Jack couldn't say he felt bad about that.
"The rest of your crew is dead. They died on a fruitless mission, pursuing your country's misguided policy of aiding the English. Now tell me: what was your secondary target?"
"Jack Laramie, Sergeant, 49-292-15—"
"What was your secondary target?"
The young man shot from the chair, reaching inside his coat with a gloved hand. Jack glimpsed something silver and spherical pinned to his jacket collar. A death's head. Steel rasped against leather; out came a two-edged dagger almost slender enough to be a stiletto. The SS officer pressed the blade against the bandages swaddling Jack's neck. "I will not waste good ammunition on the likes of you," he said, his breath hot. "Tell me, or I cut your throat."
One swift motion and Jack's life would go bubbling from his carotids. But he couldn't summon the appropriate fear. Maybe it was the morphine. Or the chance he might not walk again. And what did recovery at this point hold for him anyway? Years in a prison camp? Torture at the hands of the SS?
He hadn't been brave like Ortiz, in the closing moments of the Black Betty. He could be brave now.
Jack shut his eyes.
"Jack Laramie, Sergeant, 49-292-153."
"Ganz unglaublich." The cut he was half-hoping for didn't come. Paper rustled across his chest. The German officer had thrown the logbook onto the bed. Jack watched him re-sheath the knife, turn on his heel, and slam the door behind him.
Interrogation over. For now.
Outside the window, the bells from a four-hundred-year-old steeple started to chime.
* * *
When he woke the second time he was on his Army cot in the horse trailer. The ringing of church-bells became a pounding in his head. Lord, I must've tied one on. He vaguely recalled a drinking game played with Wild Turkey, and Joe's scarred face, becoming more flushed as the evening wore on. What had begun as a case—albeit a non-paying one—had turned into a bender.
"Very professional, Mr. Laramie," he said aloud.
He rolled off the cot. The cramped little room kept moving even after he'd stopped. He was wearing his skivvies, which felt strange, because he hadn't remembered taking off his clothes before flopping onto bed. Then again, he hadn't remembered flopping onto bed. Or driving home.
He dressed in clean clothes from the footlocker beneath the cot and stepped out. An unmerciful sun glared down, spearing his poor eyes as he staggered to the washroom door. Drabek had given him a key. Inside, he splashed with cold water until he could look at his reflection. The man gazing back seemed to have aged ten years.
Coffee, he thought. Always a better friend than bourbon.
He smelled dark roast brewing as he pushed open the shop's front door, followed by the just-as-palpable odor of hot grease. The latter made his stomach hitch. Drabek kept his post at the counter like always, a withered gargoyle from the Old Country. Jack would've figured the man never ate or slept, except that his equally decrepit wife would sometimes relieve him.
"Fresh pot for you," Drabek said, smiling. His English wasn't so good. "You want donut?"
Jack's guts lurched again. "Ah, I'll stick with coffee, thanks." He stepped around the counter and took a carafe from the industrial-sized percolator. A dozen cinnamon twists lay in a wire basket nearby. On second thought …
He wrestled donuts and coffee over to his favorite booth. A sunbeam slanted through the window; he sat as far from the bright cone as possible. Sipping, chewing, his mind started to wander.
What would the crew of the Black Betty think, to see him now? Thirty-three years old and living out of a horse trailer. Chasing dirty work from one end of rural Texas to another. Other men his age were well into family life, their careers taking off in the booming post-war economy. They had houses and pension plans. Something to pin their futures on.
What did he have, exactly?
He was still mulling when Drabek shuffled up to the booth.
"Forgot to say. Man came by little while ago, look for you." Drabek pointed to his right cheek and made a slashing motion downward. "I told him you need sleep."
"What did he want?"
"Give this." Drabek handed over a slip of paper with a local Kilgore address. 'I'll be here all afternoon' was written in careful block capitals.
Jack thanked the old man. It was time to end this freebie case and move on.
* * *
He regretted eating that last cinnamon twist. The dough congealed to cold grease inside his churning stomach. By the time he'd reached the address on the note—a tiny bar, wedged up against a Laundromat—he was feeling green. Looking green, too, the DeSoto's mirror confirmed.
