The Lowdown (Dale Conley Action Thrillers Series Book 3) Read online

  The parking lot was sparse gravel, and stones kicked back from their feet as they ran. There were a half dozen or so bikes, one for each of Cast Iron’s patrons, and their chrome metalwork gleamed in the sunlight.

  Dale looked back. Behind them, the bikers flooded out of the bar and started toward their bikes.

  At the head of the pack, screaming in rage, was Bryce, holding a hand to the side of his head where Dale had cracked him with one of the pool balls. A trickle of blood ran through his fingers.

  Dale frantically reached into his pants pocket as he ran toward Arancia. He pulled out his keys. As he and Percy got to the car, he fumbled to get the key into the lock, then jumped in and unlocked the passenger side for Percy.

  Dale turned the key in the ignition. Arancia’s mighty V8 roared. Dale put the stick into gear and gave it some gas before releasing the clutch. Arancia’s tires spun in place, throwing gravel behind her. Dale looked in the rearview.

  The bikers covered their heads, darting behind their bikes as the gravel flew in all directions. Dale could hear the rocks pinging off their bikes.

  He grinned.

  One of the bikers ran up and grabbed Arancia’s door handle, right outside the driver’s side glass, inches away from Dale.

  The man was touching Arancia.

  No one touched Arancia.

  The tires grabbed hold of solid ground, and Arancia took off. The eyes on the man clinging to her went wide, and he fell to the ground. Dale held on tight to the steering wheel, trying to control the 330-horsepower mass of sheer energy in the unpredictable surface of the gravel parking lot.

  They pulled onto the street, and the tires screeched, finally getting something to dig their teeth into. Arancia bolted down the road. Next to Dale, Percy took hold of the dash. The trees and ramshackle buildings of the abandoned side of New Orleans flew by as they sped off.

  Percy turned around in his seat. “I don’t think our friends were quite ready for us to leave.”

  Dale flicked his eyes to the mirror. The bikes were all on the road, chasing after them.

  “Minor nuisance.”

  There was a curve ahead. Dale tightened his grip on the wheel and guided Arancia around the curve then dropped the stick another gear and hammered the gas, the inertia throwing his head back.

  He looked to the mirror again. The bikes were just now starting to appear around the curve. He’d put some good distance between them.

  Another curve in front of them, this one to the left. Dale pulled them through the curve, tires screeching. A few feet ahead there was a crossroad. Dale dropped the stick into a lower gear, and he and Percy jolted forward into their seat belts. He yanked the wheel to the right and exited onto the crossroad.

  On the new road, Dale yanked back on the handbrake and turned the wheel. The tires let out a wail. Dale’s ears rang. Arancia’s whole frame shuddered as she whipped around 180 degrees. Everything was movement, chaos. But it was a controlled chaos. Dale knew what he was doing.

  Arancia came to a stop. Her whole mass swayed on her suspension, rocking side to side. Dale was panting. He looked at Percy. His eyes were wide. He too was short of breath.

  They had spun all the way around and were now facing the road they had just exited.

  “Dale, what is this?”

  “Shh,” Dale said and put a finger to his lips. He pointed in front of them. “Watch.”

  A moment later, all of the bikes zipped by. Dale waited a bit, then he casually lowered the handbrake, put Arancia into first gear, and rolled up to the stop sign. He whistled. He turned left, going back the direction from which they had come.

  Percy smiled at him. “Well played.”

  Moments later, they were back where they started. Cast Iron appeared ahead of them on the left. The parking lot was empty save for one bike, baking in the bright sunlight. Sledge’s ride, no doubt. As they got closer, Dale slowed down.

  And flipped on his turn signal.

  Percy started. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Forgot something.”

  Gravel crunched beneath Arancia’s tires as they reentered the parking lot. Dale pulled up beside the bar.

  “Dale …”

  “Just wait here. Be right back.”

  Dale stepped out of the car into the bright sunlight and then disappeared into the darkness of Cast Iron once more.

  The place was empty. But he knew that Sledge had to be in there. And he also remembered how Sledge had eyeballed the underside of the bar earlier, as though he had some sort of weapon stashed there.

