Plum Spooky

NINETEEN

WINK WAS IN a rattrap, cement bunker-type building in a part of the downtown business district that hadn’t been included in the beautification package. The parking lot was surrounded by chain-link fence, the gate controlled by a security guard. There was a dish and a couple antennae on the roof and a sign on the front of the building telling people they were at WINK.

I parked the Buick at the curb across the street from the lot, and we sat there for a half hour watching the building.

“What are we doing?” Lula said.

“Watching.”

“For what?”

“There’s a flatbed truck backed up to the building at the far side of the parking lot. It looks like there’s someone in the truck, behind the wheel, but I can’t see him. Two men in khaki uniforms are walking from the truck to the building, doing something. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be repairing a transmitter, but I think they might be stealing it.”

“No way. How would you know that?”

I gave Lula the sanitized version of Wulf and the Evil Weather Machine. And I told her about the shopping list.

“Double no way” she said.

I looked in my mirror and saw a black Rangeman SUV pull in behind me. Tank was at the wheel. I didn’t recognize his partner. We all got out and stood hands on hips.

“Ranger saw you parked in front of the radio station and sent me to make sure everything is okay” Tank said.

“It was okay before you showed up,” Lula said. “Now I’m not so sure. Do you still have those cats?”

“Yeah. You want to see pictures?”

Tank pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and showed us a picture of three cats sitting, looking at the camera.

“This one’s Miss Kitty, and this is Suzy and this is Applepuff.”

“You’re carry ing around pictures of your cats?” Lula said. “You never had a picture of me in your wallet, and we were engaged.”

“I have big news about Applepuff,” Tank said. “I think she’s pregnant. I’m going to have kittens!”

“Kittens! Are you prepared to have kittens? That’s a responsibility. Does Ranger know about this? I have a mind to tell Ranger.”

“I’m going to find good homes for them,” Tank said.

Lula sneezed and farted. “See what you do to me. Get away from me. You’re full of cat cooties.”

“I can’t get away,” Tank said. “Ranger wants me to stay with Stephanie.”

“You’re too late,” Lula said. “I’m already here. This could be a dangerous mission, and Stephanie needs me. And there’s no car big enough for the both of us.”

“There would be if you’d lay off the fried chicken,” Tank said.

Tank’s partner sucked in some air and took a step back.

Lula leaned forward. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

“No,” Tank said. “I didn’t say that. I don’t know where that came from. You make me crazy. Look at me. I’m sweating. You scare the heck out of me.”

“It’s unnatural the way you sweat,” Lula said. “You should have it looked into.”

Tank’s partner was making a big show of looking at his watch. “I should be getting back to Rangeman,” he said. “I’m supposed to do something.”

Tank turned to me. “Ranger wants Jim to bring the Buick back to your lot, and I’m supposed to drive you around.”

Good deal. I had Tank to protect me from Wulf. I gave Jim the car keys, and Jim smiled wide.

“Cool car,” he said. “I’ll take real good care of it.”

Men love the Buick. Truth is, it reminds me of Lula. A lot of rumble, you have to muscle it around, and it’s got great big headlights.

The flatbed truck was still parked, and I hadn’t seen the uniformed men in a while. I was beginning to worry I might be wrong. I mean, what are the chances that someone could actually control weather? Zero? And what are the chances that these uniformed guys were sent by Wulf to steal a radio-station transmitter? It was preposterous.

“You guys stay here and wait for me,” I said to Tank and Lula. “I’m going inside to snoop around.”

“I gotta go with you,” Tank said. “Ranger will kill me if anything happens to you.”

“Me, too,” Lula said. “I’m sticking to you like glue.”

“I’m going across the street to a radio station. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“I’ll be real discreet,” Tank said.

As discreet as a six-foot-six, no-neck guy weighing three hundred and fifty pounds, all dressed in black SWAT clothes, with a Glock holstered at his side could be.

“Me, too,” Lula said. “I’ll discreet your ass off.”

