“Nah,” Ollie said. But his voice somehow lacked the ring of conviction.

  “What’s Bondurant doing?” Jackie asked. She couldn’t bring herself to look.

  “He’s checking the lock on the door. Now they’re walking around to this side. Stay down. Hey. Now they’re walking back toward the front. Hey! He’s showing the cops a car.”

  “A car?”

  Now Jackie sat up to look for herself.

  Sure enough, Ronnie Bondurant had the door of a midnight-blue Gran Torino open. The taller of the two cops, a skinny white guy, walked around and slid behind the wheel. Ronnie bent down to show him something. He stood up, brought out the key ring, selected a key, and handed it to the cop.

  They heard the motor start. Saw the other cop laugh, shake his head, then get in the passenger seat. The headlights came on and the Gran Torino glided out of the Bondurant Motors’ car lot at a sedate ten miles per hour. After all, they were cops, and they were on duty.

  Jackie stared at the disappearing red taillights. “They’re going for a test drive. There’s a dead guy in that garage, and those goofballs are going for a test drive.”

  Ronnie Bondurant beat it toward the office. He wasn’t running, but he was making good time. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. They saw lights switch on.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Jackie said. “By the time those cops get back, anything could happen.”

  “What can we do?” Ollie asked unhappily. He’d been more than willing to eat Vietnamese food and go along with the charade of a stakeout. It was exciting. But now, things had gone too far. He hadn’t counted on finding a body or breaking and entering or getting mixed up with police and heavily armed used-car dealers.

  “Let’s just leave,” Ollie suggested. “Right now, before that Bondurant guy comes out and spots us.” He turned the key in the ignition and started the Nova. The gas pedal was going to be a problem. As would be seeing over the steering wheel.

  “We can’t just leave,” Jackie said, tugging at his arm. “Jeff’s dead. And he’s in my car. We’ve gotta call the cops. Or they’ll find him and think I did it.”

  “You? You couldn’t have killed him. I was with you all night. You don’t even have a gun. I’m your alibi.”

  “They might not believe you,” Jackie said. “That’s why we’ve got to be the ones to tell them about the body. I’ll go back inside the restaurant and call 911. You stay out here and watch, okay?”

  “Okay,” Ollie said reluctantly.

  Jackie was gone for a long time. Ollie watched the front door and the side of Bondurant Motors so hard that his neck got a cramp and his eyes started to water.

  He glanced across the street toward the Candy Store, just to rest his eyes. Cars were still streaming into the parking lot and people were lined up to get inside. But now the short bald bouncer he’d seen before was gone.

  In his place was the woman of Ollie’s dreams. She was statuesque and slender, with long, jet-black hair that streamed over her shoulders and skin the color of lightly toasted almonds. She appeared to be wearing nothing more than a pair of sneakers, a gold lame bikini top, and a matching thong. When she bent over to talk to the driver of a car and take his parking fee, he saw that the tan was all over, and what with the light from the colorful strings of bulbs around Bondurant Motors and the dancing spotlights of the Candy Store, he could see very well indeed.

  He was trying to decide if the girl was Japanese, or maybe Polynesian, when his reverie was broken by the shrill blaring of a police siren. Two cruisers came speeding down U.S. 19. Ollie saw the girl look up with alarm. When she spotted the cars with their flashing blue lights, she seemed to disappear right before his eyes. Like a frightened doe, vanished into the mist, Ollie thought sadly.

  Jackie came bustling out of the Taste of Saigon.

  “Thank God,” she said. “Come on. We’ve got to go over there and give them a statement.”

  “A statement?” Ollie was alarmed. “Why do I have to give them a statement? Can’t I just be an anonymous bystander? I didn’t see anything.”

  “You saw what was going on over there,” Jackie said, beginning to lose patience with him. “There’s a dead man over there, you know.”

  Ronnie Bondurant was standing outside talking to the officers by the time Jackie walked up, trailing the reluctant bystander.

  “You again,” Bondurant said when he saw her. “What the hell is this woman doing here, officers?”