  There was the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat. Dale’s boots crunched on the debris. He drew his Smith & Wesson and approached the bar.

  “Sleeeeeedge? Anybody home?”

  Two hands appeared above the surface of the bar. Then the arms. Then Sledge’s face. He stood up from behind the bar, arms above his head, hands empty.

  “You’re one crazy son of a bitch, you know that?” Sledge said in a gravelly voice. “Ain’t never had no one clear this whole place out before.”

  “Step out from behind the bar, Sledge. I don’t know what you got back there.”

  Sledge did as he was asked, keeping his hands above his head as he walked around the bar.

  Dale scanned his surroundings. The aftermath of the scuffle was strewn everywhere. Scattered chairs. Upturned tables. Broken beer bottles. But he didn’t see it.

  “Where is it, Sledge?”

  “Where’s what?”

  Dale’s eyes scanned over the detritus … and then he saw it.

  It wasn’t where he had left it, but it had somehow escaped the melee. It had even remained on its plate. Dale walked over and grabbed his sandwich. He took a bite and nodded at Sledge, keeping his eyes on him as he backed out of the bar.

  “Crazy son of a bitch,” Sledge said.

  Dale winked.

  Through the door, into the sunlight, and back to Arancia’s black leather driver’s seat. He handed the sandwich to Percy, put Arancia into gear, and took off.

  As he stopped at the road before hitting the gas, he saw Percy staring at him. “What?”

  Percy didn’t reply, just shook his head.

  “I paid for the damn thing,” Dale said.

  “Aren’t you going to eat it?”

  “I never eat in the car.”

  Percy looked at the sandwich and back to Dale. “Unbelievable.”

  Chapter 3

  It was only 6 a.m., but still there was a crowd all around Dale. He brought the mug to his lips … and another person bumped into him. Coffee spilled down the side of the mug onto the saucer.

  Percy sat across from him at one of the small tables in the crowded patio area of world-famous Café Du Monde, a spot known for its chicory coffee and beignets. At the start of the assignment, they visited Du Monde on one of their first mornings in New Orleans. After all, it was high on the Big Easy tourist checklist. But as the case dragged on, this was now their third visit. They’d both enjoyed it the first time, so it was a logical place to return to. But the more times they came, the more it reminded Dale that the case was dragging on, getting colder.

  The air was thick. It wasn’t the most humid time of the year, but even the dead of winter could feel muggy in the Gulf South. Dale once had an assignment in the region in the middle of December. He remembered waking up one morning sweating from the humidity yet feeling cold from the temperature. It was an odd and discomforting sensation.

  Café Du Monde sat on Decatur Street, catty-cornered from Jackson Square and a few yards from the Mississippi River. The main patio area was covered in a large awning with its celebrated green and white stripes. There were small round tables with round chairs, each having a napkin dispenser and a jar of sugar. And everywhere there were people. Sweaty tourists. Packed in on themselves.

  Dale took a sip of the coffee. The chicory added a certain something to the flavor, sort of a chocolatey effect. He’d passed on getting beignets—a French doughnut served under
a mound of powdered sugar. Naturally it didn’t jive with Dale’s clean lifestyle to eat them very often, and the one time that he did try them—on their first visit to Café Du Monde—he’d failed miserably at eating the things without getting powdered sugar all over himself. Luckily he’d been wearing a white T-shirt that day, so he hadn’t ended up looking like a total jerk.

  Percy did have a plate of beignets in front of him that morning, and he was doing the smart thing of eating them with a fork. He was careful to keep the powdered sugar off his suit. Dale wore a T-shirt and jeans. Spread on the table in front of the agents were the contents of the case file. Notes. Forms. Gruesome pictures of people lying on the ground, eyes open, frothy blood coming from their mouths.

  Percy put down his fork and took a sip of coffee. “Nearly two weeks now since you made case determination, and we’re still no further along than when we started.”

