Page 10 of The Last Grift
The distant sound of police sirens reached his ears.
“Nice to have met you, Gordon. Sorry about the mess.”
“Fuck you,” wheezed Calvin. “You’ll be sorry for this.”
“That’s what they all say.You’ll be sorry. So passé.”
Spinning on his heel, Gabriel pushed back outside and jumped into the Honda. The exchange hadn’t taken more than two minutes and the police cars still weren’t in sight.
And, dammit, he hadn’t had thought to ask about Elton Cox, but those two knuckleheads weren’t going to forget him anytime soon, so maybe not asking questions had been good.
“Lie low, you said. Don’t make a fuss, you said,” Gabriel mocked the man in the rearview mirror. “How’s that going for you?”
The man reflected back at him rolled his slightly bloodshot eyes.
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought.”
As he accelerated away from the gas station, the two bullies staggered out of the building. One of them stared down the road at the Honda while the other bent over and vomited. Nice.
He hoped he was wrong, but the way his luck worked, Gabriel suspected this would not be the last time he and those two Mensa members crossed paths.
SIX
CASEY
Tuesday
“Fucking Tuesdays,”Casey grumbled. His stomach agreed. It was almost lunchtime and he was ready for the day to be over. Monday was never the issue, it was always Tuesday for him.
For a moment, he stared up at the slate gray clouds above the cedar and fir trees. Then he rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, blew out a heavy sigh, and returned his attention to the foul mattress someone had attempted to cram into one of the park dumpsters. A sharp bark came from the cab of his truck.
“I’m hurrying, Bowie.”
A shredded memory foam mattress oozed out from under the now crooked lid of the trash container. From where Casey was standing, he could see other household junk crammed inside along with the mattress. A broken chair with no seat, filthy clothing, a colorful plastic thing whose purpose must have been to keep a baby secure.
The huge metal container almost had a slightly guilty air about it, as if it too thought it should have tried harder not to be vandalized. Casey sighed again. Other people’s garbage was the last thing Casey wanted to deal with after his earlier encounter with the Perkins brothers. He’d only come this way because someone had called in and reported the gate open.
Normally, Greta would have checked the gate so Casey could finish the Perkinses’ paperwork, but his work partner was conveniently on vacation.
Just last summer, someone’d had the great idea of dumping their trash and then setting fire to it. Maybe to get rid of the evidence? It was pure luck that Casey had been patrolling the Forest Service roads that day and spotted the smoke before anything tragic happened.
“Small mercies, these folks knew what a dumpster’s for,” Casey griped, pulling out his phone to arrange for the county to come and take the garbage away and replace the damaged container. All of which was going to cost the park money that wasn’t in the budget.
Behind him, Casey could hear Bowie restlessly moving around in the truck’s cab. Bowie’s daily plan involved an orange ball and possibly chasing a squirrel by now, so this was not an authorized stop.
The majority of the park dumpsters were locked during the offseason, like this one had been. With a staff of two and few visitors, the park didn’t need regular trash pickup and certainly not where they were now, in the closed-off camping area.
“Hey, Lundin,” said the person who answered Casey’s call. “What’s up?”
“Randy, I need to schedule a pickup. Some assholes filled the container on the road behind the battlements. Circle D.”
“I’m telling you, that’s gonna keep happening,” Randy said.
“Thanks for the I-told-you-so, Randy. As you know, I don’tcreate the budget, I just have to live with it. And year-round weekly service will never be approved.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re scheduled to be by Friday for collection at the picnic area. Is that soon enough for you? Costs less if we only have to make the one trip.”
Casey wanted the overflowing trash gone immediately. “Fine. That’s fine.” He sighed, but quietly. Randy was doing a favor by adding this stop to their regular run.
