by Lee Winter
Walt rummaged around his counter which was cluttered with faded brochures of American vacation destinations. He nudged a Stop Off at Beautiful Baker flier out of the way and looked lost. “I thought the booking folder was here. Must be in the back.”
Lauren glanced around the windowless office, covered in scenic posters with bland slogans like Buses Show You More. She unbuttoned her borrowed Kors jacket and slid her hands into her jeans pockets.
“Well, I…uh…I’ll go get the invoice,” Walt told her chest earnestly. “Probably has the feller’s name on it. Since this one’s a government job, it’s, like, everyone’s business, right?” He didn’t move immediately, eyes still south of Lauren’s chin.
“I’d appreciate that,” Lauren said when he still didn’t budge. He finally lumbered off and almost tripped over his boots in his enthusiasm. The moment he was gone, Ayers stepped up beside her and leaned on the counter.
“Do you think you could stop presenting yourself like a bonobo chimp in heat?” she said. “It’s giving me indigestion.”
“It’s hot in here,” Lauren protested. “What would you prefer? I faint in a puddle of sweat?”
“I would prefer you don’t acquire us an amorous stalker.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “He’s just being friendly. Besides, this is information we need. Stop complaining.”
The man’s return curtailed whatever caustic rejoinder Ayers was about to utter. He slapped a page on the desk. “Darndest thing. I can’t find my invoice. It’s gone from the main binder. Every job I book gets filed in there, and the duplicates go to the drivers. All I could find was the copy of the job sheet. It breaks down every stop a driver has to make for each booking and when he’s supposed to make it.”
Three heads bent over the typed page on the counter.
May 11: Lyon County to LA (return)
Client: Nevada Legislature
Contact: 1-866-543-9941 (fax)
Noon: Wild Bunny Heaven Ranch, 27 Desert Rd East, Lyon County—Pick up 34 passengers.
12:30: Liquor store, 407 N. Curry St—Pick up pallet of champagne, invoice no. 26284.
20:30: Beverly Hills Regent, 9876 Wilshire Bvd—Drop off passengers, rear door of Grand Convention Ballroom.
20:45: 11820 W. Olympic Blvd, LA—Collect envelope.
21:00-23:00: Food and rest break.
23:00: Beverly Hills Regent—Pick up 34 passengers.
07:30: Drop off at Wild Bunny Heaven Ranch.
08:00: Return to Base.
“What’s this?” Lauren asked and pointed to the stop after the SmartPay launch drop off. “11820 W. Olympic Blvd. And what envelope?”
Walt shrugged. “Not a clue. I’d normally say you should ask the driver but, like I told you on the phone, Fels just took off. He was supposed to open up for me last Monday—the thirteenth. But when I got in that afternoon, the office was still locked up tighter than a flea’s behind.
“Two days later I get a Sorry boss, I moved to Mexico, PS I quit text. I can’t believe it.”
Lauren studied the job sheet. “Can I get a copy of that?” she asked.
The man’s scowl transformed into a wide smile. “Why, course, darlin’, just wait right there.” He disappeared out the back.
Ayers side-eyed her. “When Buffalo Bill there tries to woo you later with a bowling date, you can pay for the dry cleaning to get his slobber out of my jacket.”
The manager loped back in moments later and laid a photocopy down in front of them. He rocked back on his heels and puffed his chest out proudly. Ayers shot him a withering look, and Lauren had to bite her lip to stop from laughing.
“So, uh, ma’am, don’t suppose you’re free tonight?” Walt asked Lauren hopefully. He scribbled his fingers through his bushy beard. “I’d love to take you out and show you Carson City’s best sights. What hotel are you at? Oh, hey, do you bowl?”
“Well, that was productive, I suppose,” Ayers said as they settled back in the car. “And he was very, oh, what was that word again? Ah yes. Friendly.”
Lauren started the engine. “Whatever. Look, we’ve got a lot more now than we had,” she reasoned. “And I thought it was nice of him to give us the job sheet. He didn’t have to. In fact, really, he probably shouldn’t have.”
