Drag Strip (6 page)

“Pardon me if I don't stay and keep you company while you eat, Fluff. I've gotta have coffee or die.” Fluffy didn't seem interested. “I'll be at Raydean's if you need me,” I said. Fluffy smiled her chihuahua grin and kept on eating.

My across-the-street neighbor, Raydean, would have coffee. It would come at a price, but she would have it and be glad to offer it to me. That is, if she was in her right mind and the aliens weren't dropping in on her. Raydean is not exactly your typical retiree living on a fixed income. You can tell this at a glance just by approaching her house. It is the only trailer in the park that the fearless trailer-park children are afraid to approach.

The trailer itself is innocuous enough, but the yard surrounding it is a maze of birdbaths and statuary, tropical plants and cacti, all carefully rigged with booby traps designed to ensnare and torment the unsuspecting visitor. The few people she allows near enough to enter her compound know to avoid the third segment of her walkway, to duck as they approach the steps, and to knock at the door three short raps instead of ringing the doorbell, because it is electrified. And all of us know, at all costs, that we must never make reference to the Flemish, because if Raydean has not been to the mental health center to get her monthly shot of Prolixin, then she will be certain that the Flemish are alien beings plotting the takeover of the world.

Most of us do not find out about Raydean the easy way. We wake up to the sounds of yelling and gunshot and believe that we are indeed under siege, only to find that it is Raydean and she is off her medication. However, the rest of the month, when Raydean is calm, you will never meet a nicer, more giving woman. Many's the time Raydean has intervened for the better in my life. You just need to be able to work around the peculiar with Raydean.

I walked across the road in my purple chenille bathrobe and feathered high-heeled bedroom slippers, carefully avoiding the third segment of pavement and ducking as I started up the trailer steps. The curtains in Raydean's bay window twitched as she moved from her lookout post to the kitchen door.

“Who's there?” she called in a husky voice. She knew full well who it was, but it always paid to be careful in Raydean's world.

“I come in peace,” I answered, saying the phrase Raydean had carefully instructed me to repeat.

“How will I know?” she asked cryptically, waiting for the next phrase in our crazed ritual.

“I have only love in my heart,” I answered. You lie, I thought, but it was Raydean's rules or no coffee.

Slowly Raydean undid the multitude of locks that stood between her and alien takeover. At last the door cracked and Raydean's wrinkled face broke into a grin.

“Well, it is you!” she said. The door was thrown open and Raydean stood back, waiting for me to walk in, paying no attention to the fact that it was almost noon and I was still in my bathrobe. She stood in her faded pink housedress, with her gray hair in bright pink curlers and her knee-high hose rolled carefully down around her ankles.

“Going somewhere?” I asked, pointing to the curlers.

“Safety precaution,” she said and moved toward the kitchen. “Want some coffee? I just brewed a pot.” Raydean was addicted to caffeine and Moon Pies.

“Thanks. That'd be nice.”

Raydean moved across the room toward the coffeepot, stopping to move her shotgun from its place on the kitchen table to a spot near the counter. Raydean was well armed. She kept at least one gun in sight in every room and I suspected there were many more I didn't know about.

Raydean poured the coffee and headed back toward the table.

“You had an intruder last evening,” she said, calmly placing the mug in front of me. “He entered your home at one twenty-seven
A.M.
and exited at two-fifteen
A.M.
”

“Why didn't you warn me?” I asked. John Nailor was lucky to be alive.

Raydean giggled. “I was pondering that when I noticed it was that cute boy you introduced me to when I was over at your house playing cards. I figured he was a welcome intruder.”

“He was not!”

Raydean fixed her bird eyes on my face and looked sad. “Have I done wrong?” she said, her voice childlike. I had hurt her feelings.

“No, Raydean, I'm sorry. It's all right. I'm just confused.”

“I know what that's like,” she muttered.

“There was trouble at the racetrack last night,” I said. With Raydean I never like to venture too far into an explanation. I'm never sure what will set her off.

