Cutting Loose, page 20
“This is a call from Eastham Unit, Texas. It will be recorded. Will you accept this call?”
“Yes.”
“Please proceed with your conversation.”
“This is, uh, Mack Pruett speaking.”
“Yeah, Mack. Hi.”
“Hi. You wrote.”
“Sure. I guess the letter kinda came out of nowhere.”
“Yeah.”
“So, look, uh, there’s maybe things we got in common.”
“How about that.”
“Yeah, like, I met someone maybe we both know.”
“Uh huh.”
“Jimmy Chacon. He mentioned your name.”
“Sure. I did time with Jimmy. How’s he doing?”
“Just fine. He suggested I call you, shoot the breeze.”
“Okay. Then I guess that’s what we’re doing.”
“You hanging tough there, Mack?”
“Better believe it.”
“I got a question. Cops been around to see you recently?”
“Maybe.”
“So . . .”
“Yeah, okay. Ranger came around, shot me a line. Now when I try to get in touch with him, he don’t want to know.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. It was bullshit. Maybe I’m getting the same from you. Where is this going?”
“Listen, I’ve done stuff. I’m in the life. But there’s a limit what we can say on this line.”
“Gotta say something or we’re just beating our chops.”
“This Ranger . . .”
“What about him?”
“He was picking your brains.”
Pruett laughed. “No shit. Okay, you’re after something too. What the fuck, why not? The cop’s name was Emmett Capps. And, man, was he full of promises. Slicker’n snot on a door knob.Yada yada.”
“Who was he looking for?”
“What’s my angle here?”
“Maybe we can help each other. What have you got to lose?”
There was silence at the end of the line for a while, then Pruett said, “He was looking at this guy called Appelbaum. Did I know him.”
“Did you?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Lindemann’s instinct was that Capps had realized Pruett knew nothing. That was why Capps had brushed him off.
“You got kin I can say hi to?”
“Now why would you want to do that?”
“Hey, I’m just talking here.”
“Right. Listen, if you’ve got something I can use, okay. Otherwise it’s going nowhere.”
“Okay, Mack, we’ll keep in touch.”
“That’s what Capps said,” said Mack and hung up.
Lindemann went back to his car and sat there, tapping his fingers on the wheel. The Pruett connection might lead nowhere but, still, it was worth his while to pursue it some more. Sol had gone; that much he knew: the cops were all over his office and condo. Either that creep Wetherspoon had lifted him or he had organized something with Mead. Mead, if he was released, would be under constant surveillance, so that approach was not available to him, which meant he had a choice. He could find out where Wetherspoon had taken Sol, or he could stay with the Pruett connection and, since he had no way of knowing where Sol was, Pruett was all that was left. Perhaps there were criminal associates; perhaps there was family; and that left one big question: would any of it lead to Carey?
He let the brake off and drove around a beer truck and onto the highway.
THIRTEEN
“Mr. Sol, this gonna be home, next day or two. Got your lil kitchen right there, got your bathroom off to the right, toiletries on the shelf, got your bedroom, pajamas still in the wrapper, plus this teeny weeny living room. All neat and cozy. Like you see, no windows. Y’ain’t got no extra cloze to hang up, but they’s a washing machine so’s you can freshen up what you have. Got to tell you―you need to be sensible now, tell Mr. Noah what he wants to know. Hear me? Why take the hard road? That road gonna frazzle your ass, Mr. Sol.”
Sol, blindfolded until a few moments before, looked around the small apartment. In the bedroom, his legs began to fail and he sat on the edge of the bed, his head swimming from the lack of his medications.
“Lemme fix you some coffee. We got makings in the kitchen, whatall you gonna need. Shit, this valet service right here.”
Sol took a few deep breaths.
“Be with you real soon.” He kept talking from the kitchen. “This here’s gonna be Jack Daniel’s coffee. Guess what the secret ingredient is? That’s right. It’ll soothe you right down. When Mr. Noah comes in, you gonna be calm and in a right frame of mind.”
“Whiskey sounds good,” said Sol.
“Bet your ass.”
When Touchette came into the bedroom, Sol was lying on the bed.
“That’s cool. Chill for a while.”
Sol began to gag, and Touchette said, “Gonna get you a bucket, okay?”
“Thanks.”
Touchette waited, though, looking down at Sol.
“You came out with some crazy talk back there. You hear me?”
Sol said nothing.
“Where you pull that from, Mr. Sol? Saying, death is on me. Now why you go saying shit like that?”
Sol lifted himself on an elbow to sip the coffee.
“This is good. Thank you.”
“That’s okay. I’m not a bad guy. I help folks out. But that talk, that was crazy talk. Death on me?”
Sol lay down again.
“Hear me talking?”
Sol, though, was listening to the flutter of his heart and another, deeper sound somewhere beyond.
Touchette said, “Shit,” and walked out. A key turned in the lock.
Sol woke to see Wetherspoon in the bedroom doorway. Those pale blue eyes seemed, as always, to be invisible: they were channels through his skull.
He brought a chair close to the bed and sat down.
“I’m not going to bullshit you, Sol. I want Carey.”
