Buddies

by Kip Cassino

  Thanks to a large account at the local bank and generous contributions to the community, the town had welcomed him like a long-lost son. Jimmy guessed he would make his life here, and eventually marry the daughter of a prominent local family. After all, he was still fairly young.

  Life here would be bitter-sweet, Jimmy knew. The sand and sun, the beautiful old town were all wonderful. Still, he would miss the country of his birth, his family, the people he had known. He could never hope to return. Federal agents had sharp eyes and long memories. They were looking for him, even now. His old bosses might want to talk to him as well. That could prove to be a very serious conversation: one he might not survive. No, to remain free and alive he must drape his new identity over his life like a blanketing cape, and never peek from beneath its folds.

  He dressed in linen slacks, a black guayabera shirt, and gleaming cordovan loafers. Tomorrow, he would get a haircut―and find himself a barber whom he’d covet in the future. There were other things to take up his time as well. He’d already gotten to know his local banker. If the man proved discrete and trustworthy, Jimmy decided he would introduce him to some of his offshore accounts and investments later on. Still, he’d be careful to leave the bulk of his money untouched and unknown to any but himself. Things could still happen, after all. Events could go awry, even when they were well-planned. He’d just seen that happen, a few weeks ago.

  As he walked from his room to the hotel’s restaurant, Jimmy reminded himself to adjust to the relaxed flow of this beautiful place. There was no reason for him to worry about anything, and no reason to hurry―ever again.

  As Jimmy sat to enjoy his huevos rancheros, his killer watched him from a nearby table. His bosses had told him to make sure the death of this man took a long time. They instructed him to make it as painful as he could, and to make certain those who found the body would know how dreadful it had been. The murderer drank his coffee and smiled. He would follow his instructions to the letter, and enjoy every minute of it.

  Chapter 15

  Bear, Delaware

  December, 2017

  “Flatbed trucking is tough,” Sam Staley said. He was a stout, elderly, bearded man who had made his career moving extremely heavy loads of freight up and down east coast highways. His company, Staley Heavy Freight, ran steel for Lukens, Sandmeyer, SPS, and others from Florida to Maine on a fleet of twenty flatbed semi-trailers pulled by well-maintained Kenworths.

  The man standing in front of his cluttered desk nodded in agreement. “Tarping’s the hardest part, in my book anyhow,” the man who now called himself Ken Captain answered.

  “You think you can handle it?” Staley asked, studying the man carefully. This was their third meeting since he’d shown up at the terminal a few weeks ago. The guy wasn’t real big, but he looked strong enough, and he sure knew how to drive a semi. He’d proven that on the test run they’d just completed―down Route 40 into Wilmington and back. He was as good a driver as Staley had seen, and the old trucker had seen quite a few. Captain showed the kind of intuition, the easy instinctive awareness, that kept big trucks on the road and out of accidents.

  “I can handle it, Mr. Staley,” the Captain said. “All I need is the chance.”

  “I’d feel better if you could show me some history,” Staley said. “It’s plain to me you know driving. Got your certification in record time. Where else have you worked? Give me a reference and I’ll start you tomorrow.”

  The Captain shrugged, then shook his head. “I got away from trucking a long while back,” he said. “Ten years or more. It was a long way from here. I wouldn’t even know where to point you.”

  “Nothing you’re hiding, no prison,” Staley continued to probe.

  “Nothing like that,” the Captain answered. “I know you’ll check. You won’t find anything buried in my background.”

  “That’s the problem,” Staley said. “We’ve already checked. Can’t find any background, good or bad. Can’t find any. It’s like you just sprung up from the earth outside my yard.” He shook his head. The Good Lord knew he needed drivers. Most of the men and women who walked through the door of his shed couldn’t measure up. Some were poor drivers with bad records, others were too weak to handle the tie-downs, chains, and tarps that the big, heavy loads required. This guy checked all the boxes, but he was a cipher. Still, he looked clean and seemed honest. He showed none of the tell-tale signs addicts and alcoholics normally display. His blood test said he was drug-free.

  Staley thought for another minute, then made up his mind. “O.K.,” he said, “I’ll give you a shot. Show up here tomorrow morning and we’ll get you all set up. Eight a.m. sharp.”

  The Captain’s face cracked into a wide grin. “Thank you, Mr. Staley,” he said with what seemed to be genuine emotion. “You won’t regret your decision. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned and rushed from the little building, climbed into a grey pickup, and sped away leaving a cloud of dust.

  The next day was busy for SHF’s newest driver. There was a small mountain of forms to fill out, a physical examination, another blood test. The Captain was issued a credit card to pay for diesel fuel and repairs, and an advance against his starting pay to cover food and lodging while he was on the road. He’d be expected to sleep in his truck most of the time, but might need the luxury of a shower and a real bed once in a while. He calculated that his starting percentage would generate a gross income of around $55,000 a year, if his work was steady. Staley had indicated that there was more than enough business available to keep him―and five more like him―very busy. That gave the Captain hope. After living hand-to-mouth for a long time, maybe he and Pauley could finally get a decent place to live. Right now, they were renting a decrepit trailer on the edge of a corn field about five miles down the road. The place was clean enough, but very chilly during the start of a harsh Delaware winter. He grimaced. The cold was tougher on Pauley’s damaged flesh than on his own. They’d just have to make it work until he could get some money in the kitty.

