CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next morning I decided to drive down South Main Street to the Burger King at the edge of town to get a couple of sausage biscuits to eat at my desk. On my way back, I passed the Caravan and saw Sheila in front of the building wrestling with a guy twice her size. Muttering imprecations about the needless complexities of life, I wheeled into the parking lot and climbed out of my cruiser after first slipping a fifteen-inch lead-filled slapjack into the back of my Wranglers.

As I drew closer I could see that her tormentor was about forty or a couple of years younger. He was bulked up like a bodybuilder and had a narrow head on a big body, black hair, and a face that reminded me of a sink full of dirty dishes. Dressed in the same sort of trendy nylon wind suit Peet had sported, his eyes were glazed and pinpoint, and he held Sheila’s left forearm in one huge hand with a viselike grip.

“Turn her loose and back off,” I ordered.

He looked at me and smirked, but he didn’t give up his hold on Sheila’s arm. Bad move on his part. He made another unwise decision when he concluded that a little debate was in order. “Who the hell are you, country boy?” he asked.

I decided to show him who I was. There’s no point in arguing with somebody stupid enough or hopped-up enough to contest a lawman’s point of view in such a situation. At least not in my part of the world. I reached behind me and grabbed the slapjack and brought it around in one smooth motion. His right hand was busy holding Sheila, but his big, thick left arm was available in all its bulging glory, his elbow sticking out in virtual invitation. And that’s where I got him.

It must have hurt something fierce. It took him a full second to react, but when he did his eyes bugged out a little and his mouth made a silent O. He let go of Sheila and reached for his elbow, but by that time I’d lost interest in any voluntary cooperation he might have been willing to offer. My second blow was a truly vicious roundhouse backhand that caught him just behind his right ear and brought him to the ground.

“God, Bo!” Sheila said.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, but gee … I’ve never seen you do anything like that before.”

I grinned at her. “You had Uncle Bo pegged as the teddy-bear type, huh?”

“Not anymore I don’t.”

By then muscle boy was on all fours trying to get to his feet. I put my knee into the center of his back and came down with all my weight, driving him down on his belly. He tried to resist when I started pulling his arms around behind him to get the cuffs on, but another middling hard lick with the slapjack took all the fight out of him, and I had him trussed up in a matter of seconds.

“What’s this all about?” I asked Sheila once I got to my feet.

“I asked him for an interview,” she said. “That’s all. But then I noticed that he’s high on something, and I tried to back away. When I did, he grabbed me.”

I was puzzled. “But why would you want to interview him?”

“That murder-for-hire trial down in Beaumont last year that got so much press. He was the defendant.”

“I seem to remember something—”

“That’s Big Paul Arno, Bo. His picture was on the front page of every newspaper in the state. He’s wired in with the Mafia down in New Orleans.”

*   *   *

As I said, needless complexities. I figured Arno matched up with the dark blue Cadillac with Louisiana tags that sat parked beside the Caravan. I called for assistance. After two of my day-shift deputies arrived I instructed them to impound it and give it a thorough search.

We still maintained a pair of holding cells in the basement of the courthouse, and that’s where I jugged Arno for the time being. I also insisted that Sheila come down and sign an assault complaint. About the time I finished the paperwork, a phone call told me that the search had turned up a loaded nine-millimeter pistol and a small glass vial of white powder.

“That pistol isn’t a CZ by any chance, is it?” I asked.

“Nope, it’s a SIG Sauer. One of the fancy ones.”

I told them to bring the gun and the vial to the office and log them in as evidence. When they arrived I tasted the contents of the vial, an experiment that left no doubt in my mind that it contained cocaine, but it would have to go to the DPS lab for expert confirmation. I also told them to take Arno out to the new jail and book him on assault and possession.

“Why did you broach that guy in the first place?” I asked Sheila.

“I’m a reporter, Bo. That’s what I do. Besides, hoods usually won’t manhandle the press like that. It doesn’t pay for them in the long run.”

I had her sign the complaint, then told her to go on about her business.

“Okay,” she said. “But I think you owe me an explanation. Could this guy somehow be connected to the Twiller killing?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But come by the house tonight and I’ll fill you in on what I find out about him.”

“Sure,” she said and smiled and scampered off to do Sheila things. I was about to call Muldoon and Hotchkiss when Maylene told me Tom Waller was on the phone.

“Bad news,” I heard him say as soon as I lifted the receiver.

“Let’s hear it.”

“The appeals court overruled Judge MacGregor’s denial of bail on Raynes.”

“What? Why?”

“They said that bail cannot be denied in noncapital cases unless there is what they called ‘compelling evidence’ that the defendant is a flight risk. Actually, Judge Fox said that and managed to get the other idiot on the court to agree with him. See, Fox hates MacGregor and loves to reverse him, so…”

“If that kid’s not a flight risk I don’t know who would be,” I said.

“He’s less of one since he’s been promised a job clerking in one of our well-established local businesses. That was one of Holbrook’s big selling points.”

“Which is Zorn’s liquor store, I suppose.”

“Correct. How did you ever guess?

I snorted. “How did Holbrook manage to get a hearing so quick?”

“He knows where all the bodies are buried, Bo.”

“He’s still got to come up with the money,” I said.

“Not so. An outfit named Coastal Bail Bonds signed on for the full amount. The kid will be out by noon.”