“I think it had more to do with your cleavage than any civic-minded interest in helping us get to the truth.”
Lauren dropped a glance down to her tight tank top and shot her passenger a curious look. “What cleavage?”
Ayers snapped on her seatbelt. “He was extrapolating. Your undershirt,” she swirled her index finger in the direction of her chest, “leaves little to the imagination.”
Lauren pursed her lips. “For the last time, I was boiling in there. It’s not like he was being super creepy or anything.”
“Oh really? Then why did you tell him we were booked into Motel 395?” Ayers asked ever so sweetly.
“We were booked into Motel 395,” Lauren retorted. “Okay, fine. Like you said, I didn’t want a love-struck stalker. Now can you navigate us to that liquor store on the job sheet?”
Ayers looked as if she was debating whether to continue the conversation but finally shifted her attention to the paperwork. She picked up her cell phone and consulted a map. “Left, then second right. It’s not far.”
Before long they were in front of a grimy, shabby building that probably had its best years in the 70s.
“Speaking of vivid imaginations,” Lauren muttered. “Mine didn’t properly prepare me for how lowbrow this joint would be. Not the first choice for champagne buyers, surely? Especially ones using a government account.”
“Mmm,” Ayers murmured as she looked over the garish signage and cross-checked it with the job sheet. “This is the place, though. I must say it takes a certain skill to find the cheapest-looking alcohol establishment in the US in which to spend your embezzled funds.”
“Think it’s deliberate?” Lauren asked.
Ayers didn’t answer. She continued to stare at the ugly storefront as though hypnotized by its pink fluorescent letters.
The interior of Booze, Booze, Booze was as classy as its name suggested, and as Lauren glanced around the dusty stands at the prices, she wondered whether anything was over fifteen dollars. If so, she’d yet to find it.
Ayers had already swept up to the counter and engaged the old man behind it in conversation. Lauren listened as she roamed the aisles.
“It would have been picked up on the eleventh,” Ayers said. “A Saturday.”
“Get a lot of orders on Saturday nights,” he said. “Which feller placed the order?”
Lauren edged around a wine stand to see an elderly man in a Hawaiian shirt, with a nametag that said “Dan.” He was hunched, weary, and perched on a chipped, ancient stool. White hair exploded from his ears. His chin was a riot of gray stubble, and his head bore a tatty cap with an insignia of what appeared to be rifles. It was hard to tell from the grime.
“The order came with a bus,” Ayers said, side-stepping the man’s question. “As in the champagne bought here was loaded directly onto a chartered bus.”
“Well why didn’t you say so?” he said with a wheezy laugh. “Who can forget a bus stuffed to the gills with young ladies in their fancy getups? Damn, that was a sight. Plus that order of pink fizz caused one hell of a ruckus later.”
He rose from his stool and creaked slowly toward one of the darker rear shelves. He mumbled to himself, preventing Ayers asking about the ruckus as she dropped into step behind him. His fingers wagged from shelf to shelf as he looked for something.
“If’n I recall, the order was faxed in two months ago for 96 bottles. That’s a pallet’s worth. And if you wanna be correct, technically speaking, it’s sparkling rosé that was ordered, not champagne. Blame the French for that persnickety distinction.
“
Ah—here we are—Pink Lady Blushing Bubbles.” He tapped the shelf. “These are them.”
Lauren joined them and peered over Ayers’s shoulder. Two bottles were left. It was the ugliest wine label Lauren had ever seen in her life, and that included the cheap swill she and her best friend Becky had smuggled into their prom. She wrinkled her nose and studied the price tag.
“$8.95 a bottle? So it’s the good stuff?”
The man shot her a sharp look. “You know, girlie, not everyone can afford the blessed drops squeezed from the ass of grapes in the Pyrenees. I cater to all budgets.” He harrumphed and headed back to the counter.
Ayers, eyes glittering, lowered her lips against Lauren’s ear and softly quoted back her earlier words. “You’re the people person?”
