Betrayers

15

JAKE RUNYON

He spent his morning interviewing residents of the Valencia Street apartment where Troy Madison and Jennifer Piper lived, trying to get a line on either or both of them. Margaret Adams, the woman who’d overheard them leaving, was home today, but all she had to tell him that he didn’t already know was that Madison had said something on the way out of the building about “a short trip, for now.” So maybe they hadn’t been planning to run far, at least not that night. There was a good chance they were still somewhere in the greater Bay Area.

He’d had his cellular switched off during the interviews, as he always did except when he was expecting an important call. When he left the building, his voice mail yielded two messages, one from Tamara and the other from Coy Madison.

Runyon called the agency first. Nothing urgent; Tamara had the background data on Bud Linkhauser that he’d requested. Except for one brush with the law as a juvenile in Bakersfield, Linkhauser’s record was clean. Married, three kids, owned his trucking firm for ten years; lean times at first, but now his credit rating was solid. The juvenile bust was drug-related, possession of marijuana and driving while impaired, for which he’d gotten probation and loss of his license for six months. Simple kid crime, probably. Unless he was still using and still close to Troy Madison; then it might have some relevance to Madison’s bail-jump disappearance. Worth a trip over to Hayward this afternoon to talk to Linkhauser in person. Unless the reason for Coy Madison’s call was something more definite.

Yes and no. When Runyon got him on the line, Madison said immediately, “I heard from my brother last night,” in a voice that quivered a little. Nervousness, maybe fear.

“Is that right?”

“I know I said I wouldn’t let you know if he contacted me, but I thought about it all night and I couldn’t just keep quiet, do nothing. Not now.”

“He still in the Bay Area?”

“Right here in the city. Hiding out-he wouldn’t say where. He wanted money, a lot of money.”

“How much is a lot?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’d have to talk to Arletta. He gave me an hour, that’s all. An hour to try to convince her.”

“And did you?”

“No,” Madison said. “I didn’t talk to her at all.”

“Why not?”

“No point in it. She’s tightfisted and she already said she wouldn’t waste another penny on Troy. She meant it, too. No way she’d let him have ten thousand dollars.” Anger and bitterness mixed with the fear now. “I guess I can’t blame her, but she doesn’t know him the way I do. How dangerous he is when he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“He threaten you again when you told him he couldn’t have the money?”

“Yes. I tried to stall him, reason with him… no use. He wouldn’t listen. My God, he was furious. He said he’d get Arletta for turning him down. Kill me, too, unless I made her change her mind. He

… he sounded strung out, crazy.”

“You have any idea where he’s hiding?”

“No, none. I don’t know what to do. I guess that’s why I called you-advice. What should I do?”

“Have you contacted the police?”

“No. Not yet.”

“You should. Your brother’s a fugitive; he’s made threats. They can give you protection.”

“Yes, but will they? Before it’s too late?”

Runyon had no answer for that. A bail-jumping drug dealer was small-time, and the verbal threat of bodily harm had no teeth to it as far as the law was concerned. The detectives at the Hall of Justice had bigger and more immediate crimes to deal with. They’d take Coy Madison’s statement; they’d send out patrols to keep an eye on his home and place of business; they’d add to the warrant that was already out on his brother. And that was all they’d do because it was all they could do. No point in saying this to Madison; he probably already knew it. Still, the smart thing in a case like this was to go through the motions-always, no exceptions.

“Call them anyway, Mr. Madison. The sooner the better.”

“Isn’t there anything else I can do or you can do?”

“One thing, yes. If your brother calls again, tell him your wife has changed her mind and he can have the ten thousand after all. Set up a meeting so you can give him the money.”

“… And then tell you where so you can be there to grab him? Is that the idea?”

“Me or the police.”

“Yes, all right. I should’ve done that when he called last night, shouldn’t I? But I wasn’t thinking straight.” Madison made a deep-breathing sound. “But I doubt he’ll call again. As crazy as he sounded last night… I’m afraid, Mr. Runyon. For Arletta more than myself.”

Runyon asked, “As far as you know, does Troy own a firearm?”

“I don’t know. He may have one-he used to go target shooting with a friend of his when we were kids.”

“Do you own one?”

“No. Arletta won’t have a gun in the house. I could buy one, I suppose…”

“Are you firearms qualified?”

“If you mean have I ever fired a gun… no, never. I never liked them.”

“Then don’t buy one.”

“Then how can I protect my wife and myself?”

“Notify the police, first thing. Stay home as much as you can, doors and windows locked. Keep a weapon handy, but not a gun.”

“That’s all, for God’s sake?”

“All that makes good sense, until your brother’s caught.”

Madison said, “If he’s caught, if he doesn’t kill Arletta and me first,” and broke the connection.

Linkhauser Trucking was a small outfit shoehorned between a couple of larger businesses in an industrial area of Hayward. And none too prosperous, judging from the age of the trucks bearing the company name and the run-down condition of the warehouse building and its two loading bays. Hanging on, like so many small companies in the current economy.

