Two Bits Four Bits (24 page)

“Come on, Jimmy. I know
you went to Kandy Chilton’s house looking for the videotape of Eva
and I think you probably found it.”

“You can’t prove
anything.”

“You’re right, I can’t.
But, I don’t need to prove anything. I just need you to give me the
tape.”

He looked at me with
disgust.

“What are you, some kind
of pervert? Why do you want it, anyway?”

“Eva told you about Sandy,
the guy who made the tape, didn’t she? Well, he wants it
back.”

“Oh, so he’s the pervert
and you’re just working for him?”

“Listen, Jimmy. It’s
complicated, but I think Eva’s probably told you that Sandy Doyle
is more like a father to her than her own father was. He just
doesn’t want that tape to fall into the wrong hands. He’s trying to
protect her.”

“Protect her? Man, that’s
some messed up thinking. No. No way, man.”

With that, he turned to
face forward again, taking a long pull on his beer. I stepped a few
feet from the bar and pulled out my cell phone and keyed in Eva
Trout’s number. It went to voicemail again, and again she called
back almost immediately. I told her that Jimmy had the tape but was
refusing to turn it over. She told me to hand the phone to
Jimmy.

He took it reluctantly and
listened for a while, mumbling responses and looking over at me now
and then. When he finished, he flipped the phone closed and handed
it to me.

“Buy me one more and then
you can follow me to my house. Hey, your old lady’s welcome to ride
with me on my scooter if she wants to.”

* * * *

CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT

The drive from Sugar
Mama’s in Monahans to Jimmy’s trailer in Pecos would take about
forty-five minutes, with Angie and me in the pickup following Jimmy
on his motorcycle. On the way, I had time to think about how easily
Eva had been able to make Jimmy change his mind, just by talking to
him on the phone. She obviously knew how to use his attraction for
her to her advantage. It made me wonder what else she might have
convinced Jimmy to do during the time they had known each
other.

While I found Eva’s story
about the night of Russell Chilton’s murder believable, there were
parts of it that didn’t make much sense. Like why she wouldn’t have
pounded harder on Kandy’s bedroom door when there was an armed
killer in the alley behind the house, instead of putting on her
clothes and going to her car parked just outside the gate, which
meant going toward where the killer had gone just a few minutes
earlier.

“Gee, maybe I should have
taken Jimmy up on his offer to ride with him,” Angie
said.

“What? Oh, I’m sorry. I
was just thinking about Eva Trout and the fact she can make our
friend Jimmy dance around like a puppet.”

“It sure didn’t take her
long to convince him to give up that tape, did it?”

“No,” I answered. “He gave
in to her a little too easily.”

“What, like they talked
about it ahead of time?”

“Possibly, I don’t know.
I’m not sure where Eva’s been staying, but she said it wasn’t with
Jimmy. Of course that doesn’t mean they haven’t been in
touch.”

“Do you think she put
Jimmy up to breaking into Kandy’s and getting the
videotape?”

“I’m thinking that’s a
real possibility. But, she just acts too blasé about what happens
to the tape.”

“And this videotape shows
her having sex?”

“Yeah, how does that work?
As a woman you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t do everything you
could to get that tape back if you were in her
position.”

“It’s difficult to say how
I’d feel about it if I had Eva’s history. Could I become
desensitized about being used and humiliated if I spent my
formative years working as a prostitute? Maybe, but I still think
I’d want to get control of that tape, especially if I’m now trying
to build a career in an image-conscious industry like
banking.”

“And, from the man’s point
of view,” I said, “If I were Jimmy and was deeply in love with Eva,
I’d probably do whatever it took to get that tape for
her.”

“But why not give it to
her? Or, destroy it?” she asked.

“I told Eva how much Sandy
Doyle wanted the tape, and that he might know something about who
murdered Russell Chilton. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t
destroyed.”

“And, maybe that’s why
Jimmy’s giving it up so easily, because Eva wants Sandy to have
it,” she said. “Didn’t you tell me they had some kind of twisted
father-daughter relationship?”

“Yeah, it’s hard to
imagine she would feel anything but hate for him after the way he
used her when she was younger, but there’s a really strong bond
between them.”

We were about half way to
Pecos when Jimmy’s motorcycle slowed and he pulled off the highway
and rolled to a stop. I got out of the pickup as he turned off his
bike and stepped off. Angie waited in the pickup.

“What’s up?” I
asked.

“I been thinking,” he
said, leaning against his bike and pulling out a pack of Marlboros.
“I really want to deliver that tape to that sick son of a bitch
myself.”

“I don’t think that would
be such a good idea, Jimmy. I know you’re doing this because you
care about Eva, but Sandy Doyle is a pretty heavy hitter and he’s
not somebody you want to piss off.”

“Oh, I’m not going to piss
him off. I just want to look into the sick bastard’s eyes and make
sure he understands that I’m watching out for Eva and he’d better
think twice before doing anything with that tape that might hurt
her.”

“Jimmy, if you think you
can intimidate Sandy Doyle, you’re out of your mind. And, if you
try to lay a finger on him his guys will carry your body out of
there rolled up in a rug. Doyle has a very low tolerance for
bullshit of any kind.”

“I’m not going to try any
bullshit. I’ll just give him what he wants and see where it goes
from there. Besides, I’ll have my own guys with me to make sure
everything’s copacetic.”

“I guarantee you won’t get
anywhere near Sandy Doyle unless you go alone. Or, unless I go with
you. He knows I’m not going to try anything, but if a group of
bikers roll up on him he’s not going to take the chance that you
might be there to settle some score. Why don’t you let me set up
the meeting with Doyle and the two of us can meet with him
together?”

