End Game (Will Robie #5)(48)

“That’s a long time to be in business,” said Robie.

Sonny looked around his store. “I know it don’t look like much, but we get by. Mostly truckers gassing up. We got truck diesel here. Or them needing to take a leak or wanting something to eat. People who are lost—there are a lot of those—and they usually buy something just so they don’t feel bad asking me for directions for free. And some folks from Newton, the little town back down the road there. And on Fridays during high school football season folks come in here and clean the place out. Keeps me going through the winter. I don’t need much to get by. Now, what do you folks need? Gas? I got the credit card reader on the pumps. Or you can just pay in here after you finish up.”

“Ever have any trouble here?” asked Robie.

In answer Sonny pointed to the fortified counter. “What does that tell you? Get some strange dudes coming through here. Late at night, you can’t be too careful. You got trouble and call 911, they’ll get here in the morning to take your body away.”

“We’re actually here for some information on one of your former employees,” said Reel. She took out her ID and so did Robie.

Sonny studied them with a frown. “Which employee?”

“Clément Lamarre.”

“Shit, is he in trouble again?”

“Why would you think that?” asked Reel.

“Because Clément was always in trouble. Meth head. Stole from me. I didn’t press charges ’cause he must’ve been out of his damn mind when he did it. He stole some beer, a can of motor oil, and a box of Ho Hos. And he knew how to open the damn cash register and didn’t take a single cent from there. I mean how stupid is that?”

“Pretty stupid,” agreed Robie.

“Serves me right for hiring somebody with a name like that. I think he was French or something. I’m not into foreigners, don’t care who knows it.”

Robie said, “He was from Canada. That’s not really so much of a foreign country. Right on our border.”

Sonny shrugged. “I guess Canadians are okay. Weird name, though.”

Robie said, “When Lamarre was in rehab he told someone about something he’d seen, maybe while he worked here.”

Sonny’s tufts of eyebrows knitted together. “What’d he say he saw?”

Robie studied him for a moment. “People in distress.”

“Hell, half the people who live round here could be said to be in distress,” scoffed Sonny.

“I meant people being held against their will. Tied up and with hoods on.”

“What?” snapped Sonny. “You mean like they were prisoners?”

Robie nodded. “That’s what he said.”

“And you believe a meth head?” Sonny’s look turned suspicious. “Your IDs say you’re Feds. Why are you interested in this?”

“If people are being held against their will, it’s a crime,” pointed out Reel.

“Well, yeah, I get that.”

“Can you think of anything that Lamarre might have meant? Even if he was mistaken about it? The person he told said he had a great many details about it. And he wasn’t on meth at the time. He was clean.”

Sonny took this all in, leaned against the counter, and rubbed at his beard.

“Look, we got some seriously effed-up people hereabouts,” he said slowly.

“Neo-Nazis, we know about them,” said Reel.

“Not just them. You keep going along this road for another twenty miles you’re going to see an encampment of white supremacists. They got the sheets and the hoods and a big-ass Confederate flag you can see from fifty miles away.” He paused and stroked his beard. “About six years ago two black fellows were found hanging from trees about ten miles from here. They had the N-word carved on their foreheads. Everybody around here knew who’d done it, but the law couldn’t prove nothing, so there you go. Them pricks are still around. And then you got assorted pockets of antigovernment types, vigilante groups, religious zealots, motorcycle gangs, and folks just generally pissed off that their lives suck or that in their minds the country’s going to hell. And they all got guns, lots and lots of guns. And some of them traffic drugs, stolen guns, and other shit, anything that’ll make ’em a buck. If you want to get out of the mainstream, this is a good place to come. We apparently welcome any and all nutcases equally.”

“And what about you? You belong to any of these groups?” asked Reel.

Sonny cracked a grin. “Nah. I’m just a businessman. You see, if I hooked up with one of them groups, the other groups would come here and burn down my store and shoot my ass. I keep a shotgun under the counter and I got a Dirty Harry Smith and Wesson forty-five at the small of my back, but I couldn’t fight those guys off night after night. So I call myself Switzerland, see, neutral. All them bad boys come here to get their gas, beer, hot dogs, and condoms. And because I don’t swear allegiance to any of ’em, none of ’em touch the place. I mean where else they gonna get their fuel, alcohol, and rubbers? And it was pretty bad when my daddy was running this place, so he had the same philosophy and passed it along to me.”

Reel said appreciatively, “So I guess that’s the other reason you’ve stayed in business so long. Pretty smart.”