PELLY WASN'T HAPPY WHEN HIS BOSS CALLED HIM AT DAWN. HE had heard somehow that the ATF agent was on his way to Lafayette, and he wanted the fat mechanic silenced. He also wanted Pelly to stop Duarte if he could find him.
With no traffic, Pelly had made the drive from New Orleans in under two and a half hours. But he was still annoyed.
Pelly waited until a middle-aged man with a young boy had hooked up a rental trailer to his pickup truck and left the old U-Haul building where the heavy mechanic worked. Now there shouldn't be anyone else inside the office. He didn't like the idea of going back on a business arrangement, but Staub had insisted, and he had a point. There was no guarantee the mechanic would remain silent for long.
He waited in the small parking lot for several more minutes, then walked quickly to the front door and ducked inside.
The office was empty again, so he pulled his small Beretta from his waist and turned toward the garage bay. Stepping inside, he didn't see the mechanic, so he leaned down and spotted the man's legs on the far side of the same van that had been stolen. The fat man still didn't notice him.
Pelly stepped farther into the big bay, the pistol dangling at his side.
As he was about to call out, he heard a deafening blast, and the window of the van next to him shattered. Instinctively, he fell to the hard floor of the garage and searched for the source of the shot. A second booming blast blew holes in the side of the van just above his head. It was a shotgun. He barely heard the racking of the slide over the ringing in his ears. He scurried to the rear of the van and stole a peek to the back of the bay. Somehow the mechanic had surprised him.
Wedged in between two shelves of parts, the fat mechanic had a pump shotgun up and scanning the bay. Pelly picked up an old air filter and tossed it to the front of the van on the side away from the mechanic. The man turned toward the noise and fired again, racked the slide of the weapon, and fired blindly again.
Pelly saw him fumble in his front pocket for another round and knew the shotgun was empty. He took the moment to rush the man. He had his pistol up, but didn't fire. Instead he wanted to make sure the shotgun was out of his hands while it was empty and the man didn't expect an assault.
Pelly threw himself into the giant man as the mechanic's girth seemed to swallow him up. Pelly wondered if the man had any bones in his huge body as he was enveloped by fat. The shotgun clattered onto the floor and the mechanic bounced off the wall, then stumbled away from the gun. Pelly was lucky the giant didn't fall on top of him. He would've had a hard time wiggling out of that situation.
Now Pelly stood over the fallen behemoth with his gun out, but not pointing at the man.
The mechanic, panting, flat on his back, held his hands in front of him. "I'm sorry. I had to tell him."
"Tell who?"
"The other guy. He didn't offer me any cash, but I could tell he'd hurt me if I didn't tell him who took the truck."
Pelly realized he was too late and would have to explain things to the boss. He didn't speak, just pointed the Beretta at the man's blond head and squeezed the trigger three times. It was nothing personal. Just business.
After telling the local cops all he knew about the house, Alex Duarte had found out that his source of information, the fat mechanic, had been found shot to death in his rental shop. Duarte had already told them about Cal Linley, so now it looked like the Louisiana cops had four bodies that were tied together. That was a big deal.
To Duarte the real worry was whatever was in the crate that was worth killing four people over. The more he thought about it, the more concerned he became.
He had called Lina as he left Kansas to tell her he was on his way to Lafayette but gave no details. He didn't like sharing information with someone who didn't return the favor.
He didn't intend to stop until he had answers to his questions.
He knew this case had some deeper meaning.