Lauren glowered at her then caught up to the liquor store owner.
“Sorry,” she said. “You’re right. Would you mind if we looked at the invoice?”
“Hmm,” he said, as he huffed with exertion and perched back on his stool. “A smart man would tell you to go to hell. ’Specially after that uppity crack you just made. Then again a smart man probably wouldn’t have said a half of what I said to those stormtrooper bastards who were in here last Tuesday. But, the whole truth of it is, my daddy raised a man with a mouth way bigger than his brain.”
He cackled at his own joke, which devolved into a hacking cough. He thumped his chest and muttered, “’Scuse me.”
Lauren and Ayers exchanged a look.
“Stormtroopers?” Ayers asked carefully. “As in government agents? Or police?”
“Not police,” Dan said. “I know all the local boys at Carson City Sheriff’s Office. But it wasn’t like I was properly introduced to those jackbooters. There were two of them in sharp suits, no necks, and flashing shiny badges too fast ta see, and they asked about the paperwork for this here order, same as you. And then when I showed it to ’em, they tried to take it off me. Called it gov’ment business. I looked them straight in the necks and said that what they was trying was theft, plain and simple, and I’d make a big ol’ noise to the media and everyone else if they tried to leave here with my private business papers.”
He ducked below the counter, ferreted around, and then stood, a crumpled pair of stapled pages clutched between his gnarled fingers. The pages were dog-eared and had clearly been much handled. “Oh they tried to lean all over me, but what can they threaten an old man with no family with? I told them that, too. They didn’t like it much. In the end, they gave me my paperwork back and warned me not to talk about this order with anyone else.
“Now, see, I don’t take kindly to being ordered around when I’m just going about my lawful business,” he continued with an outraged glare. “This is ’Merica! I do not have to take bulldust from anyone, and I sure as hell won’t take it from my own gov’ment.”
“How do you know they were from the government?” Ayers asked.
“Who else? They had money for fancy black suits and were built like my first Buick. Those boys meant business. But I’m damned sure threatening law-abiding folks ain’t even close to constitutional, so I’ll take their warning as more of a helpful suggestion. And to that end—here ya go.”
Dan pushed the pages across the counter. One was an invoice with a red stamped Paid in Full, plus the details of the bottles bought and their price. It was dusty, like everything else in the shop.
Lauren turned over to the next page and gasped. Jackpot. A purchase order faxed through on official government letterhead. They could clearly see the Nevada state seal, and a series of typed numbers displaying the liquor store where the order had been placed, and—Lauren’s fingers trembled—the full account numbers from which the order would be paid. Lauren pulled out her phone to snap a photo of it.
“No need for that,” Dan stopped her. “I made plenty of copies after that visit. Stashed them all over. You keep that. And if you happen to be mentioning my establishment in your fancy paper, don’t forget to spell the name right. That’s Booze, Booze, Booze. Right? Three of ’em.”
Lauren grinned as she picked up the invoice. “Three. Got it. It’s a memorable name for a business, Dan.”
“That it is. And you can talk to me anytime. I’ll say my thoughts on the record, too. I have plenty of thoughts about unconstitutional fascists, that’s for sure. Yes indeed I do.”
“Thanks,” Lauren said and took one of the fliers on the counter that had Dan’s phone number on it.
“We appreciate your help,” Ayers added.
The door jangled as they left.
Lauren shook her head when they got outside. “This is getting surreal. The madam had a visit from those thugs, too, by the sound of things.”
“Yes,” Ayers said. “But your Romeo at the bus company didn’t. Why not?”
“Could it have slipped Walt’s mind?”
Ayers shot her an incredulous glance.
“Yeah, okay,” Lauren said, feeling stupid. “But I’ll call him and ask anyway.”
Two minutes later she hung up. “Walt said no one has asked for the paperwork except us. He said he’d call back in a minute; he just wants to check something out.”
“He’s probably working out his next pick up line,” Ayers said. “Since bowling didn’t grab you.”
