The Queen of Cool (42 page)

“
Well?” he
asked.

“
You told me
to?”

He made a noise somewhere between a growl
and a grunt. They merged into the evening traffic on the Jacksboro
Highway.

“
Did you eat?” he
asked.

“
No,” she said.
“I…”

He took a tuna fish sandwich from the cooler
between them and held it in her direction.

“
Don’t wrinkle your nose,”
he said. “I see how skinny you are. You need to eat, at least for
the baby.”

She took the sandwich and set it in her
lap.

“
What about you?” she said.
“You’ve lost weight too.”

“
I’m not having a baby,” he
said.

She opened the paper and held out half the
sandwich to him.

“
We’ll share,” she
said.

“
I’m not real hungry,” he
said.

“
I’m not hungry at all. I
hate eating now,” she said. “But Don and Renee would want us to
celebrate his birthday in style.”

He glanced at her and the half she offered.
She opened a bottle of water from the cooler and set it in his cup
holder. She held up her sandwich to the windshield.

“
Happy birthday, Don,” she
said and took a bite.

Chuckling, he took a bite of his half of the
sandwich.

“
I love tuna sandwiches,”
she said.

“
I know,” he said. “There’s
a turkey in there for me.”

She laughed.

“
We’ll split that one too,”
he said.

She nodded and opened a bottle of water for
herself.

“
This is a mighty fine tuna
sandwich,” he said.

“
It’s the best I’ve ever
had,” she smiled at him and he blushed.

“
You know I don’t hate
you,” he said.

“
I know. It’s just hard
because every step…”

“…
is a step away from
everything I wanted, everything I loved, my whole life,” he sniffed
and cleared his throat.

She gave him a soft, understanding smile and
ate her sandwich. When he merged into the left-turn lane at
northwest Twentieth Street, she opened the turkey sandwich. They
had merged onto northwest Twenty-first Street when he took his half
of the sandwich.

“
Did you
bring…?”

“
Peanut butter cookies?” he
smiled. “Yes ma’am. And a couple thermoses of coffee. Decaf for
you. We don’t really know how long we’ll be out
tonight.”

“
Did Manny get the
walkie-talkies and stuff?” she asked.

“
Larry has the
walkie-talkies. Manny has flashlights and headlamps,” he said.
“Where’s the weapon?”

“
Weapon?” Lo asked. “The
VX?”

“
The handgun,” he said. “I
figured you’d want to pick it up before we got there.”

“
Oh,” she said. “It’s
across at the street. I’ll show you.”

“
I want to check it to make
sure…”

“
I’d appreciate that,” she
said. “See, we can be civil.”

He chuckled.

“
Where’s Manny? Is he
okay?” Lo asked. “You said you’d explain it when you got
here.”

“
He’s fine,” Sy said. “He
was leaving tonight and Mindy stopped him. He said she thinks he’s
having an affair.”

“
With me?” Lo shook her
head at the insanity of the idea.

“
Think of it from her
perspective,” Sy said. “Y’all have been spending lots of time
together at all hours of the night and day. She was…
upset.”

“
Poor Mindy Sue,” Lo said.
“I feel bad for her.”

“
Don’t,” Sy said. “He asked
me to get you so that he could talk with her.”

“
I’d give my eye teeth to
fight with Don about something stupid,” Lo nodded and looked out
her passenger window.

“
I thought the very same
thing,” Sy said.

Sy turned left on Main Street then right on
Twenty-third.

“
The handgun is by the
third electrical pole after Niles City,” she said. “On the
right.”

She pointed and he nodded. They pulled over.
She climbed over the barbed wire fence and ran to a few barren oak
trees.

“
Can you help me?” she
pointed to a piece of cement. “I can lift it but with the baby,
it’s awkward.”

He lifted the piece of concrete and she
grabbed the handgun from underneath. He set the concrete down and
took the handgun from her.

“
I don’t like it,” he said.
“I didn’t like it when I heard about it. I don’t like it now that
I’m holding it.”

