CHAPTER THIRTY

 

Two hours later Danni was still serenading the living area and Crockett was still hiding on the deck. Stitch arrived on his Guzzi, schlepped up the steps, and flopped into a chair.

“Where you been?” Crockett asked.

“Over at Leoni’s cementing my relationship with the staff.”

“You carry a gun?”

Stitch grimaced and scooted an inch lower in the chair. “No.”

“Carry a gun.”

“Aw, man. None a them cats over there are gonna shoot me or nothin’.”

“Not the point. It’s part of your cover.”

“Okay. Okay. Them bikes are gone, man.”

“What?”

“Them four scooters that came in and never made it to the showroom?”

“Yeah.”

“One of ‘em is on the floor. I guess ‘cause they sold the one you got me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. A Stelvio, dude. Enduro type. Way fuckin’ cool, ya know.”

“What about the other three?”

“Had that box bed truck out back when I showed up. I wandered out to say hey to the wrenches and they were loadin’ three crates. I hung around a while, shot the shit, then when the truck pulled out, I tailed it, man. Airport. Them bikes are leavin’ the country.”

“How do you know?”

“You shippin’ a scooter to Peoria or someplace like that, man, you use a fuckin’ truck. You do not use a airplane. Dig it.”

“You’re right.”

“Hell yes, I’m right. I may have been born yesterday, Crockett, but I been downtown all afternoon.”

“So they ship four bikes directly here from Italy, bypassing the usual protocol for that kind of thing, don’t put three of the motorcycles on the floor and don’t sell ‘em. Then, a week or so later, they ship the things to where? Back to Italy?”

“That’s what I figure.”

“And your conclusion is?”

“Them scooters ain’t bikes, man. They’re mules.”

“Seems like it. But what about customs?”

“Italians ain’t scarce in New York, man. You got contacts in Italy and New York, customs ain’t shit. Leoni was in Afghanistan too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cat’s probably got all the palms he can grease, Crockett. Got smack comin’ in once or twice a month. Wonder what he’s got goin’ out?”

“Got me.”

“Maybe nothin’, man. We show him some shit from south of the border, could be he’s in the export business all of a sudden. Add some reefer for local distribution and he’s makin’ the kind of money he’d like to make. Greed is endless with these fuckers.”

“So he winds up middle-man for heroin coming in and cocaine going out.”

“Plus some smoke to peddle for a little, you know, walkin’ around money.”

“Now we need for him to come to us. Too suspicious for us to go to him.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll start getting’ a little loose around the shop, man. Take in a little smoke or somethin’. Hang around with Wook. Forget to keep my mouth shut and shit.”

“You watch your ass, Stitch. I’d worry about Wook before I’d worry about Leoni. He’s dangerous.”

Stitch grinned. “Maybe he’s ambitious, too. That could get intense. Speakin’ of intense, man, where’s Danni?”

“Snoring on the couch. I gave her some headache pills and laid her down.”

“Time to get her up. The cleanin’ crew’ll be here in a little while.”

“Shit,” Crockett replied. “I’m goin’ for a ride.”

 

He dropped by the cabin to surprise Satin, but she wasn’t there. Dundee and Nudge were glad to see him, and he hung around for a while getting re-acquainted with his animals. When Satin still didn’t show back up after an hour or so, he debated calling her cell, then blew it off and headed for Kaycee in a bit of a funk. Things were moving too slowly, and yet they had to move slowly to gain entry into Leoni’s club. Cheryl McGill was still struggling along, a widow with two small daughters and a ghost in her fishpond, waiting for him to produce some results. He was living in a house he disliked with two young women he could relate to only on a fairly superficial level, and now he’d been run out of there by a platoon of women with vacuum cleaners. And, he missed Satin. Shit.

He rode all the way into Westport to D’Bronx on Bell for a late lunch at Kansas City’s best deli, parked the BSA on the sidewalk next to the building, and went inside. His order had just arrived when his cell phone went off.

