Cripple Creek Part 5

"Official police work," he said. "Chill, Gladys." Then to me: "So you're still in Memphis. Any action?"

I filled him in on my visit. Connecting with Sam Hamill, meeting Tracy. Think I may have found out where to go to get what I'm looking for, I told him.

"That's good. Quick."

"I followed your advice."

"Hamill put you and Tracy together knowing she'd give up the contact, he wouldn't have to." As always, Lonnie was a move ahead.

"Way I saw it, too."

"So why the fancy footwork?"

"Maybe they figure I can take care of a problem they haven't been able to."

Lonnie was silent for a moment.

"In which case, since Hamill laid out the official face of the thing for you, even a.s.signed an officer, the MPD can in no way be held responsible. Either you handle it and you're home before anyone knows bettera""

"Or I get, as our British friends say, nicked for the deed, in which case Sam and the MPD disclaim to their heart's content."

"Clean."

"More than one way to get the job done."

"Always. d.a.m.n! Now the G.o.dd.a.m.ned beeper's going off. Hang on."

I heard voices behind, just out of range of intelligibility.

"Shirley checking in," Lonnie said moments later.

"You've got a beeper now."

"Simon has a band concert tomorrow, some kind of solo. Wife wanted to be sure I would make it, gave me hers." Simon in buzz-cut and baggies was the older of two sons. The younger, Billy, despite the flag of multiple piercings, had no direction any of us could discern but was a sweetheart, maybe the closest thing to an innocent human being I've known.

"How's June?"

"Cleared by her doctors and home with us. Mostly herself, but sometimes it's like she's not really there, she's gone off someplace else."

"Not surprising, with what she's just been through."

"I hope."

"Give it time. Don Lee?"

"Stable, they keep telling mea"though he hasn't come round yet. Wait and see, they say, we just have to wait and see."

Gladys was back, loudly demanding return of the phone he'd taken hostage. Lonnie ignored her.

"Trooper said you wanted to talk to me. What's up?"

"May be nothing to it, but the accident I answered the call to?"

"Yes?"

"It got called in as a collision, but what happened was, Madge Gunderson pa.s.sed out at the wheel and ran into a tree."

"Madge okay?" Madge had been a not-so-secret drinker most of her life. Her husband Karel died last year, and since then, maybe from grief, maybe from the fact that she didn't have to hide it anymore, the drinking had kind of got out of control.

"She will be. Just some gashes and the like. Looked worse than it is. This happened out on State Road 419. Woman driving behind her saw the whole thing, called it in on a cell phone."

"Okay."

"Woman's from up Seattle way, just pa.s.sing through. I thanked her, naturally, took her statement. Then she says, 'You're the sheriff?' and when I say, 'Right now I am,' she asks does a man named Turner work with me."

"Say what she wanted?"

"Not a word. Sat there smiling at her and waiting, all she did was smile back."

"What's she look like?"

"Late twenties, early thirties, light brown hair cut short, five-eight, one-thirty. Easy on the eye, as my old man would of said. Jeans and sweatshirt, kind with a hood, ankle-high black Reeboks."

"Name?"

"J.T. Burke. That's Burke with an e, and just the initials."

No one I knew. Maybe a patient from my days as a counselor, was my first thought. Though it was doubtful any patient could have traced me here, or would have reason to.

"Don't suppose she said where she was headed."

"Gave me that same smile when I asked."

"That it, then?"

"Pretty much."

"So give Gladys back her phone already."

In exchange I gave him the name and location of my motel and my phone number, told him to call if he had any updates on Don Lee or happened to hear again from Ms. Burke.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

COULDN'T SLEEP.

Out on the streets at 2 a.m. looking for an open restaurant. Back to city habits that quickly. Had my book, just needed light, coffee, maybe a sandwich. Do the Edward Hopper thing.

Dino's Diner, half a mile in towards the city proper. "Open 24 hours" painted on the gla.s.s in foot-high blue letters. Also "Daily Specials" and "Hearty Breakfasts." These in yellow.

"Getchu?" the waitress, Jaynie, said, handing over a muchsplattered menu. "T'drink?"

Coffee. Definitely.

And received a reasonable facsimile of same, though it took some time. Peak hour, after all. Had to be three or four other patrons at least.

"Two scrambled, bacon, grits, biscuit," I told Jaynie when my coffee came.

Eggs were rubbera"no surprise therea"bacon greasy and underdone, biscuit from a can. Here I am in the Deep South and I get a canned biscuit? On the other hand, the grits were amazing.

The book also disappointed. Three refills and I was done with it, wide margins, large type, pages read almost as quickly as I turned them. Novels tend to be short these days. Probably most of them should be even shorter. This one was about a doctor, child of the sixties and long a peace activist, who goes after the men who raped and killed his wife and disposes of them one by one. t.i.tle: Elective Surgery.

