by Rehder, Ben
Kissing ensued, followed by clothes flying off and the fondling of various body parts. Plenty of passion coming across. Outstanding.
Off came Wanda’s panties—and now they were getting down to it. Oh yes, this was good stuff. Just like the earlier films.
Marty kept the camera rolling even when the actors repositioned themselves. This was great material, and he didn’t want to miss a minute.
A short while later, it was time for Willie Wang to join the fun. He entered the frame wearing a white apron, a chef’s hat, and a big smile. He stood beside Wanda and Mike and said, “Wow, this what I call full-sevvice lestaulant.”
Wanda was supposed to keep Willie entertained with her hands, and she reached out to unzip his fly.
That’s when the action went all wrong.
As soon as Wanda grasped Willie’s belt, Marty heard a guttural moan from Mike. At first, he thought Mike was giving the performance of a lifetime. Then he realized it wasn’t passion, but anger. Mike was staring at Willie, not Wanda, with an expression of pure contempt on his face.
In a flash, the dwarf extricated himself from Wanda and vaulted from the chair onto Willie, getting the startled actor into a headlock.
Wanda shrieked.
A boom mike tumbled to the floor.
Marty rushed onto the set, hoping to separate his miniature stars before one of them was seriously injured.
* * *
The feed store’s parking lot was fairly empty now that deer season was over. Marlin had noticed the office space at one end of the building before, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it. There was no sign on the door, no indication whose office it was. He had always assumed it was used by the employees of the feed store.
Marlin and Garza stepped from Marlin’s cruiser and approached the door. Before they could knock, the tall, muscular man Marlin remembered as Duke Waldrip opened the door. The guy was bald, too. Marlin had forgotten that part.
“John, good to see you again. You been doing all right?” Waldrip said, offering a hand.
“Just fine, Duke,” Marlin said.
Duke turned to Garza. “Sheriff Garza, right?”
“That’s right.”
The men shook hands.
“Y’all come on in,” Waldrip said, retreating into the building.
They followed him through a small reception area and then into a sparsely furnished office in the rear.
“I’d offer y’all some coffee, ’cept the damn coffeemaker quit on me a couple weeks ago.”
“That’s fine,” Garza said.
Waldrip took a seat behind the one desk in the room, and Marlin and Garza sat in two worn chairs facing him.
“Mr. Waldrip, we’ve been trying to contact you,” Garza said.
“Oh, yeah, I know. Sorry ’bout that. I’ve been real busy. I found your notes on my door.” He glanced at Marlin. “You said you wanted to talk about something?”
“Yeah, Duke, I was wondering whether you and Gus—that’s your brother’s name, right?”
Waldrip nodded. “Good memory.”
“Are y’all still doing some guiding around here? Out at Kyle Dawson’s place?”
Duke grabbed a pack of Marlboros off the desk and shook a cigarette free. “Well, there, and in a few other places, some up in Burnet County. Mostly there, though. Why?”
Marlin ignored the question. “You get many out-of-towners?”
“Hell yeah. Almost nothing but. All the boys from around here already have places to hunt, and they damn sure don’t need me.” Duke laughed. He paused to light up. “Most of my customers come from Austin, San Antone, sometimes Dallas.”
Garza said, “I’m curious about something. Does Gus mostly run the operation, or do you?”
Waldrip opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. After a pause, he said, “Listen, if this is about, you know, my record … and whether I can possess a firearm, I was told it was okay after five years.”
Garza waved him off. “No, that’s not why we’re asking.”
“What, then?”
Marlin remained silent, letting Garza decide how to handle it. The sheriff decided to dive right in. “You know a man named Oliver Searcy?”
Duke answered immediately. “Yeah, sure. Guy found dead the other day, right? See, that really floored me, ’cause he called me up a coupla times about wanting to hunt somewhere in the county. He even came to scout the area and dropped by to see me once or twice.”
Garza said, “Which was it—one time or two?”
Waldrip took a deep drag on his cigarette and expelled a large cloud of smoke. “Hell, I cain’t remember for sure. I think twice. Been so busy, it’s hard to keep track. And we only talked for a few minutes.”
