Behind the Badge Page 12

  Crockett turned and watched one of the biggest men he’d ever seen in his life walking toward him from the sidewalk in front of the club entrance. Around thirty- years-old, with thick dark hair and built like Stallone at the same age, the guy towered over him.

  “Please,” Crockett asked. “I promise to move it if any fire trucks show up.”

  “No, sorry. You’ll have to…oh! You’re a cop?”

  Crockett grinned and shoved out a hand. “Yeah. Can’t be helped,” he said. “County. Call me Crockett.”

  The guy matched his grin and accepted the handshake. “Phil LaRosa,” he said. “Bouncer. Can’t be helped either.”

  “Nice to meetcha, Phil. How’s business tonight?”

  “Pretty good. Crowd’s havin’ fun. Band’s not bad. No real trouble. Nice mix of people. All ages, all persuasions, from country club to club country. Drinks are honest, and the food is kickass. You get a call or something?”

  “No, nothing like that. I was in the area and thought I’d swing by.”

  “Just happened to be out here, huh?”

  Crockett smiled. “Total coincidence.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “Enough small talk,” Crockett said. “Let’s get to the important stuff. Like a question you’ve never been asked before.”

  “I’m six-ten,” LaRosa said.

  “Holy shit.”

  The big man smiled. “Comes in handy now and then. Most people don’t fuck with me because of my size. I’m not that tough. My sister used to beat the shit out of me all the time.”

  “How ‘bout now?” Crockett asked.

  “Now, not so much.”

  “Thank God. I’m scared enough of women as it is. You been a bouncer long?”

  “Since I was eighteen. Pay’s good. Lotsa ladies. I’m saving up to go back to school.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. Psychology. I’ve got my masters. Another year and I’ll be able to go after my doctorate.”

  “What works best? The psychology or the size?”

  “One sorta compliments the other.”

  “If it’s all right with you,” Crockett said, “I’ll walk around a little, then split. I’ll be by a couple of more times tonight and do it again. Omnipresence of the police and shit.”

  “Glad to have you. I’ve gotta get back inside. There’s a security guard walking around the lot out here somewhere. I’ll get on the radio and tell him you’re around.”

  “Thanks. Nice to meetcha, Phil.”

  “Likewise, Crockett. Watch your back.”

  *****

  Crockett walked the parking lot for about fifteen minutes. On one pass in front of the diner section, a waitress wearing a cowboy hat, an extremely short skirt, and western boots with riding heels hustled out where he stood with a large coffee in an insulated paper cup.

  “Hi!” she said. “I’m Shelly. You’re Crockett?”

  “Yes, I am,” Crockett replied. “What do I win?”

  “You win this coffee. It’s black. You need some cream?”

  “Black is fine, Shelly. Thank you.”

  “It was Phil’s idea. He said you’d be out here. You can thank me for the next cup.”

  Crockett smiled. “And thank you, I shall. You’re very kind. I appreciate you, Shelly.”

  Shelly giggled and bounced away.

  Oh, Lord.

  *****

  Crockett saw the security guard once, from across the lot, and they waved at each other. On his way back to the truck, he noticed a couple exit the building and weave their arm in arm way into the lot. He followed at a discreet distance, determining they were pretty well baked. When they stopped beside a red Chevy Silverado pickup, Crockett approached as the guy was attempting to insert his key in the lock.

  “Hi there. Ya’ll doin’ all right?”

  The man turned to face Crockett. “I am doing…fine,” he said, straining to see Crockett clearly. His girlfriend punched him in the ribs.

  “He’s a cop, Junior. I told ya we shoulda had a designated driver.”

  “You a cop?” the guy asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Oh shit! Am I busted?”

  Crockett grinned. “Not yet.”

  “When?” the guy asked.

  “When you drive that truck more than a foot.”

  “This truck?” the guy said, patting the pickup on the door.

  “Yeah,” Crockett said. “That’s the truck. I happen to know that there are deputies out here just waiting for somebody to arrest for DUI.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  “You have any friends inside the club?”

  “Yeah. Mike’s in there, an’ Marilyn, an’ Stevie, an’ ol’ Moe an’…some more.”

  “Why don’t you give me your driver’s license and your keys, and go back inside and see if one of your friends will drive you home. Then tomorrow you can drop by the Sheriff’s Office in Hartrick, pick up your keys and license, and come get your truck. Sound okay?”

  “I can do that?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “An’ I won’t get busted?”

  “I’d say your chances would be greatly reduced.”

  “I doan wanna get busted.”

  “That wouldn’t be good.”

  “Okay,” the man agreed, fumbling for his wallet. His girlfriend helped him remove his license. He handed it and his keys to Crockett. “I get these back tomorrow?” he asked.

  “At the Hart County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “Okay.”

  “How do you like Buckles and Bows?”

  “It’s awesome.”

  “C’mon,” the girlfriend said, pulling at his arm.

  “Thank you, Occifer,” the guy said, and followed her back toward the club.

  Crockett grinned and walked to his truck.

