The Last Call

CHAPTER SIX

I’ve had a few rude awakenings in my life. When I came to in the near dark, that first instant was unsettling. I wanted to swat at the wasps that were stinging my head, only there were no wasps.

“Settle down, Bill.” It was Hank’s voice.

“What happened?” I asked.

We were inside a garage. A bare forty-watt bulb cast the only light into the room. I heard a gentle snore nearby.

“That’s Julie,” Hank said. “She’s asleep. Napping. Don’t worry… She’s fine.”

“The last thing I remember was seeing Julie standing in your kitchen doorway. Somebody shot at her.”

“According to Green-Eyes over there, that would be Jake Jorgenson. He’s the one with the rifle. Also, she says he’s a pretty good shot. But he was looking in through glass at an angle, and I think refraction saved her life.”

“Yeah?”

“Also, you tried to tackle a speeding truck. How’s that foot?”

“What foot?”

I looked to where he pointed. My shoe was off and I had one leg partially elevated. My foot was wrapped up with an Ace bandage.

“What the hell?” I said.

“You must have kicked that truck. Or else somebody ran over your foot. I don’t think anything’s broken, though. It’s not as big as it was a few hours ago.”

“Geez. It hurts,” I said. “But not like my head.”

“Good,” Hank said. “Probably you’ll just limp for a few days. But you’ll need to walk on it soon. You know. To see if anything… gives.”

I looked down past my foot and saw an army cot boxed in by a couple of old steel filing cabinets. It was Julie. She was wrapped up in a sleeping bag.

“Carpin wants her dead,” I said.

“Yeah,” Hank replied. “I don’t know the guy, and he sounds like a real asshole. But,” he chuckled, “if somebody did to me what she did to him… Well.” He was sitting in a folding chair facing me, one of the kind you’d use on a fishing trip that is nothing more than a couple of pieces of bent pipe and two swatches of canvas. He had a three-fifty-seven Smith amp; Wesson Magnum on his lap and a large night watchman’s flashlight in his hand.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I put Dingo in the house,” Hank said, offhand. “Anyone tries to go in there, she’ll have them for dinner. Also, we’ll hear it out here.”

As I recalled, Dingo was a cross between a German Shepherd and an Australian Blue Heeler. One of the smartest dogs I’d ever seen. I’d forgotten all about her.

I moved to get up but felt a wedge of cold pain at my temples.

“Take it easy, Cowboy,” he said. “You’ve got a minor concussion.”

“Feels like… Goddamn wasps nest in my head. Why the garage?”

“No windows.”

“Oh,” I said. “Say… What time of day is it?”

Hank looked down at his watch. “About three in the afternoon. Anyway, I can’t let you go back to sleep. Not for awhile.”

“I thought it was night. It’s sure dark in here.”

“We won’t be leaving until it is dark, or at least we won’t unless we have to. Also, I took the liberty of moving the vehicles. They’re at a friend’s house about a mile from here, out of sight. I wanted it to look like nobody was home.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good enough. So what do you want to do?”

“Well, I was thinking about that.” Hank turned to the side in his chair and reached down toward the floor. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see what he brought back up.

“It’s time for the world-series,” he said. “Best two out of three. Or three out of five. Or whatever.”

He unfolded the cardboard square, put it down flat on a small pedestal beside him, and held out a transparent plastic bag.

“What’ll it be?” he asked. “Red… Or black?”

“Goddammit,” I said. “Not Checkers.”

It was dark-thirty out.

I wouldn’t have minded saying that I felt fine. That simply wasn’t the case. I was nursing a head that felt like the inside of a bell tower that was constantly striking the hour, I was wincing with every step I took, but thankfully, I didn’t think anything was broken, and I had lost all but two games out of the last forty at checkers. The two times I had won, Hank had cursed and blamed it on the ill-lighting. Probably he was right.

We left the garage and Julie and I followed Hank inside the back door of his house under cover of darkness.

I felt safe, though.

I don’t normally carry a gun. There are many reasons for this, the first being the most obvious: they’re illegal in Texas unless you carry a permit, which I don’t. Also I have a bit of a superstition about them. I’ve come to think that guns actually draw trouble. It’s like walking around with the Queen of Spades in your shirt pocket. It’s just asking for it.

Except for one thing: sometimes you really need one. Just in case.

In light of recent events, it felt good having one tucked into my belt. It was the thirty-eight that Hank had lobbed to me earlier in the day.

Dingo was happy to see Hank. The dog put her paws up on his chest and he gave her a good petting. When she was done with Hank, she got one good noseful of me, ignored my attempts to be friendly with her and put all of her attention on Julie. Julie smiled and made friends with the dog.

“So what now?” Julie asked. She looked rested and composed and beautiful there in the silvery moonlight coming in through Hank’s kitchen window. Other than a couple of tiny Band-Aids on her cheek and neck, there was little else to show that she’d lived through a close call.

“What do you think, Hank?” I asked. “Hotel?”

“Hell, no!” he said. “I’ve got better accommodations in mind for us.”

*****

Hank made a phone call there in the dark and ten minutes later there was a black Chevy Suburban idling in his driveway.

Hank and I checked out the lay of the land and then I stepped back inside Hank’s front door and prodded Julie out into the night, hurrying and hustling her into the back seat of our ride while Hank took the front. I would have made a fine Secret Service Agent.

When we got a little way down the road Hank introduced us to our driver.

“Bill, Julie,” he said. “Meet Dock Slocum. That’s ‘Dock’ with a ‘k’, like when you dock your boat.”

“Hello Bill, Julie,” the driver said, taking one hand off the wheel for a second and giving us a cursory wave.

“Hi,” Julie and I said together.

