The Forgotten Holocaust

Chapter Forty-Five

They stopped off to grab a takeout from an all-night grill joint called Busby’s, a few blocks from the Perryman. Erin’s appetite seemed to make a rapid comeback when she smelled the quarter-pound burger patties sizzling on the open char-grill. Ben ordered two double cheeses, mayo on hers, chilli on his, large fries with both. Busby’s sold beer by the bottle, and he bought three cold ones for Erin, along with some Cokes for himself. Booze was still strictly not allowed.

Returning to the motel, Ben backed the Plymouth right up close to his door so that he could transfer the holdall and the shotgun into the room discreetly and without frightening the neighbours. You had to think about these things, even in a high-class establishment like the Perryman Inn.

‘Classy joint,’ Erin said drily as she surveyed inside. ‘You weren’t kidding.’

There was an awkward silence as they both glanced at the double bed, which had seen a lot of use and was sagging in the middle. Ben offered to sleep on the bathroom floor that night. It seemed the least he could do. With that moment past, they unpacked the food and pulled up the room’s only two chairs to eat at a little table.

‘I didn’t realise how hungry I was,’ she said between bites.

‘Getting shot at tends to have that effect on people,’ Ben said.

‘As long as they don’t get killed in the process.’

‘That helps.’

‘You want a beer?’ she asked, offering him a bottle.

He shook his head and cracked open a Coke. ‘I’ll stick with this.’

She shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, if it’s what you prefer.’

He sipped some of it and pulled a face at how sickly sweet it tasted to him. ‘No, I hate the stuff. And I’d love a beer. That’s why I won’t have one.’

‘Why, are you an alcoholic?’ she asked.

He looked at her, taken aback by the directness of the question. In this light her eyes were vivid green, like a cat’s. ‘Let’s just say I’ve been known to overstep the limits,’ he said.

‘My mom’s an alcoholic,’ Erin said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s what I grew up with, so I know all there is to know about it. Tequila and bourbon. Her favourite things in life.’

‘Malt Scotch,’ he said, jabbing a thumb at his chest.

‘How long have you been on the wagon?’

‘I’m still a newbie,’ he confessed.

‘Will it drive you totally crazy if I drink beer in front of you? It’s just that I badly need it, after today.’

He smiled. ‘I won’t break your arm to get at it, if that’s what you mean. You drink, and I’ll smoke. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

They ate a while in silence, then Ben said, ‘So your mother’s an alcoholic and your father’s dead. Any other family?’

She shook her head. ‘I was married a while. Had to walk away from it.’

‘Why was that?’

‘He used to hit me,’ she replied.

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘I never told my daddy. He’d have killed him.’

‘Sounds like a sensible man.’

‘What about you? Family? Kids?’

‘I have a grown-up son,’ Ben said.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jude.’

‘That’s a nice name. Does he take after you?’

‘A little too much,’ Ben said.

After they’d finished eating and the table was cleared, Ben lit up a cigarette, then went back out to the car and brought in the tools he’d brought from the lock-up. He clamped the vice to the table, then took off his belt.

‘I’m not even gonna ask what you’re doing now,’ Erin said, sitting on the bed and sipping her second beer.

Ben picked up the shotgun and in a few quick moves removed the barrel, just a steel tube a little over two feet long with a fastening lug welded halfway along its underside. Setting the rest of the dismantled gun aside, he wrapped the belt around the breech end of the barrel to protect it from the jaws of the vice, then tightened everything up so that the muzzle end protruded immobile from the edge of the table. The next stage would get noisy, so he turned on the radio. ‘Do they only play country music?’ he said after the third station he tried.

‘Boy, you’re really not from around here, are you?’

Ben sat down at the table with the clamped barrel in front of him and the hacksaw in his hand, and began the process of turning a sporting weapon into a riot gun. It would become hopelessly inaccurate at longer ranges, but he cared as much about that as about the legality of it.

‘You’ve done this before,’ she said, watching him as the saw cut deeper into the steel with a grinding sound that set their teeth on edge.

‘Once or twice,’ he admitted.

‘What a day this turned out to be. I’ve shot two people, I’ve been chased, tasered and almost kidnapped and now I’m sitting watch a strange Brit who doesn’t like country music saw the barrel off of a shotgun.’

‘Half Irish,’ he corrected her.

‘That’s still a Brit, isn’t it?’

He paused sawing, and looked at her. ‘Careful.’

