Vanilla Ride (16 page)

“Not now, Leonard,” I said.

“Ain’t got nothing against your people,” Hirem said, looking at Leonard. “Just never figured I’d have a boy fuckin’ one of them.”

“Now that makes me really feel tight with you,” Leonard said.

“I’m not used to all the changes in things,” Hirem said.

“Civil rights happened … let me see,” Leonard said, “about mid-sixties, right? And the Civil War, it was over some one hundred years before that. Good to see you’re catching up.”

“My boy never did cotton to what I do, the way I think. And maybe that’s good. I’m not so sure about things I was sure about just a few months ago.”

“Death threats and prison terms can change a man’s perspective,” I said. “We know.”

Hirem nodded. “Thing is, I don’t really know where my boy is, but I have a maybe. He was a little kid, we were close. His mother was dead and it was just me and some hired help. We had a place we went to, rented a cabin by the lake and fished. He mentioned it from time to time, though we quit going there some years ago. It had good memories for him, back when he thought I was just a businessman and his daddy. We went there and fished and talked, and from the way he talked, I knew then he wasn’t like me, that there was something different about him. I’d had any sense I’d have gotten out of the business and gone into the barbering.”

“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” Leonard said. “Ain’t nothing in that story matter to me except where you think he is. I want to get this done and go home.”

“You’ll keep him from being hurt?” Hirem said. “He’s only nineteen.”

“That’s the plan,” I said. “We’ll do everything in our power to make sure he is protected. We’ll protect the girl too.”

“She’s your choice,” Hirem said. “Something happens to him, you got to make sure whoever did it gets theirs.”

“That’s not our business,” I said. “Not part of our agreement.”

“All right,” Hirem said. “Just protect him if you find him. Place we used to go, place I think he may have went because I noticed a couple of his rods and reels were gone—I don’t think he understands the deep doo-doo he’s in. Him and that girl, they don’t got a clue. They’ve run off with dirty money and they took some fishing poles with them.”

“I’m sure they don’t know what they’re into,” I said. “I’m beginning to suspect that neither do we. Where’s the place, Hirem?”

“Lake O’ the Pines. There’s a series of cabins up there, fella named Bill Jordan rents them, or used to. They’re on the east side of the lake. Ain’t much. And there’s no guarantee my boy’s there, but he might be. He’s not there, maybe I can think of something else. But right now that’s all I got.”

“That’s it?” Leonard said. “Man, you got a con on these feds, don’t you?”

“Not if he’s there,” Hirem said. “He is, it’s no con.”

“Guess that’ll have to do,” I said.

“Let me give you a word to the wise,” Hirem said. “The organization has done had me try and hit you guys, and you’re harder to kill
than anyone would have thought. But they got other people. They may send some of the regular toughs one more time, some tougher and smarter than Tanedrue. Couple of those boys with Tanedrue, they were real professionals, and you handed them their asses, so they’ll be more careful next time. They might just pass
GO
and jump to the big time.”

“Big time?” Leonard said.

Hirem nodded. “That’s right. They got people don’t work for them directly. Freelancers. Hitters. And they’re a whole ’nuther ball game, fellas. These people they hire, one or two in particular, bad sonsabitches. There’s no one quite like them. They’re like those, whatchacallits, the Jap guys in black.”

“Ninjas,” I said.

“I know, sounds like some kind of movie, but they’re for real. I know their work, but I don’t know them, and I don’t know anyone that’s ever seen them. They get a call through some kind of contact, the job gets done, and they get paid. So keep your eyes peeled and your ears open.”

“I got a question,” I said. “Conners, the cop. He have anything to do with the hit?”

