Skorpio (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"Vince Wakes Up"

Vince woke with the mother of all headaches. He lay there long minutes watching the ceiling pulse like gecko neck. WTF? His throat felt like a shop drain. His tongue was a fuzzy caterpillar. He started to sit up. Whoah.

Waves of nausea roiled. He lay back down. What had he done? At least he was home in his own bed. Good sign. The last thing he remembered was seeing that dipshit Rotarian trying to cop a feel off Summer. And the bitch was leading him on with a lascivious grin, tongue running the keys like Liberace.

They'd argued. The argue escalated at home. He'd hit her.

Fuck.

FUCK!

The bitch drugged him! He knew the signs he'd been there before.

Not Summer. Not sweet, passive little Summer. Where did she find the guts to slip him roofies? What else had she done?

A pearl of dread grew in his gut.

Vince roared off the bed like a Sea World porpoise. Nausea drove him straight to the porcelain god where he knelt and made his stutter-chuck offering, washing the bile out of his mouth with Scope and draining three glasses of water.

He stumbled back into the bedroom, scooped up his jeans and sat heavily on the bed. He pulled out his wallet and opened it.

"FUCK!" he said.

She'd cleaned him out. He'd had eight hundred dollars in there. At least she'd left the credit cards and cell phone.

His keys were gone.

Oh no oh no. Grunting, Vince pulled on his jeans, did a quick canvass to make certain he hadn't dropped them in a drawer or in the kitchen. Grabbing the spare house key he surged out of the apartment nearly colliding with Marisa Guttierez who worked as a maid at Caesar's, sidestepped and ran down the cinderblock stairwell two steps at a time to the ground floor where he exploded through the parking lot exit, eyes going to where he'd parked his sweet Camaro diagonally across two spaces at the back.

Gone.

The bitch took the car.

"GNARG!" Vince said shaking his shaven head. A couple skate punks looked over then away. Vince was cut like a con with tats covering his arms and torso. Snakes encircled his biceps, barbed wire his wrists. There was a star on each shoulder and BRAWLER emblazoned across his chest in biker Gothic. It was his nickname when he was a cage fighter. He went four for seven before hanging up his gloves.

Vince stormed back into the house meaner than a rabid vole. He slammed the apartment door shut behind him. The construction was so cheap it wasn't even a satisfying slam. Just a soft click when the hollowed-out door hit the frame.

Surrounded by cheapness and failure Vince reviewed his options. He owed Luca Bonamici $18,000. Chump change to the high rollers but it was worth Vince's life. Luca looked like a popover but he employed heavy muscle and had pulled the trigger on guys who owed less.

Vince had three days to come up with the cash. He'd hoped to use the proceeds from the Camaro's trunk to pay if off. He'd hooked up with some batshit millionaire lived in Palm Springs filled with Western memorabilia, items stolen from the Smithsonian including Ulzana's skull. Ulzana had been a Chiracuhaua warrior who led a raid in 1886 killing 12 farmers. You could call them atrocities but that wouldn't be sensitive to the pain and suffering of Lo, the Noble Red Man.

As far as Vince was concerned Lo, the Noble Red Man was a lazy, shiftless, easily intoxicated and prone to drug abuse slacker like Summer.

She sure could shake her booty.

Maybe he'd throw her a fuck when he caught up with her. One she wouldn't like. And he was going to catch up with her if it's the last thing he did. She had no idea the value of the contents of the Camaro's trunk. That Palm Springs geezer was salivating like a hungry dog, waving a hundred gees.

All over an ancient map of some obscure shithole in the desert that Vince took in trade from a cat burglar that owed him four grand. Vince could be pretty fucking scary. Dude wasn't really a cat burglar, just a meth addict who would lift his own mother's dentures. But he'd had some pretty sweet scores, Vince had to admit. One of them was the contents of a storage locker in Aurora, CO, which contained the artifacts including the map.

There was also a model 72 Winchester which the cat burglar sold to a collector in Aspen before he blew all the money on whores, booze, and meth, which Vince was happy to supply. Then the guy went in the tank.

Vince couldn't report the Camaro as stolen. They both carried too much baggage. Nor was Summer stupid enough to keep it for long. First things first. Vince had to find a new set of wheels. He phoned a dealer he knew and left a message.

He needed a gun too.

***

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"One Lousy Little Automatic"

Arthur Funderburk had kept his guns in a cabinet in a corner of his bedroom. Arthur Funderburk only used them on his birthday, the 4th of July and New Year's Eve when he fired them in the air, drunk as a sailor. Summer's friend Eunice had a cousin who was killed by a falling bullet on New Year's Eve.

Summer went into the bedroom where her mother Maria lay snoring like a beached whale. The gun cabinet stood in the corner.

