by David Archer
“Certainly, certainly,” Bob said. “Would you care to come by my office?”
“Yes, that will be fine. How do I get there? I’m in McDonald’s, right now.”
“Oh, that’s easy, then. When you come out of the drive, turn right and then take the first left turn. Follow that road about a mile, and you’ll come to a little industrial area. My office is actually right beside the entrance. A little bungalow-shaped building made of natural stone. You can’t miss it.”
Noah smiled into the phone. “Great,” he said. “I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”
Five minutes later, Noah was sitting at a small conference table with Bob Henson. His desk held a very nice computer with multiple monitors, and Bob began asking Noah a series of questions designed to help him choose some properties to present, but Noah decided to just cut to the chase.
“Bob, let me ask you this. I’d like to find something out in the country, something not terribly expensive but decent. A little acreage, maybe, no close neighbors. I like my privacy. Got anything like that?”
The look on Bob’s face told Noah that the man was hungry, but also that he genuinely cared about taking care of his customers. He turned to the computer on his desk and started tapping the keys. A second, larger monitor facing Noah showed a number of different properties.
“See anything you like, there?” Bob asked. “Those are just a few of the places we’ve got listings on right now that might fill the bill, all within just a few miles of town.”
Noah asked a few questions about a couple of the properties he saw, but then Bob’s face suddenly lit up. “You know what?” he said excitedly. “Rex, I think I might have just the thing.” He tapped on the keys again for a moment, and another farmhouse appeared on the screen in front of Noah. “This is the old Howerton farm. It was occupied by one of the oldest families in the county until just a couple of years ago, when Charles Howerton passed away. His children had all moved away, so they put the place on the market. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a recently remodeled kitchen, a big living room, and a family room, and both the front and rear porches are enclosed. It sits on fifteen acres, and there are several outbuildings. The house has a two-car garage attached to it, but there’s also a barn, a workshop building, and a couple of pretty good-sized sheds. Central heat and air, one of the best wells in the whole county, and it just so happens that the owners put in a new septic tank just six months ago. That won’t give you any trouble for at least ten years, maybe even twenty.”
Noah looked at the image and nodded. “It looks and sounds good,” he said. “Definitely a nice-looking place, and the outbuildings sound good. But I bet it’s expensive.”
“Actually, it’s not. As I said, it’s been sitting empty for a little over two years, and the family really wants to get it sold. They’ve been good about keeping it maintained, but they’ve reduced the price six different times. They got it listed right now for only $98,000, but I happen to know they would accept any offer over seventy-five.” He gave Noah a conspiratorial wink, then lowered his voice as if someone else might overhear. “Between you and me, they actually put more money than that into the house after the old man died. He lived there almost his entire life without any kind of air-conditioning, and the only heat he ever had was a wood-burning stove.”
Noah leaned in and looked again at the image, and Bob reached over to start a slideshow. Noah saw several pictures of the exterior of the house, and then the inside came into view. From what he could see in the photos, the house did seem to be in very good condition.
“Well, that’s within my budget,” he said. “When can we go see it?”
“We can go right now,” Bob said. “Would that work?”
“Sure,” Noah said. “Your car or mine?”
Bob suddenly broke out in a big smile. “Listen, buddy, I saw that beautiful thing you drove up in. If you think I’d turn down a chance for a ride in that car, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Noah smiled back, and the two of them left the office. Bob locked up and hung a sign on the door saying he’d be back in a couple of hours, and they got into the Charger.
Bob was like a kid in a candy store, looking at everything inside the car. “Holy cow,” he said. “I know these old Chargers are worth some money. Can I ask how much this one set you back?”
“About a quarter mil,” Noah said. “I was lucky enough to make some good investments a while back, and they paid off recently. Of course, then I was unlucky enough to run across the guy who wanted to sell this thing. Well, you know how it is, I saw this car and had enough money, so it didn’t take him long to talk me into buying it.” He looked over at Bob and winked. “But between you and me, it was worth every penny. There might be a lot of ’69 Chargers out there, but there’s only one like this baby. And I’ve got it.”
Bob told Noah to go south on Industrial Park Road and then take a left onto Highway 221. The Howerton farm was about eight miles out on a county road, but it was one that had been paved only a year earlier.
“That’s one of the reasons I thought it might be the right house for you,” Bob said. “I can’t imagine you’d want to take this car down any gravel roads.”
“You’re right about that,” Noah said. “And thanks for thinking of it.”
They followed 221 for a couple of miles, and then Bob told Noah to turn right. The old county road was definitely in good shape, and there was a nice long stretch of straight road that allowed Noah to give Bob a thrill by opening the engine up and letting it roar. Bob was laughing like a little kid when the speedometer hit one twenty, but then Noah had to just about stand on the brakes to slow it down enough for the curve at the end of the straightaway. Noah laughed right along with him, keeping up his act.
“Okay,” Bob said, “it’s the next driveway on the left. There it is, see it?”
“I see it,” Noah said. He slowed the car down and turned into the driveway, surprised to see that it was also paved. He pulled the car up close to the long, ranch-style house and shut it down, and then he and Bob got out and walked up to the front steps.
