King Con

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

BEANO HAD LEFT VICTORIA AT THREE-THIRTY IN THE afternoon and had driven the yellow Caprice across town to pick up Paper Collar John at his hotel; then they headed toward the Red Boar Inn two blocks off Market Street down by the harbor. Beano could hear them even before he and Paper Collar John pulled into the large asphalt parking lot. The Inn was an arched, two-story, stucco, Spanish-style structure with a red tile roof. There were ten wide-tire trucks parked in the lot, all of them sporting Arkansas license plates, mud flaps, gun racks, and tuck-and-roll upholstery. For some unknown reason each radio antenna had a red feather taped to the tip. The trucks were pristine, and glistened with chrome wheel rims and lacquer paint. The sound of laughter and catcalls was pouring out into the early evening through the open door of room 15.

"Shit," Beano said to Paper Collar John, "they're gonna end up getting busted for noise pollution before we even get them in the lineup."

"I already came down here twice yesterday and talked to the Manager of this place. Gave him an extra five hundred not to call the cops."

"Who's in charge a'these hillbillies now?" Beano asked as they got out of the Caprice and moved toward the room where a huge, three-hundred-pound albino man in overalls was tipped back in a creaking metal chair.

"Hard to tell," John answered. "None a'these Hog Creek Bateses have IQs higher than the Arkansas speed limit. I think it's either the skinny one, Cadillac Bates, or maybe it's the fat guy, Ford."

Beano remembered that more than half of the Hog Creek Bateses were named after their vehicles. The reason for that, he'd been told, was because most of them couldn't read. They chose names they could copy off their trucks for hospital birth certificates.

As they got nearer, they could hear Travis Tritt singing on the full-volume radio, but still barely cutting through the wall of Hog Creek noise. The Albino in the chair, whose skin and buzzed hair were both snow-white, finished a beer and burped at them.

"Hi, cousin. I'm Beano. Cadillac Bates around?" Beano asked and smiled at his huge, inbred relative.

The Albino didn't answer but turned and bellowed over his shoulder, "Yankees comin'!"

"Thanks for that kind assessment," Beano said to the Albino, who blinked pale eyes at him, missing the sarcasm. "Which one are you?" he added.

"Bronco Bates," the young man said, and burped again. End of conversation.

Beano nodded and moved past Bronco into a motel room that had been cleared of all furniture. The king-size bed had been dismantled and stacked up against the wall. The rest of the furniture was piled up in the hall. There were twenty Bateses and two roosters in the room. The men were in a circle cheering, while the game cocks in the center of the room were tearing the shit out of each other. Money was on the floor everywhere, and the men, who ranged in age from twenty to fifty, were yelling obscenities at the two warring roosters. The spectators looked like refugees from a monster truck tournament.

"Jesus," Beano said to John in disgust as the two cocks went at each other.

Finally, one of the birds went down, and the owner of the defeated rooster yelled, "Done," and grabbed his game cock before it was ripped to shreds by the winner. Then a scramble for money took place and finally, after several loud arguments, the gambling seemed to be over. While Tammy Wynette took possession of the radio and started warbling another country favorite, the room full of Bateses seemed to finally notice Beano and John standing in the doorway.

"I'm Beano!" he yelled loudly, just as another huge Arkansas inbred came in from the bathroom with a rooster under his arm and started to unleash him for another bout.

Beano stepped into the circle. "I'm Beano Bates," he repeated, "and I've got money for you." That seemed to get their attention.

"Hey, Echo, turn that fuckin' radio down," Bronco yelled.

Echo Bates was an identical albino twin to Bronco. Born ten minutes behind his brother, he escaped being named after his mother's Studebaker, getting the marginally better name Echo. He got up, lumbered over, and turned the radio down.

"I'm looking for Cadillac Bates," Beano said again.

They all sat there and looked around at each other like contestants on Jeopardy! until finally, a tall, skinny man in his forties stood and walked over to him.

"You ain't paid us what you owed, cousin."

"That's why I'm here."

"Blazer and Wrangler, you come on with me. Rest a'you hold 'em birds. I want in on this next 'un."

He moved out of the room with Beano and John and across the parking lot. Finally he turned and stood by the row of shiny trucks, leaning his skinny ass on the bug protector grill of the closest one. He folded his arms and looked at Beano.

