The Last Call

by George Wier

  We took a table in the corner near an old jukebox. I took a look at the selections. It was a museum piece, with seventies disco music mixed in with Marvin Gaye and trucker music. It looked as though it was either out of service or that none of the clientele was willing to risk hard-earned money in it.

  “Some place, ain’t it?” Hank said.

  I could smell the kitchen already, and knew the food was going to be good.

  “You haven’t lived, Hank,” I said, “until you’ve tried pork chops that melt off the bone and collard greens that have been steeping since New Year’s.”

  “Stop it, Bill,” Julie said. “Damn but I’m hungry.”

  The proprietor was a heavyset black woman with a cherubic smile and wide eyes. She seemed pleased to see us. The menus were pieces of tan-colored stiff-backed paper run through a copy machine.

  “What’ll you folks have to drink?” she said.

  “Coffee,” Hank said. “All around.”

  “Fine. Be just a minute.”

  We spent a few minutes looking over the menu and discussing it. We were all looking forward to breakfast. It was too bad when we realized we wouldn’t be getting any.

  We heard the twang of the screen door opening and thought little of it at the moment. Julie was facing away from the door and I had my back almost directly to it, but Hank was sitting there looking over my shoulder, not saying a word.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Howdy,” Hank said.

  I became conscious of the gun pointed at my head and the other one, a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun leveled across the table at Hank.

  “Ever’body just be cool,” the man with the shotgun said.

  “Oh shit,” Julie said, then quickly: “Hi, Jake. Hi, Freddie.”

  “Hi, yourself,” the one with the pistol aimed at me said.

  “What can we do for you fellahs?” Hank asked, as calm as you please. He lifted his coffee cup and sipped.

  “We’re taking you back, Miss Julie,” Jake with the shotgun said.

  “Oh,” Julie said. “I’m going back, alright. But it’s to get Jessica out of there.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen,” the other one-Freddie-said.

  “What the hell?” Three plates shattered on the hardwood floor almost simultaneously. Our waitress had picked the wrong moment to come out of the kitchen.

  The two guns swung to cover her and the shotgun discharged across the table. A hole about a foot wide appeared in the back of a chair one table over and the chair flew end over end.

  “Shit,” Hank yelled.

  Pistol-toting Freddie got my left elbow in his gut just as his gun swung back toward me. The pistol butt almost connected with my head, but I ducked just in time.

  I was dimly aware of several things going on at once: first, that I couldn’t hear all that well, second, that Hank was already out of his chair and grappling with the shotgun, that our waitress was screaming her fool head off and that Julie was using Jake-shotgun boy-as a punching bag.

  I had my legs under me and sudden adrenaline working in my favor. As Freddie bent double I launched myself at him with all my weight. The chair underneath me toppled as I left it and I came down on top of him, hard.

  I had the wrist from his gun hand in my grip and I slammed it hard into the floor. The pistol, an old Luger, dislodged from his fingers and rattled across the floor.

  “You sonuvabitch,” he said. I felt a stinging sensation upside my face. He’d cuffed me a good one.

  I reached up, grabbed a handful of greasy hair and forced his head down into the floor, once, twice. After the second time around he stopped moving.

  The table where we’d been sitting toppled over and came down on my foot, the one that had been hit by Jake and Freddie’s truck. For an instant I felt the most exquisite, keen-edged, electric-blue pain.

  I bit down hard into my lip to keep from screaming, rolled over onto my back and yanked my pulsing foot from underneath the table. A ketchup bottle rolled past my ear.

  The tableau going on was one for the scrapbook. Hank had his hands around the shotgun between Jake’s hands, each engaged in a tug-of-war to the death. Julie was on Jake’s back with her hands dug into his face and neck.

  “Stupid ass,” she kept saying. “Stupid ass stupid ass stupid ass.”

  Hank let go with his right hand, clenched it into a fist and drove it three times in rapid succession into Jake’s nose, cheek and mouth. Jake’s lip split and a tooth tumbled backwards into his mouth. Blood began to flow even as Jake let go of the shotgun and rocked backwards. I noted surprise on Julie’s face-her mouth framed an “Oh!” that I never heard as she fell back underneath Jake.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Ohhhh,” Julie moaned. “My head.”

  Hank ran his fingers through her head, feeling.

  “She’s got a pretty good knot back here,” he said, “but she should be fine. Wait a minute. I know an old Indian trick. Bill, check on the waitress. She disappeared. I’m hoping she hasn’t called the cops yet.”

  “Will do,” I said. I left the two of them there and went back toward the kitchen.

  Just as I was about to enter, a tall black man came out. He had a long-barreled twelve gauge shotgun in his hands.

  “Whoa there,” I said. “We took their guns away from them.”

  “What kinda devilment you brought into my ‘stablishment?” he shouted at me. He raised the shotgun, leveled it at me point blank.

  “Nothing,” I said. The hole at the business end was suddenly a cavern hanging in front of my face. A cavern from which quick death in a whirlwind of fire and blood might emerge at any second.

  “Put the gun down, stupid ass,” I said.

  He looked at me uncertainly.

  I yawned.

