Levon's Trade (Levon Cade Book 1) (2 page)

“I’m Brad Pitt, you did not recognize me?”

That made her snort. He smiled and told her if he knew she was so unladylike he’d never have asked her over. That sent her into a series of snorts. She slapped a hand over her mouth and roared into the palm of her hand. He was so funny. Everything was funny. Everything made her laugh now until she could hear her own pulse in her ears. It was louder than the drumming beat of the music. It was getting harder and harder to keep her head upright on her neck. She was still fully conscious, maybe a little furry around the edges, but fully aware. A weakness crept over her. She went to stand but her legs wouldn’t respond. She braced her palms on the table to raise herself up and they bent under her weight like rubber. She collapsed onto the tabletop.

She felt his breath on her ear. That funny, sexy accent with words meant just for her.

“I know a place. Another place. A better place.”

She wanted to laugh but she was too weak now even for that.

3

“You do?” said Levon.

“You know why?”

“I don’t, honey.”

“It’s run by a girl. It’s the only place run by a girl. McDonald’s. Burger King. Carl’s. Arby’s. All boys.”

“Arby is a boy?”

“Sure he is. Who’d name a girl Arby?”

“What about Dairy Queen?”

“Their burgers suck,” Merry said. Case closed. No arguing with the logic of a nine-year-old.

“Well, okay then,” Levon said and stabbed some fries into their shared puddle of ketchup.

“Know what we had for dinner last night, Daddy?” Merry said.

“Well, I know it wasn’t Dairy Queen burgers.”

“Lobster.” Merry pulled a face that crinkled her freckled features.

“Maybe I should come and live at your Granpa’s.”

“They’re like bugs! Big bugs!” she announced.

“Not bad with drawn butter though.”

She nodded agreement and took another bite of her cheeseburger.

He drove her home in his ten-year-old Avalanche. She was seated closed by him, his arm around her and her head pressed to his side.

“Why doesn’t Granpa like you?” she said, not looking up.

“Oh, he’s a daddy like I am and your mommy was his little girl and he didn’t think I was good enough for your mommy,” Levon said.

She thought about that for a while.

“Is that how you feel, Daddy?” she said. She shifted to look up at him.

“About what, honey?”

“Will you not like the boy I marry someday?”

“I’ll hate him.”

“You don’t know him.” She was smiling broadly now.

“Doesn’t matter, honey. I hate him already.”

“Even if it’s Kristoff?”

Kristoff was a hunky character from a Disney cartoon that Merry was currently obsessed with.

“Especially him. You bring Kristoff around and I’ll carve a canoe out of him,” Levon said.

He could feel her shivering against him with suppressed giggles.

The Doctor had his BMW parked at the foot of the drive so Levon couldn’t pull in. Just like every weekend. Levon pulled up to the curb. The doctor, Merry’s grandfather and his father-in-law, stood on the porch, eyeballing the truck with distaste. He waited there at the head of the long walk, peering over the top of his glasses, a section of the Sunday paper in his hand.

“You’ll come for me next weekend?” Merry said breaking her embrace.

“You know I will,” he said. His rough hand gently brushed her hair back in place.

“Can we buy flowers and take them to Mommy?”

“We sure can. Any kind you like.”

She rose to her knees and he leaned from the wheel to accept her kiss to his cheek.

“Bye,” she said and let herself out of the truck.

He watched her run up the walk to her grandfather. He saw the doctor’s last withering glance before they stepped up to the porch and entered the house.

Levon pulled away then and, on his way back to his apartment, stopped by the cemetery at Holy Christ to visit with Merry’s mommy.

4

Levon was clocking in for second shift.

“At the main office?”

“Naw. He’s on site today. I’ll buzz him.” She touched something on her desk and Joe Bob’s voice squawked from a speaker.

“Yeah?”

“Levon Cade just showed up, Mr. Wiley,” she answered too loud.

“I’ll pull around. Tell him to step outside.” The speaker went dead.

Levon stood on the roughhewn deck constructed in front the double-wide. The sun was low in the winter sky and there was a sense that work was winding down all over the site. Joe Bob Wiley’s jacked-up Dodge truck pulled around from behind the nearly completed Unit Eight. It came to a stop on the gravel before the office shack. Joe Bob waved Levon over and leaned across the seat to shove the passenger side door open. Levon climbed aboard and Joe Bob drove across the site to the through road and toward the highway.

He’d clocked in and was earning so it didn’t matter what the boss was up to. And Joe Bob wasn’t talking as he drove. The big man’s face was pinched. His eyes were red and tired behind his tinted Ray Bans. The muscles in his neck were tense. Joe Bob Wiley was a local football hero. A high school phenom who went on to more fame at Wake Forest until a wicked hit in his second season ruined his right knee joint beyond any repair that even modern surgery could affect. No limp and only a little pain but no more broken field running for this good old boy. So he came on board Manners Contract Builders as a gladhanding hometown celebrity and found out he liked construction and had a talent for planning. In twenty years he had his name on the company and was calling all the shots while Winston Manners retired to Florida to fish, golf and collect a monthly dividend from the growing business.

“You’re making what these days?” Joe Bob spoke up as he cruised the center lane south away from the city traffic.

“You pay me fifteen an hour,” Levon said.

“I pay you a hell of a lot more than that,” Joe Bob snorted.

“Well, there’s overtime, sir.”

“Overtime, shit! You’re on site more than I am. You clock seventy hours a week sometimes. You earned a four figure check over Labor Day, son.”

“Guys call out. Sometimes we’re short so I come in.”

“You got no place else to be?”

“I’m widowed and my little girl lives with my wife’s father.”

“So, nothing but time on your hands, huh?”

“If I’m at work I’m not getting in trouble,” Levon said and watched the endless lights gliding past in the opposite lane.

