Dark Places (21 page)

Chapter Fifty-seven

The Black Cat Saloon sat outside of the Barstow city limits on an unincorporated, sun-blasted spit of sand beside the highway that shimmered even in the late October temperature. Crow smiled at the sight of two dozen Harley-Davidson motorcycles already in the desolate dirt lot. “Go on past and drop me off down there.”

James took his foot off the accelerator and coasted onto the shoulder.

Crow opened the door. “I didn't want anyone in the bar to see me get out. Turn around after I get inside and pull up on the side of the road, like you're having car trouble, but not so close they can see you from the inside. Be ready. I might come out a-runnin'.”

He hiked back to the Black Cat. The front door gaped open and the dark interior was worn, and old, and dirty, smelling of mildew and spilled beer. A loud rooftop water cooler rattled and blew damp air into the bar. Crow stopped inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the darkness crammed with loud music.

He threaded his way across the gritty floor and ordered a Miller High Life. The bartender popped the cap and set it on the bar in front of him. “You might want to drink that outside.”

“That'd be against the law.”

“It'd be safer.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

Several customers watched him take the bottle to an empty table. He sat with his back against the wall. Jefferson Airplane blared from a scratched jukebox on the other side of the room, filling the smoky air with “Somebody to Love.” Crow figured that song played about every half hour.

Wearing filthy jeans and an equally dirty shirt underneath a sleeveless leather jacket, a skinny little bearded guy made of twisted steel rose from a table and pushed his way across the bar. Beard stopped in front of Crow, belched, and rolled his shoulders beneath the Devil Rattler jacket. “Do I know you?”

Crow shook his head and tilted the bottle. “Nope. Never been here before.”

“So what are you doing in our bar?”

“Looking for someone.” He shrugged. “That's about it.”

“That's our beer.”

“I paid for it.”

The man noticed the leather thong disappearing under Crow's shirt, thinking it might hold a surfer's cross. Even though Crow wasn't wearing love beads, the biker identified him as one of the thousands of kids involved in the counter culture. “We don't want you
flower children
in here.” He spoke the words with disgust. “This is a
man's
bar. A bar for real men who ride bikes.”

“I'd ride one if I had it. It'd sure beat riding my thumb.”

The biker chuckled. “Maybe one of us will ride
you
and pull that pretty hair while we do it.”

Crow watched to see what the rest of them were doing.

They were watching him back.

Jefferson Airplane gave way to Buffalo Springfield's “For What It's Worth.” In an odd corner of his mind, Crow thought the song was incredibly appropriate.

“I think you need to leave, now, while you can walk.”

Crow gave the bottle a slight wave and sat it on the table. “Hey, I don't want any trouble from you guys. I like bikes,
and
bikers. I'm hoping to find a friend of mine.”

“Who?”

Crow shrugged and raised his voice over the music. “I don't see her. I was thinking I might ask one of the ladies in here if she's been through.”

Beard laughed. “He wants to talk to the girls. Hey, Griz. C'mere.” Beard jerked his thumb at another biker who was big as a bear, then turned back to Crow. “I got a deal for ya. This big bastard is Griz. Convince him that you're okay, and you can ask the girls all the questions you want.” He laughed. “Hell, you can do anything you want with any one of them if Griz says you're all right.”

His clothes an exact copy of Beard's, Griz bounced on his toes and moved around the table to sit beside Crow. He grinned wide underneath a swollen nose broken only a couple of days earlier. A hayseed teenager and his girlfriend had been at the wrong place in the wrong time when the Rattlers were in the mood to hassle someone.

He picked up Crow's mostly full bottle and took a drink. Letting the beer backwash into the bottle, he stuck his tongue down the neck, licked the top, and thumped it back down, allowing some of the beer to trickle out of his mouth and down his thick beard. He grinned wide at Crow and waited for a reaction.

It came like a lightning strike.

The brown bottle slammed across the bridge of Griz's nose, breaking it again, and exploding in foam and glass shards. Griz's head snapped against the cinderblock wall. While still seated, Crow threw an uppercut that popped his head against the wall a second time. Before the crowd could react, Crow hit him a third time with everything he had, driving the man out of the chair and onto the floor. He landed with a thud and lay on his back, groaning and cradling his bloody face.

Crow shifted his gaze back to the bar full of standing bikers. “Well, that went sour pretty damned fast.”

The room exploded.

Crow became a black hole that sucked in all matter. Every male in the bar converged in a rage. Crow kicked the table toward their charge, splitting the flow. He threw a chair and the crush on his right piled up when the lead biker tangled in the legs.

Crow slammed his fist into Beard's face. The little guy had never been hit so hard in his life. He dropped like a rock. Moving like liquid mercury, Crow planted one foot on a chair and jumped on top of the bar. After only two running steps, a hand reached out and grabbed his boot, tripping him up. Instead of fighting the fall, Crow went with it like an acrobat, pitching forward and rolling into a complete flip. Bottles crashed. He felt glass cut deep through his shirt.

