Cesspool (18 page)

He shoved his computer bag under the seat, cranked the engine, and headed for the exit. He searched for the red truck. Post-class traffic was clustering in front of him.
Shit
. He pulled the Hyundai onto the shoulder and zoomed past the traffic, eliciting a few honks. In the distance, he saw Kurt’s pickup turning left from the college.

James ran out of shoulder, so he drove with one wheel on the frozen grass and one on the sidewalk. At the end of the sidewalk, he drove off the curb, the front end of the Hyundai scraping the asphalt. He made a left, cutting off a Toyota truck. The truck pitched forward as the driver slammed on his brakes and laid on the horn.

James saw taillights shaped like a ram, stopped at a red light a few hundred yards ahead. The traffic light went green. James mashed on the accelerator. The four-cylinder engine whined, the speedometer rising despite the complaints. The quick light went yellow as he crossed the intersection. He was gaining ground on the truck. He eased off the gas pedal, careful not to get too close.

Kurt turned into an industrial park. There was a single warehouse as big as a football field, with roll-up garage doors for the dozens of businesses contained therein. The front lot was mostly empty, except for a fleet of water delivery trucks. James stopped at the entrance, watching Kurt motor around back. James drove into the lot and parked tight to the side of the building.

His camera and flashlight sat on the front passenger seat. He grabbed the camera, exited the Hyundai, and peeked around the corner. The rear of the building had docks high enough for tractor trailers to offload. The lot and the building were well lit. Each dock had a set of concrete steps that led to a metal door. Kurt’s truck was one hundred yards away. A black car was parked next to the pickup, visible under the Dodge’s lifted frame. James was partially shielded by the concrete steps in front of him.

He turned on his camera and pointed it over the steps toward the truck. Kurt hopped down from his pickup and climbed the steps in front of him. He pressed a buzzer and waited. A few seconds later, he opened the door and entered the building. Heather, still in the Dodge, blew cigarette smoke out the passenger window.

A few rigs and trailers were parked along the back of the lot. James ran across the asphalt to a big rig. He crouched next to a truck tire and pointed his camera at the loading dock and door. The metal door had vinyl lettering that read All-American Auto Parts. He snapped a few pictures. He had a better view of the black BMW M5 that was parked next to Kurt’s truck. He took pictures of both license plates.

Kurt departed the building with a white envelope. He stopped just outside the door and flipped through the contents. James took rapid-fire pictures as Kurt took a few hundred dollar bills and shoved them in his front pocket.

Chop shop maybe?
James ran across the lot to the Hyundai as Kurt and Heather drove the opposite direction around the building.

James followed the truck across town to an older development of homes built in the early 1900s. The single-family homes were mostly brick foursquares, two-and-a-half stories tall, with dormer windows and expansive front porches. The neighborhood was a mixed bag—some houses well maintained, while others were falling apart. Kurt pulled up to a well-cared-for brick foursquare, lit by porch lights and a streetlight. A small purple neon sign glowed in an upstairs window. In cursive it read Spa Appointment Only. James chuckled to himself and parked a few houses away.

He took photos as Kurt entered without knocking. A few minutes later Kurt exited with another envelope. This one yellow and shaped like a greeting card. Again he took a few bills and shoved them in his pocket.

Kurt and Heather were on the move again. James followed them out of town to a familiar trailer park. Kurt kissed Heather, dropped her at her trailer, and drove back to the main road. He continued farther away from town. Kurt turned down a gravel road not far from James’s cabin. The road was potholed. The suspension of the old Hyundai squeaked and groaned and banged as James tried to avoid the hazards. The lifted truck rolled over the holes like they weren’t there.

After a few miles, Kurt turned onto a dirt and gravel driveway. He parked in front of a vinyl-sided double-wide trailer that looked new. Security spotlights shone from each corner of the trailer. A Ford F-350 dually pickup truck and a Ford Expedition SUV were parked in front. An enormous covered trailer, almost as large as the house, was parked at the end of the driveway. On the side of the trailer was a vinyl cartoon version of a sprint car with a huge boxy wing on top. Underneath was the slogan If You Ain’t First, You’re Last.