“You’re ex-military, right?” Joe Bob said and flipped the lever to shift into a right exit lane.

“That’s right.”

“Which branch?”

“I was one of the good guys, sir.”

Joe Bob barked a laugh at that. There was no spirit in it. It was more a reaction of surprise than humor.

They pulled into a place called Andy’s Bunker, nestled in a grove of evergreens between a Home Depot and a Walmart. It looked like it had been there since Prohibition ended. Flat roof and asbestos siding painted in a riot of blue and orange. The sign promised BBQ and ice cold beer. There were a few pickups on the lot already.

“I need help and I think you’re the man to help me. I’m willing to pay a shitload more than fifteen an hour,” Joe Bob said, turning in his seat. His voice was low. The bullshit and bluster gone now.

“I’m not doing anything illegal, sir,” Levon said meeting the big man’s gaze.

“And I wouldn’t ask you to. Nothing strictly immoral or illegal.”

Levon waited.

“I need you to find my daughter,” Joe Bob said opening his door and turning to hide from his passenger the sudden well of tears.

5

The bartender brought them a pair of glasses and a pitcher of Coors. Levon didn’t touch his glass.

“Go on. Have a beer,” Joe Bob said.

“I’m on the clock, sir.”

“I’m the damned boss and I say it’s okay. And call me Joe Bob.”

Levon poured a short beer and took a sip.

“Do you know we’ve had zero losses at Evergreen Estates? We’re close to finishing the first phase and there’s not so much as a nail missing from inventory,” Joe Bob said.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“And no vandalism. No fights. Nobody showing up high or drunk. Just everything running smooth and easy.”

“This is about your daughter?”

“I’ve never been on a job where there’s been zero shrinkage. These Mexes walk off with anything they can carry. Tools. Lumber. Plumbing. Hell, I build it into my estimates. They’ll take concrete if they can. Wet concrete right out of the truck. And don’t get me started on vendors, son. Pirates is what they are.”

Levon took another sip, watching Joe Bob drain his second glass.

“The only difference between this job and all those others is you, Cade. I brought you on this summer and thefts stopped like someone turned off a tap. The only variable is you being there near all the time. And even when you’re not there, the rest of the security I hired is more on the ball than they used to be and the laborers keep their hands to themselves. You either scare them all shitless or maybe you’ve been a good influence.”

Levon nodded.

“I looked into you, Cade. I mean, past your bullshit résumé when you applied. I Googled you and you know what I found.”

Levon looked at him level across the table.

“I found jack shit. Oh, I found out you were born in Raleigh and when. You graduated high school. You live in a one-bedroom in a complex I built. Your wife passed two years ago and you have a little girl that doesn’t live with you and you’re in a custody fight with your father-in-law. You have no criminal record and, until a year ago, you were in the service. That sound right to you?”

“That’s the public record, sir.”

The argument on the television spread to the four men at the bar. They were in a three to one deadlock and telling each other how full of shit the other was. Joe Bob waited until the outnumbered party stormed off to the men’s room before continuing.

“Only it’s not real clear which branch you were in. Your record has more redactions than Obama’s college transcripts. You trained with the Navy, the Marines, the Rangers and a few outfits that only had letters and numbers. There’s some dates and places but the rest just isn’t there. What isn’t there tells a story. It tells me you’ve been places and done things.”

Levon let the beer warm in his hand.

“I need someone with your knowledge. I need someone to find my daughter,” Joe Bob said.

“I’m not a detective,” Levon said.

“Don’t you think I hired a detective? A private outfit that came highly recommended. They told me they’d exhausted every lead. Didn’t find Jenna. Didn’t send my check back either.”

“What do the police say?”

“They tell me she ran away. They tell me she’s shacked up with some dude. They say there’s no evidence of foul play. I know every parent says this but my girl isn’t like that. She’s serious about her classes. She’s engaged to a nice local boy here in Huntsville. She’s not some tramp who’d run off.”

“Like I said, sir. I’m not a detective.”

“I know that. That’s not what I need. I’m figuring you didn’t spend your time in uniform repairing air conditioners at Fort Bragg. The story all those blanks in your record tells me is that you were some kind of badass.”

Levon took a pull of the flat beer.

Joe Bob removed his tinted glasses and leaned over the table to look into Levon’s face. The older man’s eyes were rimmed red. His skin was dry like paper. His chin bunched and quivered as he spoke in a whisper.

“I have the reports from the Tampa police and the Hillsborough County sheriff. I have the papers from the agency I hired. Timelines and witnesses and all that. They take Jenna up to a little past midnight on a Friday three weeks ago and they end. I flew down there, I’ve
lived
there for the past few weeks. And all anyone can tell me is that there’s nothing they can do to follow this any further. There’s nothing the law can do. You understand me, Cade?”

“You said this was nothing illegal, sir.”

“There’s the law and then there’s
law
, son. I’m talking justice.”

“Excuse me, sir, but you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about my girl. My little girl. You have a daughter.”

“I can’t say I understand what you’re feeling, sir. I can say I’d imagine I’d feel the exact same as you about now.”

“But what would you
do
about it?” Joe Bob said, eyes shifting, searching into Levon’s.

Levon’s eyes remained still pools gleaming from the surrounding scar tissue.

“Fifty thousand. Cash. Tax free,” Joe Bob said in a whisper.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Please,” Joe Bob said. He enclosed his hand around Levon’s, pressing it to the smooth glass.

“Drive me on back to the site or fire me, sir,” Levon said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m just not in that line of work anymore.”

Joe Bob released the other man’s hand.

“I’ll meet you at the truck. Take you back to the site for your shift,” Joe Bob said. He seemed to shrink, to recede into a smaller space than he occupied before.