“Clete! What’s up?”

“Me, son, and I have been for a while. Headin’ your way.”

“Already?”

“Doan no grass grow under my feet, Crockett. How do I git to your place?”

Crockett smiled for the first time all day. “Don’t you have a satellite navigation system in whatever you’re driving?”

“Yeah, but I don’t like them things. Somethin ‘bout a car tellin’ me where to go that gits my ruff up.”

“Where are you?”

“I just turned onto I-70 offa Thirteen.”

“Head into Kaycee. Across from the sports complex is a Denny’s. Meetcha there.”

“Guess it can’t be helped,” Cletus said, and disconnected.

Crockett wolfed down half his sandwich, chugged the root beer, dropped a ten on the table and headed out the door. As the BSA rumbled into life, he realized he was grinning.

 

Less than thirty minutes later, Crockett cruised Denny’s lot, then parked by the entrance drive and phoned Stitch to apprise him of the situation. As he disconnected from the call, a dark blue Chrysler 300 muscled in and pulled into a parking space. Cletus Marshal, looking more and more like Clint Eastwood as the years went by, peered at him over the top of the car.

“Good God almighty,” he drawled. “A Heck’s Angel.”

Crockett advanced on him. “Heck’s Angel?”

“Yeah. Yer too old and your shit’s too weak to quality for the biggs anymore, son.”

A manly hug and ritual back pounding ensued. When it ended, Crockett spoke up.

“Follow me, Texican.”

“Reckon not,” Clete replied, eyeballing the restaurant. “Piece a pie and a cup a coffee first.” He shifted his gaze to Crockett and grinned. “God, you’re lovely in leather.”

 

It was late afternoon when Clete and Crockett arrived back at the house. Stitch met them at the garage and greeted Clete.

“Good to see ya, man. Now maybe we can get this shit on the road, ya know? Got any luggage or anything?”

Clete lifted a leather duffle out of the back seat. Stitch took it and headed for the door. “C’mon in,” he said, “and meet the girls.”

“The girls” had obviously been prepared for Clete’s arrival. They, barefoot and wearing full makeup, hip hugger short-shorts, and midriff baring t-shirts, were posed succulently at the kitchen snack bar. Clete appeared to be a little stunned. Danni indicated a blender on the counter.

“Margarita?”

“Or something a little…stronger?” Whisper asked.

“Merciful Georgia,” Clete said. “Ladies, my name is Cletus Marshal, but they ain’t no reason for us to stand on formality. I’d be tickled plumb to death if ya’ll git your drinks, join me on that big ol’ couch over there, and just think a me as your beloved rich uncle Clete.”

Danni giggled.

“Oh, my,” Whisper whispered.

“Oh, yeah,” Stitch grunted.

“Oh, hell,” Crockett said.

 

Over the next two hours the blender of Margaritas was refreshed twice while Clete got acquainted with Danni and Whisper. Stitch vacated the area almost as soon as things started. Crockett puttered around for a few minutes until he wondered if he truly existed anymore, then went to the garage to clean up the Goldstar. About seven, he returned to the kitchen and began making some chicken salad for sandwiches. Stitch wandered back in and joined him at the snack bar. Crockett took two bottles of Guinness out of the fridge and passed one over.

“How long you think this is gonna go on?” he asked.

“Ah…Clete’s had a long drive, man. Needs a little time to relax, I guess.”

Crockett snorted. “Looks pretty relaxed to me.”

Stitch smiled. “I bet any, like, residual tension’ll probably be gone in the morning, man. At least if ol’ Whisper’s gets her way. She’s been actin’ a little tense herself lately.”

Crockett raised his voice and directed it at the room. “Sandwiches are ready!”

The group on the couch seemed to notice him for the first time in quite a while.

Stitch chuckled. “You really are kinda a prude, ain’tcha man?” he said.

Crockett turned his back to get a bag of chips out of a cabinet.

 

After dinner Whisper and Danni moved to the far side of the room to watch TV. Clete carried in a medium sized aluminum case and set it on the counter.

