Bingo Barge Murder (15 page)

Hi eyes narrowed on me. “Christ. Pull that ‘Pop’ stuff on me and you know I can’t say no. I suppose I can call the marker in.”

_____

The starlit darkness of the night pressed in against the windows of the pickup as we waited in the parking lot of Grizzly Terminal & Dock Company. Out of our sight, the Mississippi silently flowed behind a sprawling, half-moon shaped, corrugated-metal Quonset hut. It reminded me of a gigantic, old-fashioned aircraft hangar. Almost as long as a city block, the building had two big rolling doors that faced us with another door on the far left. We couldn’t see the side of the building that faced the water, but I imagined there’d be docks and more big doors, and various pieces of equipment that would be used for loading heavy objects.

My father had gotten a hold of George Unger and successfully conned him into meeting us at the terminal on the southwest edge of the Twin Cities metro area. I had seen George a few times at the Leprechaun when he was playing poker in the back with my father and the other river rats, but that had been years ago, when I was a kid. I vaguely remembered him as a boisterous, friendly man, his face carved with lines from the sun and wind.

He’d instructed my dad to tell us to wait for him in the parking lot, and he’d be on his way after he was finished playing what Dad called another losing hand of five-card stud. George wasn’t known for his luck at much of anything.

The engine ticked as it cooled. Dawg was sandwiched happily between me and Coop, his tummy full of two gas station sausage and pepperoni pizza slices. I absently stroked his floppy ear, and he heaved great sighs every couple of minutes. I was sitting next to a stolen dog and a law-dodger, waiting to talk to the numbers man of a shipping outfit that was known more for what it shouldn’t involve itself in than for what it had. The worst part was the knowledge that the seconds continued their relentless countdown for Eddy’s health and well-being. I hoped, in less than twelve hours, this entire ordeal would be a nightmare ripe for forgetting.

“I need a smoke,” Coop said.

“Outside. You just sucked up at the bar. You have issues, dude.”

Coop flashed his teeth at me and then groaned as headlights shone in the rear-view mirror. “So much for that idea,” he grumbled.

The headlights swept the gravel parking lot as a big, early-nineties Caddy swung around and parked next to us. The lights went out, and we all scrambled from our respective vehicles, except for one suddenly unhappy canine who was getting tired of being left behind.

George looked as I remembered him, with a few years added to a muscular body that was starting to soften around the edges. A comb-over that had seen better days sparsely covered the bald spot on top of his head.

“Little O, been a long time since I laid eyes on you,” George said. “You look good, from what I can see in the dark.”

“Thanks for coming this late, and on such short notice, George,” I said. “This is my friend Nick Cooper.”

The two men shook hands, and George led us toward the front door. Over his shoulder he said, “I was up anyway. And make sure you keep this under your hat. My boss wouldn’t be too happy to hear I was opening up in the middle of the night to pay back a gambling debt. On top of it, there’s been some battles between the terminals around here with one trying to outbid another for shipping jobs, and it’s gotten a might dirty.” What he left unsaid was that Grizzly was probably the dirty-deal maker.

George unlocked the door and flipped a light switch, illuminating a lobby that had seen better days. Three chairs sported torn brown Naugahyde, and the tan linoleum on the floor was dark with ground-in dirt. The air smelled of diesel, grease, stale cigarette smoke, and something unpleasant that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. We followed George down a narrow hall into a postage-stamp-sized office.

The only chair in the room was behind a desk that overflowed with accounting books and various invoices. A bookshelf across from the desk was so loaded with ledgers and three-ring binders that the shelves were permanently bowed.

George settled himself in the chair and we explained what we were hunting for, along with the story of our hard-luck friend. He plucked an olive-colored register from beneath a stack of papers, tugged a pair of reading glasses from a shirt pocket, and perched them on his nose. It always amazed me how unorganized people had a way of knowing exactly where things are in their piles of chaos.