“This is a poor hand you’re playing, Noah. I have maybe a handful of days left, without treatment. And I don’t know where she is. And―either way, you’ll have to kill me. What’s your leverage? I said back in Jed’s place you’d never pull it off. This is just the latest in a lifetime of bad decisions.”
“My leverage? My leverage is the things that can happen to you in here.”
“Futile to ask if you’re capable of such things. Clearly you are.”
He paused to cough and spit into a handkerchief. “So . . . show me who you are, Noah. Please. Define yourself to me. Here I am, dying. Beat the shit out of me. It would be a memory for you to look back on. One of your finer moments.”
“You think I give a shit? You know I don’t.”
“This is who you are, Noah. The self-knowledge you have! To see every inch of your soul and not flinch from it. To look into your heart and not despair.”
“This fancy talk is a waste of time. It means nothing to me. I know you know where Carey is. And I’ll tell you why. Reason is, you love her, Sol.”
“Go to hell.”
“Uh huh. That one got through to you, didn’t it? Yes, you know all right. Because you’d want to go to her assistance if the crisis came. So you could save her. The White Knight. Cos of all you’ve shared, the bond it’s made. Does she know you love her?”
“No idea where she is, Noah. None.”
“Don’t play with me, Noah. You think I’m a monster? Listen, this is me being nice.”
“I believe it.”
“There is nothing you won’t tell me, Sol, if I take this all the way.”
“Take your best shot.”
“Love will protect her? It may for a while but then that time will be over and you’ll talk to me. That is a simple fact.”
“Uh huh.”
He stood. “Think it through. Oh, by the way, Touchette is a surprisingly good cook. He asks if you can manage solid food.”
“Soft food only. Oatmeal, mash.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you.”
“Get a good night’s sleep, Noah. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Tiredness was engulfing him, but after a few minutes he rose slowly and went to the front door and scanned it carefully, then returned to the bedroom. To someone who could jimmy a car door and hot-wire the motor, the lock would present little difficulty.
He woke at five ‘clock. For three or four hours, he would have the energy to act. He washed in the small bathroom, not looking in the mirror, and dressed as quickly as he could. Wetherspoon and Touchette would probably be late risers so he might have some time at his disposal. In the kitchen, he looked through drawers until he found an old-fashioned carving fork with two tines that became thin at the end, and forced the tines apart with a whetting steel. He put the end of one of the tines in the narrowest hole in a clamp lid-opener and twisted it to about ninety degrees, then thumped it against the concrete floor until the angle was right. It was far from perfect but it would do. The lock came open after a couple of minutes, and he stepped out into darkness. There was a smell in the air that he recognized from childhood visits to a neighbor’s farm: he was in a barn. That explained the lack of windows in the apartment. Soon his eyes adjusted, with the help of slivers of light that came through the gaps around the double doors at each end. The building, clearly, was large. A rat skittered away from him. He walked to one set of doors and saw they were padlocked. The others would be the same. Taking his time, hoarding his energy, he took a turn round the dirt floor. It was clear the farm was not being worked, since there was nothing inside that suggested recent activity. The sound of his footsteps was sucked upward into silence.
The apartment, he realized, formed part of one side of the barn that was walled-in to form a row of workrooms or storerooms. They were not locked. He entered the nearest one, and looked for a light switch, then closed the door and turned the light on. There were sacks of fertilizer against one wall, a motorbike with no tires lying on the ground, and a workbench along the wall that abutted his apartment. Above the workbench was a bank of short drawers containing nuts, bolts, springs, old fuses and the like. He sat on a stool and looked around, sorting out his thoughts. He could try to escape: the padlocks would not stop him. He could kill himself: that would be a solution. Neither choice, though, would be adequate. More was needed, and time was short. He glanced at his watch. It was still only 5:30.
He rooted among the fertilizers and saw a sack of ammonium nitrate, and checked its NPK rating, which was satisfactory, then kept looking, but there was no diesel oil there, so he went to the other storerooms and discovered that the last two had been converted into a single unit for the production of methamphetamine. Large quantities of ephedrine were on a table next to containers of alcohol used to separate the active constituent. He found a gallon container of diesel oil on a shelf at the back, and took it back with him, then made a second journey to bring back a pair of scales. He cut open the sack of nitrate with a utility knife from the workbench and began to ladle it onto the scales, and then into a metal bin. The ratio was critical: it had to be 94% ammonium nitrate to 6% diesel oil. Then there was the question of detonation.
Sweating, his heart thumping, he sat at the bench to gather his strength.
Emmett hired a car at the airport and drove into Monterey. In the harbor, yachts lay at anchor and late-model vehicles lined the street in front of upscale shops, all of it bathed in the glow of wealth. At the Aquarium he turned left onto David Avenue and, a few intersections along, left again onto Cypress Street. At number 83, Emmett drove in and saw a Chevrolet in Fryxell’s bay.
The nurse looked up at him from behind the desk as he entered and saw a man of about forty years of age, not handsome, not ugly, a few gray hairs coming through at the side, wearing a Stetson and unpressed clothes that suggested little dress-sense.
“Yes, sir, how may I help you?”