“Where did you meet with him?”
“Right here at the office.”
“Was Gus here, too?”
“Gus? Uh-uh. Don’t know where he was, but I remember it was just me and Searcy.”
Marlin said, “Did you ever do any hunting with Searcy?”
“Naw, we couldn’t agree on a price. He was wanting a nice trophy, but he wasn’t quite ready to spring for it.” Waldrip shrugged. “I get guys like that all the time. Tire-kickers. I’m used to it.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
Waldrip stared at the ceiling, thinking. “Let’s see … the first time was maybe two or three weeks back. That’s when he came to do some scouting and he dropped by to see me. Then he called again this past Saturday. No, wait, it was Sunday.”
“What did he want?”
Waldrip grinned and tapped some ashes onto the floor. “I think he figured I’d be running some kind of end-of-the-season special. He was trying to Jew me down.”
It had been a long time since Marlin had heard that disgusting little phrase.
Garza said, “Did he ever mention talking to anyone else in the area? Any other guides?”
“Well, they all do. Shop around, I mean. Wondering if maybe one of us guides is a little hungrier than the others. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s what Searcy did.”
“So you never saw the man for more than a few minutes?” Garza asked.
“Nope. Just the phone calls and the meeting. That’s it.”
“He ever come to your house?”
“Nope.”
“And Gus never met him?”
“Like I said—no.”
“Where can we reach him?” Garza smiled. “He’s as hard to track down as you are. I’m just thinking maybe he was at that meeting and it slipped your mind.”
Waldrip fidgeted for a second. “You know, there’s—I think I need to be real up front with y’all about my brother.” He placed his palms flat on his desk. “He’s kind of flaky. Got electrocuted a couple years ago, and he ain’t been what you’d call normal ever since. Damn shame, really.” He held his hands up in a what-can-you-do? gesture.
“All the same, we’d like to talk to him,” Garza said.
“Try him at home, then,” Waldrip said. “That’s where you’ll catch him.”
Garza pulled out a small notepad and verified the phone number.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Waldrip said. “If he ain’t there, just leave a message. He’ll get back to you.”
“Y’all have an answering machine?”
“Uh, no, that’s right, we don’t. It broke. Guess you could leave a note for him.”
“We’ve already left several notes.”
“Don’t know what else to tell you. I haven’t talked to him myself for a few days.”
“But y’all live together, right?”
“What? Yeah. Different schedules, that’s all.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you let me use your cell phone real quick.”
“Pardon?”
“I’d like to call him on your phone.”
“Yours ain’t working?” Duke asked.
“Been having trouble with my battery.”
Smart move, Bobby, Marlin thought.
“Well, yeah, sure.” Duke slid the phone across the desktop to Garza.
Even if the Waldrip brothers knew nothing about the Searcy homicide, they might be avoiding the police on general principles. Duke was an ex-convict, and many ex-cons didn’t like talking to the cops. Maybe Duke and his brother had stopped answering their phone because of Duke’s contact with Searcy, knowing the cops would show up eventually.
But Duke had answered a call when he thought it was coming from Kyle. If Gus really was at home, maybe he’d answer a call from Duke’s cell phone, assuming he had caller ID.
The sheriff dialed the phone number and waited. Marlin could hear the shrill ring coming through the phone’s small earpiece. Five rings. Then ten. No answer.
“Guess he’s not home,” Duke said.
Garza disconnected and slid the phone back over to Duke. After a pause, he said, “If you think of anything that might be important, you’ll let us know?”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
“Thank you for your time.”
11
DUKE’S ARMPITS WERE damp and his heart felt like it was going to bust through his rib cage. It was bad enough when he thought it was just the game warden coming to see him. But when he saw the sheriff tagging along—Jesus!—he’d almost had a stroke. This wasn’t about some candy-ass game violation after all. Good thing he’d mentally prepared himself for it.
