Chill Factor (9 page)

Dixie propped the invitation near the phone, and shed her clothes on her way to the bathroom. Outside again, dressed in shorts and running shoes, she played twenty minutes of hard Frisbee with Mud, while a frozen pizza baked in the oven. When Parker’s phone call came, she was draped over her favorite club chair watching a rerun of
The Rockford Files
and scanning through a stack of last week’s newspapers for coverage on the first Granny Bandit robbery.

“Saw you on television,” Parker told her.

“Can’t believe they’re still running that same footage. Barred from the secured area, the photographer shot the first person
who looked miserable.” Dixie heard dishes rattle. “What are you cooking?”

“Swordish, angel-hair pasta. Guess you’re totally convinced it was Edna, huh?”

“I wasn’t at first. But yeah, it was her.”
Swordfish for one?
Parker never resorted to frozen pizza, but Dixie couldn’t help wondering who might be dropping by to share one of his delectable dinners. “You talk as if you’d met Edna.”

“Borrowed some spices once. Visited with her a couple times after that.”

No big surprise. Parker met people easily, wherever he went. And he’d lived at Dixie’s house during January and February, about the time Edna metamorphosed and decided to change her will.

“How was she when you last saw her?” Dixie asked.

“Busy. Cheerful. Thought maybe she and her boyfriend—”

“Boyfriend?” Maybe Belle was right. “Did you meet him? Get his name?”

“Saw him only once, and no, I didn’t meet him—and before you ask, he was about forty-five years old, maybe five-ten or -eleven. Wore a topcoat—I couldn’t see his clothes. Gray hair and good shoes.”

“Parker, Edna was in her sixties. Are you sure this guy wasn’t a tad older?”

“Younger, if anything. But then, I’d have guessed Edna at fifty-eight, tops. I usually peg people better than that. Guess age is in the attitude. She worked out every day and watched her diet—shared a great chef’s salad with me once.”

Parker’s description didn’t it the Edna whose ritual Sunday dinner had been Southern fried chicken and lumpy cream gravy, whose grilled burgers turned out raw inside and black around the edges. Her peanut-butter cookies were tops, but loaded with butterfat. People did change, though, especially after losing a spouse.

When Dixie’s thoughts caused a brief silence, Parker said, “You’re going to snoop around in this robbery thing, aren’t you?”

His voice held only a hint of disapproval.

“The cops won’t appreciate a nosy bounty hunter getting
involved. They’d probably think I was scrounging around for the missing money—like every other treasure hunter in town.”

“Your two families, the Pines and the Flannigans, were close when you were growing up, according to Edna.”

“Her son Marty and I went to school together. What are you getting at?”

“One thing I know about you, Dixie, is you don’t turn away from people you care about. I liked Edna. Anything I can do to help, just tell me.”

“Three months ago you would’ve tried to convince me
not
to get involved.”

“Might as well reason with a stone.”

Was that an edge in his voice?
“Sounds like you’ve given up on me.”

“I’ve finally figured you out—you call yourself a bounty hunter, but you’re really a paladin. Heroic champion, righter of wrongs—”

“That was Richard Boone in the old TV western. Do I look like Richard Boone?”

“—warrior against injustice—especially when an injustice is done to someone you’re close to. Have you ever let me talk you out of anything before?”

“Not when it’s something I have to do, but—”

“This time I won’t try.”

When they ended the conversation a moment later—to the sizzle of baked swordfish in the background—Dixie had the miserable feeling she’d sacrificed a once-in-a-lifetime relationship merely to preserve her stubborn independence.

She glanced down at the newspaper she held, folded to a short piece about the first holdup at Texas Citizens Bank in northwest Houston, and read the bank robber’s description:
five-three to five-eight, medium build or thin, thirty-five to fifty-five years old, brown hair, wearing a pink or green dress.
Apparently, the witnesses disagreed on almost every point. Typical. Even discounting the age difference, though, the brown hair didn’t sound like Edna. And the morning
Chronicle
had described Lucy Aaron Ames, the woman responsible for the robbery yesterday in Webster, as
a petite, fifty-five-year-old, blond grandmother.

