Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) Read online

  “You could run naked,” I said. “Nobody would notice whether we matched or not. Of course nobody would even notice me at all.”

  “Or we could both run naked. Then we would match.”

  “Yeah, in our orange jail jumpsuits.”

  “Maybe I’ll run with you another time. Right now I’m going to take a hot bath. Enjoy your run.”

  Outside the condo building I took a minute to stretch my legs. Then I set out for the Mississippi River. It seemed like the best place to run. First I ran down Washington Avenue. Next I turned right at Memorial Drive. When I got to Chestnut Street I turned left to cross Memorial Drive. After that I ran past the Gateway Arch and then made my way down to the river.

  On Leonor K Sullivan Boulevard I turned right and began to run alongside the Mississippi River. The morning sun’s rays sprinkled into the water and shattered into millions of golden sparkles. Birds, squawking and screaming, wheeled against the bright blue sky.

  As I ran I thought about the four men who had tried to kill me. Officer Artie Miller. Officer Owen Brown. Viper. Needles. I thought about the web of evil they had spun in Pottsland. I thought about their bullying and brutality. I thought about the Bruno crime family and the Romano crime family and the murder of a mobster named Big Red.

  A plan began to form in my mind. A plan to get even. It was a good plan. Simple, clean, easy. There were still details that were unclear, questions that needed to be answered, timelines that needed to be worked out. But I knew enough. I was ready to act on my plan.

  CHAPTER 54

  ANNA WAS WAITING for me when I returned to the condo. She stood with her arms folded across her stomach. I could see she had been crying.

  “What’s wrong, Anna?”

  “Viper found my brother.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “No. I called the telephone message center to listen to Carlos’s voice message. I should have done it last night but we were having such a good time and I forgot to do it and I will never ever forgive myself for forgetting to . . .”

  “Anna, what’d Carlos say in his voice message?”

  “He didn’t leave one. Viper did.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Over there.”

  “Get it. I want you to call the telephone message center again. Play Viper’s voice message so I can hear it.”

  I listened to the message.

  “Miss Cruz? You know who this is? I think you do. Listen to me, Miss Cruz. I found your little weasel brother. He was in Little Rock. But he ain’t there no more. He’s in Pottsland now. We got him right here. He’s sitting right here next to me. Listen to me, Miss Cruz. I don’t wanna send your brother to Jesus but I will. You unnerstand? I don’t wanna. But I will. I didn’t wanna knock him around either. But I had to. He wouldn’t cooperate. This phone number’s all I got from him. I wished he woulda tole me where you are. I think maybe he don’t know. Or maybe you never tole him. I dunno. Miss Cruz, me and you, we got to meet. We got to set up a meeting. You want something from me. I want something from you. Right? You know what I’m talking about? Sure you do. You got twenty-four hours to get back to me. Otherwise Carlos dies. You unnerstand? I send your brother to Jesus. I send him to Jesus. You got twenty-four hours. Leave me a voice message. Tell me you’re ready to meet.”

  When I had finished listening to the voice message I turned to look at Anna. She was sitting in a chair, hugging her knees, staring out the window. She turned to face me.

  “Please tell me you have a plan,” she said. “Please tell me you know what to do. Because I have no idea how to handle this. If I do not give Viper the baseball bat and the DVD, then he’s going to kill Carlos tomorrow. But if I do give him the evidence, then there’s nothing to prevent him from killing Carlos later. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

  “I have a plan,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “First I need you to respond to Viper’s request. The clock’s ticking. So call the telephone message center again. You need to leave a voice message for Viper. Tell him you want to set up a meeting. Tell him you’re out of town. Tell him you plan to be back in Pottsland tomorrow.”

  As soon as Anna had finished her call we sat down to watch the DVD. I wanted to see the video of Viper killing Big Red. Anna had told me about it but I needed to see it for myself.

  “That’s Carlos’s office?” I said, pointing to the TV.

  “Yes,” Anna said. “And there’s his baseball bat, over there in the far corner. See it?”

  “I do. Here comes Viper now.”

  We watched as Viper entered the office and seized the baseball bat from the far corner. Right away he crouched down and got under the desk. A few minutes later the office door opened again. A man and a woman came in. They looked drunk. The man wore a suit. The woman wore almost nothing.

  “That’s Big Red,” Anna said. “And the stripper I told you about.”

  I nodded.

  We watched as the stripper unbuckled Big Red’s belt. His pants fell to the floor. His boxers were halfway down his thighs when the stripper ran out of the office.

  “I thought strippers were suppose to take off their own clothes,” I said. “Not somebody else’s.”

  We watched as Viper emerged from under the desk. With both hands he raised the baseball bat over his head. The bat came down and smashed the life out of Big Red. He crumpled to the carpet and rolled over onto his back. Viper brought down blow after blow on the dead man’s torso. After a while he stopped. He placed the bat in the far corner again. Then he dragged the beaten corpse across the carpet and out the back door of the office.

