Dead River (48 page)

“I’m gonna leave now.”

“You takin’ off with Buzz?”

“Yup, but I wanted to see you before I left.”

He leaned down, and with his right hand on her shoulder he kissed those soft, warm lips.

She backed away after several seconds and stared into his eyes, then pulled a piece of paper out of her purse along with a pen. “Here’s my phone number.”

She scribbled the numbers on the wrinkled paper and handed it to Adam. “Call me, Krueger, or whatever your name is, okay?”

He leaned over and kissed her again. “I will.” He made himself a mental note: Lose the piece of paper on the way back home.

Adam piled into the passenger seat of Buzz’s gray F-150. It had heavy, dark-tinted windows. He tried to catch the names of the streets they turned onto but gave up when they reached a part of town with no streetlights.

“Wanna smoke some weed, man?” Buzz asked as he pulled out a tightly rolled joint from his vest pocket.

“Probably shouldn’t. I never know when they’ll drug-test me.”

“What the fuck, man, you’re drinkin’ ain’t you?”

“Yeah, but that shit’s out of your system in less than a day, pot takes about a month.”

“Too bad, man, this here’s some good shit.”

Adam lowered his window slightly to let out some of the smoke.

“You know, you don’t talk like you were in prison. You sound like some fuckin’ Wall Street motherfucker.”

“What do you mean? Because I don’t use fuck every other fuckin’ word?”

“No, because you just don’t seem to fit the mold, dude.”

“Well, that’s probably because I have a college degree and worked a shit job for too many years before I discovered an easier way to make a living.”

“Sounds like an interesting story, but we’re here, and besides, I don’t give a fuck as long as you’re not a cop.”

Buzz pulled the truck into a driveway behind five other cars. Two were partially on the front lawn.

“Wait here, I’ll find out if he can see you now.”

The wait in the truck was daunting. The minutes seemed like hours. He was somewhere in Orlando that probably wasn’t the best place to be at night. There was no denying that he was scared shitless, but he couldn’t show it. That would probably get him killed.

Adam watched as Buzz emerged from the house and then motioned for him to get out of the truck. He followed Buzz to the back of the house and through a wooden gate. A dog started barking. It sounded like one that you probably wouldn’t want to play fetch with.

“Shut up!” a man yelled. The dog immediately stopped yapping.

A black man sat in a dilapidated nylon chair on a brick patio. There was a dim light over the back door of the house. Adam could barely see the man’s face. The black man looked at Buzz and told him to wait inside. Adam watched as Buzz walked up the stairs and disappeared inside.

The black man then turned his attention to Adam and said in a deep resonant voice, “Step inside.”

Adam followed him into the house.

“Stop here,” he commanded.

The two stood in a small foyer. Adam could now make out the man’s face illuminated by a solitary ray of light coming from somewhere inside the house. Surprisingly, the man had smooth skin and high cheek bones. His head was completely bald. A single gold earring hung from his left earlobe.

Adam’s stomach was churning. Anything could happen. This was the most dangerous thing he’d ever done in his life. God, I’m scared. Keep your composure, act like you belong here.

“First of all, you’d better not be a cop.”

“I’m not a cop,” Adam said with assurance.

“Okay then, Buzz tells me your name’s Krueger. That right?”

“Yeah. What’s yours?”

“You can call me Oz. Buzz also tells me you need a throw-down.”

“Sure do. What do you have?”

“I have whatever the fuck you want. What do you need?”

“Can you show me what you have?”

“Fuck no. You tell me what you need, Krueger.”

“I want a .357 magnum revolver, with no more than a four-inch barrel. And no serial number.”

“Of course no fuckin’ serial number. Shit. Yeah, I got one. It’s a Ruger with a blue finish.”

“Perfect. How much?”

“A grand.”

“I’d like to see the gun first.”

Oz shook his head and smiled slightly. “Yeah, sure, fuck. I’ll be back.”

Adam waited in the small foyer while Oz went inside. He could hear music playing somewhere inside the house; a woman cursed and laughed.

“Here it is.”

Adam took the gun and made sure it wasn’t loaded. Then he quickly looked it over. “I’ll take it,” he said.

“You want the warranty that comes with it too?” Oz asked.

“What?”

Oz laughed. “I’m just fuckin’ with you.”

Adam shook his head and pulled the bundle of bills out of his pocket and peeled off ten hundreds and handed them to Oz. After counting the money, he folded the bills in half and placed them in his back pocket.

As Adam lifted his vest up and placed the gun inside his blue jeans, Oz spoke again, but this time in a serious tone. He stared into Adam’s eyes and pointed his finger toward Adam’s chest as if he were aiming a gun.

“What you need to know, Krueger, is you’re not payin’ me for just any old gun, but one that can’t be traced to you or me. And I want to emphasize the ‘me’ part of that. You know what I’m sayin’?”

Oz continued staring into Adam’s eyes, but now his finger was on Adam’s chest.

