Blacktop Wasteland(33)

Beauregard knew there was no honor among thieves. Boys in the game only respected you in direct proportion to how much they needed you divided by how much they feared you. There was no doubt they needed his skill.

And if they weren’t a little bit afraid of him then that was their mistake.





ELEVEN



Ronnie and Reggie sat in Reggie’s car with the engine idling so hard the doors were rattling like maracas. They were parked on a lonely county service road. A cell phone tower rose out of the woods behind them like the arm of a titanic robot. Beauregard’s truck came rumbling down the gravel road, throwing up a hazy cloud of dust. Beauregard pulled up to Reggie’s car so that their driver’s side windows were parallel to each other. He grabbed a cooler from the passenger seat and passed it to Reggie through the window. Reggie handed the cooler to Ronnie.

“We been out here for almost an hour. I hope you got some beers in here too,” Ronnie said. Beauregard ignored him.

“The guy I got ’em from don’t live around here. And he stay nervous. Takes a little time to do business with him,” Beauregard said. Ronnie grabbed the lid of the cooler.

“Don’t open it here,” Beauregard said.

“Well can you at least tell us what you got?”

“Six-shot revolvers. Made from pieces of a .38 but with an extended barrel. No serial numbers and no ballistics history. Madness makes them clean. Ghost pieces,” Beauregard said.

“‘Madness makes them clean.’ Where you get that from, some fucked-up fortune cookie?” Ronnie asked.

“Madness is the guy who makes them,” Beauregard said.

“Oh. Six-shooters huh? Quan ain’t gonna like that,” Ronnie said.

“Quan ain’t gotta like it. Revolvers don’t leave behind shell cas ings. And if you need more than six shots you in the wrong line of work,” Beauregard said. He put the truck in reverse, turned around and flew down the service road.

He didn’t really like leaving Ronnie with the guns but he didn’t need to get caught with unregistered weapons. Beauregard didn’t think Ronnie was dumb enough to use the guns before the job. At least he hoped he wasn’t.

When he got to the shop, Kelvin was changing the oil on Esther Mae Burke’s ancient Chevy Caprice. He had it up on the lift while Mrs. Burke sat on the bench seat near the door.

“How you doing, Mrs. Burke?” Beauregard asked as he passed her on his way to his office.

“I’m well, Beauregard. Things a little slow around here today?” Mrs. Burke asked. She was a trim, neat little white woman with a helmet of bluish white hair propped up on her head like a rooster comb.

“Things will pick up eventually,” Beauregard said.

“My neighbor Louise Keating says them fellas at Precision Auto only charge $19.99 for an oil change. And they top off all your fluids and will even rotate the tires. All for $19.99. I told her if it’s that cheap, they probably ain’t doing it correctly. I’d rather come here where I know it’s done right,” Mrs. Burke said.

“Well, we appreciate your business,” Beauregard said. He continued to his office.

“I’ll keep coming here until you close down, Beauregard,” Mrs. Burke yelled. Beauregard didn’t break his stride. He went into the office and closed the door behind him. The mountain of bills on the desk had gotten higher. It was like financial plate tectonics. He sat down and began going through them. He divided them into two different piles. Thirty days past due and final notice. He had a credit card with about $200 left on it. He could use that to pay the light bill. But that would burn up his budget for supplies. He wasn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul. They had both ganged up on him and were mugging him.

An hour later there was a knock on the door.

“Yeah,” Beauregard said. Kelvin came in and shut the door behind him.

“Mrs. Burke told me to tell you if you’re here in three months, she will get us to change her brakes,” Kelvin said.

“I should thank her for the vote of confidence,” Beauregard said.

“So you gonna show me?” Kelvin asked.

“Show you what?”

“Don’t play with me, man. Come on, show me what you been working on under that big-ass tarp in the corner,” Kelvin said.

Beauregard leaned back in his chair. “It’s just a little personal project,” he said.

Kelvin laughed. “Bug, I know it’s for a job. I just wanna see it. You been working on it day and night for a week and a half. The other night I drove by around three A.M. and the lights were still on. Come on, let me see this masterpiece, then we can lock up and go over to Danny’s for some liquid lunch. It’s been a pretty slow day,” he said.

Beauregard sighed. “Alright, come on,” he said.

They went back out into the shop area and walked over to the far corner near the used oil container. He pulled the tarp off the car with a flourish. The body had been painted a dark navy blue. Nothing extravagant, just serviceable. Kelvin noticed the windows and the windshield were slightly opaque.

“You put homemade bulletproof glass in the windows,” Kelvin said. It was more a statement than a question.

“Yeah. Fixed up some run-flat tires too,” Beauregard said. He opened the driver door and popped the hood. The motor was pristine. Kelvin let out a low whistle.