Rig Warrior

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “What doesn’t?”

  “The mob leaning on Dad that way. It just draws too much attention to them.” Then he smiled grimly. “I’m not thinking clearly. Sure. Hell, they were ordered to do it. To make it appear more mob-oriented. To push whoever is really behind it further and further away from the heat.”

  “It’s still a crappy thing to do. All the drivers are tryin’ to do is make a living. As if the truck drivers don’t have enough problems, now this.”

  “What do you know about Cottonmouth, Kate?”

  “Forget it, Barry. He’s straight. I been knowing that ol’ boy for years.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  She grinned. “Shirley Hazelton.”

  Barry looked at her.

  “I’m tellin’ you, that’s his name.”

  “I believe you. Nobody could make that up.”

  “So now you’re my boss, right?”

  Father and son had shaken hands on the deal after Big Joe called his attorney and explained what he wanted. The lawyer said he’d have the papers drawn up first thing in the morning.

  “Looks like it. As soon as the papers are signed, I’ll go over the roster of drivers and begin assigning partners.”

  “You’re goin’ ahead with this SST thing?”

  “Hammer down.”

  “You gonna drive, Barry?”

  “I damn sure am. I’ve still got my license and Dad gave me the keys to his rig.”

  “Who is your partner gonna be?”

  “I haven’t given it any thought.” That was a lie.

  “You can’t lie worth a shit, boy!”

  They looked at each other from across the room and both felt the silent click between them.

  “You got to get cleared by those bogus FBI men before you can pull SSTs,” she said.

  “I’ve got a top-secret government clearance, Kate. That won’t be any problem. If they denied me clearance, that would look awfully strange.”

  “And there’s still the local mob to deal with.”

  “They don’t worry me. What worries me is I don’t know who to trust.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Washington people. Linda was awfully quick to ask me to do this.”

  “Who is Linda?”

  “A friend of mine back in D.C. She works for the Justice Department.”

  “You two friends?”

  “Yes. Nothing serious between us.” A little screwing now and then is all.

  But now there were seeds of doubt in his mind about her, and he wondered why.

  “You thinkin’ she has something to do with this mess?” she asked.

  “I have no reason to think that. It’s probably coincidence.” He was conscious of Kate’s eyes studying his face.

  “It’s gettin’ late,” Kate said.

  “Yeah. You have a run tomorrow?”

  “Just up to Alexandria. I may have to deadhead to Shreveport to pick up a backhaul. Damn near six of one and half a dozen of another when you consider the mileage.”

  “I wish I could go along,” Barry said. “But …”

  “You got papers to sign and a lot of catching up to do,” she finished it. “How are those SSTs gettin’ in here? Or are we pullin’ our own?”

  “By rail. They’ll be here next Monday. That’s when I get to meet one of those so-called FBI men.”

  “They slick,” she said.

  “Meaning they’re intelligent?”

  “That’s what I said. That one that talked to me, he didn’t miss a trick. He knew all the right questions and when to ask ’em.”

  Barry stood up. “I’d better go, I guess.”

  “You don’t have to go.” Kate’s voice was husky, her eyes a smoky blue, clouded by flames from an inner fire.

  “Is this wise, Kate?”

  “I don’t know about wise, Barry. I just know I want you to stay.”

  He reached over and turned off the overhead lights.

  He left the trailer before dawn, returning to his motel room. He showered and shaved and dressed in jeans, western shirt, and cowboy boots. Then he drove to the terminal of Rivers Trucking.

  A group of drivers was gathered on the docks, watching him as he pulled in. He noticed another plain sedan parked across from the terminal, just down the street. Two men sitting in the front seat, two men in the back.

  Fabrello had beefed up his first team.

  Barry shook hands with Jim, then motioned the drivers to gather around him on the docks.

