Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (34 page)

When Billy didn’t follow his orders, he pointed his own .38 at Hernando Boone. Tripp turned sideways in his seat and, incredibly, put the barrel of his gun right to Ronnie’s temple.

“Hey, Ronnie,” Tripp announced. “I’m sorry, man. You’re busted.”

Hernando Boone picked that moment to unfreeze. He made a lunging eight-foot dive off to the left and rolled off the shoulder and into a three-foot drainage ditch. The dive and roll part of the move was an old, hated football drill from his days at the University of Florida. The hiding in a drainage ditch was something his Miccosukee ancestors had done when Andrew Jackson sent his troops to wipe out the Indians in Florida. Or so he’d always heard.

Ronnie Bondurant’s eyes never blinked. He was watching Hernando Boone. And he intended to kill every cop in Florida if it meant keeping Boone from living even one more minute.

He dropped his gun. Coiled. Waiting. Tripp gave that weasely snigger of his and took his finger off the trigger. Asshole.

Ronnie pivoted and sidearmed Tripp, catching him in the windpipe. Then again, harder. “Gaaagh.” Tripp’s eyes rolled up in his head.

Ronnie threw the car door open and turned toward the blank space where Boone had last been seen. Even before he was out of the Monte Carlo, he was firing, scattering shots in any direction Boone might move.

The FDLE commandos moved in closer and kept their shotguns aimed at the Monte Carlo, but with one of their own inside, they held their fire.

In all the confusion, nobody noticed the sixty-something gentleman with the tinted red hair who was running full speed toward the side of the Monte Carlo. Truman’s body remembered what he himself had not thought of since his days on the scrub squad at Kokomo High School back in the late forties. He tucked his head down, dropped his shoulders, and threw the whole weight of his torso against the open door of the Monte Carlo. The old body block.

Bondurant’s forehead bounced off the roof of the car, and he would have dropped like a rock, too, except that Truman, out of adrenaline and ideas, was slumped on the other side of the door, pinning Bondurant in place.

“This is the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” the frizzle-haired woman called on the megaphone. “You are under arrest.” She and half the other commandos rushed at Hernando Boone, cowering in the mosquito-engorged drainage ditch. The other half of the team veered toward the Monte Carlo. The operation went just the way they’d practiced in their SWAT team exercises. With stunning precision they grabbed Boone out of the ditch and then wrestled the bleeding, unconscious Ronnie Bondurant to the ground in order to subdue him.

When the Channel 8 Action News crew was ready, lights adjusted and cameras rolling, Ed Weingarten himself strode out of the shadows. He was wearing his own custom-designed official special-agent-in-charge black commando outfit. His uniform blouse bristled with embroidered patches, silver insignia badges, and half a dozen pockets and pouches loaded down with his portable battery pack, cell phone, beeper, pistol, and badge. The trousers snugged into high-topped lace-up black boots so new they still squeaked as he walked.

The other agents stepped respectfully aside while Special Agent in Charge Ed Weingarten personally snapped the handcuffs around Ronnie Bondurant’s wrists.

Hustled off to the side, out of concern for his safety and, yes, community relations purposes, Truman recalled yet one more football move. What was it called? A droplock? Whatever it was, it involved a kick and it made the Channel 8 cameraman drop a $26,000 Sony BetaCam.

At the studio in Tampa, the floor producer cursed softly when the live feed from Weedon Island suddenly went dead. There went his lead story. Luckily, the back-up lead was almost as good.

Action News anchorperson Sherri Lynn moistened her lips, took a cleansing breath, looked directly into the TelePrompTer, and started to read.

“Officials at the Lakeland-based Publix Supermarket chain reported today that they are gravely concerned over the theft of a tractor-trailer containing fifteen thousand pounds of tainted frozen baby-back ribs. The ribs, Publix says, were discovered to be part of a shipment of beef smuggled into the U.S. from a now defunct British processor accused of selling meat from cattle believed to have been exposed to mad cow disease. The ribs were to have been destroyed today. Health officials warn that serious illness and, in some cases, death, can result from eating mad cow exposed meat. In other news …

Truman smoothed out the newspaper pages with a loving hand. There were six—all of them front pages from
The St. Petersburg Times, The Miami Herald,
and yes, one from the great gray lady herself
, The New York Times.
His by-line,
Truman Kicklighter Special Correspondent
, was on all the stories, and in all but
The New York Times
, his story had run above the fold, what would be considered a home-run for any reporter in the land.