He watched the traffic go
by for a few seconds.

“I guess that could work,”
he finally said.

He gave me his cell phone
number and I told him that I would call to let him know the details
about the meeting. He climbed on his bike and rode off toward the
west while Angie and I turned around for the drive back to Elmore.
I hoped Sandy Doyle would agree to meet with us and that Jimmy was
being straight with me about keeping things non-confrontational. If
he wasn’t, I knew Jimmy’s body wouldn’t be the only one Doyle’s
guys would carry out rolled up in a rug.

* * * *

CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE

I decided to visit Sandy
Doyle in person to set up the meeting for Jimmy to deliver the
videotape. So, the next morning I drove to Odessa to see him. I
didn’t call ahead, but found his car in the lot behind the Doyle
Finance building. One of the women working in the front office
escorted me through the maze of hallways to Sandy’s office, where
he sat reading the sports section of the Odessa American. He
glanced up and scowled.

“I don’t see you carrying
anything, so I’m guessing you’re not quite the bird dog you thought
you were.”

I sat down in one of the
guest chairs facing his desk.

“I need some information,”
I said. “About what happened to Russell Chilton.”

He closed the newspaper,
folded it and laid it on the desk before looking up and
shrugging.

“As I understand it, he
got himself shot while he was diddling somebody he wasn’t married
to, and in his own pool to top it off.”

“You know what I’m talking
about. I told you I could help you find what you were looking for
if you can help me clear up what happened that night.”

“I think it’s what you
people in law enforcement call a domestic disturbance,” he said.
“Wife sees husband putting his dick where it don’t belong and
expresses her displeasure by puttin’ a cap in his ass. It happens
all the time, although usually not in such a nice
neighborhood.”

“I’ve located the tape. I
can get it to you if you want to play ball. If not, I’m sure the
district attorney would be interested in it.”

He shrugged again. “And,
why would I care about that? Ain’t no way to put any charge on me
from that thing.”

“No, not unless Eva would
testify against you, which I’m sure you know isn’t a possibility.
She looks up to you, even you can see that, but it didn’t stop you
from thinking she was in on whatever plans Darrell Swain had for
that tape.”

“Who the hell knows what
Darrell was thinking,” he said. “He wasn’t bright enough to try to
use that tape to its full potential.”

“Maybe not by himself, but
Russell Chilton was, wasn’t he?” I said. “So you suspected Eva was
in on the plan too, since she was getting close to Russell and
Kandy. They were planning to go to G. Travis Kirkland and threaten
to expose him and derail his career if he didn’t what, pay some
kind of ransom?”

“It wasn’t about money,”
he answered. “Chilton had plenty of money. It was about power. This
is a guy who’s tired of turning down farmers who want to borrow
money to buy a tractor. He wanted bigger and better things. He just
got a little too big for his britches.”

“So, you had to stop
him.”

“I wasn’t involved,” he
said. “And, don’t know who was.”

“So, did Russell Chilton
contact Kirkland?”

He nodded.

“G. Travis come to see me.
He was so mad he was spittin’ nails. Thought I was in on it
somehow. I didn’t know what was going on, didn’t even have a clue
that Darrell had a copy of that tape. I still don’t know how he got
it.”

“So, Russell Chilton
jumped the gun, trying to blackmail Kirkland before you could. That
is why you made the tape in the first place wasn’t it?”

“Shit. Blackmail is for
weak fucks with no imagination and no patience.”

“But you’ve got patience,
don’t you Sandy. Enough patience to sit on that tape until you
could use it to your best advantage. That tape has been like prime
real estate, rising in value over the years as G. Travis Kirkland
climbed the political ladder. But, if there’s a copy of it out
there somewhere, suddenly the original tape loses a lot of its
power.”

I gestured at the pictures
of Sandy and Kirkland together decorating the walls.

“Is that how you’ve been
able to keep him in your pocket all these years? He already knew
about the tape before Russell Chilton contacted him?”

“G. Travis and I had a
real close relationship for a long time,” he said. “He knew I
wasn’t going to do anything to embarrass him or try to hold him
over a barrel. But, this thing with Chilton really screwed things
up, you know?”

“So, you think if you can
get the copy of the tape back and prove to Kirkland that he’s not
in any danger of being exposed you might be able to mend fences
with him.”

“Something like that. So,
you got this thing for me or not?”

“I can get it for you.
Eva’s willing to let it come back to you if it can help clear Kandy
Chilton. Otherwise, I’d be delivering it to the district
attorney.”

“You can get it for me.
What the hell does that mean?”

“A friend of Eva’s has the
tape. He wants to deliver it to you himself. Wouldn’t let me do
it.”

“Biker dude?”

“Yeah. Jimmy something. I
told him I’d try to set up a meeting with you.”

“Well, we could do that,”
he said. “Of course we’d have to take some precautions. If this is
the guy I’m thinking about he thinks he’s all hot shit. I don’t
need no jealous boyfriend trying to prove something.”

“I told him you would have
some guys there, and he should be prepared to be searched before he
meets you. When can you meet with him?”

“For everybody’s sake, the
sooner the better,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time before G.
Travis has some people down here looking for that tape. I’d rather
call him and tell him it’s been taken care of before he sends Hank
and his boys out here.”

“Hank?”

“Yeah. Hank’s this badass
ex-military guy the people in power like to use when they need
somebody who don’t mind coloring outside the lines. The way he
dresses you’d think he’s on the board of some Fortune 500 company,
but he’ll slit your throat without blinking an eye. Very
professional.”

“I guess I’d better get
busy then. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to be there when
you meet with Jimmy.”