Sitting there, eating and swilling down coffee, I felt guilty. But I wasn’t wasting time, I was watching, waiting for the correct moment to move. A good mix of people came into the restaurant, truckers, road workers, business people, the occasional family, but none of them were giving off the vibe I was seeking. I ordered more coffee and waited.
My second coffee had become a muddy pool in the bottom of my mug by the time I saw some likely contenders stride in. There were three of them, two men and one woman, all of them high. The two men were rednecks, while the woman looked like she might have a little Navajo blood running through her veins, though I could have been wrong. She didn’t look like one of the noble savages of myth; she was pie-faced, with spindly limbs, and she tottered on red high heels. What made me think she might be of Native American ancestry was the dusky cast of her skin and the proud hawk-like nose. Nothing else about her was proud, in fact she looked like a skank. So for that matter did her male friends.
They sat in a booth, demanding the waitress who couldn’t get away from them fast enough. The noise of their raucous laughter was harsh and aggressive, and I noticed that some of those customers nearest to them moved away or left the establishment altogether. I ordered a fresh coffee. Then I waited a bit more.
Some time later, the woman got up and headed for the washroom. I let her go. The two rednecks paid their bill as noisily as they did everything else and went outside. I placed dollars on my table and followed them. As I left, I caught a glimpse of the old Navajo guy with the broom. He was just finishing a cigarette which he doused under his boot heel before flicking it into a dustpan with his brush. He looked once at me, then over at the two rednecks making their way across the parking lot to a souped-up first generation Camaro that was older than I was. He shook his head slowly as he mouthed something to me. ‘Good luck,’ I believe he said. Then, true to his word, he paid me no further heed and went off to find somewhere else to sneak a cigarette.
One of the rednecks, a tall, skinny man with short cropped dark hair and moustache, leaned on the hood of the Camaro while his shorter friend decided to relieve himself against the kerb. Across the lot, a couple of truckers moved for their big rigs and one of them hooted at the pissing guy. The redneck hollered wordlessly, then wagged his penis at the men. All three laughed loudly. Scumbags, the lot of them. I moved towards the Camaro, casting an approving eye over it as it glistened redly under sodium lamps.
The man leaning on the hood watched me approach. He wasn’t concerned. I was a lone man, my attention definitely on the car, and it was probably something he was used to.
‘Is that a nineteen sixty-seven first gen?’ I asked.
‘Sixty-eight, buddy,’ he corrected me, like I was about a million years out.
‘Wow,’ I said, leaning down to inspect the front grille, ‘you don’t see too many of these beauties these days. Not in this condition. Did you renovate it yourself?’
‘It belongs to my bro,’ he said, with a tip of his head to the stockier man. The other was just zipping up as he walked over. I grinned at him.
‘Man, I’d shake your hand,’ I said, nodding down at his fly, ‘but not yet, eh?’
‘What do you drive, buddy?’ The tall one asked, as he plucked an insect from his moustache and flicked it away.
‘Nothing as beautiful as a first gen.’ I jerked a thumb across the lot to where my GMC was parked. While I did so, I checked that their lady friend was still inside the building. Yes, she was a skank, but that didn’t mean I’d changed my opinion of the way women should be treated. I didn’t want her around if things turned awkward — a real possibility if I’d misread these men. Moving around the Camaro, I peered inside, not interested in it, but in what extras I might see. ‘I think we’re guys of a like mind. We have the same kind of tastes?’
The men shared a glance, then studied me keenly. They were probably deciding if they’d heard right and were trying to make me as a cop. My English accent would throw them off that line faster than anything.
‘You buying?’ the first man asked.
‘Depends on what you’re selling.’
‘Just grass, man.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not talking drugs.’
A quizzical look shot between them.
‘I’ve a little problem to deal with, but I don’t have the tools for the job.’ I was being purposefully vague, hoping that they would offer the conclusion. If they were just low-end potheads, they were no good to me and I’d walk away.
‘What kind of problem?’ The stocky one had jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. No way was he carrying, and the manner in which he’d just compromised himself meant he was no immediate danger. Not a good sign, considering.
‘Personal problem.’ I just stood looking at them.
The taller man sucked his teeth, before jerking his head for me to follow him. To his friend he said, ‘Pop the trunk.’
The boot was full of junk, a toolbox, a blanket, and a spare tyre. The tall man dug around inside the toolbox, lifting out wrenches and hammers and placing them on the rolled blanket. From under the tools he pulled a bundle of rags, and even though there was a musty odour in general, I recognised the more familiar scent of gun oil. Taking a look over his shoulder, he checked that no one was spying on us. His action was the mark of an amateur, but it didn’t matter now. He unfurled the edges of the cloth and disclosed what lay within. It wasn’t a semi-auto handgun, the likes of which I usually carried, but a six-shot revolver, and a box of ammo stained dark with lubricant. It was a workhorse weapon, a Smith and Wesson, chambered for both .38 Special and .357 cartridges, and as good a gun as I could hope for. I leaned past the man and lifted the gun out of the rags, worked the cylinder, checked the piece over. ‘Is it clean?’
‘It hasn’t been used in a stick-up, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at?’
‘The serial number’s been filed off.’
‘Didn’t say it never would be.’ The guy gave me a shit-eating grin, playing the tough guy. He wasn’t the real deal. I considered taking the gun and the ammunition off him. I’d be doing a service, probably to him. During one of his highs he might shoot himself in the foot. But I was no thief. I peeled three hundred dollars off Jameson Walker’s roll. ‘That’s all I’m willing to pay. But that includes the shells.’
‘Three hundred? Damn, I’d throw the bitch in as well for that price.’
Recalling their girlfriend’s pie-dish face, her spindly legs and tottering gait, I declined politely. But that was the deal done. I wasn’t going to shake on it; they were drug-dealing arseholes, not the type I’d normally give the time of day. I took the gun, wrapped it in the cloth, stuffed the box of ammunition into my jacket pocket and then headed for the GMC.
Now that I’d prepared myself, the hunt was on. It was time to go find Jay and Nicole. Maybe I wouldn’t need the gun. But that was unlikely.
6
Some time later I came to the gas station mentioned in the news articles Jameson Walker had provided. Coming upon it in the dark, it looked different from the images on the printed sheets. It was no less stark, and if anything even more terrible in real life. The shack that had served as the teller’s booth-cum-convenience store had collapsed down on itself. Fire crews had sifted through the wreckage while recovering the corpse of the teller and much of the building now lay in mangled heaps about the original foundations. The fuel pumps had been taken by the explosion that ripped through the site, as had an awning erected to offer shade to customers as they filled up their gas tanks. The vehicles belonging to the teller and the family who were also murdered had been lifted and taken away for further forensic study. If it wasn’t for the signage at the side of the highway, you’d be hard put to guess Peachy’s gas station had ever been there.