Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (24 page)

He frowned a moment, studying us, then his eyes lit
up. “Yeah. I suppose it would. That way, it would look
like I was cooperating with them, huh?”

I nodded. “Yeah”

“Okay. Let’s go”

“Where?”

A sly grin played over his lips. “It’s in the storeroom
behind the Hip-Hop. Where the old winos bed down”
He chuckled when he saw the frown on my face. “Take
off the plate from the light switch and the two bricks
below come out. There’s a space between the two brick
walls. You just slide it out.”

I frowned. “I remember the switch, but two walls?”

He grinned. “The place was remodeled twenty years
ago. They put in a brick wall on the inside.” He grin
grew wider. “And guess what I found when I took off
the plate? The pawn ticket. Old Rosey hid the pawn
ticket behind the switch plate.”

I remembered the loose plate. All I could do was
shake my head. Doreen laughed softly. “What do you
know?” She paused. “One more question before we go,
Carlos. You remember those yellow-and-green uniforms you delivered with the laundry on that Monday
before the fire?”

He nodded. “Yeah? So?”

She winked at me. “So, did you mention them to
Buck?”

“Buck?” He shrugged. “No. Why should I?”

“Just wondering. Just wondering.” Doreen looked
around at me, a smug smile on her face.

Her smile was dwarfed by the one that leaped to my
lips. Like I figured, Buck was the torchman-the one
who set the fire and a key player in Rosey’s death.

Bull looked from one of us to the other. “So, now
what?”

I studied Bull and gave a thankful little prayer for the
greed of thugs like S.S. and Buck. Had they not tried to
stiff Abdo, they would have the crystal skull in their
hands at this very moment. Instead, their world was
about to be turned upside down. “Now, we pick up the
skull and take it to the cops” I hooked my thumb over
my shoulder. “Come on. You can ride with us”

Abdo shook his head. “Naw. I’ll go in my car.”

With a shrug, I replied, “We’ll follow you”

“So,” Doreen remarked with a wry touch of humor in
her voice as we climbed into the Silverado. “S.S. and
Abdo don’t do diamonds, huh?”

With a chuckle, I winked at her. “Guess who does?”

She shook her head. “He’s a sneaky little creep.
How could he figure on selling all those uncut diamonds?”

“Maybe that’s the reason”

“What do you mean?”

We pulled in behind Abdo. “They’re uncut. I don’t
know anything about the diamond business, but you can
be sure J.C.Towers would not have pocketed them unless he knew exactly how he could get rid of them.
He’ll clean up two ways, selling the diamonds and insurance.” I glanced at my watch. It was almost 6:00.
“When we get back to the office, I’ll call Chief Pachuca
and tell him what we’ve found about the diamonds. Let
them do the legwork”

Austin traffic is always heavy, and afternoon rush
hour is doubly so. Abdo drove carefully, observing the
speed limit. He pulled up to a signal light at the intersection of Barton Springs and Riverside Drive.

Doreen pointed at Riverside Drive behind us and exclaimed. “Look at that idiot, would you?”

I glanced in the side mirror and spotted a solid black
Toyota Supra racing at breakneck speed toward the in tersection. Suddenly, smoke poured from Abdo’s rear
tires. He shot into the intersection, hanging a right and
dodging traffic as he headed out Riverside Drive.

“What the-,” muttered Doreen.

At that moment, the Supra, its windows heavily tinted,
blasted across the intersection in blurring pursuit.

“I don’t know,” I shouted, “but I’m going to find out.”
Before I could move two feet, a Budweiser delivery
truck pulled in front of me. I looked around frantically,
but I was hemmed in on all sides.

“Do something,” Doreen shouted, craning her neck
to peer over the parked cars in a desperate effort to spot
Bull Abdo’s red Miata.

“Like what? Last I looked, I can’t fly”

The light finally changed, and we headed out Riverside Drive. All we could do at 1-35 was peer north and
south in frustration.

We were both puzzled and confused.

She scooted around in the seat and frowned at me.
“What do you think?”

