“Daniel, I found an old geezer in the desert town of Marfa who claimed to have seen Bigfoot and was abducted by a UFO. Marfa is right up there with Roswell, New Mexico, where people claim to see weird and strange phenomena. I’m arranging an interview with him next week.”
I had forgotten about informing my boss. “I’ll go wherever you want to, sir, but can we delay it for two weeks? You see, sir, is that, um, I’m getting married next week.”
“What? Married? Ha, ha, ha, ha.” He wouldn’t stop laughing as if it was the joke of the year. “That’s rich, Preis. That’s friggin’ wicked.”
“But it’s true, sir. I’m getting married right here in Hamilton, on a ranch.”
He went off again in rolls of laughter, “Ha, ha, ha, ha ,ha…Oh man, this can’t be f**cking real. I’m shitting my pants, Preis. This is incredible. You know how to go deep undercover.”
I tried to be as serious as possible. “You want me to send pictures to you of the ceremony and reception?”
He coughed for a moment and said, “My gawd, I’m wiping tears from my eyes, this is so friggin’ hilarious. Let me think about that one for a while. Wait a moment, you’re not leaving Texas or anything like that?”
“No, sir. A deal’s a deal. We’re going to Dallas for a week after the wedding. Then if you wish, I’ll go and interview the UFO man.”
“Good, we’re play it your way, Preis. Maybe we can write something up later about what it’s like to love a Texan girl, compared to a Boston girl.”
I hoped the jerk wasn’t serious. “We can talk about that later.”
“This is incredible, Preis. Marrying a local Texan girl for your project. Then leaving her when you come back to Boston…”
“Um, yeah.”
“Anyway, call me when you get back from Dallas. Jeezus, Mary and Joseph, I need a stiff drink.” I was glad he hung up, otherwise I would have hung up on him for being so friggin’ obnoxious with me. Did the Bozo sell his mother to get that job, or did he sleep his way to the top, trying to be the next generation Hugh Hefner? If it wasn’t for this cool lawyer that mother got for, me I wouldn’t know what to do about Mr. Wicked Bronsworth, the King of Slime. I had a plan, but now I just had to bide my time.
Chapter Seventeen
But something happened to me just three days before my wedding. OK, it was my birthday, of all things. I was now 26 and things were going my way – or so I thought. After joining my parents for breakfast at the ranch, Karen and I drove to the book shop. My folks would join us later for lunch when we would give them a tour of the place. Thomas was at the main cashier desk when we walked in at 9:30 and I wanted another cappuccino in the café upstairs. The Owens made coffee, but maybe it was the Boston side of me growing up drinking at Starbucks and I wanted something unique. I like my coffee how I like the Death Star: gigantic, on the Dark Side and powerful enough to destroy a planet. But maybe because of my birthday I wanted something more Italian.
Karen went downstairs to the cellar to check up on things with the games and software section. Meanwhile I unlocked my now famous MI6 office door, the one with the thick leather padding, like in the old James Bond films.
Did I forget to close the window last night? The January air made the place feel like a refrigerator, not that it gets all that cold in Texas. My desk was messed up with papers on the floor, my bookshelves tossed over, etc.
I went over to peer out the window to see if I could catch the idiot who did this, but all I saw was the late morning traffic going down the Hamilton Main Street. No thief was spotted running away. This must have been done hours earlier. I turned to my locked cabinet and saw the door pried open, with splintered wood around the knob. The cashbox was missing. Then my stomach churned – Jack’s packet.
It was gone.
The police arrived a few minutes later. Their first question was about the stolen money. I explained that we count the money every evening after closing and keep it locked in my office until the next morning when I take it to the bank. The officers took pictures and dusted the office for prints. I never said a word to Karen about Killer Jack’s package that had been hidden in my locked cabinet. Otherwise the shop downstairs and café above were left untouched. Again our primary suspect was Willi, the one who vandalized the shop earlier and sent me death threats a few days ago. I had to take Karen to the doctor for a sedative and to rest. She was already stressed out beyond normal because of the upcoming wedding preparations – now this. She was going to be a nervous wreck on our wedding day. I was wondering if we should postpone it. But perhaps that’s what Willi wanted to happen.
Could it have been Jack? But if he wanted the packet, he could have asked me for it. I would have given it back to him. He’d left the Angels for the Banditos, so maybe that played a role, but what was inside it? I called Jack’s club number and told him the bad news.
“Who do you think may have done it?” I asked him.
“Any of my ex-members in New York.”
“What was inside it?”
“It’s better if we find out who stole it before I tell you.”
“Jack, that’s unacceptable. I didn’t tell the police about the packet.”
“I appreciate it, Daniel. But for your safety, and for your fiancée, it’s better you don’t know.”
“What about Willi? You said you tracked him down, do you think he did it?”
“Anything is possible. I’ll look for him. I have some ideas where he might be.”
“For example?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
I was beginning to feel too sheltered, like my parents who tried to cover my eyes in the movies when a steamy love scene popped up on the screen.