“
I don’t like it either,”
she said.

“
Tell you what,” Sy said.
“Are you any good at shooting?”

“
I can shoot a handgun, if
that’s what you mean,” she said. “Don made sure I took safety and
shooting lessons. I usually hit the target.”

“
Do you need a girl’s
weapon like this?”

“
No,” she said. “This was a
gift from… someone. Sue Ellen maybe? I’m not attached to it at
all.”

“
Why did he get it then?”
Sy asked.

“
No idea,” she
shrugged.

“
I brought a couple of
handguns,” he said. “I’ll give you one. You can put it in the
pocket of your sweatshirt. No one will know it’s there.”

“
And we’ll leave
this?”

He gave her the handgun and kneeled down to
move the piece of cement. She stuffed it underneath the concrete
and they walked back to his truck. He took a Smith and Wesson
revolver from under the seat.

“
I have permits, in case
you were wondering,” he said.

“
Good to know.”

He pulled a pink taser from his back
pocket.

“
This was Renee’s. I trust
you to not lose it,” he said. “You know how to use one of
these.”

Lo nodded.

“
Then you’re set. I don’t
think we’ll be separated.”

“
But you think we’ll have
trouble.”

“
Don’t you?” Sy
asked.

“
I do. They’ve been one
step ahead of us this entire time.”

“
I’m not feeling real
trusting either,” he said.

He nodded and started the truck. He turned
left into the Swift packing plant property and pulled up behind
Larry’s SUV. Sy nodded to Lo, grabbed the thermoses, and they got
out of his truck. They walked to Larry’s SUV and got in the back.
Mrs. Williams was sitting in the passenger seat and Lisa was
sitting in the driver’s seat. Yazmin was sitting in the far
back.

“
Where’s Mutt?” Lo
asked.

“
Larry?” Sy
asked.

“
They’re in the tunnels,”
Lisa said. “You’re late. Where’s Manny?”

“
He was delayed,” Sy said.
“That’s why we’re late.”

“
Shh,” Mrs. Williams said,
“they are ready to start.”

She held the walkie-talkie to her mouth and
pressed the button.

“
Sy and Lo are here,” Mrs.
Williams said. “You can go now.”

“
About time!” Larry’s voice
came over the walkie-talkie.

“
They’re in the basement of
Cattlemen’s,” Yazmin said. “Larry went with Mutt. And
he…”

Lo reached back to take her hand. She knew
how many times Yazmin had seen Mutt break his sobriety.

“
He offered.” As if he
could hear Yazmin’s worry, Mutt’s voice came over the
walkie-talkie. “But I didn’t have a drop. Not one drop. Ask
Larry.”

“
He’s sober,” Larry
said.

“
Okay,” Mutt said. “The
owner said that Don talked to him about the tunnels a couple of
times. They laughed about the ghosts in the basement. And, damn,
there are a lot of good ol’ boys down here.”

“
I don’t see a thing,”
Larry said.

“
You wouldn’t,” Mutt said.
“He let Don into the tunnels a couple of times and gave him a key
so that he could get in whenever he wanted. So Donny was
here.”

“
That scorpion Sadler asked
me the same question last week,” a strange man’s voice came over
the walkie-talkie.

“
That’s the owner of the
Cattlemen’s,” Mutt said. “What’d ya say?”

“
I told him I didn’t have
any idea what he was talking about,” the man’s voice said. “I never
liked that man and I like him a lot less since Don’s been gone.
He’s… well, you have ladies present. I didn’t tell him squat. Jaden
Sadler can lick my boots for all I care.”

“
Did you catch that?” Larry
asked.

“
They’re always one step
ahead,” Sy said.

“
At least he didn’t get
anywhere,” Mutt said.

“
Okay, we’re going in,”
Larry said. “We don’t know if the range will hold, but we’ll let
you know.”

The man’s voice said something and Mutt
responded.