  Just then, the Gran Torino came screeching into the parking lot. The driver, who had been gnawing on a drumstick from Kentucky Fried Chicken, put the half-eaten leg back in the bucket with the rest of his supper.

  “Uh-oh,” the driver told his partner. “We’re screwed.”

  Jackie was taking deep breaths, trying hard not to sound like a hysterical female. It was difficult—she could feel the hysteria welling up inside her, like those Fizzies you put on your tongue when you were a kid. The panic and fear were there, fizzing just below the surface.

  “There’s a man inside that garage back there,” she said, pointing toward the metal hangar. “He’s dead. I think he was shot in the face. He’s inside a red Corvette.”

  She glared at Ronnie Bondurant. “My red Corvette. They stole it from me last night. I called the cops and filed a report. You can check the records.”

  “Dead man inside a Corvette.” One of the cops, a heavyset black man with thick glasses, was writing in a notepad. He acted like he was in charge. “Any idea who the deceased was?”

  “His name is Jeff,” Jackie said. “He works here. He’s the one who sold me the Corvette. On Saturday. He ripped me off. Sold me a lemon. I told him and Mr. Bondurant here that I was gonna get a lawyer, call the police, and maybe get a story in the newspaper. Mr. Bondurant has a gun,” she said, pointing to Bondurant’s jacket.

  “What?” Ronnie Bondurant sputtered. He threw open his sport coat. The only thing beneath it was his knit sport shirt, the fabric strained against his thickened waist. “This girl is crazy. A troublemaker. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “Look in the garage,” Jackie repeated. “You’ll see.”

  The two test-driving cops drifted up to the knot of people standing around outside the office.

  “What I see,” Bondurant said, turning to the cops, “was that we had a break-in here earlier. A car alarm went off, and these two alert officers were here right away. Ask them. They’ll tell you there’s no murder here. Just a break-in.” He glared right back at Jackie and at Ollie, who was wishing intensely that he could be somewhere else. Maybe across the street, discussing Oriental belief systems with the parking lot attendant.

  The tall cop, the test driver, had the grace to blush. “Uh, actually, we didn’t check inside, Mr. Bondurant. Remember? We got to discussing cars.”

  “Well, you can check it now,” Ronnie said quickly. “This girl and her partner here—I think they may have broken in earlier. I heard a noise back in the garage, but I didn’t see anybody. They must have jumped the fence.”

  “He’s lying,” Jackie burst out. “Jeff stole my car, and I can prove it. That’s why he killed Jeff. Ask him who stole my car. If he didn’t steal it, how come it’s inside in that garage? Who put the body in my car? Ask him that.”

  “Deranged,” Ronnie said. “Drugs, maybe. You see that a lot in my business, kind of clientele I’m forced to deal with. I’d suggest a drug test. But first I want these two off my property.”

  “Mind if we check the premises?” the black cop asked. “We’ve got a report of a possible homicide. We need to check, get the paperwork taken care of. Before the homicide detectives get called out and all that kind of thing.”

  “Go ahead,” Bondurant said, crossing his arms defiantly across his chest. “But she’s not going in there. In fact, I want her removed right now.”

  The cops all looked at each other. Finally, the black one who was in charge stuck his writing pad in his hip pocket.

  “Sorry. She’s a witness. She called in the complaint. He stays here,” he said, nodding toward Ollie. “She shows us what she thinks she saw.”

  It was fully dark now, and the back part of Bondurant Motors, the part the public did not see, was not all lit up and flagged and shiny like the front. It was dark back here, and the asphalt was broken and uneven and the air smelled sour, like rust and motor oil.

  “Right in there,” Jackie said, pausing in front of the chain-link fence. “The door’s closed now. It was open before.”

  The black cop, whose nameplate said “Hilley,” played his flashlight over the fence, letting it linger on the top. “How’d you get in there, ma’am?”

  He was nice, calling her ma’am.

  “She broke in,” Bondurant said, catching up with them. “Trespassing, they call it.”

  “I could see my car through the door,” Jackie retorted. “My car was in there. They had my car.”