Fifteen minutes of metallic grinding and shrieking later, a length of discarded steel tube fell to the floor and Ben finally laid down the saw. Next he picked up the file and got to work smoothing off the end of the lopped barrel. He cleared up the mess of powdery metal that covered the table, and threw it in the waste basket before reassembling the now much-shortened Ithaca.

Meanwhile, Erin had finished her second beer and had kicked off her shoes as she began the third. Sitting back on the bed, she’d been idly sifting through the contents of her bag when she suddenly remembered the syringe. She took it out and held it in her hands, frowning at it. ‘What do you suppose this crap is they were trying to stick me with?’ she asked, peering at the pale-coloured fluid inside. Ben laid down the gun, walked over and took the syringe from her hand. He unscrewed the bent needle and dripped a couple of drops of the fluid onto the table. He moistened a fingertip and gave it a quick sniff. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s Zotepine,’ he said. ‘I’ve come across it before.’

‘What does it do?’ she asked anxiously.

‘It’s your typical chemical cosh,’ he replied. ‘Kidnappers use it. Powerful antipsychotic, antimanic, fast-acting in high doses. Before it was taken off the market for safety reasons, they used to pump the stuff into severely mentally ill people in hospital when they became aggressive, to make them nice and calm and compliant. Makes a handy date-rape drug, too, in low doses. A whole range of side effects you don’t want to know about. If you keep taking it, you turn into a shuffling brain-dead zombie.’

Erin’s brow was creased with anger. ‘I took it away thinking it might be more evidence, or something. Now I just want to flush it down the toilet.’

Ben thought for a moment. ‘There might be other uses for it.’

‘Just keep it the hell away from me.’

‘You’ve already come as close to it as you’ll ever get. I promise.’ Ben replaced the needle on the end of the syringe and laid it aside. He was quiet for a few moments, thinking. Then he walked back over to the bed and perched himself on the end of it. She moved her bare feet a little to make room for him.

‘How do you feel now?’ he asked gently.

‘A little steadier.’ She held up the beer bottle. ‘This helps. Kinda sleepy.’

‘Tell me about your boss.’

‘Angela?’

Ben nodded.

‘She and I get along great. She’s a good boss, cares about the people who work for her, and is dedicated to her cause. I think she’s a little sad and lonely. What else can I say?’

‘How much does her husband trust her?’

‘Believe me, she has no idea about what he’s into. None, I swear.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

Erin nodded. ‘Very sure.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘What if I wasn’t?’ she asked.

‘Then I’d have said perhaps she could help us fill in a few blanks about hubby’s little operation. Such as where they keep the merchandise.’

Erin shook her head. ‘Leave her out of it, okay? It’s going to be hard enough for her if all this comes out. I mean, it isn’t much of a marriage, but something like this will destroy her.’

‘So we can provisionally draw a line through her name. What about the father?’

‘Big Joe?’

‘Ever met him?’

Erin yawned. The luminous green eyes were getting harder to keep open now that the beer was taking effect. Her long day was catching up with her. ‘Uh-huh. He was with Finn one time, when he came by the office. That old guy scares the crap out of everybody who meets him.’

‘I’ve seen his picture,’ Ben said.

‘Angela’s terrified of him. It’s why she won’t go near Arrowhead Ranch. That, and she’s allergic to horses.’ Erin stretched out a little on the bed, relaxing more with every passing second. ‘Not like me. I love horses.’

‘Let me guess. Your daddy taught you to ride.’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Her lips curled in a sleepy smile. One of her bare feet touched Ben’s leg. He felt its warm pressure there, pressing against him. Maybe it was because she was getting drowsy that she didn’t take it away.

‘Arrowhead,’ he said. ‘Same name as the oil company the old man founded back in 1935.’

‘The oilfields were all Indian Territory once. The whole state was. Native American names are part of the culture. It’s pretty terrible, I guess. What the settlers did to them.’

‘Have you been there, to the ranch?’

She shook her head. ‘Know where it is, though. Who doesn’t? Big spread out west of the city.’

Ben had a feeling that for an Oklahoman, big really meant big. ‘Does old Joe McCrory live there alone?’ he asked, wondering about all the hidden arms caches you could squeeze into several hundred, maybe even a thousand, acres of ranch land.

‘I think so. His wife died a long time back.’ She yawned again.

Ben stopped firing questions at her and soon afterwards her eyes began to drift shut. She’d had a long day. He took the empty beer bottle from her hand, laid it on the table. She murmured something and curled up on the bed with her head on the pillow, and he reached over her and pulled the covers across her body. Within a minute, she was asleep, leaving Ben alone with his thoughts.