I was getting my courage up. And I was going to knock, but I heard rustling inside, like someone getting up and going to the bathroom. And then you could hear a stream of water, like someone using the toilet. These little campers offered not much in the way of privacy.
“Give them a minute.”
“Skip, this is embarrassing.” She backed off and stood about thirty feet from me. I can’t say I blamed her.
The noise stopped and for a moment there was just the crickets and the country music. Then there was a loud belch coming from inside the camper. I mean loud.
“My God, you can hear everything that goes on in these things.” Em was whispering from thirty feet away, but I could hear her. I hoped whoever was inside couldn’t.
I softly walked up to the wooden stoop and stepped up, cringing. In another few hours it wouldn’t bother me at all. It would be daylight, and everything would be fine. But in the middle of the night, it just didn’t feel right. In another few hours, who knew what would have happened to James.
I looked back and the darkness nearly covered Em. I could barely see her nodding her head in encouragement. I knocked lightly. There was no answer. I tapped again, just using my index finger on the door. Nothing.
I knew someone was inside, and there could be no question they heard me. So they chose not to answer. I wouldn’t either. How stupid to answer the door in the pitch-black of the nighttime. I glanced back one more time at Em. This time she’d disappeared into the gloom. There was nothing else to do but try again. Or give up before I got started.
I gave it one more try. A little louder this time. The songs switched and now Carrie Underwood was singing. “Save me from this road I’m on, Jesus take the wheel.” I thought about saying a little prayer right about then. I needed someone on my side and figured it couldn’t hurt. Just as I started to step down from the wooden platform, the door creaked open. The first thing I thought was that it desperately needed some oil. Slowly the door opened, the creaks giving a spooky sound and feel to the old camper. It was like an old horror movie.
I couldn’t make out the shadowy outline of the person behind the screened entrance. Whoever it was opened the door and started to exit. “Excuse me, I hate to bother you this early in the morning, but — ”
In the softest of whispers, the person interrupted. “Hey, pard. I was just coming to find you. Let’s get out of here.”
James carefully pulled the door closed and we stepped down to the ground.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
H e heated some coffee in the pot on the grill, and we sat on the edge of the truck bed, waiting for the sun to come up. Another hour, hour and a half. It had been another night with no bed, and in this case, no sleep. Em rocked back and forth next to me, and I’m sure she just kept repeating over and over to herself “what the hell did I get myself into?”
“I’m touched you guys were looking for me,” James was slurring his words, and my guess was that it was more from alcohol than lack of sleep.
“You’re touched, period.”
“Hey, Skip.” He was weaving a little and I hoped he didn’t fall off. “Amigo, Tonto, pard, I couldn’t just say ‘I’ve got to check in with my roommate.’ Come on, Dude. I’m a grown man.”
“I hear you.”
“Well, I may not feel like one all the time, like now maybe, but I can make my own choices.” He belched.
“Point taken.”
“James,” Em spoke up. “If Skip had been missing, if he hadn’t shown up in three or four hours under these conditions — under conditions where your lives had been threatened, where someone had taken a gun to the truck and stolen your money — ”
“What? Was your question?” There was no question. He was drunk.
“Would you have gone out looking for him? Wouldn’t you have been upset if he didn’t report in?”
He nodded for a while, and I got up and took the coffee pot off the grill. I poured some into his blue mug and handed it to him. I still don’t know if coffee actually sobers you up or if it just makes for a wide-awake drunk, but it seemed like a good idea. The only one I could think of.
James took a sip of the hot beverage and looked at Em. “Yes. To all of your inquiries.”
“What were you doing in that camper?” Em was back on the James conspiracy kick. I could tell by the tone of her voice. Maybe he was FBI. Maybe he’d been playing a game of charades this weekend.
“I have a perfectly logical explanation.”
We’d been quiet on the walk back to the truck. I was in shock, Em seemed furious, and James was drunk, so no one had much of anything to say.
“Let’s hear the explanation.” I couldn’t wait for this.
“Skip, I had an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I lost a couple bucks in the poker game, and — ”
“How much?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I owe them maybe seven hundred dollars.”
“What?” He was dangerous. “Honestly? Seven hundred?”
“Pardner, wait till you hear the rest of this. It gets better.”
It had to. He was blowing our profit margin. He’d spent all of the stake, and then gone in debt for another seven hundred.
“So we had a couple of beers after the game, Stan and Mug and I. Some of the guys went up to do their security duty, and then it was just me and Stan. And he gets out the hard stuff.”
“The hard stuff?”
“Your old buddy, Jack. Remember, you and Uncle Buzz? Stan brings out a bottle of Jack Daniels and pours me a glass. So we’re sipping Tennessee whiskey and he’s telling me about the business.” James glanced at Em, never picking up on her disdain. “Em, did you know these guys can net two or three hundred thousand dollars a year if they really work at it?”
I shook my head. “No, Em. We’re not thinking about it. It was just idle conversation. Seriously.”
“We’re having a great conversation, just the two of us, and Crayer comes running down to the pizza wagon.”
“Yeah. He was on security tonight.”
“Stan drops his cigar in the ashtray and tells me he’s got to go for a minute. He tells me he’ll meet me up by our truck, so I headed up that way. Pretty soon he comes back. He’s not very happy. I thought maybe it was you guys breaking into the office, but he doesn’t say anything.”
“Had to be what it was.”
“Well, then, he invites me to his trailer. Wants to know more about you and me, pard. Wants to know what makes us tick. If we have any side jobs that we do. Then he wants to know why you asked so many questions. And he keeps digging.”
“And what are you telling him?”
“First of all, I’m figuring out that he drinks too much. Jesus, he polished off half the fifth by himself. And he’s the one starting to get tanked. I didn’t tell him much of anything. He asks if we ever worked for the government. Can you imagine? The government? He wants to know why we decided to work this weekend for Cash. He calls him Cash, like they’re old buddies.”
“And you told him.”
“I did. There was nothing to hide.”
“And what else?”
“Now get this. I start asking him about the full-timers. I’m thinking here, pard. I figure that if he’s getting a little sloppy, I need to take advantage of it. I asked him, just like you told me to, if he knew who shot my tires out.”
