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Scared Money
By James Hime St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2004 James Hime
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-6866-3
CHAPTER 1
"Now, Diedre, I don't want you messin' around with that Lamont Stubbs. Ain't nuthin' but bad can come uh that. You listenin' to yo' mama, chil'?"
Diedre Brown grips the portable telephone to her ear with her shoulder, using her left hand to apply to the nails on her right hand a polish the color of ripe mango, a totally exotic color, makes her feel like she could be a tribal princess on a South Sea Island, going around in a grass skirt, flower lei, nothing else. She holds out her hand so as to admire the color better. It's elegant and it's sexy and her mama wouldn't have sat still for it one minute if she knew about it. But Mama is stuck in the ancestral shotgun house over in Austin County, forced to phone in to town when she wants to burden Diedre with her warnings and her scolds.
"Oh, Mama."
"Don't you 'oh, Mama' me. I want you to hear what I'm sayin' to you."
Diedre plunges the little brush back in its bottle, takes the phone in her left hand, starts flicking her right hand like she's shooing flies, the motion sending the bangle bracelets on her right wrist up and down her arm, clacking against one another.
"Yes, Mama, I hear you."
"I mean it, chil'. I may be way out here in Bleiblerville, but I hears things. Peoples talk, is what they do. I knows about the likes of Lamont Stubbs."
Diedre glances at the clock, sees the man is late by a half hour as usual. "What do y'all hear down yonder?"
"I hear he makes his livin' on the wrong side of the law, sellin' drugs to kids." Diedre's mama has that country way of talking, makes the word "kids" sound multisyllabic. Kee-uds.
Diedre says, "Oh, Mama, that's just silly. Lamont has him a regular job, down at Mr. Sparkles. You know, the car wash place."
Diedre is smarter than that herself, of course. No way a man can afford to style around like Lamont does, with the jewelry and the clothes and that fine 1999 Lexus ES 300, if all he's got is shammy-cloth jockey pay. Word among the children is Lamont paid cash for his ride. Walked into the dealership with a briefcase, opened it up, pulled stacks of Benjamins out of it until he got to the man's number. Car salesman stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Diedre knows Lamont's economic activities go well beyond his Mr. Sparkles gig and embrace certain entirely illegitimate pursuits. But it's this very badness that attracts her to him. It's that forbidden fruit thing, old as time.
Now her mama is saying, "Well, folks tell me that car wash job ain't all he's got."
I swear, sometimes it's like she's readin' my mind.
A car horn blows out front. Diedre looks through the blinds, sees Lamont's Lexus at the curb. "Listen, Mama," she says. "I need to run. Y'all gon' be around tomorrow?"
"Yes, baby."
"I might come out there, then. Spend the afternoon. Would that be alright?"
"Oh, yes, baby. Yo' daddy would love to see you."
"Okay, then. Good night, Mama."
"Good night, baby. And you stay away from that Lamont Stubbs."
Diedre grabs her purse, heads for the front door, still flipping her hand in the air, bracelets going clack clack clack.
Soon as she opens her front door she can hear the bass line coming from the music in Lamont's ride. Lamont's got his favorite CD cranked way up, Notorious B.I.G.'s Born Again reverberating off the walls of her little place. That's another thing mama wouldn't approve of. Biggie's lyrics are way too hot for Bleiblerville.
When she gets to the curb Lamont leans over, pushes the door open for her. She slides into the bucket seat, gives Lamont a peck on the cheek, says, "How you doin', baby?" Having to speak at about the same decibel level you would use to get somebody's attention across a ten-acre parking lot.
Lamont's got his black hair pulled back in a ponytail, diamond stud in his left earlobe, gold lamé vest covering a black T-shirt, gold chains hanging down, leather pants on. He has a thin beard that runs around his oval jaw, two strips of hair connecting it to a mustache trimmed close. His eyes are close set, hidden behind three-hundred-dollar Maui Jim's.
"I'se doin' good, real good," he shouts back. "You lookin' mighty nice tonight, Diedre. You ready to go to town, have ourselves some fun?"
Diedre can feel Biggie's bass line in her rib cage. The backup singers are singing, "Notorious! No, No, No, Notorious!"
"I been lookin' forward to it all week."
"That's what I'm talkin' about."
Lamont pulls away from the curb, slips his hand onto Diedre's thigh, jacking up her heart rate, giving her little electric charges up and down her spine. Then he goes to the sound system, changes the tracks a couple times.
He hollers, "Before we leave town though, I got a little bidness to take care of."
"What's that, baby?"
"There's this dude, see, from up Dallas way, wants a moment of my time. I tol' him I'd check with him this evenin', see if we can't get some shit sorted out."
"We goin' to yo' office then?"
"Baby, I ain't got no office. What I got is more like a street corner."
Lamont steers the Lexus up Main Street through the town square, quiet and dark this time of the evening for the most part, no illumination coming from the stores on account of they close by six o'clock, just a couple lights burning over where the courthouse used to be.
