Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 01 - Galveston (9 page)

I leaned forward. “But you also said you told Cheshire you didn’t want to do anything against the law. Now which is it, Morrison? Make up your mind.”

He frowned, trying to go back and remember just exactly what he had said. “I didn’t mean against the law,” he stammered. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

He stared at me helplessly. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “But not that. I thought it was all legit. That’s what I meant.” 

I glared at him. I should have known he would crawfish. And even if I subpoenaed him, he’d crawfish. I glanced at my watch. 10:30 p.m.

I climbed in my pickup where Virgil was waiting. I circled the block and parked across the street, banking on Ted Morrison to scoot to whomever was paying him.

While I waited, I bounced my ideas off Virgil. “After all is said and done,” I added in conclusion. “I’m convinced he was working with Cheshire to fence the smuggled diamonds, but there isn’t enough evidence to even justify a search warrant. And besides, Galveston PD wouldn’t consider anything I requested.”

“You think him and Cheshire was working for Maranzano?”

“Could be. When I mentioned Maranzano and Abbandando’s name, he sure got nervous.”

“What do you make of that?”

“I think it means we’ve got to keep an eye on both of them.”

Virgil grunted.

To my surprise and disappointment, Ted Morrison didn’t leave his room.

At two a.m., we headed back to the motel. The only pleasant thing about an otherwise disappointing and boring evening was that Virgil kept his shoes on.

Chapter Ten

I couldn’t sleep.

Like a catchy tune that sticks in your head, a dozen unanswered questions about Allied Cement kept tumbling over and over in my brain.

I was convinced it was an Allied truck I had spotted at Berth 21, and I was convinced the footprint in the fresh cement belonged to Cheshire. Fresh cement, a wing-tip shoe, a missing man. I shivered. Was this what had been nagging at me about that night? Was it possible?

On impulse I rose, dressed, and silently slipped out. As I gently closed the door behind be so as not to awaken Virgil, a raspy voice broke the silence. “Going somewhere?”

I jerked around to see Virgil standing in his doorway. I shook my head. “Not without you, it appears.”

He nodded. “Where are we going?”

“I hate for people to lie to me.”

“Morrison?”

“No. Cook. The guy at Allied.”

With a chuckle, Virgil grunted. “Let’s go.”

A low hanging fog had crept in from across the bay, hovering four or five feet off the ground. Oncoming trucks were only a blur above their headlights.

We pulled off the main highway and parked near the back corner of the yard, which was partially lit by a few security lights sprinkled about the grounds. In the distance, foghorns bellowed out their eerie tones, hollow echoes that seemed to reverberate in every globule of the thick mist above our heads.

In a typically human example of foolish inconsistency, the gates in the gray privacy fence were locked within a dozen feet of a gap in the fence large enough to drive a truck through.

No dogs at least.

We hurried through the fog to the office. With Virgil looking out for my back, I quickly picked the lock and we slipped inside where we immediately dropped into a crouch.

The office smelled of stale cigarette smoke and mildew. The counter was directly in front of us, a solid black wall four feet high. Beyond, lit dimly by the glare of the security lights, was Cook’s office. “Keep an eye out,” I whispered, making my way to the counter. I leaned over and felt in the shelves. My fingers touched the log book. “Here it is,” I muttered, opening it on the counter and focusing my penlight on it.

I could hear Virgil breathing heavily at my side. I ran my finger down the dispatcher’s list of jobs. I didn’t really expect to find any substantiating evidence to support my half-baked theory, but to my surprise, there was a record of a job two nights earlier at Berth 21, Galveston. I gasped. “Well, I’ll be— Would you look at this.”

Virgil muttered. “I knew he was lying.” 

Suddenly, the telephone rang in Cook’s office. We both jumped, then froze. The jangling of the phone sounded like the clanging of cymbals. Finally, it stopped. Moments later, a tiny red light flashed on Cook’s desk. Caller ID? “Wait here.”

I slipped into Cook’s office and crouched by the desk. The diffused glow of the security lights lit the interior of the office. I punched the new call button and jotted the number. On impulse, I punched the button again.

