Chapter twenty four
Proudfoot and Weasel crossed the Kentucky line on I 75, headed south, bout the time Rick and Sarah landed in Ann Arbor. They pulled off the expressway for gas, bought a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes and various snack foods. Weasel was entering withdrawal and getting very vocal about scoring some dope of any kind. However, they didn’t know the area and Sean wasn’t wild about Weasel being high on the road anyway. He figured that they would have trouble enough if they got pulled over without that. He thought that there was a good chance that the Mustang hadn’t been reported stolen yet but that it sure would be soon. The chances were that if they pulled in on drug charge that they might never get out. Sean was getting very tired of his bellyaching and was having second thoughts about bringing him along.
When they walked back to the car, Sean asked Weasel to drive for awhile. Weasel said, “I aint never drove no car before and I got no license.”
“Shit. Well we’re gonna have to stop for the night then, I sure as hell can’t drive all the way to Florida. I can hardly hold my eyes open now. How the fuck’s a man get to be twenty five without learnin how to drive?”
“Twenty six.”
“Whatever.”
“Jesus Proudfoot, I spent most of my whole live in prison. They don’t give no drivin lessons in the Tuna
Sean thought just as soon as this job’s over weasel is history. He figured stupidity was what got most people in prison and Weasel was about as stupid as they came.
By the time they reached Crystal River it was ten o’clock at night. They would have been there earlier, but they drank a lot of beer the night before and had a little trouble getting out of bed that morning. By the time they had breakfast and got on the road it was almost noon. That along with Sean’s strict observation of the speed laws stretched the trips timeline somewhat. Sean wished that John would have equipped the Mustang with a fuzz- buster instead of the useless alarm system.
When they got to Crystal River, they checked into a motel and went out to eat. On the way back to the motel, they stopped and picked up some more booze. Weasel spent most of the evening complaining about not having any dope until Sean told him to shut up. Neither one of them had a clue about how to run down an address but figured they would worry about that tomorrow.
The next morning while they we’re checking out, Sean said to the clerk, “Were looking for four eighty Manatee loop. You have any idea how to get there?”
The clerk reached under the counter and came up with a map of the area. He laid it on the counter and looked up Manatee Loop. He pointed it out on the map and said, “Manatee loop is only three blocks long, it shouldn’t be very hard to find your address.”
“Thanks man. Can I keep the map?”
“Sure. Have a great day.”
They got in the car and drove to the address. When they were coming up to the place, Weasel said, “I sure can see where this guy might have somethin worth money.” Sean parked in front of the gate, got out of the car and tried to open it.
“Shit. How the hell we gonna get in there without everybody for a mile around knowin?” Weasel said, “Try the garage opener. Lotsa rich people have electric gates.”
Sean pushed the button on the opener attached to the sun visor, the gate opened and the garage door went up. Sean said, “Damn Weasel you’re smarter than you look.”
He pulled the car up to the garage and stopped. It was a three car garage with one double overhead door and one single. The double door went up but the single had stayed down. There was a Lincoln town car in one stall of the double bay. The second bay was taken up with three bikes and a two man kayak.
He got out, put his gun in his belt at the small of his back and hurried in through the garage to the back door. As he passed through the garage he noticed that the stall behind the closed garage door held a little red convertible with the top down. Sean figured this meant that they were home. Since they apparently were not noticed yet Sean went back to the driveway to confer with Weasel.
He told Weasel to go to the front door and ring the bell and returned to the back door. He took out his gun and listen at the door until he heard the doorbell ring. Hearing no movement he tried the door and to his surprise found it unlocked. He stepped inside, took a quick look around and got the general sense of an empty house. He hurried to the front door and found it locked. He unlocked the door just the bell rang again causing him to whirl around and look behind him. He let out a long breath, trying to calm himself and let Weasel in. They made a quick search of the house and then Sean went out in the lanai to make sure the back yard was empty.
“I guess no one is home. I don’t get it there are two cars in the garage.”
“Maybe they went out with somebody that picked em up.”
“Maybe.”
Sean went back to the kitchen door and closed the garage door The two of them walked through the house wide eyed. Weasel said, “This got to be the finest house I ever seen outside a movie.”
Sean said, “Christ, so this is how fuckin rich people live. Once I get my hands on that ball this is how I’m gonna live.”
“What ball’s that?”
“Don’t worry about it.
“What we gonna do Proudfoot?”
“We’re gonna wait awhile. They may just be out.”
“What about the Mustang. Their sure as hell gonna notice that when they come back.”
“Don’t worry about it. They know the car. They’ll just think he came home.”
“Who came home?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
A little later Sean said, “Shit I know where they are. Their at a funeral. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
“I’m going to put the Lincoln in the drive and the Mustang in the garage in case the neighbors know that John is away.”
When Sean pushed the garage door opener he was startled by the alarm but when it quit right of way he figured out what it was. He said to Weasel; “That alarm must go off when the gate opens. That’s some good information to have and it should keep us from being surprised.”
After moving the cars around they spent an hour searching the house for a safe or hiding place, but the only thing they found of interest was Rick’s pistol. Sean let Weasel keep it since he already had one. After that, they sat down in the lanai and drank a couple of Rick’s beers. Weasel said, “That sure is a nice boat Proudfoot. You ever on a boat?”
