Crow's Landing (18 page)

The woman at the front desk knew him by name and he should have remembered hers, but he didn't. She was tall and had red hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Apparently she was
the one who left the message, which meant Hoffman didn't have to explain to her why he was there. He wanted to be in and out, quick as possible.

“Any idea how long this takes to kick in?” he asked her when she handed over the papers. He was thinking now that he might leave town sooner rather than later. Maybe even this week. After his business with the Russian was done, why wait around for things to go sour? There was no reason that they should, but then that's usually when they did.

“Not really,” she said. “I was just told to get your signature.”

They were little yellow Post-its on the pages showing Hoffman where to sign and he went through them with the pen as he talked. “I might need to know how to get in touch with a change of address,” he said. He glanced up from his signing. “Thinking about downsizing, selling my house. Who would I call about that?”

“If you want to wait, I can check,” the woman said.

“No,” Hoffman said. “Could you leave it on my machine at home?”

“Sure.”

Hoffman signed the last sheet and pushed the papers across the desk.

“Oh, there was somebody here looking for you yesterday,” the woman said as he turned to go.

He stopped. “Who?”

“Some woman. Wouldn't give her name.”

“What'd she look like?”

“You know, one of those tough girls. Tats, short blond hair. Somewhere around thirty, thirty-five.”

“What did she want?” Hoffman asked.

“She wouldn't say that either. She didn't want to talk to anybody but you.”

Hoffman stood, thinking for a while. She was getting around. At least this time she hadn't cut anybody's ear off.

“She leave a contact number?” he asked.

“No. I told her you were taking your pension and she left.”

“You told her that?”

“Yeah.”

Great, Hoffman thought. Didn't anybody know how to keep their mouth shut?

“Okay,” he lied. “I know who it was now. Some little snitch always trying to sell me useless information.”

He walked outside onto the sidewalk, where he lit a cigarette and glanced around nervously. He wondered if she was in the area. Maybe she was sitting in her car along Grand Street, watching him this minute. What the fuck did she want? She had a lot of nerve, chasing down a metro detective. At the station yet. She could go back to jail for what she did to Brownie, but apparently she'd known that Brownie wouldn't be reporting her. If she knew Brownie wasn't straight, then she would have figured out the same about Hoffman, especially after she found out that Hoffman had suddenly retired. But what was her angle? Was she working for Parson, or was she on her own this time, looking to score? She probably figured the cylinder owed her something after doing the stretch in prison.

What Hoffman did know was that the quicker he pawned the dope off on the Russian cowboy, the better. If the little bitch got in his way before that, she was going to regret it. Hoffman wasn't Brownie, getting caught with his guard down. It was a pretty good bet that he'd been drunk when the woman found him. It would be a different story if she came after Hoffman; he would shoot her in the fucking face. Nobody had invited her to the party.

 * * *

The guy from Rochester showed up at five thirty to look at the Corvette and twenty minutes later, after taking it for a drive, he offered Parson $55,000 for the car. Since it was fifteen grand less than the asking price, Parson thanked him for stopping by and wished him a nice drive home. They settled ten minutes later for $68,000. The man had a cashier's check for the fifty-five—in case he got lucky on the first offer, Parson assumed—and he paid the remainder in cash from a wad of new hundreds he'd brought along as backup. They did the paperwork at Parson's desk and then had a shot of Woodland Reserve to seal the deal. The man said he would be back in the morning, with his own plates, to pick up the car, and left.

When he was gone Parson began to tear down the Hemi from the 'Cuda convertible he bought at the auction. After draining the oil and removing the pan and pump, he rotated the engine on the stand and removed the dual carbs, the intake manifold, and the heads. There was almost no ring ridge on the cylinders, meaning that the mileage showing on the odometer was probably genuine. After pulling the crankshaft and the pistons, he wiped down his tools, put them away, and decided to call it a day.