After getting off the phone with Jack, I called Bronsworth and told him the story. I asked him to get back with his contact in New York about any news concerning the Hell’s Angels and Killer Jack Evans. About half an hour later, Bronsworth called again.
“As I said before, this Evans guy was a long-term member in NYC,” my boss explained. “One of his closest friends began selling drugs to high school and college kids to raise additional income. It’s pretty expensive to maintain a Harley and pay the club costs, which often includes lawyer fees. Evans insisted that the club should be clean, so he warned his buddy to stop, but the trade continued. Killer Jack snitched to the police and got him busted, but the club was also shut down for a while. Not all members appreciated what Evans did. He was getting death threats, so he and a small number of his faithful followers fled New York on their choppers and migrated to Texas.”
“Now Killer Jack runs a strip club in Dallas,” I said. “I wouldn’t call that legal either.”
“There are sections of Dallas where it’s legal. Just like in Boston, as you well know. If he has the proper license, and his workers are legally paid with taxes and all, then he can do it.”
“But it doesn’t explain the packet he left with me.”
“Does Killer Jack have a partner with the nickname T-Bone?”
“Yes, he wanted to dance on my face the first day I arrived in Texas.”
“T-Bone has a prison record for fraud, racketeering and excessive violence. It looks like this T-Bone and Killer Jack had a falling out, which made Evans leave the Angels altogether and join the rival Banditos.”
“So is Jack in danger for switching sides?”
“I don’t think so. He has enough allies to cover his ass, but here’s something interesting.”
Even though my boss was a bucket of sleaze, he still had some of the best inside information that even a detective would envy. “What is it?”
“T-Bone’s jacket has been reported missing.”
Then it clicked. I remember what I wrote in my article last year about motorcycle gangs. A club jacket, with all its patches and insignia, is considered sacred; it’s even more valuable than the Harley itself. It doesn’t even belong to the member, but to the club. They are bound by oath to protect their jacket. It’s considere
d a disgrace if it’s lost or stolen. The member either has to pay a hefty fee to get it replaced, or they’re kicked out of the club. [6]
“The packet was big enough to fit more than one jacket,” I said.
“Exactly, because my contact told me that at least six Angels lost their jackets in Killer Jack’s erotic club in Dallas. Most likely while they were drunk and passed out undressed in those intimate back-room cubicles.”
“So the motivation is revenge?”
“Looks like it,” said Bronsworth. “They were all Angels from NYC, who didn’t support Jack when he was forced to flee the old club.”
It sounded logical to me. “But who would know I had the jackets in my office?”
“Perhaps this T-Bone guy found out.”
It clicked. “You know the shop was vandalized a couple weeks ago. The suspect is an angry ex-boyfriend of my fiancée. I asked Killer Jack to threaten him to stay away and leave us alone.”
“You sure know how to make friends, Preis.”
“They must have teamed up. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Can Jack do anything to help you?”
“He located Karen’s ex-boyfriend, Willi, and he can be dangerous. Look Mr. Bronsworth, I’m not a secret agent, my folks are here and the wedding is in three days. Karen is a nervous wreck from all these break-ins. With your permission, I would like to take Karen and my folks back to Boston for the wedding. It’s getting too dangerous down here.”
“Na-ah, Preis. Do you know what a sensational story this is making for the magazine?”
“We’re talking about real lives in danger, sir. Not some old fart who claimed to be abducted by aliens. This is serious shit and I won’t take it from you anymore.”
I swore I could hear the fire coming out of his nose. “We’ve discussed that before, Daniel and I have scrutinized your work contract. If you quit this project and leave Texas before your year is up, you will be sued for breach of contract, fired without pay and your book shop taken into my possession. You have nothing to gain by leaving now and everything to lose. I already had to bail you out after you were stranded after that tornado. Get the police to help out if you feel in danger. You’re staying right where you are. Do you understand?”
It was another brick wall. At first I thought maybe there were some good qualities in my boss, but in the end, he was a super prick. “Sure Mr. Bronsworth. I’ll stay.”
“Good. If I hear more I’ll let you know. Call me anytime.”
I hung up. I could call him many things, but I would have to go to confession afterward.
Karen went home early, before the shop closed. I told her to stay with her roommates and go to bed and rest. She gave me a kiss and left. By this time, my parents had heard about the break in. Although they were very impressed with the shop, my father wondered if Hamilton was a safe place to live and settle down. I wondered about it myself. After dinner at a restaurant, I said good-night to my folks and returned to the book store, to be there as they closed up and counted the money. I would also have to find another place to hold it before going to the bank tomorrow. What put a smile on my face were the words from desk calendar that Karen gave me. Today had the following words of wisdom:
Five etiquette pointers for rednecks:
1. Never take a beer to a job interview.
2. Always identify people in your yard before shooting at them.
3. It's considered tacky to take a cooler to church.
4. If you have to vacuum the bed, it is time to change the sheets.
5. Even if you're certain that you are included in the will, it is not cool to drive a U-Haul to the funeral home.[7]
I was the last one at the shop. From my office window, I could see a police car parked across the street to keep the peace. A lot of good it’s done for me so far. As I was about to lock up my office my smart phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number. Was it Jack?