“Nothing like that. I was in a row boat once, fishing on the Pecos.”
“You think maybe we could take it for a ride.”
“You crazy Weasel what if the neighbors know they’re gone and see us buzzin around in their boat? Hell a neighborhood like this, they’d have the law here in a fuckin heartbeat. I think we better keep a pretty low profile.”
“By the way Weasel, go make sure all the doors are locked. I don’t want to be surprised regardless of the alarm.”
The one thing Weasel didn’t check was the garage door, and Sean had inadvertently left it up.
By nine that night, they had drunk all of the beer in the house plus all they brought with them and decided to go out. They spent some time clearing out the third garage stall so that when they came back they could put the Lincoln in the garage. They then went looking for a bar.
The one Sean picked had quite a few motorcycles in the parking lot. That made Weasel nervous since he kind of put bikers and skinheads in the same category, but he didn’t say anything. The bikers had a money game going on the pool table and paid no attention to the new arrivals. After awhile, Weasel who considered himself a hustler decided to try to get in the game. By eleven o’clock, he had lost all the money he had on him and was begging Sean for more. Sean said, “Maybe pool ain’t your game. I got better things to do with my money than give it to those guys. Sit down. I’ll buy you a burger. You’re bout too drunk to hold a cue anyway. Say, while were waiting for the burgers, go see if those new friends of yours will sell you some pot.”
He figured a little pot wouldn’t cause any problems and that it might get Weasel off his ass for awhile.
While Weasel was dealing for the pot a girl down the bar said, “Would you like to have someone to smoke with?”
When Weasel told Proudfoot what they wanted for the pot, he groused a little but he handed him the money. He then moved down the bar next to the girl that was looking for a free high and asked her name. Sean thought someone should have told her by now that nothing is free, then he thought maybe she knew and didn’t care.
“Virginia McGill, everybody around here calls me Gill.” By the time Weasel came back with the pot Proudfoot had started to lose his interest for hamburgers. He told the girl behind the bar to put the burgers in a bag. As soon as they came Proudfoot paid the bar tab, $110, and the three of them left the bar.
When they got to the car Gill said, “Nice car.”
When they pulled in the drive at the house she let out a low whistle. They had stopped on the way for beer, booze and cigarettes. Sean had decided he was going to have fun tonight. Sean parked in the garage and they went in through the service door. Proudfoot’s little friend was very impressed. She asked if she could look around. When she got back to the kitchen, she asked with an indifferent tone “Your wife Outta town?”
“What the fuck you talking about girl? I ain’t got no wife.”
“Oh, you still live with your mother?’
“Gill, I think you’ve slipped over the edge. My mother’s in New Mexico, If it’s any of your fuckin business.”
“Well there sure as hell is some woman living here.”
“Don’t you worry about no woman, or anything else. We got this place all to ourselves.”
Proudfoot grabbed a bottle of scotch and took Gill into the master bedroom. An hour later when he came out Weasel Said, “Mind if I have some of that?”
Proudfoot shrugged his shoulders and went in the kitchen. Weasel walked in the bedroom as she was dressing.
“What the hell is this, I ain’t no whore and I don’t fuck niggers.” Weasel walked over, hit her in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and threw her on the bed. He came out of the bedroom a half hour later and rolled a joint. She stayed in the bedroom nursing the bottle of scotch.
Sean tried to figure how long it would be before Matt and Etty got back. Given that they had no family there, the funeral should be pretty quick. They had apparently flown to Michigan so you only have one day each way plus a couple of days for the funeral, say four days all together. Hell, it had already been four days since he shot John. They could be back any time. Apparently math wasn’t Sean’s strong suit. He had miscalculated by a bit. It had actually been five days.
The three of them stayed up half the night drinking and smoking. Sean kept the TV tuned to CNN in hopes of hearing something about the shooting in Ann Arbor, but was disappointed. After the little incident with Weasel, the girl wanted to be taken back to the bar, but Sean told her to sit down and shut up. When she realized the only way she could get out of there was to walk, she decided it wasn’t such a bad place after all. Besides there was plenty of booze and weed left.
She rummaged around the cupboards looking for some munchies until she found a box of microwave popcorn. She popped up four bags of it, went in the living room and dumped it on the coffee table. She looked at the TV and said, “Is that the best shit you can find to watch?”
Sean answered, “It’s not the only fucking TV in the house. If you don’t like it, go watch something else.”
She sat on the floor by the coffee table rolling a joint and said, “Excuussee me”
Long before morning, Gill decided she should have stayed at Curly’s. By the time she finally got to sleep she was plotting revenge. She figured she might come back with some of her biker friends and teach the Indian and his nigger buddy a lesson.
The following morning, before daylight four uniformed police officers from the Crystal River P.D. came up the river in a small boat with an electric motor, tied up at the dock and stationed themselves across the back yard. Three uniformed officers from the Citrus County Sheriff’s department climbed over the front yard wall and scattered across the front yard. They had three high candlepower flashlights with them. The police Chief and the two detectives from Ann Arbor stood looking through the front gate. At precisely six o’clock, the Chief raised a bullhorn to his mouth. “Leave your weapons inside and come out with your hands above your heads”
At the same time, they turned on the lights.