Shop Talk (10 page)

Driskell found the fluorescent lighting of the bank offensive. More than offensive, it was downright detrimental to health. No living creature should be forced to spend nine hours a day in the sterile atmosphere of the room. Gray walls, long tubes of overhead lighting. It was high noon in bankland. The souls of the employees were left each day, face down in the dust.

He picked the lock on the bank president’s office and quickly powered up a computer. What he was about to do was highly illegal, but who in Coastal Bank would ever detect a trace of him? Driskell knew how to erase his computer footprints.

He went for Lucille’s checking records first. There was no savings account. He was stricken by the rhythm of her check writing, a five-note refrain played over and over. There was, of course, the occasional check to Andy’s Tire Zone or a gift shop, but most checks were written to Wal-Mart, Waldenbooks, Krogers, Marina Apartments and a style shop, No Split Hairs.

Lucille lived “the American Life” with one exception, she didn’t have a car note. In fact, any additional expense would have sunk her. She lived week to week. There was no margin for extravagance in Lucille’s life. Little room for pleasure, except what came typewritten in the pages of a novel.

Blinking Lucille’s records away, he pulled up Bo’s. Of course, Bo did all of his business with the bank that gave his sister a job. It was the least he could do. Driskell found Bo’s accounts as orderly and repetitive as his sister’s. There was nothing that gave any indication of a threat to the U.S. government. Driskell felt sadly cheated. He’d been so certain he was going to discover something significant to report to Roger. He was finding it harder and harder to believe the Hares were dangerous to national security.

The only two things worth mentioning were the disappearance of Robert Beaudreaux and the old man Lucille had seen peering in at the shop. There was something there, some connection. Driskell felt a split second of despair. If only Roger would give him a clue as to what he was supposed to look for.

But that wasn’t the spy game, and Driskell knew if he was ever going to earn a place in the cushy web of international intrigue that brought federal health insurance, retirement, and foreign travel, he was going to have to come up with something.

He clicked onto the Internet and keyed in Roger’s Internet address. “Hare Report #3. No financial ills. Both Hares clean as a whistle.” What to tell about Beaudreaux and the peeping tom? He put his fingers over the keys and continued. “Possibility of counter-spy at work. Dr. Robert Beaudreaux kidnapped and still missing. No ransom. Need additional instructions.” He sent it off, then erased all traces of it from the computer.

As he left the chair, his dark cape swirled around his legs. The noise was like a small whip cracking, and Driskell took out his handkerchief and wiped over the keyboard, the arms of the chair, and finally, the doorknob. His prints weren’t on file anywhere, but he liked the idea of dusting all traces away. There was something … comforting about it.

The car’s engine roared to life as Driskell turned the key and pressed the gas. It was only half past ten. Time for Lucille’s apartment.

He chose Highway 90, a route he normally avoided. The bright neon colors of the casinos slid into the dark like mental shrapnel. Probing pinks and greens left painful after-images on his retinas. Nestled in the continual line of traffic that had come on the heels of the development of nineteen gambling dens, Driskell gave himself to the blare of palm trees, parrots, the outline of a pirate ship against the dark sky and the darker water of the Mississippi Sound. The light burst into the night, laid for a moment on the windshield of his car, then transferred itself into his soul. He was both scorched and blessed as he crawled down Highway 90, leaving the casinos behind him for a stretch of several miles. Here the old coast could be seen, the stately houses to his right, sheltered by huge oaks. On the left was the water. He rolled his window back down, catching the scent of wisteria and jasmine blended with the twang of the water. The gentle roll of the Sound was so different from the Atlantic, which crashed and pounded and battered the New Jersey shoreline. Here the elements were more subtle, but just as erosive. He realized with a start that he was beginning to feel at home.

He pulled into the parking lot of the Marina Apartments, and slipped the flimsy lock on Lucille’s door.

The clutter greeted him like a warm hug. Her apartment was small, and every surface was littered with typewritten pages. Driskell pored through the piles, stopping when he picked up the magazine that bore the picture of Robert

Beaudreaux. So Lucille had lied. She did know the doctor.

He slid the magazine back under the stack, denying the betrayal he felt. She had left right after the doctor. Driskell hurried out the door and back to his car. His only option was to follow Lucille to see where she might lead him.

The parking lot of the Pussycat Club was overflowing. Out in the gravel and oyster shell lot a couple argued and swung at each other with long-neck beer bottles. They were too drunk to hit anything, but they could still curse with great proficiency. Driskell idly watched them as he sat in his car. The WOMB meeting was still in progress, and he didn’t want to hang out on Pass Road. The Pussycat Club was only four short blocks away.

“Damn you, Linley.” The woman, with her muscular arms and healthy thighs, looked as if she could give as good as she got. “You glob of snot. I’m going to hit you in the mouth so hard your teeth march out of your ass like little white soldiers.” “Come on and try, bitch.”

“Your mother should have flushed you the day you were born. ‘Course you wouldn’t drown, ‘cause shit floats!” She put both hands, palm down, on the hood of a black Cougar and leaned toward him as she spoke.

“Bite my ass.” He tried to stand and stumbled. “Bitch.”

