John Lutz Bundle (108 page)

Tom Coulter climbed up into the F-150 and followed the two meth guys, Joe Ray and Juan, from Rodney’s Roadhouse. They drove a couple of miles back into the swamp, over rutted, muddy roads sometimes so narrow that leaves brushed the windshield. Coulter thought it was creepy and saw no reason why anyone would choose to live like this. The heat and humidity made you sick, and the damned weird-looking bugs were bigger than the roaches in New York.

The Dodge pickup slowed and made a right onto a narrow dirt road that turned out to be a driveway. Coulter stopped before following it and looked the place over.

No big surprise where a couple of swamp turkeys like Joe Ray and Juan lived. It was a flat-roofed, clapboard house that looked as if it had never been painted. Vines grew up the front wall and much of the side wall that Coulter could see. A sagging gutter ran across the front of the house, its drainpipe disappearing into a wooden barrel. About a hundred feet off to the side was an outbuilding more rickety than the house. Coulter figured that was where they had their meth lab.

He waited until they’d gone inside the house, then rolled the F-150 up the drive, pulled it close behind their rusty Dodge, and gunned the engine and tapped the horn a few times. He wanted to get them out of the shack so they could see the difference in the two trucks. They were dealing big-time here, not junk vehicles and money under the mattress.

The two of them came ambling out the front, Joe Ray first, and let the screen door slam behind them. They stood on the porch, looking surprised and wary. Coulter was getting a kick out of it. Neither man displayed a weapon. Pair of yokels against a genuine desperado. His confidence soared. This should be easy.

Coulter got out of the truck and walked over there, then he casually reached behind him and drew the Glock out from where it was tucked in his belt at the small of his back.
Whoa-ho!
The two meth guys came hyperalert. Their eyes darted this way and that, making Coulter think of trapped animals. There was no direction they could move without Coulter bringing them both down. He wouldn’t have drawn the Glock otherwise. He smiled inwardly. Organization was the key to success.

Then the two of them, seeing the hopelessness of their situation, seemed to calm down.

“What the hell you want?” Joe Ray asked, showing a little bravado.

“He wants to get hisself killed,” Juan said.

“My, my,” Coulter said and moved the gun barrel over to point at Juan. Juan looked scared, but held his ground. What else could the dumb schmuck do?

“It ain’t love makes the world go round,” Coulter said. “It’s business. We’re all businessmen. I want to talk a deal.”

“What kinda business you in?” Joe Ray asked.

“Right now, far as you’re concerned, the truck business.” Coulter almost giggled. “And I guess you could say the travel business.”

The meth guys said nothing.

“We’re gonna trade trucks,” Coulter said. “Your bucket of rust for my almost-new Ford F-150.”

Joe Ray looked off to the side and spat. “Now why am I thinkin’ that ain’t your truck?”

“’Cause it ain’t. That’s my problem. But you got a problem, too.”

“Which is?”

“Me. And I got the solution for both of us.”

“You’re one smart asshole,” Juan said.

Coulter grinned. “Maybe I should shoot you in the knee.”

Juan went pale.

Joe Ray said, “Let’s all ease up here.” He looked with wary, level eyes at Coulter. Maybe a spark of helpless anger in those eyes. “Let’s quit jerkin’ each other off. Say plain what you come here to say.”

“I’ll take your truck with its legal license plate. You keep the Ford, paint it up, get yourselves a salvage VIN and a legal license, and you’re way ahead of the game. You boys smart enough to follow that?”

“We follow,” Joe Ray said. “We ain’t sure we like where it might lead.”

“Cops lookin’ for that truck?” Juan asked. He was staring with longing at the sleek black Ford with its oversized tires. Even dusty as it was, the bruiser of a vehicle was obviously a quantum leap trade-up.

Coulter gave them his best desperado grin. “Let’s say the rightful owner would like to have it back. I guarantee you he’s in another state and won’t be a problem for you. Me, I need transportation. I drive outta here in the junk Dodge, and I won’t be a problem for you, either.”

“Way you tell it, we part company and nobody’s got a problem.”

“Congratulations. You finally caught on.”

Juan glanced at Joe Ray. “It don’t sound like a bad deal.”

“Don’t shit yourself,” Joe Ray said, staring at Coulter.

“Well, there is one more thing,” Coulter said. “I want the meth money you’ve been raking in at Rodney’s.”

“What the hell is meth?” Joe Ray asked.

“What I can smell coming from that outbuilding over there, where you cook the stuff.” Coulter shifted his weight. The Glock was getting heavy. “It still ain’t a bad deal for you. That’s a thirty-thousand-dollar truck, easy. You got that much meth money?”

The two men exchanged a sly look.