Diedre is thinking how little passes for excitement around this little bitty old town of Brenham, Texas, which is what makes it such a burdensome place to live, nothing interesting ever going down. In a place like this, rich in boredom and poor in everything else, a girl would be insane not to yield to the charms of a fast-living man like Lamont Stubbs. A man with plenty of ready cash, a nice ride, exotic tastes in clothes and music.
Lamont takes a left onto Martin Luther King Avenue, proceeds down it a ways, pulls over into a vacant lot next to a convenience store. Parks beside a black Cadillac Escalade with gold trim. He looks over at Diedre, says, "Won't take but a minute. I'll leave the engine runnin' so's you can listen to the music."
"Lamont. You so thoughtful."
"Yeah."
She watches as he crosses in front of the car, his vest shining in the headlights, then he's out of them, becoming a shadow against the convenience store wall where two other shadows have emerged, a tall one and a short one, their faces obscured, sweatshirt hoods pulled up over baseball caps.
Biggie's singing, "Check it out, here comes another one." Looks like the shadows are talking now, with some body motions thrown in, gestures, shoulder shrugs, arm waving, fingers pointed into chests. Then Lamont's shadow turns around, headed back.
Several things happen all at once. The two shadows in sweatshirts make some kind of movement in concert. Two lights split the darkness, one on the right side that's like a pulsing orange flame. The other, on the left, quick, elliptical blips. Lamont's shadow twists, falls to the ground.
The two lights go out. The shadows start walking her way.
"Oh, my God," she says. She reaches over to the door frame, fumbling for the switch, throws the locks. Scrambles to get behind the wheel, trying to lift a leg over the gearshift but her skirt restricts her movement. She jerks her skirt up as high as it will go, throws her leg over the gearshift, grabs the steering wheel for leverage. On the CD player, the backup singers are singing, "Would you get high with me?"
She tries to swing her other leg over the gearshift. The dashboard catches her foot. Outside, the shadows are beside the car.
They're singing, "Would you die for me?"
Then the windows explode.
* * *
At that moment, across town, a man in a business suit is parking a rental car in one of the few empty spots in the parking lot at a high school football stadium. He opens the door, shifts something under his coat, steps into the parking lot. Starts toward the lights, the sounds of band music and cheering.
He is here to talk to a man named Jeremiah Spur.
CHAPTER 2
No one wears a business suit to a high school football game in Brenham. Boots, jeans, western shirt, cowboy hat — that's the proper attire. As soon as the man in the suit walks out from under the stands, everybody who sees him knows he isn't from these parts. He looks as out of place as a bird dog at a cotillion.
Among the first to see him is a weathered rancher with mostly gray hair, a jaw like a plow, honest eyes corralled by crows' feet. A man who's spent better than half his life looking for things that don't belong. While the Brenham High offense huddles, Jeremiah Spur watches the man as he stares up at the stands, searching the crowd.
The huddle breaks and the Cubs jog to the line of scrimmage. Jeremiah returns his attention to the football game, the two teams of youngsters facing off over the striped grass, the scene brightly lit by the towers that stand behind the bleachers. The darkness beyond is so complete, it is as though all the light there is has been concentrated here, as though nothing taking place anywhere else in the universe is so worthy of illumination as the exertions of the Brenham Cubbies against their ancient rivals from Brazoswood.
Jeremiah can't think of a better way to top off a week of punching cattle. Brenham is ranked number two in the state, Division 4-A. They run the ball well and pass it even better and the defense is big and fast. Jeremiah fully expects them to pull the little arms and legs off the Brazoswood team, have the Cubbies' scrubs playing before the third quarter is over.
The quarterback takes the snap from center, fakes a handoff to the fullback, and runs down the line, with the tailback trailing behind. Option play. The quarterback flips the ball to the tailback who gains the corner, picks up eight before a Brazoswood cornerback can run him out of bounds. Across the way the band cranks up the Brenham fight song.
A norther had blown in earlier in the week. For an entire day it had rained like a cow pissing on a flat rock, then it had faired off and cooler weather had set in. The breeze still blows out of the north as light and fresh as a child's memory. Jeremiah wears a blue windbreaker over his usual getup, rancher's khakis and boots. His cream-colored Stetson is perched back on his head.
The Cubs break their huddle, spread out along the line of scrimmage, their green and white uniforms opposite the Brazoswood gold and black. The tailback goes in motion, linebackers shift and stunt. Jeremiah shakes his head at how nuanced, how sophisticated the game has gotten at the high school level.
The man in the suit must have found who he was looking for. He's climbing the stairs toward Jeremiah. He's a big guy, in his thirties, fit looking. Hair cut short, military style. Erect posture, serious face. He looks like a repo man come to claim somebody's pickup.
The Cubs' quarterback takes the snap and fakes a handoff to the fullback, rolls to his right just out of reach of a couple of blitzing linebackers and throws on the run. The ball rides the north wind downfield. The crowd is on its feet by the time the wide receiver gathers it in and goes racing all the way down the sideline for six points. There's roaring all around. Ten minutes into the game and the Cubbies have scored first.
"Captain Spur?"
Jeremiah looks away from the field into eyes so dark and hard they could be in the head of somebody doing twenty-to-life in Huntsville. "That's right."
