My karma had caught up with me-I’d killed the fucker, and now was condemned to drive his car. I backed out, drove the fraction of a block to the stop sign at Country Vista and turned left, going past the cobblestone cottage, whose resident seemed suddenly very low on my “to do” list, and made my way to the nearest pay phone, which was at a Standard Station on Dubuque Street.
I called the emergency number and, to his credit, the Broker himself answered it, on the second ring.
“We have a problem,” I said.
“Oh dear.”
“We need to meet.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“That would be most inconvenient.”
“I’m already driving a car that has something inconvenient in its trunk.”
“Well, good heavens.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”
“Do I need to bring someone with me?”
“Let’s put it this way-I’ll be driving a car that I’ll have to leave behind. And I’ll need a ride somewhere.”
“Somewhere?”
“Where that somewhere is will be up to you.”
“Oh. So this is a serious wrinkle.”
“It’s fucking pruney.”
“All right. Understood. I have someone who can help us.”
“Peachy.”
“Where shall we meet?”
“Pick an all-night truckstop on the Interstate, why don’t you? Between where I am and where you are.”
“Fine. Drive east, toward the Quad Cities. Exit at Moscow. Look for the dinosaur.”
“Moscow? Dinosaur?”
“It’s one of those Sinclair gas station dinosaurs-at the Moscow, Iowa, exit.”
“If you say so.”
“When will you be leaving?”
“Now.”
“All right-go ahead. I can organize my end quickly and you have just a little farther to go.”
“I’ll say.”
I hung up.
When I started out, it was close to eleven. Interstate 80 was mostly big fucking trucks and me. I rolled along at seventy and might have found the ivory-cast winter landscape, with its gentle rolling terrain, serenely soothing if the tobacco smell in the car, which cracking the window didn’t seem to help, wasn’t damn near choking me. Charlie would have his revenge…
And then one of those big fucking trucks I mentioned would come along and, ten four good buddy, about blow my ass off the highway. Christ, I was almost glad to see first one and then another pulled over by the cops, or as glad as a guy with a plastic-wrapped stiff in his trunk can be to see the cops.
Charlie had some eight-tracks but it was all shit- country and western-and his radio seemed intent on pulling in Holy Roller preachers (“This is Garner Ted Armstrong, saying…”), additional hillbilly music (“Hello, Darlin’ ”), and really wretched rock stations (if “ABC” by the Jackson Five and “I Think I Love You” by the Partridge Family could be considered rock). Somewhere Charlie was laughing his ass off at me, although not in the trunk-he was nice and quiet back there.
Right alongside the Interstate, the green dinosaur loomed from in front of a Sinclair station truckstop, and I now knew the Broker’s instructions hadn’t been a hallucination on either of our parts. I took the Moscow exit and pulled in to a graveled parking lot filled with bigger, modern day dinosaurs, the semi variety; truckers not taking a nap in their rigs were inside having coffee and cholesterol. The Chevelle I left in a front space in front of God and everybody, and strolled into a brightly lit, wholesome-looking restaurant with a long counter.
I found a window booth, from which I ordered an iced tea, cheeseburger and fries. My waitress was a thousand years old, but was efficient for her age, and I enjoyed my meal while I waited for the Broker to show.
When he came in about fifteen minutes later, he didn’t look any more out of place than Rex Harrison at a 4-H meeting. His tan camel’s hair topcoat probably cost as much as every trucker at the counter’s red-and-plaid jacket put together, and his long face with the angular cheekbones and soft blue eyes and stark white hair wouldn’t be any more memorable than Martians landing, should the cops ever come around asking.
With him was a guy in a denim jacket and blue jeans, hands in the pockets of the jacket, which wasn’t near warm enough for winter. He was a fairly small specimen, maybe five six and of average build, but his burr haircut and dead dark eyes in a chiseled, weathered face said he was ex-military.
That didn’t surprise me. I figured most of Broker’s recruits came from the ranks of Uncle Sam’s cast-offs. His business worked best with outsiders, trained killers who were not mob-affiliated or otherwise burdened with criminal records and backgrounds. Clean-cut all-American mercenaries.
Broker nodded at the counter and the guy in denim sat there, while his master came over, removing brown leather gloves, and giving me a smile that was only technically a smile, going up at either end but mirthless and disapproving.
He glanced at the booth fore and aft of mine, noted that they were vacant, and sat rather heavily, then slid over, creating a farting sound on the faux leather of the booth and making me smile.
I asked Broker, “Where’d you find Rumpelstiltskin?”
Broker just looked at me, his puss as blank as a pie pan. “You might want to watch that kind of talk around Roger. He’s a formidable young man. Much like yourself.”
“Then maybe Roger ought to watch himself around me.”
One eyebrow went up. “You seem in a surly mood.”
“Maybe it’s just a preemptive strike, since I figure you aren’t too happy getting called out for a road trip in the middle of the night.”
“And, actually, I’m not. Can you give me the rough details?”
I didn’t respond to that, instead asking, “Who’s going to drive me back? That’s assuming you want me to go back.”
He frowned. “I presume I will drive you, since you indicated the car you’re in may…may require some clean-up.”
“Ah. That’s where Roger comes in.”
“Correct.”
I wiped a fry through the glistening red of watered-down ketchup. “I had to eliminate a business rival.”
He frowned. “I see. And you feel it’s best you give me the details on the ride back, rather than here in public?”
“Yeah. Not many people in this lovable greasy spoon, granted, but just the two of us in your car would be better. I gotta warn you, though. I smell like shit.”
“Is that right?”
I nodded. “The car I drove belongs to that business rival I mentioned. He damn near smoked himself to death. Damn near. And now I got that foul stench in my clothes.”
The Broker folded his hands prayerfully. “Pity. Did you get any identification from this rival?”
“Yeah. If you let me drive your car, I can give you that stuff and you can go over it.”
He nodded crisply.
The thousand-year-old waitress came over and Broker ordered a coffee to go. She stared at him for a moment, as if she were hoping he were an apparition that might disappear and remove the need of carrying out so difficult a task, but Broker didn’t disappear, so she did.
He asked, “Unavoidable, this elimination?”
“No. I needed practice.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm.”
“Ever see A Night at the Opera?”
“What, the Marx Brothers? Of course I have. Why?”
I dragged another fry through red. “Remember the stateroom scene? Every member of the cast piling into a little cabin on that steamship? Well, that’s this assignment. Crawling with names and faces that weren’t in that surveillance report. That’s why I say you may not want me to go back there.”