Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (5 page)

“Tough?” Curtis was puzzled.

“Look mean,” Butch explained. “Kind of narrow your eyes, like Clint Eastwood in them Dirty Harry movies. Think you can do that?”

Curtis squinched his eyes so that he looked like an idiot Chinaman. Butch sighed. “Here,” he said, pulling the Smith & Wesson .38 pistol from under the seat of the truck. “If I give you the nod, you just hold this up real quick. Only don’t shoot him. Not out in public.”

“Okay,” Curtis said. He squinched his eyes again for practice and stroked the pistol, humming again, but softly.

When they got to the Bayside Tourist Court, Butch pulled alongside the Cutlass, took a clean toothpick, and fitted it between his bottom teeth.

He knocked on the door of unit seven, scraping his knuckles on the peeling paint. After a moment, Wade Hardeson III stuck his head out the door. His face paled a little when he saw his guest.

“Who is it?” he heard a woman’s voice call.

“Tell her somebody needs their battery jumped off,” Butch said in a low voice. “We don’t want nobody to get hurt.”

“Be right back, Rosie,” Wade called.

He closed the door quickly and stepped out onto the cracked concrete stoop. “What are you doing here? I told you I’d meet you at the track tonight. I’ll give you a couple tips, and we’ll be all square.”

Butch shook his head. “Deal’s off. The boss man’s busting my chops about that Cutlass. You got the money?”

Wade’s face fell. “No. I don’t have the money. I got a cash flow problem. I thought we had an understanding.”

“Uh-uh,” Butch said. “No good.”

He started walking away. Wade followed him out to the parking lot. Butch leaned over and looked in the open window of the Cutlass.

“You got any personal shit in here, you better get it out. Me and my boy gotta take it back to the shop right now.”

He reached in his pocket and took out a round brass ring loaded with keys, each with a small, round paper tag attached.

“Curtis,” he said, looking over at his son, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, “let’s go. I’ll drive the Cutlass, you follow.”

When his father addressed him, Curtis stopped humming and quit tapping his feet. He squinched his eyes up. “All right,” he said, trying to sound tough. He jammed the pistol in the waistband of his jeans, got out of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side and got in. At the same time, Butch opened the door of the Cutlass and started throwing Wade’s belongings onto the pavement.

“Wait now,” Wade said, panicking. “Man, I need my wheels. I can’t get to work or to the track without my wheels.”

Butch let the toothpick droop in the corner of his mouth. His eyes were half closed, and the reptilian expression on his face reminded Wade of the alligator who slumbered the afternoons away on the grassy bank of the pond in back of the tourist court.

“Better get a bus schedule, dude,” Butch drawled. “Your credit’s done run out with Sun Bay Auto Rental. My records show you owe us six hundred eighty-three dollars and seventy-two cents. Been owing it. You sure you ain’t got any of the money?”

“Not that much,” Wade said. “Maybe a hundred, hundred twenty-five. Listen. If I can come up with a hundred, right now, how about letting me keep the car? This thing at the track, it’s a sure thing. By the end of tonight, I’ll have every dime I owe you. How about it?”

Butch looked down at the clipboard with the rental agreement in his hand. “My boss is back at the shop right now. He’s a mean sumbitch. Told us to get the car and the money. Didn’t he, Curtis?”

He shot his son an almost imperceptible nod, which meant that Curtis should not blurt out the fact that Butch was, in fact, the boss.

Curtis got the message. “That’s right, Daddy.”

“You remember what else the boss said?” Butch prompted.

This was the signal. Curtis took the pistol out of his waistband and stroked Wade’s cheek with the gun barrel. Wade shrank away.

“The boss said to do whatever we had to do, but don’t come back without the car and the money,” Curtis said.

Without warning, Butch grabbed Wade, whirling him around and pinning his arms behind his back, twisting viciously.

“Shit, man,” Wade cried, “you’re hurting me.”

“That’s the plan,” Butch said. He gave Wade a shove.