  “Big Joe is retiring. Not permanently; just until he gets back on his feet. I’m taking over. My name is Barry Rivers. I grew up in the cab of a truck, but I’ve been away from it for a long time. If I don’t know something, I’ll ask one of you about it. I expect straight answers and no bullshit.” He noticed Kate, leaning against a crate, watching him. “There’s a lot of things we need to talk about. But not now. Too many unfriendly eyes on us. And you know what I mean. And there may be unfriendly ears listening as well.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Rivers?” a burly driver asked, stepping forward. “You mean one of us”—he waved at the group—“might be workin’ for the other side?”

  “There is that possibility,” Barry said bluntly.

  “I don’t like nobody callin’ me a sneak or a snitch,” the driver said.

  “Nobody did,” Barry told him. “I implied that the possibility exists, that’s all. I’ll be talking to every one of you, one at a time, in private. And I’ll be making damn sure you’re either one hundred and ten percent for Rivers Trucking, or out on your ass. That’s the way it’s going to be. Anyone who objects to taking polygraph or PSE tests, haul your asses out of here—now.”

  Not one driver moved. Barry’s eyes touched them all. He noticed they were all, with the exception of Kate, forty years old or older. Not a hotdog or cowboy in the bunch—that he could spot. But he would check their records and driving later.

  “I know the trouble you’ve been having. My dad is a proud man; he chose not to bring me in on it. I brought myself in. So let’s clear the air, right now. I run this place. I sign your checks. You take orders from me. I’m not a hard person to get along with. I’m pretty easy, as a matter of fact. Until I’m crossed.

  “If all goes well, we’ll start pulling SSTs come Monday morning. At least we’ll be picking them up at the railhead Monday morning. The ICC’s OK’d the operating rights, and we’ll get the bills of lading Monday, so I’m told. And I imagine some of us will be pulling out Tuesday morning. You’ve been briefed, but I’m going to brief you again. You’ll be riding in pairs, so pick your partner …”

  “You just said some of us will be pullin’ out, Mr. Rivers,” a driver said, stepping forward. “Does that mean you’re gonna be drivin’?”

  “It damn sure does.”

  “Who’s your codriver, Mr. Rivers?”

  “Kate.”

  The driver stepped back, nodded his head. Nothing else to say on that subject—and they all knew it.

  Kate smiled faintly.

  “Now,” Barry said. “Let’s clear the air on something. No son of a bitch runs my drivers or my trucks off the road.” His eyes found Chuck, the driver he’d overheard at the truck stop. The man standing next to him was Hank Grethal—Snake. “You two going to hang it up, boys?”

  “I seen you at the truck stop, didn’t I?” Chuck asked.

  “Sure did.”

  “I’ll stay for a few runs. See how things turn out,” Chuck said.

  “I’ll stick around,” Snake said.

  “How many of you got runs today?” Barry asked.

  All the drivers raised their hand, except for Jim Carson.

  “What’s the matter, Jim?” Barry asked with a smile. “Your reputation finally catch up with you?”

  Jim grinned. “I figured someone ought to stick around and hold your hand. You been up near the Dirty Side for so long you might not know how to drive nothin’ but a hog truck.”

  The drive
rs laughed and Barry grinned. “I’ll drive circles around you any day, old man,” Barry said.

  “You might,” Jim said. “Seein’ as how me and Big Joe taught you ever’thing you know.”

  Barry waited until the laughter had died down. “Beginning right now, this run, you all go armed. I don’t give a shit what the ICC says about it. You carry a pistol and shotgun with you, in the cab, at all times. You get stopped, I’ll take the heat for it. You tell ’em those are company orders and to call me. I’ll back you up a hundred and ten percent, and you do the same for me.”

  He met each man’s eyes. No one backed down from his steady, hard gaze. “Take off.”

  Barry didn’t trust the phones in his dad’s office, so he told the secretary he’d be gone for about an hour. He drove around for a few minutes, noting the plain sedan following him. He twisted and turned and pulled into a parking garage. On foot, he managed to lose the men following him. He found a quiet phone booth and called his lawyer in D.C., using his credit card.

  “Ralph? Your phone secure?”

  “Wait a sec. It is now. What’s going on, Barry?”

  Barry brought the man up to date; what he knew and what he suspected.

