by Brad Smith
He walked back and forth a couple more times, waiting for the Russian to come out, and then he decided he’d had enough. He started for the door, then thought about the coke in the trunk and walked back along the side of the car and reached over to slam the lid shut, not thinking to grab the keys from the trunk lock. He turned and headed inside.
The Russian was not in his office. Hoffman kept moving, down the narrow corridor and into the poolroom, where he found him standing at the front counter, talking to the grizzled old man who ran the cash register. Hoffman could see the cruisers out front, through the plate glass. There was also an ambulance there now, parked in front of the restaurant across the street. One of the uniforms was standing on the sidewalk by the front door of the restaurant, talking to a woman who appeared to be a waitress.
Yuri turned when Hoffman approached. “Someone is having heart attack at restaurant across the street.” He laughed at the thought. “Is not good advertisement for your restaurant.” He assumed the voice of a circus barker. “Eat here, then have heart attack!”
Hoffman shook his head, but he was relieved.
“You have no sense of humor, copper,” Yuri said. “That is your problem. Every day you must laugh.”
“I don’t think you and I find the same things funny,” Hoffman said.
“Maybe not,” Yuri said. “So then back to business.” He began to walk to the rear of the room and as he did he spoke to Hoffman over his shoulder. “Is time to find out if this dope you bring me is as good as you are bragging. All the time I have heard of pure cocaine but never have I seen it.”
They went through the room and down the narrow hallway, past Yuri’s office, to the back door. They stepped outside into the alley, expecting to find Soup there waiting for them. But Soup was gone.
And so was the car.
EIGHTEEN
It rained all night and it was still raining when he got up the next morning. Virgil had intended to harvest the rest of his wheat today but that would have to wait now until things dried up. He was also going to have to learn how to manage with just one arm for a few weeks. Fortunately, he was right-handed and the Russian cowboy had been considerate enough to stomp on his left arm, although Virgil recalled he’d been all in favor of breaking them both.
The pain wasn’t too bad this morning. The disapproving doctor had supplied him with some Percocet and he’d taken one before going to bed the night before. Getting up at dawn, he’d gone without. The arm was uncomfortable but tolerable. His head hurt where the crooked cop had whacked him with the gun, but he could live with that too.
Taking a shower had been difficult, trying to keep the plaster cast out of the spray. Drying off took some contortions but shaving, strictly a right-handed exercise, was not a problem. He had cereal for breakfast and sat at the kitchen table for a while, drinking coffee and watching the rain as it came down, forming puddles in the driveway and filling the ditch out front. The horses were gathered beneath the large chestnut tree in the corner of the pasture field. The two Percherons, if that’s what they were, appeared to be slowly growing accustomed to their new home and were grazing beneath the tree with the others. Virgil wouldn’t bother feeding them grain this morning since they wouldn’t walk up to the barn in the rain to get it and the trough would just fill with water, ruining the feed. They had plenty of grass.
Watching them, Virgil realized that Mary Nelson hadn’t called, as she had promised. It was true that he hadn’t been home much in the past couple of days. He had no answering machine or voice mail so in all likelihood she had phoned and been unable to leave a message. She wouldn’t worry; she knew that Virgil, in spite of his reluctance, would take care of the draft horses.
It bothered him not getting the rest of the wheat off. The rain would make the grain tough, but there was nothing he could do about that, just as there was nothing he could do about the weather. That didn’t stop him from thinking about it. And worrying about his wheat crop was easier than worrying about the woman named Dusty. She had seen the stitches in Virgil’s head and the cast on his arm, so she was aware that the men looking for her were serious, whether she wanted to admit it or not. The fact that she had asked about a gun told Virgil that she was more frightened than she let on. It was obvious that she knew a hell of a lot more than Virgil. There were things that she’d told him, but he was pretty sure there was more that she hadn’t.
He was tempted to call the Albany police and tell them who it was who had taken his boat. But he had no way of knowing who he could trust, or if in fact anybody would believe him. If this Hoffman had just retired a few days ago, he would obviously still have friends in the department. Virgil needed more information and sitting there, watching the rain come down, he couldn’t think of who might provide it.
It took another couple of cups of coffee and an hour of boredom before the obvious person came to mind.
He headed out just before noon, driving east to the Hudson River. He didn’t have much to go on; all Buddy had said was that he was renting a place on the water near Coeymans. Fortunately for Virgil, the beat-up Cadillac was conspicuous, and so was the guy who owned it. Virgil decided he would travel up and down River Road, hoping to spot either the car or the man.
He reached Coeymans, a town of seven or eight thousand, around one o’clock. There was a shopping area, a few bars and restaurants, and a large boat launch on the river. After driving through the town a couple of times, Virgil flipped a coin and took River Road south, checking out the seasonal cottages and cabins along the shore. Buddy said he fished every day, but it was still raining heavily and Virgil doubted that Buddy would be out in the weather, not in a little aluminum boat. Virgil suspected that Buddy was a man who liked his creature comforts.
He drove south as far as Coxsackie and then retraced his route to Coeymans, where he headed north. The rain finally began to let up and the clouds to the west broke into large chunks, which the wind pushed off to reveal blue skies beyond.
