Cold Quarry (18 page)

“This is the place I was telling you about,” Toronto said, sitting across from me in my truck again. He was eating peanuts from a small plastic cup. He popped one into his mouth.

“Warnock will be showing up here around nine?”

“Uh-huh. If not a little bit before. Thinks he’s coming to meet the trooper,” he said, chewing.

“Nice work.” I looked out the window at the building.

“But explain something to me, will you, Frank?”

“You bet.”

“You already said you think the Stonewallers may not have killed Chester.”

“Right.”

“So why are we still wasting our time chasing after Warnock?”

“Two reasons. First, we can lean on him to tell us the name of the guy who made the phone call. You said the state trooper claimed Warnock knew who it was.”

“Right.”

“And second, Warnock looks like the money man for the Rangers. And money men are usually middlemen.”

“Which means he gets to see whoever’s on the other side of the fence.”

“Exactly.”

“I love this game,” he said.

We stepped out of the truck. The assortment of vehicles in the parking lot ranged from a muddy Toyota pickup with a missing side mirror and a broken taillight to a sparkling new Corvette sporting temporary dealer plates. The swinging glass doors to the bar were reinforced with steel bars and duct tape.

“Guess we get to hang out with the local talent for a while,” I said.

“Staggers the mind, doesn’t it? But they’ve got a decent jukebox.”

“Fifties music?”

“A song or two. Mostly country though, I’d say.”

“Any Elvis?”

“Oh, yeah, there’s Elvis. Always Elvis.”

“We just might survive,” I said.

Trace Adkins was crooning “Help Me Understand” through the speakers as we entered. I judged from the number of chairs, almost all of which were occupied, that there were about twenty-five people altogether in the place, a fair crowd for a Saturday night. There were about a half dozen seats at the bar and the rest of the tables were arranged in diagonal patterns. Smoke drifted toward the ceiling and the room was dim, tailor made for intimate conversation; that is, unless you decided to raise your voice. Pictures on the walls generally seemed to follow a sports or hunting or fishing motif, with the exception of a couple of dramatic nighttime shots of what looked like flying saucers.

“There are a couple of stools open over by the window,” Toronto said, nudging me in that direction.

A few eyes had turned our way as we entered, but most went back to their conversations, laughter, or beer. We found the two empties—high chairs actually, next to one of those tall round bar tables—and sat down.

“Figured I might see you back in here tonight.”

The voice belonged to a large auburn-haired woman wearing rectangular tortoiseshell eyeglasses facing Toronto. She was hoisting a tray filled with used beer glasses.

Toronto nodded in return.

She eyed me cautiously. “Don’t know what you two are looking for exactly, but you both look like the type that’ll get it.”

“Frank, this is Roswell Parker. She owns The Bitter Angler.”

“Roswell. Like the town in New Mexico with the UFO spacemen?” I asked, glancing at one of the photos on the wall.

“You betcha.” The proprietor beamed. “My original name was Shirley. Had it legally changed.”

Oh, boy.

“Roswell, this is Frank Pavlicek. He and I used to be partners. Frank’s a private investigator.”

“Is that so? We had one of those in here not long ago—start of the month. Greasy-looking fella said he was looking for a lady used to work over to the plant in Dunbar. Showed me a picture, but I’d never seen her before.”

“Did he say why he was looking for her?” I asked.

“Not really, as I recall.” She shrugged. “I guess I must’ve just figured he was working for some husband whose wife had been whorin’ around on him. Ain’t that mostly what you fellas do?”

“On our good days.” I tried to smile.

“I heard Tony Warnock comes in here every now and then,” Toronto said.

“Tony? I suppose so, but I don’t keep a surveillance on my customers, as a rule. What you want with him?”

“Just to ask him a couple of questions,” I said.

“Lawyers don’t usually like you asking
them
questions, you know.”

“Let me ask
you
something,” I said. “Did you know Chester Carew?”

She put the tray down and folded the dishcloth she was carrying over her arm. “I knew who he was, had seen him in the grocery store a couple of times. Fine old man. Damn shame, what happened.”