“Come on. Let’s go inside and see if your lady friend has any money. He’s got a cute little old spic girlfriend in there, Curtis.”

Now Butch was giving Curtis the high sign again, so he attempted something close to a leer. “Yeah, Dad. Let’s get the chick.”

Wade’s face was contorted with fear and pain. The big kid had taken over holding him now, and he clamped his mitts around Wade’s wrists like a vise. His hands and arms were throbbing.

He wasn’t worried about Rosie’s safety. Nah. If one of these two came near her, she’d knee them quick in the balls and run like hell. But if she found out how much money he owed these goons, she’d never let him hear the end of it. It wouldn’t do to piss Rosie off. Not now. Not when they were so close.

“No, man,” he gasped. “Leave her alone. Listen,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’ll give you the computer program. It’s worth a lot more than what I owe you. Lots more.”

“Program?” Butch said. “Would that be the thing you been mouthin’ off about, the system to pick dogs?”

“Yeah,” Wade said. He didn’t remember telling this guy about the program. He must have shot his mouth off while he was drunk.

“Lemme go, okay? And I’ll tell you about it. Swear to God, this thing is guaranteed. Let me go and I’ll go in and get the printout for you. Fourteen races. Fourteen guaranteed winners.”

Curtis held on tightly, like a bloodhound with a treed coon.

Butch’s toothpick rolled over to the other side of his mouth. “It’s okay, boy,” he said finally. “Let’s go take a look at what Wade here has to offer.”

Inside the cabin, Rosie watched through the dirt-caked window as the two thugs manhandled Wade.

“Madre de Dios,” she muttered, locking the door and fastening the chain. She dragged a chair over to the door too, propping it under the doorknob. No telling what Wade was promising them.

Five more minutes. That’s all she needed. She sat back down at the computer and tried to concentrate. Wade had designed a gridwork for predicting each race’s outcome. There were fourteen grids to fill out, one for each race. Running vertically down the side of the grid she’d numbered the dogs, one through eight. Across the top, there were spaces for weight, age, speed, experience, post position, track length, breeding—all the factors she used for handicapping.

Then she’d filled in the blanks with numerical grades for each factor, all the material Wade had programmed into the computer.

She’d gotten picks for ten races, in different combinations, including a perfecta, an exacta, and a quinella. The first three races the computer ran, the results were nearly identical to what she’d predicted using her old hand-done method. But the results for the fifth, seventh, and tenth races were different. That’s where they’d make their money, letting the computer figure in factors she couldn’t.

She went into the bathroom and opened the Tampax box on the shelf in the bathroom, picking out the back row of tampons, the ones with the paper wrappers she’d carefully glued shut. She tore the wrappers off, took the rolled- up twenties out of the empty cardboard dispensers. Three hundred dollars.

She took the money and tucked it in her bra. She wanted the money against her skin, where she could feel it, for good luck.

Back to the program. She typed hurriedly, using the handwritten charts she’d worked on all week. She typed in the numbers for the twelfth race and tapped the enter button. The machine made a quiet noise, digesting, she thought of it. Rosie liked the computer. It was quiet. Competent. Like her, it ran on logic. Wade was a genius with numbers, but Rosie, she knew logic.

Wade. She ran back to the window. Wade’s mouth was running a mile a minute. He was gesturing wildly, pointing toward the cabin, nodding confidently.

“Oh, shit,” Rosie said, gritting her teeth. No fucking way. She hadn’t worked this hard, come this far, to hand the program over to a couple of goons to settle one of Wade’s bar bets.

She darted back to the computer. Pushed the print button. No time to run the last race. She’d rely on her own picks for that. She ripped the printout out of the computer, folded it in quarters, and stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans. She popped a diskette into the computer’s hard drive and repeated the sequence of commands Wade had taught her.

Seconds later, after the computer screen flashed the words “file copied,” she called up the file on the diskette. It was all there. Good. She took the diskette and put it in the zippered fanny pack she used as a pocketbook.

Now there were voices at the door, and the knob was turning. Wade’s voice. “Rosie? Open up, babe. The door’s locked.”

