Astride a Pink Horse (31 page)

As Mimms walked away, Bernadette said to Cozy, “Sort of protective, don’t you think? And you know what? He reminds me a little of Frankenstein’s monster.”

“Does at that,” Cozy said. “Could be we’re both imagining things, though.”

“Could be,” Bernadette said, feeling beneath her seat for the lug wrench.

Watching her, Cozy said, “Come on, Bernadette. You don’t really think he’d cause us any trouble.”

“I don’t really know, but like my dad always says, ‘Better prepared than not.’ ” She placed the lug wrench on the console between them and watched as Mimms chatted with Colbain and both men walked casually to Bernadette’s side of the SUV. “Looking for me?” Colbain asked, leaning down and blowing stale beer breath into Bernadette’s face.

“Yes,” said Bernadette, uncertain whether or not she should announce who she was in any sort of official capacity.

“The two of you got names?”

“Elgin Coseia,” Cozy said, surprising Bernadette with the swiftness of his reply.

“And your name, miss?”

Deciding to leave off “Major,” Bernadette said, “Bernadette Cameron. Mr. Coseia and I are looking into a murder that took place recently up in Wyoming. The victim was a former air force sergeant.”

Colbain flashed an insightful smile. “And I bet the two of you are hooked up with a guy named Freddy Dames.”

“We know him,” said Cozy, watching Mimms, who’d been rocking back and forth on his heels, start toward the rear of the SUV.

“Then you probably know he’s already been down here to Albuquerque and tarred and feathered me with questions. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. I don’t know a damn thing about your murder. So why don’t the two of you skedaddle on outta here and head back where you came from.”

“We’d be happy to,” said Bernadette. “But since you talked to Mr. Dames, there’s been another murder. A woman named Sarah Goldbeck has been killed. Did you know her?”

“No.”

“Odd,” Bernadette said, realizing that Mimms was now on Cozy’s side of the vehicle and closing in on the driver’s door. “But if you don’t, you don’t. Strange, though, you not knowing the dead woman, because believe it or not, I’ve seen a couple of old photos that show the two of you together, standing outside the gates of an air force missile-silo site.” Going for the jugular, she said, “I’ve also seen photos of that dead sergeant I mentioned hugged up real close and tight with your late wife.”

“You fuckin’ …” Colbain’s face turned crimson. Reaching inside the vehicle, he grabbed the throat of Bernadette’s blouse and ripped it, buttons popping, down the middle.

Without a word, Bernadette grabbed the lug wrench and jammed the sharp end into the soft flesh just above Colbain’s Adam’s apple as hard as she could until Colbain stumbled backward, clutching his throat and coughing up mucus and blood.

Cozy, who’d been watching Mimms close in on his door, swung the door open, catching the giant lot man’s testicles with the edge. Mimms yelled, “Shit!” and dropped to his knees, gasping. Cozy recocked the door and slammed it into the lot man’s head several times until Mimms rolled to the ground, semiconscious.

“Cozy, toss me your belt,” Bernadette said, her voice barely rising as she stepped from the SUV. With Colbain still clutching his throat and the lug wrench now in the waistband of her jeans, Bernadette kicked Colbain’s feet out from under him, grabbed him by his wrists, yanked his hands behind his back, and knotted them together with Cozy’s belt. “Don’t you think about moving,” she said, again jabbing Colbain in his neck with the lug wrench.

“What about this guy?” Cozy yelled, staring down on a rapidly recovering Mimms.

“We tie him up, too.” Bernadette ripped her blouse the rest of the way down the front, slipped out of it, and tore it down the back. Handing Cozy half the blouse and kneeling beside Mimms, she said, “It’s not a belt, but it’ll work. I’ll do his hands, you do his feet. We need to get them to that fence over there and tied to it while they’re both still out of it,” she said, glancing toward the damaged fence.

“What’ll we use to secure them to it?”

“We’ll have to use some of those pieces of smooth wire dangling from the steel support posts. Let’s move it.”

Bernadette grabbed Colbain, who was gasping and calling for a doctor, by one arm and started walking him toward the fence. When he yanked out of her grasp, she slammed the lug-nut end of
the wrench into his belly. “You can do this willingly or unwillingly, Colbain. Makes no real difference to me.”

Gasping for air, bleeding from his mouth and nose, and with his head hanging, Colbain staggered toward the fence. Moments later Bernadette had him, hands behind his back, seated, and secured to a wooden fence brace with wire. Less than a minute later, she and Cozy had the semiconscious Mimms wired to the fence as well.

