Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (19 page)

“Have you seen him lately?” Jackie asked.

“No,” Frieda said.

“I did,” D’Antonio volunteered. “He came this morning. Driving a big black car. He couldn’t unlock his door. So he came over here and went to see Miz Irene.”

“She probably changed the lock,” Frieda said. “You don’t pay rent right on time, Miz Irene will lock your ass out in a minute.”

“Did Miz Irene give him the key?” Jackie wanted to know.

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t happen to see what Wade was doing over there, did you, D’Antonio?” Jackleen asked.

The child smiled shyly. “I was playin’ spy.”

“D’Antonio!” Frieda said sharply.

“Like James Bond,” he protested. “I didn’t hurt nothin’. When Wade went in there, I snuck up on the porch and peeked in.”

“What did you see?” Jackleen asked.

“Nothin’,” the kid said. “That place was some kind of a mess. My mama would whip my behind if I made a mess like that. Wade, he be lookin’ for something, opening drawers and closets and stuff.”

“Did he find what he was looking for?” Truman asked.

“I don’t know,” D’Antonio said. “That lady in the flowered dress who was sneaking around and looking in the back window, was she a cop like y’all?”

Truman and Jackie looked at each other. “What woman?”

Now D’Antonio was pleased with himself. “She driving a black Firebird. Wearing a funny-lookin’ hat on her head, and a big old fat-lady dress, but she had skinny arms and legs like you, Auntie. She go around and peek in the window at Wade’s. When he come out, she got back in her car and followed him out.”

“Have you ever seen her around here before?” Truman asked.

“Nuh-uh.”

“It looks like somebody else is after that computer program,” Truman told Jackleen quietly.

“That the thing Wade said gonna make them rich?” Frieda asked.

“They told you about it?” Jackleen asked.

“One Sunday Wade be sitting over there drinking beer and me and D’Antonio be out here, cooking hot dogs on our grill. Wade, he come over, mooch a hot dog off of us. Pretty soon Rosie come over looking for him. She say ‘I thought you supposed to be working on the computer program.’ And Wade, he tell her to shut up, ‘cause he’s taking a break. And he start tellin’ me and D’Antonio about he got a computer thingy can pick all the winners over there at the dog track. I tell him, pick me some winners, I’m sick of poor.”

“Did they ever do that?” Jackleen asked.

“Nah. Wade be full of shit,” Frieda said. “And I could tell Rosie wanted him to shut his mouth up and quit talking so much.”

Truman took the brass key out of his pocket and showed it to Frieda. “Does this look like the key to one of the cabins here?”

“That little bitty key ain’t from here,” Frieda assured him.

Truman’s gaze wandered to Rosie’s cabin. Faded curtains hung limply at dust-caked windows. A single beer can lay on its side near the front step. “I wonder if the key is to anything in the cabin.”

“You wanna take a look?” Frieda asked slyly.

Truman looked surprised.

“Miz Irene give me the spare, case somebody comes to look at it while she at wrasslin’,” Frieda explained. She reached into the pocket of her shorts and brought out a large silver-colored key attached to a bit of yarn. “Y’all find out who did Rosie that way. You hear?”

“Tell me again why we’re messin’ with a midget?“Curtis Goolsby leaned against the bedroom dresser. He wore a yellow Walkman headset that was in bright contrast to his dark hair.

Butch walked over and wrenched the headset off Curtis’s head.

“Ow,” Curtis said, rubbing his right ear. “That hurt.”

“Maybe now you’ll listen,” Butch said. “Concentrate. Okay?”

Curtis nodded.

“I told you. He’s causing all kinds of trouble for your mama.”

“Oh,” Curtis said, rubbing his ear again. It really smarted. “But I thought Mama was mad at you,” he said. “And you was mad at her. You said she was a low-rent, two-bit—”

“I was mad at her because she sold my gun collection, is all,” Butch explained. “But the point is, this son of a bitch is causing your mama all kinds of problems and we got to do something about it.”

