Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (8 page)

Hernando tugged thoughtfully at his braid, toying with one of the beads.

“Beat ‘em?” Hernando repeated. “No. I never laid a finger on the cocksuckers.”

He reached into the bag of steaks and pulled out a semiautomatic pistol, the kind you always saw Colombian drug dealers brandishing in the movies and on TV. Hernando had gotten his gun from a Colombian cocaine cowboy out in back of a bar over in Ybor City. A trunk full of ribs for the pistol. And he was well on his way by the time the cowboy took a good look at the ribs and their two-week-old expiration date.

Hernando pointed the pistol at the wall behind Ronnie’s desk. BOOM. A plaque naming Ronnie Bondurant “Honorary Big Brother of the Year” exploded into splinters.

Hernando swung his arm slightly to the right and squeezed the trigger again.

BOOM. Ronnie’s gold-plated putter, the one he got for making a hole in one at the 1992 Tampa Bay Area Auto Dealer’s Tournament was clipped neatly in two.

“Die, cocksucker,” Hernando screamed. He was laughing like hell, his head thrown back, his mouth stretched into a lunatic’s grin.

“Jesus,” Ronnie shouted. The room filled with blue smoke and concrete dust. There were two big craters on the concrete-block wall.

“The third little bastard went out the window with the credit card machine,” Hernando said. “I’ll say this. Now I know why those Ethiopians are always winning the marathons. Little bastard was gone before I got a shot off.”

“You hear that, Wormy?” Ronnie said. “Boone here’s an action man. Maybe we need that kind of action for our boy Jeff out there. Whatya say, Hernando?”

Just then the door to Ronnie’s private office flew open. Jeff Cantrell stood, wide-eyed, in the doorway, a toy-like .22 pointed at Boone. He’d seen the big, crazy-looking Indian go inside, heard him shooting up Ronnie’s office. It was a holdup! Now was his chance to fix things with Ronnie, prove that he could be trusted.

Jeff glanced over at Ronnie, looking for some thanks. Instead he was looking down the barrel of Ronnie’s pistol. Hey, wait! And Wormy, he’d drawn his gun, too.

What the hell? Jeff couldn’t think what to say. Out of body again?

A strangled “Hah!” emerged from his throat. And then a bullet ripped through his right cheek, knocking him backward into the door.

“Hey, Ronnie?” Jeff’s voice was weak. “What’d you shoot me for?” He dropped the .22 and held his shattered face with both hands. Another bullet ripped into his groin and he slid to the floor, his brilliant white tennis shoes splattered with blood.

Boone was the first to speak.

“Who was that asshole?” He put the semi back in the paper bag with the steaks.

“A former employee,” Ronnie said grimly. He gave Wormy a discreet nod.

“Is that red ‘Vette still hooked up to the wrecker?”

“Yeah,” Wormy said. “It’s gonna make a hell of a mess on the upholstery.”

“Put down some plastic garbage bags or something,” Ronnie said. “But wait until it gets dark. That black chick could still be hanging around, trying to make trouble. Take the car, get rid of all the transmission fluid we got around here, drop the kid some place good, then drop the ‘Vette back by your place till tomorrow.”

“Which insurance company we dealing with this time?” Wormy asked.

Ronnie checked the sheet of paper he’d been reading. “Gulf States Casualty. Up in Largo, on Ulmerton Road.”

Hernando Boone was getting impatient. “Hey. What about my car? I thought you had a car ready for me. And I got all this meat here.” He poked the paper bag, which was getting soggy on the bottom. “Man, my meat’s starting to thaw.”

“Sorry,” Ronnie said, “but you can see, Hernando, we gotta take care of this right now.”

“Fuck,” Boone said. He hefted the bag a little higher and stepped over the body in the doorway. He stopped and poked Cantrell with his toe, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “Some mess. Call me later. I want that car.”

Ronnie followed Boone to the door, locking it after him. He came back into the office, avoiding looking at Cantrell. Then he pushed his swivel chair away from the desk, pulled up a piece of burnt-orange carpet, and with his thumbnails, removed a section of plywood flooring. The safe was recessed beneath the old oak flooring. He swiveled the lock, opened it, and dropped in his .45. Wormy came over and handed Ronnie his .38. Ronnie dropped it in, got up, paused, then walked quickly across the room. He got the .22 Cantrell had dropped and added it to the arsenal in the safe.

