Slow Burn (27 page)

Wagner's Feed
and Garden was all the way to hell and gone. Twenty miles north of downtown,
damn near to Everett, but I was as close now as I was going to get. I made a
mental note to give Flounder and Hot Shot Scott some extra cash. They must have
had to dip into their own money to take a cab this far and back in the name of
surveillance.

I was on a roll
today. The old man's name was Orville Whitney. He gave me his card. I didn't
even have the newspaper all the way spread out when the old guy said,
"Jack Del Fuego, the barbecue king." The rest was easy. Jack had come
in just before closing time, maybe five to six on Monday evening. I stopped the
proceedings right there and went back over the time.

"I know, 'cause
he come in cussing his cabdriver. Said the . . ." He hesitated.

"The
what?" I prodded.

He looked
embarrassed. "He said the dumb camel jockey didn't know his way around the
city and didn't speak English. Said they'd been driving around for an hour. I
told him it was a good thing they didn't drive for another five minutes or I'da
been closed and gone."

Jack had wanted
a dozen bales of straw, six of an alfalfa-timothy mix, and a hundred pounds of
Steer Manna delivered to the restaurant.

"Wanted it
right then, too," Orville said. "Slipped me a fifty to have the boy
run it up and then give the boy a twenty of his own."

I tried to pump
the old guy about what Jack had in mind with animal feed, but he was dry. I'd
gotten all I was going to get out of him.

I took the
Interstate back to the city, rode Fiftieth up and over Phinney Ridge and
dropped down into Ballard.

Brenner
Brothers Cold Storage, was way down on Western, almost to Ballard. The big
green building was memorable because it was nearly the last of the old wooden
buildings that used to line the shores of Elliot Bay for five miles north of
downtown. Brown and green and red, some four stories tall, all covered with
miles of wavy shiplap siding. Hardware companies, wholesale lumber,
shipbuilders, marine engine repair, tugboat companies all marinating in a
pungent blend of creosote and salt water.

While their
neighbors were being eaten alive by taxes and assessments, the Brermers had
correctly read the entrails of the situation. Seattle was about to become the
gateway to the Pacific Rim. Other than airplanes, fruits were our most
lucrative export. Cold storage was going to be the deal.

The parking lot
was full, so, despite stern warning signs to the contrary, I was forced to entrust
the Fiat to the Evergreen Credit Union next door. Even here, in an area set
back from the water, the breeze had considerably freshened, trembling even the
sturdy ornamental cypress trees in the property divider as I stepped over and
through the boundary.

The green frame
house out front was still the office, but they didn't use the big wooden hangar
for storage anymore.

stood open at
the front, its roll-up doors gone now, stacked floor to ceiling with wooden
pallets. Out back, they'd erected six or eight concrete tilt-ups, each probably
fifty by a hundred feet, their flat, rectangular faces broken only by massive
red garage doors and loading docks, two to a side.

The sign on the
door said COME ON IN, so I did. The door gave a cheery tinkle as I pushed it
open. I immediately recognized the decor. Early Knotty Pine. During my late
formative years, in what I like to call my psychedelic cowboy phase, I'd spent
a winter in the mountains looking for God, holed up in a tight little cabin up
by Index, every square inch of which was covered with this identical
tongue-and-groove pattern. I'd never felt the same about the stuff since. In
the right frame of mind, staring at a wall of knotty pine, I can still make out
the faces of the evil, big-faced girls, coming and going among the blots and
swirls of the grain. My jaw muscles ached. I repressed a shudder.

The man had a
brown leather jacket thrown over one arm and a battered briefcase jammed under
the other. "Sixty-nine fifty per month," he said into the mouthpiece.
"Due the first. First and last. Yes. Yes." He listened at length.
"If I'm not here, you tell them Paul Brenner quoted you sixty-nine fifty.
Okay?"

He set the
receiver on the counter without hanging up, pulled the briefcase out from under
his arm and set it on the floor.

"Help
you?"

He was built
like a college wrestler. One of those low-center-of-gravity guys whom you never
want to get down on the floor with. He kept his hair cropped down to the skin,
and from the look of him, spent a fair bit of time in the gym.

T was hoping
you could help me with some information." "What’s that?" he
said, slipping into the jacket. I pulled the newspaper from my pocket and
turned it his way. "Do you recognize this man?"

I could see it
in his eyes. I'd just struck out. I'd had such a swell time back at Pacific
Skyways and at Wagner's, I'd forgotten I was supposed to be a private
detective. I should have run a number on him. In my business, honesty is very
seldom the best policy. Ifs what I like about the job.

He picked up
the briefcase. "What we sell here, Mr.—"

"Waterman."

"What we
sell here, Mr. Waterman, is security and confidentiality. Do you understand? I
haven't even looked at it and I don't know the man. So if you don't mind . .
."

He waited. So
did I. He gestured toward the door with the case.

"I can get
people to remove you," he said, putting his left hand on the counter.

I started to
speak, changed my mind and let myself out. On the way out, the tinkle sounded
more like a squeak.

I kicked my own
butt all the way across the parking lot, parted a pair of scrawny trees like
Samson destroying the temple and stepped through. I was still mumbling when I
had an unexpected spasm of lucidity and skidded to a halt. I walked back the
way I'd come, leaned across the oxidized top of an ancient Ford Fairlane and
waited.

It was about
ten minutes before Paul Brenner came out the front door, settled himself behind
the wheel of a British-racing-green Cadillac Allante convertible and buckled
up. Once he'd gone by, I stepped out into the street and watched until I lost
sight of him up by the third light.

The office was
empty. As I neared the counter, I saw the red button and the card that read
"Ring For Service," so I rang. Out in the yard, several buzzers with
a variety of voices raked the air. The phone began to ring but quit after a
single jingle. The door at the rear opened.

