Mysterywriter's Final Spring

"Look Dee, I think this might be a good time to part company on this thing."

"Why?" she asked.

"Frankly you are inconvenient." I know that it was hurtful but it was also necessary. Things were more than likely going to get rough at any moment. She could get hurt and I wouldn't like that. Hell, I could get hurt but that didn't matter so much. It might even be preferable.

"Frankly Deke that is crap. I know it isn't because I cramp your style because you have no style. That isn't exactly what I mean."

"I know what you mean and I have no style as you put it, because you are in the way."

"This is too important to me to just walk away. So just like every other man, you are saying that since I wont sleep with you, I am useless?"

"Call it what you will," I replied. I turned then walked from the office of the small town paper.

Since I didn't want to be seen driving up and down June's street, I drove to the edge of town to a small cafe'. I drank what seemed to be an adequate cup of coffee. I didn't really notice the coffee, I had my eye on my watch every couple of minutes. I had promised myself to wait till five-thirty before I made the next drive-by.

"Alright you prick, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I am going to think that this isn't about me, but an old man trying to protect his daughter." It was Dee standing over me. She was somewhat cowered.

"No, it is about me. I am a selfish bastard and you screwed up my fling."

"If you remember you came to me?" She informed me.

"Yes and you invited yourself along."

"The hell I did. You agreed before you found out I wouldn't sleep with you."

"Sit down and lower your voice. You have an infuriating habit of talking too loud."

"It's about the bugging crack isn't it," she whispered.

"I realized after you left how serious what you did for me was. I know you could go to jail for this and that you are trying of keep me out of it."

"Way to noble a gesture to give me credit for. I don't want to go to jail or get killed because of you." The curious look caused me to go on. "Next on the plan list is to set myself up as a target, just like Mike. You don't need to be around for me to worry about. I try to save you and get myself killed, or wind up in jail because you shot your mouth off. No sweetie you are just plain hazardous material. I can't afford to have you around. I was being cruel to avoid what came next.

"I can take care of myself, and trust me I have said the last thing I ever intend to about how you do things." The begging look in her eyes disputed her tough gal words.

I don't think it would be a good idea." I was determined to go it alone. I was until she spoke again.

"You know I have already seen you bug the video store, I can always go to the DA and have you arrested.

"Well love it is my word against yours."

"So be it Deke," She stood to leave. I though about how inconvenient it would be to spend my last few weeks in a jail cell. In my case, giving me bond was the same as never seeing me again.

"Oh hell sit down," I said it to her back. I had absolutely no doubt that she was on her way to call the Charlotte DA.

"So what's next?" she asked.

"Next is to finish all the coffee in this place then go confront June. While I am doing that you are going to be parked in the car wash parking lot. It might not do you reputation any good but I am going to park beside you when I finish. Then dear you are going to move you skinny ass to my van."

"There is some reason for this I know."

"Yes there is, I need a place to leave the recorder until I can get back. It she hasn't made a call be the time we need to go, then we leave your car there with the recorder in the trunk."

"No hell no we don't." It seemed as though she recovered quickly. We can leave that piece of crap van of yours."

"I haven't Pitched the tent yet. I have no place to sleep if we do that."

"You can stay at my place one night. I think I can fight you off for one night."

"Ha, after having spent the night in a motel with me, why would you think I would need to be fought off?

"My apartment is not a motel." She smiled knowingly at me. Since she was the only one who knew anything, I let it pass.

There was a five year old Asian car in the drive of June's house when I returned. I had no idea what kind of car, since they all look alike to me.

"Yes?" she made it a question when she opened the door.

"Hello, My name is Deke Burke, I thought we needed to talk.

"Talk about what?" she asked with a serious expression. I sensed her arm tense to close the door in my face.

It was at that moment that I realized I didn't even know Mike's last name. "Oh about Mike the reporter, Nightlite, twenty k suddenly showing up in your bank account. Are you sure you want to talk about this on the porch, my voice tends to get louder a we go along?"

"Mr. Burke, unless you have some official status, I have no intention of talking to you about anything."

