Drag Strip (28 page)

As I crossed the track and started down into the pit, the sound of revving engines got louder. Whatever Roy Dell's early warning system was, it didn't seem to be ringing any alarms at my appearance. In fact, aside from a stray catcall or two, I proceeded unnoticed to Roy Dell's garage.

The yellow Vega was resting on jacks, its rear wheels missing and its mouth wide open. There wasn't a soul in sight. I slipped around past the car and headed for the flimsy metal garage that served as Roy Dell's worksite. Something didn't seem right. This was just too easy.

The entrance to the garage, a sliding metal door, was almost completely shut, the interior darkened. No sound came from the inside. I looked over my shoulder, making sure no one saw me, and pushed the door open just wide enough to slip inside. Big mistake.

As I stood in the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust I realized I was not alone. Somewhere in the dimly lit garage someone else was breathing.

“Roy Dell?” No answer. I took a step farther into the building. “Roy Dell, is that you?” Nothing.

I was beginning to see things, shapes and lumps of machinery. I stepped back toward the door and pulled it open, just enough for a shaft of midafternoon sunlight to stream through. The light fell on two bodies sprawled out on the floor at the far end of the building. Naked.

My worst personal nightmare had come to reality. Roy Dell Parks and his wife Lulu lay clumped together, their arms resting on significant body parts, smiling in their post-nookie slumber. A bottle of tequila lay empty at their sides.

“Oh, God!” I cried. I couldn't help myself.

Lulu roused herself enough to open one puffy eyelid and give me the once-over.

“Where's Frank?” I asked, keeping my voice low so Roy Dell wouldn't hear us.

Lulu appeared confused for a moment, then caught sight of her husband and started to smile.

“Roy Dell fought for my honor,” she said, and a smug look crept over her features. “He applied his impact wrench to Frank's private jewels. It was all I could do to get him to turn loose of the boy.” Lulu shook her head. “He oughta be able to use it again, once the swelling goes down, but they had to take him over to the hospital. He needed a little something for the pain.”

Lulu leaned against Roy Dell and fell back to sleep, which in my opinion was a good thing, considering my last dealings with her were at the business end of a shotgun.

I walked back out into the sunlight, blinking and knowing the vision of the two of them would stay stuck with me for perhaps a lifetime.

“A cop would think logically at this juncture,” I said to myself. “A cop would say, ‘Don't think about all that nakedness. The world is a horrible place, full of horrible sights. Focus instead on the case at hand.'”

I stepped out into the pit lane and started checking out the other racing crews. It was long past lunchtime and the smell of grilled onions and frying meat filled the air as the snack shack catered to its carnivorous customers. I hadn't eaten all day, but the smell mingled with the memory of the last hamburger I'd eaten at that shack, the night Ruby was killed, and somehow my appetite faded.

“Just ask a few questions,” I reminded myself. And I would've too, had I not looked back up toward the gate and seen an ominous sight. Detective Wheeling and five uniformed police officers dressed out in SWAT gear.

There was no way to run back and warn Roy Dell. And after seeing the look on Wheeling's face, I didn't think I wanted to see him, either. Instead I ducked around the side of the snack shack and remembered my other mission. A little chat with a certain brunette.

“I'm gonna enjoy this,” I said to myself, and headed up the metal fire escape.

A blast of cold air hit me as I stepped into the tiny reception area. My feet sank down into the plush carpeting and the world of racing went from dirt track to high-dollar concrete.

“I don't give a shit,” a man's voice yelled, coming from the brunette's office. “I'm telling you how it is and how it's gonna be. Do them the way I tell you.” It sounded like the urbane Mickey Rhodes was losing his super-slick cool.

“All I'm telling you is, I'm certified in bookkeeping and it ain't right!” My quarry was defending her mental skills, not the first thing I would've expected from her. A moral stance. Go figure.

“I pay you to do as I say!” he yelled.

“You know,” she said, her voice almost as loud as his, “if I hadn't just known for a fact that amount was wrong, your account would've shown even more of a loss than there really is! You'd think you'd be grateful I found the money!”

“It ain't found money,” he screeched. “That figure's wrong!”