Regaining his feet, Crow took three more steps down the bar, inches away from the reaching crowd. He leaped off the end, dodging as the bartender swung a sawed-off bat at his legs. The jump carried him into a short hallway leading toward the bathroom. A back door offered escape.

Praying it was unlocked, he made a split second decision and hit it with his shoulder. It slammed open and Crow shot out into the sunshine. Ducking around the corner, the roar of a bike told him that running was out of the question. He stopped, ready for the next chapter when a raked Hardtail slid around the corner.

A biker with hair dramatically shorter than the Rattlers' motioned with his thumb. “Get on!”

He had no time to think. Crow grabbed at the man's shoulders like a cowboy leaping on a horse. The big engine roared as the back tire threw a rooster tail of red dust into the still air. Hands grappled at him, and someone snatched a hank of hair. Crow's head jerked back when the hunk was ripped out by the roots.

Eyes watering, Crow hung on as the Harley shot across the dirt parking lot, and onto the hot highway. “Shower down on it. They're after us.”

Instead of accelerating, the biker backed off the throttle while two highway patrol cars passed, heading in the opposite direction. The biker spoke over his shoulder. “No they won't.”

Crow twisted to watch the patrol cars sweep into the Black Cat's parking lot in a boil of dust. It hit him that James wasn't parked where he told him. In fact, the car wasn't anywhere in sight.

Crow gave his rescuer a pat. “Rocky, my man. Good to see you again, brother.”

Rocky raised his voice to be heard over the engine. “You almost got your ass kicked in there.”

“You were inside?”

“Yep, in the corner by the door.”

“So you left when the war started?”

“Before. I've known you long enough to expect you'd either come out the front slow and easy, or out the back a-runnin'. Seems like I guessed right.”

Crow noted the different colors on the back of the man's jacket. “Outlaws?”

“Yep.They're from Detroit.”

“How'd you get the jacket?”

Rocky checked the highway and spoke loudly. “Joined up a while back. Some of the guys wanted to come with me when I got your call, but I told 'em I had to take a road trip to clear my head.”

“They give you any trouble back there?”

“Naw, those guys are pretty territorial, but they tolerated me. It's been a long two days, waitin' for you to show up. I found out pretty quick they aren't my kind of people, though.”

“Mine either. You can drop me off in town. I need to call back to the motel and find out where James went.”

“James?”

“Yeah, one of the guys I hitched up with.” Crow saw a telephone booth and pointed past Rocky so he could see. “Pull over there.”

“Nope. I'm taking you where you want to go.”

“Where's that?”

The Outlaw jerked a thumb. “Their house.” He accelerated toward Barstow. “You be ready to get in and out, though. We won't have much time.”

“I'm bleedin' through the back of my shirt and somebody's gonna notice. You have a spare on you?”

Rocky pointed down and back. “Saddlebags.”

They passed James' sedan parked in front of a single-pump Gulf station. Crow recognized it, waved as they passed, and James pulled out to follow at a distance.

Chapter Fifty-eight

Cody met Anna at the new Lake Lamar overlook. Slamming her car door, she ran through the rain and joined him in the front seat. He pulled back on the highway and drove over the dam.

Any other time, Cody would have told her to meet him at Leland Hale's house to pick up Marty Smallwood, but he wanted the time to talk with her first.

She flipped through papers in a file resting on her lap. “It didn't take long to find out that Marty's been working on the lake for the past couple of years, driving a dozer.”

“That piece of the puzzle fits pretty good. Marty or John T. used the dozer to bury the car after they killed those men.”

“That's what I think. Freddy says they did the shooting, but he had a part in burying the Impala. I went by the Corps of Engineer's office, but they didn't have any idea where Marty is. Most of the trailers are gone now that they finished the job. The guy I talked to said they haven't seen him, not since they started pulling the rigs out of the lake bottom when the water started to rise.”

“Did John T. work there?”

“Nope. I can't find anywhere he's worked.” She took out a sheet of paper and read from it. “Marty's another story. They hired him fresh out of high school and he worked his way up to driver. The foreman didn't think much of him, but he always showed up on time. Picked up his check regular as clockwork, but he hasn't been by to get the last one.”

They passed the stores, following the winding road west. Water filled the ditches on both sides. “John T. lives south of the Sulphur River in the bottoms.”

Cody steered onto the dirt road leading to Leland's house. He pulled into the drive two hundred yards later. The only vehicle in sight was the old truck in a nest of grass.

“I don't believe Marty's here.” Cody shifted into park.

“What do you want to do?”

“Let's go in and ask Melva where he is.” Talking to the strange old giggling woman was far down Cody's list of things to do, but he thought she might know when he was coming back.

