Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 01 - Galveston (11 page)

I kept my eyes on the road. The traffic was thicker than last night’s fog. “About what?”

“Cheshire. You think Maranzano’s lying to us? You think Cheshire was working for that fat bag of worthless scum?”

I considered Virgil’s question. “Could be, but I don’t think so.” Virgil frowned at me, and I explained. “There was no reaction from him when he learned my name. Now, if he’d put out a hit on me, he would have remembered, and he would have reacted somehow, but he didn’t. He didn’t even blink. I don’t think Sam Maranzano has that kind of self-discipline.”

Virgil screwed up his face in concentration. “He could be a good poker player.”

I couldn’t resist a grin. “Might be, but we’ve got to have a starting place. Let’s say Maranzano is telling the truth. He hasn’t had any dealings with Cheshire for a year. Why would the informant from the police station say he was? If Cheshire wasn’t working for Maranzano, maybe that means he was working for himself.”

“Or Abbandando.”

I arched an eyebrow at Virgil’s theory. “Yeah, or Abbandando. Maybe.” I muttered a curse. I still had no hard evidence that Cheshire was dirty. Morrison was my one hope, and he refused. Even if I beat it out of him, he could always recant. It looked like I had to keep butting my head against the proverbial brick wall.

Chapter Twelve

I-45 traffic to Galveston was bumper to bumper, miles and miles of Texans jammed together, weaving in and out, back and forth, eighty-mile-an-hour spirits constrained by a fifty-five mile-an-hour speed limit and caught up in a twenty-mile-an-hour traffic jam.

The mindset of Texas drivers is to follow as closely as possible, and regardless of speed, never leave enough room for another vehicle to slip into, or they will. And finally, with the cold resolve of an Old West gunfighter, Texas drivers abhor turn signals, believing there is no sense in giving the guy behind some clue as to your next move.

Probably the best description of Texas Interstate traffic is that it is first cousin to chaos, confusion, and commotion.

City traffic is no better. I cut south on 61
^st
Street to Seawall Boulevard, a broad, four-lane thoroughfare paralleling the beach fourteen feet below. A broad sidewalk with a high curb separated the boulevard from the drop-off to the beach.

If anything, traffic grew into even more chaotic once we hit the boulevard.

I learned long ago the way to defeat the anger and frustration of traffic was to stay five miles below the limit and let everyone pass. And pass they did, on both sides, front and back, and some idiots even tried to go over and under. Within a mile, I’d have more than two dozen different vehicles whip in front and then move on.

So I wasn’t too concerned when a black Lincoln Town car eased in front of me and slowed. I simply backed off the gas and held my distance.

He remained in front. Another guy who hates to fight the traffic, I told myself, noting that he had a passenger. We tooled along Seawall Boulevard at a steady 50 m.p.h.

“Water’s smooth today,” Virgil mumbled, peering at the gray waves slurping against the sandy shore below.

“Yeah.” I glanced out across the slick expanse of the Gulf of Mexico. Chances were we’d have another thick fog tonight.

From the corner of my eye, I noted another vehicle pull up beside us. I shot a quick look. A white Chrysler. The Lincoln remained in front.

Only a few pedestrians strolled the sidewalk.

Without warning, the Chrysler to my left slammed into us. At the same time, the Lincoln in front slowed. The passenger looked back at us.

Virgil grabbed for the dash. “What the —”

The pickup bounced over the curb and onto the sidewalk. I jerked it back, smashing into the side of the Chrysler and knocking it back into the middle lane. I shot the car a glance and spotted a face leering up at me.

The driver yanked his Chrysler into me again, trying to force us off the seawall and down to the beach below. I jerked the steering wheel to the left.

Metal shrieked and sparks flew.

Traffic piled up behind us.

“Get us out of here,” shouted Virgil. “Honk at that guy to move.”

I sped up, holding down the horn and hoping the Lincoln Town car in front would move out of the way, but he slowed even more. “He’s part of it,” I muttered between clenched teeth.

Virgil cursed. 

I couldn’t slam on the brakes; I couldn’t head down the sidewalk for fear of pedestrians; and I couldn’t move left. I had only one choice, and I had to do it fast.

Ahead, I spotted a stretch of sidewalk clear of pedestrians.