He was sitting at his desk, in front of his laptop, drinking another bourbon while he watched one of his cars close on eBay when Cherry walked in. Parson indicated the bottle and Cherry poured himself a shot. He was acting a little nervous but Parson knew that he got that way from time to time, especially back when he'd been heavily into the steroids. Parson suspected he still cycled from time to time.

Cherry angled his chair so he could see the computer screen. It was the Jaguar roadster and the bidding had eight
minutes left. The current bid was at $41,000 and it had cleared the reserve.

“What's she been up to?” Parson asked, watching the screen.

Cherry shrugged. “After she left here she went home. Went to work the next day. I drove by the site at noon.”

“What does she do at night?”

“Not much, looks of it. Her truck's always outside her place.”

Parson logged onto the site, entered one of his alternate membership names—NYC03—and upped the bid a thousand dollars. “Where's she living?” he asked.

“Arbor Hill, crummy apartment building on Clinton,” Cherry said. He indicated the laptop. “You're going to scare that boy off.”

Parson sat watching the screen. “Nah, he's got the hook in him.” He clicked on the bid history to get the name. “MIKEY42 has got the fever.”

The bid went up another thousand. Six minutes left. Parson waited thirty seconds and bid again.

“She got a man?” Parson asked.

“Not that I've seen,” Cherry said, still watching the screen. “One of these times he's not going to bite. Then what?”

“Then I've bought my own car. I'll wait a couple of weeks and relist, claim that NYC03 is a deadbeat buyer. No harm, no foul. But this guy isn't going anywhere.”

“Doesn't mean that he'll overpay.”

“He will though. If he was sitting here with us, the car parked across the room, he probably wouldn't. But this Internet buying is a drug.” The bid went up another grand. “See—it turns into a pissing contest.
Mano a mano.
MIKEY42 doesn't want to get his ass kicked by NYC03.” Parson bid again and
it bounced right back. “Boy's ego just cost him another two grand.”

In the end, the Jag sold for $48,000. Parson exited the site and poured more bourbon for himself.

“What about a kid?” he asked.

“What?”

“Does Dusty have a kid?”

“Yeah. I thought I told you that.”

“I would have remembered,” Parson assured him. “How old?”

“Shit, I don't know. Little fucker. She leaves him at some day camp on Lark.”

Parson was quiet for a time. “What's he look like?”

“He looks like a little kid. I've only seen him from a couple of blocks away.”

Parson left it alone then, sat nursing his drink.

“I don't trust her,” Cherry said.

“Dusty?” Parson said. “No, she's okay. She might hate me but she would never roll over. She was going to do that, she would have done it when she was looking at time. You can bet they offered her a deal back then. She wants nothing to do with this and that's why she'll come through. To get herself clear.” Parson glanced over at Cherry. “Especially if she's got a kid.”

“She wants out of it, let her go. I'll take Hoffman out myself. Pop him and take the dope and that's it.”

“Sure.” Parson reached for the bottle. “By the way, where is it?”

“The dope?”

“Yeah.”

Cherry shook his head. “I got no idea.”

“There you go. Pop Hoffman and we might never find it.
Dusty'll find it because she believes she
has
to find it. And when she does, we'll make it straight with Mr. Hoffman. I hope he's taking good care of my inventory. It won't go well for him if he isn't.” Parson laughed as he thought about it. “Actually, it's not going to go all that well for him either way.”

“That happens, I think we should eliminate Dusty too,” Cherry said. “Why leave her walking around? It's loose ends, Parson, and you don't leave loose ends. You never have.”

Parson turned an eye on Cherry. “No. Dusty gets a pass. I told you—she's straight up. Maybe she hates me, but keep in mind she has good reason to. She gets a pass, Cherry.”

Cherry fell silent as he finished his drink. A few minutes later, he got up to leave, saying he had something to do. Parson stood and watched him drive away, then he sat down and logged back online. Maybe he'd find a bargain out there tonight.