Driskell gave the woman points for verbal abilities. Her blonde hair had fallen about her shoulders in a mess of curls that caught the glow of the security light in the parking lot. Several confused bugs had been drawn to the hairdo and were trapped in the deathlike mesh. As she talked, she swatted them.

The man made a stumbling lurch toward the woman, but a truck bumper caught his thigh and sent him sprawling in the gravel, spouting curses as he went down.

The woman walked over and kicked gravel at him. The shower of pebbles drew no reaction so she took off her high-heeled, backless sandal and threw it at his head. It struck his skull and bounced. “You ain’t got what it takes, Linley,” she said, stumbling toward the front door of the club.

As Driskell turned the key to cruise the shop one more time, he saw a dark shadow shift from the secluded doorway of the Pussycat and merge into the oleander that grew right beside the door.

The blonde threw open the door to a blast of “Disco Duck” and limped inside, swallowed by noise and neon glow. Driskell got out of the car and began a slow walk to the oleander. He was certain the shadowy man had been watching him. Even as he thought it, the shadow moved and was gone. Driskell found himself alone with a retching Linley. The oleander was empty.

Driskell set a brisk pace for the shop on foot, cutting through the 7-11 parking lot and through Bo’s backyard. He angled up the side alley to the front of the shop. Relief expanded his chest as he saw the cars and one gleaming Harley hog.

As he watched, the glass door opened and a woman with a mass of dark hair and dark glasses slipped a black helmet over her curls. “Next week,” she said as she straddled the hog, cranked it to life, and whipped out onto the deserted street.

In a continuous line, the other women followed. He got a glimpse of bones, leather, linen, and silk. And finally Lucille, who wore paisley thermal leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that contrasted with her hair. Lucille lingered in the open doorway, and Driskell saw that she was happy.

“Next week,” she called, waving at the women as they got into their respective cars. “Next week.”

They were gone in seconds, but Lucille stood, alone. She watched the departing taillights in both directions. “Next week,” she said softly to herself.

Driskell pulled back into the shadows. He’d intended to step forward and talk to her, to question her again about Robert Beaudreaux, but something about the look on her face stopped him. To approach her would be a violation!.

Marvin Lovelace tapped his cane along the linoleum floor of the apartment he’d taken on Bonita Street. It was a nicely renovated up and down behind a yellow gingerbread house with a dark green roof. Not a hundred yards from his kitchen the Mississippi Sound shushed up on the beach. Late at night when traffic slowed, he could hear the water. It made him restless.

Ignoring the feverish thrashing of the man tied securely to a kitchen chair, he picked up the file on Lucille and studied it. Something wasn’t right. Though he’d used several effective methods of torture, the good doctor had not been helpful. Looking over at him, Marvin knew he wouldn’t last much longer. He was not made of the material necessary to withstand cruelty.

He turned his attention to the page. Lucille’s birth record showed she was born May 12, 1963 in the Stone County Hospital with Dr. Harry Fritz as attending physician. She weighed eight pounds, eight ounces. Her parents were listed as Happy and Ethel Hare of Warren Road, Wiggins, Mississippi.

He held the certificate in one hand and reached into Erick Bodene Hare’s medical records. Extracting Bo’s birth certificate, he saw the son was born October 30, 1961. He also weighted eight pounds, eight ounces.

Two fine healthy babies. Both born at Stone County Hospital with Dr. Harry Fritz attending. Both listing Happy and Ethel Hare as biological parents.

Except there was no Dr. Harry Fritz practicing medicine in Wiggins in the ‘60s. Hospital records further showed no Hare babies had been born in that facility.

More importantly, Happy Hare had been sterile.

Marvin put down the certificates, picked up his cane, and paced the floor again, his steps punctuated by the tap, tap, tap of the walking stick. When he paused again, it was in front of a black briefcase with a combination lock. He punched in 6-6-6. It wasn’t a hard code, but he found an inordinate number of people were superstitious about even trying it. Fear was the most powerful motivator of the human animal. Fear, then pain. As a younger man he’d thought pain was the ticket. It took him a while to understand that anticipation of pain was a far more potent weapon. And a lot more fun to administer.

Lifting the lid of the briefcase, he revealed neat stacks of typewritten notes, a small tape recorder, notecards, a large map and manila folders. He lifted the one marked “Happy Hare.”

Happy Ernest Hare was born in Lucedale, Mississippi, on January 23, 1920. No hospital was listed, but Dr. Harry Fritz was the doctor, same exact signature. Marvin pondered that parallel and the time frame. He was willing to bet the old general practitioner had signed the birth certificates on federal orders.

Whenever the feds stepped in to smooth over a mess, they couldn’t just level out the ground and throw a few grass seeds. They had to landscape and put in statues and fountains. Their very excessiveness was the first clue.

He flipped the pages, taking in Daddy Hare’s brief medical history, begun in 1938 when Hare joined the United States Army. Other than vaccinations, the record was amazingly clean. There was not a single record of Hare’s visits to the Veteran’s Hospital. The record had been wiped. It ended abruptly with Happy’s death in 1978 of a heart attack.

