Two Bits Four Bits (12 page)

Things were beginning to
add up. I haven’t always been the quickest guy to catch on, but I
was beginning to suspect that the businesses I had just visited,
which were all making regular large cash deposits at a bank located
in a town twenty miles away, might just be part of a
money-laundering scheme.

On the drive back to
Elmore, I called Jay Bradley and asked him what information he
could give me on the businesses. He explained that when a business
opened an account with the bank, they were required to provide a
copy of their articles of incorporation or other legal papers
showing their formation. I asked if he could have someone make
copies of the information for the five businesses on my
list.

* * * *

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

That night, I was in Angie
Robbins’ kitchen, helping her heat up some tamales and refried
beans for our supper as I sipped a Shiner Bock beer and admired her
Wrangler jeans. The business attire she wore when she was working
looked good on her, but the jeans added a whole other dimension to
my interest.

That afternoon, after
picking up the bank account information Jay Bradley had copied for
me, I’d called Angie to ask her if she recognized either of the two
names on the signature cards or the names on the other paperwork.
Since she had lived and worked in Odessa I thought it worth a shot.
She took the names, said she would make a few calls and suggested I
come over for dinner to discuss them further. How could I
refuse?

“What I know is mostly
rumor and hearsay, so keep that in mind,” she said, sipping her
beer. “I didn’t recognize the name Darrell Swain, but the other
name on your list, Dayton Clark, is an attorney from
Odessa.”

Dayton Clark, a name I’d
first come across during my research at the library, had been
listed as agent or in some other capacity for each of the five
companies.

She went on.

“Clark handles some
criminal defense work now and then, but he spends most of his time
on one client; Sandy Doyle.”

She glanced up at me to
see if Doyle’s name elicited a reaction from me before
continuing.

“I seem to have heard that
name before,” I said.

“I thought you might have,
with that star you wore on your chest for so long and all. I’m sure
you already know, but it’s been said for years that Sandy Doyle
controls all of the drugs, gambling and prostitution in Odessa and
Midland.”

“Does he have any
legitimate businesses?” I asked.

“I don’t know how
legitimate it is, but he does have a payday loan business called
Doyle Finance. They’ve got a couple of storefronts in Odessa where
working people who don’t have bank accounts can go to cash their
paycheck for a huge fee. Or they can borrow against next week’s
paycheck and pay outrageous interest rates for the
privilege.”

“Sounds like he’s
providing a community service.”

“Yeah, finance,
pharmaceuticals and the best politicians that money can
buy.”

“Politicians?”

“Okay,” she said. “More
rumor and hearsay. Do you know who G. Travis Kirkland
is?”

“The esteemed United
States Senator with Presidential aspirations?”

Her eyebrows went up. “You
do have good sources, don’t you?”

“Remember, I’ve been
living in Austin the last couple of decades.”

“So, you’ve watched him go
from an obscure oil-patch hick to the toast of big money Texas
politics.”

“I haven’t really been
watching too closely,” I admitted. “But it’s hard to miss a guy who
gets his picture on the front page every few weeks.”

“How’d you hear that he
was being courted by the powers-that-be for a run at the White
House?” she asked.

“They hinted at it in a
profile of Kirkland in Texas Monthly a while back,” I said. “Not
too much of a surprise really. The guy has ambition written all
over him.”

“Well, the national party
leaders sure seem to think he hung the moon. My political
connections tell me there is big, big money lining up behind
him.”

“So, what’s his connection
to Sandy Doyle?” I asked.

“From what I hear, they go
way back. Kirkland and Sandy Doyle apparently used to pal around
together back when Kirkland was an ambitious young Ector County
Commissioner, probably twenty years ago.”

“About the time Sandy
Doyle was an ambitious middle-aged drug dealer and
pimp?”

“Exactly,” she said. “They
seem to have this relationship where they scratch each other’s
back. Doing things for each other that on the surface might appear
a little suspicious, but that can be explained as one friend
helping another out.”

“Like?”

“Like the airplane.
Kirkland likes to fly around and inject himself into the spotlight
wherever he can, but his travel budget just doesn’t allow for it.
So, Sandy Doyle has a three-million dollar jet that he lets
Kirkland use whenever he wants to.”

“And what does Kirkland do
for Sandy Doyle in return?”

“Sandy gets the appearance
of having a United States Senator in his pocket.”

“Hard to cash that at the
bank. Doyle strikes me as a lot more practical in his business
dealings.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s more
that goes on behind the scenes. Or, Sandy may just be biding his
time until Kirkland has some real power.”

“The
Presidency?”

“From Sandy Doyle’s
perspective, all of the favors he’s done over the years are
probably starting to look like a good investment.”

“Sort of like The
Godfather?”

“Something like
that.”

“Before I forget,” I said.
“Did you ever go dancing at Boot Scooter’s when you lived in
Odessa?”

She gave me a look that
would melt asbestos.

“Just what kind of girl do
you think I am?”

“What? I’m just
curious.”

“Never set foot in the
place. Actually, it closed years before I moved to town, but I’ve
heard plenty of stories about it from people who were around when
it was open. That’s definitely where Sandy Doyle started building
his empire.”

“But that still doesn’t
answer the question of whether you know how to two-step or not,” I
said.