“Let’s just scare him. Tell him shut up or we’ll kick your ass.”

“An ass-kicking won’t do it,” Butch said. “Your mama says he’s a feisty little sumbitch. He’d just report us to the cops.”

“Ain’t we supposed to be looking for that Wade boy and that computer thing?” Curtis said, trying another tack. “You said we’d get rich if we got hold of that computer thing.”

“We’ll get to that,” Butch said. “You puttin’ money before your mama’s best interests?”

He did not bother to tell his son that what was really at stake was a way for him to get back inside Cookie’s pants— er, good graces.

“I never killed nobody before,” Curtis went on.

“Don’t think of it like that. Think about it, like, you’re doin’ right by your mama. Keeping her from losing her job and having to live in a Dumpster and eat Kibbles’N Bits. Self-defense. Right?”

“If you say so.” But Curtis did not look happy.

Butch went on unloading the things from the shopping bag, laying each one carefully out on the bed.

“Okay,” he said, pointing to a pile of clothing. “These here are the blue shirts we’ll wear with blue pants. So it looks like a uniform. You got blue pants, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Right. Now this here,” he said, picking up a large, flat red plastic square, “is the pizza-warmer box. But instead of a pizza, you’re going to have a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun inside.”

Butch took the shotgun out of the bag and lovingly handed it to Curtis, who flinched, but took it anyway.

“How come I gotta be the one with the gun?” he wanted to know.

“Because I’m the one doing everything else,” Butch said. “I’m the one tying them up. I’m the one ramshacking the place and stealing your mama’s jewelry and VCR-player. Plus, I’m the one driving and I’m the one who made the plan and got all the stuff together. Now you want to quit complaining and start listening to the plan?”

“That shotgun’s gonna make a big old hole,” Curtis pointed out. “Be a lot of blood and stuff. Mama don’t like mess.”

“Cookie’s not going to say a word,” Butch promised. “You’re going to hit her upside the head with that gun first thing. She’ll be out cold. Won’t know a thing until she wakes up.”

“I can’t hit my mama,” said Curtis, horrified.

“I’ll hit her then,” Butch said quickly, and he unloaded the rest of the contents of his shopping bag.

Curtis brightened up when he saw the masks. Black wool ski masks, the kind with slits for eyes and mouths. Butch had finally found them in an army-surplus store.

“Like bank robbers wear. Can I put mine on?”

“No,” Butch said, snatching it away. “We got no time for fashion shows. We got to go over this plan to make sure you got it all down.”

Jackleen turned the key over to Truman, who buttoned it back in his pocket.

“I sure thought this would unlock something in that cabin, or at least her car. Didn’t you?”

“Not really,” he said, shrugging. “It doesn’t make sense that she’d hide it where they both lived.”

“What about a car?”

They raced back to D’Antonio’s porch. He pointed to the old blue VW parked under a pine tree, the hood covered with pine needles.

Inside, the car was disappointingly and surprisingly clean. The glove box held a Florida map, a flashlight, a pack of gum, and a lipstick. The trunk was empty too. No sign of computer disks.

“I wonder why she was hiding the disk from her boyfriend, especially if he helped make it,” Jackleen said. “And who else is looking for it besides Wade?”

“Whoever killed her,” Truman said.

Jackleen got back in her own car. “Want to start at the track?”

“I can’t think of anyplace else,” he said. “But I still want to talk to this Hardeson boy.”

“I’d say he’s suspect number one,” Jackie said.

“And the woman D’Antonio saw snooping around the cabin today is suspect number two. But who is she?” Truman said.

“I’ve got an idea,” Jackie said. “Remember that cop who came to see you at the hotel last week? Maybe he’d talk to us, let us know what else the police found out.”

“Roberts. I doubt he’d tell us anything,” Truman said, frowning.

“Didn’t you say he was an old friend of your daughter’s?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Truman said. “He won’t talk.”

“What about if we tell him about the key?” Jackie asked.

“No way,” Truman said. “But I’ll tell you what. Roberts works at the racetrack as a security guard. Maybe we’ll see him tonight.”

