Crow's Landing (7 page)

“Anytime now …” Mudcat began, but then he changed his story. “No, actually, he has business in town. He could be gone a long time. I wouldn't wait on him.”

“No, I think I'll wait,” Virgil said. “And I'll meet him in the parking lot, before you get to him, and the first thing I'm going to ask him is whether or not you told him about the cylinder. And if he says yes—then you and I are going to have a problem, Mudcat. The boys over at Scallywags tell me that you've been beat up about a hundred times for being a lying, thieving little weasel. So I guess a hundred and one isn't going to bother you much.”

Mudcat was chewing on his bottom lip as he listened to the threat. Apparently the prospect of a hundred and one was bothering him quite a bit. “You know, maybe I did mention the cylinder. In passing. But I don't remember any phone
call.” He was quick to elaborate. “I'm not saying there wasn't one. I mean, I was in and out. You know?”

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “I know.”

He went outside and sat down on the bench in front of the shop to wait for Brownie. It was an exercise in futility, he knew, but he had to go through the motions if for no other reason than to let Brownie know that he wasn't fooling anybody. But Virgil knew that Brownie would deny having anything to do with the matter.

Which is what he did, when he showed up fifteen minutes later.

“I never made a phone call,” he told Virgil. “Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?”

“I was hoping you might tell me who it was you called,” Virgil said. “But I'm thinking that's unlikely, if you're going to lie about making the call in the first place. Right?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Brownie said. He turned to walk away but then stopped and came back. “I'll tell you what I saw yesterday. I saw you coming off the river with a steel cylinder you picked up someplace and then Albany PD shows up and seizes it, along with your boat. Which makes me wonder just what the fuck you're involved in, pal. And now you got the nerve to get in my face?”

“So it was Albany PD?”

“What?”

“The cop. He was Albany PD?”

Brownie hesitated. “I got no idea.”

“Yeah, you do. You couldn't see the badge from the bait shop, and the vehicle was unmarked. But you know because you called him.”

“You can get the fuck out of here,” Brownie said. “And don't come back. I'm taking away your docking privileges.”

Virgil smiled. “You're taking away my docking privileges the day after your buddy took my boat? That's like taking a man's shoes after you cut off his feet. I'm beginning to think that you and Mudcat are sharing a brain, Brownie.”

Virgil got into his truck and drove away, leaving Brownie fuming and spitting obscenities in the parking lot. By the time he got back to the farm, Virgil had to accept the fact that the day had been wasted; he didn't know any more now than when he got up that morning. Well, he had established that Mudcat and Brownie were a pair of liars, and that there was something sketchy about the sweaty little cop in the SUV who had stolen his boat.

But those were things he already knew.

The auction sale was Saturday morning, on the southern shore of Lake George, at a consignment place called Terrapin's. They'd been in business for ten years or so and they handled mainly estate items—high-end furniture, glassware, some artwork. They rarely had cars to offer, and Parson was banking on this working to his advantage.

He picked Zoe up at her apartment just before eight. The sale started at ten and it was an hour and a half to get there. Parson had no idea just when the vehicles would go under the gavel, so he wanted to be there on time. Zoe had worked the bar the night before, one of the places on Madison that catered to college kids, and when he arrived at her walk-up on Ontario Street he'd had to knock on the door to get her out of bed, and then wait in her cramped kitchen while she took a shower. There were dirty dishes on the table and in the sink, cigarette butts in coffee cups. A bottle of Jack with maybe half an ounce left, on the table. A pair of large black cowboy boots were in the middle of the floor, as if they'd been removed in a hurry, and a man's denim jacket on the back of a chair.

As he waited, a fat white cat wandered out from the bedroom and jumped into Parson's lap before he could swat it aside. He was wearing brown pants and a black golf shirt, and both were now covered with white fur. He spent the next five
minutes listening to the noisy shower in the bathroom and plucking the hairs one by one from his clothes.

When Zoe finally came out, wearing jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt, her hair still wet, Parson was standing impatiently by the door.