I took out my wallet, unfolded the notebook page Tracy Caulding had given me. Three addresses, none of which meant much to me. A lot of Lanes and Places, bird names the rage. Meadowlark Drive, Oriole Circle, like that. But just then a cab pulled up out front and the driver came in. Jaynie slapped a cup of coffee down before him without being asked. He was two stools away. One of those in-betweens you find all over the South, darkish skin, could be of Italian descent, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Creole. Fine features, a broad nose, gold eyesa"like a cat's. Wearing pleated khakis with enough starch to have held on to their crease though now well crumpled about the crotch, navy blue polo shirt, corduroy sport coat.

I caught his eye, asked "How's it going?"

"Been better. Been worse, too."

"And will be again."

"Believe it."

He pulled out a pack of Winstons, shook one loose and got it going. Then as an afterthought glanced my way, took the pack out again and offered me one. When I declined, he put the cigarettes back, held out his hand. We shook.

"Danel. Like Daniel without the i."

"Turner. . . . Any chance you could help me with these?"

I slid the paper across. After a moment he looked up.

"From out of town, are you."

I pled guilty.

"But you have business here." He tapped at the paper.

Yes.

"Well, sir, this here ain't part of Memphis at all, it's another country. Birdland, some of us call it. Bunch of whitebread castles's what it is. Some Johnny-come-lately builds him a house, next Johnny comes along and has to outdo him, build a bigger one. Kind of business that gets transacted out there, most people'd do best to stay away from. I'm guessing you're not most people."

"Can you give me directions?"

"Yeah, sure, I could do that. Ora"" He threw back his coffee. "What the h.e.l.l, it's a slow night, I'll run you out there."

We struck a deal, I picked up the Chariot as he sat idling in the Nu-Way Motel parking lot, then pulled in behind and followed him to city's edge. Here be dragons. We'd been cruising for close to thirty minutes, I figured, six or seven cla.s.sics on whatever station I'd found by stabbing the Seek b.u.t.tona"Buffalo Springfield ("There's some-thing hap-pen-ing here . . ."), Bob Seger's "Night Moves"a"when Danel pulled his Checker cab onto the shoulder, a wide spot intended for rest stops, repairs, tire changes. I came alongside and we wound down windows.

"Here's where I bail," he said. "Place you're looking for's just around that bend. Don't be lookin' for the welcome mat to be out. Ain't the kind to be expecting company up in there."

I hoped not.

"Good luck, man."

"Thanks for your help." I'd paid him back at the diner. He had a good night.

"You're welcome. Prob'ly ain't done you no favor, though."

I pulled back onto the road, along the curve, cut the engine to coast into a driveway inhabited by a black BMW and a gussied-up red Ford pickup, chrome pipes, calligraphic squiggle running from front fender to rear wheel well, driver's-side spotlight. Backed out then and parked the Jeep a quarter-mile up the road, at another of those pull-offs.

The house was a castle, all righta"like something imagined by Dr. Seuss. Cla.s.sic middle-American tacky. Once in El Paso I'd seen a huge bedroom unit that looked to be marble but, when you touched it, turned out to be thin plastic. It was like that.

In the front room just off the entryway (as I peered through what I could only think of as eight-foot-tall wing windows) a large-screen TV was on, but there was no evidence of anyone in attendance. Action appeared to be centered in the kitchena"I'd come around to the back by thena"where a card game and considerable beer consumption were taking place. Many longnecks had given their all. Bottles of bourbon and Scotch. One guy in a designer suit, two others in department-store distant cousins.

Newly awakened from its slumber in Glad bag and hand towel, the .38 Police Special felt strangely familiar to my hand.

One of the cheap-suit players was raking in chips as I came through the door. Undistracted, his counterpart pushed to his feet, gun halfway out as I shot. He fell back into his chair, which went over, as though its rear legs were a hinge, onto the floor. I'd tried for a shoulder, but it had been a while, and I hit further in on his chest. There was more blood than I'd have liked, too, but he'd be okay.

Thinking it over for a half-minute or so, the second cheap suit held up both hands, removed his Glock with finger and thumb and laid it on the table, just another poker chip.

Dean Atkison in his designer suit looked at his flunky with histrionic disgust and took a pull off his drink.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" he said.

I was supposed to be watching him at that point, of coursea"cheap suit's cue. He almost had the Glock in hand when I shot. His arm jerked, knocking the Glock to the floor, then went limp. He stood looking down at the arm that would no longer do what he willed it to do. His fingers kept on scrabbling, the way cat paws will when the cat's asleep and dreaming of prey.

It was all coming back.

Atkison's eyes went from his fallen soldiers to me.

"Be okay if I call for help for my boys here?"

"Go ahead."

I stood by as he punched 911 into a cell phone, asked for paramedics, gave his address, and threatened the dispatcher. Thing about cell phones is you can't slam the receiver down.

"Think we might attend to business now?"

"We don't have any business."

I whacked his knee with the gun, feeling skin tear and hearing something crunch. Blood welled through the expensive fabric. None of that should have happened.

"I live in a small town far away from here," I said. "Not far enough, apparently. A few days ago you brought your garbage to it."