Coulter smiled. “I guess you do.”

“I don’t like the deal,” Joe Ray said.

“Doesn’t matter a bit. I drive away with rusty and the money; you stay here with your new truck. You call the law on me, they pick me up, and you’re toast. Same thing the other way around. So we’re both safe. That’s the beauty of the proposition. We got no choice but to trust each another.”

“You musta gave this a lotta thought,” Juan said.

“Thinking happens to be my specialty,” Coulter said. “That’s why this deal’s gonna work. Now, next thing happens is you two yokels lead me to where you got the money stashed.”

“Ain’t likely,” said a woman’s voice.

Coulter looked to where Cathy Lee from Rodney’s Roadhouse was standing hip-shot near the corner of the shack. She must have come out a back door. She had on a stained gray robe, was barefoot, and her frizzy blond hair was flattened on one side as if she’d been sleeping on it. Her boobs were hanging halfway out, and she was holding a double-barreled shotgun. The effect was alarming.

“You boys don’t watch the news,” she said, motioning with her head toward a small satellite dish on the corner of the shack’s tarpaper roof. “This is the guy killed all them people in New York.”

“Killed people?” Juan said, looking at Coulter with new respect.

“The Torso Killer. He’s probably the most wanted man in the country.” Cathy Lee smiled at Coulter. “Ain’t you just proud of yourself?”

Coulter couldn’t stop staring at the shotgun.

“There’d be a reward out for him,” Juan said. “Prob’ly a big one.”

“I ain’t interested in no reward,” Joe Ray said. “What I’m interested in is burying him.”

The shotgun wavered. It was a long gun. Heavy, for a woman. Coulter wondered, how strong and quick could she be, little country whore? And her eyes looked all red and swollen. She might have been napping and could still be half asleep.

She was holding the shotgun low now, its barrels at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground.

Her mistake. Coulter’s only chance.

He’d barely started to bring the Glock to bear on Cathy Lee when the shotgun came up astoundingly fast and she fired.

He was on his back in the mud. The pain in his chest made him gasp. His heart started banging irregularly, like an engine running crazy on empty just before it quits.

Everything went spinning, and then everything went dark.

They say the last thing that goes when someone’s dying is his hearing. Coulter heard distinctly the sucking sound of a boot sole in the mud, very near his head. Joe Ray’s voice from high above:

“Both barrels. You surely made a mess here, Cathy Lee.”

“My bad,” Cathy Lee said.

Joe Ray, Juan, and Cathy Lee studied on it for a while, then decided not to bury Coulter nearby. He was, after all, the most wanted man in America. If the police traced him to the area, they’d eventually find the body. On the other hand, the meth guys and Cathy Lee sure couldn’t say they’d killed him and try to claim any kind of reward. The farther away Joe Ray, Juan, and Cathy Lee stayed from the law, the better for them.

They decided to drive Coulter off some distance and dump his body, make it look like he was shot on the side of the road. Could be the law would think he was hitchhiking and some mean bastard drilled him for sport. That’s if he was found before some gator dragged him off.

The Ford truck was another matter. You could tell that under all that dust and caked mud it was a cherry. They could have it painted another color. Joe Ray knew where he could get a “ghost truck” VIN from a similar-F-150 that was wrecked and in a salvage yard, and have the truck retitled. The truck wouldn’t be legal, but it would be close.

Coulter they wanted no part of, but the truck was worth the risk.

The first thing in the morning, Victor drove the Chrysler over to a parking garage off Broadway. From there he walked the crowded, sunlit sidewalks to the offices of E-Bliss.org.

Now and then someone gave him a second glance. He needed a shave. He’d slept with his clothes on, on Gloria’s sofa, and his usually razor-creased suit pants were wrinkled. The matching coat, which he’d draped over a chair back, was still neatly pressed. The effect was that the pants looked even baggier. That and the black stubble on his face made him look like a homeless person who’d rolled a rich banker after first getting him to remove his coat. This wasn’t at all like Victor, not to care about his appearance.

Palmer Stone glanced up from the E-Bliss applications he was studying when Victor gave a perfunctory knock and walked into his office. Stone was working at his desk with his suit coat on, as was his custom, and was impeccably groomed. Always when someone walked into his office he looked like a captain of commerce interrupted in an important task involving world affairs. This morning, he was quite a contrast to Victor.

Stone laid down the printout he’d been holding. It was rife with information about a lonely, middle-aged widow in Queens.

“Victor! What on earth happened to you?”

“I tried to get in touch with Gloria yesterday afternoon and evening,” Victor said, driving to the point, “and I couldn’t. I spent the night in her apartment. She never came home.”

Stone appeared alarmed at first, then thoughtful. “It isn’t the first time, Victor.”