“Be right there,” she called. She called the program up again on the hard drive, punched some keys, and typed out onto the command line: k-i-1-1. The computer made its quiet chewing sounds and then the screen went blank. Swallowed whole, Rosie thought.

She looked around the room regretfully. She didn’t mind the clothes so much. But her books, a hundred paperbacks probably, picked up at the book exchange, she hated to lose. But there was no time. She grabbed her rose-covered hat and jammed it on her head.

“Rosie? Open up, dammit. This isn’t funny.”

“I’m in the bathroom,” she called. “Be right there.”

She went to the open window in the bedroom, and with one foot, kicked out the rotten screen. She had one leg out when the orange cat peeked out from under the bed.

“Punkin!” she called softly. In one swift move she was back in the room, grabbing the kitten and tucking it under her arm. Then she was out the window and running, darting in between the tiny tourist cabins, the cat tucked under the crook of her arm like a football.

Marguerite Streck was out in the front yard trying to get the Weedwacker to work when Michael pulled into the driveway.

“What are you doing home?” she asked him. Saturdays were the busiest times at the lot, where Michael worked for his uncle Earl. And this was a busy month too, with snowbirds shopping for double-wides to get away from those brutal winters in Detroit and Des Moines.

“You guys run out of mobile homes to sell?”

“Don’t call it mobile homes,” Michael snarled. “It’s manufactured housing. Okay? Manufactured housing. And I’m home because I got somewhere to be tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

“Whatever,” she said, turning her back on him and going back to the malfunctioning Weedwacker.

Michael loosened his tie as he walked into the house, going straight to the refrigerator for a beer. Then he went into the living room. From here he could watch while Marguerite slashed the hell out of his hibiscus and oleanders.

He took his cordless phone out of its stand and punched in a number. “Yeah,” he told the person who answered. “This is Mikey. Lemme talk to Nunz.”

Marguerite was kneeling on the grass now, pulling handfuls of tangled nylon line out of the Weedwacker. Her face was beet red from the sun, her hair damp and plastered to her head.

“Slob,” he said aloud.

“Huh? Who the fuck is this?”

“Oh no, Nunz,” Michael said hurriedly. “It’s me, Mikey. No, I was talking about Marguerite, my old lady. She’s out in the yard, sweating like a field hand. It’s disgusting, you know?”

“You let your old lady do yardwork?” Nunz demanded. “What kind of man are you?”

Nunzio Gianni was very formal and old-fashioned. Michael had never seen him in anything but a dark suit and a white dress shirt.

“She likes to garden,” Michael said. “It’s like a hobby. Hey, Nunz,” he said, changing the subject. “You know that thing I was talking to you about? It’s all set for tonight.” “The thing?” Nunz had obviously forgotten. “The thing. With the puppies. Remember, I told you I got a line on a guy who can fix the puppies?”

Nunz was still puzzled. “Puppies?” he repeated. “I got a parakeet. What the fuck do I need with puppies?” Michael shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Nunz. Remember? I got a guy who can fix those dogs over in St. Pete. The gray ones. Remember?”

“Gray dogs? Oh yeah, yeah. The thing. I remember. Sure.”

“Great,” Michael said, relieved. “So tonight’s the night. The guy is supposed to meet me there, you know, to give it to me.”

“He’s gonna give it to you?” Nunz asked.

Michael chuckled, thinking about that dipshit Wade. He’d run into him at the track in Tampa, impressed after watching Wade cash in a handful of winning tickets. He’d bought the kid a few drinks in the clubhouse, then they’d done a line of coke in the men’s room. He’d let it slip casually that he, Michael Streck, was close to Nunzio Gianni.

“No shit. You work for the Giannis? ” Wade said, eyes widening.

Everybody in the state knew the Giannis ran the rackets in Florida. Almost everybody assumed Nunzio Gianni worked for his cousin the capo, Salvatore “Sallie Gee” Gianni. What few realized was that Nunzio Gianni had never really met his second cousin Sallie.