“Trouble in paradise,” she sighed. “Ain't it just the way?” She was shaking her head and staring at the chair beside her. The morning paper lay there, so Raydean probably knew all about it.

“Did you read about it?” I asked.

“Honey, I don't have to read the paper to know racing's bad news. Got a nephew who's made a fool of himself over that stuff. Calls himself the King of Dirt.” Raydean looked disgusted and I felt a chill go up to the back of my spine. “His wife's said if he don't quit fooling around with cars and women, she's gonna leave.” Raydean smiled. “Of course, if you ask me and his mama, that'd be for the best. His wife's a slut and he'd be well rid of her.”

“I ran into him last night,” I began.

Raydean looked at me and laughed. “Don't surprise me at all. A half-naked woman on a racetrack? Roy Dell'd sniff you out like a coon dog. But don't worry,” she said, catching my frown, “he's harmless.”

I was all set to debate harmless, but from across the street, I could hear Fluffy barking. Raydean hopped up and ran to her spot by the window, shotgun in hand.

“All right,” she snapped, “I'm warning you. You got company and he don't look familiar.” Raydean stiffened. “Don't be fooled by the facial hair,” she said, “they got transmitters encapsulated in almost anything. Technology is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.”

It was getting close to Prolixin time, I could tell. I couldn't figure out what she meant until I wandered up and peaked through the bay window curtains. Detective Wheeling was standing on my back stoop, repeatedly ringing my doorbell.

What happened next was not exactly my fault. Could I have stopped it? The case could be made either way. I went out onto Raydean's stoop, still holding the mug of coffee she'd given me, and yelled. Detective Wheeling turned around, saw me, and quickly headed in my direction.

“Wait,” I said, “I'll be right over.” But he either didn't hear me or didn't think I meant what I said, because he kept coming. Fluffy had emerged from her doggie door and was following him, yipping at his heels and causing him to walk in a broken-step weave.

I started down the stairs and hit the walkway at the same time he stepped onto Raydean's booby-trapped section of lawn. Fluffy, who knew what would happen next, turned around and ran for the safety of her own yard. Detective Wheeling was not quite so fortunate. The sprinkler system turned on and completely drenched him.

This was perhaps the new low point in my relationship with the police department. Not so much because my neighbor's sprinkler system had watered Detective Wheeling down, but because I saw the situation as funny and started to laugh.

I cut a wide path around him and continued on my way to my trailer.

“If you want to dry off,” I said, looking back over my shoulder, “I've got a towel.”

He had two alternatives. He could leave and drive off sopping wet, or he could come inside. I could feel him warring with himself. He was mad as hell, but he was the type who hates to mess up a vehicle. I hadn't opened the kitchen door when I felt him start up the stairs behind me.

“So I thought my attorney told you to call him if you wanted to talk to me,” I said after I handed him a towel and let him perch on one of my barstools. Wheeling's short hair stood in tufts around his head, giving him a sort of punk look.

“I wanted to explain to you about the article in the paper. I thought you might see it and—”

“And what?” I interrupted. “Think you planted it so you could flush out a suspect? Leave the dancer high and dry, 'cause after all, I'm just low-rent?”

Wheeling flushed. “We can talk or you can cuss me out and I'll leave. What's it going to be?”

“Say what you came to say.”

Wheeling hunched his shoulders like he had a stiff neck. “First off, I didn't talk to the press. We don't do that here. I issue statements after the fact, not in the process of an investigation.”

“So what are you saying? That no one in the police department said anything to the press and that they fabricated a story?”

Wheeling ran his fingers through his hair, making it look even more wild. The gesture made him seem somehow much younger, almost boyish, and frustrated.

“I'd like to say no one in the department talked, but you and I both know that I can't do that. I'm busting my ass trying to find out who, if anyone, talked, but I'm also working on finding your friend's killer.”

“So how many people knew I was a witness?” It was hopeless, I knew. In Panama City, everyone knew everything in a matter of moments.

Wheeling shifted on the barstool. “Well, the officers at the scene know you were there, but they didn't know you could identify the killer.”

“I didn't say I could. I said maybe.”

