Next Last Chance

by Jon A. Hunt

“Okay if I take them to that table?”

  She nodded.

  There were three of them. To be fair, they were laminated copies of antiques. And none of the maps were much help. Hillbriar wasn’t on any of them. I found Franklin Turnpike, Brentwood Hills, Otter Creek before it had been dammed to create Radnor Lake, but unlabeled hills and black rectangles where the Donovans’ planation must be. Mount Olivet was marked in bold letters, a grim reminder from deceased prophets of where I’d started my current journey. I placed the worthless pseudo-antiques on the counter with feigned respect and thanked the woman who guarded them. Then I crossed under the arch and installed myself at a computer three seats from Honeywell.

  This time I searched through not-so-old Las Vegas newspaper records.

  Rico never turned up by that name, obviously. The men he’d shot outside the eye doctor’s office on World Sight Day did. Moonscape black-and-whites from a desert car bombing only took a couple minutes to find, along with likenesses of a younger Gabe Andrews. He cut a fine figure in his uniform. I bet when he was a baby, Gabe’s mom had starched his diapers. Pennington had less gray hair back then but otherwise looked the same. More interesting were file photos of Buck Dover. Did his son, Harold, look the same? I found photos, too, of Buck’s underage girlfriend, Harley Jansen. Blonde, bright-eyed, movie star brows and a porn star figure, the kid had been too gorgeous for her own good. It seemed a shame that kind of beauty had exited the world so brutally. How had Rico escaped the booby-trapped limousine when Harley and the driver had not?

  I cleared the browser history, shut the computer off and got to my feet with a yawn. This was more sitting than I normally did in a week.

  “See you ‘round,” I said to Honeywell.

  She smirked. I wasn’t exactly a textbook stakeout.

  Keith walked behind me the moment I stepped into the afternoon mugginess. Nothing in his manner suggested his teammate had mentioned our conversation, though guys like Keith aren’t easy to read. He kept a professional distance, which put him at a disadvantage when a dirty pickup truck popped out of the alley between us and stopped across the sidewalk. The driver loudly apologized through the open window for almost running over Keith’s toes. I had just enough time to pause on the sidewalk because I’d recognized Smally, then the passenger door of an illegally parked sedan banged open beside me.

  “Get in,” said Lieutenant Rafferty from behind the wheel.

  Twenty

  This was a typical meeting for Jerry Rafferty: cars, bars, airports, any place roomier than that downtown coat closet with his name on the door. He kept the hammer down so Keith had no chance of reading the license plate, and walking away from a debate with Smally wasn’t something smart people did. The Lieutenant hunched over the wheel like he was wrestling it. His expressionless eyes flipped up to the mirror regularly.

  “Got news?” he asked after we’d crossed the river.

  “Not yet.” Sandra’s blackmailer might interest my friend, but Metro had no business seeing naked pictures of my client. Once I’d collected those what was left was all Rafferty’s.

  “Sooner’s better,” he rumbled. “Shit’s about to hit the fan.”

  “It hasn’t already?”

  His face grinned except for the eyes. “Nashville’s got more hired guns now than a Wild West movie. Rico hasn’t plugged you yet because he’s too busy. Three more stiffs last night.”

  I hadn’t heard about them, I said.

  “You wouldn’t. Pennington’s crew showed up when we did and carted the bodies off.”

  “Did you get another of Rico’s shopping lists?”

  “Nope. But like I said, Pennington showed up awfully sudden.”

  “Who were they?”

  Rafferty flicked the turn indicator softly enough not to snap it off the steering column. “Guys out of Detroit. Real hard cases till Rico finished them. So it’s not all bad news.”

  “…killed like they deserve…”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing, just thinking out loud. Why tell me about it?” I was grateful for information. I just knew Rafferty never handed out freebies.

  “The only reason we stumbled onto them at all was they’d been asking around about Mount Olivet and you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  I watched a block’s worth of low brick rancher-style homes pass. Their lawns were abbreviated green rectangles, half of which had been mowed that year.

