A/N: This chapter contains references to gay prostitution. If you are underage or you find such material upsetting, please click away now.
Part: Sixteen
Timeline: Late Evening. Wednesday, 18th April.
Greg spent several minutes checking around his car for any signs of tampering before he climbed in and drove off towards the Truck Stop. A dark, lowering sky blew in from the south-west on a chill wind that threatened rain, which added a layer of gloominess to the atmosphere that perfectly matched Greg’s present mood. He scowled at the redundant diversion sign, which had guided him into his present situation where it stood rusting, and leaning to one side as he passed. The Truck Stop was small compared to the big halts on the Interstate highway. This was just a minor fuelling and refreshment station, used mostly by the local trade and those truckers who found themselves caught short in between the big halts. The Truck Stop also enjoyed a small, regular clientele of salesmen and drivers who preferred its quieter, more leisurely and private facilities.
The Truck Stop's main vehicle park was to the left of the restaurant’s single storey building. It could hold no more than a dozen trucks and operated a single pump, diesel oil service point from the farthermost point near to the exit. Greg drove into the entrance and swung to the right. He saw at once that it was not a busy night. There were only three trucks parked side by side in the lot and two cars pulled up at the entrance to the restaurant.
The Truck Stop’s boundary limits were planted with hedges interspersed with some tall trees. It must have been Greg’s sub-conscious concern for his safety after yesterday’s events that stopped him parking alongside the cars at the entrance to the restaurant. Instead he drove past them and reversed into the right hand corner of the lot. The added shade afforded by the clump of trees under which he had parked added to the darkness of the night to further obscure his presence.
Greg sat in the car for a few moments looking at the brightly lit windows of the restaurant to size up the scene. He could see the few diners munching mechanically at their meals and pondered once again on Jess’s sudden departure.
To the left, and attached to the main building, he noticed a rough, flat roofed structure. It appeared to be unfinished, a stark, unpainted, concrete block edifice without windows that gave the impression of an amateur attempt at building. Greg reckoned it to be a large storeroom, but learned later it was a comfort station for over-nighting travellers. Inside were basic bathroom facilities and a half dozen cell like, windowless cabins, which for a few bucks, offered drivers slightly better overnight accommodation than the bunks at the rear of their cabs.
His thoughts were distracted by the squeal of braking wheels to his left as a large car rushed through the entrance into the lot. In the faint lume of the yellow entrance lights Greg caught a glimpse of white walled tyres on an old, dark coloured gas-guzzling sedan. Greg identified it as a Buick and his pulse quickened. He sat and watched the car pull up in front of the parked trucks, then reverse to the boundary wall as he had done to face the parked trucks on the other side of the entrance. Greg was parked on slightly higher ground than the Buick. When its interior light came on briefly, it allowed Greg to look down into the car and see the driver’s hands taking something out of a wallet. From his vantage point, he was unable to see the driver’s face. The interior light went out as soon as the driver had put away his wallet and he sat there in darkness: as did Greg.
‘That’s got to be this Felix character.’ Greg mumbled and tasted the acid animosity of his words on his teeth. He wondered why the man had pulled up there away from the building and had made no move to get out?
His answer arrived moments later when Felix double flashed his headlights. Greg saw a single reply flash from a Fourways truck parked on the opposite side of the lot, facing the Buick. Greg was glad of the cover of night and the extra darkness of his corner to shield him from their view. He saw a man jump down from the cab, stroll across to the Buick and get in beside the driver.
‘Felix is either too confident or getting careless.’ Greg mumbled. The interior lights came on in the car as the trucker entered. Felix had not switched them off. Greg dropped lower into his own seat to better hide himself. His own lights were not on and he was about 20 yards away from the Buick and could not be seen by its occupants: it was an instinctive reaction. In the seconds before the lights faded in the Buick, Greg witnessed a brief transaction. Felix gave the trucker something. It was contained in the palms of their hands and too small for Greg to see exactly what had been passed. The trucker handed something from the palm of his other hand to Felix and then returned to his truck. Greg guessed it was money and he smiled wryly as he recognised the type of deal that he had just witnessed.
‘So Felix is into drugs.’ Greg spoke out loud, but softly, then asked himself. ‘Could Jess be into drugs? It would explain the mood swings and why he was scared and didn’t want to talk about Felix. Jess had said Felix was a facilitator and got things for the students.’
