Bad To The Bone (33 page)

"Like she didn't go through everything you
owned the minute you weren't around? You bonehead."

He stared at his feet. "She told me she knew
some people who could unload the bump for me. I said I'd give her
part of the profit if she'd help me sell it. I can't do it on my
own. I can't go back to Florida, and I don't know anyone in North
Carolina. I couldn't take the chance of selling to strangers." He
looked at me accusingly. "You wouldn't help me. What was I supposed
to do?"

"That's right," I agreed. "It's all my
fault."

He missed my sarcasm. "She seemed to know
what she was talking about," he said. "I thought she could help me
sell it."

"Believe me, she does know what she's
talking about. She's on a first-name basis with every scumbag
within the state lines. Is that why you're here? To sell the
stuff?"

He nodded and gulped from his beer. "I'm
supposed to meet her here and then we're going to take the last
kilo and unload it in Lumberton. We'll split the difference. Then
she goes her way and I go mine."

"Don't insult my intelligence, Jeff," I said
patiently. "You think you're going to ride off with her into the
sunset, don't you? Come on. Give it up. She's the queen of blow
jobs. Think I don't know that? But what you don't know is that it's
all part of setting you up. She killed that man in Raleigh, and she
is going to blame it on you if it doesn't work to blame it on her
husband. Can't you see what she's really like? How did she explain
those blackmail photos to you? The ones you stole from her
safe?"

He got angry. "Her husband was having her
followed by some sleazy detective and I was just stealing the
photos back for her."

“Take it from this sleazy detective, it's
not often I get an assignment where the cheating spouse is screwing
two dozen different people. Didn't that seem a bit odd to you?"

"What's wrong with being open about your
sexuality?" He sounded prim, like some phony radio shrink.

“Tawny isn't just open about her sexuality,
she never closes. She's the Circle K of sex." I sighed. "Were you
the one who called a woman named Francine and demanded more
blackmail money?"

"That wasn't blackmail," he protested
angrily. "She owed Tawny a commission on some property. It was
money rightfully earned."

"Oh, Jeff." I shook my head again, amazed at
his gullibility. "When are you supposed to see her next?"

"We're meeting tomorrow. Here."

"What's going down at the bank?"

He stared at me blankly.

"She talked about letting something clear at
the bank. Are you stealing checks with her? Has she gotten you
involved in that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he
said sullenly. He drained the rest of his beer and crumpled the
can, then tossed it toward the trash. He missed. It hit the TV
stand with a clank and rolled across the carpet.

I let my last question go. I'd find out soon
enough. "Are you the one who told her I was in Tampa?"

He stared at his bare feet. They were filthy
and callused. "I didn't even know you were there, until I called
home a couple days ago. You scared the shit out of my mom. Thanks a
lot."

"Good. She needs scaring." I scrutinized his
face, trying to decide if he was telling the truth or lying to me.
"So you never called Tawny when she was staying underground?"

"I didn't say that," he admitted. "She
called me and gave me her number. I tried to call back a couple of
times, you know, to make sure she was okay. But she was never
there."

"You never talked to her once while she was
in hiding?"

"Only the one time she called me and gave me
her number."

"When's the last time you talked to her at
all?" I asked.

He looked uncomfortable. "She called Mom
yesterday and asked how to get in touch with me. Mom gave her my
number here at the motel. Then Tawny called me and told me to wait
here for her."

I wondered if that had been before or after
we left Clarissa's house. I also wondered why Jeff would not admit
he'd talked to Tawny just a couple of hours ago. But I didn't have
enough time to beat the truth out of him. It would have to
wait.

"Where are the drugs?" I asked.

"Why?" He started to get up, changed his
mind, and sat back down.

"Jeff," I explained. "Listen to me very
closely. You may think this woman is your friend. You may think
you're going to sell your coke and ride off with her, or her on
you, or whatever, for a happy life in California. But you are being
set up, my friend. She's using you to take the fall in case the
cops nab her."