  “Why’s Rico still here?” I wondered. “He can’t kill everyone who comes looking.”

  “I’d like to figure that out myself. I suppose that’s why Pennington’s bunch is set up here. Maybe he knows.”

  “I didn’t get that impression,” I said.

  “You never said how your visit went.”

  “He doesn’t like me any better than he likes Rico.”

  “He hasn’t had as much time to appreciate you.”

  Rafferty’s reply carried inarguable truth. Pennington and Rico had danced around one another for years. Apparently, Rico led. He’d not only avoided capture, he had an uncanny talent for getting to the FBI’s most wanted before the Bureau did. And he killed them. Rico was unfettered by laws, morals, any of those things that hampered the good guys.

  Green trash bins cruised by, lined up waiting for collection. We listened to the air conditioning blow. Our conversation took effort because we had only one common lead.

  “What about DeBreaux?”

  Rafferty checked his mirrors again. I didn’t blame him, I did it all the time now. He dialed the AC down with a stumpy finger so we could hear outside. Somewhere a small engine coughed, mower roused from hibernation. It didn’t do more than cough.

  “Smally thinks he’s narrowed his search to a dozen bars in West Nashville.”

  “You trust Smally?”

  “I gotta. Can’t do all this shit by myself.”

  Rafferty probably still woke before his alarm did, seeing Jeffers’ bloodied corpse bonking windows umpteen floors above SoBro.

  “Smally will find DeBreaux,” he growled. “And you’ll let me know if you dig up anything new on Rico, right?”

  “I said I would.”

  “Uh huh. Maybe you haven’t noticed, grubbing around for the Donovans, but this town’s about to get a lot uglier in a hurry. Pennington called in reinforcements. A lot of them. If you tried to drive or fly out of town tonight, somebody’d stop you and ask why. Checkpoints, every major road. But they’re not keeping people out. The feds are letting heavies like Nick and Del and those three new dead ones pour in like rainwater. Why do you think?”

  Duh.

  “What if instead of a graveyard, it goes down where the people around aren’t already dead? A mall? Centennial Park? These folks aren’t too concerned with crowds when they start shooting. You’ve met Pennington. Is that asshole going to care who gets in the way?”

  “Did he mention Hal Dover is coming to town?”

  The Lieutenant’s jaw set like a medieval battering ram. Pennington hadn’t told him squat.

  “See?” I said. “I’m sharing.”

  The steering wheel made a creaking protest under Rafferty’s massive white knuckles. A venomous spark lit his close-set eyes, then they went placid again and turned back to the street.

  Contrary to Rafferty’s prophecy, Nashville didn’t get uglier overnight. I woke early to sunshine, not sirens in the streets or widows shrieking in the corridors. The city outside seemed clean and benevolent, a place nice people might want to live. It would only get brighter after I’d showered, so I toughened up and shaved. But I still strapped on the .45 while the coffee brewed. Think all the happy thoughts you want, shit happens.

  I left the building at 4:40 and Agent Honeywell pulled away from a curb behind me when I exited the garage. I missed the old days when nobody wanted much to do with me. Our little cavalcade’s first destination was the post office where Sandra was supposed to make Thursday’s cash drop. She wouldn’t be
doing it. I would. I hadn’t cleared the change of plans with either party. Today’s jaunt was purely reconnaissance.

  Ezell Pike was nothing special. Miss the sharp turn where Harding Place became Donelson Pike, and there you were. A few hundred yards farther, Ezell curved northward as well, and kept on till it intersected Murfreesboro Pike within sight of the airport. There were houses and trees in a small neighborhood where people lived in spite of the airplanes. I imagined shouted conversations, televisions at full volume, dogs who’d given up trying to bark at the jets that thundered fifty feet above the rooftops. After the houses came untended forest on either side, followed by a scruffy lawn and the post office on the left. The building bore more than a passing likeness to its brethren in Whites Creek, low, brick, bland, with storefront windows that had nothing interesting inside. Within the galvanized fence, where delivery vans spent their off-duty hours, sat the faded blue Mustang I’d seen when Sandra and I played pay-the-bad-guy last.