There was more activity at the Buick that distracted Greg’s train of thought. He watched as another driver came out of a Greenfield truck parked in the middle of the line of three. A heavy, round man, with a long ponytail seemed to roll over to the Buick. The lights came on in the car again, but this trucker stayed outside of the vehicle. Greg was able to see what happened as the Buick’s door stayed open and its interior light stayed on. He watched the two men converse. The trucker appeared animated and was waving his arms around his head. Greg strained to listen, knowing he was too far away to hear anything. Felix waved the man down and began talking into a cell phone. The moment he put down the phone the two men began talking earnestly again. It looked to Greg as though they were arguing. The trucker threw his hands in the air in resignation and began dropping things into the car. Greg couldn’t see what it was, but guessed they were banknotes. With a disdainful wave backwards of his hand the trucker rolled back to his cab while Felix began scrambling around inside the car to collect up his booty. The lights went off. Greg decided to wait to see what happened next; his hunger forgotten.
He didn’t have long to wait before a soft-top Toyota swept into the lot and backed up to park alongside Felix. The driver got out and climbed into the Buick. Greg could see enough to recognise him as one of the kids in the group of three he had bumped into on the street corner before he drove to Larksville. He fitted the boy’s description Greg had given to Jess; who had then identified him as Kyler; the bully who worked for Felix. Greg now firmly believed this was the kid that had put acid on his tyre, but could not prove it yet. He felt a compulsion to get out of his car there and then and sort them both out, but listened to his inner voice telling him now was not the time and this was definitely not the place. ‘Everything comes to him who waits.”
Greg chewed his lip in frustration and sat watching the Buick in the sanctuary of the darkness inside his car. He couldn’t see anything now inside the Buick as the courtesy light went out, but it came on moments later as Kyler exited the car. Greg watched the boy saunter over to the Greenfield truck, climb into the cab and pull the door closed behind him.
Greg whistled softly. He had the picture. Felix was running a rent-boy operation from the Truck Stop. Now he knew what sort of pressure Felix was putting on Jess. Jess didn’t need to tell him. Greg knew it wasn’t drugs at all; it was sex that Felix wanted to sell Jess into. The question that worried Greg was quite simply ‘Had Jess already been forced to work this way for Felix?’ Greg’s breath came in short gasps and he wiped the sweat from the palms of his hand on his knees as he pondered this point. If Jess was already involved with Felix in that way – would Jess want him to set up an operation to fund his schooling? More than that, would he still want to do it for the boy? A cold chill passed through Greg’s body as he sat in the car. The temperature seemed to have suddenly dropped several degrees. So many of the local people had advised him to move on, was it their way of telling him to stay out of this and not meddle where he was not wanted. Was that it? Was the acid attack only a warning? How many others were involved in these unwholesome rackets that Felix was running so openly. Greg had doubts about Sherriff Donovan since the man had met him on the way back from Larksville the day his tyre blew out: and he had already known about it! Surely a lawman, with his ear as close to the ground as Donovan’s seemed to be, would surely know about Felix’s dirty little scams at the Truck Stop. Greg felt unclean and could feel the dampness of his perspiration running down his spine.
‘What about it Mitchell,’ he asked himself, ‘you don’t belong here, get out while you can, this is bigger than you, leave it be.’ Greg sat tapping his steering wheel with his fingers while his head fought a silent battle with his heart. He wanted to help Jess, to be near to him, to have him around. He seemed to be content when he was doing things for the boy and happier when he was around. A question flashed across his mind. ‘Does this say something about me? Something I didn’t realise? Am I expecting more out of this than just knocking down unfair barriers?’
Greg knew he was in a state of turmoil and a big change was happening to him. He’d never bothered about other people before Jess came along. He had always taken them for granted; even his wives. He still felt unfairly treated after his divorce. He had been the one everybody else had to follow. It was his ideas and agenda the others always went by. The only thing that ever mattered to him was moving on to the next and bigger deal. He never considered the people working with and for him. His fanatical motivation had absorbed him totally while he was at Bailey’s
Latching onto Jess after ‘bumping’ into him was totally out of character for Greg Mitchell. In the beginning Greg thought he recognised a kindred spirit; a fellow victim of circumstance and manipulation by other people they had trusted. He had found somebody he could help to thwart those that would otherwise put him down- his nest of Bailey’s
Greg scratched his chin as he heard his inner voice ask.