  Dale made eye contact with one of the waitresses across the café. Blonde, on the short side, bright baby blues. She gave him a toothy grin before continuing her conversation with her table. Dale returned his attention to Percy. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t know that this is a case suited to the Bureau of Esoteric Investigation.”

  “Like you said, I already made the determination.”

  “But I can always use the reciprocity clause and take the lead.”

  Dale put his hand to his chest, and, seeing that he was in New Orleans, he used his best Southern belle accent to say, “You wouldn’t do a thing like that to little ol’ me, now would ya?”

  “Face it, Dale. This is a standard DEA matter. If I need help with the racial aspect, I can go to the FBI. The fact that our guy’s been calling himself Jesse James is irrelevant.”

  Dale leaned forward, got more serious. “It is relevant. Jesse James was more than just an outlaw. He was a Confederate operative. And nearly all of the people who’ve died from our Jesse James’ funky drugs have been black.”

  Percy shook his head. “There are a lot of these kind of hateful groups down here. ‘The South will rise again.’ ‘Lincoln was a rotten bastard.’”

  Dale felt eyes upon him. The waitress was looking his way. She smiled again. A bit of the early morning light sparkled in her eye. Lovely. Dale smiled back.

  Percy snapped his fingers. “Stay with me, Dale. Jesus.”

  “You’re right, pal,” Dale said and leaned back in his chair. “There are a lot of groups like that. And we have people dying from tainted drugs in four cities along the coast, from here to Pensacola, Florida. Assuming that these primarily black drug deaths are the coordinated work of one of those hate-based groups, and the only lead we got is a guy who distributes these drugs under the name of a historical figure connected to the Confederacy, you don’t think having an expert at solving historical mysteries is a good thing?”

  Percy sighed. “So you’re telling me this has nothing to do with the fact that I’ll be leaving D.C. after this assignment, that this is our last time working together?”

  Of course Dale had already considered the fact that this would be the last chance to spend time with Percy. But hearing him say it made it sting a bit more. They’d formed a friendship in the years since Dale became an agent with the BEI. This covert agency of the Department of Justice tasked Dale with solving crimes in his particular area of specialized knowledge—history and puzzles—pairing him with a different liaison agent for each case. His third assignment, only a couple months into the job, saw him seeking out a network of heroin distribution hidden under the guise of underwater archaeology. It had been a life-changing time for Dale, this third assignment, as he met not only DEA Special Agent Percy Gordon but also treasure hunters Ronan and Al Blair. As fate would have it, Percy and Al Blair ended up being two of the most formative people in Dale’s life.

  After that first assignment together, Dale got to know Percy away from matters of law enforcement. Percy invited him into his home, and Dale became a family friend. Before he joined the BEI and took his new name, Dale’s PI—his prior identity—had never been a family friend to anyone. Getting his new identity had been a fresh start for Dale. He was able to become a whole new person. A better person. A better man. And a big part of that transformation had been the love he was shown by Percy and his family.

  Thus, it was entirely feasible that Percy was right, and Dale was clinging to this case for personal reasons. So Dale thought for a long, hard moment about it. Was he really sure that this was a BEI case? Was he deluding himself? Could it be that he was selfishly pulling his talents away from other cases where they might be better utilized?

  But then he thought about the Jesse James connection. And he knew he was onto something. “The historical Jesse James was a bushwhacker. A guerrilla combatant for the CSA. There’s something to that. I know there is. I genuinely think this is a BEI case. Besides, don’t flatter yourself. If I was stalling, it would only because I haven’t gotten to go to the beach yet.”

  Percy finished his last beignet. He took a napkin from the dispenser and wiped his mustache clean of powdered sugar. “Dale, we’re friends. When my family and I move to Houston, that’s not going to change. We don’t see each other that often as it is.”

  Dale was getting uncomfortable. He wanted to avoid the topic, and Percy was getting borderline touchy-feely. Dale hated touchy-feely. He diverted the conversation. “And is the family prepared for the move?”

  “Bonita’s ready for a change, but she’s gonna miss her folks, of course. Jeanne has a few little friends she’s torn about leaving. But she’s seven. She’ll be fine. I’m most worried about leaving Erv at Georgetown by himself.”