“One day I’ll get me a secretary,” George muttered as he flipped to the page he wanted. He ran a thick finger down hastily scrawled entries, mumbling to himself. “Ah. Here’s a load of perishables that came in yesterday. Almonds,” he read.

Be still my beating heart.

“Who’s shipping them?” Coop asked.

“Says here Riley Derby Inc. out of Brooklyn Park.” George squinted up over his glasses at us. “Is that what you want to know?”

“Yeah.” I said, nodding, as I tried to repress an ecstatic shout. After all the crap we’d been through, we actually managed to hit some real pay dirt. “When are they supposed to ship?”

George peered through his lenses at the page. “Saturday—tomorrow, or actually I guess that would be today.” He paused to frown down at what was most likely a fake Rolex strapped to his wrist. A real one would have been fenced long ago to support his poker-playing lifestyle. “At 8:45 pm.”

Yes! That was it. The nuts were within our grasp.

Coop said, excitement evident in his voice, “Where exactly are they stored?”

This time George studied us over his wire rims with a distinct frown creasing his forehead. “Why would you want to know that?”

Coop’s mouth snapped shut. It was apparent we’d squeezed as much as we were going to get out of the good Mr. Unger, and if we pushed for any more, he was going to start demanding more answers than we were prepared to give.

I said, “Nevermind Coop. He’s got a curiosity streak a mile long. We appreciate the information you’ve given us.”

George slid the glasses off his face and returned them to his pocket. “You tell old Pete the debt’s been paid, and I’ll see him next Tuesday night.”

“I will certainly do that,” I said as we followed George out to the lobby and into the dark parking lot. He dug a ring of car keys from his jacket and fished around the pocket again, withdrawing another, smaller set that he used to lock the door.

“Thanks again for coming out here tonight,” I said as the gravel covering the parking lot crunched beneath our shoes. “I know it’s late.” I stepped over one of many ruts in the ground, and my foot caught the edge and came down sideways. I stumbled into George.

“Easy there, Little O!” He quickly reached out to help me right myself as Coop grabbed for my other arm. “This damn lot is a mud puddle when it rains and then it dries uneven, and the company’s too cheap to have it graded. One day someone’s going to kill themselves and there ain’t going to be no more Grizzly, mark my words.”

“Thanks for everything, George,” I said as I limped to the pickup.

“Next time make it a little earlier, will ya? I have a game to be at. See ya.” George called as he crawled into his car and started it. With a wave he wheeled out of the lot.

Dawg’s face was pressed against the driver’s side window, his wet nose leaving streaks on the glass. His whole body wiggled with excitement as the door opened. Coop pulled the seatbelt across his chest and buckled it as I attempted to do the same, trying to nudge giant dog paws out of the way.

“What now?” he asked.

I grinned at him. “You’ll see.” I pulled out of the parking lot and watched the taillights of George’s car fade in the distance. About two hundred yards down the road, I pulled into an abandoned gas station. I circled the weed-covered building, came to a stop, and flipped the lights off.

“What are you doing?” Coop asked as he strained to see over Dawg, who had decided to perch on his lap and was beginning to pant.

“We’re going to make sure the coast is clear, and then we’re going back and finding those nuts.”

“Come on, the place is locked up tight as a drum.”

“Have lock, find key.” I held up the key ring George had used to lock the door.

“Where did you—oh. You’re bad.”

“Hand in, hand out. You know, I never realized it was so easy to pickpocket someone. Maybe we can take that vocation up if this falls through and we have to flee to Mexico.”

“What if he comes back?”

“That’s why we’re waiting. I figure if he doesn’t show up within an hour, we’re safe to go.”

For the next forty-five minutes, we alternated walking Dawg up and down a dense row of trees between the gas station and Grizzly. Between hikes, Coop stood outside the truck and smoked, and I impatiently drummed my fingertips on the steering wheel. I snuck a peek at my watch. 2:33 am. Exhaustion and adrenaline clashed inside my body. If this was what it was like to be James Bond, I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of it.