‘But is it more than that? You have to ask yourself whether or not you have deeper, personal feelings for Jess?’
Greg couldn’t answer that with any degree of certainty or truth. He wasn’t sure now. He could convince himself that Jess was suffering the same unfairness as himself. He could be like a knight of old and sally forth on a modern equivalent to a white charger to fight Jess’s foes- because Greg had made decided to make them his own foes. The thought came back to ask again.
‘But is that the only reason that prompts your action?
Greg just didn’t know. And he did not want to think about it. He was championing Jess in the hope of sparing him the pressures that Felix and the others were putting on the boy without even knowing anything about the boy’s background. Greg asked himself.
‘Is Jess already doing these things? If so, does he truthfully want me setting up something to fund his way through school? Maybe all he wants is to go home and help his dad on the farm? Perhaps I’m wasting my time and making a damn fool of myself- again?’
It wasn’t warm outside. The wind still blew cool from the south-west, but Greg had to take out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow. As he did so another thought came to the front of his mind to cause him more concern and alarm.
‘What about the list of the town’s Top Guns’ the Sherriff gave me, Can I trust them? Who are my friends in this place, who is for me?’ He shook his head and mumbled. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe Bill Elbury, up to a point.’
It was an uncomfortable revelation for him that Bill was possibly the only one he could trust at present. It could be wrong of him to trust Jess right now - not until he knew some more about the boy and what he really wanted.
A sudden pain stopped his self–analysis. Greg ‘s hands had by then gripped the steering wheel so hard they began to cramp. He rubbed them vigorously to restore their circulation and sat back waiting for Kyler to come out of the Greenfield truck.
Greg had noticed the time when Kyler had gone into the Greenfield cab- it was 8.12pm. He sat waiting in his car and when the boy dropped out of the cab to swagger back to the Buick, Greg looked at his watch to see it was 8.34. Kyler had been with the trucker for a little more than 20 minutes. In the indistinct glow from the entrance lights Greg watched as Kyler stood at the passenger door of the Buick. He wriggled his rear as if smoothing out his belt and pants for increased comfort. The interior light came on as the boy got inside the car to talk to Felix. Greg watched them talking until the light went out. He could see no more until it came on again when Kyler got out to stroll casually to his own car and drive away.
Moments afterwards Felix got out and strutted across to the restaurant entrance. As he entered the pool of light at the top of the steps Greg could see what Jess meant when he said that Felix was a little guy. Even in the poor light Greg reckoned, in size at least, Felix could double for Danny de Vito. Felix paused before opening the door to go inside. Greg saw that Felix had a pronounced, almost pointed, bald head growing out of an untidy shock of thick, stringy hair around his ears. The overhead light on his baldpate made it shine. This amused Greg. He chuckled to himself at the incongruous sight. It helped relieve the tension that had built up inside him. He had at last seen the faces of some of his enemies. Now he needed to find out if that was all of them. or how many more of them there might be hiding in Felix’s background. Greg needed to find out who they were and what were their weaknesses, just so he would be able to do something about them when the time came: when the right time came.
Greg closed his eyes and said with a fierce determination to the car’s interior.
‘You’re staying Mitchell, just like you said you would; you’re not running away no more. Not from this, from Jess or yourself.”
He got out of the car and stretched to free the tautness in his muscles and followed Felix into the restaurant. The waitress greeted him warmly. He looked around and saw Felix was seated at a small table in the right corner from where he was able to observe the comings and goings into the park and restaurant. Greg kept as much of his back to Felix as he could while he requested a table on the left side of the building, well away from Felix. Greg wanted to watch the man without being watched himself.
He shifted back his chair so that he was mostly out of Felix’s sight, obscured by the servery counter. By leaning backwards Greg could study the man at a distance. Glimpse by glimpse, he took in the pock marked, flabby face, the uncombed mess of mousey coloured hair around his ears and his large hooked nose. The man’s tweed jacket was worn and shapeless. Greg’s observations were interrupted by the waitress asking for his order. His appetite had returned in full measure and he ordered fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side order of lima beans followed by Pecan Pie and coffee; with a Vodka, lime and lemonade cocktail on ice, to start.
Greg began feeling more in control of matters. He felt he could start planning to surgically remove Felix and his rotten crew from the scene: and that made him smile grimly and to feel good.