“Conners helped put it together,” Hirem said. “He didn’t like the way you talked to him, Hap. He thought he’d go over there and show his big ass and that would be enough. You’d start some kind of payment plan on the dope you flushed. Or go to work for them, something like that. When you didn’t, well, he came to me. And I’ve told you how it is these days with the upper management. They ain’t much on compromise or negotiation. It’s all about respect. They learned that in prison. You don’t get respect there, you either wind up with a shank in your gut or a dick in your ass. They come out of prison, they’re still the same. And you two, you disrespected them big-time by beating up their hired help. But Conners—he has to get permission, but he’s the contact for the hits. He knows all the hitters, and the management likes it that way. Something comes to him direct instead of them, that’s all right with them. It’s more distance from the deed, and as long as things get done, they’re happy. And now you’ve killed off some of their help. It’s not that they care about them, it’s that they don’t like that disrespect part, the loss of that dope money, and they can’t have you two dropping their soldiers like cigarette butts.”

That must have reminded him, because he reached inside his coat pocket and found a pack of cigarettes and put one in his mouth. He patted around on his pockets for a moment, said, “Goddamn it, they took away my lighter. You guys got anything?”

We shook our heads.

I said, “Your kid. What was he driving?”

“He took my Escalade. It’s black.”

“Anything else?” Leonard said.

“Guess not,” Hirem said.

Hirem put the cigarette pack back in his pocket but kept the cigarette in his mouth. He wagged it in his lips when he said, “I just got one thing for you. A bit of fatherly advice from a fella tried to have you killed. You guys are pretty confident guys. You think you got the world by the tail, even if you’re just day laborers with an attitude. And you may be tough as you think you are, hard to kill. Like a cockroach you can’t step on right, keeps running out from under your shoe. But remember, now and again even cockroaches get crunched.”

After we walked Hirem up to the cabin, the Mummy came out with us. He walked us to our van. I kept expecting a scarab beetle to come out from under his bandages. He said, “It would be a lot easier you just told us what he had to say right now.”

“It would be for you,” I said.

“For you too. Your job would be done. We’d go get the boy and the girl and the money, and everyone would be happy.”

“We kind of gave our word,” I said.

“To him?”

“That’s who we were talking to,” Leonard said.

“You’re yankin’ me?”

“I don’t think so,” Leonard said.

“You gave your word to a guy tried to kill you, and you won’t tell the FBI what he said?”

“That’s pretty much it,” Leonard said. “Hey, remember back at the cop shop? He said it wasn’t personal, so why should we be mad?”

The Mummy shook his head. “I don’t get you guys. We’re doing you the favor. We could call this whole thing off right now, have you locked up. Might even take Hirem out back and see what he thinks about having his ass kicked until he talks.”

“He won’t talk and you know it,” I said. “Otherwise, you’d have already done it. And you do that, find the kid, you won’t get all the other information you want to get out of him. All the inner clock workings of the Dixie Mafia.”

The Mummy looked at us. His eyes peeking out of the mask were dark and narrow, his lips had turned beet red from the cold. It made him look pretty damn creepy. “You go get that boy and girl and that goddamn money and you go get it quick.”

“Gee,” Leonard said, “can we stop for dinner, take a pee?”

“You do what you got to do,” the Mummy said. “But you make it quick as you can. Today would be good.”

“It might take a few days,” I said. “I don’t know exactly. Things may not fall in line just the way we like it.”

“I can tell you this,” the Mummy said. “We’re tired of hanging out in this shit hole. We want to go home, be warm, not have to hang around with Hirem. You hear me?”

“If you’ll reinforce your words with sign language,” Leonard said, “we might get a clear message.”

The Mummy shot Leonard the finger.

“There,” Leonard said. “I understand that. See, I get you now.”

“Make it quick,” the Mummy said and walked back toward the cabin.

In the van, driving away, I said, “From one cockroach to another, I don’t think the Mummy likes you very much.”

“I think it’s because I beat his ass.”

“Think?” I said.

“Uh-huh. You know, odd how the Mummy and his buddy think we ought to believe them just because they’re from the government.”

“It’s like religion,” I said. “You accept it on faith.”

