Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (26 page)

He took the money out into the showroom. Wormy sat, Buddhalike, in his chair, staring straight ahead at the wall, like there was something fascinating on that wall he looked at all day, every day. Eddie held his hand out. Ronnie counted out eleven twenties and a ten and ignored Wormy’s pout.

“That’s half,” Ronnie said. “When you grab the Monte Carlo and bring it back here, I’ll pay the rest.”

Storm clouds gathered on Eddie’s face. Truman gave him the slightest signal: appeasement, at any cost.

“That sucks,” Eddie said. “And I ain’t goin’ back down there to Crackertown till I hear you, Ronnie, call the cops and give them the info.”

“Wormy can call,” Ronnie said.

“No way,” Eddie said. “We do this my way, or I call my lawyer and get him after y’all for wrongful imprisonment. I already talked to him when he got me outta jail.”

“Lawyer,” Wormy said and laughed.

“Shut up,” Ronnie said. He picked up the phone and got through to the warrants division and gave them the title number and pick-up authorization for the Monte Carlo to be repossessed from Wesley Coombs.

Ronnie put the receiver down. “Everybody happy? Now get the hell off my lot.”

Truman straightened the papers on his desktop and walked out of the showroom and over to his station wagon.

Eddie pulled alongside him in the truck. “Jeff’s in there, man,” he said, his face ashen. “In that drum. Just like I told you. How we gonna prove it?”

“I don’t know,” Truman admitted. He could see Wormy and Ronnie inside, watching their curbside conference. “Meet me down the block, at that Texaco station,” Truman said. “We’d better talk.”

By the time Truman got down the block, Eddie had already gone inside the station and gotten them two cold bottles of beer, brown paper bags twisted expertly around their necks.

Eddie handed Truman a beer as he climbed into the truck.

“We don’t know for sure Jeff is in that drum. Or even on the car lot,” Truman said. “But Ronnie’s gotten mighty paranoid all of a sudden. Did you hear the way he talked to Wormy?”

“Maybe the love bug’s bitin’ at Ronnie,” Eddie said. “I forgot to tell you, I dropped by the Candy Store. One of the girls was saying LeeAnn moved in with Ronnie. Big house on the south side. Right on the bay.”

“She’ll never talk to us now,” Truman said. “Even if she does know what happened to Cantrell. You know,” he said, taking a sip of the beer, “I talked to the FDLE agent who’s working this big investigation of Bondurant and Hernando Boone. He says Cantrell might not be dead at all. Weingarten says they’ve traced phone calls to LeeAnn’s phone that they think were from Jeff, and that somebody’s been using his credit card and ATM card.”

“How could that be?” Eddie asked.

“Two possibilities,” Truman theorized. “Jeff Cantrell is alive, and he’s hiding out for some reason, maybe because he crossed Bondurant. Which means he maybe faked his own death. Maybe Jackie didn’t see what she thought she saw that night. Or, we were right in the first place. Ronnie or somebody killed Jeff. The body’s hidden someplace close by. And the phone calls and credit card transactions are part of Ronnie’s plot to keep anybody from wondering what-ever happened to Jeff Cantrell.”

Eddie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of the truck.

“We’ve gotta get back in that garage. And we gotta get LeeAnn to level with us.”

“Maybe we need some help,” Truman suggested.

Ollie was adamant. “I’m not setting foot on that car lot again. Those guys know us. They’ve got alarms and everything. They caught us last time. And it’s not just me. I don’t think it’s right to drag a girl into this.”

Jackie threw a pizza crust at Ollie. “I’m not afraid of going in there again. Only way I’m ever going to get this Corvette thing settled is to prove that those guys stole my car. And that Jeff Cantrell got killed, maybe because of it. And he was, too, dead. I know dead when I see dead.”

Eddie sat back on the small chair they had dragged into Truman’s room at the Fountain of Youth Hotel for this meeting. He’d greeted everybody after Truman made the introductions, and now he intended to let the others do the talking. Besides, he liked watching this cute Jackie Canaday. She wasn’t about to let two old birds get away with treating her like a sissy girl.

