Riders on the Storm
- Автор: Горман Эд
- Серия: Sam McCain #10
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pegasus
- ISBN: 978-1-60598-625-8
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «Riders on the Storm». Краткое содержание книги:
“So you won’t help him even though he’s innocent.”
“You have to be careful about people saying they’re innocent, Sam. Just before he started doing time my old man told me he was innocent, too. No offense, but I gotta get back to work here.”
I joked a little with Mara on my way out. I should’ve gone straight to the parking area but I veered right and went to the stand-alone hangar.
Marv Serbosek was working on a newer model vintage Piper Cub. He stood on a three-step ladder. An ear-numbing version of Proud Mary with Ike and Tina Turner was keeping him entertained. The noise bounced off the metal walls.
I had to yell twice to catch his attention.
Marv had been in a beard-growing contest at the county fair last summer. He had yet to unburden himself of the gray-flecked reddish thing that reached the upper pockets of his overalls.
“Hey, McCain. How’s it goin’?”
“I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Sure. If I can.” His mother and my mother had been longtime members of the local Catholic church. It was the only connection Marv and I had but I hoped it was enough.
“You know Lon Anders, right?”
“Mr. Anders? Sure. What about him?”
“He ever fly out of the country?”
“Oh, yeah. Two, three times a year he goes to Mexico. Guess a friend of his has a house down there. Why?”
“Well, I was talking to Billy and he didn’t want to give me any information about Anders.”
The long, narrow face grew taut and the brown eyes showed fear. “Hell, I might be in trouble now. You shoulda told me that, Sam.”
“I won’t say anything to Billy if you don’t. I wasn’t trying to get you into any trouble, Marv. And I’m sure you won’t be in any trouble if we keep this between ourselves.”
He managed to mumble agreement but I could see that now we didn’t have any connection at all. He felt betrayed and even if I was pretty sure Billy would never find out I didn’t blame Marv at all for feeling used.
18
That afternoon we took the girls to a movie.
There was only one we were under sacred obligation to see and that was Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. On the way to the theater Kate was so rhapsodic about seeing it that Nicole finally started singing to shut her up.
Twenty minutes into the movie Kate climbed up on my lap and went to sleep.
The movie was only one of the subjects we discussed when we used the outdoor grill in the back yard to make burgers. I even made a couple burgers myself and nobody died.
In the long twilight everything slowed down and quieted down and for once the melancholy I usually felt at dusk eluded me. It was touching to hear the girls slowly slip into exhaustion. To hear Kate this subdued was a revelation. She asked her sister to tell her the rest of the movie when they went to bed that night. Mary was quiet as usual. She always joked that who needed TV when you had the two girls. She loved watching them together. So did I.
I had to carry Kate inside. She was out. Mary revived her for the bath and the good-nights and the prayers and then the lights-out.
“I am so lucky to have them,” she said when she came back and sat next to me.
“You sure are.”
I got a bottle of Hamm’s from the fridge and went into the living room and we watched a rerun of an old Jackie Gleason series, The Honeymooners. Gleason was always good but the woman who played his loving and lovely wife and the guy who played his bumbling buddy were just as good. The desperation of their lives reminded me of growing up in the Hills. All those men back from the big war trying to work their way out of poverty while their wives cut every corner they could while trying to raise their kids right. The show was sad fun but fun nonetheless.
I grabbed the phone when it rang.
“I’m trying to reach Sam McCain.”
“That’s me. Help you with something?”
“My name’s Cliff Donlon. Tim Duffy’s a friend of mine from bowling league. I was talking to him and he gave me this number and said I should call you. I worked for Steve Donovan. I did not work for Anders.”
“That’s an interesting distinction since they were full partners.”
“I was with Steve from the beginning. He changed a lot when Anders came along. I almost quit when Al Carmichael left. Al was a great guy. Anders ran him out and Steve let it happen. But I stayed. Since Steve is gone I want to talk to somebody about something that’s been going on there ever since Anders came.”
“And what would that be?”
“I’d rather meet for an early breakfast. I need to be at work by eight so how about meeting me at McDonald’s at seven? The one on the east side.”
“I’ll be there, Mr. Donlon. And thank you very much for calling.”
19
McDonald’s was still something of a novelty for our town.
A local land baron had a young daughter who’d made him drive her to Iowa City every week to pick up a huge sack of burgers and fries which would be stored in the family fridge and then heated up whenever the teenager desired. The local land baron decided it would not only save him from driving into Iowa City for the stuff, it would be downright profitable if he owned the franchise himself. Instant McDonald’s.
Donlon waved me over, a redhead of forty or so in a gray worker’s uniform, a long, wiry body and a pair of savvy blue eyes that were street-smart and withholding of judgment on everything that passed before them. He had a quick, iron handshake.
I set my thousand calories down across from his and sat down. We had to speak up to be heard above the packed house.
“The wife says this stuff puts the weight on me. But you can’t prove it by my scale. I weigh about what I did when I was in high school. She also says it’s a lot cheaper to eat breakfast at home. But I’m addicted to this stuff.”
“It’s pretty good.”
“I’m kinda in a hurry to get to work so I’ll get right to it.” Quick sip of coffee. “I was one of Steve’s first employees. His dad had been in the Navy and so had I. Steve liked that and so we got along very well. Till Anders came into the picture. He got rid of Al first of all and Al had been just as nice to all of us as Steve had been. Steve gradually got to be pretty much like Anders. And Anders was making most of the decisions. You could tell that, everybody could. Steve’d start to say something and Anders’d just interrupt him. Sometimes Steve would just take it but sometimes they’d argue right in front of everybody. Or they’d go into one of their offices and then they’d really argue. I missed the old Steve and so did everybody else who worked there. Then Anders made me start making these runs for him.”
“What kind of runs?”
“To this cabin he had that nobody was supposed to know about. He said he’d fire me if I ever told anybody about what I was doing.”
“Doing?”
“Yeah, loading up maybe twenty of our shipping boxes — the medium-sized ones — and then running them out to the cabin. I also took along packing material for shipping. I thought it was strange. We have our own shipping department and those women are damned good at what they do. So I was always kinda curious about it. Then Steve gets killed.”
“You’re making some kind of connection?”
“I’m just saying the way those two have been going at it lately — well, Tim Duffy told me that this Will Cullen is a friend of yours and you don’t think he did it, so I thought I’d let you know about these runs I make for Anders.”
“How often would you say?”