  “There’s no blood on the carpet,” I said to Anna. “As far as I can tell there’s no blood anywhere in the office. Viper kept it clean. He hit Big Red in the skull once, but after that he hit only the torso. He avoided areas that would bleed, so there was no bloody mess to clean up afterward.”

  Anna turned off the TV, ejected the DVD. She returned the DVD to the black and red duffel bag with the St. Louis Cardinals logo on it. Then she sank into a chair, curled her legs under her, and put her hand on her ankle.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “We head back to Pottsland,” I said. “First we need to stop by the RV park to pick up my motor home. Then, on the way to Pottsland, I’ll phone S’mores and Snores Campground to make a reservation. You should pack up your clothes. You’re going to be staying with me in my motor home. Right now it’s too dangerous for you to stay at your house.”

  “You want me to bring my car?”

  “No point in leaving it here. We may need it.”

  “I can pack in ten minutes.”

  “While you do that I’m going to move my motorcycle closer to your car. I’ll see you outside.”

  I took three steps toward the door before she spoke.

  “Rip?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  CHAPTER 55

  IT WAS DARK. I was driving my motor home. Behind me Anna was driving her car. I had checked out of Heaven on Wheels RV Park, and we were on our way to Pottsland.

  I picked up my phone and dialed the number for the Southern Missouri Fugitive Task Force. It is one of sixty local fugitive task forces lead by the United States Marshals Service.

  “Southern Missouri Fugitive Task Force.”

  “Put me through to Karen Reese.”

  “One moment.”

  “Karen Reese.”

  “Karen, it’s Rip.”

  “You’re finally going to ask me out on a date?”

  “I was going to ask you for a favor.”

  “Your place or mine?”

  “Relentless, aren’t you?”

  “Have to be when you’re chasing a bad boy.”

  “Well put away your pink handcuffs for now. This bad boy’s got some trouble. Can you help me out?”

  “What can I do for you, honey?”

&n
bsp; “Check on active felony warrants in Missouri. I need you to find a fugitive looks like me, somebody matching my physical description.”

  “A hunk?”

  “Somebody with hazel eyes, six feet two, works out.”

  “Sounds like a hunk to me.”

  “Call me back when you find somebody.”

  Twenty minutes later Karen phoned me back.

  “Found a guy,” she told me. “Name’s Axel King. He’s forty-two. Hazel eyes, six feet two, works out. But he’s also got tattoos, long blond hair, and yellow teeth.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I can make myself look like that.”

  “Want me to email you his photo?”

  “That’d be great.”

  “His rap sheet too?”

  “Thanks, Karen. I owe you one.”

  “And I plan to collect.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “This Axel King, he’s been off the grid. We’d like to find him.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “You name it. Guy’s got a really long rap sheet. Fifteen bench warrants—nine for failure to appear. Tons of prior arrests. Felony possession of firearm, sexual assault of child, first-degree murder, resisting an officer, criminal contempt, trespassing, criminal trespass to property, battery, aggravated battery, armed robbery, domestic abuse, burglary, assault, aggravated assault, possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, tampering with a witness, obstructing a peace officer, assault with a weapon . . .”

  “Not a people person, is he?”

  “Guy’s supposed to be real arrogant. Full of himself.”

  “A narcissist.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You want to hear his convictions?”

  “There a lot of them?”

  “You bet.”

  “I figured there would be.”

  “You want to hear them?”

  “Not right now. I’ll read his rap sheet later.”

  “I assume you’re in Missouri?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  “You could stop by and see me.”

  “I could?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Soon I’m going to have tattoos, long blond hair, and yellow teeth. You want me to show up looking like that?”

  “I’ll have my pink handcuffs ready.”

  CHAPTER 56

  AN HOUR OUTSIDE of Pottsland the road started to twist and turn like a corkscrew. The headlights of Anna’s black Infiniti sedan kept appearing and disappearing behind my motor home. My rearview mirror was like a strobe light in slow motion.

  I was turning a corner when my phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Rip, it’s Lance.”

  “How was your flight to California?”

  “It was a good flight. I didn’t eat any onions on the plane.”

  “So no turbulence.”

  “None. And the oxygen masks never dropped down.”

  “Fly the friendly skies.”

  “On the plane I told the stewardesses what I was doing. I told them I was flying halfway across the country to see a old girlfriend. They wanted to hear my story. They were excited to hear it. So I took out my wallet and showed them Mary’s picture. They thought she looked like a movie star. They said she looked like Linda Evans. I told them the picture was taken sixty years ago—when I last saw Mary. I had some of the stewardesses crying. They gave me a bottle of wine and talked to me all the way to California.”

  “You tell them how Mary’s older brother ran you off?”

  “I did. And I also told them how I joined the Marines to escape the pain of losing Mary.”

  “So what happened when you landed in California?”

  “Mary was there to meet me when I got off the plane. She was more beautiful than I had imagined. The look on her face, the way she smiled at me, you should have seen it, Rip.”

  “What’d you do when you saw her?”

  “I planted a big kiss on her lips. The stewardesses were watching us. They took pictures. I introduced them to Mary.”