“The party line seems to be a hunting accident, poachers.”

“What I heard too, but don’t you believe it.”

“Why not?”

She looked at one of the UFO pictures then said in a softer voice, “ ‘Cause if you ask me, a man gets shot to death right square in the back like he did in the middle of the woods for no reason, it ain’t no accident. It’s ‘cause he knows something.”

I was almost afraid to ask but I did. “Like what?”

Her tone became conspiratorial. “The next time they come, they ain’t gonna leave no spaceship for the air force to steal.”

I nodded and looked across at Toronto, who had somehow managed to keep a serious expression on his face. After she’d gotten this off her chest, however, the owner’s expression brightened considerably.

“So what’ll you two boys be drinking? Something light or something dark?”

“How about a couple of bottles of Rolling Rock?” Eagle Eye Investigations’ standard sipping beer for alcohol-related stakeouts.

“Coming right up.” She bustled off and disappeared through a door in back that appeared to lead to some kind of kitchen.

I let out a low whistle. “This is better than watching sitcoms,” I said.

“How would you know? When was the last time you watched anything but the news?”

“Does nineteen ninety-seven count?”

We hadn’t waited long, in fact were only about a quarter of the way through our beers, when Tony Warnock came swinging through the glass doors into the room. He moved purposefully and with almost catlike efficiency toward the bar. The top half of him was wrapped in one of those red-and-black checked three-quarter-length hunting coats.

“Here’s our target,” Toronto said under his breath.

I glanced over his shoulder. “Looks like him.”

“Let’s wait and see if Roswell lets him know we’re looking for him.”

Sure enough, as soon as Warnock had picked up his drink—it looked like Scotch and water—from the bartender, who said something in his ear, he turned and made a beeline in our direction.

“I understand you folks were ask—” He stopped in midstride when he recognized Toronto and me. “Hey, fellas. What’re you guys doing here?”

“Waiting for you, counselor,” I said.

“Oh, really? Well, er … I’m supposed to be meeting somebody else.”

“Yeah, we know,” Toronto said. “He ain’t coming.”

Warnock looked as though he already needed a second drink. He acted like he didn’t know whether to stay or run.

I pushed a free stool from an adjacent table toward him. “Why don’t you sit down and join us, Tony?”

He looked at his drink for a moment.

“Go ahead. We don’t bite. Pull up a chair.”

He dragged the stool over to our table, plunked his weight down on it with a loud crackle of scratching leather, and looked at us warily.

“Guess you must be wondering how we knew you’d be here.”

“What?” He was busy staring at Toronto, who was grinning crazily. Warnock’s face registered a trace of cold fear for a moment, like he was seeing his own death.

“I said you must be wondering how we knew you’d be here.”

“Sure. Yeah.”

I fished in my pocket for a small notepad I kept there, pulled it out and flipped it open to an empty page. Then I uncapped the felt-tipped pen I kept attached to the binding and handed it to Warnock. “I’d like you to please write down the names of all of the Stonewall Rangers with whom you’ve had contact, as well as whoever else you might be funneling money from or to,” I said.

“What?” He seemed to snap back to reality. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that.”

“Oh, I think you can,” Toronto said. His voice carried a casual undertone of malice, but the words had their intended impact.

“Look, Pavlicek, you people have no idea what you’re messing with here.”

“Really?” I said. “Why don’t you tell us then?”

He searched my eyes. “This is bullshit,” he said. “Complete and utter bullshit.”

I said nothing.

“You can’t touch me.”

“Oh, no?”

“We
all
have civil rights. Not just some of us.”

I didn’t need to look at Toronto to sense that his jaw was clenching and the little vein on the side of his neck was throbbing.

“What was that guy doing in Chester’s woods?” 1 asked. “The one who socked me with the shotgun?”

Warnock snickered. “You really want to know who killed Chester, huh? Well, how do you know it wasn’t someone from your own government? You think the FBI and the ATF and all those faceless bureaucrats and phonies in Congress are immune to corruption?”

I smiled. “We’re not here to argue politics with you, pardn’r.”

Another snicker. He pursed his lips and shook his head. Then he took another sip of his Scotch.