  *****

  By the time the joint closed, Charlie Rogers in Hart-five had written three traffic citations, and Gordon Mills in Hart-six had written four and made a final bust for DUI. A little extra revenue for the county and a jolt of awareness for the partiers at Buckles and Bows. Crockett backed up the car stops, and Five and Six attended to the DUI arrest. All things considered, it went very well.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Saturday morning Crockett roused about nine and, leaving his leg behind, hopped down the stairs, grabbed his crutches from their position by the rail, and went into the kitchen. Satin was doing up a small amount of dishes. She abandoned that chore, gave him a kiss, poured a cup of coffee, and added cream. Crockett sat on a stool, accepted the coffee, lighted a Sherman, and peered at her, rather nearsightedly.

  “I should be out of bed,” he said. “Am I?”

  “Afraid so,” Satin replied. “Pretty much ruined my solitude.”

  “What’s on your agenda for today?”

  “I’m going to Smithville and pick up some groceries and stuff, then, if I can’t find everything I need, probably to Liberty. I should be home by mid-afternoon. What business it is of yours?”

  “Let’s go out tonight.”

  Satin flinched and studied him carefully. “Who are you and what have you done with Crockett?” she said.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Go out? You? Where, Cabelas?”

  “Buckles and Bows.”

  “The new club?”

  “Sure. I hear the food’s good. We can eat, hang out, have a drink, and see how the other half lives.”

  “You, in a county nightclub with a band and real people. You suspicious about the place?”

  “What?”

  “We gonna be undercover or something?”

  “Oh, hell,” Crockett said.

  “Can you two-step with only one foot?”

  “Why did I even bring it up?”

  “Do I get to wear my really tight jeans and my Justin’s?”

  “I suppose.”

  “How ‘bout my big belt buckle?”
<
br />   “If you feel you must.”

  “Can I line dance?”

  “Please do.”

  “Will you dance with me?”

  “Possibly. On a slow one.”

  “If, perchance, some handsome stranger were to ask me to trip the light fantastic, would you object?”

  “God, no. I’d be grateful.”

  “Okay. We can go.”

  “I’m glad that’s over,” Crockett said. “I think the fact that you place so few conditions on our relationship is what most endears you to you.”

  Satin grinned. “Davey,” she said, “you are such a champ.”

  *****

  After Satin left, Crockett put on his leg and, accompanied by Dundee and Nudge, took a short hike along some of the lakeside. In spite of a wet spring and the runoff that raised the water level, visibility was a little over eighteen inches. Along the shore, water plants were beginning to grow in the shallows. Deer tracks were common, the bird population was excellent, and he even could see where raccoons had been puttering around, probably in search of crawdads.

  Back at the house, he called the cabin company and confirmed that he could have one delivered within two weeks of his order; and he’d get the drawing for water, electric, foundation and sewage within a week. The dozer guy would be out to put in the drive, clear a space for the house and yard, open an area for a helo pad if needed, and dig a septic pond within ten days. Three days estimated time on site. He’d locate somebody to put in the foundation and run the necessary utility lines. As he might have expected, county services such as electricity and water would take the longest. Up to ten or twelve weeks. Up to four weeks for the proper permits. Crockett didn’t argue. He’d talk to Dale. Now that he had friends in county government, he might as well use them.

  He was congratulating himself on his efficiency when the driveway alarm sounded. He stepped outside to see a black Ford pickup roll to a stop beside his truck. Lyle Higgenbotham, in the everlasting gabardine suit and Stetson long oval, got out and waved.

  “Hi there, boy,” the old man said, walking in his direction. “Long time, no see.”

  “Just the man I was getting ready to call,” Crockett replied, holding the door open so Lyle could come inside and get out of the heat. “How many unsuspecting real estate shoppers you taking advantage of today?”

  “There ya go, runnin’ down my noble profession. It’s folks like you that make me want to retire.”

  Crockett poured two glasses of iced tea and set one on the snack bar. “Shit, he said. “If you were gonna retire you’d have done it twenty years ago.”

  Lyle took a seat and a sip. “Mebbe I shoulda. They tell me I got cancer.”

  “No.”

  “Yessir. Of the prostate. Some kinda slow growin’ thing they can slow down even more with treatment. They claim it’ll take ten years or so for it to get real bad.”

  Crockett couldn’t help it. He smiled. “Ten years, huh.”

  “That’s what they said. Hell, boy, I’m eighty-three now. I told ‘em, as old as I was, I didn’t give a shit if I had AIDS. That kid that’s my doctor like ta hurt hisself tryin’ not to laugh. At my age, a death sentence looks a lot like relief.”

  Crockett grinned. “Seems like you’re taking the bad news pretty well,” he said.

  Lyle smiled. “I’m a optimist,” he said. “What are you gittin’ ready to call me for?”

  “You remember my friend, Stitch?”

  “That hippie fella?”

  “That’s him.”

  “I kinda liked that boy. Seemed like he warn’t all covered up with pretension.”

  “Not much.”

  “He lookin’ for a place?”

  “He’s got one. Here. I’m gonna put in a cabin and such for him. I want to deed him the place and twenty to forty acres to go with it.”