“One of us is dumber'n hell,” she said, “and it ain't me! We've got creditors calling and people we ain't paid in months. Here I go and find money and you insist it ain't really there! Now what the hell kind of businessman are you?”

A money-laundering businessman, I thought. A hide-from-the-government businessman. Just the type John Nailor would take an interest in. I slipped a little farther down the hallway and into one of the offices. Mickey's office.

They were still arguing, the voices louder now that I was closer. I stood in Mickey's office, half listening and half curious about my surroundings. If Mickey was in money trouble, it didn't show here. Leather couch, cherry-wood desk, Oriental rug on the floor over of the thick carpeting. The man had taste, even if he did run a sleazeball dirt track.

“You are being insubordinate!” Mickey thundered.

The brunette wasn't fazed. “Well, I got a sister that works at the police department and she'll tell you that I could have you arrested for verbal assault right now!”

That brought him up short. “I ain't assaulting you! Now, look, this here's a misunderstanding. Let's just drop it. It's late and past time for you to go anyhow.”

“Well, it'll be no different tomorrow,” she huffed.

“Probably not,” he admitted. “What's she do there?”

The voices were coming closer, as if they were out in the hallway. I looked around for a place to hide, my heart beating so loud it almost drowned out their voices. Louvered doors took up one entire side of the room.

“Please, God, be a giant closet,” I whispered and ran to duck inside.

“She works patrol,” I heard her say. “Third shift. She has to do it that way on account of nepotism.”

“Nepotism?” Mickey's voice squeaked with anxiety.

“Yeah, our daddy's the assistant chief.”

I heard a sigh, but the sigh was altogether too close to my left shoulder. It couldn't have been Mickey who sighed. A thick hand wrapped itself around my mouth, while another one grabbed my waist, pinning my arms and pulling me down.

“Don't move. Don't do anything but breathe or I'll have to hurt you,” the voice whispered. Meatloaf. His breath smelled of fried onions. He pulled me back against the wall of the pitch-black closet, and we slowly slid down until we were sitting on a metal case.

I must've started as my thighs connected with the cold metal, or maybe it was just that I was scared shitless, but he took that as a bad sign. Instantly his fingers pinched my nose shut while the other fingers covered my mouth. I couldn't breathe.

“Struggle and you'll pass out quicker,” he whispered. “Sit absolutely still and I'll let you breathe.” I froze, my ears ringing, my lungs heaving for air. He took his fingers away from my nose and I sucked in stale closet air.

Mickey had walked into his office and from the sound of it was punching out numbers on the phone.

“Hey,” he said, “it's me. No! No! I ain't got the money. We're going ahead anyway.” He paused, listening. “I don't give a shit about that!” he said. “I'm on the verge of being wealthy. This is gonna be piss-ant chump change a month from now.” More silence. The man who held me tightened his grip as he listened. “This is the last of it tonight, you hear me?” Mickey said. “I don't want to hear it! I got problems of my own. Just bring the shit and I'll take care of it. I'm good for the money, you can take that to the bank.”

The phone slammed down and Mickey sighed. “Oh, God! ‘The assistant chief is my daddy,'” he mimicked. “Man, just when you think it's your turn to ride, somebody goes and steals the pony!”

The closet was getting hotter by the second, as well as smelly with fried onions and the scent of dead ashes. I tried to hold it back, I really did. But between the tickle of the hand just under my nose and the smell, well, the sneeze came blowing out. It wasn't loud, just a tiny snarf, actually, but it was enough.

Mickey quit talking to himself and a drawer slid open. It was impossible to hear him coming, but my captor knew it was happening. He pushed up, standing with me as a human shield. And when the closet door flung open, I was the Kevlar vest between Mickey's huge cannon of a gun and the man behind me.

“Aw, I hate this,” Mickey said. He leveled the gun and pointed it straight at my heart.

I felt Meatloaf's strong arm shove me aside with a force that sent me reeling and heard a grenade explode in the space of air where my head had been. I went sliding sideways as a force of nature blew past me and out of the closet. Meatloaf and Mickey went down in a tangle of black satin and blue jeans, rolling around on the floor like a World Federation Wrestling match.

