"Okay, I'll hold off with the questions until you're finished," McNulty acknowledged. "Go ahead."
"Anyway, when we spotted him, it looked like he was waiting for a call, so we camped out across the street and staked him out. For about twenty minutes, he just sat there. Then, at exactly nineteen fifty-nine hours, he got out of the truck, went into the phone booth, and tried to make a phone call."
"You said tried?"
"Yeah. It looked like the phone was out of order. One thing for sure, it wasn't giving Sonny his money back. He must have put three or four quarters in the damn thing before he finally figured out it wasn't going to work."
"Brilliant," McNulty chuckled.
"Yeah, no shit. So while we're sitting there watching," Paxton went on, "and after he finishes pounding on the thing, all of a sudden he rips the handset right off the goddamn box. Then he runs back to his truck, takes off down the street and starts driving around like a fucking maniac, looking for another telephone booth."
"Got to be a check-in call," McNulty interpreted. "Sonny was supposed to check in with somebody-presumably Alex-at exactly eight o'clock."
"That's the way we read it," Paxton agreed. "So after about ten minutes, while we're trying to keep up with him without being spotted, he finally finds another phone booth at another gas station. Only trouble is, there's already somebody in this one."
McNulty looked over at Carl Scoby with a smile.
"Just wait, it gets better… or worse, depending on your point of view," Scoby said cryptically.
"Yeah, ain't that the truth?" Larry Paxton agreed. "So anyway, while Stoner and I are getting ourselves settled in across the street, Sonny jumps out of his truck, runs over to the phone booth, pounds on the door, and then yanks the poor son of a bitch right out of the booth when he doesn't move fast enough. They get in a hassle right off, but we figure Chareaux probably outweighed the guy by a good thirty pounds, which doesn't even begin to count his shit-ass disposition. So it doesn't take too long until the guy's laid out on the ground and Sonny's in the phone booth, only it just isn't his day, because he must have used up all his quarters at the other phone."
"Incredible," McNulty shook his head.
"Yeah," Paxton agreed. "Anyway, the next thing we know, Sonny's back on top of this guy and going through his pockets, and this time they really get into a hassle, except that Sonny must have been absolutely freaked about making that phone call, because he pulled out that fucking stainless-steel. 357 Ruger pistol of his and stuck it right in the guy's face. Which pretty much stopped the fight, but it didn't do Sonny any good, because the guy didn't have any more quarters either."
"So now we've got him on reckless driving, assault, carrying a concealed weapon, and attempted armed robbery, all on account of a simple check-in call," Scoby summarized.
"Right," Larry Paxton's voice echoed out through the small speaker, "which brings us right up to the point where the cop shows up."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," McNulty swore.
"Carl's been claiming that Stoner and I probably just went out to a bar, had a couple of beers, and then made up all this shit," Paxton chuckled, "but I told him no way. Neither one of us has got that kind of imagination."
"Did they take him in?" McNulty asked, thinking that if Sonny Chareaux was now in custody, there just might be a way to find out if he knew anything about Len Ruebottom. Especially if the guy in the phone booth was willing to press charges.
"No, not exactly."
"What do you mean, not exactly? What the hell happened?"
"Well, when Sonny looked up and saw those red and blue lights, he did just about what you'd expect a good ol' coon- ass swamp boy from Terrebonne Parish to do, which was to crank off six rounds right through the cop's windshield."
"He shot at the cop?"
"That's right. And then, while the cop is trying to figure how he can hide under the seat and drive and scream into his radio mike all at the same time, Sonny takes off for the hills."
"On foot?"
"Oh, yeah. Left his truck sitting at the gas station with empty. 357 casings scattered all over the place."
"Any idea where he is now?" McNulty asked hopefully.
"We got lucky," Paxton said. "We were checking out the bars and spotted him in a place called the Cat's Paw. He's sitting in the back, about six feet away from the public phone. And from the look on his face, he's planning to rip the head off of anybody who tries to get near the thing. I'm right across the street from there now. Stoner's inside, keeping an eye on him."
"Has he made any calls yet?"
"No, we don't think so," Paxton said. "He went to the phone once, but we think he was just making sure he was going to get a dial tone this time. Probably… uh, hold it a second."
There was a long pause. Then Paxton was back on the phone.
"That was Stoner," he said. "Sonny's still sitting in the back of the bar, only now he's got a pile of quarters, a set of car keys, and a piece of paper laying out on the table. He also said that Sonny keeps looking at his watch about every thirty seconds, like he's afraid he's gonna forget what time it is.
McNulty looked down at his stainless-steel Rolex watch.
"It's ten minutes to ten," he said. "Sonny was supposed to check in at eight o'clock, but he screwed up, so now he's waiting until ten o'clock to try again."
"That makes sense," Scoby said. "If he's trying to call Alex while they're on a hunt, you can pretty well figure that they've got alternate check-in times and phone numbers all worked out."
"Yeah, Stoner said he'll get the phone numbers for us if we want."
"How the hell's he going to do that?" MeNulty demanded.
"Take a guess."
MeNulty hesitated. "You really think he can do it?"
"Sonny Chareaux's a big, mean boy," Paxton chuckled, "but I'll put my money on Stoner any day."
"I think he'd better hold off until we have a better idea of what's going on," Carl Scoby advised. "We could really screw things up for Henry if Alex starts thinking that there's something strange going on in Bozeman."
"Yeah, I agree," MeNulty nodded. "Larry, what about those keys? You think he's going to go back for his truck?"
"No, I don't," Paxton said. "I don't think those are his truck keys. We listened in on the local police advisory, which reported he'd left his keys in the truck."
"How far away from the Cat's Paw is his truck?" MeNulty asked.
"Other end of town. Long way to hike."
"So he probably has another vehicle stashed somewhere," MeNulty calculated, looking at the map of Bozeman that Scoby had spread out across the table.
"It's probably one of those in the lot next to the bar, but that's one hell of a big parking lot. Must be at least thirty or forty vehicles in there right now. And about half of them are pickups."
"You know what I'm thinking, don't you?"
"If Alex had everybody holed up in a motel anywhere near Bozeman, then this idiot wouldn't be running around trying to find a phone?" Larry Paxton suggested.
"That's right," MeNulty nodded. "So I figure they're either camped out in the woods or sleeping in their cars."
"Which is also consistent with their standard operating procedure," Scoby added.
"That part is, but what about this business of them splitting up? Presumably Henry's out on a hunt right now with Alex and Butch, but why would Alex leave Sonny in Bozeman?"
"To follow Henry into Gardiner, make sure he didn't have any backup. Those guys are sure as hell paranoid enough to do that," Scoby said.
"But Henry didn't have a backup, unless Ruebottom decided to tag along, so there wouldn't have been anything for Sonny Chareaux to see, right?" McNulty asked.