Tank and I looked at her. She was wearing a traffic-stopping, orange, fake fur jacket, a poison green spandex skirt that stopped just short of her ass, green ankle boots that matched the skirt, and her hair was sunflower yellow.

I allowed myself a small sigh of defeat, and I crossed the street with Tank and Lula on my heels. I pushed through the front door into a small, dark lobby with a tattered rug and sad, worn-out furniture. No money in radio, I thought. A woman behind a receptionist desk focused on us.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“I’m from the Trenton Times,” I said. “We’re doing a feature story on WINK, and I’m doing some preliminary work, scouting out a front-page photo op.”

“I didn’t hear anything about it,” she said. “You’re not on my schedule.”

“Well, how about us?” Lula said. “Are we on your schedule?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Lula. Who the heck do you think? And this here’s Tank.”

The woman scanned her list of names.

“Jelly bean counting contest,” I told the receptionist. “They’re part of the photo shoot.”

Lula sneezed and farted. “Excuse me,” she said to the receptionist. “It’s not my fault. I’m allergic to the cat lady here.”

“That’s mean,” Tank said. “Men can have cats, too. Cats guarded royal houses back in Egypt.”

“If they guarded my house, I’d be dead,” Lula said. “I’d sneeze myself into the grave. And a lot you care. You picked a cat over me.”

“It was one of those fate things,” Tank said. “It’s just these cats came along. It wasn’t like I was looking for them.”

“I should have known. Right from the beginning, Miss Gloria said our moons were incompatible.”

The receptionist perked up at that. “I know Miss Gloria. Miss Gloria does my charts.”

“Get out,” Lula said. “Don’t you love her? You couldn’t live without her, right?”

“I don’t make a move without Miss Gloria’s say-so. One time, I was driving to work, and I was on the phone with her, and she told me I was gonna be in an accident, and next thing you know, I rear-ended a guy.”

“That’s scary amazin’,” Lula said.

“I thought we might want a shot of the behind-the-scenes workings of a radio station,” I said to the receptionist. “Where’s your transmitter?”

“They’re down that hallway all the way, and to the right, and out the door, but there are people working on the main. We’re on backup right now.”

“I never saw a radio-station transmitter before,” Lula said. And she took off down the hall, opening doors, looking inside the rooms.

“You can’t do that!” the receptionist yelled after Lula.

“I’ll go get her,” I said. “She’s just excited. Miss Gloria told her this was going to be her big break.”

“Is that a real gun?” the receptionist asked Tank. “You can’t bring a gun in here.”

“Bean counters don’t carry real guns,” I said. “They shoot blanks.”

“Do you want to see a picture of my cats?” Tank asked the receptionist. “I’m pretty sure Applepuff is pregnant.”

Lula got to the end of the hall and waved at me to follow. I ran after Lula, and Tank stayed behind to show the receptionist his cats. Lula and I pushed through the door marked no admittance and found the two uniformed men winching a huge machine onto the flatbed.

“Is that a transmitter?” I asked them.

“No hablo ingles,” the one man said.

The flatbed engine cranked over, and the truck idled while the two men strapped the machine down and secured clamps.

“They’re taking off with the transmitter,” I said to Lula. “We need to get Tank. We need to follow them.”

Lula and I ran down the hall, snagged Tank, and we all ran across the street and jumped into the Rangeman SUV. The flatbed swung around in the lot and rolled to the gate. The gate opened, and the truck made a wide turn onto the street. The driver of the truck looked directly at me when he made the turn. His eyes went wide, and red spots instantly appeared on his cheeks. It was Munch.

“That’s Munch!” I said. “That’s my man.”

Munch put his foot to the floor and the flatbed took off down the street. Tank was close behind. Lula was in the backseat with her head out the window and her Glock in her hand.

“Pull alongside him!” Lula yelled. “I’ll shoot out his tires. I’ll bust a cap up his ass.”

“Got it,” Tank said, easing up beside the truck on a two-lane city street.

“Drop back!” I told him. “You’ll get us killed.”

Munch swerved away from the SUV and took out three parked cars and a light post. The flatbed surged ahead, jumped the curb, and cut a corner, sending two people screaming into a Starbucks.

