A trick of surveillance is to sit in the back seat and-since the deputy was asleep-he didn’t notice me get out and make the shift to the rear.
The lot had four light poles, two on either side, and was rather under-illuminated, which helped me blend into the darkness of the back seat. I got comfortable. I’d made a run back to the motel and was now in black-black t- shirt, black jeans, black socks, black running shoes, even my fucking underwear was black. All it would have taken for full commando was some black smeared under my eyes, but I didn’t go overboard. Also, I couldn’t risk black gloves, because that would stand out in this summer weather, whereas the black attire could otherwise be just a fashion choice.
By four-forty-five, the lot had cleared out. Most of those heading for their cars were flat out staggering, and I was glad I wasn’t going to be out on the road with them where it was dangerous. Not that Deputy Fife paid the obvious drunks any heed. At least he’d woken up when a slamming car door had delivered him a wake-up call.
By five-fifteen, the deputy was gone and the lot had cleared out but for a dozen cars toward my end- employee cars-and waitresses and satin-vested security guys and other workers came staggering out, too, presumably not drunk, just night-shift beat. As these cars were pulling out, Monahan in his green Buick Regal glided in, and backed into the deputy’s now vacant space.
He didn’t glance my way-the employee cars were all down at this end, even Cornell’s (a navy-blue Corvette), so Monahan surely assumed the Sunbird was one of those. I was slouched in back, and I doubted he’d made me. He probably wouldn’t recognize the Sunbird, either-if he’d paid that much attention to me, he would either have bailed by now or dealt with me over at the Wheelhouse.
No, I wasn’t on the prick’s radar. I’d bet my life on it. Not a figure of a speech.
Pretty soon, if Richard Cornell was staying true to his pattern, he would be exiting the Paddlewheel and loping all the way across the lot to his Corvette, making long shadows as dawn presented itself. Monahan would hit the gas, work up some speed, and pretend to be heading for the exit down by the building, but would swerve and smack Cornell like a bug on a windshield. If this didn’t clearly kill Cornell, Monahan would back up and make sure a wheel crushed the mark’s head.
Then Monahan would be gone, headed somewhere to dump the vehicle.
But Cornell wouldn’t be coming out of that building, not any time soon, at least. And I knew that if I didn’t make my move soon-before it got suspicious that the Paddlewheel’s impresario wasn’t sticking to his pattern-then the Vehicular Homicide specialist would hightail.
This wasn’t a science. I could only predict so much. But Monahan wouldn’t be here if he’d checked in with his blond back-up man, or I should say tried to check in with him. As far as Monahan likely knew, the blond kid was somewhere over near that farmhouse, watching his partner’s back. My sense was that I was on top of this thing.
So I went into my act.
I played at waking up in the back seat, yawning and blinking and rubbing my face, like a drunk who’d crawled back there to sober up and had just come around, now that rosy-fingered dawn had slapped him awake.
I got out of the Sunbird’s back seat with all the subtlety of a street mime, making sure the nine millimeter Browning nudging my spine didn’t show. I came around as if to get in front, behind the wheel, then paused and looked right at Monahan, seated behind his own wheel, and squinted, and grinned, as if noticing an old, dear friend.
Staggering some, I headed right for him, not quickly; his window was down and his bland insurance salesman’s face was turned my way, the expression blank but the eyes tight with irritation and perhaps, yes, suspicion.
“My pool buddy!” I said, sloppily, holding out my arms and hands like Jolson singing “Mammy.” “Pal! You got a sec?”
He said, “What?” Seldom in the history of mankind has that word been uttered with less enthusiasm.
I leaned against his car like a drive-in waitress. “I tried to sleep it off, dude, but I am still drunker than shit. Can I hitch a ride to the motel? Pretty please?”
This was delivered in an imitation drunk fashion, not as broad as Foster Brooks, but I was pushing it.
He looked up at me coldly, then turned his face toward his windshield. He nodded toward the road. “I’m waiting for somebody. It’s not that far. You can-”
He was probably going to say, “Walk it,” but we’ll never know, because I reached a hand in behind his head and slammed his forehead into his steering wheel. It didn’t knock him out, much less kill him, but stunned him enough to give me time to take the nine millimeter out of my back waistband, gripped by the barrel, and swing it around like a hammer.
It was a good swing. The butt crushed bone like crisp fresh celery snapping and sank in deep enough to bring back blood and brains. He flopped onto the rider’s seat, which put him out of view except for me and maybe God, and was a good thing.
I leaned in the window and wiped the gun off on his green polo shirt, gore and prints, then opened his rear door and tossed the weapon on the floor.
Then I went back over to my Sunbird, got in and started it up, and backed it around so that the two cars made an L putting my tail as close as possible to his, which made for a quick transfer of the dead stiff (and the blond kid was very stiff now) from my trunk into his.
I moved my Sunbird back to where it had been, then (in black leather driving gloves now) returned to the Buick Regal and shoved Monahan’s corpse over to make room behind the wheel. Except for the smell of shit- Monahan had evacuated on dying, and I don’t mean escaped from the car-it went fairly slick. Maybe two and a half minutes had passed between my asking for a ride and my climbing behind his wheel.
After buckling up and getting all the windows down, to get some fucking air in and make the stench more tolerable, I pulled out and soon was on the old twolane highway along the river, which at this hour was deader than Monahan. The sun was still low when I pulled over where the curving road had just this little gravel apron where you could stop and get out and take in the beautiful Mississippi river view. I did this. The river was so orange with dawn, it was damn near red. I had a look at the drop-off into the trees that lined the riverbank-you couldn’t see the bottom. Must have been five, six hundred feet.
I stood there waiting and listening but nothing human or mechanical touched my ears-just nature sounds, birds and the rush of water and maybe a distant dog bark. I got in the Buick and drove it to where the front tires were almost over. Then I got out again, reached in and shoved the gear shift into drive and ducked back before the vehicle took me with it.
Then the Buick and Monahan and the blond kid in the trunk were flying faster than the motor was taking them. The first loud sounds were trees breaking up and leaves getting ripped apart but the explosion blotted that out, the balloon of orange and red and yellow jumping up above the trees, then immediately dissipating, which was good. I’d have hated to see all those trees go. There was another road down there, and with any luck some rural volunteer fire department would get there in time to help out Mother Nature. Monahan and the blond kid were past it.
I walked down the bluff to the little picnic area where I’d been told to wait, and it felt longer, but only four minutes had passed before the sporty little red Subaru stopped to pick me up.
I got in and looked over at the woman behind the wheel.
“I heard it,” Angela Dell said, looking pale and older in the early morning light. “My God, it sounded horrible.”
“It looked fine,” I said. “Take me to the motel. Want some breakfast?”
She had coffee. We were in the same rear booth where Monahan and the kid had schemed, yesterday, though she didn’t know that. The irony was mine alone to savor, but I wasn’t bothering, being more interested in the scrambled egg skillet and pancakes.
Back at the Paddlewheel, last night-or actually, this morning, but in the early pre-dawn hours-I’d asked Cornell if there was anyone he could trust.
We were still in his bachelor-pad office.
“I trust my wife,” he said.
“I mean somebody reliable who wouldn’t mind getting their hands a little messy-second-hand, but messy. I want to get rid of this guy, who’s coming to run you down, in a way that won’t come back on you.”
“What do you have in mind?”