“Well, that’s stupid.”

“I said it was like religion, didn’t I?”

“Oh yeah, so you did. What you think about that Conners guy?”

“I think he doesn’t get out of this business unscathed,” I said.

Leonard nodded. “I was thinking pretty much the same thing, and I’ve put him on the list.”

“Okay, but put a couple of stars by his name,” I said.

Hadn’t gone far before we stopped and switched the license plates, hid the ones we had used under the floorboards again, then drove back to McDonald’s. When we came in, the table where Jim Bob and Tonto were sitting was piled high with food bags and drink cups.

“So,” Jim Bob said, “you’re back and hopefully without bullet holes or the clap.”

“Yep,” I said.

We ordered some food for ourselves, then slid into the booth and told them what we had been told.

Tonto said, “That’s pretty thin, that the kid went fishing some spot where he went when he was little. That’s damn thin.”

“He took fishing rods,” I said.

“That makes it absolute,” Tonto said. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? You know, he could be jackin’ with the old man, ’cause he thought Dad would come after him because of the girl, and of course the money, and maybe he’s just wanting the old man to show him how much he cares.”

“He’s nineteen,” I said, “and I don’t think he’s that smart. Anyone who would steal that much money from a bunch of cutthroats and know they’re cutthroats can’t be all that bright.”

“Naive, anyway,” Leonard said.

“My goodness,” Jim Bob said. “Was that a positive comment on a member of the human race? What in the world have you been drinking, Leonard?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Leonard said. “That was oddly optimistic. I’m giving up Dr Pep … I’m giving up Diet Coke as of this moment.”

“You don’t drink Diet Coke,” I said.

“See how it’s working?” Leonard said.

I said, “Thing is, it’s what we got, and the way I figure it, Hirem knows his son, or at least thinks he does. Most sons in one way or another want to please their fathers, or at least capture some good moment in time they had with them.”

“Speaking from experience?” Jim Bob said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

“I don’t have those feelings,” Tonto said. “If I went somewhere and was waiting on my father to find me, waiting on him to care or even miss me, I’d have been waiting one long goddamn time.”

“You’re the one said that might be what he’s doing,” Jim Bob said. “So maybe you know more about this kind of thing than you think.”

“Maybe,” Tonto said. “Guess I’m not all that big on parents of any stripe.”

“It’s not always that way,” Jim Bob said. “There are even parents who like their kids. Mine liked me, in spite of myself.”

“Way I look at it, between the pussy and the asshole is no-man’ s-land,” Tonto said. “You either come out a baby or a turd, and I think I came out of the wrong hole. Nobody much cared I was around.”

“Who lives in No Man’s Land?” Leonard said.

“I’m uncertain,” Tonto said. “It wasn’t a very good example.”

“All right,” I said, “all turds aside, here it is again. It’s what we got, and that’s why we check it out. They’re there, we bring them home if we have to tie them up and toss them in the back of the van. Or at least the boy, and more importantly, the money. I think they get the money back, lots of feelings are gonna be less hurt.”

“I been thinking about that,” Tonto said, sipping a soft drink through a straw, then pausing as if he were seeing something far away. “What say we find the money and split it and go home?”

“That wouldn’t help mine and Leonard’s situation any.”

“No,” Tonto said, “it wouldn’t. But it would help our billfolds big-time. Split four ways, that’s not so bad. And there’s also this: the boy and the girl, they could end up dead. They end up that way and no one knows me and Jim Bob was in with you, we can just say, hey, the bad guys, they got there first and all the money was gone. They must have got it back.”

“That still wouldn’t help us,” I said, “and I wouldn’t do that. You don’t know me, Tonto, but I wouldn’t do that. Neither would Leonard.”

“Absolutely not,” Leonard said.

“I know that,” Tonto said. “Hell, I know that, but it’s something I could do, and I had to try it out, see how it fit.”

“It doesn’t fit,” I said.