When everything was put back in place, he dusted his hands on the seat of his pants. “I need a drink,” Ronnie said. “Fuckin’ Hernando Boone. Get some spackle, get those holes fixed up.” He picked up the ruined putter, threw it in the trash and shook his head. His gold-plated putter.

Truman would not be budged on the matter of a stakeout at Bondurant Motors. Not with bribery: “Double desserts, and eggs cooked to order, advance notice about the salmon patties,” Jackie had promised. Not with threats: “You’ll never drink hot coffee in this town again,” she said ominously. Nor would he be moved by more tears, pouts, or silent stares. After all, he had been married for forty years and had raised a daughter. He was resistant to such tactics.

“It’s a matter for the police, not for Nancy Drew and her chums,” he said, looking pointedly at Ollie, whose cooperation could be bought for the price of a pack of gum.

In the end, Jackie and Ollie double-teamed him so mercilessly that he finally agreed to let them use his car for their caper, and then only on the condition that they watch—from a distance.

At seven p.m., Jackie piloted the Nova into the parking lot of the Taste of Saigon restaurant. Buying dinner for Ollie had been part of the stakeout package.

When she came out with two cups of Coke and an order of spring rolls, Ollie was still fuming about her choice of location.

“This is no good,” he complained. “Across the street would be better.”

Jackie pointed at the line of cars waiting to turn into the parking lot at the garishly lit strip club across the street. A brawny man stood at the entrance to the lot, taking money from each driver before allowing him to turn in. The cinderblock building was painted shocking pink, with a huge painted silhouette of a girl’s behind painted on the front. The Candy Store, it was called. Disgusting.

“That bouncer over there is collecting money to park,” Jackie said. “Admit it. You just want to sneak in there and peek at those skanky old strippers shaking their booties and their big, floppy titties.”

“That’s not it at all,” Ollie protested. He pointed at the side of the Bondurant Motors lot, which abutted Taste of Saigon. “We can only see half the car lot from here. And those girls over there are not skanky. They’re stylish nudes.”

“Whatever,” Jackie said, taking a sip of Coke. “This is the best we can do. We can see most of the car lot, and the front door to the office. That’s Jeff’s car,” she said, pointing. “When he comes out, we’ll go over there and look around. It’s after seven. Quitting time, right?”

Ollie ate a spring roll. It was cold and greasy, with a lingering shrimpy aftertaste. Just the way he liked them. He chewed and Jackie sipped and they both watched the small patch of asphalt and cinderblock at Bondurant Motors. The inside of the Nova was hot and airless. It got so boring finally that Jackie switched on the ignition so they could listen to something besides the traffic on U.S. 19.

Ollie kept his neck craned so he could see above the dashboard and across the street. He was hoping someone would leave the front door open at the Candy Store so he could catch just a glimpse of stylish nudity. Just a glimpse, that’s all he asked.

Jackie blinked to keep her eyes open. It had been a long day, and the heat made her sleepy. “Hey,” she said, sitting suddenly upright. “Look at that.”

Ollie reluctantly turned his head toward the Bondurant Motors lot.

A powerfully built dark-skinned man with a long beaded braid stalked out of the office of Bondurant Motors. He got into a gaudy blue-and-orange pickup truck and went screeching out of the parking lot and onto U.S. 19, making the right turn without even slowing down. Moments later, the lights in the office snapped off.

“Now what?” Jackie wondered. Five minutes passed. Ronnie Bondurant came out the front door. He glanced quickly around.

“Duck,” Jackie ordered. They both slumped down in the front seat of the Nova.

Bondurant took out a huge metal key ring, fit a key into the lock, picked up a briefcase, and walked quickly over to a gray Lincoln parked in the space nearest the door.

“That was the boss. Mr. Bondurant,” Jackie said. “Looks like they’re closed. But then, why is Jeff’s car still there?”

“Maybe he’s driving another car today? I knew a guy once, he worked at a Ford dealership. Never drove the same car two days in a row.”

“Yeah,” Jackie agreed. “I never thought of that.”