“In other words, once you leave here, I don’t exist, you don’t exist, and what you do with that piece or who you shoot with it is up to you. I don’t give a shit. You can shoot yourself with it for all I care. But remember this, I know who you are, but you don’t know me. So if you get caught bustin’ a cap in some motherfucker, don’t even think about tryin’ to tell the five-oh where you got the heat from. If you do, I’ll find out, and you are as good as dead. Do—we—understand—each—other?”

A long thread of fear ran through Adam’s body like an electric current. He simply replied, “Yes.”

Adam asked Buzz to drop him off in front of the diner down the street from the Whiskey Barrel. Inside he ordered a cup of coffee to go and checked the clock on the wall. It was eleven-fifteen.

 106

SIKES KNEW HE WAS being tailed. He’d spotted a suspicious dark blue Ford parked down the street from his apartment. Every day for the past week it just sat there and waited; waited until he left in his car.

He drove to Burger King Wednesday evening and watched the blue Ford with two men, detectives he presumed, mimicking every move he made. He parked his car and walked lazily toward the entrance. The two detectives parked on the opposite end of the parking lot, where they had a clear view of the restaurant and Sikes’s car. Inside he waited in line, formulating a plan to lose the tail, figuring it wouldn’t be that difficult to pull off.

He sat in the Olds and waited, windows down, munching on french fries and eating the last of a BK Broiler. And then he finally heard what he was waiting for: the distant sound of a train. He slowly pulled out of the parking lot, figuring he needed at least three cars between him and the Ford before crossing the railroad tracks on Jackson Street.

His plan was brilliantly executed. When he turned onto Jackson Street the train’s whistle blew louder. He watched the safety arms start to lower and the red lights flash. He finally stopped his car. There were two cars waiting ahead of him. He made sure there was no less than five feet between his front bumper and the back of the next car.

Sikes glanced into his rearview mirror and saw the Ford turning onto the street. He counted the cars. The detectives would be the fourth car behind him. Perfect. As the train’s whistle blew louder he lurched his car forward, sharply to the left, and around the car in front of him. He tromped the accelerator pedal and saw the lights of the train on his right moving rapidly up and down, its whistle blasting in the cool night air.

He approached the tracks in the left lane and veered his car quickly to the right. The train now seemed to be on top of him. He continued accelerating his car over the tracks, the train missing his back bumper by no less than six feet. The cars on his left, lined up in the opposite direction, honked their horns and flashed their headlights. He was on his way to the abandoned Dickerson house, and certain he would be safe inside before another police car could tail him again.

It was twelve-forty when Adam pulled into his driveway. As he rolled closer to the house he saw a police car parked in front. A cold chill ran up his spine.

God, no. Don’t tell me he broke into the house.

He threw open the front door and heard voices in the living room. There were two policemen talking to Detective Carillo and Dawn.

“What’s going on?” Adam shouted.

“Where’ve you been, Daddy?” Dawn asked, tugging on her father’s arm. “We need to talk.”

“In a minute, Dawn.” Adam turned to the officers and Carillo, “What happened here?”

“Your security system malfunctioned again,” Carillo said, tapping a pen on the palm of his hand.

Then Adam recognized the two police officers. They were the same two that showed up three days ago in response to the first security system hiccup.

“Mr. Riley, you need to get your security system checked out,” one of the officers lectured. “We can’t continue coming out here for these false alarms.”

“I’ve had the system checked out, okay? I don’t know what the problem is, but I’ll call again in the morning. I’m sorry is all I can say.”

Adam showed the two police officers to the front door and then headed back to the living room.

“Damn, I don’t believe this,” Adam said as he passed through the arched entrance.

“Better get it fixed,” Carillo offered.

“Daddy, I need to talk to you,” Dawn said.

“Okay, okay. What is it?”

“Not here, in the kitchen,” Dawn said, her eyes glassy with tears.

The two sat at the kitchen table, and between sobs Dawn told how her mother had packed up three suitcases and left the house around five-thirty. After her emotions settled somewhat, she explained that her mother took her car and was on the road to Birmingham to see her cousin, Rennie Sue Graybow. Dawn told her father that her mother wouldn’t be coming back home.

Adam slowly lumbered up the stairs to his bedroom, the realization sinking in that he’d be sleeping alone from now on. Then another realization hit him. He reached into his back pocket and felt the slip of paper that Betsy had written her phone number on. He removed his hand and continued up the stairs.

 107

FOR THE PAST WEEK Adam had been driving by Sikes’s apartment building, observing his patterns and mentally logging in the days and times. Each time he drove down his road he saw the dark blue Ford with the two detectives. They had to be there because of the missing Capron girl, he thought. Sikes is the prime suspect.

He figured the detectives were too interested in their stakeout of Sikes’s place to notice his Volvo. So each time Adam was on the street and the detectives pulled out to follow Sikes, Adam would follow a safe distance behind them. The detectives made his own surveillance more difficult, but he was certain he had managed to avoid being observed by the two of them.