We hung up, and I called Muldoon and Hotchkiss. Muldoon didn’t answer but Hotchkiss was only five minutes away, and he was familiar with Sheila’s assailant.

*   *   *

“So what’s the story on this Arno character?” I asked after he got situated in front of my desk with a cup of fresh coffee and a few of Maylene’s homemade cookies.

“They call him Big Paul, and he’s an authentic bad guy.”

“Sheila mentioned the New Orleans mob. Is he part of Scorpino’s old outfit?”

“Yes and no. He’s not actually a made guy and can’t be because he’s not Sicilian. His ancestors came from up around Ravenna.”

“I thought they’d quit being so particular.”

“Not in the Big Easy. Scorpino was old-fashioned, and his heirs stick to the rule out of respect for him. But Arno is the next thing to being made. He freelances and can ignore some of the rules. Plus he doesn’t have to kick as much of his income upstairs to the boss.”

“Could Sipes have hired him?” I asked.

“It’s not very likely since he has his own crew of cowboy thugs that came out of the rodeo circuit with him, and he trusts them more than he would any mob-connected guy. But we know that Arno has done some freelance strong-arm work in the past for Sipes’s suppliers down in South America. Urging people to come around to their point of view and so forth. With that deal down in Beaumont he got a little too energetic and the fellow wound up dead.”

“I see,” I said. “But why do you think they’d be interested in Sequoya?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they’re concerned about a possible leak in their pipeline.”

I pondered for a few seconds, then shook my head. “It sounds more likely that they were fronting the stuff to Sipes and he still owes them for it. I mean, you’ve assumed he’s an independent, but he may just be a cog in the machine.”

“I guess that’s possible.”

“I was going to question Arno and get nowhere,” I said. “Maybe you’d like to do the honors instead.”

“Hell yes, I would.”

“My deputies should be taking him out to the jail right about now. Go on out there and tell him that he’s looking at a long stretch of hard time if that vial tests positive. Clue him in on what kind of time East Texas juries are handing out for cocaine possession these days. Then tell him I’ll give him a pass if he tells us why he’s up here and who he’s working for.”

“Have you talked to the DA about that?” he asked.

“No, but he’ll go along with it.”

“Okay, but don’t expect Arno to buy it. That code of silence, you know. Plus boundless confidence in the power of lawyers.”

“I realize that,” I said. “Now back in the old days—”

“Yes?” he said with a grin.

“A man like Arno?” I said and laughed. “John Nightwalker would have put a well bucket on his head and whipped it with a piece of chain until he was ready to cop to being Judas Iscariot.”

Maylene came in and laid a note on my desk. I’d asked her to check the town’s motels, and she’d discovered that Arno had been registered at the Eight Ball on South Main since noon the day after Amanda Twiller was killed. I pushed the note across to Hotchkiss. He read it and raised his eyebrows. “Do you make him for this?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We know her body was transported in Doyle Raynes’s car, and I don’t see a pro like Arno working with a fool kid like Doyle.”

“Maybe he did the hit, and Raynes and somebody else moved the body.”

“Could be, I suppose,” I said. “Stranger things have happened.”

“I’d like to sign his gun out and shoot it so I can run one of its bullets through our computer.”

“Sure. There’s a firing tube and a bullet trap out at the new jail.”

He nodded and just then his cell phone rang. After about thirty seconds of listening and whispering, he put it back in his pocket and laughed.

“What?” I asked.

“Lester Sipes has booked the biggest suite in the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogdoches, and he’s supposed to arrive there in the early afternoon.”

“Do you think he might be hunting his lost merchandise?”

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” he said.

“I don’t suppose you would have any objections if I paid him a little visit this afternoon at the hotel?”

“Rattle his cage all you want. Just let me know in the unlikely event that you learn something.”

“Sure,” I said. I sat and ruminated for a while as Hotchkiss sipped the last of his coffee and finished off his cookies. “I don’t know that much about big-city mobsters, but I didn’t think they molested straight citizens in public like this guy was doing with Sheila. At least not without a real reason. And I thought they generally went peacefully when arrest time rolled around.”

“They’re just thugs and bullies in spite of all the crap you see on TV and in the movies about respect and honor. But it is true that Arno is more of a loose cannon than most of those guys. For one thing, he’s gotten strung out on coke in the last year or so. In the old days that would have been an automatic death sentence, and I think that they probably would have whacked him years ago except that he’s so good at what he does.”

“Which is murder, I guess.”

“Yeah, and he can do it in such a way as to make detection almost impossible.”

“One other thing is on my mind,” I said. “The day Amanda Twiller was killed, you and Muldoon told me this was a sideline case with the two of you. You seem to be devoting a lot of time to it. What gives?”

“Since your talk with Mack Reynolds the other night I’ve been assigned to Sipes and what he calls ‘related matters’ here in Sequoya full-time. Mack says I can profit from your experience and he wants me to work closely with you.”

“Well, maybe I can profit from yours too,” I said and quickly told him about Harvey Holbrook and Doyle Raynes’s bond. “Could you check on this Coastal Bail Bonds outfit and see who’s behind it?”

His eyes were hard and bright and his smile cold. “I don’t need to check. I know the story on it.”

“Which is?”

“It’s backed by Sipes’s Kemah bank. In fact, my guess is he owns the damn thing.”