She opened the car door and stepped out. “Let’s do it.”

“Now?” Ollie held up a spring roll. “I’m still eating. And look at all those people over across the street.” He waved the spring roll in the direction of the Candy Store. “Somebody might see us and call the cops.”

“We’ll act like we’re car shopping,” Jackie said. “What’s wrong, Ollie? You wimping out on me?”

Jackie’s own stomach had started to burn, and it had nothing to do with the spring rolls. She kept thinking about Ronnie Bondurant’s gun, his threats. Until now, she really hadn’t believed she would go through with this.

“I’m no wimp,” Ollie protested. He pitched the remains of his spring roll out the open window of the car. “Let’s roll,” he said, doing his best imitation of Jack Lord. Or was it Jack Webb?

They moved cautiously onto the Bondurant Motors lot. Jackie felt different. Jazzed. Her heart raced and she felt the tendons in her calves tighten with every step. The balls of her feet seemed to bounce inside her Nikes.

“Go over near the driveway, okay?” she told Ollie. “Keep a lookout.”

While they’d been sitting in the car, Jackie had noticed a long, low, metal building jutting off the back of the office building.

“I want to check out that garage thing,” Jackie said, nodding toward it. “See if maybe they’ve got my car in there. They’re too smart to leave it out here where I might spot it.”

“Why can’t I check out the garage?” Ollie asked, his face crumpling. “You keep lookout.”

“There’s only that one window,” Jackie said meaningfully. The window was a horizontal slit in the metal door. High up off the ground. Too high.

“What’s the signal?” Ollie asked, getting her meaning. “In case somebody shows up?”

She thought about it. “Just holler my name. And meet me back at the car.”

Even standing on her tiptoes, Jackie could only manage to bring her eyes up to the window ledge. It was too high up, and anyway, it was dark in there. She walked over to the roll-up door and tugged at the handle. It wouldn’t budge. Damn. She just knew her car was inside.

She turned around to see where Ollie had gone. But the rows of cars had swallowed him up. He was nowhere to be seen. “Better not be over at that nudie club,” she muttered to herself.

Trying to look casual, she walked around to the side of the metal building and turned the corner. This side of the lot was enclosed by a six-foot chain-link fence. On the other side of the fence was Bondurant Motors’s very own dump site. The area was littered with junk, rusting fifty-five-gallon oil drums, stacks of tires, a huge Dumpster, mounds of asphalt roofing tiles, paint cans, discarded car parts. Why would somebody fence in junk, Jackie wondered?

Then she spotted something through the mounds of discards. There was a door into the garage thing and it was open. A shaft of light leaked out into the darkening lot and she saw a flash of bright red paint. Devil red.

“I knew it,” she said smugly.

Getting up the fence was surprisingly easy. But once she was at the top, the trip down looked a lot scarier. She closed her eyes and climbed down, feeling for a grip with her foot rather than looking.

It was dusk, probably a little after eight. Who was inside that building? Jeff, maybe? If he was there, she’d catch him, red-handed, with her car. Ream him a new asshole. She crept between a row of tires, hoping to get the jump on him, heading for the open door.

When she got closer, she ducked down behind what looked like the passenger seat to a van. The leather had rotted in the sun and foam rubber was bursting from the seat and the back. The door to the garage was maybe ten feet away. The red she’d seen was definitely a car. Her Corvette?

Her hands stung and her calves burned and ached from her fence-climbing stunt. What had happened to her jazzed feeling? She was this close, and she was scared. Might pee in her pants, she thought, immediately pushing the idea aside. Nobody was moving inside the garage.

Jackie bit her lip. Screw ‘em. It was her car, wasn’t it? She made a quick dash to the door, stopping just outside, poking her head cautiously around the corner.

There was her Corvette. Her very own lemon.

She darted inside. The front end of the ‘Vette was hooked up to a black tow truck.

She knew it! They were getting ready to move it, hide her car now that Cantrell and his boss knew they couldn’t get away with stealing from Jackie Canaday. That she had the goods on them. They wouldn’t take any chances with it breaking down on them again. That’s why they had it hooked to a tow truck. Only now that she looked closer, she saw that the back end was all bashed in, the taillights busted out, a big hole gashed there.