Bob unlocked the front door and held it open while Noah stepped onto the porch. Bob had told him that it was enclosed, but it was very nicely done. All three of the outer walls were made of glass, but every section had a window that could open to let air through, and every window had a screen to keep out the insects. Noah admired it for a moment while Bob opened the main door into the house proper, and then followed him in.
It wasn’t nearly as luxurious as Noah’s house back in Colorado, but it was very nice. The floors were all hardwood and in good condition, the walls were straight and clean, and the ceilings were covered in antique-style metal tiles. There were rugs in each of the bedrooms, which Bob said would be nice during the winter, and the kitchen was very well-appointed and immaculate, with cabinets that appeared to have been custom-built from good hardwoods. The countertops were of composite stone, and all of the appliances—range, refrigerator, dishwasher, and even a microwave—were obviously brand-new. The same was true of the washer and dryer in the utility room, just off the kitchen.
What surprised Noah more than anything was that the house contained a lot of furniture, and most of it would probably have been considered antique. There were beds in all of the bedrooms, while the living room had two large sofas and a couple of chairs. There was an obviously ancient trestle table in the kitchen, and it was surrounded by some of the nicest oak dining chairs Noah had ever seen. While he was no expert on antique furniture, he would have been willing to bet that all of the furniture combined was probably worth a third of the asking price of the house.
Bob was beaming from ear to ear as he watched Noah look over every feature of the house. When they went out the back door and began looking through the other buildings, he seemed to get even more excited. That excitement built until they got to the big barn, and then he handed Noah a key to the big padlock that secured the doors and stood by while he opened it.
/>
“A tractor?” Noah asked.
“Yep. It’s an old Ford 9N, but it’s in excellent shape. It’s got a bush hog mower, and a rear-mount tiller with it, in case you want to do any gardening. Old man Howerton loved that old tractor; I heard he had it rebuilt three different times. The last time was just a few months before he died. The family hired a handyman to make sure the place stayed in good shape, and he uses that tractor to mow the whole place, so I know it’ll start up and go anytime you want it to.”
Noah looked around the barn for a moment and spotted even more antiques. There were several examples of old farm equipment, and he spied a lot of boxes up in the loft. He walked back out into the sunlight and looked at the house once more, then turned to face Bob.
“They’d take $80,000?” Noah asked.
“I guarantee it,” Bob said. “Like I said, they really want to get it sold. Just paying the handyman to keep it up is quite an expense since no one is living here.”
Noah looked at the house again as if he were thinking it over, but he had already made his decision. “How soon do you think I could move in?”
“Well, if we write up an offer today, I can fax it off to them and we’ll probably get acceptance by tomorrow morning. It’ll take a couple of days at least to get all the paperwork done, but I don’t think they would object to you moving in once everything is signed. You won’t have any trouble getting financing, will you?”
Noah looked at him. “How would you feel about cash?”
Bob’s eyes got wide and lit up even brighter than before. “Oh, that would be fine,” he said. “We can get everything together while your check clears and…”
Noah grinned at him. “No, I mean cash. Greenbacks, hundred-dollar bills. Would that be a problem?”
Bob’s smile turned into an expression of shock. “Eighty thousand dollars in cash? Well, I—normally, the banks get upset when you have a really big sum of cash like that, but I think we can bypass them and work it out. What I mean is, if you give me cash, I’ll write the checks to the sellers. Okay?”
Noah nodded. “Let’s go write it up,” he said. “As soon as we get the acceptance and all the paperwork is done, I’ll hand you the money and you can handle it however you want to.”
Bob locked everything up again, and they got back into the car to head back to his office. An hour later, Noah handed over $10,000 as earnest money and signed the offer. Bob immediately faxed the offer to the attorney handling the sale for the family, then picked up his phone and called the eldest of the Howerton heirs and told him about the pending sale.
John Howerton, Charles’s son, made a pretense of being disappointed at such a low offer but finally admitted that they were ready to get the house sold. He promised to call his siblings immediately and call Bob back within an hour to give him a final decision.
Bob looked at Noah and smiled. “Rex,” he said, “I think you just bought yourself a house.”
“I guess it sounds that way,” Noah said. “We’ve got an hour to wait. Want to go grab some lunch?”
Bob agreed and they got back into the Charger and drove up the road. Noah had spotted a KFC, and the two men partook of the buffet while they waited.
John called back while they were still working on their first plates and told Bob that they had agreed to sell. John, who had power of attorney over the house, was already on the way to the lawyer’s office to sign his acceptance of the offer.
“It’s yours,” Bob said. “Like I said, it’ll take a couple of days to get all the paperwork done. I’ll give you a call when it’s ready, and we can settle up. You do have the rest of the money available, right?”
Noah nodded. “I do,” he said. “It’s in a safe place, but I can get to it at any time. Soon as you call and tell me the papers are ready to sign, I’ll dig it out and bring it along.”
They finished lunch and Noah dropped Bob off at his office, then drove back to Kate’s house. She was already at home when he walked in, and was delighted when he told her the news.