“Gentlemen,” he said, opening the case, “I have brought you some supplies.”

Nestled inside was a bag of white powder slightly smaller than a football, several tiny plastic bags of what appeared to be the same substance, a large plastic bag and two smaller ones of what could only be marijuana, and four sealed bottles of capsules.

“A kilo of cocaine,” Clete said. “Ninety-seven per cent pure. About as good as it gets. Also a dozen gram bags as samples. One pound of devil weed, also supposedly very high quality, and two additional ounces for demonstration purposes. In each of the bottles are five hundred caps of pharmaceutical grade Demerol. Sauce for the goose.”

“Your accent is almost gone, Texican,” Crockett commented.

“Serious shit, Crockett. I was sweatin’ bullets all the way out here, carryin’ this crap.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“From the property warehouse of Chicago P.D., an’ that’s everthing you git to know.”

“Is this all of it?”

“Ain’t this enough?”

“I may actually have to sell some of this shit, Clete.”

“I know, I know. I got a supply line opened up we can use if necessary. Long as you don’t start dealin’ to the entire Midwest, I gotcha. This goes south, Lucy, we’re gonna have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.”

Crockett looked at Stitch, who had his nose deeply inside one of the small bags of marijuana. As he inhaled, the bag compressed against his face. He relaxed, exhibiting a beatific smile, and looked at Clete and Crockett.

“Oh, wow.” he sighed. “Its great grandma was Asian, man. Likely from Thailand. Preemo smoke. Probably more head rush than body buzz.”

“Oh yeah?” Crockett said.

“Yeah. This some righteous reefer, dude. Damn site better’n Missouri ditch weed, ya know?”

“No, I don’t.”

“These buds are purple, man. An’ fuckin’ sticky.”

“That’s good?”

“C’mon, Crockett. You musta smoked dope sometime in your life.”

“I tried it a few times when I was a kid.”

Stitch grinned. “Did ya toke an’ choke when you were an officer of the law, man?”

“No.”

“Super trooper, huh?”

Crockett shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I knew lotsa dope smokers. I’ll tell you this. As a cop, I’d much rather have dealt with a room full of smokers than a room full of drinkers. I never had anybody high on smoke try to cut me with a broken bottle or hit me with a chair, Stitch. Not so with drunks.”

“You got that right.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. I never busted anybody with marijuana possession as the only charge, as long as it was a reasonable amount. Catch some stoner with three ounces of coke and a bag of dope, I’d have to charge him with the dope, too. Catch a kid and his girlfriend with a bag of dope, if he had his shit together, I’d probably just tell him to dump it out on the ground and let him go. If he was drunk, or tried me on, then I’d bust his ass. Most of the time, no harm, no foul. Some guy with ten pounds hidden in the floor of the van he was driving like an idiot, got a door clanked on him.”

“Sounds like you were one of the good ones, dude.”

“I like to think I was.”

“You never come across shit like this, man.”

“I didn’t?”

“Naw. Reefer has come a long way. Back in the day, three or four percent THC was okay dope. This shit in this bag could be eighteen to twenty percent. They’re growin’ some dope indoors and outside in National Forests in northern California and down in Florida that is freakin’ heavy.”

Crockett sighed. “I’m truly glad it appeals to your educated palate, Mister Winkler. I’d hate for you to be disappointed.”

“I am a little, man.”

“What’s wrong?”

Stitch smiled. “I don’t think I got any papers.”

 

At a little after seven the next morning Crockett was in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to drip when Clete, barefoot and wearing baggy jeans and a dress shirt with the tail out and the cuffs unbuttoned, walked in scratching his head and yawning. He appeared to be a little used. Crockett raised an eyebrow.

“You look relaxed,” he said.

“Nothin’ like a good night’s sweet an’ restful sleep to git the feathers outa your feet, son. Coffee?”

“On the way. You want it in a cup or in your hair?”

“A cup’ll be fine, Crockett.”