  “You and Mary get along good?”

  “It was magical. We picked up right where we left off. As if those sixty years had evaporated and we were young lovers again. We laughed a lot. We shared memories. We told stories.”

  “You plan to stay out there in California for a while?”

  “Permanently. Mary wants me to move in with her. So I’m going to fly back to Missouri to pick up my Arctic Fox truck camper, drive it back here to California, and then sell it for as much as I can get.”

  “You’re losing one fox and gaining another.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Listen, Lance, I’m heading to S’mores and Snores Campground right now. I’ll be there in less than an hour. If you want me to, I can check on your Arctic Fox, make sure there’s no damage or anything.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  “Well I better get going, Rip. Mary’s ready to watch a movie. I just wanted to call and let you know how things worked out.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  CHAPTER 57

  WE REACHED S’MORES and Snores Campground at around nine p.m. I went to the campground office to check in. The site I got was much better than the one I had the last time. This time I had a view of the lake.

  Outside the campground office I saw the hood up on a motor home. A family of four stood huddled around the hood. It looked like they had engine trouble. I walked over to see if I could help.

  “Engine trouble?”

  The family of four turned away from the engine to look at me. Each family member held a paper plate with a hot dog on it. On the motor home’s engine lay hot dog buns wrapped in aluminum foil.

  “No trouble,” the mother said. “We’re just warming our buns.”

  I parked my motor home at the site. Anna parked beside me.

  She had never been camping before, so I showed her how to set up. First I leveled the RV. Then I connected water hose, sewer hose, and electric cord. When I was done I sat down at a picnic table to watch the other campers.

  Anna joined me.

  “What do we do next, Rip?”

  “We’re all done setting up.”

  “I mean about my brother.”

  “We wait for Viper’s voice message. There’s not much else we can do until we know where and when he wants to meet. All you can do is to keep checking to see if he’s left a message.”

  Half a dozen campers were sitting around a campfire, sipping on strawberry margaritas, listening to a band of three guitarists play Jimmy Buffett songs. The music was good.

  That night Anna tossed and turned in bed. She wrestled with her pillow. Once or twice she kicked the blanket off.

  In the morning I drank more coffee than usual. We sat outside and gazed at the lake while we ate our breakfast. Anna looked tired. I poured some more coffee into her cup.

  “You might want to take a nap today.”

  “You want to take one with me?”

  I shook my head.

  “Can’t,” I said. “I’ve some errands to run.”

  “I could go with you.”

  “Probably not a good idea for people in town to see us together.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  After breakfast I took out my laptop and little portable printer. I switched them on, checked my email. My inbox was fuller than usual. I opened the email from Karen Reese.

  The attached photo of Axel King showed a man who liked tattoos as much as he disliked dental hygiene. They were prison tattoos.

  On the back of his left wrist was a tattoo of a clock with no hands. In the criminal world it symbolized the complete meaningless of time to an inmate serving a lengthy sentence.

  Beneath Axel’s left eye was a tattoo of a teardrop. It meant Axel had killed somebody. Probably his dentist.

  On Axel’s right forearm was a tattoo of playing cards. It signified that he v
iewed life as a gamble.

  In Russian prisons the playing card suits have meanings. Spades represent thieves. Hearts represent lovers. Diamonds represent informants. Clubs represent criminals.

  On four knuckles of Axel’s right hand were tattoos of letters. The E on his little finger indicated Evil. The W on his ring finger indicated Wicked. The M on his middle finger indicated Mean. The N on his index finger indicated Nasty.

  On the back of Axel’s left hand was a tattoo of five dots. Four of the dots were in a square pattern. One dot was in the middle. The four outer dots stood for four prison walls. The fifth inner dot stood for the inmate.

  On Axel’s throat was a tattoo of a string of numbers. It was his prisoner identification number.

  No other tattoos showed on his body. There might have been more tattoos hidden beneath his clothes, but I was not concerned with those.

  Next I turned my attention to Axel’s hair. It was long and blond and greasy. As greasy as French fries. It was a full mane of long stringy hair that looked as if it needed a wash.

  I looked at Axel’s yellow teeth. They were rotting out of his head. His gums receded like the Red Sea.

  His clothes were basic. Black T-shirt. Black leather jacket. Black jeans. The man knew how to match.

  I printed out the photo of Axel, folded the sheet of paper, and slipped it into my pocket.

  Then I read his rap sheet. It painted a picture of a man who liked to exploit others. He was a ruthless predator. He was a spider in a web, a snake in the grass, a scorpion in the sand.

  He was going to get squashed.

  CHAPTER 58

  POTTSLAND HAD SIX tattoo parlors. The one I went to was named The Tattoomb. The building was flanked by a bail bonds office and a porn shop. All your shopping needs in one convenient location.

  When I stepped inside I saw some interesting tattoos. One woman had a tattoo of black musical notes flowing out of her ear. On the back of a bald man’s head was a tattoo of a guy pushing a lawnmower. Immediately above a woman’s round nipple was a tattoo of an astronaut who appeared to be standing on a pink planet.