He showed her his badge. “My name’s Emmett Capps, ma’am, here to see Dr. Fryxell.”
She looked at her list. “You didn’t call ahead.”
“No, ma’am, and I apologize for turning up this way. I’m out of my territory, which is why I’m in plain clothes, but I’m hoping Dr. Fryxell will humor me.”
“Take a seat, sir. I’ll find out.”
Some minutes later, as he was looking at a magazine, a patient walked past, and soon after, the nurse said, “Dr. Fryxell has a slot now, sir. Go right in. Second door on the left.”
Dr. Fryxell rose from his chair as Emmett entered. He had the build of an athlete who no longer exercised. His hair had receded, emphasizing the strong features.
“Emmett Capps, sir,” he said, showing his badge.
They shook hands, and Fryxell gestured at the chair.
“Well, Ranger, you’re a long way from home.”
“I sure am, sir. And thank you for seeing me.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll try to keep it short, not waste your time. I’m looking at a cold case. It’s a name I guess you know―Max Lindemann.”
Fryxell leaned back. “My, my. That’s ancient history now. I wondered when someone would come round. Surprised it’s taken this long. How many years is it?”
“A bunch. The FBI never came to see you?”
“That’s right. Lindemann went to another doctor after a while. No idea why. I assumed the police got what they needed from him. The only other fellow who came around was a writer―Jim Pickering.”
“I spoke with him.”
“So what are you looking for?”
“Since Lindemann is dead, and he was a fugitive, can you release data on him?”
“Well, yes, I can, but since you’re out of your jurisdiction, I’d need authorization before I hand over documents.”
“I can get that to you, sir.”
“All right. By the way, couldn’t you have got the local police to come round? Saved yourself a trip?”
“Thing like this, sir, it works best in person.”
“Fair enough.”
“The other two, Monckton and Astaire, are still live cases, so we’re looking for a complete file on Lindemann. There’s no knowing how it could help nail them.”
“I see. Well, in answer to your question, I don’t mind discussing Lindemann, though I’m not sure what exactly you’re looking for.”
“Did you take any X-rays?”
“He sustained an injury to his left cheekbone at some point. He said it happened in a car accident five years before, but who knows? He certainly had bad headaches. That’s why he came to see me. So, yes, I took an X-ray.”
“Would that cover most of the head?”
“Cranial X-ray, yes, certainly.”
“Any chance I could take a look at it, sir?”
“In the circumstances, I don’t see why not. I’ve put his file in my no-longer-with-us cabinet. Give me a moment.”
He flicked through documents, removed an X-ray, and took it to a light box fixed to the wall.
“All right,” he said, flicking the switch. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The side view of the skull jumped into view. The image gave Emmett a cold feeling. There Lindemann was, in complete detail, the person who had set in motion that trail of destruction and murder. Would any of those events have happened without his involvement? The other two were committed to their cause, but Emmett had an instinct that Lindemann was the primal force. He stared at it, transfixed.
“So,” said Fryxell, pointing to the cheek. “Blunt force trauma at some time, which was giving him that head pain. That’s the zygomatic bone, and, right there, a slight irregular depression, though it may not have been visible externally. Nothing in the brain, though, that seems amiss, at least to a cursory view. I suggested he see a consultant but then I heard no more from him.”
“Uh huh. Clear shot of the teeth, ones at the side there.”
“Yes, and they’re in good condition. Only one filling.”
“Sure.”
“He was in good health apart from the head trauma.”
“What kind of a guy was he, sir? I mean . . . how was he to deal with?”
Fryxell turned from the light box. “Not to my taste. The studded biker jacket, the attitude. Thought he was cool. Brando has a lot to answer for.”
“Right.”
“But I can’t say he did or said anything to tick me off. It was just his manner. The counter-culture shtick.”
“Sure. Look, this is useful, sir, this X-ray. You say you can’t release it―”
Fryxell waggled a hand. “Tricky. Get me something with a letterhead and a signature.”
“Okay, but, look, can you photocopy it in the meantime?”
He considered. “Gray area, legally―just a copy, not the original. Shoot, I guess so. But, photocopy an X-ray? It’ll come out black, unless . . . you put a mirror on top of the X-ray. It wouldn’t come out perfectly. . . .”
“Do you have a photocopier?”
“Sure. I’ll give it a shot. I doubt we’ll get it all on one sheet.”
The nurse found a mirror of the right size, put it on the X-ray, and they juggled around until they had a few printouts. Fryxell played with the exposure, and finally they had some sheets that Emmett was happy with.
“Really appreciate it, sir.”
“That’s okay.”
“One last thing. Would you sign and date them, and write that it’s Max Lindemann?”
“Can’t do it. Get me that authority. And look, I’m gonna be late for lunch.”
“Mrs. Esposito?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Emmett Capps, ma’am. I’m with the Texas Rangers.”
There was silence on the line.
“Ma’am, may I ask a few questions?”
“If you want to rake up the past, please don’t.”
“Ma’am, I know it’s painful.”
“Painful? You have no idea.”
“He got a raw deal.”
“I really can’t discuss it.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? He was pretty much driven out. He never got his full pension.”