"Not a problem for me Ma'am. I am a novelist not a reporter. I can make up anything I want. I reckon the local cops can figure out what is going on when I give them the right pieces. I know your step Dad protects you from most things, but if I light a fire under their asses, they will finish what I started." It was a speech for me but I went on anyway. "Now you can talk to me and I will tell it as Jane Smith from Virginia, or I will write one of those Bledsoe kind of things. You know based more or less on the facts and then name names. It is your choice."

"My choice, is for you to get the hell off my porch."

"Okay, but I do have all the pieces," I turned to walk away. "If you change your mind, I am going to be camping at the state park outside town. I drove the van around in circles just to make sure no one was playing pin the tale on the ass. It was probably ten minutes later when I pulled into the parking lot.

Dee slipped in beside me. "So did she call anyone?" I asked it hopefully.

"I think she quit her part time gig. She called to leave the message that it was just getting too hot for her to keep working, then hung up."

"Anything else?"

"No, not another word so far."

"Well, we will give it couple of hours before we leave your car for the night. Unbutton a couple of the buttons on your top."

"Are you nuts? I am not going to sit here playing games while we wait."

"And what are you going to tell that cop when he walks up?"

"What cop?"

"The first one who comes by after dark. We might not look all that suspicious just now, but when it gets dark we are going to look really suspicious in this parking lot. We are parked across from an elementary school. It could only be worse if the school were open." I said the last with a chuckle.

I tried like hell to convince her to go home and let me handle the rest of it, but no dice. She was determined to be an equal partner, even if it got her killed. I didn't expect it to go quite that far, but anything was possible. Mike had made a big impression on me. Well at least his death had.

If June had made any other calls, they were on her cell phone. That thought kept me occupied all the way to the state campground. Pitching the tent in the half light wasn't all that hard, just a lot of fumbling around. I kept remembering another night in another campground when I got too nosey. The vision of the burned out van would forever be seared into my brain. Okay a cheap shot, but hell I never said I was Shakespeare.

"Now you my dear Dee, park your car on that next space."

"Why?" She asked.

"Just do it for me." It was a pleasant night with no rain in the forecast, so I made a quick bed for us beside her car.

When I finished she commented. "So you are expecting a visit?"

"Always expect the least likely event, and then you wont be surprised. If anyone does show up, It is going to be a really sloppy plan. We haven't left them time to plan anything fancy."

"There could be a traffic accident."

"Dee honey, even the local cops couldn't get away with two in a row."

"Why not Deke, the state cops work for her step dad."

That was a sobering thought I had to admit, if only to myself. I walked away shaking my head. By filling her trunk, seats and the tiny space behind them I managed to store my most precious possessions. My burner, master CDs and inventory. I hid the folding table and art work tubes under the picnic table on the site where we slept. A second tarp was spread over them. It was the tarp that went under the tent floor to help prevent tears from stones. We slept on the one I stretched out over it to make sure it didn't leak inside the tent. I know it was over kill, but I am a bit anal about my computer and festival set up equipment.

It was probably a good thing that we had decided not to leave Dee's car at the school ground or the car wash over night. The Memories of the burning van haunted me. The campground setting just reinforced the need for caution.

Doing all of the setup in the dark had been exhausting for me. For Dee it had been a walk in the park. I expect that if we could exchange hearts, I would feel as good as her and she as bad as me. That faulty ticker was my salvation. I had always known intuitively that it would be.

From the van I removed the steel triple C cell mag light, and the ten inch bladed bowie knife. That knife or ones like it had been everywhere with my family. It had missed the civil war because the old man bought it in Saint Louis on his way home from his self imposed exile in the wilderness of Nevada. I think it was about the only war that it missed until after the Vietnam war. After the Vietnam war the Burke family had not sent another soldier into battle. The family line suddenly began having girls which ended the long line of soldier adventurer Deacons. If there was to be another Deacon after me, it would be my niece. She was the only surviving member of the clan with direct blood lines to the old man. I had no idea what had happened to her. She had moved to Nevada but no one really knew what happened to her since.