James pulled off the gravel road and parked, the drive wheel slipping into a ditch caused by erosion. He crept closer on foot. He took photos of Kurt entering the trailer and exiting with another envelope. James hurried back to his car and tried to get back on the road. The car engine whined, and the front tire whizzed, spinning in the ditch. He was stuck. Kurt was coming his way. James ducked in his seat.

The red truck motored past. James sat up and watched the truck moving away from him. The pickup stopped. It sat still for ten seconds, … then it reversed.
Shit
. James ducked down again. Kurt hopped out of his truck and shone a flashlight in James’s passenger side window. Kurt tapped on the window with the flashlight. James looked up. Kurt had a smirk on his pudgy face. James powered down the window one-quarter of the way.

Kurt pointed the flashlight in James’s face. “Mr. Fisher, what the hell are you doin’ out here? I was wonderin’ who’d be parked out here at this time a night.” He wore a black puffy North Face jacket and a backward-facing baseball hat.

“I have a friend who lives down here,” James replied. “I guess I was tired and veered off the road.”

Kurt narrowed his eyes and grinned. “Oh, yeah? Who you know over here?”

“Paul Richards.”

Kurt cackled. “Paul Dicks, huh? Sounds made up, like a porn name or somethin’.”

James laughed. “I never thought of it that way. I’ll have to tell him that.”

Kurt shook his head, reached behind, and pulled a Glock 9 mm from his lower back. He tapped on the glass with the boxy muzzle, still shining the flashlight at James. “Now why don’t you tell me the real reason why you’re here, hidin’ like a little
bitch
.”

James nodded, his mouth flat. “I’m here for meth. I heard I could score some down here. I got scared when I saw your truck. I could get fired.”

He pursed his lips. “How’d you know it was my truck?”

“I’ve seen you leaving campus. It’s hard to miss.”

He chuckled. “That is true.”

“Do you think maybe we could keep this a secret, between you and me?”

“I could do that, but what’re you gonna do for me?”

“What would you like me to do?” James replied.

“How much cash you got?”

James exhaled and opened his wallet. He leaned over and handed Kurt a couple hundred dollars through the passenger window. “Are we straight now?”

Kurt took the money, peering into the Hyundai.

“Gimme your phone,” he said.

“Seriously?” James replied.

“Did I fuckin’ stutter? I know you got one. Everyone does.”

James handed over his Droid.

Kurt took the phone and shook his head. “You ain’t got an iPhone? Cheap bastard.” He shoved the Droid in his pocket.

“That’s enough, Kurt. I have to go.”

He cackled. “I don’t know where the fuck you gonna go. This piece of shit’s stuck.” He peered in the Hyundai, his eyes searching. “And I’d like that camera right there. That shit is tight.”

“Come on, Kurt. The camera’s not mine. I have to return it.”

“I don’t give a fuck whose it is. It’s mine now, motherfucker. Hand it over.” Kurt pointed the Glock at James’s face.

James frowned and picked up the camera on the passenger seat. He opened the memory card slot and popped out the tiny plastic disk.

“What the fuck you doin’?” Kurt asked.

“Do you really need this?” James asked. “It has pictures from my friend’s wedding.”

“But then I gotta take
my
time and
my
money to get another one.”

“Fine.” James handed the camera to Kurt in his right hand. As he handed him the camera, he motored down his driver’s side window with his left hand, still holding the memory card.

Kurt snatched the camera. “Don’t touch the window. What the fuck you doin’?” The memory card slot was open. “I said gimme that fuckin’ memory card.”

James chucked it out the window into the woods.

Kurt shook his head. “Dumb motherfucker. You better bring me a memory card on Friday. I’ll stop by your class to pick it up.”

And he was gone. James bent over the steering wheel and rubbed his temples. He lifted his head and pounded on the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

He grabbed the flashlight from the passenger seat and opened the door. He shone the light on the ground in front of him before he stepped out, in the unlikely event that the memory card had bounced back. He used a systematic approach to his search, moving inch by inch, starting at the car and working toward the woods. After three hours of fruitless, freezing-cold searching, he saw a flash of purple. James snatched it up with a huge smile and shoved it in his pocket.

