Finnegan's Week (37 page)

Jules almost went back out to the yard again, but that was pointless. It would work or it wouldn't. He was ready or he wasn't. He had a small liquor cabinet in his office, so he opened it and poured himself a shot of Scotch. He held the glass of Scotch in a half-extended arm. His hand did
not
shake.

Bobbie was parked at the end of the cul-de-sac half a block from Shelby Pate's house. He'd have to head in the other direction if he left. Bobbie simply had to know
where
he'd go if he left his house on a night when his crime partner lay dead in a Tijuana morgue.

She knew that what she was doing was foolhardy, and that her boss would go cosmic if he found out about it. She knew that Fin and Nell would react in a similar fashion, but she believed that Shelby Pate might hook up with the man who'd masterminded the theft of the navy shoes if only to tell him that Abel Durazo had been killed. Any meeting with Jules Temple would help to cement her case, or at least assist in the interrogation after they arrested Shelby Pate on Monday morning.

At 4:45
P.M.,
he lumbered through the open doorway. He propped the dangling door in place, but didn't bother to secure it with nails. He didn't pick up any of the clothing that was strewn all over the property. He got on his bike, put on the black helmet, and roared away, not noticing the Hyundai that was never far behind.

At twilight, Shelby Pate parked the Harley in the parking lot of Green Earth Hauling and Disposal. He thought Jules Temple hadn't arrived because his yellow Miata wasn't in front. But he looked up at the second story and saw a light on in the boss's office so he rightly assumed that Jules Temple had parked inside the truck yard.

Shelby wondered why the boss would do that, and while Shelby was wondering he removed a paper from his pocket and took a hit of meth. He already had a buzz, but he needed a little boost. Then he was ready.

He slid a buck knife inside his belt and made sure it was accessible. He would've preferred a gun, but it was too late to go shopping for one. He wasn't really worried though, because even if Jules Temple went shithouse when he heard Shelby's terms, what could he do? The dude needed the manifest. He didn't know that the manifest was gone—gone with the fucking boots!

Shelby strode through the unlocked front door and climbed the darkened stairs, hearing music coming from a radio in Mary's office, and when he got to the landing, he looked in.

“I'm in here!” Jules Temple's voice came from his own office.

Shelby followed the voice and found his boss sitting at his desk, apparently signing payroll checks.

“Maybe you'd like to sign one a them fer me,” Shelby said, without smiling.

“What the hell's this all about?” Jules demanded. “And what's this about Durazo not coming back? What happened?”

“Stabbed by some dudes in T.J.,” Shelby said, plopping down in the client chair in front of Jules's desk. “He's dead.”

He wore the same clothes that he'd worn to Tijuana the night before, except for a change of T-shirts. His hair still had sand in it. He was as unshaven and scruffy as usual, and he stank to high heaven. Jules curled his lip when he smelled him.

Shelby's black T-shirt said
BLACK SABBATH
across the front, in blood-red letters.

“Are you sure he's dead?” Jules asked.

“When I left him he looked dead. He could come back tonight though.”

“Is that a joke?”

“This is the Day of the Dead,” Shelby said. “Flaco might come home to his momma if she puts a bottle a beer out for him. Flaco loved beer.”

“I may be dense,” Jules said, leaning forward on his elbows, “but I don't understand you.”

“It don't matter,” Shelby said.

“So why did you wanna see me?”

“Since you're here that means you got a general idea,” Shelby said.

“None at all,” Jules said.

“I got something that belongs to you.”

“What's that?”

“A manifest. One
you
made out.”

“I make out lots of manifests,” Jules said.

“Not like this one. There's no manifest like this one.”

“Did you and Durazo steal from North Island?”

“Yeah. A couple thousand pair a shoes.”

“You fucking
idiot
!” Jules couldn't help blurting it.

“I ain't in no mood fer that,” Shelby warned. “I came to do business.”

“You say it's
my
manifest? Then give it to me.”

“In time,” Shelby said.

“Do you have it with you?”

“It's in a safe place,” Shelby said.