He hadn’t clipped any of the “human interest” stories from the dozens of papers around the country that had profiled his role in the Ronnie Bondurant murder and racketeering scheme, because he hated the fact that the reporters had focused on the fact that such accomplished career criminals as Ronnie Bondurant and Hernando Boone had been foiled by what the reporters termed “a senior sleuth and a down-on-her luck coffee shop waitress, aided by a Lilliputian newsstand clerk.” He scowled now, thinking of those stories. In his day, you never would have gotten away with that kind of crap.

And although Cheryl had taped the
60 Minutes
investigative piece that had run in October, Truman had politely declined to watch it, based on what he thought was the mocking tone of that snotty Ed Bradley. Television!

His one regret in the matter was that none of the newspapers would hire him to cover Ronnie Bondurant’s trial, because he was a star witness for the prosecution. He’d done great, too, he and Jackie. Told it like it happened, never wavered under questioning from Bondurant’s sleaze-ball lawyer.

Right this minute, Ronnie Bondurant was doing life—with no parole—at the Lake Correctional Institute in central Florida. Truman had figured out how to check up on Ronnie through the state’s excellent Department of Corrections website, where he learned that Ronnie’s new home had once been a migrant worker camp and a bait farm, which he thought appropriate for a worm like Bondurant. Even better, he saw that Ronnie’s days were taken up with learning a new vocational skill—wheelchair repair.

As for Hernando Boone, Truman had been enraged when the state’s attorney offered the scumbag a deal—thirty years—in return for testifying against Bondurant and his own brother, Orlando. Both the Boone brothers were now ensconced in the state prison at Marion, where they busied themselves making corrugated cardboard boxes.

And after the guilty verdicts came in? The best surprise of all; a nice plaque from the Florida Insurors Association, acknowledging his role in busting Bondurant’s racket—along with a check for $10,000! He’d split the money with Jackie, and she’d finally bought herself a decent car—a low-mileage champagne ’92 Chevy Impala, which she’d bought from old man Drewry’s daughter—all cash— after the family finally persuaded him to give up driving.

Jackie called the car her geezer-mobile, and swore she intended to paint it red as soon as she saved up enough money, but Truman noticed she kept the car religiously washed and waxed and always parked it out of range of the Williams Park pigeons.

There was a knock at his door. It opened, and Jackie popped her head inside. “Ready to go, Mr. K?”

He closed the file folder of clippings and stood, straightening his shoulders and sneaking a peek at himself in the dresser mirror.

Truman thought he looked pretty snappy, for an old geezer. Margaret had tactfully suggested he ease off on the Nice n’ Easy, assuring him that his silvery gray hair was much more distinguished for a man of his maturity. Cheryl had helped him pick out a new navy blue suit, new dress shirt and tie. It had stunned him to realize that he hadn’t bought any new clothes at all since Nellie’s death.

Well, as Cheryl said, it was time, wasn’t it? Life went on. And these days, as it turned out, life wasn’t all bad.

“Looking good, there, Mr. K,” Jackie said admiringly. “That suit is bad.”

“Bad?” he frowned.

And she laughed. “See, bad means good. You look real clean, you know?”

He shrugged. “You look pretty bad yourself.”

Jackie did a little pirouette, and the soft folds of her red chiffon skirt swirled around her legs. She wore heels, the first time he’d ever seen her in anything but sneakers or her rubber-soled work shoes, and large sparkly gold hoop earrings that brushed her shoulder-tops.

“We better go,” Jackie said. “Everybody’s waiting, down in the lobby. Mrs. Hoffmayer, she’s giving Eddie the evil eye. Probably already called Mandelbaum to report me for having guests.”

