End Game

CHAPTER 34

“I couldn’t have shot you.”

Robie glanced over at her as the pair was driving toward Lamarre’s place. They had cleaned up and changed out of the clothes Dolph had made them wear. They were both gunned up and watching their vehicle’s mirrors carefully for any sign of pursuers.

It was now around nine at night and car lights could be easily seen. There were none back there.

“There was no reason for both of us to die,” replied Robie.

She shook her head in disagreement. “You dead, me not, what would have been the point?”

“I don’t get you sometimes. No, I don’t get you most of the time.”

She shrugged. “What can I say, Robie? It’s a Mars-Venus thing.”

“No, I don’t think you’re in the same universe as me, actually.”

“On the other hand, I should have shot him.”

“Who?”

“Dolph. I had him on the ground begging for his life. My muzzle was a foot from his chest. One pull, dead.” She paused. “And I didn’t do it.”

“You couldn’t kill the guy in cold blood, asshole or not.”

“We kill in cold blood all the time, Robie.”

“On orders. It’s different when it’s a personal thing.”

“Doesn’t matter. I still should have done it. I would have saved the world a ton of grief. I get a second chance, he’s a dead man.”

And Robie didn’t argue the point.

The house where Lamarre had stayed, according to his boss, was a tumbledown bare-bones cottage, but despite its derelict appearance there was what looked to be a new car parked out front, and they could see lights on inside.

Robie stopped the truck about a hundred feet from the house and they got out, their hands on their backup guns, which had replaced the ones lost to Dolph’s ambush.

“Think we’re going to find a headless body inside?” Reel asked.

“I’ve found out here that anything is possible.”

They approached the front of the house.

Robie touched the hood of the vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser.

“Cold,” he said.

They stepped to the front porch. Reel stood to the right of the door, her gun ready, while Robie rapped on the wood and then stepped to the left.

They heard footsteps padding toward the door.

It opened and a young woman looked back at them.

She was about five four, in her thirties, with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair possessing dark roots. A nose ring hung from each nostril. She had on jeans with a tank top revealing a spread of tattoo that swept over her left shoulder and continued down to her wrist.

It looked to Robie like a woman being swept along by rough water.

“Can I help you?” she said, looking first at Robie and then Reel.

Robie said, “We’re federal agents.”

“Where are your badges?” she demanded.

They held out their creds.

“What do you want?”

“We’re looking for Clément Lamarre. We understand he used to live here.”

“‘Used to’ is right.”

“What’s your name?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“You don’t have to do anything. But we can take you in for questioning somewhere more formal. And I don’t see how telling us your name is being too invasive.”

“Beverly Drango.”

“This your house?” asked Reel.

“It was my momma’s, and she left it to me when she passed on.”

“You know where Lamarre is?”

“No.”

“When was he last here?” asked Robie.

“I can’t remember.”

“We have his last paycheck,” Robie said. “Two hundred bucks.”

Drango’s eyes bulged. “In cash?”

“No, a check that he has to endorse on the back to cash.”

Her eyes returned to normal. “Figures,” she said disgustedly.

Robie said, “Sonny Driscoll said Lamarre never even showed up to get it.”

“Sounds like Clém,” said Drango bitterly. “He had no problem mooching off me, but God forbid he ever chipped in a dime. That money should be mine, plus a whole lot more.”

“So if you help us, maybe we can work something out on that score,” said Robie.

“Really?” she said eagerly.

“Can we come in?” asked Reel.

Drango looked nervous. “I don’t usually have visitors. I mean, the place ain’t too clean.”

“I can guarantee you that I’ve seen worse,” said Reel.

Drango held the door open and stepped back.

The room they walked into could accurately be described as a pigsty. Drango moved some junk off two chairs, and Robie and Reel sat down.

Robie pointed to her tat. “What does that mean? Someone being swept away?”

“Yeah, me. That’s my life, out of control.”

“Okay,” said Robie.

“Why are Feds looking for Clém? Any illegal shit he does is definitely small potatoes.”

“He ever talk to you about something he saw?” asked Robie.

“Saw? Like what?”