The nameless bar offered no tables, no darts, no billiards; just a length of scarred wood with a series of mismatched stools running down its narrow length. The proprietor, a mush-faced, tub-gutted senior in a stained apron, gave him a slight nod when he came in. Joe Crewes sat on the furthest stool at the end, beneath a faded poster for Shiner Bock from the 40's. He had two beers and a tumbler set out in front of him. Aside from Jack, he was the only customer in the place.
Jack eased onto the adjacent stool. Joe didn't look green. He didn't look hung over at all as he slid an amber bottle in front of Jack.
"Honest to God, but that's the last thing I want right now."
"Cigarette?"
"I think those Havanas gave me nicotine poisoning. How did we get home last night?"
"Rosie drove. She's a teetotaler."
Jack thought he detected a hint of smugness. "Wait till you hit your thirties. It gets harder to shrug all this off, you know."
"I'll take your word for it."
Jack motioned toward the tumbler. It was half-full of brown fluid. "I thought you said you weren't a drunk, back at the revival tent."
"I've done some thinking about it. And I've decided sober is the worst thing a thinking man can be."
"Just going to stay lit all the time, huh?"
"Reckon so. As you've pointed out, I've got youth on my side."
Jack shook his head. He recalled reaching a similar conclusion after his repatriation from Stalag Luft Three.
"So what do you think?" Joe said. "Are you in?"
"You mean the Bunker Pines project?"
"What else? You going to be a spokesman or not?"
Jack let some irritation into his voice. "I thought you wanted me along to see if the whole thing was a put-up job. Now it sounds like you were just trying to recruit me."
"I had my doubts at first. But after all you saw last night, how can you still think it's fishy?"
Jack glanced down the length of the bar. The human iguana behind it slid a hand inside a cloudy glass jar and took out a pickled egg. He swallowed it whole, like a kingsnake.
"Hold on a sec." Jack went over to an ancient Wurlitzer along the back wall. The only selections were Hank Williams songs. He fed the juke a nickel and punched up 'Mind Your Own Business' before returning to his seat. When the wailing started, he said in a low voice: "Now don't get upset, but Bunker Pines has 'long con' written all over it."
"But—"
"Just listen. Real investments are a club for rich people only. When there's a sure thing, you can be sure that rubes like you and me will never hear about it. That Billy DeFour is pure snake-oil. And keeping two strippers around for distraction doesn't strike me as Better Business protocol, either."
Joe's scar pulsed white as the rest of his face reddened. "Wait a minute. One of those 'strippers' just happens to—"
"She was pouring liquor down your throat the whole evening. And she was on to me, as soon as I got in the car."
"She's a shrewd woman."
"Too shrewd. There's a lot more to her than she shows."
Joe smacked his open palm against the bar. The beer bottles shook. "Now that's the first sensible thing you've said. You know what happened to her during the war? She was rounded up, her whole family, and put in one of those camps for Japs they set up along the railroad. She was a POW, jus
t like you."
"I doubt if she had German shepherds set on her for fun, but alright. She's had a rough time. And you two clearly have something going on. That's all the reason to be more cautious."
"What the hell happens to make guys like you so suspicious?"
"That's why people pay me. Because I'm not the trusting sort."
Jack hadn't meant that as a barb, but Joe's reaction was to claw a black leather wallet out of his slacks. He withdrew three crinkled twenties and laid them on the bar.
"What's that for?"
"Your own peace of mind. I want you to dig a little more. And when you find out this whole deal's legitimate, I want you to join me in promoting it."
"A foregone conclusion."
"You going to take the case or not?"
If Joe thought he wouldn't take the money out of pride, he'd pegged the wrong man. Jack made the twenties disappear. "Sixty bucks buys you a couple days of digging. But I'm not giving it back if you don't like what I find."
"Deal." Joe sat a little straighter atop his stool.
"You don't mind my asking," Jack said, "what do you do for a living? Besides mooning over pretty Asian girls and drinking, that is."