“The little guy at the wheel can’t drive,” Tank said. “He’s all over the road.”

“You’re scaring him,” I said. “Back off.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Lula said. “I got this bad boy in my sights.”

Lula squeezed off two rounds and shattered the rear window of a parked car. The flatbed ran a light, and cars swerved to avoid it, horns blaring. Tank slowed and crept through the intersection. Six people gave him the finger.

“He’s heading for Broad,” I said to Tank. “He’s going to the Pine Barrens.”

Tank turned onto Broad with the flatbed in sight. Several cars were between us and the truck. The flatbed took the orange light at Hamilton, and everyone behind him stopped for the red.

“Don’t you have no flashy lights or anything?” Lula asked Tank. “Aren’t we an emergency vehicle?”

“Ranger doesn’t let us use them,” Tank said.

“Ranger this and Ranger that,” Lula said. “Don’t none of you people think for yourself? I bet you can’t wipe yourself without Ranger telling you.”

Tank looked at her in the rearview mirror. “I’m telling him you said that.”

“I might have misspoke,” Lula said.

We couldn’t see the truck anymore, but we could mea sure its progress by the destruction on the side of the road. Four more trashed cars, a flattened mailbox, two demolished street signs.

We reached Bordentown and approached the Turnpike entrance.

“I haven’t seen any wrecked cars for over a mile now,” Lula said. “Do you think he took another road?”

“Maybe he’s learning how to drive his rig,” Tank said. “What should I do here?”

“Take the Turnpike,” I told him.

It was a gamble. There were three main roads going south from Bordentown. The Turnpike was the fastest. Tank took the Turnpike south, and after a few miles, I was feeling insecure. The road stretched like an endless ribbon in front of us, and I didn’t see the flatbed. We passed Burlington and Cherry Hill and came to the Atlantic City Expressway exit.

“Now what?” Tank asked.

“Take the exit to Atlantic City,” I told him. “We’ve gone this far. We might as well look around the Marbury area.”

This was depressing. I’d come so close to capturing Munch, only to have him slip through my fingers. A whole bunch of what ifs was running through my head. What if I’d gone out and looked at the driver when the truck was idling at the radio station? What if I’d called Ranger for help with the car chase? What if I was smarter, faster, braver, thinner… It was endless.

Tank drove through Marbury and doubled back along the road to the gift shop. He passed the gift shop and went north on a secondary road. It was a two-lane, blacktop road running through pinewoods, dotted here and there with small ranch houses. Every house had a mailbox set at the edge of the road. Single-lane gravel and dirt roads shot off the blacktop road into the outback of the Barrens.

Tank stopped the SUV, and we all stared at the dirt road and pale green bungalow in front of us. The mailbox to the bungalow was demolished and heavy-tread tire tracks were cut deep into the bungalow’s front yard. The tire tracks ran over the smashed mailbox and swung onto the single-lane road, where they almost entirely disappeared on the hard-packed dirt.

“Bingo,” Lula said.

Tank turned onto the dirt road and followed it through the forest for almost a mile into a cleared area that reminded me of a small landing strip for a plane. The flatbed was parked in front of us, but it was missing the transmitter, Munch, and his uniformed crew.

A rutted path large enough for an ATV led into the woods at the end of the cleared strip. Tank drove to the path, and we got out to take a look.

“I can’t get the SUV down this path,” Tank said. “Do you want me to walk it to see where it goes?”

“We’ll all walk it,” I said.

I had no desire to lag behind and run up against Wulf all by my lonesome. I still had his hand imprinted on my wrist. Call me chickenshit, but if I came across Wulf, I wanted to be hiding behind Tank.

Tank led the way and Lula and I followed. It was twilight, and Tank had taken a flashlight from the SUV. The path obviously served a purpose, because the scrub had been worn away at the edge and there were some recently broken branches kicked to the side. We trudged through a thick stand of pines and stepped into a woodland fuel depot. There were rows of tanks that were the size you might use for a gas grill. Neatly placed in front of the tanks were some steel drums. Maybe twenty feet away, stacked like cordwood under the roof of a three-sided shed, were rockets. Not BlueBec. These were smaller. From what Diesel had told me, I knew the BlueBecs were about eighteen feet long. These were closer to six and narrower in diameter.