Taking a deep breath, I slammed into the Chrysler, knocking it into the inside lane. Quickly I backed off to gain some distance from the Lincoln in front. In the next moment, I floorboarded my old truck. With a roar that sounded like a tornado, the powerful V-8 engine kicked in, and we shot forward, aiming for the left rear fender of the Lincoln.

If I hit him in just right spot, I could knock the car into a spin.

The driver saw me coming and slammed on his brakes, too late. At the same time, the Chrysler shot toward me, hoping to pin the truck between the two vehicles.

Seconds before the Chrysler hit, I slammed into the Lincoln’s fender, sending his back end spinning to his left. I spun the steering wheel sharply, slamming into the Chrysler and forcing him back into the inside lane.

I glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see the spinning Lincoln bounce over the curb, cartwheel across the sidewalk and plunge down the seawall to the granite rip-rap below.

Moments later, a ball of fire ballooned into the sky.

The accident frightened the driver of the Chrysler. He sped away, but I was right after him, saying a small prayer of thanks for not trading away my old truck for a shiny new one.

I’d had this old truck for years. The body was ragged, but the engine and running gear was pure precision. Like old men brag, there might be snow on the roof, but there’s fire in the furnace. That was an apt description of my truck. A hundred dollar body wrapped around a two thousand dollar engine. Other than a few little $70,000.00 sports cars, there was not a vehicle back in Church Point, Opelousas, or Lafayette that could stay with my truck.

The Chrysler was running like the proverbial turpentined cat, and I was right on his tail, moving closer with every turn and twist he made. I’d forgotten about Virgil. I glanced at him. “You okay, Virge?”

He nodded, his jaw set, his thick fingers digging into the dash so he wouldn’t roll all over the seat. “Get that sucker.”

Traffic was holding our speed down, but once or twice, I managed to nudge the back of Chrysler’s fender and almost send him into a spin. The driver was bent over the wheel. His passenger was slamming his fists against the dash and glancing back at us frantically.

Abruptly, we broke out of traffic.

Immediately, the Chrysler shot up over a hundred miles an hour.

I could have followed, but I reminded myself that my mother had not raised a fool. Besides I had the license number, not that it was legit. I backed off, back down to the speed limit.

Moments later, the Chrysler tried to take a corner too fast. He slammed over the curb, through a palm tree, and went into a long, bouncing roll that literally sent pieces of metal flying in every direction, tearing the vehicle apart before it exploded.

I pulled up to the curb and raced to see if I could help, but I was too late.

Two of the officers who answered the call had been at the hospital that morning I went to see about Ben. They would have probably hauled my carcass to a back room and interrogated me without mercy had not an off-duty officer shown up. I recognized him also from the hospital.

“Hold on, guys,” he said. “I saw it all.” He looked at me and froze. Finally, he muttered. “You.”

“Yeah. It’s me.” I braced myself for the worse.

He muttered a curse and shook his head in frustration. “Look guys, as much as I hate to say it, Boudreaux here isn’t to blame. Two cars tried to run him off the road. I saw the whole thing from behind. Only some fancy driving on his part stopped them.” He gestured to the burning car. “When this old boy sped away, Boudreaux backed off.”

The two officers stared at him. “Come on, Jack. You know what this guy did to Ben Howard and Frank Cheshire.”

Jack glared at me. “One’s got nothing to do with the other. I want to nail his worthless hide for what he did to Cheshire and Howard, but this isn’t his doing. It wasn’t his fault.”

All I could do for a moment was gape. Maybe there were some good cops out there. “Thanks, Buddy.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s my job. I’d do it for anybody.”

Virgil and I gave our depositions at the station. As we were leaving, the same two uniforms who had covered the accident met us downstairs. One jabbed a thick finger at my chest. “We’re patient, Boudreaux, but you can bet we’re going to nail you to the wall.”

Given that they had the opportunity, of that I had no doubt.

Virgil grinned wryly as we climbed into my old pickup. “You got an odd assortment of friends here,” he said, nodding to the gray brick exterior of the station.

“Oh? You just noticed, huh?”

We both laughed, but it was strained. I had the feeling the walls were beginning to close in. That meant I had to kick one of them down.

And the first would be one behind which Albert Vaster lived.