  “Jesus Christ!” the lawyer said. “You’ve stepped into a snake pit down there.”

  “I think so. Look, call the detective agency I use. You know who I’m talking about. Now tape this, Ralph.” He looked at a small notebook and gave the lawyer the names of every driver and employee of Rivers Trucking. “I want them checked out from asshole to elbows and I want it done by Saturday morning—tops. OK?”

  “They can do it. But it’s gonna cost you.”

  “Whatever it takes. Just get it done. I don’t trust the phones at the terminal or my dad’s house, so I’ll call you. Ralph, don’t trust anybody in this thing. And I mean anybody.”

  “Looking back, Barry, it was a little bit easy for you, you know?”

  “Looking back, I agree. Oh, by the way, my CB handle is Dog.”

  “Dog?”

  “Dog.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I’ll be driving a rig come Monday or Tuesday morning. So I might be a little hard to catch up with.”

  Silence on the line for a few seconds. “Barry, you’ve got a million-dollar consulting business. And you’re going to be driving a truck?”

  “I was a truck driver before I was anything else, Ralph.”

  “How wonderful for you.” Ralph’s reply was very dry. “I’m impressed.”

  Barry laughed at the man. “Get cracking, Ralph. I’ll see you on the flip-flop.”

  “On the what?”

  “Talk to you later, Ralph.”

  “The man has already forgotten how to speak English,” Ralph muttered, then hung up.

  When Barry got back to his office, Ted Fabrello was waiting for him.

  8

  The car he’d seen with the four toughs in it was gone. His secretary was behaving very oddly when Barry returned to the terminal. She kept motioning toward his office. Barry nodded in understanding. He had already seen the limo in the visitor’s parking area and the two sedans beside it.

  Barry didn’t figure it was the mayor come to welcome him home personally. “Settle down,” he told the woman.

  “That’s Ted Fabrello in there!” she hissed.

  “Yeah? Well, then, I mustn’t keep him waiting. Not someone that important.”

  Barry pushed open the door to his office and stepped inside. Ted Fabrello was sitting in the chair before his desk, a pair of muscle boys behind him. The muscle boys didn’t worry him. He had learned a long time back that a well-placed bullet was worth several hundred pounds of muscle.

  Like what that Maryland highway cop had told him once, off the record, when asked what he would do if some twohundred-and-eighty-pound ex-NFL tackle were to decide to attack him after being stopped for a traffic violation.

  The highway cop had looked at him and said, “Blow his goddamn head off!”

  Many cops operate under an unofficial motto: I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.

  Barry Rivers and Ted Fabrello looked at each other, silently sizing each other up. Barry thought the mobster was the ugliest bastard he’d ever seen. He had no idea what Fabrello was thinking and really didn’t care.

  “Since you probably think shaking my hand would be repugnant, I won’t offer it,” Fabrello said. His voice was well modulated, his speech free of any accent. It was obvious the man was well educated.

  Barry stuck out his hand. “Oh, I’ll shake your hand, Fabrello.”

  “Mister Fabrello,” one of the apes said.

  Barry smiled at the bodyguard. “Fuck you,” he said sweetly.

  Fabrello laughed until tears squeezed out of his buggy eyes. Wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, he said, “You really are a tough boy, aren’t you, Rivers?”

  “Only when I have to be.” Barry sat down behind his desk and leaned back.

  Fabrello turned his head and spoke to his two guards.

  “Take a hike, both of you. And shut the door on the way out.”

  Barry and Fabrello alone, Fabrello smiled. “Let’s clear the air, Rivers. Then I can get on with my life, and you with yours. Agreed?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good. Beneath your tough-boy exterior, you’re a gentleman. I like that. Now then, I am not interested in your father’s trucking business. I got trucking operations running out my ears. You wanna buy one? Cheap? I’ll sell it. I have never used muscle against your father. I haven’t used muscle against anyone in two years. That’s the truth. This isn’t the 1930s. There are other ways. Somebody has been dropping my name around town. Somebody has been saying that I’m muscling in on your father’s business. I don’t like that. It gives me a bad name. When I find out who is doing it, then I’m going to use muscle. I am going to break both their fucking arms—at the elbows—and both their fucking legs—at the knees. Then I am going to cut their balls off and stuff them in their mouths.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. When he looked up, Barry was smiling at him.