“Okay,” I called out the open window. “Let’s go see what we can find.”

Coop stubbed out his cigarette and herded Dawg into the cab. Once everyone was settled, I cranked the engine and zipped back into the Grizzly lot. I parked in a spot close to some trees and mostly out of sight of the road. We cracked the windows for Dawg, who hung his head as we piled out. Coop gave the mutt a reassuring pat before he closed his door.

We made a beeline for the front door, every step sounding like an explosion in the still night. Wispy clouds partially obscured the moon, making the long building appear even darker and more sinister than before.

I fumbled with the keys while Coop kept watch, and as my patience faded, the correct one slid smoothly into the lock. We slipped inside. Coop closed and locked the door behind us.

I flicked on my flashlight and we headed down the hall, past George’s cubbyhole and a couple of other offices. The last door at the end of the hall was closed. As Coop twisted the knob, I said a silent prayer, which someone must have heard, because the door swung open. The beam of my flashlight was dim against the pressing darkness of the surrounding space.
Groundhog Day
, take three.

I swung the light around. It reflected off a number of cargo containers, the kind that can be loaded onto the trailer of a semi or onto railroad cars. They were stacked one atop another in a rusty rainbow of yellows, reds, blues, blacks, and silvers.

Coop stepped through the door and played his own flashlight over the metal crates. “No names on these things, just numbers.” He indicated a series of digits painted in white on the side of the container. “There’s three, six, nine containers here … let’s see how far down they go.”

I followed Coop over to the wall, where a narrow aisle ran between the stacked containers and the corrugated metal siding of the building. We both shone our flashlights down the aisle, and the beams of light were swallowed up by the darkness long before they reached the other end.

I walked past the first mountain of containers. I trudged on for the first three rows, and had a rapidly sinking feeling in my gut. Coop said, “There’s got to be a hundred of these things in here. How the hell are we going to figure out which one the nuts are in?”

A ball of desperation clogged my throat, and I swallowed hard. “Maybe the numbers on the containers are linked to that log George had.”

Coop grimaced. “That’s a lot of numbers.”

“You have a better idea?”

“No.”

We retreated to George’s office. He’d left the shipping log he’d used on the top of the mess on his desk. Coop sat down, and I hovered over his shoulder as he opened the big book and flipped to the last of the entries. The final page showed five different shipments, and they all appeared to be outgoing. Coop’s finger ran down to the Riley Derby entry.

“I think it’s the right one. Product to be shipped is almonds from California.” Coop’s finger slid along the page. “They’re being transferred in Louisiana to an unnamed shipper. There’s letters and numbers after the date. AFIF4101376. Maybe that’s the container number.”

We jotted the number down, me on my hand and Coop on a Post-It. In my mind, Eddy’s voice haunted me yet again, chastising me for writing on my skin, and I shivered. She was forever trying to break me of the habit, and the memory choked me up. I shook off the fear and emotion, turning my attention to our next move.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Coop said. He somehow gained strength from each quandary we’d gotten ourselves in and out of during this never-ending night. “We’ll each walk alternating rows. If we don’t find it the first time, we’ll do it again.” He stared at me, a fierce gleam in his eyes, the kind of gleam he had when he talked about the latest adventure the Green Beans had embarked on. “Shay, we are going to succeed.”

“I know.” My voice was much more sure than my heart.

We tramped back out to the cavernous room. Coop took the first row of containers. I took the next. For the next ten minutes, we weaved in a complex dance around each other, flashlight beams bouncing wildly off metal and the rounded interior of the building.

A knot was growing in my stomach, bigger with every non-match my flashlight uncovered. I lost track of how many containers I checked. I plodded past the row Coop was scrutinizing. We were almost to the end of the building. Choking back a frustrated growl, I turned the corner to survey the next stack of rusted metal boxes. When I reached the last set of containers, the space opened into an area the size of a basketball court.