Hog Heaven (19 page)

A dollar didn’t go as far as it used to. Red dug around and came out with a five, but the kid said, “Look, I’m not taking a bribe. I could lose my job. I’m the interim assistant day manager.”

“Whoop-de-doo,” Red said, because by now it was apparent that the kid wasn’t going to cooperate. “I think that’s how Donald Trump got his start.”

“It sure wasn’t by taking dollar bribes from rednecks.”

Red hadn’t been able to think of a good comeback, so he’d snatched his money off the counter and left.

Now, as he drove through Johnson City for the umpteenth time, he said, “He could be staying in Blanco. We haven’t even checked there yet. All the motels are full up here, so maybe he’s staying down there.”

Red didn’t really want to drive the fourteen miles to Blanco and start the search all over again, but Billy Don was set on finding the guy, and if that’s what it was going to take before they could start hunting the pig again, Red was resigned to getting it done as quickly as possible.

“Don’t forget Dripping Springs,” Billy Don said. “Marble Falls. Wimberley.”

Jesus. They could be chasing this jerk for days.

Dexter Crabtree was still in a fairly deep mental fog when he called the Wal-Mart in Marble Falls for the second time. Had to deal with the damn automated menu again, but he finally got a real person. A woman who sounded like she was chewing food while she talked. She said Vera Spillar wasn’t working this morning. Great.
Does she work this afternoon?
The woman didn’t know.

Dexter hung up and swiveled—slowly, so as to avoid vertigo—toward his computer. Lot of people nowadays didn’t have a landline, preferring a cell phone only. But he got lucky and found a listing for her in one of the online directories.

He dialed.

She answered after three rings. His name had obviously popped up on Caller ID, because she said, “Isn’t this kind of stupid, calling me at home?”

Well, shit. She was right. That’s how out of it he was. Big mistake. He blamed it on the fact that he was still reeling from the blow to his head yesterday when he’d hit the pavement. The ER doctor hadn’t wanted to let him leave, saying he might have a concussion, and because Dexter’s vital signs were all over the place. Dexter hadn’t told the doc about the Adderall, of course. He had no intention of submitting to a battery of tests to figure out what was wrong with him—especially when he knew exactly what the problem was. He just needed to dial his usage back a bit, that’s all. No big deal. Didn’t need to listen to a lecture from some young doctor.

“I had no other way to reach you,” he said to Vera Spillar, trying to put some attitude in his voice, because he didn’t like this woman talking down to him.

“That don’t make it any smarter. I’ve been doing some reading on the Internet, and we both could get in major trouble. I didn’t realize this was such a big deal.”

“Didn’t I already tell you that? But as long as you keep your mouth shut...”

She laughed. “I ain’t got a lot to keep it shut about so far. You send that money or what?”

His head was throbbing, and this raging bitch was making it worse.

“That’s why I’m calling. Ran into a little delay.”

“What kind of delay?” She sounded suspicious.

So he told her exactly what had happened. Sort of. Instead of saying he fainted and cracked his head, he said somebody came up from behind and waylaid him. The robber stole the cash and his Mercedes, which was still missing. Probably in some chop shop by now, or inside a trailer headed for Mexico. Cops said they’d call if they found it. He wasn’t holding his breath.

When he finished with the story, Vera Spillar said, “Rough break.”

“Nine stitches,” Dexter said. “They got me on hydrocodone.” And now he was wondering, for the first time, if the painkillers would interact with the Adderall. He should check into that. Could be dangerous.

“I thought you were a tough guy,” she said. “Some kind of stud back in the day.”

My fucking god, this woman was a ball breaker.

“I’m just telling you what happened.”

“I feel your pain,” she said, being sarcastic, “but it ain’t my problem.”

“I never said it was,” he said, gritting his teeth, and starting to lose his patience. “But you won’t get a package today. That’s what I’m saying.”

“You got one more day,” she said, “or our deal is off.”

“I’ll send it this afternoon, overnight express. You’ll have it tomorrow.”

“Don’t need to know the details. Just send it.”

She hung up, and that was a good thing, because that meant she didn’t hear the long and colorful string of verbal abuse that followed.

“I might have to run up to Dallas,” Marlin said into his cell phone, after he returned to his office within the sheriff’s department. He’d noticed lately that he tended to use his cell phone even when a landline was available. Funny, because for years he had resisted owning a cell phone.