“Ask him how Rosie got to the track,” Jackie said. “And who the woman in the flowered dress is.”

“You think this guy knows anything about computers?” Tammi pulled the dress off over her head and threw it in the backseat. Underneath she wore a black tank top and a brief black skirt. “Like, would he know if you gave him a bogus disk?” she asked, fluffing her hair with her hands.

They were stopped at a light on Gandy Boulevard. Wade had a knot in his stomach. He needed a beer.

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “Mike doesn’t know shit about computers.”

“So how were they going to use it? They got somebody that does know computers?”

“They must,” Wade said. “They’re not gonna shell out twenty-five thousand dollars just to buy something they can’t use. The mob ain’t nuts.”

“But this Mikey,” Tammi kept on. “He’s the one you’re dealing with. And he doesn’t know a bit from a bite in the ass—right?”

“Maybe,” Wade said. “What’s your point?”

“Give him a fake disk,” Tammi said. “How’s he gonna know? You hand it over, he hands you the money, he takes off, we take off.”

“And the first time he tries it, I’m a dead man,” Wade shot back. “You’re crazy, you know that? You don’t fuck with these guys.”

Tammi was jabbing the back of his neck with the gun barrel. “Here’s what we do. You give him a disk. He goes away. We go find the real disk. Or like you say, write another program. When it’s done, you call him up: ‘Excuse me, I think there’s a glitch with the disk you got. But I fixed it and now I’m gonna give you the new improved model. For only another ten thousand dollars. That’s a discount.’ Right?”

“Rip them off again?” Wade could not believe this chick. Talk about brass balls. Hers positively clanged. Wade wasn’t really the ambitious type. That had been Rosie. As far as old Wade was concerned, one good hit at the track was enough for him. The twenty-five thousand Mikey promised was enough of a stake. He’d find the disk or make a new one, hit it big there, at Tampa and Sarasota. Maybe go over to the tracks in Alabama next season.

And there was Marty, up in Lutz. Former jockey, little wrinkled-up old guy he’d met in the bar at the track at Oldsmar Downs, knew everything there was to know about horse racing. Two, three months with Marty, Wade could write a horse-racing program. Horse racing. Now that was a class operation. And you could use it in Europe too. He’d win big here, go over to Europe, travel around. Meet chicks…

“Uh-uh,” he said, a note of finality in his voice. “You want to get yourself killed, help yourself. I’m gonna try and stall Mikey. Then we go inside the track and find the disk. It can’t be hidden that good.”

He felt a small cold-steel presence pressing the back of his neck. He wanted to reach over to the glove box, for Nana’s gun.

“Do what I tell you, Wade baby, or the last thing you’re going to see is your brains splattered on the windshield of this car. Okay?”

They took a quick detour to the tourist court. Wade parked close to the cabin, and they darted inside, locking the door behind them.

He sat down at the table and turned on the laptop. “They didn’t mess with it,” he said, relieved. “But they took a bunch of my disks.”

“Get a blank disk then,” Tammi ordered. “You can type some stuff on there real fast. Make it look like the real thing.”

“I told you,” Wade protested. “It takes hours, weeks, to do this, to make the chart. I can’t just—”

“Type,” Tammi ordered. “Just type. And hurry up.”

“I can’t think with a gun pointed at my head. I get nervous.”

Tammi crossed her arms across her chest but kept the gun in her right hand. “All right. Now it’s not pointed at you. Get moving.” She glanced at her watch. “We got thirty minutes.”

I need a drink, Wade thought It was his mantra whenever he was anxious or scared. I need a drink, I need a drink, I need a drink.

Instead, though, he opened a new file, quickly built a makeshift grid, and started typing in the most basic components. Eight dogs, fourteen races. There was no time to do anything approaching a complete chart. Instead, he typed in the most important factors: the dog’s grade, the race distance, dog’s weight, most recent finishes, and favorite post positions. Typing the numbers soothed his nerves. Numbers did that. Almost as good as a beer.