And thank God Gus hadn’t answered the phone. Duke thought he’d done a fairly good job with the interview just now, but what would Gus say if they came after him with the same questions? It wasn’t all that easy to stay cool and keep your story straight. Thinking about it now, Duke realized it was crazy to have ever thought Gus could pull it off. He’d probably get rattled and start babbling, telling the cops everything they wanted to know.
Duke noticed that Garza hadn’t said a word about Sally Ann, and he didn’t appear to know they’d been shacked up for the past six months. They thought he and Gus were still living together in the old family homestead. Actually, Duke had been back staying with Gus again for the last week or so, because of Sally Ann getting pissed about the barmaid. But the cops didn’t seem to know any of this, and that was fine with Duke. Best to keep Sally Ann out of it.
And what the hell was up with Kyle? The only thing Duke could figure was that Kyle must have heard him mention Searcy’s name at some point. Did he know Searcy had been out to the ranch? And the more important thing: What did he tell the sheriff and the game warden? Hell, he didn’t know anything—not about what had happened to Searcy anyway. But Kyle had known what the cops wanted to talk to Duke about—and he hadn’t had the guts to answer the goddamn phone and warn him. There were no two ways about it: Just like nine years ago, the son of a bitch was covering his own ass again, and hanging Duke out to dry.
Duke decided he had to take care of a few things real fast.
First, go see Gus and make sure he wasn’t freaking out, maybe getting cabin fever or something like that. Take him some food and remind him to stay put.
Second, go talk to Kyle—maybe even kick his ass a little—and find out what he’d told the cops. Maybe Duke was blowing this thing out of proportion. Maybe he wasn’t even a suspect at this point. Hell, he couldn’t blame them for wanting to question him, seeing as how Searcy had called him several times.
And lastly, he knew now he’d have to do something about Searcy’s trophy mount. Duke had claimed he and Searcy had never hunted together, but the mount proved otherwise. He needed to get the damn thing back.
When Rudi’s phone rang, she was in the buff, putting on mascara, swiveling her hips to the Rolling Stones song coming from the cheap clock radio on the nightstand.
Rudi, Barry, and Chad had spent the night at a small motel in Johnson City. Not a bad place. Nothing fancy—her room was small and appeared to have been decorated by somebody’s senile grandmother—but at least it was clean.
Johnson City itself seemed to be an okay little town. A handful of restaurants, a few dozen small businesses, a large stone courthouse, and one traffic signal. That’s all she had seen last night anyway. They had come in late, and most of the town appeared to be sleeping.
Rudi set the mascara down and picked up the telephone.
“Rudi, sweetheart.” It was Chad, using that horrible syrupy voice he reserved for single women. “What are you doing in there?” Rudi suddenly felt a chill and placed one arm across her breasts. Just talking to this vermin gave her goose bumps. She couldn’t remember the last time Chad had pursued a story in the field. The jerk just wanted to come along to see if he could get lucky.
“Almost ready,” she said. “We said ten o’clock, right?” She glanced at the clock. It was five till.
“That’s right, darling. Barry and I are waiting for you outside.”
“Give me ten. I’ll be right out.”
Rudi hung up and quickly finished her makeup. She followed that with a tailored pencil skirt that hit just above the knee, and a French-cuffed, polished-cotton blouse. She checked herself in the mirror. Not quite what I was ten years ago, but not too bad, she thought. Kind of a babe, actually.
The plan today was to begin interviewing locals, maybe see if they could speak with some of the county deputies. When they had decent footage, they’d drive to Austin and send it back home via the network affiliate station. The anchors at Hard News Tonight would provide a lead-in and wrap-up to the segment. This was supposed to be the first of several reports from the land of the chupacabra. How long the reports would continue depended on whether there was any more strange activity.
“He didn’t ask many questions, you know what I mean?” Bobby Garza said.
Marlin was driving slowly back to the sheriff’s office. “That struck me, too. On the other hand, he’s been through the system, which might’ve taken all the curiosity right out of him. Or he might be too dense to even realize we were checking him out. But I’ll say one thing: He didn’t seem to want us to talk to Gus.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“And just because his brother’s kind of nutty?”