“
What was that?” Mrs.
Williams asked.

“
He’s coming with us,”
Larry said. “If we lose touch, I’ll call on my cell.”

There was a tap on the side of the SUV and
Manny got in the back. Lo shifted from her seat to sit beside
Yazmin. The women hugged each other.

“
What did I miss?” Manny
asked.

“
Shh,” Mrs. Williams said.
“They’re in the tunnels.”

Manny nodded and settled next to Sy.

“
I smell coffee,” Manny
said.

“
You shush,” Mrs. Williams
said.

Sy poured Manny a cup of coffee and silently
offered coffee to everyone. Manny took out a map of Exchange
Street. He’d marked it with distances so that they could see where
the men were on the street. He took out a small flashlight and they
leaned forward to see the map.

“
Okay, can you hear us?”
Larry asked.

“
Yes,” Mrs. Williams
said.

“
We’re in the tunnels,”
Larry said. “There’s not much light; just a few naked fluorescent
bulbs overhead.”

“
The tunnel seems to go
along the stream here,” Mutt said. “It’s a cement tunnel, nothing
very noticeable. There are some storage areas, but it doesn’t look
like anyone comes down here. Smells stale.”

“
We’ve gone about two
hundred feet and are joining a bigger tunnel,” Larry said. “This
one is Thurber brick. Is this Exchange Street?”

They heard the low rumble of the Cattlemen’s
owner’s voice

“
That matches
up with Lo’s theory about the triangle and
X
thing.”

“
Oh really? I didn’t know
that,” Mutt said. “Can you get there from here? Where?”

“
He says Sadler’s father
used to rent a storage area here,” Larry said. “We’ve gone
another…”

“
Hundred feet,” Mutt
said.

“
You’re in front of
Fincher’s White Front,” Manny pointed to the map.

“
Don told me that his
father said it used to be a bank,” Lo said. “So it’d make sense if
there was a secure vault in the basement.”

“
Henry would know, right?”
Manny grimaced.

“
There’s a secure-looking
door here. So maybe it was a bank,” Larry said. “Or that’s what it
looks like. There are pretty fresh scuff marks on the brick here.
They lead in your direction.”

“
Someone moved something
heavy and big recently,” Mutt said. “But recent down here could be
this year or this decade, so we can’t be certain.”

“
No one comes down here,”
the owner of the Cattlemen’s voice was clear. “Most don’t know it’s
here, and the rest… Well, there’s nothing here.”

“
I’m taking pictures so you
can see,” Larry said. “You go ahead.”

“
We’re walking…” Mutt said.
They heard some scuffling. “Larry just caught up.”

“
That’s the other side of
where the tunnel was blocked,” Larry said. “Looks like someone cut
off the main tunnel access to the river.”

“
Where are you?” Mrs.
Williams said.

“
I’m about a thousand feet
from where we started,” Larry said.

“
That’s about eight hundred
feet down Exchange Street,” Manny said, looking at the map.
“They’re in front of the Hyatt.”

“
We’re following the
tracks,” Larry said.

They could hear the men’s footsteps along
the brick tunnel.

“
Looks like we’re at the
end of the road,” Mutt said.

“
We’re eighteen hundred
feet or so from where we started,” Larry said. “I think we’re past
the old Spaghetti Warehouse building.”

“
There’s new construction,”
Mutt said.

“
Niles City,” Larry said.
“They worked on that road when they redid the Spaghetti Warehouse.
There’s a door down here. Any idea what that is?”

“
No idea,” the Cattlemen’s
owner said.

They heard the squeak of a door opening.

“
Looks like a stairwell,”
Mutt said. “Can I have your key? Okay, I’ll be right
back.”

“
He’s gone up the
stairwell,” Larry said. “The door in the tunnel wasn’t
locked.”

“
Can you see me?” Mutt
asked. “I’m standing on Niles City. Boy, you could pull a pickup
truck up to here, day or night, and no one would know.”