  “Bullshit,” Bondurant said. “This girl is crazy. First she comes around, complaining we sold her a lemon. She made a disturbance, caused us to lose a couple sales. Then she comes back, says somebody stole her car, accusing me, us, of stealing the car we just sold her. She was probably doped up and wrecked it somewhere. Just wants to get off the hook for the payments.”

  “You got a key to this gate?” Hilley asked.

  Bondurant unlocked the gate. With Hilley leading the way with his flashlight, they picked their way through the debris. At Hilley’s request, Bondurant produced yet another key. He unlocked the door to the garage, pulled it open, and reached around inside. He fumbled a bit before finding the light switch.

  Then he stepped aside, bowed low at the waist, and swept his arm out wide in a mocking invitation to enter.

  “Be my guest.”

  Hilley had his hand on his holstered gun as they walked inside the garage.

  The silver van was there, its headlights and blaring alarm gone silent. There was a sizable work area, a red metal Craftsman tool chest, more stacks of tires, and on the wall, a calendar with a generous-busted girl whose cleavage spilled out of an unzipped Snap- On tool jumpsuit.

  In the same exact spot where Jackie had seen the red Corvette barely an hour ago, now stood a tired- looking two-tone olive green and wood-grain station wagon, its hood raised, more tools littering the floor around it.

  “Where was this car you mentioned, ma’am?” Hilley asked, turning to her.

  Jackie’s mouth hung open.

  “Ma’am?”

  “It was right here. The Corvette. Jeff was stuffed inside the hatch. Part of his body was covered with garbage bags. Black ones. It was right here,” she said, thumping the door of the station wagon.

  Hilley turned to Ronnie Bondurant.

  “Do you know this Jeff she’s talking about?”

  “Absolutely,” Ronnie said easily. “Jeff Cantrell. Hell of a salesman. He used to work for me. Hated to lose the guy.”

  “He quit?” Hilley said. “When was this?”

  “This afternoon,” Bondurant said. “He said he had a business opportunity over on the east coast, Lauderdale or someplace. Nothing personal. You know how they get when they’re young. The guy was single, no attachments. He moved on.”

  “What about his car?” Jackie asked. “That’s his car out in the parking lot. Why didn’t he take his car if he quit?”

  Bondurant raised one eyebrow. He did it well. “His car? You mean the Mustang? That belongs to me. Inventory. We always let our salesmen drive the inventory. It’s good for business.”

  “He’s lying,” Jackie said quickly. “They must have moved the car and the body. While those two goof-off cops were out joyriding. It was right here under their noses and they didn’t even look inside. It was right here.”

  Hilley had been writing in his pad again. He looked up at Ronnie.

  “Mr. Bondurant? Okay if I ask the other officers to step inside here and take a look around?”

  “Fine with me,” Bondurant said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Lot of fuss all on the say-so of a hophead girl like this. Somebody in the habit of breaking into a business. A burglar, you might say.”

  Hilley looked up sharply. “You want to file charges? She admits she came in here.”

  “I’ll look around, see if anything’s missing,” Ronnie said. “If I find anything missing, you can lock her up.”

  “You’re the thief,” Jackie said fiercely.

  “That’s enough,” Hilley said, still polite. “I think you can go wait outside with your friend now.”

  They left the tall, skinny cop, the joyrider, to wait with Ollie and Jackie. He got his bucket of chicken out of the Gran Torino and sat in his cruiser with the engine idling, the windows rolled up, and the air conditioner going full blast.

  “I’m taking his badge number,” Ollie told Jackie. They were leaning against the hood of one of the other cruisers.

  Jackie couldn’t help it. She had to bring it up.

  “You were watching while I was inside on the phone,” she said accusingly. “Didn’t you see it? A black tow truck pulling my car? How could you miss seeing it?”

  “I was watching as close as I could,” Ollie snapped. “You were gone a hell of a long time. There was a lot of traffic, you know. Besides, they could have taken it out the other side. How could I have seen it if they did that?”

  “You were supposed to be watching,” Jackie repeated.

