Page 37 of The Last Grift
“The two troublemakers apparently tried to intimidate the stranger. There’s no sound on the replay, but Shaw said the two were being aggressive toward him, body language and all that.Anyway, when he left, the thugs still had their balls, but it was a close thing. Sound familiar?”
“It’s been a long few days, a lot has happened. Could be familiar, I can’t confirm.”
“Well, in case you run into them, be careful. Calvin and Dwayne Perkins are not nice people. The Perkinses probably set fire to small animals and pulled the wings off flies as children.” Elton shot him an inscrutable glance. “Course, I can’t confirm that.”
“Noted.” He should have known that was the type of guy whose balls he’d grabbed. Made him want to wash his hands again.
“That scar of Gordon’s?” Elton said. “He won’t say, but it’s my opinion that Dwayne Perkins put it there.”
“Okay.”
“So, if you do decide to talk to them about Gordon, be careful. Very careful.”
“What about calling the Sheriff’s Office, have you done that yet?” Gabriel was perfectly happy to stay off the sheriff’s radar, but it seemed that calling law enforcement would be a good place to start the search for Gordon.
“Pfft, Sheriff Rizzi investigates what he wants to investigate.” Elton lifted the sizzling sandwiches out of the pan one at a time and set them on waiting plates. Gabriel made a mental note to pick up more groceries and leave them in Elton’s fridge. “He’s the one who made sure Gordon spent time in jail in the first place. There was no need for that. Gordon wouldn’t hurt a fly and everyone around here knows it. One of Rizzi’s minions, Emmett Spurring, claimed he had evidence Gordon was running a pot farm without a license. Personally, I don’t think Gordon has the brains for a grow operation. Nevertheless, they investigated and boom, Gordon was in jail for three months.”
“Huh, I didn’t think pot was that big of a deal these days.”
“Exactly. It’s not, especially around here. As far as I know, it’s six plants for personal use. Gordon denied all knowledge of an operation but the land they ‘found’ the plants on is Gordon’s. More likely what happened—if it wasn’t Sheriff Rizzi—is that someone else thought it was vacant and decided to take advantage.”
“Where did this happen? Could that be where Gordon is?”
“Well,” Elton said thoughtfully, “could be, I suppose. It’s up The Valley, off Crystal Creek Road.”
“Where the hell is The Valley? The whole region is made up of valleys, for fuck’s sake.” On the drive up, along the west side of Highway 101, there’d been nothing but valleys, forest, and craggy mountains peeking over the tops of the trees. The other side had been crammed with trees that grew along the sixty-five-mile-long water fjord.
“Not far but not easy to get to. But you’d need to take my truck on your own. I’m feeling a little creakier than usual today,” Elton admitted. “That little frivolity of yours won’t make it up the road, especially this time of year. Which is also why I doubt Gordon is up there. There’s a shed, but he hasn’t gotten around to building a cabin like he wanted to.”
“Where does he live around here? How about I start there and ask around? Maybe a neighbor has seen him. Or, better yet, he told them where he was fucking off to.”
“You can try. But watch out for Calvin and Dwayne, they live over there too. They’re thugs, but they have power around here. Especially since they’re Rizzi’s nephews.”
Because of course they were. Gabriel was really sick of protective sociopathic uncles with jerks for nephews—the bane of his existence.
“That’s lovely to know.”
“Exactly,” Elton replied. “Kelly Perkins is Rizzi’s beloved sister, so of course ‘the boys’ can do no wrong. The sheriff lets those two get away with murder.”
“Do you mean, literal murder?”
Elton shrugged. “Not gonna lie, it’s a possibility, but it’s never been proven. Come on, let’s eat and then you can take the rest of the day off from cleaning and go hunting around for Gordon.”
Taking the day off from cleaning meant extending his stay at Elton’s a little longer, which, considering all the spiders he still had to evict, wasn’t the worst choice. Gabriel was starting to think cleaning up the sailboat was his personal Sisyphus-style boulder.
The address Eltongave Gabriel was part of Smitty’s RV Park, not far from where Paulson Point presumably was. Gabriel remembered noticing the motley collection of mobile homes and RVs when he’d driven around the island the afternoon he’d arrived. Smitty’s had most likely been developed for visitors to Heartstone, but it was clear to Gabe that nowadays people lived there year-round.
Smitty’s grounds were scrubby and worn, with some of the small yards acting as outside storage for broken-down appliances, vehicles, and bicycles. He couldn’t fault the residents for it; trash removal was expensive and maybe they couldn’t afford a trip to the local transfer station. A few neglected pine trees had been planted at the turn-in. Their needles were brown even in the winter, and most of them had fallen to the ground, leaving bare branches behind.
Many of the RVs suffered a similar fate, with significant rust issues and several varieties of moss that had managedto get a foothold along the rooflines. A few of them also had ferns sprouting from them and what looked to Gabe like lichen. Was there such a thing as a fern infestation?
Number 191 turned out to be a faded white double-wide with a thick orange stripe painted along the side. It was also one of the better kept homes. Moss and rust were evident but no ferns or lichen. Someone, presumably Gordon, had recently wrapped the bottom with aluminum skirting to keep rodents and small animals from finding their way inside, and a dormant hanging basket sat next to the stairs.
Elton said that Gordon drove an older dark blue Nissan pickup. There was no sign of it in the graveled area intended for 191’s resident.
“Don’t know the plates,” Elton had told him, “but it’s old, older than Gordon. One of the doors doesn’t match, it’s a lighter shade of blue, and the back bumper has a dent in it. And of course, he has a couple of beaters he’s converting to rally cars, but he doesn’t drive them on the road.”
Sure enough, two beaters were parked off to the side of number 191. One had been sitting there long enough that it had moss on the roof. If cars had feelings, Gabe would’ve said the other one looked depressed, sad to have been left behind.
