Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1) (9 page)

Willie smoked and sweated outside the house, the four o’clock sun peeking through the trees to the west. He hated wearing the hazmat suit, but better to sweat it out than let the chemicals seep into his skin. Dexter kept an eye on the process inside the ramshackle house, making sure nothing boiled over. Thank God they neared the end of the run. Dexter creeped him out.

Bennett crashed in the back of the pickup truck, where he’d pretty much been since his noon arrival, snoring loud enough to wake a hibernating bear. Even from this distance, Willie could smell the alcohol and weed seeping out of his pores. He, Bub and Howie tied one on last night at the Turn It Loose bar. Bennett said poor Howie lay wrecked in their trailer back home puking his guts out. Willie gave him until six o’clock to sleep it off before getting his ass back to work, or he’d let Shane know Howie wasn’t pulling his weight.

Bub rumbled up in Willie’s truck. He slowly poured himself out of the cab, wincing with each step as he made his way to the house.

“What’s wrong with you?” Willie asked.

Bub coughed and drew in a deep breath, pressing his hand to his side. “Think I broke a goddamn rib.”

“From what?”

“Some big fucker jumped me and the Sterretts down by the Community Center.”

Willie stepped off the porch. “One guy took all three of you? Who was he?”

“Don’t know. Big. Solid. Short brown hair. Was asking about Shane. If we knew where to find him.”

Sirens wailed in Willie’s head. “Cop?”

“Don’t think so. Didn’t look like it anyway.”

“Maybe a fed?”

Bub lit a cigarette with painful movements that made Willie ache. He’d had his ass kicked before and recognized the telltale movements. “Never seen him before. Said Shane owed him some money and he wanted to know where he could collect.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“Told him to fuck off. Like I’m gonna give him Shane’s address. Then Hank took a swing with a pipe at his head and it was on. Man, that guy could fight. Like one of those ninjas in the movies. Don’t think we hit him once.”

“What then?”

“In about five seconds, both Sterretts were out cold on the ground, and he had me by the throat. Police sirens went off and the guy just disappeared like a fart in the wind. Cops didn’t even see him and didn’t want to jack with us. Just told me to get the hell outta there.”

Bub ground the cigarette in the dirt. What should Willie do? Tell Shane? Probably not. Shane would send him on some witch hunt for the guy and he had enough to do. Besides, Willie didn’t want to mess with any man that could take down Bub and both the Sterrett twins at the same time.

“Go take a rest next to Bennett,” Willie said. “We’re finishing up here.”

Bub nodded and limped to the truck bed. He slid back and passed out before Willie got to the front door of the house.

Back inside, Willie learned from Dexter the Meth Master for the next couple of hours. His final product had a crimson hue, chunks of rock like faded rubies. Dexter called it “Devil Ice.” He offered to let Willie try some before pounding a crystal to powder and snorting it. His eyes bugged and he howled a primal scream.

“That’s some good shit,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re missing, kid.”

Willie knew exactly what he was missing. He took a long pull of bottled water and his mind drifted to the girl. Little Halle who wasn’t little anymore, almost legal in the eyes of the law, though still too young for Willie to even think about. But think about her he did.

Willie wandered back outside and lit a cigarette, leaning against the rickety front porch railing. It wasn’t her centerfold body, perfectly tan and smooth which was all Bub ever saw. It wasn’t her cascading hair or her soul-penetrating icy blues. For Willie, it was her smile, full of promise and a lust for life, that got his motor racing, even if she never cast it in his direction. He fantasized of chance meetings around Warsaw, long strolls around the lake, making out under the moonlight in the back of a sweet truck he’d probably never own. In the darkness of his trailer when his hand would reach below, she’d peel off her shirt, always the orange tank top, reach behind and unclasp her bra. Willie would reach forward and caress those perfectly round, soft breasts and lick the sweat from her cleavage.

“What the hell are you thinking about?” Bub asked, lying on his side in the truck bed, propped up on a meaty arm.