Falling asleep was hard that night. Dee was a nervous wreck. It was more excitement than fear on her part. She hadn't been shot at or burned out before. I expected that if it went down as I expected, she would at least get over the excitement. It would be replaced by a healthy respect for the other guy. The others always had the upper hand at first. The best we could ever do was to react as quickly as possible. The bad guys almost never got away with their evil plans, but hell once was more than enough.

I lay awake listening for any misplaced sounds in the night. Since it was early in the season and a week night the sounds weren't as bad as they might have been. There were no drunken revelers and no domestic squabbles to fill the night with voices. After nine it got dead quiet in the campground. Not a good choice of words but it is an accurate one.

I heard the sound of tires on the gravel drive of the space where the tent and van were sitting. It could have been harmless but I just couldn't imagine that it was. I slipped from the makeshift shelter only to move through the sparse vegetation to the car sitting with its engine running. The dark figure in even darker clothes was standing outside my tent. I didn't see anything but then the hands weren't visible in the dark either.

I was within a few feet when I was forced to step onto the gravel. The crunch of my shoes was deafening. The figure tried to turned toward me. Too slow my mind screamed at me, you are moving too slow. The figure was even slower than me thank god.

He was a short man and not very strong. Even my age ravaged body was able to control him. Before he even knew it he was twisted facing away from me and the bowie blade rested against his throat.

"Hello, kind of late for a visit?" I whispered it menacingly into an ear. God, I thought, this guy wears way too much cologne.

"Let go of me or I will scream," the definite female voice said it while gasping for breath,

"Who the hell are you?"

"You told me that if I wanted to talk to come out here. Then you try to kill me. Well I did want to talk, now I am not sure."

"Lady, if I had tried to kill you, there wouldn't be any talking. Come with me." I led her to the van where we could at least have a seat while she decided whether to not to talk to me. I turned on the interior light hoping that the drain on the battery wouldn't kill it. With a junk yard battery you just never know.

"So?" I asked it to give her a change to begin without me leading her. I was afraid she would just tell me any story she thought I wanted to hear.

"God, you don't make it easy. At least kill that light, I don't want to be in the glare while I tell this too much like an interrogation.

"Lady, you came to me remember?" I wasn't about to let her off the hook but I did gratefully kill the light. What I couldn't figure out was why she came to talk rather than kill me. After all they hadn't talked to Mike. At that time at least it seemed easier to kill than to talk.

"First of all, I had nothing to do with that reporter's death." She stopped to gauge my reaction. When she didn't see anything obvious she went on. "I admit that I was surprised and terrified when he came to my house, but I didn't kill him."

I figured she needed some encouragement so I said, "I didn't think you did. I thought you called somebody else who did the deed."

"No," she almost shouted it. "I was trying to decide what to do when I heard he was dead. I admit I might have called Nightlite or even my step father, but I didn't get the chance. If I could or would have done that I wouldn't be here talking to you."

"Oh you might. Whoever did Mike, might think you are too much trouble if you called again. They might even have told you, 'This one time is all you get babe, if it comes up again, you are on your own.' That kind of thing has been known to happen."

"Well not to me, I did not call anyone."

"Leaving that for a moment, tell me about the money. Mike thought that you were blackmailing someone."

"Who could I blackmail, I didn't know the man who raped me."

"Did Mike mention rape. I sure as hell didn't.

"Yes Mike told me that he thought I had recognized the rapist and was blackmailing him."

"Forget all that for now, tell me about Nightlite. What do you do for them?"

"Oh come now a big shot writer like you surely knows."

"Call me stupid, just tell me" I suggested.

"Okay Nightlite is a nationwide call girl outfit. I am one of their employees."

"I don't suppose you answer the phone?"

"No, I am one of the prostitutes more or less."

"Surely there are enough hookers in Charlotte that they don't have to go looking."

"The Charlotte operation covers the whole state not just Charlotte. I think they have a couple of hundred housewife types who work for them part time. Sorta like me."