  I held the same speed so neither Honeywell nor any suspicious person inside would sense my interest. The next structure loomed larger, not prettier: headquarters for the Tennessee State Patrol. Whoever was trying to wring Sandra and JD’s fortune from them had balls.

  I took a left and led Honeywell back into town via Mufreesboro Pike.

  I let Honeywell tail me to a grocery store, then back to my place. She parked out of sight instead of volunteering to help me carry bags upstairs. The two lunks in the loaner sedan in the condominium’s street-side lot weren’t any help, either. I wasn’t surprised. Brothers Jones and Darrowby weren’t very domestic. I took the sidewalk around to the lobby and grimaced at Nick through his driver’s side window. His nose needed realignment. My jaw still ached. Fair is fair.

  “‘Morning, Honeywell,” I said.

  She slumped in one of the lobby chairs like she’d been in it a while. We both knew she’d been watching me, not the flat screen television that played circular endorsements for a luxurious condominium life first-year field agents couldn’t afford. The creases in her slacks could slice bread, and her blouse sported ruffles and mother-of-pearl buttons that were only just adequate to hold things together. Her sturdy black running shoes were a far cry from boardroom heels.

  “You’re not going to leave me be, are you?”

  Honeywell shrugged and rose with a small black patent leather purse. She was cute. I reminded myself the purse was loaded and she knew a dozen ways to put me on the ground with her bare hands if necessary. Bureau girls make scary dates.

  “It might be simpler to go in the same car,” I said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  I shrugged this time and turned toward the stairs. We went through the door together. The stairs clattered metallically under our feet.

  “Why?” she asked, when we stepped onto the parking level concrete.

  “Why what?”

  “Don’t be smart. Why invite me along?”

  “Because I can lose you in six blocks, but it makes going where I want a pain in the ass.”

  Rolling down Tennessee backroads with a pretty girl beside me felt too familiar, like the lyrics of an overplayed country song. A persistent sense of following menace seemed equally commonplace, though contract killers and extortionists belonged to a different musical genre I appreciated even less. At least the sky was blue and I could see where I was driving. Honeywell was easier company than Sandra Donovan, less imperious, not married to any clients of mine. Both women were perilous; just with Honeywell I didn’t worry about my soul.

  We talked. She hated her first name. Andrea was too soft. She preferred Andy or Honeywell. This Nashville gig was her first field assignment and she meant to make the most of it. She thanked me for my suggestion at the library yesterday.

  “You’re still working, I assume?” she asked.

  “Apparently.”

  Next would come an inquiry into my current case which both of us knew I wouldn’t answer, or the question about me I’d not fielded convincingly since I’d gotten my license. She chose Door Number Two.

  “Pennington had me read your dossier. Sticking this out might get you killed. I’m not entirely sure whether it’d be the criminals or the cops who’d wind up shooting you. Why?”

  “I get bored easily,” I said. I didn’t have to see the disbelief to know it was there. No one ever took my word for this. “It’s a job. People can work for reasons besides money.”

  “Okay. “

  Arrival at Whites Creek offered conversational escape. Honeywell waited in the car. She saw every place a normal customer could in a post office, through the storefront windows.

  Miss Caroline beamed a leathery smile from behind the mail counter. Till I’d staggered out of the rain into her world, I’d always thought career chain smokers universally grim and dirty. Not Caroline. Morning sunshine gleaming on dewdrops in tobacco fields, she was.

  “Find your girl in the convertible, hun?”

  “No, ma’am. Not yet.”

  I could swear the movement of her wink sent a tiny carcinogenic breeze my way. “Maybe you just look too hard. Unless that’s your sister out there.”

  I grinned and shook my head. “Actually, today I’m hoping you can help me find a car.”

  “Young man, don’t you ever come here to mail things?”

  “It’s been a while,” I confessed.

  She laughed. If angels learned to cackle, that’s how they’d sound. We had the place to ourselves, except for the good-looking redhead out in the car who was not my sister, so Miss Caroline relented. “All right, whatcha lookin’ for today?”