  He’d had a talk with Pauley the night before about their immediate future. “I can’t take you with me on the road,” he explained. “I thought it might be possible, but it’s not. We’d be in trouble at every inspection station, I’d lose my certificate, and we’d be back on the bottom―grubbing for every dime.”

  His buddy was concerned and upset, as the Captain had known he would be. “What … what … can I do … all day?” he asked, his eyes darting around the small trailer. “It’s … too cold … to go … outside much.”

  “We’ll go out right now,” the Captain had told his friend. “I’ll buy us a small TV, any food you want―you pick it out. Books and magazines too, if you want them. I’ll only be gone two or three days at the most. As soon as I get back, I’ll go over to the vet center and scout up a job for you.” Pauley had nodded his agreement. He knew the Captain would do everything he could to help him. He had pulled on a heavy, hooded sweatshirt and the two men had left on their low-key shopping spree. Afterward, they had finally destroyed Sixto’s credit card.

  Near the end of the day, the Captain walked back over to the little dispatcher’s shack Staley insisted on retaining as his office. The old man rose, grabbed his cane, and took his new driver to the maintenance building to show him the truck he’d been assigned. He pointed his cane at a W900, just being mated to its flatbed trailer. “There she is, son,” Staley said. “Not much different than the ones I used to jockey, on the outside anyhow. Go ahead, take a look at her. Tomorrow, you’ll be taking her down to South Carolina pulling a load of spring steel.”

  As he walked around the big cab, the Captain marveled at the big vertical exhaust stacks and the massive radiator grill that marked the great truck. Under the hood sat a Cummins diesel capable of six-hundred horsepower, he knew. This was a brute of a vehicle, designed to shoulder its way through whatever obstacles might lay in front of it. As he circled the rig, he exam
ined the brake lines and the tires on the trailer. “Brake lines look good,” he said, mostly talking to himself. “The tires are retreads of course, but they’re in good shape. I’ll have to check pressure in the morning.” He examined the rear lights and saw that none were dirty or broken. He walked over to Staley, who stood quietly a few yards off, leaning on his cane.

  “Thanks again, sir,” the Captain said. “I’ll take good care of this rig and the load. It’s going to be a pleasure working for you.”

  The next morning, the Captain was at the Staley terminal before six. He gave his rig another thorough inspection, got directions to the site where his load was waiting, climbed into his truck, adjusted his seat, and set off. He spent most of the morning at a steel mill in southern Pennsylvania―chocking and securing giant rolls of spring steel to the bed of his trailer. Steel chain augmented the chocks to keep the heavy load in place. More than once, the Captain wished he’d had Pauley with him. His friend was very strong, and the chain was agonizingly heavy.

  By ten he was finally on the road, heading south on I-95 pulling twenty tons of steel behind him. His immediate goal was to get south of District of Columbia traffic before mid-afternoon. He knew he could expect traffic levels to increase dramatically after that. Any trucker trapped on the 495 loop after four could expect hours of slow or no movement.

  Above him the sky was overcast and grey. It was a chilly day, but no precipitation was forecast. The road was dry. The big Kenworth boomed down the road, hour after hour, as the miles raced by. The Captain enjoyed driving his rig, liked being with the big trucks again. He thought about his years right after college, working on ways to load and carry enormous oil drilling equipment in North Dakota―and the career he thought he was building then. What had happened? He wondered. The job he loved, Margie, the boys, the house―everything had been in place for a purpose-filled, meaningful life. Somehow, it had all dissolved. He couldn’t blame the army or Afghanistan, he decided. That had happened to other men who had the resilience to get past it. There had to be some flaw, some hole in him that had shattered his future and left him where he was. He determined that, here on out, he would stitch the rags of his life together and build a better future from them―for him and for Pauley.

  Traffic was already starting to build by the time the Captain cleared the outer DC loop and continued his run south. He stopped for diesel just north of Petersburg, checked his tires again and decided to get as far south as he could before his ELD forced him to stop for the day.

  Electronic logging devices hadn’t come into vogue yet when he was last associated with trucking. In those days, drivers could still “fudge” their hours on hand-kept logs to make quicker runs, to compensate for time lost in traffic, or to adjust for waiting times at loading docks. Those days were gone. Noncompliance with federally approved driving hours (eleven hours during every fourteen-hour workday, followed by ten compulsory hours off the road) meant serious penalties for drivers and higher insurance premiums for owners. Old man Staley had warned the Captain explicitly, “Don’t fight the ELD, son. It’s better all the way around if you don’t.”