A grin the size of Galveston Bay jumped to my lips when I spotted a familiar number. 555-3636. Ted Morrison. 10:33 p.m. Three minutes after I had left his apartment. I punched the button again, but there was no more history.

I don’t know where the mutt had been, but before I had a chance to gloat, a deep snarl sounded from the darkness in the back of the office. Instantly, I leaped for the door to the outer office, but the growling dog beat me to it. Through the window separating Cook’s office from the outer office, I spotted Virgil heading out the front door.

That left the back door for me. The snarling animal’s claws scrabbling for a hold on the slick floor gave me an extra shot of adrenaline as I jumped for the glass door.

The light from outside illumined a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall beside the door. I ripped it from its hanger, tore off the safety tab, and hit the charging dog squarely in the eyes with a large dose of potassium bicarbonate.

He yowled and ducked his head, scrubbing at his eyes at the same time. I hit him with another charge and yanked open the glass door and slammed it behind me.

I didn’t have time to catch my breath.

The door shattered.

At first, I thought the dog had leaped through it, but the splintering wood in the door jamb inches from my head told me someone was out there in the fog shooting at me.

I dashed for the shadows beyond the glow of the security lights. Another slug tore up the ground at my feet. I zigzagged, praying I didn’t zig when I needed to zag. I headed for the piles of gravel and sand, hoping to lose myself back in them.

In my serpentine dash for the safety of the gravel piles, I’d forgotten about the dog. I didn’t know what kind it was, but any dog coming for me from out the dark is enough to keep me running. Then I heard him bark somewhere behind me.

I couldn’t out run him, but maybe I could out climb him. I darted around a mountain of gravel just as a slug tore out a pocket in the gravel. I raced behind another pile and started climbing, sinking almost to my knees in the loose aggregate. Moments later, I heard a confusing mixture of growls, curses, and then two thumps, the unmistakable reports from a silencer. The dog yelped, then fell silent. The dumb mutt had chased the wrong man.

“Son-of-a … ” I clenched my teeth and threw myself prone on the gravel, hoping to lose myself in the shadows cast by the security lights.  Where was Virgil?

The only sounds were the occasional vehicle sweeping past on the wet highway and the plaintive moans of ships cautiously threading their course through the fog. I strained to hear the sound of gravel crunching under a heel.

The gravel was cold to my face, and the dampness soaked through my shirt. To either side, the glow of the security light filled the space between the piles with a ghostly light.

Without warning, a lengthy shadow fell on the ground between the two mountains of gravel. Moments later, a nebulous figure appeared, moving slowly, cautiously.

I cursed myself for leaving my .38 in the motel, but all I needed was to shoot someone else. What I had to do was mislead this joker. Get him moving away from me so I could disappear into the fog.

And I knew just how to do that very thing.

Moving as silently as possible, I rose to my knees and hurled a marble-sized gravel chunk at the distant pile of gravel, figuring the clatter would distract him long enough for me to slip away.

I missed the pile. Fact is, my rock bounced off the gunman’s head.

“What the—“ He shouted and grabbed the side of his face.

I bolted, half running, half falling down the mound of gravel and took off for the darkness beyond the office. Behind me, curses filled the night along with slugs from his automatic. I kept waiting for the impact of a slug, but none came.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw only the fog behind me. If I could reach the beckoning darkness, I could cut across the yard toward the pickup. 

I looked around just in time to see a figure before me, and then a shadow filled my vision.

The next thing I remember is a rough vibration against my back, and a growling, grinding screech in my ears. I sensed movement, but the pain in my head scrambled any logical reasoning. I touched my fingers to my forehead and winced. I could feel a knot already starting to form.

I flung my arm aside and slammed my knuckles into a wall of metal. I grimaced at the pain. Shaking my head, I stared into the darkness. I was moving, ascending, but …   I closed my eyes, wanting to sleep.

Still groggy, I stretched my legs and struck another solid wall. Abruptly, my eyes popped open as my scrambled thoughts came together, making me realize the peril I was in. I was riding in one of gravel buckets to the top of the silos. “Jesus,” I shouted, peering over the edge of the bucket. I caught my breath. All I saw was fog. I could be ten feet or fifty feet above the ground.  I squeezed my eyes shut. I was still groggy.