With their arms behind their backs and fencing wire looped around their chests, the two men reminded Cozy of a couple of subdued silver-screen desperadoes from some grade-B 1950s cowboy movie. Dripping sweat, Cozy slipped out of his shirt and draped it over Bernadette’s shoulders. As she slipped the shirt on and pondered whether to call the FBI, the cops, or no one at all, she realized that Cozy had been wearing a faded Southeastern Oklahoma State baseball T-shirt beneath his shirt. Smiling, she ran an index finger across the faded lettering. “Looks like pitchers and catchers reported today.”

“Think we did, Coach,” Cozy said, returning her smile and thinking that, dressed in his partially unbuttoned shirt and glistening with sweat, Bernadette looked flat-out Hollywood sensual.

During his army days, Otis Breen had always considered FBI agents pompous asses. The five minutes he’d just spent on the phone with Thaddeus Richter hadn’t changed his mind. The arrogant-sounding Richter was clearly more concerned about whether Silas might be involved in some kind of scheme to sell nuclear secrets than with whether Silas was in harm’s way. Otis found himself
wishing Richter were standing in front of him so he could shove a fist down the agent’s throat.

He’d told Richter everything he knew about Silas’s cross-country hauling job, including the fact that Thurmond Giles had been the one to set the job up. And he’d tried, unsuccessfully, it seemed, to explain that his son was a decent, law-abiding person, not some felon on the run.

When he finally asked Richter whether he thought Silas might have unwittingly gotten involved in some scheme that could end up getting him killed, Richter, sounding puffed-up and self-important, launched into a lecture on the overarching importance of national security. Otis listened for about thirty seconds before slamming down the phone and promptly calling Bernadette Cameron.

Bernadette’s cell phone started to ring as she re-buttoned her shirt and she and Cozy turned their backs to a biting thirty-mile-per-hour wind. For the past five minutes, they’d been trying unsuccessfully to get something other than silence and hate-filled stares out of Howard Colbain and Jerico Mimms.

“See if you can’t get something besides evil looks out of them while I take this call,” Bernadette, looking frustrated, said to Cozy. Cupping the phone to her right ear to fight off the wind howl, she said out of habit, “Major Cameron.” Surprised to hear the voice on the other end of the line, she tapped Cozy on the shoulder and whispered, “It’s Otis Breen.”

Cozy nodded, then knelt in front of Colbain and Mimms. “Pick your poison, boys. You can talk to us, the cops, or the FBI.”

Neither man said a word as Bernadette, squatting with her back to the wind in hopes of better reception, listened to Breen.

Looking at Bernadette, then Colbain, then Mimms, Cozy said, “That could be the FBI that Major Cameron’s talking to right now, gentlemen. Telling them about the two of you killing that air force sergeant up in Wyoming.” He locked eyes with Colbain. “It’s bad form to rip a lady’s blouse off, friend, but who’s to judge? Maybe your late wife liked it rough.”

Colbain cleared his sinuses with a snort and spat a mouthful of bloody mucus past Cozy’s shoulder. “Fuck you.”

“That’s bad form, too, asshole.” Cozy rose, kicked the sole of Colbain’s boot, and took a step back as Bernadette, having explained the situation she and Cozy were in to Otis Breen, said, “Just stay on the line, Mr. Breen, okay?”

Turning to Colbain and bending the truth in hopes of getting something out of him, she said, “I’ve got someone on the phone who wants to know if you’re the person who’s got his son hauling a truckload of stolen military hardware across country.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Tell him to—”

Mimms cut Colbain off. “Hell, boss! No way I’m gettin’ hung up in no mess that involves stolen military shit.”

“Be quiet, Jerico.”

“Be quiet, my ass!” Mimms stared pleadingly at Bernadette. “Listen here, Major. I ain’t no killer, and I sure ain’t no terrorist or traitor.”

“If you’ve got something to say, now’s the time, Jerico.”

“Okay, okay. I think I know somethin’ about that shipment you just mentioned.” He hesitated, watching a scowl spread across Colbain’s face.

“In for a penny, in for a pound, Jerico. Go ahead and finish.” Bernadette flashed Cozy a look that said,
Think the pot’s about to boil over
.

“Yeah, think I will. A few hours back some guy called here, a real nervous-soundin’ guy, mind you, and asked me to put Mr. Colbain on the phone. I went into the boss’s office, told him he had a call, and transferred it to him. A couple of minutes later he rushes out to the yard where I’m workin’, lookin’ pale as a ghost, and asks if I could help some guy paint a truck. I said sure. He hustled back to his office, spent another couple of minutes or so there, then came back out and told me the paintin’ deal was off. Sounded sort of relieved, to tell you the truth.”