I didn’t try to explain my reasoning to Virgil. How do you explain feelings, nebulous hunches based upon another’s body language or word inflection? You don’t. If you’re desperate, you just act on them.

Thinking back to my visit with ‘Mustache Pete’ Abbandando, the obese crime boss wasn’t even sure that Albert was following Cheshire that night. He thought his cousin might have been following Cheshire. For all he knew, a jealous lover might have offed pretty boy Albert and dumped him in Galveston Bay.

I had my own theory now, but first, I wanted to find out if Albert knew about Cheshire and the diamonds. And the only way I could start learning about Abbandando’s younger cousin was searching his apartment. Without any interference. That meant I had to break into it.

“Jeez, Tony. You’re taking some kind of chance.” Virgil warned me when I told him what I had in mind.

“Not so much. Abbandando says he wants me to find out what happened. So, I’m out there looking.”

The heavily muscled bodyguard shrugged his massive shoulders. “You count on Pete for backup, you’re still asking for trouble.”

“Maybe, but we’re going in circles. If there’s something there, I’ve been too dumb to see it.”

He shook his head and leaned back in the seat. “Whatever.” He remained silent for a few moments. “Hey, that was some fancy driving out there today. I mean, bouncing the guy in circles. How’d you learn that?”

Believe it or not, I spent a couple thousand on a weeklong professional driving course in Austin. Same one the cops go through. Truth is, I never thought I would use it.”

He chuckled. “Well, you done good.”

Even an amateur could have opened Albert Vaster’s door in less than thirty seconds. It was a matter of inserting a couple picks, making a couple twists, and bingo, we were in.

I don’t know if you’d call the apartment classy, but it was expensive. Carpet in which you sunk to your ankles, leather furniture, glass tables, a TV that almost filled one wall, and a hot tub in the bathroom.

Virgil grunted. “Poor guy. Looks like he had to struggle to just get by.”

I arched an eyebrow at his wry comment. “Yeah. Okay, you take the bedroom. Any kind of paper work, pictures, brochures about anything. Specifically, I’m interested in shipping lines, dates, anything that can give us an idea when the shipment is due.”

“If there is a shipment,” he said, eyeing me skeptically.

“Yeah.” I grimaced. “If there is a shipment.”

I glanced around the apartment. There were no desks, so I started at the snack bar where I uncovered an assortment of paid and unpaid bills, receipts from restaurants, gyms, and the Imax movie out at Moody Gardens.

Muttering curses under my breath, I went through every drawer, every cabinet, every catalog, every book. And found nothing.

Then I started in the living room, flipping through telephone books, digging in wastebaskets, looking under cushions.

Virgil emerged from the bedroom. He had a single slip of paper in his hand. He shook his head and handed me the folded sheet. “This is all I found. It was in one of his coat pockets. A bunch of numbers and letters.”

I unfolded the slip and frowned as I stared at a puzzling set of numbers and letters, 1-146-1-21, ccc, bp, 1-22. I read it aloud to Virgil. “Make any sense?”

He shrugged. “Not to me, except maybe that one dash twenty-one or two could be dates.”

“I hope not,” I replied, arching an eyebrow. “That’s yesterday and today.”

Virgil grinned sheepishly. “Yeah.”

“This all you found?”

“Yeah. No magazines, no books. All he must’ve done in that bed was sleep.”

I folded the paper into my pocket. We spent another fifteen minutes tearing the place apart and finding nothing.

When I opened the door to leave, I came face to face with Augie of the red hair. Two scowling buttonmen stood behind him, hands jammed in their pockets. Augie stared at me coldly. “Pete wants to see you.”

Chapter Thirteen

His back rigid as a steel bar, ‘Mustache Pete’ sat in a wingback chair, dressed in a while silk suit and looking very much like an albino pear. His pencil-thin mustache accented the grim twist on his lips as Virgil and I, like recalcitrant children, stood in front of him while I explained my visit to Albert Vaster’s.

“There were too many loose ends. I figured I might tie up a couple at your nephew’s apartment. Perhaps find a hint at where he might be.” I added the last remark for Pete’s benefit. I was more interested in Cheshire than Vaster. 

Curling his fat fingers and touching them to his shiny vest, he said. “You could have come to me.”