“I wouldn't want anybody else knowing my business,” Jules said. “You live with a woman, don't you?”

“The bitch threw me out.”

“If anyone
else
knows about it, I wouldn't be interested in doing business with you.”

“Nobody knows,” Shelby said, “'cept you and me.”

And
that
sealed Shelby Pate's fate. Jules Temple didn't believe that this freak was savvy enough to arrange for a third party to hold the manifest. Jules believed that the manifest was probably in a bedroom drawer or some obvious place, and that it would be thrown away when Shelby Pate's property was disposed of. After his death.

Jules certainly believed that he'd have to pay Shelby Pate for the rest of his life and never
see
the manifest anyway, if he were to succumb to blackmail. So as Jules saw it, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by proceeding with his plan.

But things were moving too
fast
. He needed one more drink, and then it'd be dark enough. Then he'd be ready.

“Tell me about Durazo,” Jules said. “Tell me about his death. It's terrible.”

“He died. There ain't no use talkin about him. There ain't no use thinkin about him. I came here to talk business.”

“There's plenty of time to talk business,” Jules said. “But I'd like to send a check to Durazo's family in Mexico. I think he had a family in Tijuana, didn't he?”

“I don't wanna talk about no fuckin
dead
people,” Shelby said.

Jules could see those dilated pupils even from across the room. Jules had to placate the monster. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly late enough.
Dark
enough.

“He was your friend, wasn't he? You wanna help his family, don't you?”

“I wanna help
me
!” Shelby lurched to his feet.

Jules felt a jolt of fear and panic. Those wild eyes! His immense size! “Wait a minute!” Jules said. “Calm down! I just asked for the sake of the man's family. Okay, okay, we'll talk business.”

Shelby sat, but leaned forward, as though he might leap across the desk and strangle Jules at any moment.

Jules said, “Do you want a drink?”

“No,” Shelby said.

“Do you mind if I have one?”

“Let's talk
business
, dude.”

“Okay, but I need a drink.”

Bobbie was supercharged when Shelby Pate parked his bike in the lot of Green Earth Hauling and Disposal. She drove her car around to the side street looking for Jules's car. Not knowing what he drove, she could see the rear end of a yellow car in the corner of the truck yard. He was the yellow roadster type, that's for sure.

She parked, got out, and walked up to the locked truck gate. Why had he put his car inside? Why not park out front where he could enter the building through the main door? She decided that possibly he had to enter through the back door because of a preprogrammed burglar alarm. On the other hand, maybe he didn't want his car to be spotted by someone driving by. It could be that he didn't want anyone to know that he'd been at Green Earth Hauling and Disposal on Sunday evening. They might be plotting another theft.

He'd managed to stall long enough to get a glass of Scotch in his hand, but he hadn't returned to his desk when Shelby Pate said to him, “I'm gonna need some long-term unemployment insurance and you're gonna give it to me.”

“How much …
insurance
did you have in mind?”

“I ain't a greedy dude,” Shelby said. “Say, fifty grand.”

“If I give you fifty grand, you'll give me back my property?”

“Why not?”

“Would you give me the property
first?
”

“
After
the check clears.”

“I see,” Jules said, knowing that fifty thousand dollars would only be the first installment.

He glanced at his watch. It was as dark as it would get. He took a sip of Scotch. There was a moon, but it was mistshrouded.

Bobbie, standing outside the gate of the truck yard, was surprised to hear the roadster's engine turning over. It was very dark now, and the rear of the car was barely visible. Who could be starting up the car?

Jules pressed the button on the remote control inside his belt, and said, “I'd like to be certain that you'll keep your …” He was interrupted by the sound of the engine in the yard below, easy to hear because Jules had left the window open.

Shelby turned toward the window, and said, “Somebody's out there.”

“That's my car!” Jules cried. “I parked it in the yard! Somebody's stealing my fucking car!”

Jules got up, ran around the desk, leaped over the outstretched legs of Shelby Pate and hurtled down the stairway.

Shelby got up and moved to the window to look out. The little yellow Miata was parked behind one of the trucks, and all Shelby could see was the rear bumper.