“So why’d you change your mind about painting that truck?” Bernadette asked Colbain.

When he didn’t answer, she said to Cozy, “Paint or no paint, I’m thinking that truck of Silas Breen’s is headed this way.”

Cozy shook his head. “Maybe not. Why stop in Albuquerque when your real destination is Los Alamos and you’ve just been told that you’re not getting any help with painting your truck?”

“Good point,” Bernadette said, turning her attention back to Colbain. “Any other requests that Silas Breen might’ve had besides wanting help with that paint job on his truck, Mr. Colbain?”

Colbain said nothing, but the surprised look on his face told Bernadette that she’d obviously said something that had clicked
with him. Recalling something her father had once told her about the kinds of mental intimidation he’d had to endure as a POW in Vietnam, and remembering the rise she had gotten out of Colbain when she’d mentioned his late wife, she kicked a scattering of sand into Colbain’s face. “Can’t hold out forever, Colbain. Your wife sure didn’t.”

A look of pure anger spread across Colbain’s face, but he remained silent. Looking disappointed, she said to Mimms, “Did the man who called about that paint job sound young, old, scared, impatient?”

“Couldn’t tell you how old or young he was, but he damn sure sounded impatient. And there was one other strange thing about him. He sounded kinda mush-mouthed. You know, like he couldn’t quite get the whole part of his words out. Like he was tongue-tied, maybe.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Breen?” asked Cozy.

“I don’t think so. Don’t think so at all,” she said, smiling. “But I’ve got a good idea of who called.” Kneeling until she was again eye to eye with Colbain, she said, “The worm just turned, Colbain. Now, why on earth, sir, would a tongue-tied mathematics professor be calling you for help with a paint job on a truck?” When no answer came, she said, “If I were you, I’d start talking fast and furious, because trust me, you’re in way over your head here, friend. I don’t know what the heck Rikia Takata has on you or how on earth the two of you are tied to the Giles murder, but here’s something for you to chew on. Mr. Coseia and I think Rikia Takata and perhaps a man named Silas Breen are headed for Los
Alamos in that truck Takata wanted painted, and they may be hauling a nuclear device.”

“No way!” Colbain screamed.

“My, my. Funny how that word
nuclear
starts tongues a-waggin’. I’m surprised at your naïveté, Mr. Colbain. I figured that of all people, you’d be one who understood the poison we call revenge. And you know what? I think revenge is what’s been driving the whole Tango-11 breach from the start.”

Colbain’s head slumped as he stared at the ground, silent once again.

Looking at Mimms, Bernadette asked, “How long ago did the tongue-tied man call? I need you to be as precise as you can.”

Mimms stared skyward, deep in thought. “I’d say it was about three hours ago, or pretty darn close.”

Running a quick timetable in his head, Cozy said, “Assuming that Rikia was somewhere between Amarillo and Albuquerque or Lubbock and Albuquerque when he called, that would put him pretty close to Albuquerque by now. That’s if he’s not still fooling around trying to paint that truck.”

Surprising everyone, Howard Colbain looked up and said, “He’s long past Albuquerque by now. He was an hour east of the U.S. 285 bypass around the city when he called. As for painting a truck, you can spray paint one the size he’s driving with a couple of dozen cans of paint from a hardware store in less than forty-five minutes.”

Amazed at the sudden outpouring from Colbain, Bernadette looked at her watch. “So if he’s traveling at sixty or so, and he did actually paint the truck in that short a time, where would that put him now, Mr. Colbain?”

“North of the 285 bypass for sure,” said Colbain. “There’s no way you’ll ever catch up with him now.”

“Oh, there’s a way,” Bernadette said. “How long did it take us to get from the airport to here?” she asked Cozy.

“Ten minutes, and that’s with you complaining about my speed, remember?”

“Think you can cut that to five?”

“I can try,” Cozy said as a swirl of wind and sand blasted everyone.

Spitting out sand and wiping it from her eyes, Bernadette squatted and duck-walked her way around Colbain, then Mimms, making certain they were still securely tied to the fence braces. Looking at Colbain, she said, “On our way to the airport, I’ll call and have someone with a badge come out here and pick the two of you up. I’m sure they’ll be real interested in your ties to Rikia Takata. In the meantime, you can both sit here and enjoy the sun, the sand, and the surf.” Eyeing Colbain pensively, she asked, “Why’d you decide to finally give Takata up?”