And then there was Mazy. Every time she crossed his thoughts, he smiled. A feisty little pine-knot of a woman with rough hands and a tender heart, she had eased into his mind and his bed without reservation or condition. There was not a manipulative or devious bone in her body. She had been honest with him from the very beginning. Her life was on the lake. Their relationship was anything but casual, but it was bound by geography. Crockett couldn’t stay and Mazy wouldn’t leave. Nor could they be a sometimes thing, getting together now and then when Crockett would motor south for a few days. Paradoxically, the commitment they could not make made the one they had an all or nothing situation. When he left her it would be over. He could never come back, and they both knew it.
The ambience of the lake, the gentle motion of the pontoon boat, and the easy early autumn breezes lulled Crockett into the sweet melancholy of the situation, and the afternoon drifted by with emotional self-indulgence that allowed no thought of events to come. Dusk was approaching when he finished his third Guinness and dropped his hand to scratch Maggie’s ears. She was not there. She would never be there. He sighed, sat at the helm, started the forty horsepower Mercury outboard, and headed back toward the marina. It was time to talk with Stitch.
*****
Boog Jeter took a swig of warm Dr. Pepper to wash down his last bite of Moon Pie and adjusted his position where he lay under the cargo cover in the back of the old Chevy pickup. He’d have to move the truck again soon. He never left it parked in exactly the same place for more that twelve hours or so. Boog had been watchin’ the buildin’ where that black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes lived for nearly three whole days. When he found it he figgered that a mess a folks lived there, it bein’ so big an’ all, and that was gonna make things harder, but nossir, that warn’t the case. During his watch, prob’ly ten or twelve people came an’ went, city shit-heads a comin’ to her to talk about theyselves, an’ make up lies an’ shit so she could go to court and mess in stuff that warn’t none a her goddam bidness. They was only one that stayed. A thin feller with brown hair and quick eyes that kindly reminded Boog of a hawk. He an’ that black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes went off together in the evenin’ twice, and he spent the nights there, but early that mornin’ he clumb into his black Ford and took off. Boog had been on foot at the time, walkin’ back from the gas place where he went to shit an’ buy food, an’ saw the two of ‘em kissin’ in the parking lot behind the buildin’. ‘Bout ten minutes after he left, she left, and it gave Boog the opportunity to finish lookin’ the place over.
His first night there, when the two of ‘em went out, he found a way in. The front door was glass and opened into a small space with two other doors, but anybody on the street could see right inside. Behind the place, away from the street, the door to the basement was locked up tight, but they was one a them skinny basement windas on the south side that opened right up. He slipped inside into some kinda storage space that had piles a lumber and plywood and shit, all covered up with dust and cobwebs. He checked it out. Nobody never came in there. Warn’t no tracks in the dust on the floor or handprints on the doorknob. They was a bolt holdin’ the door closed, but it was on his side, to keep somebody from gittin’ into the basement from inside the buildin’. He thought about jest movin’ in down there for a couple a days so he wouldn’t be surrounded by so much city ‘an all, but didn’t wanna push his luck in case all that dust made him sneeze or somethin’, an’ somebody heard him.
After Boog slipped the bolt an’ opened the door he was on a kind of landin’ at the bottom of some steps. Up them steps a little ways was two more doors. The one on the left had a purty good lock, but the one on the right was flimsy. He slipped the blade of his Buck knife in next to the jamb and it popped right open. He spent the next few minutes wanderin’ around and lookin’ things over.
Right away he figgerd out that two folks lived there, together but kindly separate, too. It was a man that lived on the south side, and he didn’t spend much time there, ‘cause the man was gone. The north side was where that black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes stayed. Careful to leave no sign behind, Boog wandered through her place, checked out the kitchen, took a drink a milk from a carton in the icebox, an’ even set at the counter for a spell. Boog got a kinda flutter in his stomach, just bein’ in the place. The flutter was sorta scary, but it felt good too, an’ it got even better when he went upstairs to where she slep. He could smell her on the bedclothes, and he took a minute to press his face into the sheets and inhale her scent. He even slipped open a couple of drawers and went through some of her under clothes. He found a lotta stuff he’d never seen before, ‘specially some little bitty black panties that didn’t have no back to ‘em except just a fat string that couldn’t a gone no place but right up the crack a her ass. He tried to imagine what somethin’ like that would look like, but all it did was put him in the mind a ol’ man Easley’s daughter, Nola. Boog thought about jackin’ off for a minute, but couldn’t ‘cause the memory a not havin’ ol’ man Easley’s daughter to diddle no more made him kindly sad.