“Yes!”

He grabbed his laptop from under the seat, slung it over his shoulder, and started walking. He hiked close to the woods, to lessen the possibility of being spotted from the road. This was unnecessary as he didn’t see a single car. An hour later, he walked up his cabin driveway, his face and feet numb. The lights were on. He unlocked the deadbolt and entered the cabin. Brittany rushed to the front door, her eyes bloodshot.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” James said, as he stepped into the warm cabin. “What time is it?”

“It’s after three.” Brittany checked her burner phone. “It’s 3:25. I was freakin’ out. You said you’d be back by one at the latest. You left your burner phone here, so I couldn’t call you. I almost called your regular cell, but I knew you’d freak about leaving evidence.”

Stacks of envelopes and Avery labels were on the kitchen table along with James’s Buck knife. Brittany made James some tea while he explained what had happened. Brittany sat down, her hand on her chest, her eyes wide.

“We’re fine,” he said. “Everything’s still on track.”

“But he saw the Hyundai.”

He exhaled. “I know, it’s not good, but it was dark, and he didn’t take down the license plate. The car is pretty nondescript, besides I’m not sure we have time to get rid of it and find another car. We’ll have to risk it.”

“What if he goes through your phone?”

“There’s nothing there. That’s why we have the burners. I do need to get another burner to call Yolanda. I don’t want her to be connected to the ones we’ve been using.”

“Do you think he believed that you were really there for meth?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I think if he knew I was watching him, he would have killed me.”

She put her hand over her mouth.

“It did teach me a valuable lesson,” he said. “We need a good backup copy of our data. I almost lost the pictures. He didn’t know about my laptop under the seat. What if he would have stolen that? I need to make a copy of everything. The information, the audio, the pictures, everything. I’m going to keep a copy hidden on me at all times. That way, if they catch on and raid the cabin, we’ll still have everything.”

“Information is power,” she said.

He nodded and glanced around the table at the stacks of envelopes. “You didn’t touch these without gloves, did you?”

She frowned. “Of course not. I spent about seven hours on ’em today, and I’m only maybe halfway through. And that’s just stickin’ on the addresses. We still have to prepare the paper with all the information that we wanna send.
And
we have to copy it, fold it, seal the envelopes, and put all the stamps on … five thousand times. I’m worried that we don’t have enough time.”

“Let’s do the math. If each one takes a minute, that’s five thousand minutes, divided by sixty gives us about 83.33 hours. If we divide that by two, we each need to put in about forty hours.”

“That’s in addition to everything else. We only have six days until they realize Harold’s missing, and you never know, they could figure it out sooner.”

“I think a minute each is probably too long. If we get a good system down, with the folding machine, we could probably cut that by one-third at least. Worst-case scenario, we’ll take the letters with us and mail them from the road.”

Chapter 16: Chucky

Chapter 16

Chucky

James and Brittany slept until noon. They returned to the scene of the robbery. They used a piece of plywood stuck under the drive wheel to get the Hyundai out of the ditch. They stowed the car back at Gil’s Storage.

They spent the next four days working, tying up loose ends and completing mundane, but crucial, chores. Brittany wore latex gloves as she affixed addresses and stamps to 5000 envelopes. She listened to music on James’s laptop, humming along as she worked on the assembly line. The Buck knife sat on the table within her reach.

James followed Chief Strickland on two occasions, but he never left the police station and went straight home after work. James spent the majority of his time on a computer at an Internet café thirty minutes away. He learned how to podcast and mix videos. He set up an e-mail account, a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, and a website. He hosted his podcast on Libsyn.com. Hosting and domain names were paid for with a prepaid credit card, purchased with cash.

On his way home from the Internet café, he made a phone call with his new burner phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Yolanda. Sorry to bug you on a Sunday night,” James said.

“James, where the hell have you been? I tried calling you. Your phone—”

“My phone was lost. I’m in a bit of trouble up here, and I need some help.”

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I can’t really tell you everything, but I’m in a jam that I’m not sure I can get out of.”