“Hello?
“Good-evening, Mr. Preece.” A jovial man with a Texas accent spoke. “Bo Hopkins here.”
What did the Prince of Darkness want at this hour? “Mr. Hopkins?”
“I’m about to release an article to the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News, two of the biggest newspapers in Texas about you and your book store.”
“Oh?”
“In the article, I wrote that your successful business is a smokescreen, a money laundering operation that involves pornography and drug dealing.”
Am I on planet Earth? Things like this don’t happen to me every day.
“I also wrote that you have dubious connections with the deaths of some college students in an Oklahoma tornado chase. And that your shop has now been broken into and ransacked twice. Not only was cash stolen, but also a mysterious package in your office that is believed to contain heroin, weapons and cash.”
“How the hell do you know shit like that, Hopkins?” I rose to look out the window. The police car was still parked there. Then I realized there was a possibility that my smart phone was being wiretapped.
“I know everything, Mr. ‘Preece.’”
“That’s ‘Price’, you dickhead. I have cops outside watching my shop. I’m going down there to tell them what you said to me.”
“Come on down, then,” Hopkins said, like a game show host. “It’s me and sheriff Driscol in the car watching you.”
The building could have collapsed on me and it wouldn’t have awakened me from the shock of what I’d just heard. “What the f**k are you up to, Hopkins?”
“If you don’t come down right now, not only will I send off the email to these fine editors for tomorrow morning’s edition at the press of a button, but I will have someone kidnap your precious fiancée at her apartment. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen. So you better be reasonable and do things my way, otherwise it can be very uncomfortable for you.”
“You leave my fiancée out of this. What do you want from me?”
“I want the deed and the loan papers for your shop. Nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t come out of your office in sixty seconds, I will not be responsible for the consequences that’ll take place.”
“Those documents are in my house.”
“Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven …”
Chapter Eighteen
Hopkins continued to count and I left my smart phone on as I ran down the stairs.
“Forty-two, forty-one, forty…”
I knew if I were to surrender to these jerks, they would do the following: First, cuff me, force me in the back of the squad car, and drive to my house; second, take away my house key and find the documents. Afterwards, they could do anything they wanted to me; they could kill me and make it look like an accident, in any variation they chose. Somehow I had to prevent this from happening.
The problem was that it wasn’t just fat, old Bo Hopkins out there – it was his henchman, the corrupt sheriff Driscol, who would most likely point his police gun at me, and would shoot me dead if I made a false move.
What did I learn in all those summer camps about self-defense and disarming a gun?
As a 16-year-old, I concentrated too much on Jane Marshall, my sparring partner and her beautiful, bouncing breasts while training with her, but I think I recalled what I needed to do. Was it five steps or six? I can’t believe I have to do this shit to save my life.
One more thing I needed to do at the cashier’s desk. In a cubby-hole under the register, I took the emergency can of pepper spray and hid it in my back pocket. I needed both hands free, so I placed the smart phone in the other back pocket.
“Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen …”
I wanted to lock the door as I came out, but if I did that, they could still fire on me, and say that I was trying to flee. Just walk out into the street and maintain eye contact at all times.
“I’m coming out, you can stop counting.” I walked to the squad car with my hands raised half-way in the air. Sheriff Driscol opened his car door and stepped out –
pulling his gun out of his holster – as predicted. Hopkins stepped out from the passenger side. It was dark outside, but the meager light from the inside of their police car was enough for me to see everything.
“Stay right where you are,” said Driscol as I came closer.
“Don’t shoot me. I’m unarmed.” I continued to walk.
Driscol aimed his pistol at me. “Get down on your knees and put your hands on your head.” I was now a few steps away from him.
“In this dirty street? There’s horse droppings. Please don’t tell me to go on my knees. I’ll put my hands on the back of your car so you can frisk me.” I used my hands to indicate that I wanted to go to his car. It was then that he moved his eyes, just for a second, in the direction where I pointed.
I grabbed the barrel with my left hand while placing my head away from gun’s line of sight. With my free hand I made a karate chop on the sheriff’s wrist, then turned his hand hard to point the gun at him. I pulled down so I could also kick him in the balls. Driscol grunted in pain and I pulled the gun out of his hands. He fell to his knees.
Hopkins screamed. “Sheriff!”
I pistol-whipped him with the grip on the back of his head. He fell onto the street unconscious. How was I doing this? Don’t think, just act.
I pointed the gun at Hopkins and said, “Drop your phone!” I moved around the front of the squad car to get closer. He dropped his phone on the floor. I reached into my back pocket, pulled out the pepper spray can and let him have it in his face.
Hopkins went to his knees in shock, spluttering for breath and struggling with the stinging in his eyes. I also pistol whipped him with the back of the gun and he went down.
What now? I just took down a fat old cop and the adrenaline was making me act like Rambo in full rage. I picked up Bo’s cell phone and checked the inside of the cop car - the keys were in the ignition. I needed to save Karen, if someone was ready to take her.
Heart of Texas Page 14
