No Controlling Legal Authority Ch. 06

"Not really, Judge. You paid him a hundred dollars to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut."

"I did?"

"Yeah. I did it for you. It'll show up on our expense account."

"Oh, great. A hundred dollars sounds like a lot, Moon Dog."

"Don't go cheap on me, Judge. Caruthers offered fifty to a cashier at the Mapco on the edge of town to call him if she saw her. I had to beat that offer just to stay ahead of him."

"How the hell did you find out about that?"

"We stopped there for gas the other day. Had your girl in the back seat, and, when I went in to pay, the cashier had her nose pressed against the window and was digging in her purse for Caruthers's phone number. She took a little convincing, but she finally told me she had recognized the girl and was making the call like she was supposed to. Cost you another hundred, but she gave me a description that fit Caruthers to a "tee," and promised to forget having seen the woman. I took the matchbook he had written his number on, so she couldn't change her mind, and we went straight over to the motel and checked out. Moved her across town to another motel, which is where we think they found us yesterday.

"Where are you now?"

"Cedar City."

"Where?"

"Cedar City. It's just north of Jefferson City on US 54. We're at the Acock Motel. She got a laugh outa that, too, I'll tell you. She said the name was perfect for her, but that with a name like 'Acock' on the sign out front, it would probably be the first place that Cletus and Nadine would look for her. I thought she was kidding, but she was serious as a heart attack, and it was weird, like she was always finding some sort of sexual connotation to everything, and she claimed that she and Caruthers had a kind of psychic connection that made them think just alike about stuff like that. I asked her if she wanted to find another motel, and she just shrugged her shoulders and said it wouldn't matter much if we did, and, then she laughed and told me to ask the desk clerk if the name 'Acock' meant that she couldn't have but one when she got to the room."

"You've got to be kidding."

"That's what she said, boss, I swear to God. Ole Hunter nearly fell out of the car when she said it, cause she was lookin right at him while she was talking to me."

"Where is she now?"

"In her little room at the Acock, boss."

"Where are you?"

"In the car. I'm parked about fifty feet from her door, where I can watch her and the lobby, too."

"Seen anything suspicious?"

"Nothing so far; it's been quiet. We bought up all the rooms, weren't but eight of them, and had the clerk put up a sign sayin' they were closed, so nobody would be coming into the front desk looking for a room."

"Jesus, Moon Dog, eight rooms? What'd that cost?"

"They gave us a deal. Hadn't sold out a single night since the legislature was in town last spring and a Jaguar full of whores drove over from St. Louis and set up shop for a week."

"How much?" Caleb groaned.

"Forty a room."

"Goddamn, Moon Dog, that's nearly three hundred dollars."

"Closer to three fifty with the tax, Judge, but you said to keep her safe, and we figured that's the best way to do it."

"Safe, yeah, but three hundred and fifty dollars for the night?"

"Pussy don't come cheap, Judge, you know that. Especially, pussy that looks and acts as good as this girl."

"She does look good, Moon Dog," he muttered more to himself than to the spook on the other end of the line. His fingers nudged the photo into the circle of light on his desk, so he could see the image better. "She looks just like Gweneth Paltrow," he continued with a tinge of awe to his voice.

"Who boss?"

"Gweneth, Gweneth Paltrow, you know, the movie star." She stared up at him innocently, and his mind churned with the possibilities of what she might be doing with multiple cocks in her little room at the 'Acock.'

"What are you looking at, Judge?"

"The picture of her you sent me, of course. It's right here in the package with your report. Don't tell me the super spook forgot he sent me her picture."

"Oh hell, Judge, that isn't a picture of your girl; that IS Gweneth Paltrow. Didn't you see the postit note I stuck on it? I told you she just sorta looked like the picture I was sending. Hunter spotted that picture in a frame at the drug store the other day. He was walking past the rack and said, 'Damn, that looks kinda like Anne,' and I agreed, so we bought the frame and pulled out the picture to send to you with the report so you would have some idea of what she looked like."

"Oh," Caleb answered feeling like a complete fool. He flipped the photo over and on the back, near the bottom, in tiny letters, he read the legend: "Gweneth Paltrow, Universal Studios, Copyrighted 1999, All Rights Reserved."

"Uh, well, I don't see any postit note here, Moon Dog," he continued peevishly.

"It must have fallen off, then, 'cause I put it there myself.

"Where's Hunter?" Caleb asked to change the subject. The possibility that Hunter might be supplying the cock at the 'Acock' even as he was talking to Moon Dog had occurred to him despite both men's professionalism and their reputations for never mixing business with pleasure, and that possibility, remote though it was, concerned him more than the confusion about Ms. Paltrow's photo.

"He's checking out some things back at the Hardwick School. He took his tools to do a little reconnoitering to see if he could come up with anything. Should be back here in a couple of hours or so."

"What is he expecting to find that's not already in your report?"

"I don't want to speculate on that, Judge; let's see what he comes up with over there. But, you're reading the report, aren't you? If you can get past the sex in there, it's pretty obvious that your girl's story has more twists and turns and gray areas than the Kennedy assassination. You wanted to know what you might be getting into, so we're trying to tie up some of those loose ends before we pull outa here tomorrow."

"Do you think she has any culpability in any of it?"

"No, I don't, but I sure think she's had some terrible luck along the way and has run into some really nasty characters."

"I hear you, Moon Dog, but her luck is about to take a major turn for the better."

"I figured that, boss."

"You know me too well, don't you?" It was an acknowledgement of the obvious rather than a question.

"Well enough; what time will you be here?"

"No later than two o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"Cedar City exit. Turn left, Acock's on the left about a mile east of the exit. See you at two."

Moon Dog broke the connection and the line went dead. Caleb scribbled the directions on his note pad and glanced at his watch. It was nearly midnight, and he had a lot to do to get ready to leave in the morning. First things first, he thought, and picked up Moon Dog's report. He was relieved to see that relatively few pages remained, so he settled back in his chair and quickly found his place.