Boog left the building and hustled back to the safety of the truck. He lay in the back for a while, listening to the occasional rustle from the cups inside the paper bag, feelin’ really tired. But Harold Lee come to mind and Boog felt cheered by that. Harold Lee had been creepin’ into his head ever now an’ then lately, an’ Boog liked it. It made him feel not so alone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Crockett walked into the kitchen to find Zeb at the counter in front of an empty plate and Mazy putting pork chops and mac n’cheese away in the fridge.
“Where ya been, boy?” Zeb asked.
Crockett grinned. “Lost at sea.”
“Ya find him?”
“Who?”
“Moby Dick. All you great crusaders got a white whale ‘er two someplace out yonder that yer looking for.”
Crockett patted the old man on the shoulder and sat down. “You a philosopher or something?”
“Yessir. Git ta be my age ya got enough years under yer belt ta git smart about a lotta things. I figger you think you got a debt or two that needs payin’, an you’re lookin’ for ways to settle up. You got some shit you ain’t put down. Prob’ly never will.”
Crockett’s eyes narrowed. “That right?”
“Shore it is, an’ you know it. Doan go gittin’ yer dander up. I ain’t criticizin’ nothing. Just makin’ observations. Ain’t one of us that ain’t screwed up one way or another. Even a fine specimen like me.”
Zeb’s confession took the sting out of his words and Crockett accepted a cup of coffee from Mazy.
“You missed supper,” she said.
“Yeah. Sorry. That whale is sneaky.”
“It’s in the fridge when you want it.”
Crockett flinched. “The whale?”
“The pork chops.”
“Oh. Seen Stitch?”
“You boys takin’ that hell-of-a-copter someplace?” Zeb asked.
“No.”
“Well, he’s down there by the storage barn workin’ on it. Crawlin’ over that thing like a ant on a road apple.”
Crockett shook his head. “Getting ready for a mission. To Stitch that means going over the helo. He’ll probably sleep under it tonight, between the skids.”
Mazy’s eyebrows went up. “Sleep under the helicopter?”
“Sure.”
“That boy never made it all the way back, did he?” Zeb said.
Crockett lifted a Sherman out of the pack. “He’s on the right medication now. When I first met him he was damn near still at a firebase. There’s one thing for sure. Stitch is a hell of a pilot.” He grinned and lit the cigarette. “Ask anybody.”
Crockett found Stitch sitting on the ground leaning back against one of the Bell’s skid struts, drinking from a bottle.
“Air-Cav,” he said.
“Fuckin’-A, man.”
Crockett sat beside him and Stitch handed hi
m the bottle.
“That’s the last a my prickly pear wine, dude,” Stitch said. “Seemed like a appropriate occasion, ya know?”
“Fine with me,” Crockett replied, taking a deep hit from the bottle and passing it back. “You okay?”
“Medium rare, man. We goin’ after that cat tomorrow?”
“Uh-huh. I got quite a bit of information when Johnny’s girlfriend called me. We’ll scope out his place tomorrow evening, figure the best ways in and out, and take care of business around two in the morning.”
Stitch looked at the sky.
“Shouldn’t be more than a half moon. You check on a weather report from HQ?”
Crockett chuckled. “Nope.”
“We got any air cover?”
“Don’t know.”
“Any fresh intel on Charlie?”
“Afraid not.”
Stitch grinned. “Jesus Christ, motherfucker,” he said, “you don’t know shit, do ya?”
“Not me.”