A third woman would account for the missing loot in the second two robberies. Lucy Ames and Aunt Edna could’ve handed the bags off to the third woman before the police caught up with them.

In the obituary section, Lucy Ames’ funeral was listed for the following day. The police would be there, no doubt. And if Dixie wanted to find out how Aunt Edna and Lucy Ames cooked up the idea of becoming kamikaze bank robbers, that’d be the place to start.

She considered calling Parker back and asking if he’d like to go along. He
had
offered to help. Before his move to Galveston, he’d once suggested they team up and form an investigations firm to search for missing kids. Dixie had nixed the idea, knowing he’d suggested it only as a means of protecting her. Besides, she had no interest in acquiring an investigator’s license and all the accompanying regulations, and she preferred to work alone.

For that same reason, she didn’t call him back, but she did note the time and location of Lucy Ames’ funeral.

At the outskirts of northeast Houston, a defunct dance studio presents to passersby a dark and silent front. Plywood sheets batten the doors and windows. Tonight, the fifty-gauge chain that usually blocked the driveway lay heaped on the asphalt as Philip Laskey drove around to the rear.

Security and acoustics had been upgraded in the old building, but otherwise very little construction proved necessary to convert the studio to an excellent training, meeting, and operations facility. Inside, greeted by a familiar medley of male voices and the pungent odor of cordite and warm bodies, Philip lifted a folding chair from a rack along the wall of what had originally been the ballroom. He straddled the chair at a table beside two of his friends.

Nelson Dodge tipped his chair back and leaned against the wall.

“Ho, Philip.” Nelson’s voice, as smooth and rich as his mocha-brown skin, came almost as a whisper. He had the solid physique, steady moves, and self-confident attitude that marked a black-belt winner. Tonight, only a glitter in his dark eyes revealed any excitement.

But Rudy Martinez, lighter and quicker in both build and temperament—and a crack shot with an M40—jiggled one leg up and down beneath the table.

“So, what d’ya think?” Martinez swept a glance past Philip to the rear entrance. His pink tongue flicked over a meaty lower lip. “Think we’ll get some action tonight?”

The two men were dressed much like Philip and the other twenty-seven in the room, in casual blue shirts, khaki pants, and light jackets. Everyone wore the blue, red, and gold lapel pin.

Surprised to be one of the last to arrive, Philip checked his watch against the big round clock over the old bandstand. His was three and a half minutes slow. Tomorrow, he’d buy a new battery. For now, he reset the time.

“Action?” Philip sat down. “What kind of action?”

“Hell, man, any kind.” Rudy’s fingers drummed the table-top, marking cadence with his jiggling leg. “What’s the use of all this training if we don’t use it? Use it or lose it, man.”

“We use what we need,” Nelson told him. “When we need it.”

“Yeah, well. Looks of what’s coming down in this town, man, cops wasting little old ladies, we need it
now.”

Philip reached over and put a finger on Rudy’s knee to still the jiggling. “We’ll go into action when the Colonel says. Meanwhile, work off some of that energy tonight in the training room.”

“Shit, man—”

“And clean up your language.” Philip gripped Rudy’s knee between his thumb and fingers and pinched the nerves behind the kneecap. “The People don’t use obscenities.”

“Yeah, hey! I get the message.”

Philip released Rudy’s knee but not his gaze.
“Lose
the rough language.”

“Okay, man, but don’t handle me. I get that kind of shi—
treatment
enough at home. You touch, Laskey, I touch
harder.”

Philip slowly turned his gaze to Nelson. “You think Colonel Jay called this meeting because of today’s shooting?”

“I think he don’t like cops killing senior citizens. Not much else happening to rile him up, make him call a special meeting.” At twenty-three, Nelson had been one of The People for nearly a year, longer than any of them.

“You want a drink?” Rudy asked. “I need a drink.” He
sprang from his chair and headed for an Ozarka dispenser at the side of the room, where several of The People stood talking.