“Oh, yeah? What for?” Phil Colby replied.

“Need to track down a possible witness on a case.”

“When?”

“Haven’t decided yet. Maybe tomorrow. Or I might go ahead and leave this afternoon.”

There was a silence on the line for a moment. Then Colby said, “And considering some of the things that shithead said at the café yesterday...”

“Yeah. Would you mind checking on Nicole?”

“Of course not.”

“Does that make me a sexist pig?”

“Well, considering that Nicole is probably more capable of taking care of herself than either of us are at taking care of ourselves, then yeah, probably.”

“True.”

“Plus, I’ve seen her shoot. She puts us both to shame.”

“Agreed.”

“And she’s generally smarter than both of us, don’t you think?”

“Almost certainly.”

“In fact, now that I think about it, maybe you should be asking Nicole to check on me instead.”

“That might be right, based on the rumors I’m hearing,” Marlin said.

“What rumors?”

“That you mouthed off to Weems in the parking lot after we had lunch.”

“Mouthed off? When have you known me to mouth off?”

“Just about every waking moment.”

“Okay, but I didn’t mouth off to Weems.”

“What would you call it?”

“Uh, attempting to reason with a man of limited intellect.”

“What a coincidence. That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“I see what you did there, you clever bastard.”

Marlin paused for a moment. After his meeting with Garza and Tatum, he had hoped to find a message waiting from Tatyana, with contact information for Aleksandra, but Tatyana hadn’t responded. He said, “Seriously, Weems is not a pushover. He’s dangerous.”

“Hold on a sec.” A few seconds later, Colby said, “Hear this?”

A sound followed. Recognizable. Colby had just racked the slide on his nine-millimeter Glock semi-automatic.

“I don’t know whether to be comforted or concerned,” Marlin said.

“Everything will be fine. Go to Dallas. I can crash at your place if you want. That is, if you can trust your wife to keep her mitts off me.”

“I’m pretty sure she could control herself, but no, I don’t think that’s necessary. Just maybe give her a call at some point. Or swing by.”

“You got it.”

“And if it turns I’ll out be coming back home tonight, I’ll let you know.”

“Deal.”

When they hung up, Marlin checked his Facebook account, just to make sure he hadn’t received any messages. He was alerted by email anytime someone sent a message, but he’d noticed there was sometimes a delay of several hours.

There was no message. In fact, when he checked, he couldn’t find Tatyana’s previous reply, or any of the communication between them. He checked his friends list and Tatyana Babikova was no longer on it.

She’d unfriended him. Not just unfriended him, but blocked him, too.

Dustin Bryant was lying in his bed in the motel room, watching mindless crap on TV and trying not to think of anything at all. But it was hard. He hated mornings in the motel room, because it meant being cooped up with Gilbert for so damn long. And Gilbert was always massively hungover, which made him surly.

But there wasn’t a good reason to leave the motel room until lunchtime, was there? Do what? Drive around? No sense hunting pigs during the daytime, because pigs moved mostly at night. Can’t hunt around the clock, so it made sense to hunt after dark, when the odds were the best. Rest up during the day.

“Turn the damn channel,” Gilbert said from his own bed. “What is this shit we’re watching?”

Dustin had thought Gilbert was snoozing, but no such luck. In response, instead of changing the channels, Dustin tossed the remote in Gilbert’s direction. It landed on the mattress beside him.

Really, fuck all this.

Dustin was starting to lose all respect for himself. Why was he still scared of Gilbert? Dustin was honest enough to admit to himself that, yeah, he was scared of Gilbert. But why? The man outside the café yesterday had proven that Gilbert wasn’t necessarily as tough as he thought he was. You could back him down if you stood up to him. If you had the balls. Maybe that man had been crazy to test Gilbert like that, but it had worked.

Dustin, on the other hand, always caved. Always did what Gilbert said. That’s why they were still here, in Johnson City, instead of back home. Dustin wondered why he couldn’t just face up to Gilbert and say, “Me and Dylan are hitting the road. You can come with us, or you can stay here, it don’t matter to me. But if you’re coming, pack your bags, ’cause we’re leaving in ten minutes.”

He imagined saying those words, but they just wouldn’t come. The man yesterday had called Gilbert a coward, but Dustin figured Gilbert wasn’t the only coward in the room.

