by Matt Hilton
‘I suppose that’s true. But I’m still worried.’
‘You’ve every right, but please try not to be. Go home to your wife and I’ll be in touch.’
‘So you are going to help?’
‘I’ve got your cell number and email address. I’ll call you, OK?’
‘You’re not going to start straight away?’
I tapped the envelope on the table top. ‘I already started. I’ll call you when I’m in Arizona.’
4
A flight took me to Gallup Municipal Airport, only a stone’s throw from the Best Western hotel where Jay and Nicole spent Monday night. Ever since I’d heard the Nat King Cole song, or more likely the rock ‘n’ roll version by Chuck Berry, I’d fancied taking a trip on the historic Route 66. I just hadn’t thought that it’d be under these circumstances. I decided to pick up the trail at the girls’ last known location. For all I knew they’d hooked up with some guys in town and were still in Gallup. Maybe they hadn’t phoned home because they were having the kind of fun you didn’t share with your parents.
I hired a car, a blocky, navy-blue GMC Yukon 4×4, and threw the bags I’d brought with me in the back seat, before heading for the Best Western. I considered renting a room but decided against it, and only stayed long enough to show photos of the girls to the desk staff. A helpful young guy remembered Jay and Nicole and brought their booking up on a computer. It showed that they’d stayed only one night, checked out at ten on Tuesday morning, and paid their bill in full. The guy said he’d chatted with them and that both girls had been excited about their impending trip into the Painted Desert later that day. I thanked the guy, tossed him a few dollars off the roll handed to me earlier by Jameson Walker, and asked him where there was a good place to eat. He directed me back along the highway to a diner making the most of its Route 66 association. There was a huge sign outside so Technicolor-vivid it reminded me of the graphics from an old Warner Brothers’ cartoon, but it appeared that burritos and tacos were the only items on the menu. I continued until I found another diner advertising eggs and ham and suchlike. A waiter led me to a table at the window, and I had a great view over the highway to a huge railroad depot where dozens of freight carriages were parked on the sidings. Red dust billowed on the breeze. Some of it had adhered to the glass, giving everything a pinkish hue. I ordered a special from the menu, plus a large coffee. It was approaching evening, but it would be hours before the sun went down over the desert, so I’d time for a few calls, for filling my stomach, and for making it over the border into Arizona before nightfall.
While I forked down scrambled eggs and rashers of bacon, I used my cell to call Rink.
Jared Rington’s more than a friend to me; he’s like a brother. Sometimes he even acts like he’s my mother. ‘Where the freakin’ hell are you, goddamnit?’ Then again, my mum, Anita, wouldn’t use language like that.
‘Gallup, New Mexico.’
‘What the hell are you doing there?’
‘I’m on that missing person case that came in, the Walker job. I told McTeer to let you know I’d pick it up.’
‘I didn’t go back to the office today.’
‘So it’s your fault you’re not up to speed.’
Rink was the owner of Rington Investigations, based in Tampa, but when I’d signed on it was as an invisible partner. Although I didn’t have to answer to him for my actions, there was rarely a thing that we kept from each other. We had both been in the same Special Forces unit, had fought side by side, saved each others’ lives on a number of occasions, so there was little that we didn’t know about each other. Rink knew how impulsive I was; he wasn’t that surprised that I’d jumped straight into a job. He just liked to be a mother hen; like I’d get myself in hot water if he wasn’t holding my hand. Trouble was, he was usually right.
‘The Walker job? I thought you were helping out with Maria Purefoy’s problem?’
I explained how I’d fixed that one on my way to the meeting at Panama City. ‘So it was one of those “for the love of” jobs?’
‘Rink, the Purefoys could scarcely put food on the table, let alone pay for my services. I told Maria it was on the house.’
‘Jesus! Tell me this one isn’t a pro bono case you’ve taken on, brother.’
‘I’ve already done my charity work for the month,’ I reassured him. ‘Walker’s paying top whack. Don’t worry, Rink, he’s rich enough to afford it.’