When he found the Cadillac, it was parked just where he might have expected—outside a bar. The place, called The Flats, was a low-slung stucco building on a narrow lane a couple of hundred yards from the Hudson. Buddy, of course, was inside, drinking draft beer and playing shuffleboard with a very tall blond woman of about forty-five wearing artfully torn blue jeans and a tight tank top. The blonde was attractive, in a weathered way, and her breasts were impressive, quite large and very round, probably not original equipment. Original or enhanced, she was apparently proud enough of them that she had decided not to hide them in the constraints of a bra. Looking at Buddy’s beaming face as he fired the rocks down the hardwood table, Virgil was quite certain that Buddy was okay with that.
Virgil said hello to Buddy, who seemed more surprised at Virgil’s battered appearance than he was to see him in the area in general, then sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The place was pretty busy for a weekday afternoon and Virgil assumed that the weather was a factor. There were a few vacation properties and campgrounds in the area and sitting inside a cottage or a tent, watching the rain come down, was not what people had in mind when they were on holiday. If the outdoors was not an option, the bar was a good substitute.
Buddy finished his game with the woman and Virgil overheard him proposing steaks and beer at his place later on. Buddy, it seemed, had access to the best porterhouse cuts in the entire state. As a pickup line it was pretty effective, at least with the lanky blonde. The woman went off to run some errands and told Buddy she would see him at seven o’clock. As she was walking out the door, Buddy suggested she pick up a couple of bottles of wine.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked, walking over to Virgil at the bar.
“Fell out of the hay mow,” Virgil told him.
Buddy took a quick inventory of Virgil’s injuries. “Looks like you hit a few bumps on the way down.”
Virgil smiled and turned to the bartender and ordered another beer for himself and one for Buddy, who sat down on the next stool
over.
“I tried to find a number for you,” Buddy said. “You don’t have a phone?”
“I got a phone.”
“Unlisted?”
“No. It’s in Tom Stempler’s name. Used to own the farm.”
“He died, right?”
“Yeah. Five, six years ago.”
“Ever think of putting the number in your name?”
“Then people might start calling me.”
The bartender brought the beer and Virgil paid. Buddy took a long pull, the foam clinging to his mustache, and put the glass on the bar. He looked at Virgil, then he smiled like a horny teenager and nodded toward the door through which the blonde had disappeared.
“You see her?”
“You’re like a puppy with two peckers, Buddy.”
Buddy nodded. “Her name’s Mimi.”
“French girl?”
Buddy laughed at that. “And to think I wanted to stay in Florida. I could fall in love with that woman.”
“That why you were looking for my number?” Virgil asked. “Tell me that?”
Buddy laughed again—it seemed he was in a hell of a mood—and took another drink, this time remembering to wipe his mustache. “Got some information for you,” he said. “You caught yourself a big one, man. That cylinder’s full of cocaine. That is, if it’s the cylinder I think it is, and with all the commotion it’s caused, I’m guessing it is.”
“How did it end up at the bottom of the Hudson River?”
“It got dumped during a bust,” Buddy said. “I talked to a couple of cops who were in on it. Said it happened out from Athens, deep spot in the river. A dealer named Parson brought the dope up from the Caribbean on a boat called Down Along Coast. Stuff came from Colombia originally, supposed to be the best of the best. But somebody with knowledge of it coming into the country got into a mess over kiddie porn and rolled over like a dead carp, patched the information to the metro drug squad. They kept tabs on the boat while it came up through the intercoastal and raided it in the middle of the night, out in the river. But this Parson got spooked at the last minute and threw the cylinder overboard and then he went with it. Seven years later and a little farther south, you hook it with an anchor. How’s that for a needle in a haystack?”
“Yeah, I’m a lucky guy,” Virgil said. “So Parson got away?”
“They pulled him in for questioning after the fact. But they had nothing on him. They did find a few grams of coke on the boat, pleasure snort, but they couldn’t tie it to him. Apparently the guy’s made of Teflon. When he bought the boat down in the islands he registered the thing in his girlfriend’s name. She took it on the chin for the coke they did find. She wouldn’t give up Parson so they made it trafficking and made it stick and she did three years in Albion Correctional. Parson walked. And just to thumb his nose at the cops, he bought the boat back at police auction. It’s a forty-four-foot Chris-Craft, all mahogany and teak, nice-looking boat. I saw it yesterday, moored in the river outside Parson’s pad.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“I wanted to have a look. Cops told me where he lived, out by Van Wies Point. I saw Parson himself. He drove up in a white Corvette, gave me the stink-eye when he saw me parked across the road.”
“What’s he look like?” Virgil asked. “Don’t tell me he’s a Russian in a cowboy hat.”
“Nah, he’s a black dude,” Buddy said. “He’s put together, probably a gym rat. As fit as a butcher’s dog.”
Virgil’s next question was technically not a question at all. Not when he already knew the answer. “You get the girlfriend’s name?”
“Dusty Fremont.”
Virgil nodded and tipped back his beer. “These cops you talked to. They heard anything about the cylinder recently?”