Now Dustin could feel his phone vibrating again on his hip. Crap. He didn’t react. Didn’t want Gilbert to know.

“I’m going to the Coke machine,” he said a few minutes later, lifting himself off the mattress. “You want anything?”

“Ginger ale,” Gilbert said. “Couple of cans.” Ginger ale was Gilbert’s favorite mixer, which meant he’d be drinking whiskey soon, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Great.

Dustin rose from the bed and walked over to the closed bathroom door. Dylan had been taking a shower, but the water had cut off a few minutes ago. “Want a Coke?” Dustin said.

“Yeah. I got some quarters on the nightstand.”

The moment Dustin stepped outside, he pulled his phone from his hip and listened to the new voicemail from the sheriff.

Third day in a row, Leigh Anne Beech was in her BMW and on the move. Grady Beech had called Roy Ballard earlier to say that Leigh Anne was planning to meet a friend for lunch in Wimberley.

Roy waited at a rest stop and tracked her on GPS as she took McCall Creek Road in a northeast direction to Highway 290. But then, instead of going east, she turned west. Not the way to Wimberley. She hit Highway 281 and went north to Johnson City. Then she went west again.

By then, Roy was trailing in his Caravan. Way back, because he didn’t want her to become suspicious. Even a beige minivan could become conspicuous if you saw it in your rearview mirror for three days in a row.

Roy had learned that Leigh Anne Beech was not a prudent or attentive driver. She tended to talk on the phone a lot. Roy could tell simply by the way she weaved out of her lane at times and her speed would drop. Other times, she cruised along at 80 to 85 in places where the limit was 65 or 70. Roy didn’t want to get pinged for a ticket, but he had to take that chance. If he laid back and lost sight of her, he could always find her vehicle later via the GPS unit, but what if he’d missed a good photo op in the meantime?

She passed through a tiny community called Hye, home of Garrison Brothers Distillery, then through a larger community called Stonewall, home of Stonewall Motel, Stonewall Body Shop, and Stonewall Smokehouse. Roy wondered how they came up with such creative names.

Fifteen minutes later, Leigh Anne Beech reached the edge of Fredericksburg. Great little town with a German heritage. A tourist destination. Lots of unique little shops and restaurants. Leigh Anne Beech filled up with gas, then she stopped at a shop that sold Amish furniture, food, and gifts. She was in there for about twenty minutes, but when she exited, she had no packages or bags.

Then she got back into her BMW and drove to a motel called the Big Buck Inn.

Gilbert surprised Dustin by saying, “Let’s take a drive.”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere, for fuck’s sake. I’m tired of lying around this shithole.”

So they climbed into Dustin’s truck and headed out.

“Go west,” Gilbert said from the passenger seat. He had a large Styrofoam cup filled with ice, whiskey, and ginger ale between his thighs.

Dustin went west on Highway 290. What did it matter which direction they went? They were just out for a drive, right?

But then Gilbert said, “Take a left up here.”

Now Dustin was starting to wonder. Dylan, in the back seat, caught Dustin’s eye in the rearview mirror and shot him a look that said,
What the hell is Gilbert up to now?

Dustin turned left on Avenue F, drove past the headquarters for the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, past some small, neatly maintained homes and trailers, and then the structures gave way to open ranch land. Avenue F had turned into County Road 203, also known as Miller Creek Loop.

Now Gilbert had his phone out, checking something.

“Where are we going?” Dustin asked.

Gilbert didn’t reply.

The road curved sharply west, then south again. Gilbert was looking at a map on his phone.

“Gilbert?”

“Not much further.”

“Where are we going?”

Silence. Then Gilbert said, “Slow down. Slow down. Yeah, right up here. Pull over.”

“Where?”

There was nothing but a gated ranch entrance with limestone columns on either side.

“Here,” Gilbert said.

Dustin simply stopped where he was, on the pavement. They had passed no other cars on this road, and it wasn’t likely they’d see anyone traveling in either direction. Gilbert set his drink in a cup holder, then opened the door and got out. He went to the bed of the truck and started rummaging around for something.

“What the hell are we doing?” Dylan said quietly.

Dustin shook his head, and then his eyes came to rest on a nearby mailbox. COLBY was stenciled on the side. The man in the parking lot outside the café—the game warden’s friend—had been named Phil Colby. Gilbert had managed to track him down.