“Like people being held against their will?” said Reel.

“Against their will? Like prisoners?”

“In hoods and shackles,” added Robie.

Drango didn’t nod or shake her head. She just stood there looking down at them.

Reel looked over the woman’s shoulder at the lighted backyard that held a rusted swing set and an assortment of faded toys. In a bookcase behind Drango were shelves of children’s books.

“Where are your kids?”

“Don’t have any.”

“What are those for, then?” asked Reel, pointing out the window. “And those books?”

“I used to run a day care.”

“Really?” said Reel, looking around at the trash pit that was the woman’s home.

“When the kids were here this place was spic-and-span. Took good care of ’em. Fed ’em. Played with ’em.” She plucked out a book from the shelf. “Read to ’em. Kids like books.”

“What happened?”

“I… I made some bad decisions. I’m what you call a bum magnet. Moms didn’t like their kids being around them.”

“Okay, getting back to whether Lamarre talked to you about seeing these people?” prompted Robie.

Drango sighed, put the book back, and leaned against a bookcase. “You got to understand that probably half his life Clém was stoned, okay? He talked shit all the time. I never believed none of it.”

“What kind of shit? Like seeing prisoners somewhere?”

“Are you telling me that he did see that?”

“We think he did. It might be the reason he’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared? Hell, he probably just run off. Boys like him do, you know. Going to get his honey from another hive, so to speak. I seen his kind all my damn life.”

“Other people we think might have been involved in this have disappeared,” said Reel. “Including one person we really need to find. So maybe ‘Clém’ didn’t run off for fresh honey.”

“But who would be keeping prisoners out here?” she asked.

“You know somebody named Dolph?”

Drango’s top lip quivered just a bit. “No.”

“You want to think about that and try again?” asked Robie.

Drango perched her butt on top of the bookcase. “Look, everybody around here knows about that psycho. But I don’t know him.”

“We’ve made his acquaintance,” said Reel. “And I would affirm your description that he’s a psycho. But are you saying he’s not the sort to take prisoners?”

“I think he’s the sort that would do whatever the hell he wanted.”

Robie cocked his head and looked at her curiously. “You sound like you know more about him than you’re letting on, Ms. Drango.”

Drango fidgeted with one of her fingernails before saying, “I would not put it past those creeps to take prisoners. But I don’t know if that’s what Clém was talking about or not.”

“The last time you saw him, was it before or after he left rehab?”

Drango hesitated.

“Just tell us the truth. You’re not going to get in any trouble doing that,” said Robie. “But if you lie to us, that’s a whole other ballgame.”

“After. He came back here one night. He looked clean. I mean really clean from drugs. I thought he’d just left me, and I was pissed. But then he told me he’d gone into rehab voluntarily. Gotten himself off the crap. He said he really wanted to get his act together.” She stopped and rubbed at a sudden tear clinging to her right eye. “He said… he said maybe we should get married.”

“So it sounds like he was planning on staying around,” said Reel.

“Yeah, it sounded like it.”

“When he came back from rehab did he have his belongings with him?” asked Robie.

“He had a suitcase with clothes and stuff. He had left a few things here before he went away.”

“So did he take the suitcase with him when he left here?” he asked.

“Well, no, come to think. It’s still in the closet in my bedroom.”

“Can we see it?” asked Reel.

She led them back to a bedroom that, if anything, was more of a mess than the front room. She opened a closet door and pulled out a suitcase. “I haven’t even opened the damn thing, I was so pissed.”

“When exactly did he leave?” asked Robie.

“Let’s see. I guess, yeah, it was over a week ago because I had just got home from a party I worked at over in Denver. I do private bartending and in-home casino work on the side. You know, pretend casino where you don’t play with real money. Some rich asshole’s birthday party. Paid me more to pour drinks and work a craps table in one night than I make waitressing in a week. Anyway, I’d called Clém and we were supposed to go out and get drinks and something to eat at this little place down the road called the Gold Coast. Don’t know where they got that name. Sure as hell ain’t no coast around here and no damn gold. He said that’d be cool. So when I got home I expected him to be here. Only he wasn’t. I called and left voice mails. I texted and e-mailed and got zip. No Clém.”