  “Last time, I saw an old powder blue Mustang out back. Had a couple dents, needed tires, but I’ve been hunting for one like that for years. Does it belong to an employee here?”

  She didn’t exactly become grim, but most of the playfulness fled her weathered features like cigarette ash in a stiff breeze. “That’d be Nolman’s car.”

  The clock watcher. He’d left before Sandra and I returned. If he’d scuttled off with $85,000 of somebody else’s money from a box that wasn’t his, he was an even worse person than Miss Caroline thought. His last name was Endicott. Happily, he’d transferred to another facility. Closer in, she thought, near the airport. I thanked her and, to put that hickory-smoked radiance back on her face, I bought two sheets of Forever stamps and promised to use them.

  The world’s never had many Endicotts. When I got back to the car I ran the name through a few search services on my phone while Honeywell tried to look patient.

  “I could call whatever that is in,” she offered.

  “How gullible do you think I am?”

  She made a frustrated little snort, which came across as adorable. I almost called her Andrea to rub it in.

  Three addresses showed for “Nolman” and the one in West Nashville had been leveled last year to make room for a home improvement store. I turned the engine over.

  “This guy shouldn’t be hard to run to earth now that I know where to start,” I promised.

  “Missing person?”

  “He’ll wish he was.”

  “Mr. Bedlam, if you’re going to commit a felony—”

  “Honeywell, you watch too many movies. He has a day job and it’s the middle of the week. I’m just collecting information.”

  “ Andy, okay?”

  “Right.” I punched an address into the navigation system, more for her benefit than mine. I’d visited both neighborhoods before.

  The first place was off Whites Creek Pike on the way back to town, a dilapidated one-bedroom cottage on a weedy lot smack beside Briley Parkway with high-voltage lines and a billboard for lawn ornaments. I’d have thought a person who sold pictures for eighty-five grand apiece could do better. Maybe he had. The house was vacant. A yellow notice tacked on the door announced impending demolition.

  Honeywell—Andy—didn’t give me a hard time. Dead ends were part of both of our jobs.

  I wouldn’t call my findings at the sec
ond address pay dirt. Just dirt.

  Mount Villas’ reputation rivaled downtown’s low-income housing projects. A cluster of Section 8 apartments in the noisy triangle between three freeways, Mount Villas was where trouble lived when it preferred not to be obvious. Honeywell made no comment as we passed ill-kept brick structures and rusty vehicles. People milled around when the gainfully employed were supposed to be gone to work. Residents of Mount Villas didn’t have jobs, at least not jobs they’d dare claim on a tax return. Many of them sat morosely on their subsidized front steps or on the hoods of the rusty cars and watched us drive by. They had nothing better to do.

  Building 21 wasn’t anyone’s first choice. A blue bus stop sign leaned over a concrete pad beside the street where a bench used to be. The bench had been stolen so riders were obliged to stand. Across the street stood a few rangy trees and a two-story concrete sound wall. The wall deadened I-65 traffic on its far side till it was merely loud. I parked alongside a station wagon with multicolored body panels from separate scrap yards. The owner was surely planning a new paint job as soon as he stole two more wheels.

  Honeywell did a neat trick with her purse. She unzipped the thing till it was just a leather rectangle and removed the two items inside, her gun and badge. She managed to make both disappear inside the waistband of those skin-tight slacks. She might as well have clipped the badge to her blouse anyway. Every loiterer in view vanished when she opened her door.

  “Congratulations,” I said, “you look like a Fed.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The apartment in question was around back, ground floor. Muffled rustling sounded through the door when I knocked. More thumping and irate voices responded the second time. My third attempt finally attracted the racket to the door. Honeywell’s hand hovered waist-high, ready to dart behind her for the Glock. I shook my head to dissuade her. None of the residents liked visitors but they weren’t likely to shoot any through a door. People get evicted for less, and if Mount Villas won’t have you, who will? The peephole darkened.