He saw Jules running across the yard yelling, “Hey! Hey, you asshole!”

Bobbie Ann Doggett was stunned when Jules Temple came running out the back door of the building hollering his head off! At first she thought he'd spotted her, and that
she
was the asshole he was screaming at. She ducked back behind the concrete wall and was ready to get the hell out of there before the cops arrived and mistook her for a prowler.

Then she heard Jules Temple cry out in pain!

Shelby Pate stuck his head out the window when Jules screamed: “Ohhhhhh!”

Bobbie sprinted along the sidewalk heading for the front door of Green Earth, every neural fiber on red alert! Somebody in the truck yard was
attacking
Jules Temple!

Shelby scrambled down the back stairway in the darkness, and ran into the yard, a thought whistling through his brain: Just his luck if Jules Temple got his throat cut by some nigger car thief!

He
really
wished he had a gun now, but he drew the buck knife from his belt. He held it like a hammer and charged around the truck expecting to find somebody killing Jules Temple.

Shelby didn't exactly feel the crowbar so much as he heard it. Then he collapsed like his spine exploded. He was slumped against the front fender of the yellow Miata when Jules grabbed the collar of Shelby's leather jacket and tried to drag his massive body away from the car for another clear swing.

Shelby flopped onto his side, blood flowing into his eyes, when Jules stepped forward, holding the crowbar like an ax. Shelby was sure that he could hear the mournful trumpet, sure that they
would
call The Lost Child home. When Jules swung the bar a second time. And yet again. Jules stopped when the target got spongy.

She didn't blunder out into the darkened truck yard like Shelby Pate had done. She stood inside the building peering out, unable to see anything across the darkened yard except the rear of a yellow Miata. She hadn't heard a thing since Jules had cried out. The .45 was in her right hand and she was cursing the navy regulation that forbade them to carry it with a chambered round. She had her left hand on the slide, but didn't want to draw it back and rack one into the chamber because the sound would be heard in the stillness of the truck yard.

Jules was proud of himself for not having panicked when it came time to do it. He turned off the ignition with the remote control, thinking giddily that he should write a testimonial to the manufacturer that it
does
work from up to three hundred feet away!

He hadn't needed to resort to his more desperate plan if this one had failed. There beside him on a shelf in the storage shed was a 9mm Beretta. Two years ago, he'd bought the pistol from a former employee who'd no doubt stolen it. “Mister Beretta is the finest Italian I've ever known,” that employee had said when the money changed hands.

If Jules couldn't have physically handled Shelby Pate, he'd been prepared to shoot him down. And if gunshots had alerted anyone, he'd been prepared to say that he'd surprised a thief in the truck yard who turned out to be an employee. A very unsatisfactory plan that hadn't been needed after all.

Jules uncovered the empty fifty-five-gallon drum. The dolly and forklift were ready. He only had to get the body into the drum and the drum forklifted into the bobtail van. He was extremely glad that Shelby Pate had ridden his motorcycle. He was going to transport the bike and the drum to the vicinity of Hogs Wild and dump the body and the bike on the street. If Shelby had driven his pickup truck it would've meant using a taxi to get back from the dump site. This was infinitely better.

He'd have to do a good job cleaning up the blood, that's for sure. He'd had no idea that the human head contained so many blood vessels. Jules would have to hose down the ground, and the Miata, and even the truck next to it. The drum was needed in case something happened en route: a traffic accident for instance. No loose ends.

Jules was stepping into coveralls and Wellington boots when he thought he heard something: like a foot scraping on the asphalt in the yard. He stopped and listened, but there was nothing.

Now for the hard part. Jules realized this would not be easy, but he hadn't guessed
how
hard it would be. The dead weight of Shelby Pate made it like trying to lift a water mattress. Jules turned the drum on its side and wedged it against the truck wheel. He got the feet and legs inside, but when he got on the ground and pushed against the shoulders, the corpse wouldn't budge. He had a panicky thought that maybe Shelby Pate was too big to fit inside a fifty-five-gallon drum and he'd have to forklift the bloody heap right onto the floor of the van.