“We need both of you,” Truman said. “With the four of us working this thing, it should go smoothly. No car alarms or unexpected police this time.”

Hernando Boone’s neck hurt like a sonofabitch. He couldn’t move it to the right but maybe two inches, couldn’t move it to the left at all. No time to do anything about it now.

His brother had called earlier in the day. A whole eighteen-wheeler full of beef baby-back ribs was on its way from Lakeland to St. Pete.

“Grade A,” Orlando had babbled. “And you know what’s coming up—right?”

“A migraine,” Hernando had said. “I’ve got spots in front of my eyes. I need to lay down.”

“No, bro,” Orlando had said. “Labor Day weekend. Everybody barbecues on Labor Day weekend. You should see the meat on these ribs. I saved back a case for myself. They’re marked three ninety-nine a pound. Blue Light Special—right?”

Hernando had squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He’d looked at the calendar on his desk and had felt the vein throbbing in his forehead.

“Labor Day is two weeks away. What am I gonna do with an eighteen-wheeler full of meat until then?”

“Shit. Throw it in the walk-in cooler like always,” his brother had said carelessly. “Ribs freeze good.”

“I got no more room,” Hernando had shouted. “I still got twenty cases of the boneless breaded chicken breasts you sent me for Fourth of July. You know what those tasted like, bro? Breaded chickenshit! My ladies can’t repeat sell to the sisters after they gone and bought chickenshit for a Fourth of July cookout.”

“How I’m supposed to know they’re bogus?” Orlando had asked. “I just steal the shit. I don’t run no taste tests.”

“Never mind,” Hernando had said. “Even if the walk-in was empty—even if I gave away all that chicken—I couldn’t store that much ribs. And the girls ain’t never sold a whole tractor-trailerful before.”

“Warehouse sale,” Orlando had prompted him. “Have the ladies call up and tell folks it’s a tractor-trailer sale. Three dollars a pound. Tell them they gotta show up at a certain time and place. Bring their own coolers. Park the trailer someplace nice and quiet. We sell ‘em right off the back, like we used to do with the Guccis and the Ray-Bans.”

“Might work,” Hernando had said reluctantly. “When did you say the truck will be here?”

“Better get your ladies jamming on those phones,” Orlando had said and chuckled. “I mapped out a back way since I had to borrow the truck to get the meat. Say nine o’clock. My driver’s calling me in a little bit and he’ll need an address. Where you want to set up?”

Nine o’clock. Hernando would have to work fast. And find the right place. That was crucial. His neck had throbbed. A reminder. “You know a place called Weedon Island?”

He called his cousin Alma, who ran the phone room. “Truckload of beef baby-back ribs coming in tonight,” he told her. “Tell the ladies, whoever sells the most is gonna win a prize. Let’s see. How about a—”

“Diamond tennis bracelet,” Alma suggested. “We got two left from that last shipment of stuff Orlando sent over.”

“All right,” he agreed. He told her the details. “Tell everybody the sale only lasts for an hour. Nine till ten. We gotta be out of there before anybody notices the traffic. And tell the girls we’re doing ten-pound minimums. For every twenty-pound order we throw in a case of breaded chicken breasts.”

“Huh,” Alma said. “Ought to throw that chicken in the trash. I’ll tell ‘em. That meat better be right this time.”

“Weedon Island. Ronnie ain’t gonna like that,” Billy Tripp said. The gauze around his jaw muffled the words and Boone had to listen hard to make out what he was saying. Billy Tripp wasn’t a treat for sore eyes today. The small patches of his face that weren’t swathed in bandages were red and shiny, like fresh- ground chuck. He had a high cervical collar that kept his neck immobile, and his left wrist was in a cast. Where he wasn’t burned, he was bruised, and one of his ferret-like front teeth had been knocked out, giving him an unfortunate cartoon-character appearance.

“I ain’t running no opinion polls,” Boone told Billy. “Anyway, after this load, I’m clearing out inventory. Getting out of home-delivery meat sales.”

“Hot meat, you mean,” Billy wheezed, his chest heaving a little, his blistered lips too swollen to smile.

“Never mind that,” Boone said. “What’s this deal you talkin’ about?”