  “You find my words amusing, Rivers?”

  “No. I’m smiling because I think you’re telling the truth.”

  “I am telling the truth. I got the Justice Department breathing down my neck about this trucking thing. And would you believe, for once, I’m innocent!” He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Ain’t that a hell of a note?”

  “Then my father is in real danger, Fabrello. He’s going to have to have round-the-clock protection.”

  “Then he’s got it!” Fabrello said. “How many men you want? Ten—twenty? You name it, you got them. Hey!Blood is thick. I don’t blame you for being hot. If my papa was still alive, some apes lean on him, I’ll kill them. Consider your papa protected. From now on.”

  “All right.” Barry was convinced the New Orleans capo was telling the truth. “And I thank you for that, Mister Fabrello.”

  The man’s face brightened at the “Mister.” “It’s all right. But I ain’t through. We got to talk some more.”

  Barry noticed the man’s educated speech patterns came and went from time to time, as he reverted to the streets. “As long as it takes.”

  “Those two goons you hammered on yesterday … you get a good look at them?”

  “They weren’t your men?”

  “Hell, no! But I own that warehouse right across the street. Some of my people told me about this guy whipping the hell outta two much bigger men. I did some checking, found out it was you.”

  “Well … I tossed their car keys in that garbage can right there.” Barry stood up and pointed. “Would that be of any help?”

  “Might be.” He called for his men and told them to bring the can over and dump it. Find the keys. He looked back at Barry. “New car?”

  “ ’84 or ’85 model, looked like.”

  “Good. If the keys are there, we can trace the key numbers. No sweat. OK, now let’s talk a
bout something else.” He smiled. “You wanna hear something from a capo’s mouth?” He laughed at Barry’s startled expression. “Oh, sure, there are people who’ll tell you the Mafia don’t exist. Same people tell you the moon and tides don’t affect broads neither. This conversation isn’t leaving this office, Mr. Rivers. You and me, we both know that, don’t we?”

  Barry nodded. “Might take you a while, but you’d get me, right, Mr. Fabrello?”

  “You’re a smart man. I like that. I got to deal with a lot of dummies in business. I took a real chance coming to see you; I hope you appreciate that.”

  Again, Barry nodded.

  “You see, Barry … mind if I call you Barry?”

  Barry didn’t mind.

  “Good. I’m Ted. Not Teddy. I hate Teddy. My wife calls me Teddy. I hate my wife, too, but what the hell, you don’t wanna hear about her. I don’t wanna hear about her. You see, Barry, I’m what’s known as middle-Mafia. I’m not the old boys, and I’m not the young turks, neither. The old boys would do anything—anything! Then we kicked them out, took a look around, and said, hey! the old ways don’t get it—you know that I mean. So we backed off … ah, certain projects. I don’t do dope. No dope. Bad business. Big money in it, but the risks are too great. I do women, the waterfront, smuggling, car stripping, liquor, gambling/numbers, I’m big in real estate and banks. That kind of stuff. But no dope. And I don’t fuck with the government. I get audited every year. I’m clean, every year. Last two years, they had to pay me some money. That pissed ’em off, let me tell you.”

  He hitched his chair closer to Barry’s desk. His smile was conspiratorial. “But take a guess who is into dope.”

  “Certain people who work in various capacities for the U.S. government.”

  Fabrello leaned back. “You’re a very smart boy, Barry. So why should I do all the talking? You tell me how you got this scam figured.”

  Barry told him.

  Fabrello nodded. “Right. Big Joe had it figured too, didn’t he?”

  “Part of it. But he thought you were in it actively.”

  “No. I gotta go see that old bastard. ’Scuse my language; didn’t mean nothing by that. So you know what else I’m gonna do? I’m gonna go to the FBI and tell them what I know.”