Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (18 page)

“Shit,” Ronnie said, watching as the driver parked and got out. “What now?”

The driver looked huge to Truman, with a braid hanging down his back. Part Indian, part black. He matched the description Ed Weingarten had given for this Hernando Boone character.

The doorbell jangled as Boone pushed his way into the showroom. Wormy gave a loopy smirk. “How,” he said, holding up the palm of his hand.

“Shut up, Weems,” Boone snarled. He clapped Ronnie on the shoulder. “My man. Had a little dustup. Need to talk to you in private.”

“Go on in,” Ronnie said. “We’ll be with you in a minute.”

When the office door closed behind Boone, Ronnie’s smooth facade faded. “Dammit, Wormy,” he whispered. “Shut your stupid mouth. Boone’s crazy. He’d just as soon kill you as look at you, anyhow. Eddie should be here any minute. Get that paperwork together on Coombs’s Monte Carlo. And straighten up your act before you go in there. Or I’ll kill you myself.”

He took a thick clip of folded-up bills from his pocket and counted out ten twenties, which he stuck in an envelope and handed to Truman. “Eddie likes to deal in cash,” he said.

Wormy yanked open the file cabinet drawer, tossing the files Truman had just straightened onto the floor. When he found the file for Wesley Coombs, he slammed the top drawer shut and opened the next one, creating the same kind of chaos until he found another folder with a stack of blank forms. He took one of the forms and began filling it out.

“What’s that?” Truman asked.

“Repossession papers, pick-up order, that kind of bullshit,” Wormy said, not looking up from his furious scribbling.

He finished the paperwork and opened a recessed cabinet in the wall, revealing a pegboard hung with dozens and dozens of sets of keys. When he’d found the one he wanted, he tossed it on top of the other papers. “Tell Eddie it’s all there,” he said. Then he went into Ronnie’s private office.

Truman decided to seize the moment.

He opened the filing cabinet drawer, conveniently next to the closed door of Ronnie’s office. If anybody came out, he could say he was straightening up the files. They sure as hell needed it now.

The voices inside the office were only barely audible. Truman edged closer to the door. Hernando Boone’s deep voice was unmistakable. “Son-of-a- bitch crackheads. While I was upstairs doing business, one of ‘em took a tire iron to my Mercedes. Good thing it wasn’t my Gator truck. Nobody messes with that. Time I got down there, they’d scattered. Didn’t even get a shot off. You seen what they did. The Mercedes is ruined. So I was thinking, Ronnie, my man, you being the collision specialist, we could have us an accident, me and you and one of your monkeys.”

Truman strained, but he couldn’t hear Ronnie’s answer. Monkeys? Accidents? Was this the scam Weingarten was investigating? He didn’t dare hang around the door any longer to find out.

He was hungry, and no wonder. It was after six and he’d skipped lunch. He remembered having seen a candy machine in the garage during one brief foray out there while Wormy and Ronnie were gone.

Truman opened the door leading out to the garage, being careful to pull it closed behind him. It was dark and stupefyingly hot. He felt around among the stacks of tires and tools until he came to the vending machine he’d remembered. Most of the slots were empty, but there were some bags of peanuts, two kinds of candy bars, and some ancient-looking snack cakes. He fed in three quarters—for a Baby Ruth, which had been a nickel not so long ago—and put his hand under the delivery slot so the candy wouldn’t make a noise when it fell out.

The candy bar disappeared in three bites.

Truman looked around the garage, saw the partially open back door and a flash of red paint.

He crept back into the showroom, satisfied himself that everything was still quiet, and walked quickly around to the back of the sales lot. The garage bay was surrounded with a high chain-link fence, and half a dozen cars were parked inside. One was a red Corvette.

Jackie’s red Corvette? Hard to tell from this distance. After all, he’d only seen her car once. He moved over to the fence, felt his heartbeat jump up like a startled rabbit. A jolt of sugar from the Baby Ruth? Or was it the old adrenaline rush he’d always felt on the trail of a juicy story?

He felt in his pocket for the pack of HavaTampas. Took one out and lit it, inhaling deeply. Cheap cigars, he reflected, were one luxury he’d never give up.