“We understand he had a vehicle?”

“A beat-to-shit Datsun pickup. That was gone too. I just figured he left his crap here because he didn’t want to be bothered taking it with him. Then I quit caring. I just thought he got strung out again or something.”

“But you said you talked to him that night, before you came home. Not enough time to get strung out, surely?” said Reel.

“With Clém and meth it only took one pop for him to be totally effed up.”

“So one more time, Ms. Drango, did Lamarre tell you about seeing prisoners?”

She sighed and nodded. “Okay, look, it was before he went into rehab. He got home from work real late one night. I was just getting in bed after soaking my feet, which were swollen like watermelons from being on ’em all day. He walked into the bedroom looking like he’d seen a ghost.”

“What did he say he’d seen?”

“A van pulled up to the store to get some gas. He said a dude got out but he had trouble with the pump. The reader thing wasn’t recognizing the credit card or some such. Happens at the restaurant where I work, too. Anyway, there’s a button you can press for assistance. So Clém came out of the cage behind the counter and went outside. He went armed, he said, because folks have tried to trick him before to get him out of the cage. But this guy was legit. The reader was screwed up.”

“Okay,” said Robie. “Then what?”

“So Clém is fiddling with the reader, trying to see what the problem was. While he was doing that the guy opens the driver’s-side door to get something out. Clém said he saw a holstered weapon on the guy’s belt when his jacket rode up. And the interior light comes on when the door opens. That’s when Clém saw it.”

“Saw what exactly?” asked Reel.

“In the rearview mirror. Clém said it was one of those panoramic ones. It showed into the back of the van. He said there were like six people back there shackled and hooded. They were alive, because he saw two of them move around a bit. A guy was guarding them.”

“What did Clém do then?”

“Look, he’s no hero, okay? Now, if somebody was coming after him or me, even Clém would fight you. But this wasn’t his fight. He had no idea who those people were. When the guy got back out of the truck, Clém told him the reader wouldn’t work but they could take cash. So the guy paid in cash, filled up his tank, and that was that. He drove off.”

“And why didn’t Lamarre call the cops?”

“Hell, I don’t know. He said he’d half-convinced himself he’d imagined it all. Or that maybe the guys with guns were cops and the people in the back were prisoners. Maybe, you know terrorists. They use hoods on ’em. I seen pictures of them assholes at Gitmo.”

“Gitmo is a long way from here,” noted Robie.

“Hey, I don’t know what to tell you. So he didn’t call the cops. But I guess it kept bugging him. But why would he disappear? They didn’t know he’d seen anything. If they did, wouldn’t they’ve just shot him right there?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Robie. “He didn’t get a license plate number or anything?”

“If he did he didn’t tell me. It was a white panel van. He did say it had Colorado plates.”

“Well, that narrows it down to a few hundred thousand,” said Reel sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, but that’s all I know.”

“We’re going to take the suitcase,” said Robie. “Anything else here of his?”

Drango looked around. “I don’t think so.”

“Did he have a phone or laptop?”

“He had a phone because I told you I called it. He didn’t have no laptop.”

“Okay, thanks. One last thing. Have you told anyone about what Lamarre told you?”

She hesitated. “No, not that I can remember. I mean, I thought it was horseshit, so why would I have?”

They left her standing by the front door looking as lost as the woman on the tattoo.

“Some life,” said Robie.

“You think we have it any better?” replied Reel.

When they got back to the hotel in Grand, there was a package waiting for them.

“Bomb?” said Reel.

Robie opened the package. Inside were their pistols and phones.

“Where the hell did these come from?” asked Reel.

“There’s a note.”

Robie unfolded the slip of paper and read off it. “From a friend on the inside. Phones clean. Dolph laying low. DS.”

“Dwight Sanders,” said Reel. “He said he had someone on the inside with Dolph. They must have gotten our stuff back somehow.”

“And Dolph is lying low. Well, that’s something positive and might give us some breathing room,” said Robie.

They finally hit the sack after what was, even for them, an eventful day.