Bud Linkhauser had returned from his Central Valley run; Runyon had made sure he was on schedule before driving down the Peninsula and taking the Santa Mateo Bridge across the bay. Runyon found him on the loading dock, talking to one of his handful of employees. The two of them went inside the warehouse, into a corner where a forklift stood guard over a stack of empty pallets, to do their talking.

You tend to think of truckers as big, beefy guys with potbellies and a gruff manner. Linkhauser didn’t fit the stereotype in any of those ways. Short, wiry, losing his hair and compensating for it with a mustache of the same brushy sort Runyon had worn until recently. Soft-spoken and cooperative.

“Nothing much I can tell you,” Linkhauser said. “I haven’t seen Troy in… must be three years now.”

“Have you been in touch with his brother or sister-in-law recently?”

“No.”

“So you didn’t know Troy had been arrested again.”

“Not until you told me. Damn shame.”

“But you did know he’s an addict.”

“Meth user, yeah, that’s why I had to fire him,” Linkhauser said. “He showed up stoned a couple of times, didn’t show at all a few others. Unreliable. I got to have men on the job I can count on.”

“And you knew he was selling drugs?”

“Well… I heard that’s how he was supporting himself.”

“How’d you hear?”

“From Coy. He tried to get me to give Troy another chance to straighten himself out. I was willing, but the first day he was supposed to come back to work he never showed. After that, well, I just wrote him off. Damn shame, like I said. But what else could I do? I got a business to run and times are tough enough as it is.”

“When was that?”

“Three years ago. Last time I saw him.”

Runyon said, “I understand you and the Madisons grew up together.”

“Down in Bakersfield, right.”

“Close friends?”

“I wouldn’t say close,” Linkhauser said. “Hung out together sometimes.”

“Were the brothers close?”

“Not so’s you’d notice. Always arguing about something. Coy used to beat up on Troy sometimes.”

“Coy did? Not the other way around?”

“Nah. Thing about Troy, he’s a mild guy, you know? Shy, laid-back. Go out of his way to avoid a fight.”

“And his brother was the opposite?”

“Well, not exactly opposite. Coy’s okay until something gets him riled up. Got a temper. Piss him off some way, he’d go after you. That’s the way he was as a kid, anyhow.”

“Troy have a short fuse, too?”

“No. Real easygoing kid.”

“Never retaliated when Coy beat on him?”

“Not that I ever saw.”

“Was Troy afraid of Coy?”

“Seemed that way to me.”

Runyon said, “Coy must care about his brother, if he tried to get you to help him straighten out.”

“Wasn’t his idea. It was Troy’s.”

“Is that right? Then why was Coy the one who contacted you?”

“Troy asked him to,” Linkhauser said. “Too shy and ashamed to come to me himself. This was after one of the times he got busted for possession and I guess he figured it was time to get clean. But he was hooked too deep and it didn’t last. Went right back on the stuff.”

“Would Coy help him on his own, do you think? If he’s in big trouble like he is now?”

“Sure, probably.” Linkhauser frowned. “Help him run away, you mean?”

“Or hide out.”

“I can’t answer that, man. It’s been three years since I seen either of them, like I said. Who knows what people will do when push comes to shove?”

“Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Coy did want to hide him out. Any place you know of where he might do that?”

Linkhauser shook his head.

Runyon said, “Do you know Jennifer Piper?”

“Who? Oh, that chick Troy was living with. What he saw in a skank like her I’ll never understand.”

“You know anything about her? Where she comes from, who her friends are?”

“Uh-uh. I only met her once and Troy never talked about her.”

“Know any of his friends?”

“No. I never saw him with anybody except the skank.” Linkhauser paused, frowning again. “What’ll happen to Troy if you find him? I mean, how much time in prison will he do?”

“Depends. Three or four years, maximum, if he’s convicted on the dealing charge.”

“Better that than being a fugitive, getting himself in deeper trouble.”

“Much better.”

Linkhauser looked off toward the loading dock. Thinking about something, making up his mind. “If Coy is helping him… what happens to him?”

“Harboring a fugitive is a felony,” Runyon said. “But it doesn’t have to come to that.”

“You wouldn’t bring charges against him? Coy?”

“Troy’s the man I’m after, not his brother. The quicker I find him, the better for everybody concerned.”

“… Yeah. Okay, then. Maybe I ought to keep my mouth shut, but

… Coy and his wife own a piece of rental property. Or did, anyway-I think she might’ve inherited it. They let Troy stay there for a few weeks after he first moved up from Bakersfield, until he got a place of his own.”

“Where’s this property located?”

“Can’t tell you that. Might’ve been S.F., but I’m not sure. Troy mentioned it once, that’s how I know about it, but I didn’t pay much attention to where it was. For all I know, they could’ve sold it by now.”

“You did the right thing by telling me about it.”

“I hope so,” Linkhauser said. “It’s hard to know what’s best for other people, you know? Half the time I don’t even know what’s best for me and my family.”