Suddenly, the giant mixer came to life in the midst of grinding gears and screeching metal. Above the clatter of the belt and falling gravel, I could hear the great blades begin scraping the inside of the mixer.

If I didn’t get out of the bucket before it reached the top, I would be dumped with the gravel down into the mixer, becoming a somewhat disparate ingredient of the Jerry Cook’s slurry. I clambered over the side of the bucket, trying to find a spot for my feet. I perched on the thin frame of angle iron supporting the bucket.

With a clatter and bang, the fourth bucket ahead of me dumped its load. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted an inspection ladder at the top of the silo. All I had to do was step off the belt onto the ladder, and I was safe.

So I thought.

When I reached the ladder, I stepped onto a rung, but my light jacket snagged on a corner of the bucket, almost jerking me off the ladder. I wrapped my arms and legs around the steel frame of the ladder. The bucket moved inexorably toward the lip of the silo, pulling the jacket ever tighter about my shoulders. 

My arms began to slip. With a loud groan, I redoubled my efforts, but I was no match for the powerful motor and gears driving the conveyor. Slowly, the pressure straightened my arms, scraping my forearms across the rusty rails of the ladder until I was holding only by my fingers.

I clenched my teeth and squeezed as hard as I could. My fingers began to straighten. “Hold on,” I muttered grimly. “Hold on.”

Suddenly, there was the sharp rip of nylon, and all of the pressure ceased. I clung to the ladder in relief, my breath coming in labored gasps. I remained motionless for several minutes, too weak to attempt a descent.

Then a familiar voice came through the fog. “Tony. Tony. Where are you?”

My voice was only a raw croak. “Virge?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“Up here.”

“Up here where?”

Shakily, I started down. “Never mind. Here I come.” Virgil was looking up at me when I came out of the fog. “Where have you been?” I managed to gasp out.

He looked around warily. “In the truck, waiting for you. When you didn’t show up, I came back to see what was going on. I got no idea where that mutt is. You find something up there?”

I leaned my forehead against the cold railing. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“You all right?”

I pushed away from the ladder, my knees still shaky from the incident. “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. “I’ll live.”

During the ride back to the motel, I told Virgil what had taken place.

“Geez, Tony. I wish I’d knowed. I was sitting in the pickup all nice and snug waiting for you. When you went out the back door, I went out the front. I figured you was going straight to the truck.”

For the first time since we broke into the office, I felt like grinning. “That’s what I was planning on doing, but some bozo started shooting at me, and things went downhill from there.”

Virgil grunted. “I don’t know about you, but it looks like to me that the cement company could be as deep in this diamond caper as Cheshire and the others.”

The fog remained thick. I drove slowly, keeping my lights on dim. The scary thing about driving in fog is that you never know exactly where you are. There’s no warning, no hint as to your location. One second, you’re staring at a gray wall of moisture, the next you’re at the intersection with cars bearing down from both sides.

And that’s how this whole case was turning out. Not knowing where I was, and then someone takes a shot at me.

“What puzzles me, Tony, is where the cement company would fit in to the caper.”

I kept my theory about the cement truck to myself. “What puzzles me, Virge, is how any of this fits together. We know some diamond smuggling is going on, but there’s no when, no definite who, nowhere, no why.”

We drove a few minutes in silence. Virgil was pulling out a cigarette when I announced. “I think I’ll pay Sam Maranzano a visit tomorrow.”

Virgil bit through his cigarette. He shook his head. “From what I hear, Sam Maranzano don’t like visitors.”

“He’ll like me.”

I was the one who had a visitor, and when it was over, I wished it had been Sam Maranzano.

Chapter Eleven

I rose that morning at 5:30 as usual, retrieved my complimentary morning newspaper while a pot of motel coffee perked, and went online to pick up my messages. After coffee and perusing the news, I went through my morning ritual of showering, shaving, and in general making myself presentable, pausing for a few seconds to grimace at the knot on my forehead, a gift from my unknown admirer only a few hours earlier.