“How do you live like this?”

“Bitch, bitch,” she said.

They took 87 north. Parson was driving the black Escalade, not wishing to call attention to himself as a dealer by arriving in one of his muscle cars. Zoe was quiet until she'd had her takeout coffee.

“So what are we doing?” she asked.

“They've got some vintage hot rods,” Parson said. “One of them is a '70 'Cuda ragger with a Hemi,” Parson said. “Supposed to be numbers matching.”

“All right,” Zoe said. “How high do I go?”

Parson flipped open the console compartment and handed her an envelope full of thousand-dollar bills. “Thirty grand here. If I can queer the provenance, it'll go cheaper. If I can't, it'll go higher and we'll pass.”

Zoe yawned. “All depends who's there, right?”

“Way it is.”

“Maybe somebody smarter than you.”

“Can't see that happening, Zoe.”

“I know
you
can't.”

“Make sure you get the title when you pay.”

“Right. I've never done this before.”

“You're cranky in the morning.”

“You'd be cranky too on three hours' sleep.”

“Nobody told you to stay up all night screwing, Zoe.”

“I was
working
.”

“I saw the cowboy boots in the kitchen. You working on a ranch these days?”

Zoe reached into her coat for her cigarettes. “You weren't so critical back when they were your boots.”

Parson laughed. It was true. He and Zoe had had some times together. They had even talked about moving in, having kids. But then she went bad on meth, and Parson had left her alone. When she came back into his life, a couple years later and clean, he'd been glad to reconnect but the sexual thing was gone. The dope had taken her down physically, and she never made it all the way back. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes were dull, as if something had smudged her soul and she couldn't get it clean.

But she was a good partner when he needed one, like today. She was smart and knew how to keep her mouth shut. And she was always up for making a quick five hundred. Of course, knowing her, she'd probably spend it on the guy who owned the cowboy boots, the guy who was, presumably, still snoring away in her bed this morning.

“You're not going to smoke in my car,” he told her now, watching her fish around in her purse for matches.

“Let me out then.”

Parson shook his head in resignation. “Use your coffee cup for your ashes,” he told her. “I don't want you getting my ashtray dirty.”

Zoe lit up. “You are an anal motherfucker, Parson.”

Terrapin's Auctions was housed in a converted barn on a paved road a few hundred yards from the shore of Lake George. Parson could see the cars set to go on sale from a quarter mile away, lined up in the parking lot in front of the building. The vehicles were all from the same era—a Thunderbird, a GTO, an Impala, and the 'Cuda. The online literature
advertising the sale stated that they were part of a collection of the man whose estate was on the block today, and that they were older restorations. They looked good from the road.

“The white one on the end,” Parson said as they drove slowly by.

“I know what a Barracuda looks like,” Zoe snapped.

He dropped her at a gas station a mile away and while she went inside to call a cab Parson drove back to the auction house and parked in the lot behind the barn, then walked over for a closer look at the cars. They'd been done up right, probably ten or fifteen years earlier, although somebody had decided to change the GTO from an automatic to a four-speed and, rather than find the proper console, they had cut an ugly hole in the existing one to accommodate the shifter. Still, it was only the 'Cuda that interested Parson. He had the production figures in a notebook he carried and he checked the numbers on the door plate against those on the inner fenders and those on the engine block. He pulled on coveralls from the back of the Escalade and crawled underneath to make certain that the transmission and differential were original as well. It was a good car. The odometer read 43,000 miles and Parson had no trouble believing it was accurate.

Zoe arrived while he was checking out the 'Cuda, and he saw her as she got out of the taxi and went directly inside to register to bid. Parson shed the coveralls and went to sit on a picnic table in the shade of some maple trees in an expanse of lawn beyond the auction parking lot, checking and replying to messages on his BlackBerry while he waited for the auctioneer to come out. Zoe never came back outside and Parson presumed that she was watching the sale.

