Hair of the Dog, Gordon Carroll [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

He gave me a once-over. “Looks like maybe you already ran into him.”

“Well that tells me you’ve seen him today, otherwise you wouldn’t know that he’d been in a fight. So how long are we talking since he left?”

That shook him a little. The great detective showing off his deductive reasoning skills. Poof…like magic.

“I ain’t telling you nothing…” he started.

I didn’t have time for tough-guy games, so I stopped him cold. “He has a kidnapped little girl with him and he murdered her mother, along with a couple of other people. You really want to obstruct a federal investigation involving these types of crimes for a guy that you barely know?”

All the blood drained from his face and I thought he might faint. “Oh Lord. He kidnapped that little girl?”

“That’s right,” I said. “How long ago did he leave and did he say anything about where they were going?”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” said the big man. “I even gave him a bonus; cash.”

“How long have they been gone?”

“Twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes. And no, he didn’t say nothin’ about where they was going. Ah, I’m gonna be sick.”

“Which way did they go?”

He shook his head, his face still bone white. He pointed north. “Back to the interstate, toward Denver.”

Toward Denver? “You sure, north toward Denver?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I watched him go. He was a good worker, ya know?”

“What was he driving?”

“Same as always, the brown Malibu.”

“Did you happen to see the license plate?”

“No…no why would I? Ah, man I feel sick.”

I wrote my name and number on a pocket steno pad I keep on me and handed it to him. Ordinarily, I would have given him one of my coins, but I figured it would diminish the secret agent charisma I had so carefully crafted here.

“If he contacts you, call me. Day or night. And don’t let on like you know anything. This man is dangerous. You understand?”

He nodded again, still looking like he wanted to puke. Couldn’t blame him.

I got back in my car and started toward I-25. I’d half expected Jerome to keep going south toward New Mexico or Texas. If he was heading north, and as beat up as he was, chances were he’d hold up for the night and that meant a hotel.

My phone vibrated and I saw it was Senator Marsh.

“Mason,” I said.

“This is Senator Marsh. We have the men from the house in custody and I have my boys going over it to see if they can find anything useful.”

“I already did a cursory search,” I said. “I found where he works and some aliases he goes under. He got there before I could and picked up some cash. He headed north on I-25 from Castle Rock. He’ll probably hold up for the night, so I’m going to start checking hotels.”

“What makes you think he won’t just drive through the night?”

I felt my cheek and winced. “We had a tussle and if he feels anything like I do, he’ll need to rest up.”

“Yes,” said that smooth Morgan Freeman voice, “I saw the results of your…tussle. Did you actually torture one of those men to get information?”

“I think they call it extreme interrogation techniques these days,” I said. “You know, like waterboarding.”

“Waterboarding has been deemed unconstitutional by the United States Congress,” said the senator, who sounded more like Freeman’s character in London Has Fallen where he played Vice President Allan Trumbull; all authoritarian like.

“Actually,” I said, “it was my dog Max that did the extreme parts of the interrogating. I just asked the questions.”

Vice President Trumbull didn’t sound amused. “Remember that you are working under the authority and constraints of the United States Secret Service. I expect you to conform to their standards and operate under official parameters and guidelines. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Mason?”

“Hey, you came to me,” I said.”

“Yes,” said Marsh, “But that doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to go wild through the streets. We have rules.”

“Sure,” I said, “I understand. Now let me ask you something. Do you want me to find this little girl or not?”

There was a pause and I could hear him breathing in the phone. And when he answered, he sounded more like the Morgan Freeman from the movie Seven when he was asking Brad Pitt not to look in the box. “Of course I do.”

“Good, then we understand each other. If you wanted to play by the rules, you wouldn’t have brought me in. You would have turned it over to the local authorities or gone with the FBI. But that’s not who you came to. You came to me because you want that little girl safe more than you care about the rules. That’s why I took the case and that’s why I’m going to find her and that’s why you are going to skip the lectures from here on out and let me do what I do. Deal?”

When he spoke, he was the Vice President Morgan Freeman again, full of authority and strength, but I could tell I’d won.

“What do you need?”

“I need everyone you have out and about looking for the car. This Jerome is street savvy so he may have switched the plates, or he may change cars altogether. He had the same Chevy when he left the worksite, according to his boss, but that doesn’t mean he’ll keep it since he knows we are on to him. He’s managed to stay hidden for two years and that’s not easy, especially with a little girl. Next, I want you to lean on the Bloods that were at the house and find out what you can. I especially want to know how they found out Jerome and Keisha were here at the same time I did.”

“What are you saying?” asked the Senator.

“I think it’s self-explanatory,” I said. “You have a leak. Someone on your team or in your office. I don’t believe in coincidence, so that means someone let on you were coming to