“And you expect me to go into this mess with ya, my limp dick hangin’ out, an’ di-di-mau my ass in the grass just ‘cause you think it would be a nice thing to do?”
“Yep.”
“Good enough for me, dude,” Stitch said, passing Crockett the bottle. “Have another slug. You want some smoke?”
“No thanks.”
“Pussy. Any friendlies gonna be in the area?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Cool. Shoot ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”
Crockett handed Stitch the binoculars. “Not a bad set up,” he said. They were in Crockett’s truck, south of Blue Springs, Missouri, on a low hill nearly a half-mile to the rear of a construction area for a new subdivision. Dusk was coming on.
“Not another house within a block of that crib,” Stitch said, peering at the backside of a two-story home. The rear of the house, surrounded by a six-foot board fence, was glass and brick overlooking a swimming pool. A guesthouse sat off to the right and did not interfere with their line of sight. “Nice a him to live out here all by himself. What do they call this place?”
“Chanticleer Hills,” Crockett said, his eyes drifting over the barren landscape before them. Raw earth spread out in front of the truck all the way to the rear of Johnny April’s house, the flat and featureless terrain marred only by a fifty-foot high mound of earth slightly left of their line of sight, about two hundred yards from the rear of the home. A bulldozer crouched in the shadow of the of dirt pile.
“That’s one of the hills, huh?” Stitch said, nodding toward the mound.
“I guess so. Christine said that the developers were making the hills.”
“Man, this shit is sick. These dumb fucks come in someplace like this, pay a quarter of a mil for a totally fucked up piece a ground that’s been screwed over by every kinda machine known to man, put up a million dollar pile a bricks and glass on their half-acre a hell, wait twenty years to have a real tree in the front yard, peek in their neighbor’s bathroom window from their bedroom window, and congratulate each other on how freakin’ cool they are. It’s fuckin’ depressin’. I’d rather live under a shelter-half in the fuckin’ desert, ya know? We oughta burn that place to the ground. Remove the fuckin’ wart offa the face a Mother Earth an’ shit. Dig it.”
Crockett grinned. “Don’t hold back, Stitch,” he said. “I know it’s difficult for you, but you really need to get some things off your chest.”
“Yeah,” Stitch said. “I need to work on expressin’ myself so I won’t be so fuckin’ uptight and shit. Ha! I’m serious, man. It’s like rape, ya know? Look around where we drove through that these fuckers ain’t stuck their dicks in yet. Kinda flat, but there’s already trees an’ shit. Grass growin’, green instead a brown. Hell, dude, there’s even that creek we crossed a coupla a times. They could have a lake here man, and watershed and shit. Whatdaya bet their gonna fuck up another bunch a land so some half-wit motherfuckers with a three thousand-dollar bag a sticks can chase a little white ball around while their ol’ ladies are givin’ some worn out tennis pro a blow job in the back seat of some fuckin’ Mercedes in the clubhouse parkin’ lot. Jesus!”
“Damn. You got a lot of hostility there, Stitch. If I had known this was gonna be so rough on you, I’d have left you at the lake. I didn’t know civilization was such a burden for you.”
“It ain’t, man. Lookit ol’ Ivy. She could buy an’ sell this place a thousand times outa her fuckin’ pin money. She’s cool. Ivy don’t give a shit if she impresses anybody or not, ya know? The ol’ chick is hip, man, an’ money ain’t got nothin’ to do with what she is. Her shit is to-fucking-gether. What blows my fuckin’ skirt up are these fuckin’ businessmen, man. Them goal-oriented, country-club lovin’, money-grubbin’, status-seekin’, fuckheads that’ll run over anybody in their way, while they ignore their own fuckin’ humanity, their family, and their moral responsibility! Those fuckers who really believe that the business of America is business, that their needs are more important that anybody else’s, and that’s it’s oh-fucking-kay to cut off some ol’ dog’s head to make a point. People are all we really got. Just each other, ya know? Sufficient unto the day, motherfucker. It’s in the fuckin’ Bible, okay?”