“I have only one sporty mistress, and her name is softball.”
“Do you still play?”
Lauren’s phone rang, preventing her from answering.
“We have to go back,” Lauren said when she ended the call. “Walt has something to show us.”
“I’ll bet he does.”
“Cute. But he sounded really spooked. Come on.”
Ten minutes later they were back at Carson City Coach Rental, crowded around a small black and white monitor as they watched security footage. White numbers at the top left of the screen dated it as Monday, May 13, 8:57am.
“I checked the video soon as you said people were snooping over that job,” Walt said. “See there? That’s Dave Fels, my driver, opening up the office just like he was s’posed to. Now watch there.”
He pointed as two tall males entered. There was no sound, but the shapes converged on the driver and all but stood on top of him. Their faces were grim, mouths moving fast. Fels looked petrified and suddenly left the front room.
“He’s going to the office,” Walt explained.
They watched as he returned and handed two sheets of paper over.
Walt hit pause and pointed. “Top left of the paper he’s holding, see that circle? Nevada state seal. That’s the purchase order I got on the LA job. Which means underneath it must be the invoice. No wonder I couldn’t find it.”
He hit Play. The men leaned in and said something in the driver’s ear.
Fels flinched, his face ashen. Then they shouldered their way through the doors and left. The driver stood, staring after them, unmoving for several long minutes. Walt stabbed the Stop button.
“And now we know why your man disappeared to Mexico,” Ayers said.
“I tried to call him as soon as I saw this,” Walt said, looking ashamed. “Number’s disconnected now. You think I should call the cops?”
“And say what? That two men spoke to your employee in an intimidating manner, and he has since left the country?”
“Yeah,” Walt said glumly. “I guess it doesn’t sound like anything they’d care about.”
“Do you mind if we get a copy of this footage?” Ayers asked.
He studied them cautiously. “What are you going to do with it?”
“It will probably be mentioned in our story,” Ayers said. “And on that note, we may ask you for a comment, too, when we have all our facts together. How would you feel about that?”
Walt hit eject and put the security CD in a blank case. He looked at it anxiously then glanced up. “Well, I think that I’d rather not
have this in my possession. And I also think it’d be the right thing to help you expose whatever the hell’s going on here. So yes, call me when you need me. I’ll talk.”
He slid the disk over the counter and then dropped his business card on top of it.
“Thank you, Walt,” Ayers said without a trace of her earlier sarcasm.
“Welcome.” He gave her a solemn nod. “I’d best get some work done.” He turned away.
“Well,” Lauren said the moment they got outside, “he’s actually brave—not creepy. I think some of us judge people way too fast.”
“Or some of us give the benefit of doubt far too soon,” Ayers countered as she put her sunglasses on. “He could be brave and still a creep.”
Lauren unlocked her car. “You are seriously the worst cynic I’ve ever met.”
“Hang around the corridors of power for as long as I have, and it’ll challenge anyone’s belief in their fellow man,” Ayers said as she got in. “It’s quite the eye opener; I promise you.”
“Well that’s depressing,” Lauren noted and joined her in the car. “So why the hell do you want to go back to DC?”
An unfathomable look flitted across Ayers’s face. She shook her head and reached for her notebook.
“Now that the excitement’s over, we can get back to business. I’ll tally up our findings,” she said briskly. “The total financial damage to the Nevada taxpayers for that big night out was—Prostitutes, $96,900. Bus rental, $2240—”
“Don’t forget the eighty cents,” Lauren interrupted as she started the car.
“Heaven forbid.” Ayers made the adjustment. “And pink champagne—or sparkling rosé, I should say—96 bottles at $8.95 each, which totals $859.20…”
Lauren drove quietly back to their hotel and left Ayers to her calculations. There was a muffled sound of surprise.
“What?”
“I need a moment.” Ayers double checked her sums. After a moment she put her notes down.
“And now we know why the eighty cents was important,” she said. “The grand total is exactly $100,000. To the penny.”