  “You just wanna give it to him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That may not be easy to do. Damn guv’mint gonna want a share of the pie. Might be better off to rent it to him, an’ then give that plot to him in your will, or somethin’. Or sell it to him and hold the note yourself, not givin’ a damn if he makes payment. I don’t know for sure. I’ll look into it for ya.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Where ya gonna build the house?”

  “The north end of the property on the other side of the lake.”

  “The lake? Last time I was here you had a pond.”

  “Nearly twenty acres now.”

  “Fish in it?”

  “I’m gonna stock it soon.”

  “Don’t put no white crappie in it. Ain’t big enough. They’ll ruin it.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Couldn’t help but notice your fine mailbox when I come in,” Lyle went on. “Good stone work. As a realtor, I admire curb appeal, even if they ain’t no curb.”

  Crockett smiled. “You like that, huh?”

  “A damn site better than Shorty Cantral does, I betcha.”

  “You heard about that?”

  “Everbody’s heered about that, boy. You a deputy now, are ya?”

  “Sorta. I have a county commission.”

  “Folks is right curious. You got yerself a reputation.”

  “I do?”

  “Yessir. Ever since you knocked ol’ Spud out for killin’ that horse, an’ locked up them dumbass Boggs boys.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Some of ‘em think yer a real badass. Others think yer a good guy. Some just doan wanna screw with ya, or have you screw with them. Me, I’m so proud to know ya, I’m fixin’ to put a addition on my sign. Somethin’ like Lyle Higgenbotham, realtor to Davey Crockett, hisself.”

  “Sorry I had to shoot your husband seventeen times, m’am,” Crockett said. “Just doing my job.”

  “Yep,” Lyle replied, putting his empty glass down on the counter. “An’ I gotta go do mine. Ol’ boy over in Sutton got a wife that just run off. Wants to sell his house an’ corner lot. I need to git over there before he changes his mind or she comes back.”

  “Ah…you know anything about who owns that property on Ninety-two by Gillman Road where they put in that new club?”

  “I know who used to own it. A couple named Wayne and Myrna Wright. Had a quarter of a section there. They called me after a bunch named Granite Investments make ‘em an offer on the place. It wasn’t even on the market. They had a trailer house out there. Retired couple, ya know. I told ‘em what I thought it was worth. They said the bunch offered ‘em a little over half that much. Three or four months later, them an’ the trailer house was just gone. I never heard another word.”

  “You know who Granite Investments is?”

  “Nossir.”

  “Could you find out?”

  “Maybe,” the old man said, walking toward the door. “Can I use your name on my new sign?”

  “Prostate cancer, huh?” Crockett replied.

  Lyle let himself out.

  *****

  Satin didn’t get home until nearly five. Crockett helped her carry in several bags of groceries and handed things to her as she put them away. Then she vanished upstairs with another bag or two. Crockett showered downstairs so as not to interrupt her toilette, dressed in the closet in some of his “rich guy” clothes, armed himself with the big Beretta in the shoulder holster, the whip-stick baton and his cell phone on his left side, two extra magazines on his right side, and his pepper spray “pen” in a shirt pocket. He covered all that up with a chocolate brown, raw silk overshirt, and sat down to wait. Satin came down about an hour later.

  She was wearing extremely tight buckskin-colored hip-hugger Levis with a slight bell, over oxblood Justin ropers with a stacked heel. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, tied with an oxblood scarf, and carefully arranged with just the right amount of disarray about her ears. A black cowgirl shirt with dark red piping and the top four snaps undone, worn over a white tank top, was tucked into the jeans. Her one and three-quarter inch b
uck stitched belt was capped by a silver buckle about half the size of a hubcap, festooned with turquoise and red coral. She posed on the stairway.

  “Well?” she said.

  “No hat?” Crockett replied.

  *****

  With a little help, Satin managed to take a seat in the passenger side of her jeep. Crockett climbed in behind the wheel and looked at her.

  “Pants a little tight?” he asked.

  “They’re new. They’ll loosen up.”

  Crockett grinned. “I think you look great, kid. Nice buckle. I used to use something like that on the snow when I was little.”

  “I won it.”

  “For doing what?”

  “Dancing. About twenty years ago at a club called Guitars and Cadillac’s. A radio station had a dance contest. Me and this guy named, ah…John, I think it was, won the contest. They gave us five hundred dollars and buckles.”

  “This John,” Crockett said, “you and he were close?”

  “No. I met him at the General’s Inn when he asked me to dance. We danced together there almost every Friday night for months. I went to Guitars and Cadillac’s that night and there he was. We entered the contest just for fun and won.”

  “You didn’t date him, huh?”

  “He was gay, Crockett. A couple of guys two-stepping together at the average country bar could result in critical injuries, doncha think?”

  “Could happen.”

  “So, he and I danced together. That guy could really dance.”

  “Must have been tough for you, though,” Crockett said. “Being second choice and all.”

  Satin looked at him sideways. “You gonna give me trouble tonight?”

  “Anything’s possible,” he said.

  *****

  They got to the club a little after eight. The place was about half-full, and country music that didn’t sound like country music blared over the sound system. They took a small two-spot on the edge of the large dance floor. In just a moment a waitress, in the uniform of hat, boots, and a very short skirt, showed up with a menu.