Unlike Maria Purefoy, Jameson Walker was incredibly wealthy. He owned a chain of steakhouses ranging all the way down the Eastern seaboard from Maine to North Carolina. He was rumoured to be edging billionaire status.
‘You don’t think this is about his money, Hunter? Kidnap for ransom?’
‘Nah, it’s too random. Why would kidnappers wait until his daughter was halfway across the States before lifting her? Plus, there’s been no contact, no demand for cash. Truth is, Rink, I’m not that concerned yet. Jay – that’s the name his daughter Joan goes by – has been planning this trip for over a year. She and her best friend, Nicole, don’t get out from under the eyes of their parents that often. I get the impression that Jameson’s the protective type and this is the first opportunity the girls have had to enjoy a little freedom.’
‘You’re talking about guys?’
It was an old chestnut of our trade. Half the missing people we searched for ended up being found in someone’s arms – or bed. But then there was my brother John. I’d actually ended up coming to the States in search of him, and we’d assumed something similar had happened. We couldn’t have been more wrong. John was on the lam after stealing property belonging to a gangster, pursued by gunmen. That was before he’d fallen into the sights of a demented serial killer and the real trouble started.
‘There doesn’t seem to have been anything funny going on here in Gallup. I spoke with a young guy at their hotel who told me they were heading off to Arizona and they were alone.’
‘When was that?’
‘Tuesday morning.’
‘A lot could’ve happened between then and now. How’d you know the guy hadn’t been in their room with them?’
‘From the forlorn look on his face when I flashed him their pictures,’ I laughed.
‘So what’s your plan, buddy?’
‘Something happened a couple hours away from here. I don’t think the girls were involved, but it won’t do any harm to talk with the local cops.’
‘What kinda somethin’?’
‘A gas station robbery where a few people were killed. It probably had nothing to do with them, but I want to check things out.’
‘And you couldn’t have done that from the office?’
‘I fancied a drive,’ I said.
‘It’s a good job I’ve got McTeer and Velasquez to pick up your load,’ Rink grumbled. ‘I’m taking a couple days out myself, brother.’
‘Going to visit the good lady vet?’
‘Yup. My boosters are due a top-up.’
‘Well, tell Rene hello from me, and enjoy yourself.’
‘How am I gonna do that with you charging around unchaperoned?’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy. And this thing with the girls . . . well, what exactly could go wrong?’
‘I wish you hadn’t asked that.’
‘Go, Rink. Get yourself up to Rene’s and have a good time, and don’t worry about me.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Stop being an old lady.’
I hung up while he was still swearing at me, and watched a waitress approaching with a fresh jug of coffee. I’d been trying to cut down on caffeine lately. Allegedly I drank far too much of the stuff. Maybe it was the caffeine buzz that turned me into a lit fuse. No, my impulsive nature went deeper than that. I could feel a bubbling in my guts that had nothing to do with stimulants, and everything to do with the thrill of the hunt. I held out my empty mug. ‘Top me up, please.’
5
My flight from Florida to New Mexico came with a s
mall drawback. In the past I’d managed to take my gun on to flights with me. On a number of occasions I’d used fake air marshal documents and on the others I’d been given special dispensation by the government, but neither was the case this time. Grabbing the first available flight, I hadn’t had the time to organise anything. I was licensed to carry a firearm in Florida, but that didn’t extend beyond the state line, so I had to lock my SIG in the trunk of my Audi when parking it at Panama City. I hadn’t even brought a knife along with me. I felt naked without them.
I had to rectify that situation, because, despite what I’d said to Jameson Walker and to Rink, I had the horrible feeling that I might need a weapon before I was finished. On occasion our mutual friend, Harvey Lucas, had supplied both Rink and me with weaponry, as Harvey had a network of contacts throughout the States, but they tended to be specialist firearms. Knives were easy to come by, but I’d have felt much better getting my hands on a gun.