“That’s a beautiful place out there,” she said. “And if you got it that cheap, you stole it.”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “That would make me a thief,” he said. “And if I’m a thief, then maybe our friend Morgan will think I’m just his kind of people.”
Kate grinned at him. “And that’s exactly what we want him to think, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Noah called Sarah and told her about the house, and she was delighted. Unfortunately, it didn’t change anything in the plan. She still had five more days to wait before she could join Noah in Arkansas, but the prospect of living in the country with him again pleased her a lot, and Noah could hear it in her voice.
Since the house hunting was out of the way, Noah decided it was time to take a step in the direction of the mission. Kate told him how to get to the Barn, the nightclub where he was most likely to find Jimmy Morgan, and he decided to make his first appearance that evening. Kate made dinner for them both, spaghetti and meatballs, and the two of them watched a movie afterward.
By the time the movie was over it was almost 7:30, and Noah decided it was time to make his move. He drove off alone toward Eureka Springs, and the chance to put all their plans into action.
Noah walked into the bar and immediately spotted Jimmy Morgan. The man was sitting at a table with someone who could only be Jimmy’s son, Ralph. He made a point of ignoring them and walked up to the bar, then heard Morgan ask someone, “Any idea who that might be?”
A moment later, another man sat down beside him and ordered a beer of his own. “Hey, man,” he said. “Ain’t seen you around here before. You new, or just passing through?”
Noah shrugged. “That all depends,” he said.
“Yeah? Depends on what?” asked the man beside him.
Noah turned and looked him in the eye. “Depends on whether or not I find work. My sister lives here, and she seems to think this is the ideal place for me.”
Forney grinned at him. “Really? And who is your sister?”
“Katie Madison,” Noah said. “Well, Kate is what she goes by around here, but I’ve always called her Katie. I’m Rex Madison, by the way.” He extended a hand, and the other man shook it.
“Scott Forney,” he said. “Kate Madison, huh? I didn’t even know she had a brother. Don’t think she ever talks about you.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that. See, up until about a month ago, I was a guest of the federal government down in Beaumont, Texas. Black sheep of the family, you might say. Katie always tried to keep me under wraps—I guess it doesn’t do a girl’s reputation much good to have a brother doing time in a fed joint. I’ve been out a month, but I can’t deal with all the probation crap back in Ohio, so Katie suggested I come give it a try here. Just got in yesterday.”
“Federal time always has probation attached to it,” Forney said. Forney watched his face carefully while he was talking. “Bloody Beaumont, huh? Is it as bad as they say? I heard stories about somebody dying there every week.”
Noah shrugged. “Ain’t really like that, but it’s bad. I’ve seen both guards and inmates end up dead in the riots, and I saw a guy get his throat slit just for looking into another man’s cell. You learn real quick to keep your eyes on the floor right in front of you all the time. Somebody thinks you’re looking at him, it’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
Forney nodded. “So why was you there?”
“Because Uncle Sam doesn’t like it when one of his DEA boys gets his head blown off. We had one who got into a little operation we had going back in Cleveland, but he slipped up and got found out, and then he got dead. They couldn’t prove who did it, so they just wrapped us all up, conspiracy bit. I did most of five years over that.”
“Man, that sucks. What kinda dope?”
Noah laughed. “You name it,” he said. “Meth, crack, X, heroin, pot, and anything else you can imagine. As long as there was a market, we were selling
it.”
Forney leaned close so that their shoulders were almost touching. “So, tell me,” he said in a stage whisper, “you have anything to do with that fed? Him getting his head blowed off?”
Noah had his bottle up to his lips, but he turned and glanced at Forney out of the corner of his eye. “Now, come on,” he said. “If I did, would you really expect me to admit it to somebody I just met? And would you even believe me if I said I did it?”
Forney shrugged and chuckled. “Hey, man, ’s just you and me talking. I ain’t gonna say anything to anybody else.”
“Cool,” Noah said, “and I’m not gonna be stupid enough to tell you anything that could possibly send me right back to Bloody Beaumont, dig?”
Forney laughed and sat up again. “So what kinda work you looking for?”
Noah turned and looked him in the eye. “Kind that makes me a hell of a lot of money.”
“Oh, yeah? You looking to get into the same kind of business again?”
“Wouldn’t scare me,” Noah said. “You know of any openings?”
“Maybe, maybe,” Forney said noncommittally. “Of course, I’m kinda like you. I don’t trust anybody I just met. For all I know, you could be a fed yourself.”
Noah chuckled. “Bet my probation officer would love to hear somebody say that,” he said.
“Yeah, probably. Who you got?”
Noah lowered his eyebrows as if thinking, then reached for his wallet and pulled out Craig Roberts’s business card. “Roberts,” he said, “Craig Roberts. He’s out of Fayetteville.”
“Yeah, I know who he is. I’ve known a couple other guys who did fed time. He had one or two of them a while back.”
“Cool. So, you really think you might know of some work? What do you need to check me out?”
“Oh, nothing. I know your name, I know you say you did time at Beaumont. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out if you’re telling the truth.” He turned and looked down the bar to where the deputy was still sitting and caught his eye. He motioned with his head for the deputy to come closer, and the man got up and moved to the stool beside him.
