“Get in,” Nolan said.
“What?”
“Get in. We’re wasting time standing here yakking.”
“I’m going?”
“Of course you’re going. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He smiled at her, just a little. “Get in.”
She got in.
It was only ten minutes to Burlington, a city on rolling hills overlooking the Mississippi, an industrial town of thirty-some thousand, whose various facelifts did not conceal its age. A freeway, lined with shelves of ivy-covered shale, cut through the old river town, and after paying the thirty cents round-trip toll, they were rumbling over the steel bridge, to Illinois and Gulf Port.
The sign just beyond the bridge directed them to the left, but the road curved around to the right, finally depositing them in a pocket below the busy interstate, where Gulf Port rested like a wound that hadn’t healed properly.
On first impression, Gulf Port was nothing but bars. Bars with big parking lots full of cars and trucks. Even just driving by, it was clear just how rowdy these places were, drunks and loud music constantly tumbling out the doors. In the background, among trees that hid the river, he could make out the towers of a grain elevator, which seemed to be the only business of any consequence in Gulf Port that didn’t serve beer. He drove through the narrow, unpaved streets and found that this was little more than a trailer court, with an occasional sagging house thrown in for variety. No grocery store; no business section at all. He hadn’t even seen a gas station yet, though there probably was one among the bars.
“Shitty place to visit, and I wouldn’t want to live here,” the girl commented. It was the first thing she’d said since they left the Barn.
Nolan nodded. “Welfare ghetto, looks like.”
He drove back toward the bars.
“According to Hale,” he said, “these bars’ll be open till five. That doesn’t give you much time to spot this Darlene.”
“It should be enough. There’s a bar on the farthest end of town, about the nicest one. It’s called Upper’s. Turn here.”
He did.
“It’s down there. See the sign?”
He saw it: a standing metal sign that in blue neon said “UPPER’S” at the front of a large parking lot. He pulled in. The lot was eighty percent full. A few well- plastered customers, men in their twenties in jeans and western-style jackets, with the long hair that once would have branded them hippies but now probably meant young blue-collar worker, were pushing each other around and laughing, just outside the front door. The building itself was a low-slung brick building, brown, with a tile roof; a big place, despite being only one story. The front door was closed at the moment, but it didn’t entirely muffle the country-rock music within.
“She’ll be in there if she’s anywhere,” the girl said.
“If she isn’t?”
“If she isn’t, she’s in the sack with some low-life. That’s my guess, anyway.”
“Hooker?”
“I think a few beers is all she costs. But it’s possible she’s hooking.”
“How sure are you she lives here?”
“If she doesn’t, she lives back in Burlington. She and that dyke I told you about were at the Burlington gigs the Nodes played.”
“Okay. I want you to go in and see if she’s in there.”
“And?”
“And then we’re going to wait and follow her home.”
“Why don’t I just corner her in the ladies’ can or something?”
“Once we’ve talked to her, we’ll have to shut her up.”
The girl winced. “You don’t mean...”
“No, I don’t mean that. But we got to tie her up and gag her. Which if she’s hooking is probably part of her scene anyway.”
She smiled. “You’re funny.”
“A riot.”
“We’re going to get Jon, aren’t we? He’s going to be all right, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m not promising you anything.”
“He’ll be all right. I know he will.”
“Listen. Toni, isn’t it? You got to face something: he may be dead right now.”
She swallowed hard; her eyes looked wide and wet. Pretty little thing, Nolan thought.
“That’s the kind of people we’re dealing with,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s the case, but it is the case. Now. Go in there and see if that bitch is getting beers bought for her.”
She nodded, got out. She had a nice rear end on her, Nolan noted clinically.
He sat and waited. He was tired. He rolled the window down, and the cold air felt good. He’d trade his left nut for an hour’s sleep. But the stream of drunks and near-drunks coming in and out of the place, plus the country-rock music in the background, served to keep him from dropping off, and then the girl was back.
“She’s in there,” she said. Smiling like a conspirator.
“Fine.”
“What now?”
“We wait.”
“And follow her home.”
“Right.”
They sat there for ten minutes.
“Are you okay?” she said.
“I’m fine. Why?”
“You look like you’re ready to fall asleep.”
“That’s because I’m fifty years old and been up a like number of hours.”
“Well, I can watch for her. You sleep.”
“Thanks, no thanks.”
She patted his arm. “Jon’s going to be all right.”
He said nothing.
Five minutes later, a rather tall, heavily made-up girl with shaggy brunette hair, wearing a black down-filled jacket over a Marshall Tucker T-shirt and tight jeans, walked out arm in arm with a big, somewhat drunk guy in a cowboy hat, padded cowhide vest, and jeans.
“That’s her,” Toni said.
The couple swayed to a red truck, one of those hotrod pickups on the other side of the lot and the big guy stumbled behind the wheel as she got in on the rider’s side and they pulled out. Nolan followed.
It wasn’t far; in a “town” the size of Gulf Port, it couldn’t be. The trailer was one of half a dozen others on a desolate, somewhat shaded block two blocks from Upper’s. This apparently allowed Darlene to do her local bar-crawling without taking her car, because a several-year-old green Maverick was parked in front; rust was eating it. She guided the cowboy out of his pickup, up the couple of steps and inside.
“Well?” Toni said as they drove past.
“Let’s wait till the pickup leaves,” Nolan said.
“Shouldn’t we...?”
“We’ll talk to her by herself. We don’t need to involve any civilians. This is complicated enough as is. We know where she lives. We’ll come back later.”
“That guy’ll be there all night!”
“Right.”
He pulled over. “I’m getting in back,” he told her. “I’ll keep down. I want you to drive to that motel down from Upper’s and get a room. It’s the only motel in town, and they may be watching for me for Julie. So you get the room.”
She nodded, and they got out, and he got in back and she got behind the wheel.
Soon they were in the motel room, a dingy little yellow room with a double bed and a picture of a ship at sea over the bed. Toni appraised the latter and said, “At least it isn’t on black velvet.”
“What?” Nolan said.
“Nothing. What are we doing here?”
“I’m getting some sleep. You can do what you want.”
“But what about Jon? Shouldn’t we be...”
“If they’ve killed him, it won’t matter. If he’s alive, they’ll probably keep him that way. But if I don’t get a couple hours sleep, I’m liable to fuck up. Okay?”
“Don’t pretend to be such a cold fucker, Nolan. You aren’t fooling anybody.”