  The cavern went away, slowly.

  “You got some kinda nerve,” he said. “Like I never seen.”

  “Thanks,” I told him.

  “You can call the cops after we leave. Just keep your gun trained on Frick and Frack there until the cops arrive. Tell them they tried to hold up the place, or whatever. I really don’t care what you tell them, just give us time to get out of here.”

  I reached into my wallet and brought out five one hundred dollar bills.

  “Here. This should cover the damage.”

  “Shit,” he said. “Okay. You got it.” The man snatched the money from my hand.

  I went back to help Hank get Julie to her feet.

  “You doin’ okay?” I asked.

  “Better,” she said.

  “Let’s get outta here,” Hank said.

  Hank took one long minute outside to pop the hood of Jake and Freddie’s pickup and remove a couple of plug wires from the distributor cap.

  “If the cops don’t slow them down, then that will,” he said. He tossed the wires over the barbed wire fence at the rear of the place and out into the high weeds.

  By my reckoning we still had about a hundred and fifty or so miles to go; from Wichita Falls to northwest of Childress, Texas, some eighty or so miles southeast of Amarillo as the crow flies.

  “I have a friend who lives outside of Vernon,” Hank told me when we were well on our way. Wichita Falls had faded into gently rolling plains behind us and I found my ears were popping from the change in altitude. Sometimes it’s simply amazing to me just how far a fellow can go and still be in Texas.

  “Are you sure now’s a good time to stop by and say howdy?” Julie asked him. She had stopped holding her head in her hands about twenty miles back. Maybe Hank’s old Indian trick had eased her concussion.

  “I don’t want a visit, I want some supplies.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  The hint of an idea was beginning to form in my mind, and I wanted to take a little time and try to plan things out.

  “Okay,” I began. “We’ll stop in Childress and try and get some lunch. Then we’ll get a motel room and-”

  ”And?” Julie asked.

  �
�And we’ll have a little council of war.”

  “Fine by me,” Hank said. “Except let’s stop in Quanah for lunch. It’s closer. I know my way around this part of the country a bit, you know. Also, we turn off before we get to Childress for my buddy. That’s where I get the supplies.”

  “What kind of supplies?” I asked. We were still set for drinks and other amenities, but I suspected Hank had a different idea of supplies than either Julie or I had.

  “Oh… You know. A few sticks of TNT. Some nitrates. Prima cord. Some caps. That sort of thing.”

  “Nitrates!” I was a bit stunned. “Geez louise, Hank. And prima cord? A little of that stuff goes a long way. Are you planning to start World War III?”

  “Those fellows did that when they blew up Julie’s duplex and killed Dock,” Hank said. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re still driving his truck.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I thought about it and watched another mile tick by in the bright North Texas sun. The sun was coming directly in Julie’s window. She’d end up with her right arm slightly more tanned than her left.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll get your supplies.”

  I felt something wet on the side of my face. Dingo was licking my ear.

  “Darling,” I said to Julie, “you didn’t know we were traveling with Demolition Man and Scooby Doo-ette, did you?”

  She laughed. “No. I didn’t. I figured they came along for our comic relief.”

  Lunch, finally, in Quanah, a small Texas town much like the fictional Lake Woebegone: somewhere along the line, time simply forgot all about the place. If memory served, the town was named after Quanah Parker, a Texas half-breed Indian of some historical note. There were spots of my education that had been neglected, and that whole scenario was one of them. I’d have to do some reading up on the fellow when-and if-I made it back home. Texas was just too big and the years since its inception were becoming, for some of us, innumerable. Somewhere along the line, but within my own lifetime, Texas History had become an accepted specialization in academic circles.

  Over hamburgers at a roadside diner well off the beaten path, we commiserated.

  “We’re only about fifteen miles from the Red River,” Hank said. “Just to the north of us.”

  “Really,” I said. “We should have brought a map.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  I looked out the window of the diner. Dingo barked. We were making a little game of it. Whenever I looked her way, she barked at me. Hank and Julie looked at each other and shook their heads.

  I took a big bite of my burger and turned back to look at Dingo with her big head poking out of my window.

  A man was there, patting her on the head. He was a big man.

  Suddenly I knew who he was: Mr. Fat-Business-Suit with the discernible gun bulge under his left arm that we’d seen in the cafeteria in Fort Worth. The Fed.

  “Hank,” I said. “Look.”

  I pointed.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “Who is it?” Julie asked.

  “Excuse me,” a voice said before I could think of what to tell her.

  We all turned together. The other federal agent, the black fellow, was standing there at our table.

  “Would you folks mind if I talked with you for a few minutes?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “You guys are like blood hounds,” Hank said. “We haven’t seen you since Fort Worth.”

  “Oh,” the man said. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Go ahead, I told him. Hank slid over and he took a seat.

  “Okay,” he said. “First, we put one of these on your car.” He held up a small button-battery.

  “You put a calculator battery on our car?” Julie asked.

  “Looks like one, doesn’t it. It’s a tiny GPS transmitter.”

  “GPS?” Julie said.