“Well,” I said, “do you know who killed Chester or not?”

He lowered his voice and looked around. “No, goddamn it. Why do you think Higgins sent the kid back up there in the first place? And I don’t want my name dragged into any of this, do you hear?”

Chalk one up for hunches paying off.

“Of course not, Tony,” I said. “You’re a fine upstanding member of the bar. You happen to know this kid’s name and where I can find him so I can thank him for the bruise on my face?”

“Y’all are going to get me killed too,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“You could end up that way anyway,” Toronto said. He had whisked out a very serious looking stiletto and was now cleaning his thumbnail with it. His eyes never left either of us.

Warnock took one look at the nail cleaner and swallowed hard. He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the room to make sure no one was watching us too closely. Then he flexed his jaw and stuck out his chin. “All right.” He picked up the pen and wrote down the name.

I read it and showed it to Toronto.

“Is this guy another Higgins lieutenant or just a lackey?” I asked.

“I don’t know what he is.”

I tore the piece of paper from the notepad and glanced at the name once more, committing it to memory. “Jake, you got a match?”

Toronto produced a book of matches from one of his pockets. I ripped one from the cardboard, struck it, and touched the flame to the piece of paper with the name on it.

Warnock looked at me with wonder. “What are you doing? Are you mentally disturbed?”

“You might say that. What else do you know. Tony? You’re good with money, aren’t you? Who are you moving money from and who are you moving it to?”

“Just accounts. I only know account numbers. I swear.”

The paper was completely engulfed in flames now. 1 transferred it to the ashtray on the table so it could finish burning out. One thing was for certain: we now had the attention of almost everyone else in the bar.

“Hope you didn’t have any further plans for the evening, Tony. You looked like you planned to spend a long time here drinking when you came in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy whose name is on this paper,” I said. “He in the bar right now?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Good.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “Then you’re going to get up from this table and go out that door with us and help us find him.”

“What? You guys are too much. Look, you’re being paid, Pavlicek, and I gave you the name, didn’t I?”

“Oh, I’m being paid now, am I?” I looked across at Toronto. “Did you know that, Jake? Did you know I was being paid?”

Toronto shrugged.

I fished out my wallet and took out Warnock’s nice legal check. I stuffed it into the ashtray, where it caught the last few sparks from the ashes of the other piece of paper and made its own new flame.

“Hey!” Roswell Parker yelled out from across the room. “What’re you fellas doing over there? Fixin’ to burn the place down?”

Toronto smiled in her direction and held up his hand. “Got it under control,” he said. We watched it burn for a couple of moments until the flames died down.

I clapped Warnock on the shoulder and shook his hand so that everyone in the bar could see us. “Time we took a walk outside, don’t you think?”

Meanwhile Toronto placed a hand on Warnock’s other arm. To anyone across the room, it would’ve looked like a friendly gesture. To Warnock, who was feeling Toronto’s grip, it was obviously something else. “Yeah, Tony. Mr. Pavlicek here and I would be delighted to have your further company.”

Warnock’s eyes darted back and forth between Toronto and me. “What time is it right now?” he asked.

I checked my watch. “A couple minutes past nine.”

“I can tell you exactly where you can find him,” he said.

I examined his eyes for any signs of deception. “All right,” I said to Jake. “Let him go.”

Toronto released his grip. Warnock was hunched over, wincing and rubbing his elbow.

“Tony, now don’t do anything crazy on us. We might be back to talk to you some more later,” I said.

He looked out at us again with fear-filled eyes. But this time I don’t believe it was Toronto or anyone else he was afraid of. He seemed to be staring beyond us into the darkest abyss of his own clouded soul.

20

There was no crowd at the Burger King in South Charleston. Dinner hour had long since come and gone, and the only patrons at present were an elderly couple lingering over their burgers and milk shakes and two little children, one in diapers and the other a wild man of a toddler who seemed to be fascinated with making the swinging trap doors on all the garbage bins rock back and forth while his young mother, barely out of her adolescent years herself, kept her nose buried in what must have been a fairly current issue of
Seventeen
magazine.