"What are you talking about? It's not her
fault her husband blew her boyfriend away."

I shook my head. "Your brain cells are
blown. Think about it. How many hints did she drop to you about her
boyfriend? Come on, tell me the truth. She probably said Boomer
Cockshutt abused her, threatened her, was harming her kid. Just
like her husband did. Didn't she?"

Jeff looked away. "People get stuck in
patterns," he mumbled.

"Jeff, she was trying to get you to kill
Cockshutt," I explained. "And when you didn't take the bait, she
went to Plan B and killed him herself." I paused. "At least I hope
she did. Please tell me you didn't kill him, Jeff."

"No way!" He shot up from the bed and began
to pace the room. "I'm scared of guns, Casey. You know that."

What I knew was that he didn't have the
balls to kill anyone. He was either too doped up—or too lazy—to
hold a grudge.

"Sit down," I said.

He sat. "Why would she want to kill her
boyfriend, anyway?" he asked. "All she had to do was walk away from
him."

That was a good question. I didn't have an
answer for it. I wondered if I ever would.

"Just give me the coke," I said patiently.
"Or I'll tear this place apart looking for it."

"Why should I give you anything?"

"Because if you don't, those two junior
goombahs sitting half a mile away will come over here and get
what's left for themselves. They aren't going to be happy you
gambled away or spent the rest of their product and they'll
probably blow your brains out. What little you have. That's
why."

"They don't know where I am."

"Guess again. Give me the coke. Now. And
then I'm going to drop you off on I-95. You can hitchhike back to
Raleigh. Meet me in my office in a couple of days. I'll help you
get away and start over someplace else."

"They'll find me," he said. "There's no
place I can go."

"They won't find you," I promised. "Leave it
to me."

"What do you mean, you'll drop me off on
I-95?"

"I'm taking your car. Now get dressed and
let's go."

In the end, he dragged a sorry-looking brick
of coke out from beneath the bed, stuffed it in a plastic bag and
handed it to me. While he dressed, I wiped all fingerprints from
the thick film wrapped around the kilo and dropped it back into the
plastic bag. God, how I hated that shit. How many people's lives
would be ruined by it? I wasn't talking about the junkies, either,
I'd long since ceased to care about their sorry asses. I was
talking about their parents, children, lovers, sisters, brothers.
Everyone paid the price but the loser who was stuffing it up his or
her nose. Well, this was one kilo going nowhere but straight to the
evidence locker if I had anything to do with it.

Jeff came out of the bathroom, shaved,
dressed and looking enough like a human to give him a chance of
hitching a ride along I-95.

He didn't say a word the entire time it took
for me to drive him to the entrance ramp. The two men were gone
from the diner. I made Jeff crouch in the backseat anyway.

"She was going to set you up," I said again
as he got out of the car.

He slammed the door in reply.

When I got back to his motel room, I sat for
a few moments, trying to think of a way to make what I was about to
try less dangerous. The best I could do was let someone else know
where I was—in case it all went bad. I didn't want to leave a trail
on Jeff's motel phone, so I pulled out the cellular and called Bill
Butler's apartment. His answering machine picked up. I hung up,
pressed the redial button, and tried again. Still the machine. I
redialed one more time without success, and finally gave up. If he
hadn't stumbled from bed yet, the guy was either busy or deep in
dreamland. My money was on dreamland. I'd done enough damage to
keep him celibate for the next three years.

There was no point in calling Burly. He was
my boyfriend, not a police officer. All he'd be able to do was
worry. I needed someone who could act.

The thing was, I was a little low on friends
in the department. That's the trouble with a love-'em-and-leave-'em
policy—it makes it tough to find a partner when the time comes to
dance. My one other sure contact was on a leave of absence, and she
wouldn't be back for months. In the end, I called Bill again and
left a garbled message about what I was about to do.