"Nice t'see you again," Beano smiled. The last time he'd been around the Hog Creek Bateses he'd been about ten and had gone with his mother and father up into the Ozark Plateau mountains to hide from the law. They spent two weeks with the family in Hog Creek. Back then there were only two brothers and their wives and families. About fifteen people. They lived in a remote valley, miles from the nearest neighbors. It seemed they'd done a lot of serious inbreeding since then. "Lotta new family," he grinned at Cadillac Bates, who seemed in no hurry to speak. Or maybe, Beano mused, he just hadn't been able to form a complete thought yet." 'Bout half this many boys in the family back then." Beano continued trying to fill the awkward silence. "Bronco and Echo and lots of these cousins probably weren't even born yet; 'course, it was over twenty years ago."

Then Cadillac furrowed his brow. A thought pushed its way out of his constipated brain. "Most Bateses ain't been born, they's squeezed outta bar rags," he said, without smiling.

"That's pretty good, very funny," Beano said.

"We come all the way out here 'cause you called, but we got no deal yet. You owe us travel money."

"I didn't know you were gonna bring twenty people," Beano hedged. "I only need five or six."

"Know the trouble doin' business with kin?"

"No."

"Y'all think we got a family discount."

"Don't we?" Beano grinned, trying to lighten the mood.

"Come all the way from Hog Creek, Arkansas, 'cause you said you wanted a posse." He dug into his pocket and handed a sheet of paper over to Beano. Somebody had obviously taught Cadillac Bates how to read and write because he had all of their expenses itemized. "That there's what it cost us t'git ta this place an' back. I'm puttin' three cents a mile fer wear an' tear on them pickups. Rambler an' Dodge lost a tranny on their Ram truck in Oklahoma an' I stuck that on there."

Beano took the sheet of paper. It came to almost two thousand dollars. "Lotta money," he said, handing the sheet to John, who examined it.

"Is what it is." Cadillac jerked a thumb toward Paper Collar John. "The other job he told us about gonna cost ya fifteen thousand plus ten percent of the takedown. Dental and medical is extra if we need it. That's the deal, no bargaining. Pay it now, otherwise Church is out an' you can deal with this mess yourself." John handed the accounting back to Beano.

"Guess we need the back-up," Beano said and John nodded, so Beano walked to the trunk of the Caprice, opened it and took seventeen thousand dollars of Sabre Bay money out of the blue canvas bag, walked over, and handed it to Cadillac Bates. The skinny geezer hillbilly counted it and stuffed it into his overalls, way down into his crotch, where it would be safe, next to his shriveled nuts.

"Listen," Beano said, "you gotta knock off the cock fights and hold it down. You're gonna get turned in by another guest. Fighting birds are against the law. You get arrested, you're no good to me."

"Cousin Beano, you jist bought yerself a Hog Creek solution. We ain't too citified and that's a fact. Them boys in there, they ain't all quite right an' sometimes they tend t'eat supper 'fore they say grace. But that ain't gonna ever change, an' if anybody calls the po-lice, then we'll just hafta clean that plow when it gets here." He was still leaning against the truck, squinting at Beano through slate-gray eyes.

Beano finally nodded his head. He was already regretting this choice. This branch of the family had been inbreeding for fifty years. Most of them were dumb as dirt, and tough as nickel steak. It was a dangerous combination. He didn't remember them quite this way, but he'd only been ten and maybe hadn't been paying very close attention. He did remember that his mom and dad had packed up the Winnebago and left weeks before they'd planned. The men in the motel room just a few yards away were a couple of notches down on the evolutionary chart. Their eyes betrayed a huge intellectual emptiness; their speech was born from a culture of moonshine and Confederate flags. But Beano had no choice. Tommy was on his way to San Francisco, and the final stage of the con was ready to be played. Tomorrow morning they would walk Tommy into the Fentress County Petroleum and Gas Company and try to separate him from Joe's five million dollars. Beano hoped this collection of yahoos could step up and save him at the blow-off.

He left the Red Boar Inn and headed back to the Marina Motel, where Victoria was waiting. Periodically, he had an unsettling feeling, almost like he was being watched, but each time he checked his rear-view mirror he could see nobody following.

He got back to the motel at seven and Victoria wasn't there. Her overnight bag was half unpacked and he stood in the room while an unreasonable panic washed over him.

She was still not back at eight.

He called John, but he had not seen or heard from her.

At eight-thirty she opened the door and came into the room.

"Jesus," he said, both angry and relieved. "Don't do this to me. Where were you?"

"Law school girlfriend of mine lives here, we met for a drink, I lost track of time," she lied. Then she went to the curtains to close them. She looked out at the street. She couldn't see the FBI van, but she knew they were out there waiting to pounce. She felt so guilty, she could barely look at Beano.

"Tomorrow we do the sting," he said.

*