There wasn’t much call for hunting supplies in that corner of Gallup, but I found a pawn shop where I picked up a sturdy lock-knife with a five-inch blade. Folded, it fit neatly into my jeans pocket. The shop also had guns, but the owner was adamant that he’d have to fill in the obligatory paperwork and I’d get the gun I wanted after a few days. That didn’t work for me, so I left with only the knife.
I headed out on Route 66, making steady progress for Arizona. By then the sun was setting and I drove towards a horizon that was on fire, while behind me it was inky black. There was no moon out, but the stars were vivid sparks in the heavens. As I drove, the rail tracks paralleled the road for a while and I had a freight train keeping me company. The clatter of the wheels had a lulling effect. I found a radio station playing old-school country, and, though it wasn’t to my particular taste, I allowed Patsy Cline and Hank Williams to drown out the railroad sounds. Mesas and cliffs built around me, monoliths of red stone that glowed like old blood under my headlights. Somewhere along the way I crossed the state border and pushed on through Lupton and a proliferation of signs indicating I was now in Navajo country. There was even a sprawling trading post set against a cliff-side pocked with caverns and cave art depicted in stark turquoise lit with spotlights. I considered pulling over, to see the sights as Jay and Nicole would have, but decided against it and continued to the junction with state highway 77 where I angled north for the Painted Desert.
A couple of miles into the desert there was a truck stop and I pulled in. It didn’t look the kind of place where the girls would have felt safe; they would likely have continued up towards Indian Wells looking for somewhere more appealing. But it suited me fine. I wasn’t intimidated by the big rigs or the rough men that drove them; in fact, the rougher they were the better for me.
Inside the diner, I showed the photos of the girls to some of the staff, but I knew I was wasting my time. These were the night shift, and if by chance the girls had been through here, a different bunch of workers would’ve been on duty then.
An elderly Navajo guy I found leaning on a broom in the washroom said, ‘Good luck, man, but you’re wasting your breath round here. People like me, well, we keep our noses outta other people’s business.’
‘Even if that means not helping someone?’
‘Some people just can’t be helped.’
At my bemused expression, he led me back out of the foyer and indicated a noticeboard tacked to a post. On it were upward of ten curling Missing Persons posters. Barring one which depicted a middle-aged white man, all the others were of females ranging from thirteen up to sixty-three years of age.
‘We get lotsa those things turnin’ up,’ the old man said, tapping the board with his broom. ‘Not so sure any of them missin’ folks get found, though.’ He glanced at the ground, ran the bristles of the brush through the dirt. ‘Not alive anyways.’
Thanking the old man for his candour, I went back inside and ordered coffee and a supper of cold meat and cheese. Sitting at a corner table, picking at the food, I thought about the old man’s words. In a country as immense as the US, tens of thousands of people went missing every year. I didn’t know the statistics, but there had to be a fraction of them that were never found again. Talking fractions kind of minimised the seriousness, because when you converted it to percentages then you suddenly had a very real figure. If one in ten never turned up again, then the number truly became shocking. People would disappear for many reasons, many of them innocent enough, but then there were the horrifying realities of kidnap, murder and abduction. How many of those who disappeared under those circumstances ever returned home to their loved ones?
I still entertained the notion that Jay and Nicole were simply enjoying their freedom and soon enough Jameson Walker would inform me he’d received word from them, but that could prove to be wishful thinking. No, on seeing those weathered posters, it had sunk an icy talon into my guts, focusing my mind on the urgency of finding them. The police speak about the forty-eight-hour rule: if a person who’s been abducted isn’t found before that time elapses, then tracking them down becomes very difficult indeed. Truth was, I’d already gone beyond forty-eight hours and was rapidly approaching the next marker. It was often believed that if abductees hadn’t turned up within seventy-two hours, then you could expect only to find a corpse.
Sitting there, eating and swilling down coffee, I felt guilty. But I wasn’t wasting time, I was watching, waiting for the correct moment to move. A good mix of people came into the restaurant, truckers, road workers, business people, the occasional family, but none of them were giving off the vibe I was seeking. I ordered more coffee and waited.
