We’d been quiet on the walk back to the truck. I was in shock, Em seemed furious, and James was drunk, so no one had much of anything to say.
“Let’s hear the explanation.” I couldn’t wait for this.
“Skip, I had an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I lost a couple bucks in the poker game, and — ”
“How much?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I owe them maybe seven hundred dollars.”
“What?” He was dangerous. “Honestly? Seven hundred?”
“Pardner, wait till you hear the rest of this. It gets better.”
It had to. He was blowing our profit margin. He’d spent all of the stake, and then gone in debt for another seven hundred.
“So we had a couple of beers after the game, Stan and Mug and I. Some of the guys went up to do their security duty, and then it was just me and Stan. And he gets out the hard stuff.”
“The hard stuff?”
“Your old buddy, Jack. Remember, you and Uncle Buzz? Stan brings out a bottle of Jack Daniels and pours me a glass. So we’re sipping Tennessee whiskey and he’s telling me about the business.” James glanced at Em, never picking up on her disdain. “Em, did you know these guys can net two or three hundred thousand dollars a year if they really work at it?”
I shook my head. “No, Em. We’re not thinking about it. It was just idle conversation. Seriously.”
“We’re having a great conversation, just the two of us, and Crayer comes running down to the pizza wagon.”
“Yeah. He was on security tonight.”
“Stan drops his cigar in the ashtray and tells me he’s got to go for a minute. He tells me he’ll meet me up by our truck, so I headed up that way. Pretty soon he comes back. He’s not very happy. I thought maybe it was you guys breaking into the office, but he doesn’t say anything.”
“Had to be what it was.”
“Well, then, he invites me to his trailer. Wants to know more about you and me, pard. Wants to know what makes us tick. If we have any side jobs that we do. Then he wants to know why you asked so many questions. And he keeps digging.”
“And what are you telling him?”
“First of all, I’m figuring out that he drinks too much. Jesus, he polished off half the fifth by himself. And he’s the one starting to get tanked. I didn’t tell him much of anything. He asks if we ever worked for the government. Can you imagine? The government? He wants to know why we decided to work this weekend for Cash. He calls him Cash, like they’re old buddies.”
“And you told him.”
“I did. There was nothing to hide.”
“And what else?”
“Now get this. I start asking him about the full-timers. I’m thinking here, pard. I figure that if he’s getting a little sloppy, I need to take advantage of it. I asked him, just like you told me to, if he knew who shot my tires out.”
“And he said?”
“He was gonna look into it. That’s good, eh?”
I kept my mouth shut.
“He reaches into a small dresser he’s got, and pulls out a semiautomatic pistol. He said it was a Smith and Wesson 39. I don’t know guns, but it looked pretty impressive. He says “this little beauty isn’t a tire popper. It’s a people stopper. When I’m on security detail, when I’m on the road or in some strange town selling pizza, this little guy is my best friend.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I imagine it’s a little scary to be on the road these days.”
“He called his Smith and Wesson a people stopper, Skip. Said it’s his best friend. Said his Smith and Wesson is the only real friend that he’s got. That scared me.”
It scared me too. It didn’t surprise me, just scared me.
“Then, I told him we’d been robbed. And he laughed and said it was probably one of the guys just giving us an initiation. See?”
“James, so far it doesn’t sound like you found out anything.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, pally. So then I asked him about his organizer. I told him I’d seen Thomas LeRoy with one, and Stan pulls his out, proudly, saying it was the same exact one. He and LeRoy would share information and stuff.”
Em sat forward. “What kind of stuff?”
“Well, financial stuff. What vendors had paid up. If there was trouble, like the tires being shot out. And then he told me that he keeps track of all the full-time vendors because sometimes these guys have to meet with Cash, he calls him Cash, and Stan needs to know where all of them are at all times. He’s got to be able to get ahold of them when there’s a problem, or Cashdollar needs to find out if they can show up for a revival meeting or other stuff.”
I’d poured coffee for Em and myself, and I could feel the warm beverage steaming its way through my veins. My head ached and I wished I had some aspirin, but aspirin thins the blood and I figured it was important for my blood to stay thick so the scab on my forehead could form. I don’t think strong coffee affects the blood, and the caffeine actually made me feel much better.
James seemed to be a little more clearheaded. He was rolling with his story. “So, I’m thinking, dude, I say to him, prove it.”
“Prove it?”
“Show me where everyone was, or will be. So he motions me over to this little table where we’ve been sitting and drinking, and he punches in a couple of numbers and there’s a list of everybody. Henry, Mug, Sailor, Crayer, Stan, and Dusty. Then he goes to one year ago, and there is a list of where they are. Henry and Mug are in Iowa at some convention. Sailor is in Key West, and Dusty is working in Michigan.”
“Crayer?”
“I knew you would ask. Crayer is in Washington, D.C. at some street fair, selling his donuts.”
“So he’s got them all accounted for.” I thought it was a neat trick, but it was nothing like the story I had to tell James.
“Oh, I poured him another drink, and he gets two beers and now we’re doing shots and beer. And he isn’t done with the organizer. He says ‘now look. I can go back to whenever you want, and these guys will always be in my system.’ ”
“It’s a good system, but what does it prove.”
“Stay with me, amigo. So I said, can I see the organizer. And he hands it to me. Just like that. He’s so proud of this thing. And I punched in the day that Fred Long was shot in Washington. He couldn’t see what I was doing.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
“And?”
“Everybody is accounted for. Mug is in maybe Oregon. Dusty is in Ohio, Henry is in Georgia, I think, and Sailor was in Key West.”
“You said everyone was accounted for.”
“They were. So I change the screen, and go to hand it back to him and he’s passed out at the table. Skip, I actually drank this guy under, man. I could have walked out with the organizer or anything else he had.”
I took a swallow of the bitter coffee, and clapped him on the back, gently. Every move I made reminded me I had a head injury.
“He didn’t have much, but I could have.”
“James,” Em was terse. “You said everyone was accounted for.”
“Yeah. I did.”
“It’s a game he plays, Em. I’m sure he’ll tell us before the sun comes up.”
“I’ll tell you right now, pard. I kind of thought maybe you’d figure it out yourself. Stan and Bruce Crayer were in Washington,D.C"
We were quiet for a minute. I thought about the ramification.
“Doesn’t necessarily prove anything, does it? Crayer as much as admitted he’d been there. Remember? He told us he was there when the senator was killed.”
“Nope. Doesn’t prove anything. But it means there were only two people in the full-time group that had the ability to kill the senator. If a full-timer committed the murder.”
I leaned back on my elbows and saw just a hint of color in the sky. It was probably my imagination. “So Stan and Crayer were in D.C.?"
“They were.”
“So was Styles.”
“Styles didn’t kill Senator Long.”
“You never know. Em and I have some thoughts on who he might be.”
“Oh, come on.” James sounded put off.
“And Styles, Crayer, and Stan weren’t the only ones in D.C. on that weekend.