Summer took one look and said, "Ethan I thought you said you didn't sell the guns!"

The upper part which used to hold a Remington 12 gauge and a Springfield 30.06 was empty.

"Just a sec!" Ethan squeaked through his inhale. A moment later he appeared in the bedroom and went up to the cabinet.

"Well shit. Ma or June musta took 'em or something. Try the bottom drawer. What you want guns for anyway?"

"I would just feel safer."

Summer crouched and drew the bottom drawer. She had to fight with it because it was a cheap cabinet and somewhat warped. The drawer suddenly popped free with a rattling sound. Inside lay a gun cleaning kit, a couple of loose brushes, a leather holster, a dozen bullets in different calibers, and a Beretta .25 in its original box.

"What happened to the Glock and the Mag?" Summer said rhetorically.

"Fuck if I know. What's wrong with that Beretta?"

Summer plucked the tiny black handgun from its box and put it in the pocket of her cargo pants. She grabbed a box of Wolf .25 ammo.

"Don't shoot yourself," Ethan said, returning to his game.

Maria snorked, opened her eyes, and sat up in bed. "Hello, baby," she said. "What are you doing here?"

Summer sat on the bed and hugged Maria who smelled like cigarettes and stale bread. "My boyfriend beat me up so I left him."

"Oh dear," Maria said, holding Summer's chin in her hand and looking at the shiner. "Oh dear. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Ma. He might come here looking for me."

"Did you tell the police?"

Summer just looked at her.

"Never mind. I'd fix you something to eat but there's nothing in the house."

"That's all right, Ma. I got money. You want to give me a list I'll drive down to the Bosselman's and pick shit up."

"That'd be swell, Summer. Just swell. Maybe you could get me a bottle of Four Roses."

"Sure, Ma. What happened to Pa's truck?"

"It's out back. Needs a battery and a couple of tires. You ask Joe Jeffords, he'll get it running for you. Just give him twenty."

Joe was an itinerant mechanic who lived two trailers down. Summer was going to need transportation. Pa's old Ford 150 hadn't been licensed in years. But first she had to sell the Camaro.

It was six-thirty when she knocked on the door of Joe's faded turquoise and white trailer. She heard a grunting noise and the trailer creaked as someone came to the door. Joe looked like a russet potato, long black hair gathered in a ponytail. He squinted at her hard for a minute before his face cracked in a broad grin.

"Summer! What are you doin' back in town? How the hell are ya?"

"Hi, Joe. I wonder if you could fix up Pa's truck so it runs. I got money."

Joe opened the screen door. "Come on in."

He went to the ice box and took out a six pack of Coors, held it up.

"No thanks."

Joe popped one loose then popped it open. He chugged half the can and sank into an old over-stuffed chair with cotton ticking peaking out at the seams. His trailer smelled of stale body odor and cigarettes. He reached for a pack of Pall Malls next to an overflowing amber ashtray and lit it with a match.

"Needs a battery and two tires. I was just waitin' for Maria to come up with the money."

Summer removed her wallet form her front pocket and peeled off two hundred dollar bills. She reached over and set them on the cheap coffee table next to the ashtray. "Here's two bills. That should cover it. You think you can have it up and running by tomorrow morning?"

Joe puffed and grabbed the money. She could see the calculations behind his eyes. Joe knew where to get discount auto parts. Possibly the same place she planned to sell the Camaro.

"Sure, sure, I got to go into town anyway. You want to ride along?"

"No thanks, Joe. I got stuff to do. I'll check with you in the morning."

Summer went through the Camaro carefully, checking to see if Vince had concealed anything in the door panels or beneath the seat. She found an ounce of primo in the center console, took it in the house and tossed it to Ethan.

"Holy shit! Thanks, Sis!"

She loaded the Beretta's tiny magazine, jammed it in and jacked one into the chamber. She stuck it in her front pants pocket. She got in the Camaro and drove fourteen miles to the Bosselman's at the intersection of State Highway 89 and Cross Creek Road. The Bosselman's stood in the Southeast quadrant surrounded by big rigs, pick-ups, and two non-chain motels. The kind of places they didn't vacuum under the beds. As dusk settled in the Bosselman's lit up like a refinery. The smell of gas lingered in the air. Summer drove around to the back, a broad parking lot that melded into the desert. There were dozens of cars parked in clusters and at the very rear, adjacent to the sand, a couple low riders, some souped-up Civics and WRXs and a dozen gangbangers slouching around in drooping pants and hoodies to the subterranean beat from the open hatch of an Eclipse.

Summer drove right up to them. The boys saw the car first and liked what they saw. Then Summer got out and they liked it even better.

"Hey there pretty mama, whatchoo need?"

"You can roll with me anytime."