“Bondurant fucked me over,” Billy said. “Wouldn’t pay my hospital bill. I had to sneak out of there when the nurses weren’t looking. Now Ronnie’s trying to stiff me on account of what happened to your Mercedes. And he’s the one who told me to punch it. Know what I think? I think he hoped we’d both get killed.”

“You totaled my Mercedes,” Boone said. “Who’s gonna pay for that?”

“I’m telling you, Ronnie’s going to fuck you over, too,” Tripp said. “I heard him tell Wormy. After they dropped you at that phone booth. They thought I was unconscious. Near dead. I thought so, too. And Ronnie said he’d put in the claim for the insurance, collect, and then tell you the insurance wouldn’t pay the whole amount. Keep all the money himself.”

Tripp swallowed hard. Talking was painful. “Wormy said they should get rid of you. Like they did Jeff Cantrell. The guy who used to work at the lot. Ronnie told everybody Jeff left town. I think he killed him.”

“Well, he’s dead,” Boone said carelessly. “That part’s the truth. I was there. So they think they can cut me out, huh?”

“That’s why I came over here,” Billy said. “I know how they run things. I can help you. Could use me a job. And a place to crash.”

Boone’s lips stretched into a wide smile, his high cheekbones revealing his Indian blood. “Crash. You like to crash, don’t you?”

LeeAnn Pilker squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Just do it. And fast, before I change my mind.”

Danielle picked up a hank of the long, shimmering hair and sawed away at it with the big shears. LeeAnn felt it fall on her back. She allowed herself one tear. One tiny tear. “Keep going,” she told Danielle.

She breathed again. Ever since she’d left Ronnie’s house this morning, LeeAnn had to remind herself to breathe. She was wound as tight as a three-dollar wristwatch. She had to keep moving.

Her first stop had been at Jeff’s apartment. She’d parked two blocks away and jogged to the apartment. Mrs. Borgshultz’s car was there, but LeeAnn was desperate. She used her key and slipped into the apartment.

The phone was still hooked up. Ronnie must have forgotten to have it cut off. Or Wormy, most likely.

She called Danielle, her old room-mate. There was nobody else.

“What do you want?” Danielle had asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance. Danielle was married, had two little kids. Her husband didn’t know anything about his wife’s old life and Danielle intended to keep it like that.

“I need help,” LeeAnn said. “I need to disappear for a while.”

Danielle didn’t bother to ask why. The old life was gone, but not forgotten. And LeeAnn always had terrible taste in men. “I can’t give you any money,” she said “Dave’s been laid off.”

“I’ve got money. Some,” LeeAnn said. “But I can’t go to a motel. He’ll find me. And the police will probably be looking for me too. It’s his money.”

The trade wasn’t great, as trades went. Danielle’s Isuzu was eleven years old, needed new tires, and the clutch was nearly shot. To get in the front seat you had to get in on the passenger side, because one of the kids had shoved a popsicle stick in the door lock. The Coleman camper was hitched onto the back.

They took the license plate off LeeAnn’s Honda, and Danielle replaced it with one from her grandma’s Plymouth. “She’s in a nursing home. She’ll never know the difference,” Danielle said.

LeeAnn had to promise to bring the Isuzu and the Coleman camper and the other stuff back within a week. “Dave thinks I rented it to some friends,” Danielle explained, counting the twenties LeeAnn gave her, then tucking them in the pocket of her shorts.

After Danielle helped crank up the tent part and showed LeeAnn how to use the little butane stove and the lantern, she glanced anxiously around the Fort DeSoto Park campsite. The crickets were starting up, and the baby was stirring in her car seat. Dave would be expecting dinner on the table real soon.

LeeAnn shook the hair off her shoulders one last time, and tried not to look at the ground. Her neck felt naked.

“How do I look?” she asked anxiously.

Danielle gave her a critical going-over. “Well, it’s kind of raggedy, but actually, with your bone structure, people will probably think it’s the latest style.”

LeeAnn looked stunning, but there was still some lingering jealousy over a man Danielle had brought home one time, and LeeAnn had taken over. They’d sworn all that was behind them, but maybe it wasn’t.