I thought about not going through with my
plan, but thinking about holding back is as far as I ever go when
it comes to holding back. Besides, I had to bring the cops into
this, not for the dealers but for Tawny. It was the only way to
make sure she was kept in custody while I tracked down evidence
that she killed Cockshutt. I knew the cops would never arrest her
on an out-of-state misdemeanor warrant. But they would if they
found her sitting around a motel room with a bunch of big-time drug
dealers—and a kilo of cocaine on the premises. All I had to do was
get Tawny and the dealers together, then make a call.

The dangerous part was getting away after
getting them together.

I hid Jeff’s car behind the abandoned
building I'd seen earlier and hiked to our meeting place.

Both men were sitting with their backs to
the front door of the Red Burro bar, seemingly unconcerned about
anything but the highballs in front of them.

"Right on time," Number One said. "Like a
good little girl."

"I'm in trouble." I leaned in close,
brushing his elbow. "Jeff double-crossed me. He was planning to
dump me all along. He just used me to hold the stuff for a while.
He took off with some other woman a few minutes ago."

The first man picked up his drink and took a
sip. "That's a pretty lousy cover story," he said.

"It's not a cover story."
I sat next to him and looked scared. We were the only people in
the
Red Burro
except for a hefty woman who was wiping down the far end of
the counter, and a group of bored men watching late night
television from a table. Probably golfers headed for Myrtle
Beach.

"I thought you were smarter than that,"
Number One said. “Try again."

"It's the truth!" I did my best to sound
close to tears. "She's crazy. I know her from Tampa. She chased me
down a few nights ago in a white Corvette. She was firing a gun out
the window like a maniac. Blew some bystander off the road."

"Hey," the second guy said, excited. "She's
telling the truth. We ought to—"

"Shut up, Denny," Number One ordered.

I flung the plastic bag that held the kilo
onto the bar. It hit the surface with a clunk. "I grabbed this from
them and ran."

"Jesus Christ." Number One swiveled his body
away from the package like it was a bomb.

"I was able to get part of it out of his
duffel bag while he was in the bathroom. He'll kill me when he
finds out," I whispered. "And she'll help."

"Get that fucking thing off the bar," Number
One said.

I stashed it back in my knapsack and acted
eager to help. "Look, I know what car she's driving now," I
offered. "I saw her in it a few minutes ago, driving by. It's a
Saturn and I got the license plate number. I bet she stole it for
him. He called her when he thought I was in the bathroom. They're
meeting tonight. He said he could be at her room in twenty minutes
so she must be staying nearby."

I knew Tawny had to be staying close enough
to meet Jeff in the morning, but I didn't know where. I had to get
these guys to help me find her.

"Be where in twenty minutes?" Number One
sounded monumentally bored. But his eyes slid to the knapsack at my
feet and I knew I had him.

"I don't know. We can find out by cruising
around. You have to help me. When Jeff finds out I took some of his
stash, he's going to kill me."

Denny snorted, like the idea of Jeff Jones
killing anyone was absurd.

"It's not funny," I protested. "I brought
part of what he stole back to you, in good faith. You owe me the
chance to prove it wasn't my idea to rip you off."

"We don't have to do anything so far as
you're concerned," Number One said. He stood up. "Let's go."

I'd hope to trail them out the door so I
could orchestrate a fade after giving them Tawny's license plate
number, but it was no go. Denny hopped off his stool and sandwiched
me in. I had no choice but to follow the leader out.

Number One opened the backseat of the sedan.
"Get in."

"What do you need me for? I'll give you the
license plate number. You can take it from there."

"Get in," he repeated, and though his
inflection barely changed, the command made my throat go dry. The
guy wasn't scary because he sounded angry or pissed, he was scary
because he sounded like he didn't care at all.

I slid into the car. It smelled like
leather. New seats. Luxury interior. It wasn't the same car Bill
Butler had drilled with bullets. But it probably held the same guns
they returned fire with, I thought nervously.

Neither man considered me a threat. They let
me keep my knapsack and didn't bother to search me. They just
climbed in the front, acting bored.

"Let's see it again," Number One said.

I pulled the plastic bag from my knapsack
and slid the kilo out onto the front seat between them.