There wasn’t much to be said after that, so we all lapsed into silence. I guess Dock didn’t feel like talking.

He was an elderly fellow with perhaps a good fifteen or twenty years on Hank. So far he was little more than Hank’s mystery friend, someone I’d not heard Hank mention before.

Julie leaned into me and I slid my arm around her. My head still throbbed, but not as bad as before.

I could tell we were on the edge of town. The Suburban threw a wide swath of illumination into the night before us, revealing stunted trees and scrub brush along the side of the road and the sporadic lights of the dwindling city winked behind us as we topped a hill.

After a few minutes we turned off the main highway going out of town and began to ascend one of the many steep and lofty hills surrounding Killeen. Dock shifted down into low and I turned to watch behind us. Overhead the moon was full and bright and I could see no headlights behind us, nor could I see anything else but a broadening vista of city lights shimmering like a galaxy across the dark landscape below.

So much for the hound-dog persistence of Jake and Freddie.

Hank, Dock and I sat up late into the night drinking several bottles of Dock’s home brew, a very sweet Muscadine wine unlike anything I’ve ever bought at a liquor store. I’d say the alcohol percentage was a little higher. At the same time it was dry and smooth and it evened out the ache in my head. If I didn’t slow down soon, though, I’d end up hogging the bottle. Or hugging it. While we drank we played matchstick poker and talked.

“The game, gentlemen,” Dock said, “is Maverick.”

“Just deal, Dock,” Hank said. “Bill knows how to play.”

“Sure he does,” he said and smiled, looking at my dwindling pile of matches.

“How did you run across this girl, anyway?” Dock asked.

Julie was in an upstairs bedroom, fast asleep.

“My partner referred her to me,” I said. “I haven’t talked to him about it yet.”

“Okay,” Dock said. “Interesting girl. Right pretty.”

“You know it,” I said.

“What I’d like to know is to what degree you believe her, and if what she says is true, what you’re planning to do about it.”

“Tomorrow,” Hank began, “first thing we’ll do is go looking for Amos and Andy.”

“You mean Jake and Freddie,” I said.

“Yeah, them.”

We played out the poker hand. I tried to put together an extra queen with the one I had showing and the one down under, but drew a mate to the nine on top. Dock raised the stakes and Hank and I called. Dock beat us both with a flush.

“How do we find them?” I asked.

“Oh,” Hank said. “Julie told me while you were out.”

“Well,” Dock said as he pushed back from the table and squared up the cards. “It’s past my bedtime. What time do we start in the morning?”

“We?” Hank asked.

Dock looked from me to Hank and back again.

“You can’t expect to tell me all this shit and not bring me along. It’s not neighborly. I just assumed…”

“Hold on there, Tiger,” Hank said. “I wouldn’t want you to miss out. What do you say, Bill? Dock’s a fine hand in a tight corner.”

“Is that what we are?” I said, smiling. My head was spinning a little, and it felt just fine. “A couple of tight-corner people?”

Hank grinned.

“Fine, Dock,” I said. “You’re welcome. In fact, let’s take your Suburban. My tail light is out and Hank’s old Ford should have been sold for scrap about the time that Carter was finishing up his term.”

Dock slapped his hands together with a loud crack.

“Yippee,” he giggled.

The three of us stood. I got a slight twinge from my swollen foot, but I was able to put my weight on it without it killing me. I think the wine helped about as much as any of the pain-killers that I had taken in Hank’s garage.

“You two can sleep upstairs,” Dock said. “I’ll stay down here on the couch.”

“Come on, Dingo,” Hank called. Dingo got up from her post by the back door and walked across the linoleum in Dock’s kitchen. She followed us up the stairs.

About half way up, I blurted out the question that had been bothering me for a long time.

“Hank? Whatever happened to McMurray? That IRS agent. We never did talk about that.”

Hank stopped in mid-step ahead of me, turned slowly around on the stairs and looked down at me.

“Bill,” he said. “There are some people that make it a point to go around sticking their nose into the wrong crack.”

“That happened with McMurray?”

“Maybe I’m talking about you. You ever think of that? I didn’t think so. Let’s talk about Mr. Dipwad later, though, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure,” I said. “Fine.” I shrugged.

“Okay,” he said.

Softness and warmth in the night. There are benefits to sleeping with someone on a regular basis. I’d almost forgotten what it was like until Julie came along.

We whispered in the darkness. A cool breeze blew in through our second-story window and I could see megalithic radio towers blinking rhythmically in the clear, moonlit night sky.

“Why didn’t you tell us we were being followed?” I asked.

The two of us were in Dock’s bedroom. Hank slept on a rollaway bed in the upstairs family room. It was a pretty big house. There was some kind of a story here about Dock. I’d have to learn what it was. He was an intriguing character. I’d probably be like him in another thirty years or so: living alone in a large house, sleeping downstairs and entertaining folks on the lam.

“I wasn’t sure it was them,” Julie whispered. “They were a long way back there.”

She sounded sincere. I believed her.

“Why a couple of jockey’s sons? I don’t get it. Carpin’s people are that loyal to him?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think that’s it.” I could tell from her voice that she knew damned well that wasn’t it. But I wasn’t upset… yet. I did, however, want to know exactly what she was hiding, and why. I waited.

A particularly heavy mass of air lifted the gauzy curtains and we both watched as they fluttered slowly back down.

“You know I didn’t tell you everything, Bill.”

“I know,” I said. “You’ve been… afraid.”

“I hate that word, but yeah. Some things I maybe should have told you and haven’t. And there are definitely some things I’ve done that I shouldn’t.”

“Like?”

“Let’s go to sleep,” she whispered, turning toward me and putting her chin on my shoulder. “Make me warm, Bill Travis.”

“Fine,” I said.