"Ah, well …" Joe slouched again. "After I got back from Korea, I tried sports casting for a while. Local radio stations. Not much money in it, but …"
"Didn't quite suit you."
"Nah. And regular nine-to-fives don't, either. I can't sleep so good. Makes it hard to come in to work, some mornings. My dad runs a dairy farm in North Dakota, but I had my fill of that as a kid."
"So you're just coasting."
"For awhile. I still have some money in the bank. My G.I. bill. This investment turns out like I know it will, I won't have to worry anymore."
"Uh-huh. How'd you meet Billy?"
"He sold me the Plymouth. Runs a dealership out of Longview."
Well, that cinches it. "He give you a business card?"
"I think so." Joe dug out the wallet again. After a moment he found a card, already going ratty around the edges.
"Mind if I take this?" Jack said, glancing at the address.
"Go ahead."
"DeFour's the best place to start. Swing by the donut shop in two days; I should have something by then. Where can I get ahold of you if I need to?"
"The Motor Court Inn. It's just off I-20."
"I know the place well."
Jack got off the stool. His stomach still felt twitchy, but it was better than when he came in. Getting paid always had a calming effect. He left just as Hank's voice was fading from the juke's tinny speakers.
* * *
The dealership sported a big neon cowboy out front, straddling a sign that read 'The Roundup.' Said cowboy didn't seem to be up for much during the day, but Jack bet he'd twirl that trick-rope of his when the juice came on. New Plymouths and Imperials lined one side of the lot; a more motley assortment of used cars congregated further back, away from the street. There was a small garage and car wash at the rear, and a modern-looking sales office fronting big glass windows in the lot's center.
Directly across the street from the dealership lay the fringes of a respectable neighborhood, with turn-of-the-century frame houses, sprawling grass lawns, oaks, and dogwood trees. The Roundup's presence jarred beyond the difference in architecture; cowboy kitsch wasn't so common in East Texas, which fashioned itself more after the antebellum South than the Old West. Jack figured a lot of money must've changed hands when the dealership was zoned.
There were no abandoned spots nearby to discretely surveil the place. Jack parked the DeSoto a block down one of the nicely-shaded residential streets and got his clipboard and old surveyor's tripod out of the trunk. With the tripod slung over his shoulder, he trudged up the slight incline until he found a house commanding a good view of the Roundup. It stood three stories and had a trellised porch stretching around the front. The white mailbox read 'Klentz.'
He marched up the lawn and knocked on the front door. A middle-aged woman wearing curlers in her hair and a white dress with little blue flowers answered.
Jack tipped his hat. "Miss Klentz?"
"I'm Mrs. Abigail Klentz, yes. What can I do for you?"
Jack pretended to scrutinize his clipboard for a moment. "Got an order from city council to survey this neighborhood. Would it be alright if I set up my—"
"You mean they're finally going to fix the road?"
"Well, ma'am, all I know is that—"
"Because it's a good ten years past due. The city certainly takes its sweet time."
Abigail proceeded to tell him just how often she'd had to complain at the courthouse regarding this very issue. Jack was beginning to wish he'd picked some other door to knock on, but after he'd received a short treatise on Longview politics, she gave him permission to set up the tripod. "Long as you don't muss the lawn so bad Mr. Klentz notices," she added. "You do, and the city has a whole new slew of problems."
Jack thanked her profusely and erected the tripod just off the front walkway. He had no theodolite—too damn expensive, and not really appropriate for his purposes, anyhow. Instead, he fitted his Red Army seven-power telescopic sight. He'd won it from a Russian infantryman in a chess match, one of his few mementos from the war. The scope had proven far more rugged than any precision instrument had a right to be.
A few adjustments and he could sweep the lot easy enough. So far there wasn't much activity; a young black couple was checking out this season's convertibles, and neither of the two fat salesmen lounging near the office seemed to notice them. Billy DeFour was nowhere to be seen.
Jack went up onto the porch, found a wicker chair, and dragged it back over to the tripod. This could take a while. He figured he'd just sit and watch the lot with his naked eye, until he saw movement. Then he could use the scope to check things out more closely.
