A Song to Die For (21 page)

The place he chose could scarcely have been more perfect for his purposes. Located on the same cove where he had fired his parting shots at Rosa, within view of The Crew's Inn, it came fully furnished and included its own fishing boat and dock on the lake. He had made the arrangements on the phone, paying with a credit card featuring a fake name and a Wisconsin address. He didn't have to meet the owner of the place, or any employees of the property management company that handled the rental, so no one got a look at him. They left the key in the mailbox for him.

The place wasn't cheap, but Franco gladly rented it for three weeks, hoping this chapter in his clandestine career would be closed by then. He had gotten settled in a couple days ago, hiding his Shelby GT with Nevada plates in the garage after dark. This morning, the rental car company left a sedan in the driveway, so he could drive around freely, casing the lakeside neighborhoods, looking for that classic wooden boat. He had also jogged up and down just about every street in Sunset Shores, turning up no evidence of the woody.

From the second story of his rental house, he could also watch the boat ramp beside The Crew's Inn through the sliding glass door that opened out onto the deck. This morning, while drinking his coffee, he spotted two guys—clearly cops—launching a boat. A tall, older white guy and a young, athletic black guy. Only the law would throw such an unlikely pair together here in the middle of redneck Texas.

Watching through his binoculars, Franco thought he recognized the black kid as a fed from the Las Vegas office, an underling fresh out of the academy, named Doolittle. He figured the white guy for a sheriff, a deputy, or maybe even a Texas Ranger. He wore a cowboy hat. The two were posing as fishermen. Franco had to give them some credit. They did actually catch some fish. Then they looked over the underwater boating hazard that had led to Rosa's timely demise, and headed on out to the open part of the lake.

Later, when the news van from KXAN-TV in Austin showed up, Franco knew without a doubt the two fishermen were really cops. They returned before sunset to find the reporter and the cameraman waiting on them. The tall cowboy granted them a brief interview, before the two cops trailered their boat and left. Franco looked forward to seeing that interview tonight on TV. The rental house included a tall antenna that could pick up all three Austin stations, though the picture was a bit fuzzy.

This was what Franco had been waiting for. Now that the authorities had looked around on the lake, it was his turn. He hadn't wanted to stumble on to any lawmen while he was out there, especially one like Doolittle, who might recognize him. It was indeed a good thing he had waited them out. Now he was ready to launch his rented boat, first thing in the morning, and do some snooping around, looking for that antique wooden vessel with the inboard motor. It was probably damaged, and might even have sunk. He wondered if the two odd-couple cops had found it already.

The thought made him nervous. What if they found the guy who owned the boat and got him to talk? What if the guy could identify him as the shooter on the dock? Imagine making that call to Papa.
Hey, Pop, we're screwed.
The thought made him shudder. He couldn't see the case sticking in court on one guy's testimony, but sometimes when one guy talked, everybody started cutting deals and talking. Franco was not afraid of jail time. The syndicate had a strong organization on the inside. But the idea of wasting all those years in prison did not appeal to him. He
had
to find the schmuck first, and make sure the poor slob would never, ever utter so much as a syllable about what had happened that night.

The phone rang, startling him, even though he had been expecting a call. “Yeah,” he said, picking up the phone.

“Yo, Franco. This is Jake. Jake Harbaugh.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“A phone booth. It's safe.”

“Don't ever say my name on the phone, you stupid shit!”

“Sorry, Franco. I mean … Sorry … I forgot.”

“Yeah, you forget a lot, don't you? Did you forget to take the rugby photo off your freakin' office wall?”

“It's gone now.”

“Too late.”

“The damage has been contained. She's gone, right? Every record of her being in my office or at the station has been destroyed. The surveillance videos have been erased. Nobody here is gonna talk. Everybody knows the score.”

“Your score is zero with me, you stupid puke. You better pray I don't get busted over this.”

“I've been busting my balls to make everything right. It's all okay here now. I talked to your pop today. He told me to call you at this number, so I'm calling. What more can I do for you?”