“Man, in this line of work, who do we talk to that ain’t?”
Marlin pulled into the parking lot at the sheriff’s office. “So what next, then? Try to track down Gus?”
“Yeah, and I guess I’ll get one of the deputies to talk to the other guides again. They checked out okay the first time around, but I think we better have another look.”
“You want me to talk to them?” Marlin didn’t mind getting more involved now that deer season had ended.
Garza glanced at his watch. “Actually, I had something else in mind. It’s ten-fifteen now. What’re you doing after lunch?”
“Nothing too urgent.”
“I’m gonna drive over to Houston and reinterview the widow. Something just isn’t clicking, and I want to dig a little deeper. You want to ride along? Maybe you can help me get something out of her.”
“Yeah, I can do that. Tatum and Cowan already talked to her, right?”
Rachel Cowan was a deputy who had been with the Blanco County Sheriff’s Department for just over a year. Young and very sharp.
Garza nodded. “Yep, twice. But I want to go in with some fresh eyes.”
Red O’Brien was rumbling down Pecan Street after a trip to Dairy Queen when Billy Don yelled, “Holy whorebag!” It startled Red so bad, he dropped his Dilly Bar into the crotch of his pants.
Red tried to steer while wiping at a smear of chocolate along the inseam of his Wranglers. “Damn, Billy Don, take it easy, will ya.”
“Check it out! Right over there! That’s Rudi Vee!”
Red turned to see where Billy Don was pointing. Standing in front of the courthouse was a woman facing a camera, with a large cluster of people milling around her. The woman, who looked kind of familiar to Red, was holding a microphone in front of Ernie Turpin, one of the county deputies. Red couldn’t quite place her, though he could tell, even from thirty yards, that sh
e was definitely headboard-banging material. He figured it was another newscast about that Houston hunter who’d been found dead. Red had seen something about that a few days ago.
“What is she, a reporter from Austin? Big friggin’ deal. What’s everyone gettin’ so excited about?” But Red pulled over to the curb to watch.
“Naw, man, Rudi Vee. Rudi Villarreal.”
“You already said that, Skeezix. But who the hell is Rudi Villarreal?”
Billy Don looked as if Red had just said NASCAR was for pussies. “Jesus, Red. You know, from Hard News Tonight? That hot reporter who’s always interviewing big stars and interpreting the economy and stuff.”
Oh, now Red remembered. It was a news program, but not your typical tight-ass broadcast with guys like Peter Jennings. Red always wondered if Peter was Waylon’s cousin or something. Anyway, Hard News Tonight was, to Red, every bit as informative and a whole lot more entertaining than, say, Nightlight. Okay, so maybe their stories weren’t quite as in-depth as those other shows, but damn, look at those hooters! Red could see that ol’ Rudi was packing some major mangoes.
“Damn, I’ve always had a thing for her,” Billy Don said. “Why you think she’s in town?”
Red didn’t know, but—like the knot of bystanders—he was extremely curious. “Who gives a shit?” he said.
Billy Don didn’t seem to hear. He was gazing through the windshield, mooning over the reporter.
“Well, damn,” Red said, “if it means that much to you, we might as well go see what’s going on. No sense in sittin’ in the truck.”
Billy Don heard that, and they both climbed out of the Ford.
As they approached the crowd, Red could hear Rudi Villarreal saying that funny word again: chupacabra. After the incident with the wetback on Sunday, Red had finally learned what that word meant. According to the papers, a chupacabra was some kind of devil-dog or mutant lizard or something—nobody seemed to know for sure. And you could find them down in Mexico, especially around the capital city of Puerto Rico. Red was listening, and now the deputy was saying no, there hadn’t been any more reports of the chupacabra.
Rudi Villarreal asked about Oliver Searcy—apparently, that was the dead hunter. Rudi was wondering whether Searcy might have been a victim of the chupacabra. After all, she said, wasn’t Searcy killed by a single puncture wound to the neck, the chupacabra’s trademark?