“I got some bagged biscuits in the oven. Thought I might fry up a little bacon to go with ‘em.”

Clete grimaced. “Ya know, my dear ol’ momma usta fix biscuits an’ bacon durn near ever mornin’. You got some mother instincts floatin’ to the surface, little feller?”

The coffee maker belched and Crockett turned away to pour two cups. He put them on the counter and retrieved a quart carton of Half and Half from the fridge. Clete wouldn’t let it go.

“Well,” he said, “have ya?”

“Have I what?”

“Got some mother instincts up and around this mornin’?”

“My instincts are my business, Texican.”

Clete smiled. “Mine are my business, too, pard,” he said. “So are hers.”

Crockett felt his ears get warm. “Oh, hell, Clete. I know it. Godammit! It’s just that…”

“It’s just,” Clete said, “that ol’ Crockett don’t want nobody to git no mud on their boots.”

Crockett smiled. “Not the way I might have put it, but yeah,” he said.

“Son, I ain’t no more’n another fly on Whisper’s screen door. Far as she’s concerned, flies on the screen is all men are. She appreciates kindness ‘cause she ain’t had a lot a that, but she damn sure don’t require it. A lot a needs that most folks have was wore offa that girl years ago, if she ever had ‘em at all. It’s like eatin’ candy out of a bowl for her. One piece ain’t no better’n another, and the whole damn bowl ain’t gonna give her any real nourishment. They ain’t no steak in her life, Crockett. Probably never will be. She wouldn’t recognize it if she saw it. But, Lord God, that young lady does love candy.”

“So what are you? An M&M?”

Clete shook his head. “Son,” he said, “I am one a them four foot tall solid chocolate Easter Bunnies with candy eyeballs. After last night though, I’m purty much melted.”

“Think some bacon might restore you?”

“Might help a little in the short term, but if I hang around here very long, I ain’t gonna be much mor’n a chocolate chip.”

Crockett chuckled and went to the fridge. When he returned with the bacon, he noticed Clete grinning at him.

“What?”

“Stitch is wrong,” Clete replied.

“Oh, hell. About what?”

“He said Whisper an’ me would git you bent outa shape ‘cause you’re a prude. You ain’t no prude.”

“I’m not?”

“Hell, no! You never coulda lived with Ruby the way ya did an’ been no prude.”

Crockett started putting bacon on the griddle. “What am I then?”

Clete laughed. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “You, pard, are a romantic with fuddy-duddy tendencies.”

“Fuddy-duddy?”

“Yessir.”

“I never imagined that fuddy-duddy was in your vocabulary, Texas.”

“Answer me one question, Crockett.”

“Okay.”

“You ever been with a woman you didn’t love a little bit, at least at the time?”

Crockett thought for a moment. “No,” he said.

“And, deep down, you think that’s the way it should be for everbody, don’t ya?”

“That makes me a romantic with fuddy-duddy tendencies, does it?”

Clete caught his eyes. “Yeah, it does, my friend. It also probably makes you the best of us.”

Crockett held Clete’s gaze for a moment before he spoke.

“You want some grape jam for your biscuits?”

 

Crockett was turning the bacon when Whisper, wearing a white terry robe, entered the room. She tapped Cletus on the shoulder as she rounded the counter, stood on her tiptoes, kissed Crockett on the cheek, and slipped her arm around his waist.

“Morning, Crockett,” she said.

“Hey kid,” Crockett replied, his attention primarily on the bacon. “How ya doin’?”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“I’m okay.”

Whisper looked up at him. “Really?”

Smiling, Crockett abandoned the bacon for a moment and kissed her on top of the head. “Really,” he said.

“Good,” Whisper replied, rubbing his back between the shoulder blades. “It’s important to me that you’re okay.”

She moved to stand behind Clete, put one hand on the left side of his neck and the other on the right side of his head above the ear.

“What are you doin’?” he asked.

“Look at your lap,” she said.