“Well, then I knew and Detective Nailor knew.”

“What? How the hell did he know?”

Wheeling looked at me, his eyes unwavering. “He's the other homicide detective. We work our cases together, unless one of us is already on a case. In Panama City, that's rare. We only have six or eight homicides a year.” He was burning me with the facts while I was still stuck on Nailor possibly being the only other person who knew the details of my statement. I was going to have to do a little investigating of my own. Nailor kept popping up, first at the racetrack, then in my trailer, and now investigating Ruby's murder. What was the man up to?

A glint of red outside the bay window caught my eye, drawing my attention to the street. A cardinal-red Porsche was slowly passing the trailer, the windows tinted a smoky gray, with a vanity plate that I knew by heart:
MR.TNA
Vincent Gambuzzo was circling the block, noting the government tags on the standard-issue beige Taurus, and deciding to keep a low profile until the heat was gone.

“Listen,” I said, turning my attention back to Detective Wheeling, “it really don't make no never mind to me how you want to explain this. I'm just asking that you be a little forthcoming with some police protection.”

Wheeling started to say something, but I cut him off. “I know, you can't be placing a cop on my doorstep twenty-four hours a day, and maybe that's because of who I am and who the victim was, and maybe it's because you're short-handed. Whatever. I'm just asking for a profile. A high profile. Send a marked cruiser past my house every hour or so.” I was walking toward my door, holding it open and making like Wheeling should quit acting like a big baby Huey and take a cue.

He wandered out into the bright sunlight of another steamy Panama City afternoon with Fluffy once again at his feet, trying her best to trip him up. His car hadn't been gone thirty seconds when Vincent Gambuzzo pulled into Wheeling's spot on the parking pad and gunned the engine of the tinny-sounding sports car. Whatever version of a Porsche it was, it wasn't the big-ticket, top-of-the-line model. His car was the best he or any other midlevel wannabe could afford.

Vincent de-wedged himself from the driver's seat and lumbered over to my steps, panting from exertion and the heat of wearing a black suit in the friggin' tropical nineties.

“About goddamn time that cop took off,” he said, heaving himself up the steps. “Any longer and I'd have run out of gas. Then them damn juvenile delinquents that live in this dump woulda made off with my tires. Jesus, Mother Mary, and the saints, it's hot!” With that, Vincent Gambuzzo entered my trailer.

He looked around, almost visibly sniffing the air, trying to figure out with his nose what had been up and who'd been saying what to whom. Then, without asking, he strode over to the refrigerator and pulled open the door, standing there as the cool air hit him in the face.

“What? You don't got nothing in here, Sierra. Friggin' mineral water! Fruit friggin' salad! What is this shit?”

“I knew you were coming, so I hid the good stuff,” I said. “Are you here to eat or talk?” With Vincent, there was no separating the two.

“Aha, there it is.” Vincent had finally stooped low enough to find the cannelloni and the leftover ziti.

“Help yourself,” I said, but the sarcasm was wasted.

After he'd popped a plate in the microwave, Vincent got down to business.

“I been in the trade a long time, Sierra, and I ain't never lost a dancer.” He paused and shook his head slowly back and forth. I knew what he was saying wasn't exactly the truth. Vincent hadn't been in the exotic emporium business more than the five years he'd been in Panama City, because I'd done my homework and I knew the facts. Vincent had worked for his father in Miami before he'd made the move to the Panhandle. His father was a small-time bookie and used-car dealer. The Tiffany was Vincent's attempt to make it on his own, but he didn't want any of us to know how little he knew about the business. To challenge Vincent was to ask for him to swell up with machismo bravado and make a fool of himself and perhaps do something rash at the expense of face-saving. I didn't want that, so I stayed silent.

“She was beautiful, Sierra,” he sighed. He pulled his piping-hot plate from the microwave and gingerly carried it to the kitchen table. “Nobody should die that young.” He sighed again and began to eat. “Them cops,” he said, his voice choked with ziti and emotion, “they ain't gonna take this seriously. Not like us, eh, Sierra?”