This Corvette looked a lot like the one Jackie had bought. But this one had heavy damage to the front and the rear. Hers had been a lemon, but the body had looked pretty good, he recalled. Damn his eyes and damn old age. He couldn’t see much from here. Have to go back inside and come out through the garage door. It was risky, going into the showroom again and past Ronnie’s office, but the cigar seemed to have calmed his nerves.

As he glided noiselessly through the showroom he was thankful he’d thought to wear sneakers this morning. Out into the garage, then through the back door, into the fenced-in area. Act casual, he told himself, inching toward the Corvette. You work here. Nothing wrong with familiarizing yourself with the inventory.

If Jackleen had seen a body in the back of the Corvette, if it had been Jeff Cantrell, there might still be traces of blood. He bent down and peered into the back window of the red ‘Vette. Some kind of black plastic sheeting was stretched out over the hatch area. He couldn’t see anything unless he moved that plastic aside.

Wait. He could hear voices from inside the showroom. Quickly, he walked over to the garage door, leaned wearily against the doorjamb, and took a long pull on the HavaTampa. Even that wasn’t enough to chase the jitters. His hands were shaking.

“Hey!” Wormy’s voice echoed loudly from inside the garage. “What the hell are you doing out here, Pops? Snooping around?”

Truman willed himself to be calm. It’s the dope, he told himself. He took the cigar and flicked the ashes on the ground.

“Just taking a smoke break, that’s all,” he said. “I didn’t think Ronnie would want me to smoke inside, so I came out here. That’s all right, isn’t it? I can hear if anybody pulls into the lot. I got great hearing for a man my age.”

“This here area is off-limits,” Wormy said, giving Truman a shove.

Truman stood where he was. “I said I was sorry,” he said. He had no intention of letting anybody lay hands on him, drugs or no drugs. He gave Wormy a long, level stare. Wormy’s eyes were glassy.

“Back in the office,” Wormy said.

Truman walked slowly and deliberately through the garage with Wormy at his heels. Ronnie’s office door was still closed.

Outside, a horn honked. A black pickup truck pulled onto the lot. “That’s Eddie,” Wormy said.

Eddie turned out to be young and black, probably not even twenty-five years old, Truman thought. He was big, over six feet, and built like an overgrown baby. Baggy black shorts hung down to his pudgy knees and the black T-shirt wasn’t quite long enough to meet the waistband of his pants, exposing a roll of flabby belly flesh. His hair was shaved close to his scalp, a gold hoop earring hung from his right earlobe, and wraparound mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes. He wore black leather gloves with the fingers cut out, and when he swaggered into the office of Bondurant Motors, he acknowledged Wormy with one word.

“Yo.”

“This is Pops,” Wormy said curtly. “He’ll fix you up with everything.” He turned and went back into Ronnie’s office.

“Dickhead,” Eddie said. He gave Truman a sheepish look. “Uh, sorry, man.”

“Not at all,” Truman said. He began gathering up the paperwork, car keys, and money. “I was thinking the same thing myself. He is a dickhead.”

“That’s the truth,” Eddie said. He took off the sunglasses and wiped them on the hem of his T-shirt. “Hey, man, where’s Jeff?”

Truman looked up. “You know Jeff?”

“Sure. Me and him hang together some. He likes to go with me on pickups sometimes. The nastier the better. So where’s he at? Partying with the ladies?”

Truman glanced at the office door, then lowered his voice. “According to Ronnie, Jeff quit. Ronnie says Jeff took a job over in Ft. Lauderdale.”

“No way,” Eddie said. “We were supposed to get together Friday night. Me and him and his girlfriend. She was gonna fix me up with some girl from that club over there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Candy Store.

“His girlfriend. Is that LeeAnn?”

Eddie grinned. “You seen her, huh? Check out those hooters?”

“She came in a little while ago,” Truman said. “Trying to find out if Ronnie knew anything about where Jeff went. I guess Jeff didn’t tell her he was leaving town.”

“Shit,” Eddie said. He picked up the keys and read over the pick-up order for Wesley Coombs’s Monte Carlo.

“This Coombs. Is he a white dude?”