"Oye guapa!"

One thick as a brick Aztec rolled up to her with his hands in his pockets. He had a silver stud through his nose and a sideways Diesel hat. "Whassup, pretty lady?"

"I don't know, pachuco. You tell me."

"Tha's some bad ride."

Summer grinned and leaped onto the hood. "You like this ride? 'Cause I'm looking to deal."

***

CHAPTER THIRTY

"Permission"

Permission was a ghost town. Population: 126, mostly retirees. The wood bones of dead cabins announced the town seconds before Beadles reached the epicenter, the only part that remained alive. Quint's Cafe and Convenience. It was right across the street from the long boarded Permission town hall, a nineteenth century Quaker-like structure with a bell tower and stained glass. It had also doubled as the Lutheran Church.

Once Permission had been a bustling town of 20,000, the gateway to the Permission Gold Mine which had yielded over a ton of the precious yellow metal until the vein petered out in the sixties.

The town hung on as a tourist haven, a cheap alternative to Breckinridge although the slopes weren't as good and the ski lift broke down a lot. Permission was the scene of Randall F. Fitzroy's shoot-out, resulting in his death. Fitzroy was buried in the town cemetery on a plateau overlooking the basin. Fitzroy had been a notorious gun slinger and bank robber, although he did serve a brief stint as sheriff of No Go, Wyoming in the eighteen nineties. His final shoot-out took place July 1, 1901. Fitzroy got his man, a bounty hunter by the name of Earl Goodwood, but Goodwood got Fitzroy. They were buried side by side.

Beadles had learned all this from the internet. He parked diagonally across from Quint's next to a Yukon Denali. It was evening and Quint's was by far the brightest thing in Permission. Beadles got out and headed across the street toward the one-story red brick emporium. Light shined from the cafe, a couple of cowboys joking with the waitress behind the bar. They were the only patrons.

They glanced at Beadles as he took a seat three stools down at the end of the bar.

"Gettin feisty, arentcha Al?" the waitress said. She turned and came toward him with a big red smile, a plump woman of about fifty wearing a peach-colored dress, white apron, gray hair done up in a bun. Gold stitching on her left breast said "Madge."

"Hello, cowboy," she said. "What can I get for you?"

Beadles read the menu on the back wall over the counter. "I'll take the Quintburger, side of cole slaw and Coke please."

"You bet."

One of the cowboys swiveled toward him on the red naugahyde stool. His face was broad and friendly beneath the wide-brimmed Stetson. His belt buckle was saucer sized. "What brings you to Permission?"

"I wanted to visit the State Historical Society."

The cowboy smiled sympathetically. "Hell, that's been closed for years. Ever since old McGill died. He was the only thing kept it goin', ain't that right, Bob?"

The cowboy next to him who looked to be in his sixties cradled a cup of coffee between his elbows. "Ahuh that's right," he said without turning his head.

"That's a shame," Beadles said. Madge placed a cold glass of coke before him.

"Do you know what they did with its contents?"

"What's your interest," Al said.

"I'm an anthropologist. I'm doing research on an American Indian tribe known as the Azuma."

Al's face wrinkled like the Mississippi Delta. "Azuma? Ain't never heard of 'em. You heard of 'em Bob?"

Bob didn't move. "Nope. Never have."

Beadles stood up and stuck out his hand. "Vaughan Beadles."

Al shook. "Al Barnes. And this here fossil is Bob Woodley."

Madge put the burger down next to Al and moved Beadles' coke.

"Only reason we stick around's 'cause we're hermits. Ain't that right, Bob?"

"Mm-hm. That's right."

"Ol' Pete McGill died back in '08. Christ, he musta been ninety if he were a day. Colorful character. Actually served as a deputy sheriff back in the day. That would be in the fifties and sixties I reckon."

Beadles could not prevent himself from downing half the burger. "Any idea what happened to the contents?" he said while chewing.

"County cut a deal with some wholesale junk man to come and haul it off."

Beadles set the burger down, anger flaring. "How could they do that? From what I understand the collection contained priceless artifacts! They would have been worth a fortune in a straight ahead auction!"

Al was nodding before Beadles finished. "It seemed mighty fishy to some of us too, friend. That was County Executive Meredith Martin. She got indicted for bribery and I believe she did some time in prison."

Beadles removed a small spiral pad and a pen. "Meredith Martin?"

"Yessir. Her husband was Cole Martin. They owned that big spread up Cold Canyon Road, but he sold it when she got sent up. God knows where he went., Bob, you know where Martin went?"

"Nope."

"You can always check with the County Assessor, but they won't be open 'til tomorrow. Where you stayin'?"

"Best Western Breckinridge."

"Well good luck to you, Vaughan. Hope you find what you're looking for."

***