"So the fleet of cars delivers you to the rentor?"

"Yes exactly, you seem to know a lot more about this than you admit?"

"Just enough to keep you honest."

"I work on Friday and Saturday nights only. But the driver doesn't take me straight to a job. I guess maybe once or twice I had a client waiting but mostly I have to kill a couple of hours at least. The company maintains a house in Wilmington. The driver takes me there and he stays. Usually there are a couple of other women and drivers there."

"Who are the other women?"

"Come on writer, I'm not going to rat out some housewife."

"Okay are all the women part timers?"

"Best I can tell yes. That is part of the appeal that makes these guys pay primo prices."

"So what do they do for women on Wednesday night?"

"A lot of the women are like me, single moms who need the extra money to pay the mortgage. They hire a babysitter and go to work. One of them said to me, 'So I give it to a stranger, Hell honey the only difference is I get paid for it. Plus I get to ride in a limo."

"It makes only a little sense. These guys have to be paying top dollar, why? What do you do that makes it worth while for them to pay so much more."

"I don't know that they do," She saw the look I gave her. "Okay. I do know they aren't paying twenty bucks for a blow job in the back seat of their cars."

"My point exactly," I replied.

"It is a multi faceted approach. One they send the girls out all over. A guy who lives in Tomahawk can get a first class hooker just like a guy in New York city." She saw the subtle shake of my head. "Then of course there is the thrill of knowing you might pass the same woman in the grocery store some day. The women are not crack whores, these are all regular women with regular lives." I shook my head again. I knew that it just wasn't enough to get her into the life. The little factory worker who needed a hundred bucks a week to pay for her groceries yeah, but not June Silver.

"Okay some of us work for the money, and for the kink." That I understood.

"I'll buy that but what kind of money and what kind of kink?"

"Are you just a dirty old man after all?"

I had to fight down the smile. "Probably, but right now I am trying to understand all of this."

"Okay, I got into it because I needed the extra money, and like the woman said I was giving it away to strangers anyway. Picking up the two bills a week was fine and I could have kept that up forever. One night the driver handed me an envelope. Inside was a letter, typed I might add. The letter asked if I would be interested in doing some of the more interesting jobs. The pay would be significantly more, the letter promised'

I wanted to guide her but decided to just let her tell it. She had been looking off into the night while she spoke. "After the first one I should have stopped. The guy lived in a small town up the coast, no I will not tell you which one so don't even ask." She didn't see me nod in the dark but she sensed it. The guy owns a funeral home. He wanted to lay in a coffin and have me give him a blow job. It was a lot harder to bring myself to do it than it was for him to get off. When it was over, he ushered me out to the waiting car.

I turned couple of other tricks that weekend but my check had about two hundred dollars more in it than usual. The letter had also stated that the women who did the 'specials' could worked more. I was able to go from a weekend now and then to any weekend I wanted to work. The money went to over double since I was doing most of the 'specials' in the eastern part of the state which came up on the weekend anyway. I had to refuse week night work more than once, before they got the idea. I made so much money that after a couple of weeks I began thinking about investments. A friend of my step dad arranged the brokerage account for me.

"Okay, what kinds of kink?"

"You don't need to know that." she snapped.

"Sure I do, but its okay if it makes you feel better to pretend that you are protecting a client." She didn't see the nasty smile on my face but she felt it.

"Okay asshole, I did several women, played subbie a hundred times, I've been beaten, screwed by machines, flogged for fun and profit, and a whole lot more."

She had intentionally skipped the one I was really interested in. "You ever been raped for money?"

"You son of a bitch," She said it but she didn't make a move to leave the van.

"So?" I asked after several minutes in which I was damn sure she teared up.

"Yes, more than once."

"By strangers?"

"Yes, a couple more than once." I could hear the tears in her voice."

"Tell me how and where, I don't need the sexual details but every other detail."

"The where varied. I would sometimes be abducted from a mall parking lot. A lot of it happened in city parks in small towns. Once even in the dressing room of a department store." I shook my head in disbelief.