Philip glanced at the raised platform where gray-haired gentlemen had once played big-band music. Now the stage held a single lectern wired for sound, lights, and audiovisual presentation. Behind the lectern, The People’s triangular symbol emblazoned a wall as blue as the background of stars in the American flag posted at the left of the platform.

Above the bandstand, the clock said two minutes before eight. Philip could feel the tension rising in the room as the time neared for the Colonel’s arrival.

When the outer door opened, the men closest to the entrance stood. The scrape of chairs and the shuffle of feet accompanied a low murmur as others rose. Philip slid his chair back and strode to the front of the room. A jumble of hearty greetings floated forward.

The Colonel shook outstretched hands on his way to the bandstand. When he reached the lectern, all noise ceased. Every man and boy in the room stood at attention.

“Good evening, gentlemen.” Colonel Jay flashed his broad, soul-warming smile. “I believe you have the lead, Mr. Laskey.”

Philip stepped one pace forward and turned to face the flag.

“We The People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense …”

The room filled with the voices of thirty-one ardent seekers of a perfect world. Like others in the room, Philip had memorized the Preamble to the Constitution in grade school, but had never really listened to the words until he said them in this room, among this congregation. He no longer noticed the two words that were changed.

“… promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do uphold and defend the Constitution for the United States of America.”

Beneath the voices, “America the Beautiful” played so softly it could be heard only when the recitation ended.

“At ease, gentlemen.”

He looks different tonight.
Philip took his seat among the others.
His eyes burn like coals.

The Colonel had a trim, compact strength, like Philip’s own, and they stood exactly the same height, five-ten and a half. But no one ever guessed Colonel Jay at less than six feet.

His naturally strong voice sounded fuller tonight—or maybe it was only Philip’s expectations for the evening. If so, his wasn’t the only body keen with anticipation. The room hummed as if thirty hearts beat in unison. As the Colonel began to speak, Philip’s palms felt cool, his body wired.

“We stand at the brink of a new world, just as surely as this nation did when those precious words were penned. We have a mission.” The Colonel paused, using silence the way he used his voice—as a magnet, drawing his listeners in. “Our first business of the night, however, is to welcome a new soul.”

Nelson had silently taken a position near the corner of the bandstand. At Colonel Jay’s nod, he mounted the short staircase.

“Recruit! Step forward,” the Colonel commanded.

A boy of about fifteen stepped up beside him.

“Do you desire to be one with The People?” the Colonel asked softly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Who sponsors this recruit?”

“Nelson Dodge, sir,” Nelson said.

“Has this recruit completed orientation training?”

“He has, sir.”

“Has this recruit been evaluated by the Committee?”

“He has, sir.”

“The recruit’s name?”

“Wynn Cronin, sir.”

Colonel Jay turned the full power of his gaze upon the boy, and Philip sucked in a breath, recalling the first time he’d felt the ferocity of the Colonel’s eyes burning into his own. For an instant, he’d believed his soul was on fire. That night had been the most exhilarating of Philip’s life.

Quietly, the Colonel said, “Repeat after me.” Then he paused, and his audience held its breath. “With my soul I pledge commitment to the rights of The People …”

The boy’s voice echoed the words.

“… and eradication of any who, singly or in collusion, would violate those rights.”

As Cronin repeated the phrase, Nelson moved forward with a small wooden box. The Colonel lifted out a fourteen-karat gold-and-enamel lapel pin. He fastened it to the boy’s jacket.

“Be one with The People, Wynn Cronin.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The room filled with applause, then a shuffle of footsteps, as the assembly formed two lines, perpendicular to the stage.

“Do you trust in The People, Wynn Cronin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stand at the edge of the stage.”

The boy walked hesitantly to the edge and looked down at the double line of men, his eyes troubled. Philip knew what he was wondering now:
Was this to be some sort of hazing ritual? Would he be expected to endure pain?

The recruit didn’t have much to worry about now. Discipline would begin later.

Nelson tied a blindfold around the boy’s eyes.

“Turn around,” the Colonel commanded.

Tentatively, testing the edge of the stage with his foot, the boy turned to stand with his back to the men below.

“You have pledged your soul to The People, Wynn Cronin. Do you also trust them with your life?”