  “Global Positioning System,” Hank told her. “Satellite surveillance. It tells these guys where we are within about fifteen feet anywhere on the planet. Standard issue for all cops cars, although I’ve never seen one that small.”

  “Yeah,” the federal agent said. “But you will in about ten years. That’s about how long it takes for our gizmos to reach the open market.”

  “Oh,” Julie said. “Why didn’t you guys tell me we were being followed?” She looked at me seriously. Her lips were tight.

  “Uh. Yeah,” Hank began. “You see, just like you we weren’t sure.”

  “But we suspected,” I said. “We didn’t want to alarm you.”

  She was looking at me with hurt eyes, but I turned to focus my attention on our company.

  “Look,” I said. “Who are you and why is the federal government following our every move?”

  “You don’t know, do you?” he said. He looked at us, pausing as he looked from face to face to face and then passing over us again.

  “Okay,” he said. He raised a hand up and motioned to his partner outside.

  “We’re going to need a bigger table,” I said.

  When the bigger fellow came in we were already moved to another table in the center of the restaurant. He walked over, took a seat and introduced himself.

  “Ben Cranford,” he said. “You’ve met my partner, Felix Bruce.”

  “You’ve got two first names,” I said to his partner.

  “Thanks,” Agent Bruce said. “Two coffees,” he said to the waitress at his elbow.

  Agent Cranford took a seat.

  “I told you guys,” Julie said, “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  I looked at her. She was avoiding my gaze.

  “Wait a minute-” Hank started to say, but I cut him off, turning to Agent Cranford.

  “How long have you been following her?” I asked him.

  “Miss Simmons and the two rednecks who have been chasing her? About a month.”

  “You were watching me when-” Julie began, obviously upset. Agent Cranford cut her off.

  “When you dropped the kid off at the Greyhound station? Yes.”

  “How did Archie get Jessica then, if you were watching?” she demanded.

  “We were watching… But we were following you. Like you, we left the girl on board the bus. By all reports, she was taken off at the next stop by her quote, father, unquote.”

  “Julie,” I said. “Shut up a minute. It’s me and Hank who ought to be upset. You never said a word about Batman and Robin here,” I turned to Cranford. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Agent Bruce said.

  “What about the explosion?” Hank asked. “What were they using? Sounded-felt like TNT.”

  “It was,” Cranford said.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why would they want to kill her when-” I stopped short. I’d almost let it slip.

  “When what?” Agent Bruce asked, and took a sip of his coffee.

  “Well,” I said, face deadpan and covering quickly. “It’s that it’s not consistent with the action of someone who wants her back.”

  Cranford put his elbows down on the table, laced his fingers together in space.

  “Right now,” he said “Carpin is at his horse ranch. The last I checked, Mr. Jacob Jorgenson and Mr. Frederick Sanderberry were en-route to the ranch.”

  “Replaced the plug wires and on their way again, huh?” Hank asked.

  Cranford laughed. “Apparently. We were wondering what was wrong with their truck when we passed by them. Also, one of ‘em looked to be bleeding.”

  “I wonder how they got around the cops,” I said.

  “We heard about it over the radio. They were released when they said that two men and a woman fitting your description tried to rob them. They kicked your asses and ran you out of there. When asked, neither of the men wanted to press charges.”

  Hank and I were chuckling.

  “Also the ranch is pretty well deserted from what intelligence I’ve gathered.”

  “Racing,” Julie said. “We’re in mid-Spring. Carl and Le
fty and half the still crew are probably in Louisiana right now.”

  “Right,” Cranford said.

  “Where’s the ranch from here?” Hank asked. “I was about to start asking locals.”

  “Fifteen miles this side of Childress,” Agent Bruce said. “It’s off the beaten path but you can’t miss the signs. You don’t have far to go.”

  “What do you want with us?” I asked.

  Agent Cranford coughed once into one of his meaty hands.

  “I want to know where the still is,” he said. “Miss Simmons, you can tell us that much, can’t you?”

  “It moves around,” she said. She was lying. I knew it. Hank knew it. Either she didn’t trust Cranford and Bruce or there was something she didn’t want them to know.

  “Okay,” Cranford said. “So where was it the last time you saw it?”

  “I didn’t ever see it,” she said. “Look. That’s all I’m going to say. Nothing more until I have Jessica. You could get him on that. On kidnapping.”

  “Not technically,” Agent Bruce said. “You left her.”

  “I put her on a bus!” She said, a little too loudly. The few other patrons in the diner turned their heads.

  “I put her on a bus,” Julie said again through her teeth.

  “Fine,” Agent Cranford said. “You put her on a bus. We can’t help you there.”

  “Then we have nothing more to talk about,” she said. She looked at me, tilted her head and tried to smile. It was my cue.

  “Okay,” I said. “You fellahs take it easy.”

  Agent Bruce tossed off the last of his coffee and put his cup down quickly. Agent Cranford stood up.

  At first I thought he was going to offer to shake hands with me, but instead he gave me a business card.

  “Call me,” he said. “I won’t be too far away.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Hank said.

  They left.

  I had to cover their coffee tab.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was after midnight and I had just put a couple of motel rooms on my American Express card in Childress.