Hard Eyes hands him a leather case, the kind people carry business cards in. Jeremiah flips it open as he and the stranger sit down. Inside is an ID card. Says Frederick Wilson Kirby, Office of the Deputy Director of Operations, Central Intelligence Agency. Has Hard Eyes' picture on it.
Jeremiah flips the case closed, hands it back to the suit. Out on the field the Brenham kicker sends the ball through the goalposts.
Watching the teams headed to the sidelines Jeremiah says, "I worked a case once. Gunrunner out of El Paso who was still passing himself off as CIA even though the Company had previously off-loaded him. Had an ID badge he had fashioned for himself with the help of a copy shop. Looked about as good as the one you got there, Mr. Kirby."
"You worked with Spencer Tillman in the Inspector General's Office. The gunrunner's name was Paco Chavez and we had used him from time to time in Central America before he went nutso."
"You can always tell a fed."
"Yeah?"
"But you can't tell him much. I'm watchin' a football game here."
"Spencer sends his regards, by the way. He's only got a couple years to go before he hits the rocking chair."
"Be sure and howdy him for me, next time y'all run into one another."
"Your country needs a minute or two of your time. It won't take long."
Jeremiah looks at the Agency man. "Alright, then. You talk and I'll listen while I watch the Cubbies, see if they can hold on to their lead. Maybe even pad it some."
"Not here, sir. Out in the parking lot, if you don't mind." Fred Kirby's got an accent that's Back Bay Boston, like he's rehearsing to play JFK in a TV movie, makes the word "parking" sound like "packing."
Jeremiah hesitates, then shrugs. They stand up, walk down the bleacher steps, Jeremiah watching over the Company man's head as the Brazoswood fullback dives into the line for maybe a yard, stifled by the middle linebacker, Rudy Schoppe's kid, the one that spends his summers pitching hay bales around for fun. Under the bleachers they walk through the crowd, mostly kids chasing one another, people standing in line at the one concession stand, folks queued up to get into the facilities.
Jeremiah's boots crunch across the parking lot gravel until he gets to his pickup. Out here away from the lights he can see a star or two in the sky.
He turns, says, "This alright? Or would you rather sit in the vehicle?"
Fred Kirby's eyes have disappeared into the shadows cast by his forehead. "This will do."
"Alright then. Speak your piece."
"Okay. A few years back, when our people were ... active in Eastern Europe, there was this guy. He was indigenous to the area. We had him do jobs for us, jobs that were particularly difficult or dangerous or —"
"You're sayin' y'all used him to cap folks."
"Yeah. And he was good at it. Really good. It was like he had a special gift for it, or just enjoyed it in some unnatural way. Maybe it was in his blood. He's Hungarian by origin and they can be a particularly violent people. So this guy —"
"He have a name?"
"His name is Farkas. Benjamin Farkas. The deal we made with him back then — more or less at his insistence — was that once we didn't need him anymore we would bring him to the U.S., set him up in business, let him live out the rest of his life in peace. So in the late 1980s he moved to Dallas, started a few businesses —"
"Like what he was in back home?"
"No. These were legit. Real estate development, brokerage, that kind of thing. We got him started like we promised and then we cut our ties. We sort of hoped we had heard the last from him, to be honest. And that was the way it was for over ten years. Then last week, he called. He wanted something from us."
Jeremiah reaches into his pocket for a piece of nicotine gum and pops it into his mouth. "Go on. I'm listenin'."
"Mr. Farkas told us one of his key people had gone missing, along with some money. A very considerable amount of money. He wanted help finding his missing employee. That put us in kind of a bind, you see, because —"
"Because y'all can't operate domestically and you ain't about to go to the FBI, own up to having invited some Hungarian button man to live here, ask them to help find some hired hand who had vamoosed on the guy."
"I had heard you don't mince words, Captain Spur. We told him no can do. He understood our difficulty and had an idea of his own. Somebody else he could call on for help. Somebody outside the government."
"I'm his idea?"
"That's right."
"How come him to pick me?"
"He didn't say and we didn't ask. Although I suppose we could guess. Anyway, we kind of liked his suggestion. I mean, you're retired from law enforcement, so there aren't any delicate cross-jurisdictional issues. We've worked with you and know how good you are. You could have been one of us if you had wanted. I mean that as a compliment."
Jeremiah grunts and works the gum in his jaw.
"So we told Mr. Farkas we would come to you on his behalf."
Over in the stadium a roar builds and the band fires up the fight song.
"Listen to that," says Jeremiah. "You done made me miss a touchdown."
"We would like for you to speak with Mr. Farkas, Captain Spur."
"And I'd like you to go to hell."
"He said you would say that. He told us when you did, we should tell you he knew your father."
"Now I know one of two things is true. Either he's lyin'. Or you are."
"Captain Spur, he's not lying. My agency knows this to be true."
"Prove it."
"I can't. You'll have to take me at my word."
Jeremiah Spur chews his nicotine gum. "You're startin' to work my patience."
"Mr. Farkas is sending his private jet to pick you up at the Washington County airport tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. I'd pack a bag for a few days if I were you."
"I got a herd to attend to."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Scared Money by James Hime. Copyright © 2004 James Hime. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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