Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) (14 page)

“My next thought is to hitchhike out of town. But I need a better bag. Nobody picks up hitchhikers who carry garbage bags.

“So I run over to Sporticus to buy a duffel bag. It takes me over an hour to get there. I buy the bag, open it up, and drop in the baseball bat and the DVD. Then I walk down to the highway and start to hitchhike.

“After a while I see you pull up in your motor home. I open the passenger door and see your smiling hazel eyes and I know I can trust you. I know I’m safe. So I climb in.”

CHAPTER 48

“T
ELL ME WHAT
happened at the bus station,” I said.

“Okay,” Anna said. “After I bought the bus ticket to Topeka I sat down on the bench and talked to you. Then I spotted Viper and Needles sitting near the station entrance. They were staring at both of us. I guess they were trying to figure out what you were doing with me, and whether you were going to be a problem for them or not. Otherwise I think they would have confronted me right away.”

I nodded.

“I was pretty sure they knew what I had in my duffel bag,” Anna said. “And I was afraid they might try to grab it from me. So I got up from the bench and went over to the lockers. I jammed the duffel bag into a locker and put the key in my pocket. Then I removed a different key from another locker and brought it over to give to you. I made sure that Viper and Needles were watching when I handed you the key.”

I grunted.

“I know,” Anna said. “It was a terrible thing to do to you. And I’m sorry. Maybe I can make it up to you. Maybe I . . .”

“Tell me the rest of the story,” I said.

“So after I gave you the key I excused myself and went off to the ladies’ room. There was a window in there. I climbed out the window and walked home. The green Lincoln Town Car was no longer parked on the street in front of my house, so I got in my car and drove away. After a while my phone rang. It was Sara. I told her what was going on, and she told me to come over. I turned the car around and drove to her house. When I . . .”

“This is Sara Garcia you’re talking about.”

“Yes, how did you know her last name?”

“Tell me what happened when you got to her house.”

“She gave me a key to this condo, and told me I could stay here as long as I wanted.”

“So this is Sara’s condo.”

“That’s right.”

“What happened after she gave you the key?”

“She asked if I needed anything else, and I said no, and she hugged me and told me to be careful, and I left.”

“And that’s when you returned to the bus station.”

“How did you know . . . ?”

“You went there to get the duffel bag from the locker.”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“Then I drove here.”

“And you’ve been hiding out here ever since?”

“Yes.”

“How come you park out on the street? Why not park in the condo garage?”

“Because I thought Viper might come looking for me here, and I didn’t want him to see my car parked in the condo garage, because that would let him know I’m here.”

“How would he even know to look for you here?”

“I don’t know. I thought he might find out I know Sara, and that she owns this place, and he might suspect I’m hiding out here.”

“Viper’s not going to find you here.”

“You did.”

“That’s different. I’m a trained manhunter.”

“How did you find me, Rip?”

“Where’s your brother now?”

“I’ve no idea. He never tells me.”

“He leave a voice message last night?”

“Yes, he’s still alive. He . . . he . . .”

Anna bit her lower lip. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned away to look out the window. After several moments her chestnut eyes returned to me.

“I don’t want to lose my brother. He is all I have in the world. He’s everything, Rip, everything. I can’t lose him the way I lost my parents. I just can’t.”

“Your parents?”

“They were killed by a drunk driver. I was only sixteen at the time, and Carlos was only twelve.”

“Sorry for your loss.”

“They were both killed instantly when their van was struck by an eighteen-year-old driver who was driving under the influence. His SUV struck their van from behind, causing both vehicles to spin out of control. The van went off the side of the road, hit a deep ditch and a thick tree, and then flipped over. My father was thrown from the van into the ditch. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, though he probably would have died anyway. My mother did.”

“I can’t imagine losing both parents like that.”

“It was a difficult time. Our entire childhood was difficult. We grew up poor. My parents earned little money. The rent often went unpaid, and food was often scarce. You would not believe how many times I went to school hungry. Not only hungry but embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had no lunch. Embarrassed that I felt jealous of kids with lunches. Embarrassed that my parents could not provide for us. But I never told anybody about it, never admitted it to anybody. Not even to teachers who used to ask me why I didn’t have a lunch. I used to lie to them. Because I didn’t want my parents to get in any trouble. I wanted to protect them.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“When I was eight,” Anna said, “I got a job to help pay for my family’s bills. I delivered newspapers for three years. Then I started to work in the food industry. Food was more interesting to me than newspapers. Not too many restaurants wanted to hire a child, but I managed to find a few that would. They paid me cash to wash dishes and work in the kitchen.”