My second coffee had become a muddy pool in the bottom of my mug by the time I saw some likely contenders stride in. There were three of them, two men and one woman, all of them high. The two men were rednecks, while the woman looked like she might have a little Navajo blood running through her veins, though I could have been wrong. She didn’t look like one of the noble savages of myth; she was pie-faced, with spindly limbs, and she tottered on red high heels. What made me think she might be of Native American ancestry was the dusky cast of her skin and the proud hawk-like nose. Nothing else about her was proud, in fact she looked like a skank. So for that matter did her male friends.
They sat in a booth, demanding the waitress who couldn’t get away from them fast enough. The noise of their raucous laughter was harsh and aggressive, and I noticed that some of those customers nearest to them moved away or left the establishment altogether. I ordered a fresh coffee. Then I waited a bit more.
Some time later, the woman got up and headed for the washroom. I let her go. The two rednecks paid their bill as noisily as they did everything else and went outside. I placed dollars on my table and followed them. As I left, I caught a glimpse of the old Navajo guy with the broom. He was just finishing a cigarette which he doused under his boot heel before flicking it into a dustpan with his brush. He looked once at me, then over at the two rednecks making their way across the parking lot to a souped-up first generation Camaro that was older than I was. He shook his head slowly as he mouthed something to me. ‘Good luck,’ I believe he said. Then, true to his word, he paid me no further heed and went off to find somewhere else to sneak a cigarette.
One of the rednecks, a tall, skinny man with short cropped dark hair and moustache, leaned on the hood of the Camaro while his shorter friend decided to relieve himself against the kerb. Across the lot, a couple of truckers moved for their big rigs and one of them hooted at the pissing guy. The redneck hollered wordlessly, then wagged his penis at the men. All three laughed loudly. Scumbags, the lot of them. I moved towards the Camaro, casting an approving eye over it as it glistened redly under sodium lamps.
The man leaning on the hood watched me approach. He wasn’t concerned. I was a lone man, my attention definitely on the car, and it was probably something he was used to.
‘Is that a nineteen sixty-seven first gen?’ I asked.
‘Sixty-eight, buddy,’ he corrected me, li
ke I was about a million years out.
‘Wow,’ I said, leaning down to inspect the front grille, ‘you don’t see too many of these beauties these days. Not in this condition. Did you renovate it yourself?’
‘It belongs to my bro,’ he said, with a tip of his head to the stockier man. The other was just zipping up as he walked over. I grinned at him.
‘Man, I’d shake your hand,’ I said, nodding down at his fly, ‘but not yet, eh?’
‘What do you drive, buddy?’ The tall one asked, as he plucked an insect from his moustache and flicked it away.
‘Nothing as beautiful as a first gen.’ I jerked a thumb across the lot to where my GMC was parked. While I did so, I checked that their lady friend was still inside the building. Yes, she was a skank, but that didn’t mean I’d changed my opinion of the way women should be treated. I didn’t want her around if things turned awkward – a real possibility if I’d misread these men. Moving around the Camaro, I peered inside, not interested in it, but in what extras I might see. ‘I think we’re guys of a like mind. We have the same kind of tastes?’
The men shared a glance, then studied me keenly. They were probably deciding if they’d heard right and were trying to make me as a cop. My English accent would throw them off that line faster than anything.
‘You buying?’ the first man asked.
‘Depends on what you’re selling.’
‘Just grass, man.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not talking drugs.’
A quizzical look shot between them.
‘I’ve a little problem to deal with, but I don’t have the tools for the job.’ I was being purposefully vague, hoping that they would offer the conclusion. If they were just low-end potheads, they were no good to me and I’d walk away.
‘What kind of problem?’ The stocky one had jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. No way was he carrying, and the manner in which he’d just compromised himself meant he was no immediate danger. Not a good sign, considering.
