Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

an accurate address—not really an address at all, just that place under the cloverleaf of the I-90 and the I-95.

McNulty took the surface roads alongside the I-95 and got lost twice trying to find his way under the spaghetti junction of concrete pillars and overpasses. The roads became narrower and drier and turned into dirt tracks that trailed clouds of dust. He stopped and checked his mirror when he thought he was getting near. When the cloud of dust settled, the rusty car had gone.

McNulty turned and looked over his shoulder. The track was clear. He felt a tickle of goose bumps on his neck. The road was too open for covert observation, but the car had hardly been hiding on all the roads leading up to this. There were various possibilities why he wasn’t being followed anymore, but the one that stuck in his mind was the most obvious: The driver knew where McNulty was going.

McNulty brushed the thought aside and faced front again. He eased forward into the shadows of the overpass and felt the day turn cold. By the time he’d found the workshop hidden beneath the highway he already knew this was a very bad place.

TWENTY

McNulty parked in a litter-strewn turnaround facing back the way he’d come. He waited for the dust to settle but didn’t get out, scanning three-hundred-sixty degrees from the safety of the car. Even with the doors and windows locked, it didn’t feel very safe. He turned the engine off and did what people always do when they’re nervous. He started talking to himself.

“Well you dozy shitbird. What are you doing here?”

Concrete buttresses and sloping roadways curled around all sides and overhead. There were so many angles and curves that the clearing looked like Picasso had been pouring concrete. Looking up made McNulty feel dizzy so he concentrated on the land around him. There was plenty to hold his attention. So long as he did it while holding his breath. The smell of rotting vegetation suggested a garbage dump but the shapes humped around him looked more like a derelict sculpture park.

McNulty got out of the car, moving slowly so he didn’t have to take deep breaths. He closed the door and leaned on the roof. The space under the highway was wide and flat and had been cleared of trees and foliage. The turnaround was dirt and gravel surrounded by rusting throwbacks to better times. Some cars on blocks, a couple of farm vehicles with shredded tires, and twisted carnival floats from parades gone by. There were cartoon faces and giant heads—something that might have been a spaceship before the paint rusted away. A dinosaur with its head cut off. It was like an elephant’s graveyard but without the elephants. The last place you’d think of coming to have your car painted.

The workshop was a wood and corrugated-sheeting structure set against the central buttress with something that could have been living quarters leaning next to it. There was a splintered porch with warped steps. McNulty half expected to see a rocking chair and a banjo. He made guitar noises with his mouth then riffed the banjo reprise. It was a step up from talking to himself. The voice from the cabin sounded like the crack of doom in the silence.

“Y’all like guitar music do yer?”

McNulty turned toward the man standing on the porch. “So long as you don’t have a banjo.”

The porch creaked. “I could get one if you like.”

The man was overweight with long straggly hair. He wore bib overalls that were barely cleaner than the surroundings. He wiped his nose on one sleeve. “Way you’re talkin’. Makes me think you’re casting aspersions.” He waved a hand to take in the junkyard. “Like maybe I’ve got a tree trunk waiting to bend you over.”

McNulty kept his eyes on the man while checking his peripheral vision for any other movement. So far the man seemed to be alone. “I just like movie themes.” He waved his own hand at the surroundings. “Feels more Deliverance than James Bond.” Then he jerked a thumb toward Waltham. “You know they sell Aston Martins over there on Linden Street?” He was letting the man know about his connection with the place where a fake judge had been shot and three others were killed.

The man looked unmoved. “We don’t sell ’em here.”

McNulty nodded toward the carnival floats. “You gearing up for the Fourth of July?”

The man drew himself up to his full height and puffed his chest out. It was a big chest. The steps creaked as he came down to the yard. Dust exploded around his feet when he hit the ground. “I’m gearing up to beat me some nosy bastard’s ass.”

McNulty held his hands up in surrender. “Whoah. Not the kind of panel beating I’m looking for.” He put a smile into his voice. “You know. Like a dent in the roof.”

He nodded toward the workshop. “And a bit of red paint.”

Billy Bob threw a nervous glance over his shoulder, then took a step toward McNulty. He took some of the gruffness out of his voice as he nodded toward the car in the turnaround.

“You don’t got no dent in your roof.” The gruffness didn’t completely leave. “Yet.”

McNulty smiled and gave a little laugh. “Not the car. A red panel van I landed on when I fell off my balcony.” He dialed the smile down a bit but kept his tone light. “After the other fella bounced off it first.” He watched for any movement from the workshop. “Looking to see if you can handle it. And get a quote.”

It was Billy Bob’s turn to smile. “Here’s a quote for you. ‘I’m gonna make you squeal like a pig.’”

McNulty nodded. “Bent over the tree trunk you don’t have, huh?”

The man took another step forward. “We don’t need no tree trunk. There’s a mattress in back of the van.”

McNulty circled to his right, maintaining the distance between them while looking