I couldn't tell what happened to Mickey's gun. From the way the two men were brawling, it could've been anywhere. Meatloaf's head was soaked in blood, and he seemed to be on the losing end of the battle, a surprise since he was a foot taller and probably eighty pounds heavier.

As I watched, the gun reemerged in Mickey's hand. He was going to kill Meatloaf.

“No! No! No!” I reached in my pants pocket and pulled out the Spyderco, flicking it open on the first try. Neither man heard me, but Mickey felt me as I jumped on his back, grabbing for a hunk of hair.

I was moving fast, so when Mickey's toupee came off in my hand, I had to wonder if maybe I'd scalped him by accident. Then I pressed the cold steel tip of the blade against his cheek and grabbed the collar of his racing jacket.

“Drop it or I cut your fucking jugular!” I screamed.

The gun fell to the ground beside him, only to have Meatloaf roll over and grab it.

“Don't start with me,” I demanded, “or I'll cut this bastard and come after you!”

To add to the general pandemonium, there was a loud buzzing noise that filled the room and set the building to vibrating. The door to the front office slammed back against the wall of the reception room, and the hallway was filled with black-booted, camouflaged SWAT team members, with Detective Wheeling standing right in front. The buzzing noise was so loud now I could hardly hear him yell. “Freeze! Drop your weapons! Now!”

Meatloaf and I just stared at him. “You mean me?” we both said.

For a brief second, it was a standoff. The buzzing noise stopped, and from overhead a I could hear footsteps running across the roof.

“Did you call them?” Wheeling asked Meatloaf.

“No, did you?” he answered, dropping his arm to his side.

I still held my knife up to Mickey's throat. The pieces were in place for me. I glanced back at the closet for a second, just to make sure.

“Oh, shit,” Wheeling said, sighing. “I bet Terrance did.”

There was the clatter of more feet running down the hallway and a woman, dressed in dark navy-blue pants and a navy-blue windbreaker with a huge DEA logo, pushed her way into the room, a black gun in her hand and the same little sneer she always wore covering her face. Carla Terrance.

“I'll take over here,” she said.

“The fuck you will,” Wheeling answered, his gun still trained on Mickey Rhodes.

“Over my very dead ass,” I added.

“My pleasure,” she said.

Meatloaf was the only one who seemed not to have a vested interest in who got Mickey. He walked away, positioning himself next to Wheeling.

“DEA had jurisdiction over this loser,” she said. “He's part of one of our operations. Drug dealing and money laundering.”

Wheeling didn't say anything.

“Yeah, well, him and me,” I said, nodding toward Wheeling, “want him for murder.”

Wheeling's eyebrow went up slightly and his mustache twitched. The asshole thought I was being cute.

“See that burnt-up safe in the closet?” I said to Wheeling. “It's from Wannamaker Lewis's house, I guarantee. I bet his will's in it.” Mickey moaned. “He killed Wannamaker and he killed Ruby. Ruby was his sister, wasn't she, asshole, or should we be calling you Michael?” That's when the knife slipped a little and nicked Mickey's neck. Nobody moved.

“Wannamaker was your father, huh?” I said, the knife caressing Mickey's cheek, leaving a thin red line of blood.

“Somebody stop her!” he screamed.

“I was thinking you might answer her question, smart ass,” said Wheeling. “Then we might address your problem.”

“Yes,” he groaned. “I did it!”

There was a moment there where I knew what it felt like to decide to take a life, but my Catholic training took over. Sister Mary Magdaline would've been disappointed.

“You want me to cuff him, boss?” Meatloaf said.

Wheeling smiled. “Sure, bud.”

“Wait,” I cried, “you can't let him do that! How do you know he's not in with him? He's got a criminal record a mile long!”

Meatloaf and Wheeling exchanged a look, and Meatloaf chuckled.

“Ain't computers great?” he said.

“Sierra,” Wheeling said softly, “he works for us, kind of part-time. He's a narc.”

Meatloaf gingerly stepped up to where I stood with the knife still clutched in my hand, still touching Mickey's cheek. He smiled at me. “Can I have him, Sierra?”

“Where're your cuffs?” I asked, not willing to give him up without security, even though Mickey would've had to go through over ten armed DEA and SWAT team members to leave.