“Something spooked him.”

“The black car?”

I turned left, and accelerated hard. “I don’t know, but
I want that skull, and now.” I reached down and flipped
on the police scanner in my pickup.

It was growing late. Locals and tourists were filling
the sidewalks on Sixth Street. We parked off Sixth, half a block down from the charred remains of the Hip-Hop,
and made our way back to the storage room.

The skull was exactly where Abdo had said. Two minutes later, we were driving away with the Mesoamerican
Lemurian Crystal Skull safely in Doreen’s hands.

On the way to the office, Doreen asked, “So now
what? We wait for Abdo?”

I shrugged. “He’s our man. Without him, all we have
is the skull.”

The scanner was full of the usual garbage, traffic
snarls, fender benders, domestic disturbances, a rabid
dog, and a missing husband.

Just as we pulled into the parking lot, Doreen grabbed
my arm. “Listen.”

A call reported a fiery crash involving two vehicles
at exit 213 near Kyle, Texas, twenty-two miles south of
Austin.

Without hesitation, I made a U-turn and headed south.

A frown knit her forehead. “You don’t think it’s
Abdo?”

Flexing my fingers about the wheel, I nodded.
“Could be”

She indicated the exit sign we were passing. “Two
thirteen is twenty-two miles away”

“SOT,

“Twenty-two miles. We saw them not ten minutes
ago. They couldn’t have got that far in ten minutes.”

I grinned. “Then we’ll just be wasting gas, right?”

She shook her head and leaned back.

Naturally, there was a traffic jam. I pulled onto the
shoulder and bounced my way as close to the scene as I
could. When I saw an officer start toward me, I stopped
and climbed out.

He held up his hand. “Sorry, sir. This is as far as you
can go”

“Look, officer. If one of the cars is a Miata roadster,
I can help. If not, I won’t bother you”

He studied me a moment, then waved me forward.

In my business, I’ve not only seen death, but I’ve
smelled it. And every time I smelled it, I’ve had to force
the gorge back down my throat. That day, the sickening
odor lay on the air like a thick fog.

One of the investigating officers came up to me. I told
him about Bull Abdo taking off in his red Miata when he
spotted a black Toyota Supra coming after him. I played
dumb to the follow-up questions he asked, but the fact
that he asked them told me I had found Abdo.

Finally, he nodded. “It’s them. Both are burned to a
crisp. The Supra is registered to S.S.Thibeaux. Know
him?”

S.S.? I whistled softly. “Yeah. He works down on
Sixth Street at Neon Larry’s Bar and Grill.”

He jotted the information on a note pad, took my
name and number, and thanked me.

The headlights from the oncoming vehicles illuminated the concern on Doreen’s face. “So, how do we
nail Buck now? Abdo can’t testify.”

I was stumped. What little evidence we had was circumstantial, and there wasn’t enough of it to get any
self-respecting cop’s attention. “Let’s sleep on it. Maybe
we’ll have an idea in the morning.”

“What about the skull?”

“I’ll take it home with me and stash it.”

In my garage, I had the remains of an old CPU, one
of the first computers I had owned. It was about eight
inches wide and twenty-four high, a perfect hiding spot.

I removed the outer cover, fit the skull inside, replaced the cover, and went back inside.

At 3:00, the jangling of the telephone awakened me.
Sleepily, I mumbled, “Hello”

Doreen’s frightened voice jerked me from my sluggishness. “Tony! Buck kidnapped me. He wants the
skull.”

“What? But-”

“He saw us out at the park with Abdo. He-”

In the next moment, Buck Topper was on the line.
“Boudreaux! I want the skull or Doreen here ain’t going to be Doreen no more. I want the skull, and I want it
now. Meet me at the-”

I interrupted, playing for time-time to think, time
to make a hasty plan with the chilling thought that
most of my hasty plans had the disastrous results
one would expect from a hasty plan. “I don’t have it
here”

“Then get it. Meet me in the Munkres Parking Lot at
six o’clock.”
“

I told you I don’t have it. I can have it by nine
o’clock.”