  It was another half hour before the cops came out. Ronnie Bondurant locked the office door behind them. He left the strings of fights festooned around the lot burning, and overhead, the slowly twirling pink Caddie’s headlights blinked on and off, on and off.

  “Sorry for your trouble,” Hilley told him. “You change your mind about filing a breaking and entering report?”

  “Didn’t see anything missing,” Bondurant said grudgingly, his eyes boring into Jackie. “Just make it clear to her. She makes any more trouble for me, comes snooping around here or causing any more disturbances, I will file charges. That’s my right, am I correct?”

  “That’s correct,” Hilley said.

  “You understand that, miss?”

  Jackie stood stiffly. Her hands were crusted with blood, her best jeans were in tatters, she was near tears, but she was damned if she’d let the sons of bitches see her cry.

  “You’re gonna let him get away with murder?” she asked Hilley. “And I’m the one who gets in trouble?”

  “I oughta sue,” Bondurant snarled. “Get out. But remember. Come Friday, you owe me seventy-seven dollars and ten cents. Miss a payment and I’m gonna be all over you like stink on a dog.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Jackie said coldly. “I’ve still got that can of transmission fluid. That’ll prove who stole my car. Let’s go, Ollie.”

  The atmosphere inside the Nova was thick with accusation, denial, and bitterness. Jackie turned the car south on U.S. 19, back toward the Fountain of Youth. She was exhausted and sore.

  Ollie craned his neck to see the watch on Jackie’s wrist.

  “Nearly eleven o’clock,” he said, “Truman’s gonna be mad.”

  Jackie shot him a look. “Gonna be even madder when he sees you got duck sauce all over his seats.”

  Ollie scrubbed at the orange stain on the upholstery, and Jackie drove, plotting her next move.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jackie slid the basket of biscuits onto the table and put the car keys right beside it. She made a big show of filling Truman’s cup with coffee. So he’d know she’d keep up her end of the bargain.

  Truman put down the paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird that he’d been reading. He and Margaret McCutchen were supposed to meet for lunch today, and he wanted to be able to impress her with his grasp of the story. This was one Great Book he really was enjoying.

  “How did the stakeout go?” he asked. “See any trailer loads of stolen cars being unloaded?”

  “He’s dead,” Jackie said. “They killed Jeff. Now I’ll never be able to prove they took my car.”

  She looked around for Mr. Wiggins again. If he saw her sitting down while there were still customers in the room, he’d have a fit. No sign of him, though. So she told Truman the whole story. How they’d seen the Indian guy leave, and then Ronnie Bondurant. How she’d seen Jeff’s body in the red Corvette. And how Bondurant—or somebody—had managed to get rid of the car and the body by the time the cops got there.

  Truman ate steadily while she talked, pausing only occasionally to ask questions.

  “This Jeff,” he said, helping himself to another biscuit. “What’s his last name?”

  “I couldn’t remember. So I looked on my sales contract. He stapled his business card to it. It’s Cantrell. Jeff Cantrell.”

  Truman heaped jelly on the biscuit. He was really going to have to do some extra sit-ups today. Take a walk this evening if it wasn’t too blasted hot. Maybe Margaret would join him.

  “And Bondurant told the police that Cantrell quit his job and left town?”

  “Left the planet is more like it,” Jackie said. “Yeah, Bondurant made up some big story about Jeff going over to the east coast.”

  Truman pushed his plate away. If Jackie hadn’t been sitting there, he could have discreetly loosened his belt.

  “You think they moved the body?”

  She shrugged. “I know they moved the car. Right under Ollie’s nose. I could have wrung his neck, TK. The police looked all over the place, for like, half an hour. And there were three of them. You’d think they’d find it if it was there.”

  Maybe not, Truman thought. Not if they didn’t believe she’d seen it in the first place.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jackie saw three youth hostel kids sidling toward the door. Deadbeats. She hustled across the room and met them at the cash register. “Everything okay?” she asked in a loud voice.

  The hostel kids, two boys and a girl, wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Yeah, great,” they mumbled, reaching for their money.

 

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