His face had
seen a lot of weather. It was a Western face with narrow eyes. Folded and
seamed like a favorite tobacco pouch, it spoke of distant horizons and hard
times.

"Yes,
sir," he said.

"Paul
Brenner?"

"Oh, no.
Not me. That's the boss." "Would you tell him I'm here?"
"Just left. Something I can help you with?" It was now or never.

"Mr. Del
Fuego sent me down to make sure everything was copacetic for tomorrow. Told me
to see Mr. Brenner for a report."

- "He'd
just have to come out and ask me, anyway," the guy said.

"Well, I
guess I'm talking to the right guy, then. Every- -thing ready for the big
day?"

"If s a
bearcat, is what it is," he said. "Young Paul hadda freeze his ass
off, he'd think twice about agreeing to harassed shit like this. But he's just
like his old man. Neither of 'em can be pushed, but both can sure as hell be
bought." He gave a dry hack and covered his mouth with his hand.

"You wanna
see?" he asked.

"Why
not?"

His name was
Cecil McKonkey. He was a retired tugboat engineer who managed the yard and the
cold storage for the Brenners. He'd known Paul's father for forty years. Paul
was the nominal head of the company now, but according to Cecil, not only did
.he have no interest in the business, he couldn't find his own ass in the dark,
either. I gave him my real name. What the hell.

"You got a
coat, Leo?"

For the first
time, I noticed he was wearing a ski parka.

"Nope,"
I said tentatively.

He shrugged.
"Ifs not that bad, I guess."

It was every
damn bit that bad and then some. He led me around the counter and out the back
door. The rental meat lockers fronted the side street, so the citizens could park
and pick up that Sunday chuck roast from their locker and be on their way. The
back half of the building was a single large refrigerated room.

It looked like
the slaughterhouse scene in Rocky. I shuddered violently in the freezing air. A
forest of split carcasses hung from hooks. Beef, swine, a sheep or two, and
here and there an animal whose mute remains I didn't recognize. The air smelled
of fat and flesh and seemed to stick to the skin. It was cold as hell, and
somewhere in the room somebody was; of all things, welding. The leaping sparks
traced shadow comets on the ceiling and walls as we pushed our way through the
carcasses and out into the middle of the floor. My teeth chattered and then
behaved.

The action was
down at the far end of the room, directly in front of the insulated garage
door. The flat back of a green Hyster forklift faced our way. Poor old Bunky
was laid out on a double wood pallet, like the ones they use for heavy
machinery. I stepped to the left as the green welding arc started up again,
putting Cecil between me and the blinding light, walking the length of the room
in his shadow.

It was
positively medieval. They'd fabricated a steel rotisserie spit in and around
the massive carcass, designed, as far as I could see, to simultaneously pry the
body cavity open and support the weight evenly. The contraption culminated at
the top center of the backbone, where a large steel eye hook was presently
being welded to the frame. They'd draped a green drop cloth over the area
directly under the hook so as not to burn the skin. My teeth beat a rhythm to "The
Flight of the Bumblebee."

It could have
been government work, except that there were only two guys watching the welder.
All wore the same gray-striped coveralls and old-fashioned welding hoods. The
backs of the coveralls read "Nance Fabrication." I hugged myself. A
thick steel rod protruded about four feet from each end of the carcass. It was
a pitiful sight to behold. Poor old Bunky had gotten his kishkes bobbed after
all.

Cecil reached
out and tapped the nearest guy on the shoulder. He pulled up the hood to reveal
a jowly, middle-aged face, badly in need of a shave. His teeth were oddly
spaced, as if he were missing every other one. "Just about there," he
said to Cecil. "We'll finish up the weld and scope it good, 'cause it's
gonna hold the whole thing. Then you can have your boys wrap it up in visqueen.
Way I see it, there's no sense in banding it to the pallet till morning."

Cecil agreed
with the man and then introduced rum as Cal.

"It's only
Wednesday. You tell your boss we'll be ready. Come eleven-thirty on Friday,
we'll have our end together."

"He'll be
pleased." . A flaming trail of sparks rocketed by my face. I was so cold I
was tempted to step forward and let them catch my shirt on fire.

"I'm just
hopin', after the pickup, we can get cleaned up here in time to get down there
for the shindig." "Oh, you're going, are you?"

Cal
reached into his pocket. It was one of
Jack's business cards. On the back, he'd signed his name and written,
"This man and his guests, on the house."

"Gave each
of us one."

"That just
shows you the kind of guy he is," I said. The welder pulled back the
hissing rod and flipped up his visor.

On our way back
to the office, I asked Cecil, "You going?" "Too much Chinese
fire drill for me, Leo." "You really ought to. make it," I said.
He squinted at me. "Why's that?"

"Just a
feeling," I said. "I've got a funny feeling that this whole circus is
going to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that a man takes with him to
the grave."

"Got
'boondoggle' written all over it," he agreed.

The house was
ablaze with lights. I checked my watch and then scanned the street. Ten-fifteen
and no necklace of sleek Caddies adorned the roadway tonight. No loud voices or
soft music, only the drone of distant traffic rasping from the trees like
throat-sore cicadas. Behind my eyes, a sense impression of those long-ago
nights flashed on my inner screen, and I suddenly realized how much quieter and
darker it used to be at this time of night on this particular street. I
wondered how I'd gotten to be so old so quickly, and as usual, came up empty.

I parked the
Fiat in the street. Rebecca refused to drive it, so if I parked her in, she'd
wake me up to move it. I reached down behind the seat, grabbed the bottle by
the neck and got out of the car.

I began to pat
my pockets with my free hand before remembering that I didn't have a key. The
second time I knocked, I heard the floor squeak and saw the light change in the
peephole. "It's me," I said. "I gave at the office."