“You could have a barbecue here,” Lula said. “Only thing missing is the ribs.”

It would seem logical that if fuel and some rockets were here, then the command center and Gail and Munch shouldn’t be far away. Problem was, there were no other paths. And no buildings. There was only one way in to the tank farm, and we’d just walked it. Beyond the flatbed and what looked like a landing strip, there were no roads, no buildings, no ATV trails.

Tank tipped his head back and looked at one of the pines by the shed. “There’s a camera stuck into that tree,” he said. “This area is under surveillance.” He looked around. “There are two more cameras that I can see.”

Total panic attack. I felt like someone was squeezing my heart. “We have to get out of here.”

“Only one way to go,” Tank said.

We turned and started to head out, and four ATVs driven by guys in khaki uniforms powered in at us.

“Am I getting punked?” Lula said. “Is this real? This shit don’t happen in real life.”

My eyes were rolling around in my head, looking for an escape route.

“Through the woods,” Tank said, grabbing my hand, shoving Lula.

“Stop!” one of the men shouted. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

And he fired off a couple rounds.

“Damn,” Lula said. “Those are real bullets.” She pulled her Glock out of her bag and fired back. Her round missed the guy in the uniform and zinged into one of the tanks. The cylinder exploded into a fireball and flew forty feet into the air. It hit the ground and ignited every other cylinder and steel drum. Cylinders were shooting into the air like firecrackers, and the fire spread to the rockets. It was the Fourth of July, Chinese New Year, and Armageddon.

“Oops,” Lula said. “My bad.”

“Run!” Tank yelled in my ear. “Now! Run back to the SUV.”

Lula and I took off, and Tank ran behind us. I went down twice, and Tank dragged me to my feet. Lula never once went down. Lula was haulin’ ass. We had the SUV in sight when there was a sound like whoosh, and BANG- the SUV was toast.

“Rocket,” Tank said. “Ranger’s gonna hate this.”

We turned and ran through the woods, keeping the dirt road in sight, heading for the paved road. A pickup barreled down the dirt road. The back of the pickup was filled with guys in the khaki uniforms. We crouched low until they were past, and then we ran some more. We were almost to the road when lightning cut across the sky, and it started to rain. A mist at first, and then, within minutes, we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.

“I’m gonna drown,” Lula said. “I’ve never been in a rain like this. This is unnatural.”

Headlights appeared on the dirt road, an SUV going slow in the rain, sliding on the road that was fast turning to mud. Tank recognized it first. It was Hal in Ranger’s Jeep Cherokee.

We stumbled out of the woods and climbed into the Jeep.

“Get us out of here,” Tank said to Hal. “Fast.”

Hal threw the Jeep into reverse and ground his way through the mud to the pavement. It probably only took him five minutes, but it was the longest five minutes I could remember. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. I was in the backseat with Lula, and I had a death grip on the sleeve of her soaking-wet, fake fur jacket. Lula was rigid alongside me, breathing like a freight train.

The instant we were on pavement, the rain stopped. We looked back into the pine forest, and it was still raining, the rain dampening the thick, black smoke rising from the fuel depot and Ranger’s Cherokee.

“I swear,” Hal said, “this place is like the Bermuda Triangle. It’s friggin’ spooky. I went out to feed the monkeys last night, and I saw the Easter Bunny walking down the road with Sasquatch. And now there are rockets shooting into the sky from nowhere.”

“Don’t think you’ll be seeing any more rockets anytime soon,” Lula said.

“What were you doing on that road?” Tank asked Hal.

“The control room followed your blip to the Barrens and saw you parked. They told me to take a look and make sure everything was okay. I’m a couple miles away babysitting monkeys.”

“I knew I smelled monkey” Lula said. “Now I recognize this car.”