Crockett had never been through such a Stitch outburst before. He stared out the windshield for a moment, then started the truck and rolled away from the scene, heading back into Blue Springs. “Want something to eat?”
“Sure, man,” Stitch said, shifting in his seat. “Don’t get all uptight or nothin’, dude. This kinda shit just takes me back, ya know?”
“Takes you back?”
“Yeah. This kinda crap is where I came from.”
“What?”
“Surprised ya, huh? When I was growin’ up, my ol’ man owned the Chevy dealership and the Chrysler dealership in Quincy, Illinois, man.”
“No shit?”
Stitch grinned. “Yeah. You thought that I was, like, from the mean streets a Detroit or somethin’ like that didn’t ya?”
“Well…”
“Sure ya did. Joined the fuckin’ service to stay outa prison or somethin’. Nope. I was a C.C.C.”
“A C.C.C.?”
“A Country Club Cunt, man! Took second place in the amateur regional golf championships when I was fuckin’ fourteen years old, dude. No shit. My first car was a fuckin’ Corvette. Right off the dealership lot. Drove anything I wanted to drive, new or used. ‘Vettes, T-Birds, Mustangs, Challengers, whatever, dude. My ol’ man didn’t give a shit as long as I stayed outa the way. My mom belonged to, like, a jillion clubs. Raised money for charity an’ shit. Spend thirty grand to raise twenty grand, as long as the paper put her picture on the society page. Played tennis all the fuckin’ time. Any fuckin’ thing she wanted, as long as she was hostess at the right cocktail parties, told everybody how wonderful my dad was, kept a good tan, and stayed out the way.
“My older sister, Irene, got dumped by her boyfriend and found out that she wasn’t gonna get into Vassar in the same week, man. She killed herself. Fired up her Porsche in the garage, chugged a pint of Glenmore bourbon, and kicked back. I was fifteen. Fucked my head up big time. I took off. Joined Uncle Sam when I was seventeen ‘cause I was so broke I couldn’t even afford dope, and didn’t have a place to live. Never saw my folks again, but I kept in touch with a cousin for a few years. Never been back to Quincy, not even for their funerals.” Stitch looked around the interior of the truck for a moment and blinked a few times. “Wow!” he went on. “True confession time, huh. Sorry, dude.”
Crockett was nearly numb.
“Me, too, Stitch. I’m sorry, too.”
“Yeah. Thanks, man. Can’t believe I told ya all that shit. Guess I’m a little freaked, ya know?”
On the drive into town Stitch loosed his hair from a ponytail and finger combed it out to below his shoulders. He produced a red bandana and tied it into a headband to keep the hair out of his eyes. They were in an Applebee’s parking lot before Crock
ett spoke again. “Uh, Stitch?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, man.”
“Are you taking your meds?”
“I took half of ‘em yesterday, Dude.”
“How ‘bout today?”
“Naw.”
“Okay. Why not?”
“’Cause were goin’ into the elephant grass tonight, Crockett. Jesus! I ain’t goin’ after no rice-propelled motherfuckers without my edge, man. I don’t fuck with Charlie when I’m on dope, dude. Ask anybody.”
Light clouds scudded in shortly after midnight forming a high thin overcast. Stitch voiced the need for a sugar rush so they stopped at a Casey’s so he could get a box of donuts and a quart of milk. By one a.m. they were driving slowly down a service road, headlights off, about a half-mile behind Johnny April’s house. Crockett eased the truck to a stop while Stitch scanned with binoculars.
“Lights on in the pool and behind the crib, dude,” Stitch said, “but no inside lights that I can see, and the guesthouse is dark.”
“Christine said that he usually gets home around two.”
“This chick gonna be in the house?”
“She said she was going to leave him, but I don’t know it she’s done it yet. She could still be there. When Johnny comes home the bodyguards come with him. One of them takes off with the car, while the other one stays at the guesthouse. Johnny swims every night if the weather’s good. I’ll set up on the crest of that man-made hill. Less than three hundred yards. Easy shot. I’ll clip him when he’s out by the pool and leg it back to the truck.”
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