Buck cursed. “All right.”

“And,” I added, “at the Greyhound bus station, second floor by the lockers.”

“No way.”

“The only way, Buck. I don’t trust you” I played a
hunch. “You followed Abraham to the Blackhawk and
killed him, just like you killed Rosey. There’s always a
crowd at the bus station. I’m not going to give you the
chance of taking us out”

He didn’t answer for several moments, then finally,
“All right. Nine o’clock. One minute after, she gets
it.” He paused, then added, “Look, Tony. I don’t want
to hurt you or the woman. Once I get the skull, I’m
gone. You’ll never see me again.” And then the line
went dead.

I studied the crystal skull after removing it from the
CPU, wondering just what it was about the object that
was so mesmerizing. Could it be true the skull displayed an aura creating energy to some receptive individuals? Was it possible that in the Torah and the first
five books of the Old Testament, a code created by a
numerical skipping of letters discusses the crystal
skulls as my research indicated?

Hard-no, almost impossible to believe. Yet, I had
to believe the lengths to which Buck was going to
get it.

Shaking my head, I slipped the skull into a WalMart’s plastic bag and set it on the table. I planned to
arrive early.

The station was on a hill, the first floor opening on to
the lower street, the second floor on to the higher street.
I chose the second with the lockers. Whichever way
Buck chose to leave, first or second floor, we would
leave by the other.

At five minutes before 9:00, I spotted Doreen and
Buck enter the Neches Street entrance on the first floor
and head for the stairs. I glanced around. Half-a-dozen
or so passengers were milling about the lockers. I
grinned. Too many for Buck to try anything here-I
hoped.

While I was angry with myself for letting Buck slip
through my fingers, I knew that in all reality, what evidence I had against him would not hold up to the
scrutiny of the district attorney.

What I couldn’t figure was Buck’s move after he
got the skull. Would he leave Austin as he said? With
three to five million dollars, he could live anywhere he
wanted.

As they topped the stairs, Buck grinned. I spotted the
bulge of an automatic under his T-shirt. Doreen’s features were set. I could see the anger in her eyes, but she
kept her lips pressed tightly together.

Stopping several feet away, Buck glanced at the plastic bag in my hand. “Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

He started to reach for it, but I took a step back.
“Why did you kill the old wino, Buck? He never did
anything to you”

He glanced over his shoulder, peering down at the
first floor. He sneered. “That was an accident. I tried to
get the pawn ticket from him. I slapped him around a
little, and he tried to get away and ran into them low
pipes in the back room-you know, the ones that go
across the hall. I thought he was dead.”

“And you set the fire to cover it up”

“So?” He took a couple steps toward me. “Enough of
that. Give me the skull”

“What about S.S.?”

Buck sneered. “He ain’t no problem no more. He saw
to that hisself this afternoon. Dumb jerk.” He clenched
his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “Now, give me the
skull.”

“Get behind me, Doreen,” I said, keeping my eyes on
Buck as I handed him the bag.

Stepping back, he opened the bag and peered inside,
the grin on his face growing wider. Slowly, the smile
faded as his free hand slid under his shirt and folded
around the automatic. “Sorry, Boudreaux, but you two
are going with me. I can’t afford to leave any unfinished business around when I leave”

Doreen gasped, and I felt her nails biting into my
arm. My brain raced. We were too far apart for me to
jump him. “Come over here and stand by my side,” he
ordered us. We did as he said. His hand was under his
shirt with the muzzle of the automatic pointed at me.
“Now we’re going to stroll down the stairs nice and
easy. Understand?”

I nodded. Doreen was clinging to my left arm, her
nails digging into my flesh. My right was only inches
from Buck.

As soon as we took the first step down the stairs, I
shoved Buck forward with my right and slung Doreen
back with my left. She screamed and fell to the floor.
The automatic roared, Buck shouted, the muzzle blast
tugged at my jacket, but I didn’t plan on waiting around
to see what was happening. I spun, yanked Doreen off
the floor, and raced for the 8th Street exit.