“I guess there’s only one
way to find out, isn’t there?” she said, with a wink.

“Should we plan on a
fact-finding trip to The Pumpjack Club some night then?” I
asked.

“I think we should,” she
said.

My cell phone rang and I
recognized the number of my ex-wife Peg Avery.

“I’m sorry, I really
should answer this,” I said.

“Please do,” Angie said,
moving to the stove to check on the beans.

“It’s about Adrienne,” Peg
said, her voice cutting in and out from a bad cell
connection.

“What’s wrong? Is she
okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry, yeah
she’s fine. It’s just that she’s suddenly gotten so serious with
this boy and I’m afraid she isn’t going to finish
school.”

“I’m really in the middle
of something right now, Peg. And your connection is bad. I can
hardly make out what you’re saying. Would it be okay if we talk
about it tomorrow?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “I’m
sorry, I didn’t even think about you being busy. Sure, call me back
when you can tomorrow.”

“My ex-wife,” I said to
Angie as I put away my phone. “Our daughter Adrienne has apparently
discovered the opposite sex.”

“The downfall of many a
young woman,” she said, pulling the pan of beans off the
stove.

“And young men,” I
answered. “Don’t forget about the fallen young men.”

* * * *

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

After getting home late
from Angie’s house, I went to sleep almost immediately. The ringer
on my cell phone woke me at 2:38 a.m.

“Buddy? This is Ham
Burnett.”

“Hey, Ham. What’s going
on?”

“Listen, I hated to call
you like this in the middle of the night, but I thought you might
want to know about this right away. I heard some noise next door a
little while ago and got up to see what it was and saw a man
leaving out the door. I didn’t get a good look at him but he just
took off down the street on foot.”

“Ham, do me a favor and
don’t leave your house,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

It took me about ten
minutes to get dressed and drive into town. Ham Burnett opened his
front door before I could knock.

“I started to call the
police, but then I wasn’t sure but what maybe Miss Trout had
somebody she knew stop by here for some reason. I didn’t know if it
was a burglar or what.”

“You did the right thing.
Wait here for me by the phone. If I’m not back in a few minutes,
then call the police.”

I stepped outside and
grabbed the Maglite from the door pocket of the pickup and pulled
out my Glock as I approached the darkened house next door. The
front door stood open a few inches from the busted jamb. I pushed
it the rest of the way open and stood back from the doorway, then
knelt low and looked inside.

No sound. I switched on
the flashlight and swept the beam back and forth across the small
living room. I crept in quietly and cleared the other rooms before
turning on the lights and holstering my weapon.

Whoever had broken in had
gone through the house thoroughly, and didn’t waste any time being
careful about it. Furniture had been overturned and drawers and
cupboard doors were standing open in the tiny kitchen.

I picked up a framed
photograph that from the floor in the living room. A middle-aged
woman and a young girl in a lakeside setting looked out through the
shattered glass. The cars in the background and the faded color of
the photo made me think it was probably over twenty years
old.

In the bedroom, shoes lay
scattered around the floor and the closet door stood open. A small
box of photographs lay overturned next to the bedroom dresser. I
sat down on the bed and flipped through them. I recognized the face
of the same young girl from the photo in the living room in other
settings and at different ages. Judging from her pictures, Eva
Trout had always been pretty. It was easy to understand why Russell
Chilton might have found her attractive enough to champion her
cause before the Personnel Committee at the bank.

A few of the photographs
were old enough to have the dates printed on them by the photo
processing company. But only one of them had any writing on it. A
teenage Eva and another girl the same age posed on a beach next to
a hand painted sign advertising parasailing rides. On the back was
a dedication, written in large, rounded script:

Eva,

Someday we’ll fly away
from here for real.

Love ya always!

Monica

I recalled that one of the
numbers on Eva’s phone bill had traced back to Monica and Frank
Kendricks in Abilene, a couple hundred miles east of Elmore. The
processing lab had stamped the photo “AUG 83”. I slipped it into my
pocket along with a more recent picture taken inside the bank
branch where Eva worked.

After advising Ham Burnett
about the condition of the house and helping him secure the broken
front door the best we could, I drove home while trying to decide
whether it was too late to go to bed or too early to get
up.

* * * *

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

Apparently it was both.
The ringer on my cell phone woke me up again in my Dad’s old
recliner with the television blaring Saturday morning
cartoons.

“Buddy? Jay Bradley. Did I
call too early?”

“No, Jay. Not at all. I
was just sitting here watching TV.”

I punched the MUTE button
on the remote control to silence a pair of talking
vegetables.

“I meant to call you last
night,” he continued. “But it completely slipped my mind. We had a
visitor at our South Commerce Branch yesterday.”

“Really, who?”

“You remember Beth Ann,
who you met at the branch the other day? She called me yesterday
afternoon and said that somebody named Dayton Clark came in with
another guy and asked to be let into the Kwik-Stop safe deposit
box. Beth Ann was with me when we inventoried Eva’s drawer and
found the key, so she knew I would be interested if somebody from
Kwik-Stop showed up.”

“But how could they get in
their box if you still have the key?”

“Customers can request two
keys, and our records show we issued two customer keys to that box.
So, Eva had one and this Dayton Clark had the other.”

“You said he had somebody
with him. Was it the other name on the signature card? Darrell
Swain?”