Anna paused to shake her head.

“One time my father verbally abused me for not bringing home enough money from work. He used to treat me like that. Me and my mother. I think he hated women. Maybe he was angry that he had no means to support his family. I don’t know why he was the way he was. He used to use all of the horrible words. The B word. The C word. But I still loved him. He was my father.”

Anna frowned.

“There were a few occasions when he beat my mother. One time he came close to killing her. She was lying limp on the floor when I walked into their bedroom. My father had his hands around her neck. She looked dead to me. I really thought my father had killed her.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I kept quiet.

“After my parents died in the accident I began to take care of my little brother. I worked two jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table. One job was waitressing in a bar. The other was working as a maid. That’s how I met Sara. I used to clean her house.”

I remembered how enormous Sara Garcia’s house was. She would need staff around the clock just to clean it.

“Working two jobs while staying in school kept me busy, but I did whatever I could to support Carlos. When he graduated from high school I sent him to college and paid for his tuition. Four years later he graduated with a business degree. A year after that he started the adult entertainment club. That’s when I started to take night classes in business. I plan to start my own restaurant when I graduate.”

Anna’s story touched me. It changed my opinion of her. But I wasn’t about to let her know that. I was still not too happy with the way she had played me at the bus station, though I now understood what had motivated her.

In the back of my mind I wondered how much truth there was in Anna’s story. Was she playing me again? Was she setting me up as a fall guy again? Or was she being honest with me?

Either way I had a job to do. Four men in Pottsland had tried to kill me. They needed to be taught a lesson. They needed to pay for their actions. And I needed to collect.

CHAPTER 49

“W
HAT
’
S THE PLAN
now, Anna?”

“The plan? What do you mean, Rip?”

“I mean your brother’s had some time now to come up with a plan. How’s he going to stop Viper? You two can’t hide out forever.”

“Carlos has applied for a passport. Now we’re just waiting for him to receive it.”

“And then?”

“And then he’ll leave the country.”

“For good?”

“No. Just until the police capture Viper.”

“That’s Carlos’s plan?”

“Yes.”

“It’s pretty inconvenient.”

“It’s better than dying.”

“So when Carlos leaves the country you go to the cops and give them the baseball bat and the DVD. That the plan?”

“Yes.”

“And then Carlos returns home once the cops capture Viper.”

“Yes.”

“Carlos will still be in danger.”

“How?”

“Viper could put a hit out on him from jail.”

“You think he would?”

“What’s to stop him?”

Anna blinked.

“Look,” I said, “there might be a better way to handle this.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know right now. I have to give it some thought.”

“You mean you might help us?”

“Let me see what I can come up with.”

Anna smiled for the first time that morning.

“Let me ask you something, Anna.”

“Anything.”

“Those two cops with the Pottsland Police Department—Officer Brown and Officer Miller—what’s their connection to Viper?”

“According to Carlos they get kickbacks for helping out the Bruno crime family.”

“You know them, the two cops?”

“Artie and Owen? Sure, we all went to school together.”

“What were they like in school?”

“Bullies. Both of them were bullies. All the way from kindergarten through twelfth grade. They used to grab kids and dunk their heads in flushing toilets. They always picked on the unpopular kids and the scrawny kids. Calling them names, throwing things at them, laughing at them. Most of the kids were deathly afraid of Artie and Owen. Kids used to go out of their way to avoid running into them. Artie and Owen were the worst kind of bullies. They liked to use fear and intimidation as a weapon.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

“Artie and Owen never stopped being bullies. Not even when they joined the Pottsland Police Department. I hear they run a prostitution ring now. They have cameras hidden in local motels. In the heating vents. Everything that happens in those motel rooms gets videotaped. Every now and then Artie and Owen videotape a wife cheating on her husband. When they do they confront her. They give her two options. One is to work for them as a prostitute. The other is to risk losing her marriage. I don’t know how many of the women choose the second option, but I know that a lot of them choose the first one. I hear that Artie and Owen have more than fifty wives in their prostitution ring. Some are very prominent members of the community. Businesswomen, lawyers, elected officials. Each wife is also coerced into having sex with Artie and Owen. That act gets videotaped too. The blackmail never ends.”