And now Gilbert was coming around the side of the truck, and Dustin saw that he was carrying a scrap of two-by-four about three feet long.

Gilbert walked toward Colby’s gate but angled to the left, where an electronic keypad was mounted at the top of the metal post. This was how visitors got onto the ranch—by punching a code into the keypad. Gilbert drew back with the piece of scrap lumber and smashed it into the keypad. Again. And again.

“Goddamn it,” Dylan said.

Dustin looked straight ahead through the windshield. Nobody coming. He checked the rearview. All clear. Dustin decided that if a vehicle approached from either direction, he’d take off, leaving Gilbert standing on the side of the road.

“This is so stupid,” Dylan said.

Gilbert finished up with the keypad and let out an excited whoop. Then he went after the mailbox.

Leigh Anne Beech drove to the rear of the motel, out of Roy’s sight, and he wondered if she was meeting someone who already had a room. But less than a minute later, here she came, walking around to the front of the building, to the office. She checked in, which took no more than a minute or so, then returned to the rear of the motel.

Discretion. That’s why she’d parked first, so that her BMW wouldn’t be sitting in plain view from the road. And it was obvious she’d done this before. She knew she’d get a room in the back, because that’s what she always got.

Roy parked at a bank next door, which would give him a good view of any other vehicles that might pull into the motel lot. Just to be sure, Roy checked Google Maps and saw that there was no exit from the parking lot in the back of the property. So he stayed where he was. And waited. For a long time—thirty minutes—nobody came or went. Whoever Leigh Anne was meeting couldn’t already be in the room, because then she wouldn’t have needed to check in.

Oh, hell.
What if they were on foot? Roy checked Google Maps again, using street view, and saw that a six-foot privacy fence followed the entire perimeter behind the motel. Unless somebody wanted to climb that fence in broad daylight, they’d enter through the front of the property.

A little while later, Roy realized a full hour had passed. If Leigh Anne was meeting somebody, they were very late. Roy was beginning to wonder if Leigh Anne might have some other reason for renting a motel room. Maybe she simply needed some time alone, and this was the best way to get it. Maybe she had some strange hobby that her husband wouldn’t like. Maybe she was a Santería priestess and she needed solitude to conduct animal sacrifices. Maybe she had a lover, but they were strictly into phone sex.

Then a white Chevy truck swung into the motel parking lot and drove around to the back.

“Turn around!” Billy Don shouted suddenly, just about giving Red an aneurysm, because they’d been riding in silence for the past few miles.

Now Billy Don was attempting to twist his massive torso and look back over his right shoulder at a vehicle they’d just passed—a blue GMC truck that was waiting to enter Highway 281 from Miller Creek Loop. The intersection was roughly halfway between Johnson City and Blanco.

“The red-haired guy!” Billy Don thundered.

“In that truck?”

“The passenger! He’s getting away!”

Red had instinctively slowed down, but now he gave it gas again, because he could see in his rearview mirror that the truck was going straight across the highway, crossing the median to go north. The opposite direction. Red had no choice but to go to the next crossover, several hundred yards down the road.

“Hurry!” Billy Don was twitching and jerking, still looking out the rear window.

“How do you know it was him?” Red switched into the left-hand lane.

“’Cause he was taller’n hell and had red hair.”

Red started to argue but changed his mind, because tall and redheaded pretty much summed up the person they were searching for. And if, somehow, against the odds, there happened to be two tall redheads in the area, would it really matter if Billy Don kicked the shit out of the wrong one? Sure wouldn’t matter to Red. And there would be no way of knowing, since the redhead would almost certainly deny beating up Armando, even if he’d done it.

“We’re gonna lose him!” Billy Don said.

“Just hold on, dammit.” Red finally reached a crossover and whipped the truck left, but there was oncoming traffic, so he had to wait.

“Shit! Go!”

“You want me to get hit by a semi?”

Finally there was a break in traffic, and Red gunned it, which meant his old Ford crept forward at a painfully slow pace.

“I don’t even see ’em anymore,” Billy Don said.

Red kept the accelerator mashed, and eventually the Ford began to pick up some speed. Sixty miles per hour. Then seventy. And eighty. Red wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting pulled over, but he figured if he got stopped, he’d tell the cop he was trying to apprehend a man who’d committed an assault.

Red had it up to ninety when Billy Don pointed toward a vehicle on the horizon and said, “I think that’s them.”