The others were clustered nervously near the front desk in the lobby. It was an odd sensation, seeing everybody so dressed up. Eddie Nevins wore a charcoal pin-striped suit, with a red shirt that matched Jackie’s dress, and a wide white tie. He wore a large diamond stud earring in his right ear, and his close-shaven head gleamed. His face lit up in a huge smile when he spotted Jackie.

Cheryl had a new dress too, in her favorite shade of yellow, and she reminded Truman so much of Nellie, he had to swallow hard to hold back the tears. Chip, dressed in a new blue blazer and sharply creased khaki trousers grinned up at his grandfather, proud that he’d been invited to join the group for this important occasion.

The real surprise was Billy Tripp, or FDLE Agent Tripp, as he was more formally known. It was hard for Truman to recognize him these days. The lank locks had been shorn, and he’d abandoned the earring and nose-ring. Most of his cuts and bruises had healed nicely, and the glazed-over eyes had cleared up, once he’d stopped taking the anti-histamines that had achieved that effect. He cleaned up good, Truman decided. After the arrests had gone down, he’d come to know Tripp as a whip-smart investigator and cunning undercover agent. Tripp wore a button-down white dress shirt and red and blue striped rep tie under his dark blue suit.

Shyly holding Tripp’s hand was a striking dark-haired girl, who was nearly as unrecognizable as Tripp. She wore a modestly cut, gauzy, pale pink, ankle-length gown. Her hair had grown out in the past three months, to shoulder length. All traces of the former stripper were gone. Her makeup had been applied with a light hand, and she’d had her teeth fixed and the implants removed.

They made an unlikely pair, did LeeAnn Pilker and Billy Tripp. Everybody had been surprised, none more than Billy, when, two days after the Weedon Island affair, LeeAnn walked into the Tampa field office, and volunteered that she’d heard Ronnie Bondurant and Wormy Weems discussing the murder of Jeff Cantrell.

Later, after all the interviews and affidavits were over, Billy had followed LeeAnn out to the parking lot.

“You came back,” he said wonderingly, trying not to stare at her bruised face and ruined teeth. “I never thought I’d see you again. Aren’t you afraid…?”

LeeAnn looked right into his eyes, not shy about taking in his own injuries. “You saved my life, back there at the car lot. Ronnie would have killed you for sure, if he’d figured out you’d untied me and had me slip out through the garage. Nobody ever did anything like that for me before. It got me to thinking. Maybe my life was worth saving. And maybe this is where I start over.”

She’d quit her job at the strip club. With Jackie’s help, she’d started waitressing at The Fountain of Youth, and was taking classes at the Vo-Tech School to become a medical transcriptionist. And at some point, she’d finally given in and gone out on a date with Billy. Since that time, the two had been inseparable.

“Hey, TK,” Ollie said, strolling into the lobby. “Let’s get this party started, can we? I’m starved.”

Ollie’s thinning hair had been combed neatly across the top of his high forehead, and he wore a loud brown and tan checked suit that he’d been saving for “a special deal” ever since finding it on clearance in the boy’s department at the homeless mission thrift shop. He’d even pinned a pink silk carnation on the lapel of his coat.

“Hang on, Ollie,” “Truman said. “We can’t exactly get started without the bride now, can we?”

The plate glass lobby door opened just then, and Margaret McCutchen strode in, followed by half a dozen ladies from the Great Books Club, all of them bearing foil-covered casseroles, pie-plates and cake carriers.

“Sorry to be late,” Margaret said, kissing Truman brazenly on the lips. “The girls all insisted on bringing ‘a little something’ even though I assured them the caterer would have plenty of food.”

“Not at all,” Truman said magnanimously, hoping that at least one of those carriers contained Maggie’s amazing pound cake.

Margaret, he thought, looked splendid. She wore a soft green silk dress, belted at the waist, and around her neck she wore the same pearls he’d given Nellie on their wedding day. The pearls had been Cheryl’s idea.

“I’m never going to wear them,” she’d assured Truman, insisting he take the blue velvet covered box. “You bought me my own pearls, for my twenty-first birthday, remember? And anyway, I think mama would want Margaret to have them.”

Margaret had been touched, especially since, she pointed out; they weren’t actually getting married, not technically anyway.