today.”

  “I’ll be glad to get home. All right, you go on back to sleep if you want. Love you.”

  “Love you too. I’d love you even more if you’d let me drive.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  “Bye.”

  I ate some breakfast and then walked to the lobby. The sky was heavy with swollen clouds the color of molten lead. The ski jacket I’d bought kept my upper body warm enough, but my legs were cold and stiff and my knees ached. I could have used some long underwear. I made a mental note to stop somewhere and buy some.

  Beulah was at the desk.

  “Finding some good fishing spots?” she said.

  She must have seen me looking at the pamphlet, or maybe she’d talked to Ted Grayson.

  “A couple,” I said.

  “Spring is just around the corner. Hope you’ll come back and stay with us.”

  “Only if you’re still here.”

  She blushed. “Why Mr. Colt. You make an old woman’s heart flutter.”

  “We’ll have to play that game of rummy sometime,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. Hey, would you mind if I got on your computer for just a minute?”

  “Oh, we’re not allowed to let guests—”

  “Just for a minute. Less than a minute.”

  “Well…”

  I walked around the counter. Beulah stepped aside and gave me access to her keyboard and monitor. Thirty seconds later I had a printout with information on Virgil Lamb’s friend Mike Musselman.