  Dale still couldn’t believe Ervin was a full-fledged college student. In Dale’s mind, Ervin would always be a high school kid. “Sophomore year. I’m sure he’s well adapted by now.”

  Percy looked away. “It’s his second year, but he’s a freshman by credits. Failed some classes. Spending all his time with this crowd of his.”

  Dale knew that there had been bad blood between Percy and Ervin in the last year or so, and while he didn’t want to talk about any more touchy-feely, he’d be an ass if he didn’t acknowledge it. So he said, “You two doing any better?”

  “He hates me. More than your average teenager hates his father. He hates that I work for the DEA. He smokes grass, rubs it in my face. He hates that I work with white folk. Hates you, if truth be told.”

  “Hmph!” Dale said, feigning indignation once more. “And to think, I gave that kid pointers on women.”

  Percy frowned. “He’s in some sort of protest group. Won’t admit to it, but I know that he is. From what I’ve heard, they seem violent. I couldn’t handle it if he got involved in something. If he hurt someone. Or himself. I just don’t know what to do with the boy.”

  “Ervin’s nineteen years old, partner. He’s not a boy. He’s a young man, and he’s gotta figure all this out for himself.”

  “He’ll always be my boy.” Percy exhaled, paused, then drained the rest of his coffee. He reached into his pocket, unwrapped a piece of gum, and popped it in his mouth. He offered a slice to Dale, who declined. “And the sooner I can get this case completed, the sooner I can get some quality time with him before classes start again. So if you’ll just please concede that this isn’t a BEI case, I can take full control of the task force and move forward with this.”

  The waitress walked across the patio, and Dale saw a glimmer from her left hand. It was a wedding band. A smile tease, that’s what this girl was. Foul temptress.

  Dale put his hands behind his head and took a deep breath. “This is a BEI case, Percy. I know it. Listen, I’ve got one more good lead for us. Let me follow up on that. If it doesn’t pan out, use the reciprocity clause, and the case is all yours.”

  “The Grizzly?”

  Dale nodded and flipped through the papers on the table. “I got an address. This guy’s got his hands in pot, coke, prostitution. He only meets by appoin
tment, so I guess we’ll have to start off on the wrong foot with him. But, hey, with a name like Grizzly, what could possibly go wrong?”

  Chapter 4

  Jesse Richter stood on a dirt path in a field of grass surrounded by forest. The grass was halfway up his shin. The sun was bright. The property was large and stretched out in front of him. In the back, about a hundred yards away, was a large pole barn, its metal siding painted dark brown. A few feet in front of him was a trailer home.

  It wasn’t dilapidated, but it was in need of attention. Some paint, a little rust repair. It was gray at the top, white on the bottom, with a couple blue accent designs. A small wooden awning had been built over the front door. The awning’s top was a piece of corrugated polycarbonate, and it covered a small stoop with a thin metal railing and three steps leading down to the ground. There were two windows to the left of the door, and to the right was a larger set of windows for the trailer’s living room area. These were cracked open. A window unit air conditioner jutted out of the right side of the trailer, and there was a smaller one on the opposite side, that being for the bedroom of Dylan and his wife, Luanne, Jesse’s cousin. Neither A/C unit was running. There was silence from the trailer. Jesse heard only the birds in the trees.

  He stared at the trailer, waiting on Dylan Mercer. Jesse knew why he’d been summoned here, why he’d been told to make the three-hour drive from New Orleans to the country near Cantonment, Florida. Dylan had gotten word of what had happened the previous evening. He knew that Jesse had gone off script, that he’d killed another bum.

  That’s why Jesse had been waiting so long. Almost five minutes now. In the Florida sun and humidity. Sweating. The sunlight burning his scalp. Dylan was making him feel the anticipation. Jesse himself had a knack for theatrics, so he understood what Dylan was trying to accomplish when he did things like this. This objective analysis did make Dylan’s theatrics seem more benign, but still Jesse couldn’t separate himself entirely from his gut, emotional reaction.