“You can blow your freakin' brains out, and save me the trouble.”

“Come on, Franco. Seriously. Let me know what I can do.”

“Don't say my name! Jesus, you're dumb.”

“Sorry. I'm just … Okay … What can I do?”

Franco growled and looked out over the lake, its surface glittering under the moon now. “What do you know about fishing?”

“What kind of fishing?”

“I don't know! Catching stupid fish! I'm on a lake in Texas.”

“You after bass or catfish?”

“It doesn't matter, idiot. Do you know how to catch the bastards?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“All right, drive your ass to Lake L.B.J., west of Austin. Leave now. Call me when you get close.”

“Oh, man, I can't just get off work, just like that, you know.”

“Hey, stupid. You got two choices. Get your ass down here, or bend over and kiss your ass good-bye.”

Harbaugh sighed heavily into the phone.
“All right, I'll be there.”

“One of Pop's boys will drop off a briefcase for you to bring with you. Some shit I need.”

“All right, I'll bring it.”

Franco hung the phone up and cracked his knuckles. He walked down the stairs and went to the garage. The washing machine was kicking into the spin cycle as he entered the garage. Inside the closed garage, he opened the trunk of the Shelby and took stock of what he had to work with. He had a .22 with a silencer, like the one he had discarded in the lake in Austin. He also had a .32, a .45, and a .357. All were semiautomatics. He lay them out on a workbench in the garage and checked the action of each. He inventoried his ammunition for each weapon. He had enough rounds for a protracted siege.

Next, he looked over his cache of fake ID's, falsified police credentials, and credit cards. He chose a new credit card and put it into his wallet. He took the credit card he had been using the past few days out of his wallet and placed it on the workbench, beside the ammunition. He counted his cash: a couple grand and some change.

The washing machine quit whirring and rumbling, so he took the clothes he had bought yesterday out of the washer and put them into the dryer—some jeans and shirts, boxers and socks. He was determined to wash the “new” out of them before he wore them. He went back into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of some mediocre California merlot—all he could procure at the liquor store outside of Austin. He yearned for some decent Tuscan grape. He went to the living room, sat in a Naugahyde La-Z-Boy recliner, and thought about the problem at hand.

What had he left undone? What else should he be doing? A thought had begun to creep through his mind. Why sit here and wait for the cops to find something? That was driving him crazy. There had to be something else he could do. He thought of a tactic he had used many times before. Give the cops something else to think about. A false lead. The morons were always easily confused and led astray. Even the smart cops.

He knew one way to do it in this case. It was almost unthinkable, even for Franco, but he knew how to take the heat off the family. What if … He shook his head, smiling, and took another sip of merlot. Just thinking, hypothetically … What if another young sorority babe should get whacked? Just pick one, at random—one who had no connection with Rosa or Celinda. That would throw a wrench into the investigation. The press would eat it up. Some stalker, some nutcase, was killing sorority bitches. It had nothing to do with Rosa's reputed crime family. Hell, the prime suspect would be the guy who owned the antique boat!

Franco chuckled a little. He shook his head. No … He couldn't … That was just too outrageous.

He decided to wait for Harbaugh to arrive and follow the plan he had already made with Papa Martini. That one made more sense. The irony of the situation struck him. How could a guy like Harbaugh, who knew so little, know too much? One thing Franco knew for sure. He had never heard a corpse sing.

 

19

CHAPTER

Creed had flushed the fuel tank out with some solvent, and siphoned it dry. Now he was finishing the task of filling it with 130 gallons of diesel, which he had to hand-pump from 55-gallon drums. Next, he managed to jack up the rear axles, one at a time, high enough to get new tires on. The boys in Junior's shop were having a slow day, so they installed the new rubber on the rims for him, and balanced them all.

While all this work was going on, a shop heater had been blowing hot air on the engine block. Creed hoped the warm metal would help fire the slow-burning diesel fuel. He had learned long ago that sometimes you had to baby these old clunkers to get them to start, especially after sitting for a while.

“You fixin' to crank this thing?” Junior asked, taking a break from his office chores.