Virgil had put the number in his pocket before leaving for the hospital and since then he had gone back and forth in his mind about calling her. There was no question that his arm was broken, but he'd left home thinking that he could go into emergency, have a cast put on, get a scrip for some painkillers, and be back home by midnight or so. It hadn't worked out that way. The doctor on duty had taken one look at the X-ray and told Virgil he was going to need surgery, and probably a rod inserted in his arm to keep the bone in place while it healed. That wouldn't happen until the next day so they stitched together the cut in his scalp and admitted him, loading him up with Demerol for the night. The doctor who did the stitching, an attractive young woman named Stone, asked how he injured the arm and when Virgil told her he fell out of the hay mow she shook her head in disgusted dismissal and walked away. Virgil got the impression she'd been lied to before.

He had surgery at nine the next morning and an hour or so after his head cleared from the anesthesia he called the woman named Dusty on the phone in his room. He had decided against it at one point, thinking he didn't want to involve her any further, but he was worried that she was already in deeper than she knew. After all, they had shown up at his place looking for
her.

Her cell rang once and went to voice mail. That was fine by
Virgil; he could give her the bare bones of the thing and avoid going into detail. He left a short message, telling her that the three men had paid him a visit and advising her to be on the watch. He hoped his tone would convince her that these guys meant business, but at the same time he didn't want to scare her too much. Virgil didn't think she scared all that easily anyway. He didn't mention the fight, or the fact that he was in the hospital with a broken arm. The information wasn't going to do her any good.

The surgeon came in around four o'clock in the afternoon to check on him. Dr. Stone was with him. After the surgeon examined the arm and left, she told Virgil he could probably go home the next day. What she didn't know was that Virgil had a herd of orphan horses and three dozen head of beef cattle that needed tending. Not to mention another fifteen acres of wheat to come off. When she left, Virgil got out of bed and found his clothes in a locker and got dressed. He was sharing the room with a kid of about ten or eleven who'd had his appendix removed the day before. The kid watched as Virgil tossed the gown on the bed.

“You can't leave,” the kid said. “The doctor said.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. Like, five minutes ago.”

There was a tray of food beside the bed, which Virgil hadn't touched. “I'll give you my pudding,” he told the kid.

“That stuff is crap,” the kid said.

“Why do you think I'm leaving?”

Nobody bothered him as he made his way to the elevator and down to the ground floor and out the rear entrance to the parking lot. From forty yards away, he could see his truck had a ticket on the windshield. He'd only figured on being there a couple of hours. Beside his pickup was a dark
blue F150, the same one he'd seen at his farm a couple of days earlier.

Dusty was behind the wheel, watching him walk across the lot. When he got close, she climbed out and stood there looking at him. She was wearing jeans and work boots and a faded green tank top. He watched her taking him in, the cast on his arm, his right eye swollen half shut, the stitches in his scalp.

“Aren't you pretty?” she said.

“I've been prettier.”

“I would hope so.”

“How'd you know I was here?”

She pulled her phone from her pocket, flipped it open and shut. “Call display, dude. You called from the hospital and your truck's in the lot.”

“So you really are a detective.”

“You didn't mention that you got the shit kicked out of you,” Dusty said.

“Must have slipped my mind.”

“Right. What did you do to piss them off?”

Virgil shook his head, dismissing the question, and walked over to pick the ticket from his windshield. Thirty dollars.

“I asked you a question,” she said, standing behind him.

He turned. “You want to get something to eat?” he asked. “I couldn't warm up to that hospital food.”

She hesitated a moment. “I'll drive,” she said.

They went to a takeout place called Ben's Best Burgers a couple of blocks away. Dusty called it the Triple B, and vouched for the food. They both got burgers and fries, root beer for Dusty and water for Virgil. They ate in her truck.

“So three guys?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “The phony cop who stole my boat,
and a big galoot in a cowboy hat. Had a thick accent, Russian or something close. And a skinny black guy, wasted-looking. The phony cop called him Scoop or Snoop, something like that. But he was just a bystander. He did you a favor though; they were searching the place and I saw him hide your phone number.”