“Yes,” Truman said. “Skinny little S.O.B.”

Eddie got down to the Coombs address and frowned. “I know the street this guy lives on. Full of crackers and rednecks. I ain’t going in there in the daytime. Last time I made a run over there, these people had a ten-foot logging chain wrapped around the bumper of the car. The other end was wrapped around a brick column holding up the carport. Pissed me off.”

“What’d you do?” Truman asked.

“Bolt cutters,” Eddie said. “But the guy’s old lady heard me. She come outta the house, chased me with a knife.”

He pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt. A two-inch puffy pink scar made a stripe on the smooth brown shoulder. “See that? That place over there is worse than the projects.”

“You probably see a lot of crazy stuff, the line of work you’re in,” Truman observed.

“All kinds,” Eddie said. “Say, what’s your real name? That dickhead Wormy, he’s got no manners.”

“Don’t call me Pops. I’m Truman Kicklighter,” Truman said, offering his hand.

Eddie grasped Truman’s wrist in both his hands and gave it a quick up-and-down motion.

“Eddie Nevins. You wanna see my rig, Truman? State of the art, man.”

“Okay,” Truman said. He could still hear the men talking inside Ronnie’s office. It was past his quitting time. And if that snot Wormy gave him any lip, Truman decided, he would let him have it.

The truck’s black paint gleamed in the late afternoon sun. It was a heavy-duty Chevrolet pickup, but that’s where its resemblance to a tow truck ended. Where the bed would be on an ordinary truck, Eddie’s truck was built up, with a menacing looking twin-pronged set of H-shaped jaws extending off an arm that folded up and down. There were two sets of what looked like wheeled dollies strapped on either side of the tow bar. A decal on the cab’s rear window summed up Eddie’s approach to his life and work. “No Fear,” it said.

“Impressive,” Truman said.

“Get in and I’ll give you a demo,” Eddie offered. “Where’s Wormy’s car? We’ll tow his ass outta here in a New York minute.”

Behind them, they heard the showroom’s doorbell pealing.

Ronnie and Hernando Boone were still talking rapidly as they walked toward the Mercedes. Wormy trailed a few steps behind.

Bondurant slowed only a little and nodded quickly at the repo man. “Hiya, Eddie,” he said. Then he joined Boone beside the Mercedes.

Eddie was staring at Boone. “I know that brother from somewhere,” he muttered. “Not a real brother. Part Indian or something.”

“Miccosukee,” Truman put in. He was straining to catch part of the men’s conversation, which had turned aggressive.

“I don’t like it,” Ronnie was saying.

“Don’t have to like it. Just be there,” Boone shot back. “Weedon Island. They’re putting in a new road to the visitors’ center. Midnight.”

“Eddie!” Wormy had snuck up behind them. “Don’t you got a job to be doing? We ain’t paying you to stand around here and jerk off with this old man all night.”

Eddie’s cheerful round features tightened into a wooden mask of hatred. “I do the snatch on my timetable,” he said. “Not yours. And I ain’t going in that snake-pit down there till late tonight. You don’t like it, get the car yourself.”

Wormy rocked back and forth on his heels and made a sucking sound with his tongue against his front teeth.

“Think I can’t, boy?”

Eddie clenched his fists and took a step closer, glaring down at the top of Wormy’s head. Truman half hoped Wormy would start something so that Eddie would finish it. He wasn’t a violent man, but it was beginning to look like violence was the only thing somebody like Wormy Weems could understand.

Eddie’s mouth didn’t move as he spoke. “You notify the cops about the pick up?”

It was not what Truman expected to hear.

“It’s taken care of,” Wormy said. He turned and stalked back inside the office. Eddie let out a long sigh.

“I thought you were going to haul off and flatten him,” Truman said.

“Would have, if he’d called me a nigger,” Eddie said. He laughed ruefully. “And if the brother in the Mercedes wasn’t still here. Three against one, that’s bad odds where I come from.”

Truman touched Eddie’s elbow. “Two against one.” He liked the way the kid handled himself. Like a man.

“Right,” Eddie said.

He got in the tow truck and started the engine. It was surprisingly quiet for such a big vehicle. He pulled up beside Truman.