About ten minutes passed. The front office doors opened, throwing off a gleam of reflected sunlight. Jack got up and peered through the scope. Billy DeFour, wearing his Stetson and midnight blue blazer, came ambling out, hands in pockets. He was making for the black couple. Either he was going to tell them to get off his lot, or … nope. He was shaking hands. Jack could imagine the man's friendly patter. Does the interior come in tan? Little lady, it comes in whatever color you want.
Another ten minutes of lifting hoods, kicking tires, and Billy hurried back toward the office, to emerge moments later with what must be a set of keys. He handed these to the young man. The couple drove off in a cream-colored Windsor Deluxe on a test run.
Billy's face contorted as he said something sharp to one of his salesmen. Scolding him for laziness? Racial intolerance? Any money's good money, I always say.
More customers came drifting onto the lot. Billy worked them with a purpose, grinning, pressing flesh, and generally putting his flunkies to shame. If the man's a grifter, Jack thought, he doesn't mind sweating at his day job.
The front door banged open and out came Abigail Klentz, sans curlers, carrying a tray. She didn't seem to mind his borrowing of the wicker chair. "Care for some iced tea?"
"Normally I wouldn't trouble you ma'am, but seeing as how you brought a pitcher …"
He rattled off some technical jargon as she poured him a glass; angle, grade, topographic curvature. It sounded convincing to him. The tea had lemon with just a touch of mint. Perfect.
"You looked hungry," she said, "so I brought you a plate of pickled string beans, too. I hope you're partial."
He was. He'd always thought green beans pickled better than cucumbers, and he told her so.
"I'm glad you approve. Please tell those officials at the city courthouse I'm sorry if my language got a little … colorful, last time I was there. It's just my civic pride."
"I'll do that, ma'am."
Jack watched her gather glass and pitcher before climbing back up the porch. He felt guilty for lying. He also felt a little jealous of Mr. Klentz. Maybe he hadn't been giving the whole white-picket fence scenar
io the kind of attention it deserved.
There was movement, at the front of the lot. Jack set down his plate of beans. A black Cadillac, the paint and chrome buffed so high it gleamed like a dark pearl, came sliding through the entrance. It parked right next to the office. Billy, engaged with an elderly customer, hot-footed it over to the car, his professional smile pinned on like a rictus. A window on the Caddy's passenger side rolled down. Billy stuck his head in, then leaned back and made a show of opening the door. An alarmingly short man stepped out. Jack put him at five feet even, though he couldn't be sure because the scope flattened everything. He was dressed in a white shirt and black bowtie. Jack glimpsed a pair of prominent ears before Billy hustled the man inside.
Meanwhile, a swarthy slab of beef emerged from the driver's seat. This second man more than made up for his passenger's lack of height; he looked six-four, and when he turned, his profile showed a nose so flattened it was almost flush with the rest of his face.
"A goon if I ever saw one," Jack muttered.
The unlikely pair stayed in the office building for over forty minutes. Jack was contemplating asking Abigail if he could use her bathroom when Short and Tall came strolling back out. Billy did his door-opening act for Shorty, and the Cadillac rolled off the lot. Jack managed to catch the first two letters of the license plate. If he'd parked the DeSoto any closer he would've risked bolting for it in order to tail the black car. But he'd gotten a fair description of the occupants, and scrawled some notes in a pocket address book instead.
The porch floorboards creaked as Abigail reappeared. Her husband was due home in less than an hour, and did Jack want to stay for supper? Mr. Klentz was a lineman for the county; he loved to talk civil engineering. Jack grabbed up the tripod, thanked Abigail for her hospitality, and got the hell out of there. Good as he was sure the dinner would be, he did not want to be exposed as a fraud to quality people like Mr. and Mrs. Klentz.
* * *
Jack spent part of the next morning at the Longview Chamber of Commerce. And the afternoon borrowing Drabek's phone to call a Pinkerton he knew in Dallas. It took some back and forth, but when he finally got ahold of his contact the resulting information was dynamite. Jack wrote his report on a legal-ruled tablet and waited.
The Girls of Bunker Pines (The Drifter Detective Book 3) Page 3