It was almost noon when the crowd started streaming
out of the barn and began to gather around the cars. Parson watched for Zoe and then he saw her, wandering along, admiring a small painting she'd obviously just bought.

The Barracuda was the big-ticket item and so the auctioneer would offer it last. The other cars were nice but not particularly rare, and they went fairly reasonably, the GTO with the butchered console topping the bunch at $16,200. When the auctioneer began to sing the praises of the 'Cuda, Parson got up from his place in the shade and began to walk. He reached the periphery of the circle surrounding the auctioneer as the man was stating that the car was “numbers matching.”

“It's not,” Parson said loudly.

The auctioneer turned on him. “I beg your pardon.”

“That's not the original engine,” Parson said. “That motor's out of a '68. It has nine to one compression heads, and a cast iron intake manifold. Tear it down and you'll find the crankshaft has four-inch main bearings. The Hemi they made in '70 was four and a half.”

It was pure double talk but Parson was pretty sure it would fly. He stood looking at the auctioneer, not in a challenging manner, but rather as someone just wanting to set the record straight. This was the tricky part of the proceeding. Everything that Parson had said was bullshit and if there happened to be somebody present who could verify that the car actually was as advertised, Parson was out of luck. But that rarely proved to be the case. Even if somebody suspected that Parson was bluffing, people were usually reluctant to present themselves as experts when there was money at stake.

The auctioneer was not happy. He shifted his glare from Parson to a man in a pink fleece pullover, standing just outside the door to the barn. The man was obviously either handling the estate for the family or, more likely, a relative of the
deceased. As Parson watched, the man looked skyward and shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated gesture. That was it for the auctioneer. He was pissed at the development, not just for the lost revenue it would cost him, but also because his company had advertised a vehicle that, apparently, was not what they claimed. He made a little speech, the standard spiel about buyer beware, clearing the house of all liability, and said that they would continue.

When the bidding began, Parson offered a couple times for appearance's sake, then dropped out at fifteen thousand. Zoe bought the convertible for twenty-two five. Parson knew it would have reached at least three times that if he hadn't spoken up. The auctioneer knew it too.

Parson walked to the Escalade and drove off, stopping again at the gas station at the corner, while he waited for Zoe to pay for the car and obtain the title and bill of sale. She showed up fifteen minutes later, getting out of a cab, still carrying the painting. She handed Parson the remainder of the cash in the envelope and he put it in the console as they drove off. He would send somebody over that afternoon to trailer the car to his shop.

“You pay yourself?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “The dude in the pink sweater was bad-mouthing you.”

“He should've pulled the car,” Parson said, “the minute I opened my mouth.”

“That's what the auction house told him,” Zoe said. “Too late though.”

“Fuck him.”

“How rare is it?”

“Ragtop, with the Hemi and the automatic, they made nine that year.”

“So what's it worth?”

Parson smiled. “It's worth whatever I can get for it.”

Zoe lit up again, to Parson's dismay. “Tell me something,” she said. “What are you going to do when the day comes that you can't get somebody like me to do your bidding? Pardon the pun.”

“Come on, Zoe. Don't you treasure these moments together?”

“Answer the question.”

Parson smiled at her. “You know the deal. I buy it, I have to show ID and then it's in my name. And if the same guy who questions the car buys it, it's suspicious. Especially when it happens over and over. This way, I ask the questions, drop out of the bidding, and then Zoe Smallwood buys it. Nobody suspects anything.”

Zoe thought about that. “That's just a fancy way of saying you like to get other people to do your dirty work for you.”

Parson smiled but said nothing. They were on a country road, heading west toward the thruway. There were orchards and vineyards along the way. Roadside stands offered fruits and vegetables, jams and preserves.

“What's the painting?” Parson asked.

Zoe showed him. It was an oil painting of a frame house at the end of a street, with rolling fields beyond. There was a front porch with a swing on it, and a black-and-white dog sprawled on the boards at the top of the steps, head resting forlornly on its front paws, as if waiting for someone to return.