“It is without me knowing where she was. We always knew—know—where the other one is. We’ve got this extra sense like we pick up each other’s radio waves, and Palmer, she’s not broadcasting.”

“Victor, it’s a little premature to think she’s…gone.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling, Palmer.”

Stone swiveled to the side and leaned back in his chair, facing the window but obviously not looking outside. Victor and Gloria. He knew both of them well, but there were some aspects of their relationship that still puzzled him, made him wonder. But then, he never had a sister.

“You know Gloria,” he said. “She’s probably off on some adventure.”

“She would’ve stayed in touch. When I called her cell number, her phone was turned off.”

“Maybe she simply didn’t want to be disturbed.”

Victor started to pace, raking his fingers through his hair with each step. “I told you, Palmer, Gloria and I are on what you might say is the same wavelength. I’ve really got a hunch something’s happened to her.”

“Could be you’re being an alarmist.”

Stone didn’t like what he was seeing here. More indication of instability in Victor. Gloria hadn’t seemed upset when Stone had talked to her about her brother. On the other hand, she hadn’t seemed surprised. There seemed no reason for Victor’s consternation. He did know his sister was a lesbian with an active sex life, so why couldn’t he accept the fact that she might right now be sleeping late in some ladylove’s warm bed?

Victor clenched and unclenched his fists. “Listen, Palmer—”

But Stone raised a manicured forefinger for quiet as his phone rang. He snatched up the receiver.

Gloria, he hoped.

Victor paced and watched while the caller did most of the talking. Stone’s mature, handsome features grew more and more set and pale.

Something was obviously very wrong.

Victor stopped pacing and collapsed on the black leather sofa facing the desk.

Stone hung up the phone and swiveled his chair to look directly at him with an expression of fatherly concern.

“Gloria was struck by a cab yesterday near Columbus Circle,” he said. “They tried to get in touch with someone, but couldn’t.”

“She doesn’t have a landline phone,” Victor said.

Stone nodded gravely. “The people at the hospital finally figured out how to look in her cell phone log. The last call she’d made was to here.”

Victor sat up straight. “Hospital?”

“She’s at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt, in critical condition. Her skull’s been fractured and her hip and left leg are broken.”

“Jesus! But at least she’s alive.”

“The cab hit her when she stepped off the curb. That’s what witnesses said. An accident.”

“What the hell was she doing—”

“Who knows, Victor? Gloria’s her own woman.”
That’s for damned sure.
Stone swiveled his chair toward the window again. He tilted back. “You’d better drive over there and see her, Victor. See if she’s conscious, talking. Maybe she’s under the influence of sedatives. You understand what I mean?”

But when Stone swiveled around for an answer to his question, Victor was gone.

Stone combed through both the
Times
and the
Post
, but neither of the papers made mention of Gloria’s accident. That didn’t surprise Stone, but it relieved him. News was news. Gloria wasn’t remotely famous, which meant the media would probably ignore the story tomorrow morning, too. That meant her name wouldn’t be in the papers or mentioned on television or radio. Stone much preferred it that way. Less of a threat to the business.

A little after one o’clock, Stone’s phone rang as he was rifling through a middle file cabinet drawer. Without standing up, he rolled his chair over to the desk and picked up.

Victor, calling from the hospital.

“She looks terrible, Palmer,” Victor said plaintively. “Her head’s all bandaged and her face is so swollen you wouldn’t know it was her.”

“Is she conscious?” Stone asked.

Drugged up? Talking?

“There’s no way to be sure if she knows what’s going on around her.”

“What do you mean, Victor?”

“She’s in a coma, Palmer. The doctors say they don’t know how long it will last, or even”—Victor’s voice broke—“if she’ll ever come out of it.”

Stone was surprised to find his own throat tightening. The three of them had been together in one scam or another for a lot of years. He did feel for Victor. And for Gloria. Emotions were doing that more and more lately, catching Palmer by surprise.

“Is there anything I can do, Victor?”

“I don’t think so, Palmer. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”

“I’m sorry, Victor. I really am.”

“I know that, Palmer.”

After hanging up the phone, Stone sat back and assessed the situation. Gloria was obviously out of commission. Judging by what Victor had said, she wasn’t about to say anything that might attract suspicion as to what she…did for a living. And someone being struck and seriously injured by a vehicle was a common occurrence in New York. There was nothing about Gloria’s accident that would attract undue attention.

Stone sighed and smiled.

Any danger to the company had been narrowly averted.

The question now was, how would what happened to Gloria affect Victor? Stone had been suffering doubts about him before Gloria’s accident. Gloria had gone a long way toward assuaging those doubts, but not all the way.

Now this.

Palmer wondered, could Victor still do his job?