“I hope.”

“Combat engineer, huh? Good luck.”

Creed was really hoping to get this thing running before this afternoon's rehearsal, so he would have some encouraging news to report to Luster and the band.

As he wiped the bulk of the grease from his hands onto a shop rag, he noticed Luster barreling up to the bus yard in his Ford pickup. The Cadillac was gone—sold at auction. Somehow the F-100 Ranger suited him better, anyway. Luster parked beside the bus and turned off the Ford's motor, but left the door open and the music blaring from the dashboard speaker. It was one of his old classic tunes, “Oh, Delilah.”

Creed thought it odd that Luster would drive around listening to himself. He knew the man was jokingly egotistical, but this seemed a little much. Maybe he was trying to refresh his memory on some nuance of the vocal.

“You're just in time for the test-fire,” Creed announced, as Luster walked up.

“Good! We're gonna need the bus tonight. We got a gig.”

“Tonight? I don't know, Boss. Even if it starts, it's still a mess inside.”

“Aw, it'll start. And I left a note on the rehearsal stage in the barn, telling the band that if they want to ride in style to the gig tonight, they'd better get their asses over here and clean up the bus you've been busting your butt to fix for 'em.”

Creed was thinking he needed to go home to the boathouse, shower, get dressed, and change strings on his Strat. Then, he'd still have to go to the rehearsal barn to load up amps. “Where's the gig?” He hoped it wasn't a hundred miles away. He was beginning to learn that you never knew with Luster.

“You know Bud's Place, out west of town?”

“Yeah, sure. Played there a couple of times,” Creed said, the image of the good old-fashioned honky-tonk beer joint coming to mind. Not the best PA in the world, but he could make it work.

“Well, I called Bud and told him the band needed a practice gig. He canceled whatever band he had scheduled tonight, and told us to come on.”

“All right.” He stuffed the grease rag in his pocket. “Kind of short notice. Wish we had done some publicity.”

Luster laughed. “Don't you think I thought of that? Listen…” He jutted his thumb over his shoulder, toward his own song blaring from the open door of the Ford.

Creed shrugged. “You got an eight-track player in there?”

“Hell, no! That's KVET, the Tom Denny show. Bud's fixin' to go live on the air.”

“Holy crap,” Creed said. KVET was the hottest country radio station in Central Texas. Tom Denny was the drive-time deejay, and the most-listened-to radio personality in town. He was a bigger local celebrity than that gorgeous blonde who did the weather on channel seven. Creed heard the song fade, then recognized Tom Denny's distinctive voice:

“Folks, that's a classic from Luster Burnett, and have I got a news flash for you. After more than fifteen years of obscurity, the great Luster Burnett is coming out of retirement, and he's playing a show tonight in our own backyard. To tell us more about it, I've got Bud Frazier right here on the phone, live from Bud's Place on Seventy-One West.”

“Am I on? Tom? Are we live?”

“Yeah, Bud, you are live on the air, so watch your language!”

“They're gonna be swamped,” Creed said, a grin stretching across one side of his jaw. “I hope Bud called for another truckload of beer.”

“Shh!” Luster hissed.

“… and he's got a hell of a—I mean, heck of a band together with some of the best pickers in Texas, and therefore the world…”

Creed heard his own name along with the others in the band, impressed that Luster had seen fit to get all the band members' names mentioned. “Do you know how valuable this airtime is?” Creed asked. “I mean, if you had to buy an ad?”

“Listen!” Luster ordered.

“…
so come on out early to get a seat. I don't know when the hell they're gonna, I mean, the heck they're gonna start, but it ought to be the show of the year!”

“Folks, that was Bud Frazier of Bud's Place, live on the phone, and you heard it right here first. The legendary Luster Burnett is coming out of retirement tonight! Now, if I'm not mistaken, the guitar player, Creed Mason, is the same Creed from the one-hit-wonder band called Dixie Creed that launched the career of superstar Dixie Houston. So, let's listen to Dixie's latest number one smash hit, right here on KVET, ninety-nine point nine!”