When Cletus looked down, the girl pushed her hands rather violently in opposing directions. The snaps emanating from Clete’s neck caused Crocket to flinch. The Texican shot to his feet clutching his head.

“What the hell was that?”

“The end of your headache,” Whisper said.

Clete looked at her and took half a step backwards. “What did you do?”

“I realigned your third and forth cervical vertebrae. Don’t be a little girl. Your headache will be gone in a few minutes.”

“How the hell you know I got a headache?”

“Oh, please,” Whisper said, heading for the coffee pot.

“Ya coulda warned me.”

“If I had warned you, you would have tried to resist.”

Crockett laughed. “Whisper, I don’t know how anybody could resist you,” he said.

The girl looked at him with big eyes. Her voice dropped into a monotone. “Resistance is few-tyle,” she said.

 

The bacon was done when Stitch ambled in. His hair was loose, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had a little toothpaste in his beard. Crockett looked at him and began to laugh. Stitch appeared offended.

“What?” he asked.

“Looks like you found some papers.”

“Oh. Ah, yeah, man. Shit. That’s some avalanche greenery, dude. I ain’t smoked nothin’ but my own homegrown for years, Crockett. That shit Clete brought is massive, man. Took about three tokes an’ it was morning, ya know? Fuck germ warfare. Blast a shitload a that across a battlefield and them guys that was tryin’ to kill one another would be giggling while they told each other about the meaning of life and was lookin’ for someplace to get Cheetos and Cherry Garcia ice cream.”

“You’re saying you approve?” Clete asked.

Stitch peered at him. “Sure.”

Clete cracked up.

“Want some biscuits and bacon?” Crockett asked.

“Got any jelly, man?”

“Yeah.”

“Peanut butter?”

“Yeah.”

“Gimme. Fuck the bacon.”

“You got some toothpaste or something in your beard.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“That’s probably what Danni was laughin’ at, man,” Stitch said, slathering peanut butter on a biscuit. “Chick was laughin’ at me when I fell out last night, an’ laughin’ at me when I came outa the john this mornin’, dude.”

“Heartless.”

“You got that right,” Stitch said, shoving half a biscuit in his mouth.

“Want some milk?” Crockett asked.

“Wahuh,” Stitch said.

 

 

It took three biscuits, nearly a quart of milk, and Danni’s arrival before Stitch seemed recovered. She grinned at him. “Man, were you ripped.”

“Me?”

“You were talkin’ about the Monitor and the Merrimack, for chrissakes!”

“I was?”

“Yeah. And cheesecake, and Starved Rock State Park, and why Dalmatian dogs can run all day, and a bunch of other shit.”

Stitch looked a little ruffled. “So?”

Danny smiled. “It was great. You were just cookin’. I loved it.”

“Cool,” Stitch said, standing up. “I’m gonna take a shower and truck on over to Leoni’s place to see if I can’t get this show on the road a little bit.” He looked at Clete. “You bring it?”

“I brought it.”

“Get it, willya?”

Clete was gone long enough for Crockett to pour Danni a cup of coffee and give her something to eat. When he returned, he slapped a box of ammo and an immense auto-loading pistol in a shoulder holster on the counter. The gun gleamed evil soft silver and dominated the entire area.

“Damn!” Danni said.

“There ya go,” Clete said. “Desert Eagle in fifty caliber Action Express. Brushed chrome, ten inch barrel, seven round capacity, effective range two hundred yards, and it weighs damn near five pounds. Don’t drop it on your foot.”

“Thanks, man. This’ll do just fine.”

“Jesus,” Crockett said. “That thing is huge! What the hell you want a Desert Eagle for?”

“I don’t, man. But, you want me to carry a gun, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“An’ ya gave a pissant Glock nine, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck a bunch a poodle shooters, Crockett. If I gotta go strapped, here’s the deal. Go big or go home, man. When time comes to dance, screw the Funky Chicken. I wanna Tango.”

With that, he hefted the weapon in question and walked out of the room.