“Far as they know, it’s still at the bottom of the river.”
“I guess they’re out of the loop then,” Virgil said.
“I guess they are,” Buddy said.
“That’s surprising,” Virgil said. “Or maybe not. I found out who took the cylinder, and my boat. Albany detective named Hoffman.”
“So the Albany police have it?”
“I don’t think so. Hoffman was a cop the day he took it. He retired the next day.”
“Ah,” Buddy said. “Which leads you to the conclusion that he’s probably not going to turn the coke over to the proper authorities. Which leads you to further conclude that he’s not going to bring your boat back.”
“That’s where it leads me.”
“How did you find out his name?”
“A woman told me.”
“What woman?” Buddy asked and when Virgil didn’t answer he figured it out quick enough. “Shit. How did she find you?”
“She’s a smart girl,” Virgil said. “She was looking for Hoffman and now it turns out Hoffman’s looking for her. He’s traveling with a big mean cowboy with a Russian accent and a scared junkie.”
Buddy took his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. He sat thinking. “Why would she want to deal herself back in? She already did time for this.”
“She seems pretty conflicted about it,” Virgil said. “Told me she wished I’d never found the thing.”
“And you say Hoffman’s looking for her?”
“Yeah. Matter of fact, he somehow got wind that she’d been to see me and he and his band of merry men showed up at my place a couple nights ago, asking questions.”
Buddy pulled on the cigarette. “Was that the night you fell out of the hay mow, Virgil?”
“Yeah.”
Buddy took a moment, then nodded. “So you never told this Hoffman she’d been to see you.”
It was a statement and not a question, so Virgil never replied. He watched as Buddy Townes smoked the nonfilter and tried to figure the angles. It was interesting to watch; the man went from eager horndog, giddy with thoughts of thick steaks and voluptuous blondes, to private investigator in a matter of minutes. Like an old beagle laying on a porch, catching the whiff of a cottontail on the wind.
“Why would Hoffman be looking for her, when he’s got the dope?” he asked.
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Virgil said. “She thinks he’s afraid of something.”
Buddy drained the last of his draft and pushed the mug across the bar in the general direction of the bartender, who was at the far end, mixing drinks for a waitress who stood by. Only the two of them were working and they were kept hopping, serving the customers who’d come in out of the rain. Virgil’s second beer was still half full but he didn’t hurry it along. He wasn’t about to get into a guzzling contest with Buddy Townes.
“All right,” Buddy said after he’d gotten the bartender’s attention. “There’s a third party missing here and I have to assume that third party is Parson. I guarantee you he knows that somebody found the cylinder. I don’t know how, but he knows.”
“Dusty mentioned him.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She didn’t say anything about being his girlfriend, and she didn’t say he knew about the cylinder.” Virgil paused, thinking back to the conversation in the hospital parking lot. “But she did say he owns the thing.”
“Like I said, he knows.”
When the bartender brought the beer, he told Buddy to put the cigarette out. Buddy did so reluctantly, and gave him a twenty.
“Parson still in the business?” Virgil asked.
“Allegedly not,” Buddy said. “According to the cops, he restores high-end cars for a living. Vintage stuff. There’s a theory it’s a front. But Parson’s been clean since that night on the river. He’d actually been pretty clean in general, even before that. He took a fall once twenty years ago on a conspiracy rap, did eighteen months. After that, he became an expert at keeping his own fingerprints off everything. You know what I mean? Like getting the girl to put the boat in her name.”
“You think Dusty’s working for him now?”
“Do you?”
Virgil
shrugged. “Like I said, she seems pretty reluctant to be involved at all. It’s almost like she has no choice. That make sense?”
“Hard to say, without knowing the whole story. But you can bet your ass that Parson wants that powder. There was rumored to be a hundred pounds of pure cocaine in that cylinder. You know what that’s worth on the street? You’re talking a couple million dollars minimum. A man loses fifteen, twenty grand on a deal and he’ll chalk it up to experience. This is a different kettle of fish. If Parson knows that somebody found that cylinder, he’s going to want it back.”
Virgil absently rotated the beer mug on the bar. “If Hoffman didn’t turn it in, you have to assume he’s going to sell it. Why not just sell it to Parson?”
“If Hoffman called you up and offered to sell you your boat back, would you buy it?”
“No.”
“There you go. Parson might be thinking the same way.” Buddy considered this a moment, then nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “And that’s why Hoffman would be afraid of him. If Hoffman knows that Parson knows. This thing goes round and round, doesn’t it?” Buddy reached for another smoke, and stopped. “And … maybe that’s why Hoffman’s looking for the woman. If she’s out asking questions, then he’s going to think she’s working for Parson, whether she is or not. Why wouldn’t he think that? She was the girlfriend, she was on the boat, she served the time. You could say she’s invested more in this than all the rest of them put together.” Buddy took another drink.
“She works construction,” Virgil said. “Drives an old pickup. She doesn’t look like any kind of a drug dealer to me. But I think she’s nervous about Hoffman. She knows now that he’s looking for her.” Virgil indicated the cast on his arm. “And she knows he’s playing rough.”