Willie jerked from the fantasy as if he’d been shocked in the ass by a cattle prod.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You had that stupid, faraway grin on your ugly mug and judging from your banana wood there, I’m guessing you were thinking about Halle.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Man, I’m telling you, we should pick her up sometime. She’s always wandering around town. Take her down to the lake…take her down everywhere.”

An image flashed of Halle at the hands of a fat animal like Bub and his stomach rolled. He flicked the cigarette toward the truck. Right now, Bub ogled over Halle and joked around. But eventually he’d quit joking and his pea brain would try to turn fantasy to reality.

“Don’t even think about it, Bub.”

“Or what?” Bub must’ve been feeling better and clambered forward, dropping his boat-feet to the ground. He demonstrated the unwavering loyalty of a dog, but even a dog could turn and kill the man holding his leash. To set things to order, the master pulls on the leash and the dog obeys. Willie needed to yank on Bub’s leash.

Willie reached on to the porch rail and picked up his butterfly knife. With practiced dexterity and a glimmer of sunlight on silver, he exposed the blade, locked the handles together and threw the knife at Bub’s feet. The blade buried itself inches from his toes. Bub’s fleshy jaw hung open. Willie puffed as wide as his skinny chest could expand.

“Touch Halle and I’ll cut your balls off. Got it?”

Bub closed his mouth. He kicked the knife over and winced back on to the truck bed, scooching back like a crab while holding his side. “You’re a crazy sumbitch, you know it?”

Willie played the part of the powerless pawn working under Shane, and it felt good to throw his weight around. He nodded and went back to the house. Dollar signs rolled as he shattered the sheets of Devil Ice and bagged the results. With those dollar signs translating to bills in his pockets, he floated back to Halle and picked up with the imagined scenario in the pickup truck. This time, instead of sex, the two of them left Warsaw together for the bright lights of Kansas City.

Howie Skaggs teetered on the side of his bed, holding his throbbing head in his hands. With his eyes clamped shut against the piercing daylight blasting through the smoke-yellowed windows of the trailer, he grabbed his cigarettes off the end table. Without opening his eyes, he lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in as the nausea stirred in his belly. He glanced at the clock and groaned. He’d been in bed all day and now had only an hour to get to the cook house by six o’clock or Willie would have his ass.

Hank Williams, Jr. nailed it; the hangovers hurt more than they used to. A few years ago, he could've pounded the same amount of beers at the bar as he did last night and been right as rain today. But the mileage on his body since then had taken a toll. He had a vague recollection of dancing with Marcie Wallows to the music blaring from the blown juke box speakers at the Turn It Loose. He opened his eyes and touched the top of his head, wincing at the bump and the memory of Daryl, Marcie’s husband, busting a pool cue across his noggin for groping his old lady while they grinded to some techno-pop garbage. Bub threw the man into the parking lot. Howie glanced to his swollen knuckles. He and Bub took turns pummeling the guy’s face raw. When Daryl slid down the side of a rusted out pickup with half an ounce of consciousness, Howie walked back in the bar and picked up where he left off with Marcie. Either she didn’t know her husband just got his ass kicked like a narc at a biker rally, or she didn’t care.

Someone hammered on the door to the trailer. Probably Willie there to get him back to the cook house. Howie slid to the edge of the bed, trying to find the will to stand. The door thundered again.

“All right, all right,” Howie shouted, recoiling at the reverberations in his beer-soaked brain. “What the hell is so important?”

He flung open the trailer door and froze. Not Willie, but Bear with his paw on a holstered pistol. Randy Daniels, one of the local deputies who everyone called Sad Dog, leaned against the squad car, his sturdy arms cradling a shotgun. A pale hulk with a thickset face, and cropped, red hair, Randy wore his patented “don’t fuck with me” look. Howie was one of the few people in town who knew why people called Randy “Sad Dog,” but it wasn’t worth the ass beating Randy would lay on him if he told anyone.

“We need to talk, Howie,” Bear said. “Mind if I come in?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Howie stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “What’s up, Bear?”

“You’re up,” Bear said. “You and that shit heap Bub beat the hell out of Daryl Wallows last night. He’s up in Clinton in a hospital bed with his jaw wired shut and three broken ribs.”