  Three of the Captain’s eleven hours had been spent loading and securing the steel he carried. That left him eight hours to reach to reach Columbia, South Carolina and the factory where he’d shed his load of spring steel. There wasn’t enough time left, even if he goosed his speed a little. He’d have to pull off the road around nine p.m. and rest until seven the next morning. He pulled into a rest stop a little after eight, but it was already filled with trucks. Two exits further south, he left the interstate again and found himself a secluded place to park behind a strip mall. He got out and checked the rig’s tires, inspected the load to assure it remained secure, made himself a sandwich, and bedded down for the night. As he lay beneath his space blanket, his thoughts turned to Pauley―left by himself in a chilly trailer, by a remote cornfield in Delaware. He’d have to get cell phones, he decided, as soon as he could. At least then he could talk to his buddy.

  Back in Bear, Pauley had given up trying to find TV reception. They’d bought a little device with the unit that was supposed to find TV signals, but it wasn’t working very well. All he could pick up was some crazy religious ranting. It was too cold to go out much, and his lithium-slowed mind found concentration difficult. Reading a book he’d picked out was impossible. Putting the book aside, Pauley sat shivering in the little trailer. Outside, the whistling wind promised a frigid evening. He was bored, frustrated, and cold.

  Pauley tried his best to think the situation through. His pills prevented him from travelling with his friend. Without their drag on his reflexes and intellect, he could learn to drive the big trucks and help the Captain on the road. He decided to wean himself of the large brown pills―not all at once, of course not. Over time he would decrease his dosage, until he wasn’t taking them at all. He would start tomorrow. Having made his decision, Pauley made himself as warm and comfortable as he could and settled down for the night.

  The Captain awoke a little after six the next morning. He washed himself as best he could, shaved, dressed, and made himself some coffee. While he drank it, he called up a map to his destination on the GPS in his cab. He briefly marveled at all the electronic support truck drivers had at their fingertips these days. He could easily believe that the day was swiftly approaching when there’d be no more drivers at all, and their tireless robot replacements would be able to drive without any mandated stops for rest. The big SHF rig pulled back on the road right at seven, turning to regain the interstate. The Captain still had an hour’s drive before he reached his destination.

  Noon found him moving again, headed north to Charlotte up interstate 77, on his way to pick up a load of architectural steel for delivery outside Hagerstown. From there the Captain would dead-head back to Bear. He expected to be back at the SHF yard before noon the next day.

  As he continued his inaugural run, the Captain thought about all that had changed in commercial trucking since his memory of it at the turn of the century. It seemed to him that there were more trucks on the road than he remembered―a lot more. He wondered if trucks were taking freight away from trains, or if there was just more being shipped. Truck-stops and rest stops had always been full his whole trip south. He’d had a hard time finding a place to park his rig. He noticed the roads were in far worse condition than he remembered. They were rougher, cracked and littered with potholes―some repaired, others not. Possibly the result of more truck traffic, the Captain thought. Big trucks punished roads. Maybe more of them meant battered highways.

  Some things hadn’t changed, of course. People still did many un-automotive things in their cars while they drove, unaware or uncaring about what truckers sitting above them might see. On just this first run, the Captain had watched various sex acts―some solitary, some between couples. He’d watched people eating, drinking, injecting drugs, scolding their children, combing their hair, breast feeding, changing diapers, getting dressed or undressed, shaving, applying lipstick or makeup. He’d passed drivers examining maps and others reading books, magazines, or newspapers. More than he could count had been texting on their cell phones or operating larger computers. A few were slumped in their seats, fast asleep.

  The Captain was of two minds about waking drivers who passed beneath his cab asleep. The sudden blare of his big air horn would surely wake them, but in their first frantic seconds of consciousness some would convulsively grip their steering wheels and jerk their rides all over―or completely off―the road. Still, leaving them undisturbed would be criminal. Most of the time, he compromised by getting squarely behind sleepers and barely tickling his horn. If that didn’t work, he called the highway patrol on the CB radio mounted over his dash―a holdover from the time when the truck was new.

  The load he picked up in Charlotte needed a tarp. The artist who fabricated the architectural steel forms worried that exposure to the grime and weather of a road trip to
Maryland would damage his work. He had seen to some of the right precursors already. He had set aside space in the building where the steel was kept, so that tarping could take place indoors―away from tricky winds and other vagaries of weather. Additionally, he had a forklift and a wooden ladder available to move the tarp along the Captain’s trailer. Everyone involved knew better than to try to lay tarp completely by hand.

  Even so, tarping the load took the rest of the day. By the time the last tie-down strap was tightened, the sun was setting. The Captain was exhausted from climbing ladders and crawling over stiff, heavy canvas all afternoon. He had noticed a motel less than half a mile away from the artist’s building. He asked his customer if he could leave his truck in place overnight, locked up and secure. A smile and a nod released him to stroll to the motel, and spend the night in relative comfort.

  He was back on the interstate heading north by seven the next morning. The rest of the run proved uneventful. By the time another day had ended, he was back in the SHF yards, turning in his truck. Staley was there to greet him. “How’d it go?” he asked his newest driver. “You’re a day later than I thought you’d be.”

  “The load in Charlotte had to be tarped,” the Captain explained. “It was tricky―architectural steel forms. Took most of the day.”

  The old man nodded. “Tarping’s tough, even when everybody knows what they’re doing. You ready to do it again tomorrow?”