“It’s going to end,” I said. “A lot of things in Pottsland are going to end.”

CHAPTER 50

“H
ERE
’
S AN IDEA
,” Anna said, and moved closer to me on the couch. “You need time to come up with a plan, right?”

“Just a day or two,” I said.

“So why don’t we spend the day looking around St. Louis. I can show you some of the sights while your subconscious mind works on the plan. What do you say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on,” she said, touching my arm. “It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know.”

“My treat. I’ll pay for everything. Meals, tickets, parking.”

The first place we visited was the Gateway Arch. The stainless steel of the arch gleamed in the morning sun. I parked my motorcycle on Leonor K Sullivan Boulevard.

Anna and I took a moment to look at the Mississippi River. Then we crossed the boulevard and climbed the steps to the arch. Anna went up the steps in long leaps. I went up more casually but no less impressively.

We waited in line for over an hour before finally getting in. The tram ride to the top of the arch took four minutes.

“Anna,” I said as we rode the tram, “I was beginning to think that the only arch I was going to see on this vacation was the golden arch at McDonald’s.”

The panoramic view from the top was amazing. We could see downtown St. Louis. We could see the Mississippi River and Illinois.

Behind me I could hear a young guy trying to impress his cougar girlfriend with his Wikipedia knowledge of the Gateway Arch.

“It’s taller than the Washington Monument. It’s taller than the Statue of Liberty. It’s the tallest monument in America. The width of the arch matches its height. Six hundred and thirty feet tall. Six hundred and thirty feet wide. It’s an incredible engineering achievement, don’t you think, honey?”

The cougar girlfriend was not impressed.

“Bobby,” she said, “I’m ready to see the gift shop.”

On our way out Anna and I stopped by the underground visitor center, located directly beneath the arch, between its two legs. My favorite visitor centers have generally been located between two legs.

We next went to the St. Louis Zoo. We ate a small lunch at Hippo Hideaway and then walked through the entire zoo.

We saw interesting signs along the way. One sign said
PLEASE DO NOT DROP YOUR CIGARETTE BUTTS ON THE GROUND BECAUSE THE FISH CRAWL OUT AT NIGHT TO SMOKE THEM AND WE ARE TRYING TO GET THEM TO QUIT
. Another sign said
THOSE WHO THROW OBJECTS AT THE BEARS WILL BE ASKED TO RETRIEVE THEM
. And another sign said
CAUTION
:
ALLIGATOR MATING SEASON
—
IF ATTACKED
,
FAKE ORGASM
.

Anna and I did not see any amusing signs like that at the Missouri Botanical Garden, though we did see the largest Japanese strolling garden in North America, the oldest continually operated public greenhouse west of the Mississippi River, and the nation’s most comprehensive resource center for gardening information.

The next place we visited was the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. The free public tour took us through the complex and showed us the steps of the entire brewing process. We also saw the Budweiser Clydesdales. At the end of the tour we enjoyed a free glass of beer.

We ate dinner at Basso. Since Anna was paying for the meal, I did not want to order extravagantly. So I did not order the beef sirloin. I ordered the smoked trout.

My worst dates have been with women who ordered extravagantly and expected me to pay for it. They viewed dating as an exchange of a woman’s beauty for a man’s money. That type of arrangement does exist, but it’s not called dating.

These gold diggers were almost always the ones most eager to get married. But I knew better. Marrying a gold digger is a bad business decision. One of my economics professors had explained it during class one day.

“We have two people,” he had said. “They are married. Person A provides beauty in exchange for Person B’s money. On the surface this appears to be a fair exchange between two parties. Upon closer inspection, however, we find otherwise. We find that over time beauty fades and money grows. Therefore Person A’s beauty will depreciate in value, while Person B’s money will appreciate in value. Is this a fair exchange? I think not.”

The lesson was one I never forgot.