When they stepped up on the porch. Cody pointed down at the rotting boards. “Watch your step there. All this rain will make those old planks soft.”

Cody rapped on the frame and waited. It didn't take but a second to tell there was no one in the house. People give off a certain vibe, even if they're trying to be quiet. Not even a ticking clock broke the stillness. Doors in Center Springs were seldom locked, so Cody hooked a finger in the handle and opened the rusty screen. The tired spring screeched in protest.

“Are you going in?”

“Yep. Serving a warrant here.” The door was unlocked, so he swung it wide to step into the gloomy interior. He paused. “Anybody home? This is Sheriff Parker, Miss Melva. I'm coming in. I have a warrant for Marty Smallwood.”

The floorboards squeaked under Cody's boots. Anna stayed where she was, breathing the musty air that smelled of dust, soiled sheets, and material long folded and forgotten. All the lights were out. The only illumination came through the dirty windows covered with equally grubby flour sack curtains.

Knowing the layout of the house, Cody went through the living and dining rooms, and into the kitchen. Scummy dishes filled the sink and countertops. He jumped when the Frigidaire's compressor kicked in and rattled to life. Anna followed.

They exchanged glances and chuckled. Cody pointed at the back door. “Check out the back, and I'll finish in here. They aren't here, though.”

The hinges squalled when she went out. The land sloped sharply away, and the porch was six feet off the ground. The boards weren't any newer back there, so she took care to reach the ground. The slope behind the house was covered in rotting food. Some of it still in plates and casserole dishes once covered in foil. Anna realized it was food brought by well-meaning neighbors.

Inside, the beds hadn't been made in days. None of Marty's clothes were in the pasteboard wardrobe, or in the rickety chest of drawers.

Cody came back through the living room, wondering at the number of romance magazines scattered on the furniture and crammed into a wooden rack beside the couch. Anna met him in the front yard.

“The chickens in the brooder house need water.”

Cody studied the pasture beside them. Leland's cows grazed on the lush grass, their coats soaked from the constant rains. The saturated pasture on the far side of the truck was empty, except for an old swayback mare scratching her neck against a bois d'arc tree. It was the highest point in the pasture, and the driest.

He pointed at the ground. “Tracks there that don't belong to my car. They ain't been gone long.” Cody chewed the inside of his lip. “All right. We'll find him, but being here convinced me that we've waited long enough to find out who killed Leland. There's a connection here. Him getting run over and Marty helping kill those businessmen makes too much of a coincidence.”

Cody's Motorola came to life, blaring through the one-inch gap at the top of the drivers' side window. “Sheriff Parker.” He crossed the yard, opened the door, and reached inside for the microphone.

“Go ahead, John”

“We need assistance one mile east of town on Highway 82. Two tow-truck drivers are fighting over a car stalled in high water. It's raining to beat the band and everyone else is working wrecks.”

Ambulances in Chisum were owned by the two funeral homes in town. Wrecker drivers constantly monitored the police and sheriff departments' radio broadcasts, so when calls came in for accidents, they raced to the scene to take the tow. It was first come, first served. Disagreements often dissolved into fisticuffs.

“We have to do something,” Cody told Anna. He keyed the mike. “I'm in Center Springs with Anna. It'll be over by the time one of us gets there.”

“All right. Y'all need to know that we're having more and more roads to flood, 'specially my side of town. It won't be long 'til this whole county is underwater, if this rain keeps up.”

Cody pitched the mike onto the bench seat. “Climb in.” Anna slammed her door. “I've been thinking. We have enough people out there working car wrecks. I want you to go pick up John T. at his house. After I drop you off, I'm going back up to the store to see if anyone's seen Marty. He's mine, yours is West. Let's pick these guys up today.”

“That's Hopkins County, you know.”

“Yep. I'll give the sheriff a holler and let him know you're coming. You need someone to go with you?”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a grin. “I'm not a guy, but I can serve an arrest warrant.”

“Fine, but you be careful. It'll be you and him down there in the bottom, and I've heard you don't want to fool around with this guy.”

“Don't worry.”

“I always worry.”

It was still raining when they reached the new Lake Lamar dam. Anna glanced out the window to see the dragline was safely out of the lake, and the water already covered the hole that held the Impala.

“You know what?”

“Hum?” He kept his eyes on the wet road. The long dam with the curve in the middle always made him nervous.

“I had a thought. What if there's others buried down here at the lake?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Nothing really, but Freddy was talking like he knew something else. It made me wonder if we'd have ever found them once it was all underwater. Do you think that was the only time somebody was buried down there?”

“Who knows?”

“Burying the car looks a little slick to me, like maybe it wasn't the first time Marty or John T. could have done that, don't you think?”

Cody shrugged, slowing to make the bend. He shivered. “Lord, I hope not.”