Marvin closed the medical file and opened Hare’s army record. He’d gone into the service as an eighteen-year-old high school graduate. He was trained as a paratrooper at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and then sent to the Normandy invasion in the European Theater where he was given the silver star for his attack on a German tank.

A non-com, Hare rose through the ranks rapidly, and his bravery citation was followed by a promotion to sergeant. A back injury in a jump resulted in a job at Benning as a sergeant major.

Marvin closed the file. He held it in his hand and paced the room. As far as he knew, all of that was true. But at that point, the official record and the truth parted ways. The official version showed Hare remaining at the trooper training camp for the rest of his army career.

Marvin had never set foot on Ft. Benning. He’d made it a point never to step foot in Georgia at all. It was a state Sherman should have eradicated. His mother had come from Macon, Georgia, and even in his sleep he could hear the whine of her voice, a mosquito circling, buzzing, waiting to light and suck his blood. Another strike against Georgia was the fact that Jane Fonda was there. And the Center for Disease Control, pinko liberals that they were. If he could blast Georgia off the East Coast, along with Massachusetts and the Kennedys, and California and those liberal wacko kooks off the West Coast, the United States would be in better shape. It wouldn’t take long to mop up the interior.

In his mind he saw a map of the continental states bracketed by mushroom clouds. It gave him the determination to reopen the folder in his hand and see if he could follow the official trail of the government.

According to the records, Happy Hare had been discharged in 1945 in perfect health. He had returned to Wiggins and the eighteen-year-old girl who became his bride, whereupon fifteen years passed before the first Hare off-spring appeared.

Fifteen years. Not even a miscarriage. Something to ponder.

But it was the war years that most intrigued Marvin. From 1942-45 Hare’s army records were a series of staccato entries which showed Hare deeply entrenched at Ft. Benning.

How, then, was it possible that he, Marvin Lovelace, had met Hare late one night in a rubber raft off the coast of Mississippi while he watched for the periscope of a German U-boat to break the steely gray surface of the Gulf?

Marvin’s lips drew back in what passed for a grin. His teeth were long, yellow and worn, but still his own. He snapped them shut three times, a habit he’d deliberately cultivated, then flipped back to the enlistment record of Hare, an eighteen-year-old volunteer from a little hick town who wanted to go to war to defend his mother, apple pie and the American way of life.

A wolfish grin thinned Marvin’s lips even more. He had only one thing in common with the late Happy Ernest Hare. A birthdate. January 23, 1920. At the beginning of the war, he, too, had been a sincere young soldier. By 1939 a transition had taken place.

He tossed the records on the table. Hare had died an innocent. That was a luxury he, Marvin Lovelace, had given up early on. He’d traded his innocence and idealism for action. And he had become one of his master’s most effective hounds of war. Poor Happy had been nothing more than Casey, a lure, a bait, a bit of fluff for the dogs to chase. Even in death.

Marvin picked up the scattered files and returned them to the briefcase. He had the facts. Now he needed the proof. There were several ways to go about getting it. Bo Hare was one option. For some reason, though, Marvin was reluctant to take that route. Bo did not necessarily make the world a better place. He was too soft, too concerned about issues of right and wrong. But he didn’t make the world a worse place. He wasn’t ground clutter like most of humanity.

Lucille was the better choice. She would be easier to manipulate into donating the bodily fluids he required. There wasn’t a chance she’d voluntarily share a bit of her blood. She wasn’t the type who would expose a vein with a willing smile. It was a problem with a very neat answer. Lucille would have to have an accident.

He went out on the landing that led to his upstairs kitchen. The bedroom and bath were below. Removing a gold cigarette case from his breast pocket, he snapped it open and took out an unfiltered Camel. He smoked only two or three cigarettes a day, and he never smoked any with a filter. He’d once done some work for a senator who was supported by the tobacco industry. The up-close look at a research laboratory had convinced him that tobacco was an addictive drug that could bring even the strongest men to their knees. But it was the filters he felt were the true risk factor.

A blue butane flame erupted under his thumb and the tip of the cigarette glowed red in the night. Lucille Hare was as regular in her habits as a hamster in its cage. He had to plan this carefully. Here in the States he had none of the freedom he’d had in the Panamanian jungles. He couldn’t simply leave a body in the jungle and wait for the tropical heat to eradicate it. Here, there would be reports and questions. Bodies had a tendency to float back in from the Gulf, and the new advances in identification made it hard to create the “anonymous” victim that had once been so easy with a machete and some bolt cutters. Tapping the ash off the cigarette, he took another drag. He would soon have to dispose of the good doctor. Driskell LaMont, the night repairman at the shop, was on to him, Marvin knew. LaMont had even tried to tail him.

He took another drag off the cigarette and tossed it to the gravel below. A disturbing thought came to him. He’d begun to think more and more of the good old days. His image of himself was that of a dashing officer of twenty-five. A man of polished shoes and gleaming, dark hair. A man women found attractive, compelling. Things he’d taken for granted.

But the past was no place to linger if he wanted to survive the future as a man of wealth and luxury. And that was another lesson he’d learned well. Power was better than youth or looks. And power came attached to money. Lots of money.

There was no loyalty as solid as that which was bought with hard cash.