Howie cursed internally. Bear’s sights had locked on him and wasn’t about to let it go. His mind did a quick inventory of the trailer. His unlawful pistol and a couple of stones of Devil Ice he’d pilfered from the cook house sat on his dresser. Shane’s angry face floated across his mind’s eye. He was in deep, deep shit.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Howie said.

“Yeah, you do. You okay? You look nervous all of a sudden. Something inside I need to be worried about?”

“Nah,” Howie said, anxious to get Bear away from the trailer. He tried passing Bear, appearing casual. “Let’s go to the station and talk about it.”

Bear stopped Howie in his tracks with an arm to his shoulder. “Hey, you ain’t getting in my car in your goddamn boxer shorts. Go cover up that little dick with some clothes.”

Howie turned and glanced over his bony shoulder. Bear breathed down his neck. He should’ve known they wouldn’t let him go in by himself. He tried to dart inside and pull the door shut, but Bear grabbed it, stepping inside and pushing Howie back.

“Hey,” Howie yelled out as Bear passed. “You ever hear of unlawful entry?”

“You a fucking lawyer now? You invited me in. Besides, it’s pretty rude to try and slam a door in a cop’s face, Howie.” He crushed Howie against the wall with his substantial bulk. “What have you got to hide in here?”

“Nothing,” he muttered, eyes cast down, praying Bear wouldn’t look to the bedroom. The freaking gun and baggie sat in the open. No such luck. Bear saw them and smiled.

“Well, well, what have we here?” Bear said, clamping on Howie’s neck. Daniels caught him as Bear shoved Howie out the door. “Cuff him, Sad Dog.”

Daniels face-planted Howie on the uncomfortably warm hood of the Crown Vic and Howie grunted as the handcuffs bit into his wrists. Wearing only boxers, there was nothing to frisk so Daniels pulled him upright and leaned him against the car. Things crashed and banged inside his trailer for a few minutes before Bear came out with the butt of the pistol in one hand and the bag of Devil Ice in his other. A pair of jeans and a shirt draped over his arm. He tossed the clothes on the ground when he got to the car.

“Jesus God,” Daniels said. “This guy smells like ass.”

“He’s getting ready to smell a hell of a lot worse,” Bear said, examining the pistol. He handed it to Daniels who checked it to ensure it wasn’t loaded and placed it on the hood of the cruiser. Bear held up the baggie, the afternoon sun lighting up the red rocks like a half-ass prism. “What’s this?”

“It ain’t mine,” Howie said, ashamed the lamest and most tired excuse crossed his lips.

“Yeah, I’m sure it isn’t. Where did you get it?”

“How should I know if it ain’t mine?”

Bear grabbed Howie’s face, digging his powerful fingers into his cheeks.

“Don’t dick with me, Howie. Where did you get it?”

A million comebacks flooded Howie’s brain. Should he continue to plead ignorance, or maybe try feeding Bear enough information that he might cut Howie loose? It took a few seconds to conclude silence was the only response to guarantee Shane wouldn’t slice his balls off and feed them to his mountain of a bodyguard. He clamped his lips together.

“Nothing?” Bear said. “Fine, we’ll take you in and have a little discussion. You’re on probation, right?”

Howie had six months remaining from a previous illegal weapon and meth possession charge. He’d served fourteen months in the county jail with no desire to go back. But he didn’t answer Bear.

“Well,” Bear continued, releasing Howie’s face. He put a thick finger under Howie’s chin and raised his head so their gazes locked. He dangled the Devil Ice in front of him. “You better start figuring a way to help yourself out, Howie. I don’t know what this red shit is yet, but I’m guessin’ it ain’t Jolly Ranchers.”

Bear motioned to Daniels who wrestled Howie to the back of the squad car and shoved him inside. They climbed into the front and talked as if Howie wasn’t even there.

“Well, what do you think?” Daniels asked.

“I think some heads are gonna roll over this, Sad Dog.” Bear held up the baggie and flicked the rocks inside. “Some heads are gonna roll starting with this shithead in the back.”