BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 33. Tony Gets In

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Tony walked under the overpass and headed toward a truck stop across the street from the Roadway Inn. A couple of trucks were parked at the fuel pumps on the east side of the building and one faded green pickup truck was at the pump on an adjacent side. Inside, two men sat in a booth eating. Tony guessed them to be the drivers of the trucks. Behind the counter was a woman in her late forties whose name tag said “Sally.”
    Tony took a seat at the counter and lowered his backpack to the floor. Sally smiled and removed her pen and pad from the pocket on the front of her apron. “What can I get you, honey?”
    Tony moved his backpack to a spot between his legs and the counter. “Coffee and a piece of apple pie. That is, if you have any fresh.”
    Sally wrote up the order. “The pie came in fresh this morning.” She walked away and within a few minutes was placing a hot cup of coffee and a wedge of pie in front of him.
    Tony sipped the coffee and picked up the fork. “Thank you.”
    Sally smiled and walked to the end of the counter, where she passed through the opening and walked up to the truck drivers’ booth. She handed them a bill and waited for their money. She rang them up and returned with their change. The two left a tip and went out the side door to their trucks. Sally put the tip in her pocket and cleaned the table. By the time she made it back to Tony, he had finished the pie and most of the coffee. “Refills are free, you want more coffee?”
    She poured the coffee into his cup without waiting for his answer. “Are you a Traveler?”
    It was a code question all the groups recognized, and Tony answered in code, “No, I have a home wherever I go.”
    Sally smiled. “You truly do have a home here, honey. I’ll make a call for you.”
    Tony had finished his third cup of coffee by the time a very tall man, maybe 6'-5", with reddish hair and pock-marked face, walked up to him. “Let’s pick a booth and talk.”
    An hour later they were swapping stories, showing off tattoos, and Tony was Rainbow once more.
    Hate groups around the world go by different names, but they think of each other as brothers in the same war. These groups have a system. Not just anybody can walk in and find a home with them. Rainbow had taken years to build his cover. It had begun before he joined the bikers, and it was the cover that would be checked by the man sitting across from him – Larry Waters – who would now be responsible for Rainbow. If Tony were admitted into the local group but turned out not to be who he claimed he was, he and Waters would face the same fate.
    Larry got up and waved at Sally. “See you tonight, Sis.”
    The two men got into Larry’s Tacoma pickup and Larry drove across the street to the Roadway Inn. Rainbow warned, “You know I can’t register in a motel.”
    Larry slapped him on the back. “Who said anything about registering?” They came up to the registration desk. “Clay, give me the key to our suite.”
    With the key card in hand, they stepped aboard the elevator. Larry took note of the confused look on Rainbow’s face. “The Klan has a suite here. You’ll be here only temporarily, while we check out your story – you understand?”
    Rainbow nodded his head. “Sure, I understand, I’ve just never stayed in a suite before.”
    The elevator opened on the fifth floor, and Larry handed Rainbow the key and held the elevator door open as he stepped off. “It’s at the end of the hall. I have things to take care of, but I’ll stop by tomorrow. There’s a bar and a restaurant downstairs. You can charge everything to the room.”
    Tony opened the door and entered the suite. He had lied to Larry – he had been in a number of suites in his life. This was one of the smaller ones. The front room was about the size of a motel bedroom. It had a TV, a small bar, a couch, and two stuffed chairs. French doors separated the living room from the bedroom, which had a kingsize bed and a big bathroom. There was a large picture window from which you could almost see the river. He had stayed in better, but he had also stayed in a lot worse.
    He put his backpack on the floor beside the bed and got undressed. After a hot shower and shave, he lay on the bed wondering about the group he was about to become a part of.
    He awoke from his nap about 5:00 and dug out some clean clothes from his backpack. Dressed, he headed to the restaurant, off the main lobby. As he entered, the first person he saw was Wayne, in a booth next to a window. The receptionist asked, “How many will there be, sir?”
    Rainbow spoke loud enough to be heard throughout the dining area. “Nothing now, I’ll come back after you finish feeding the monkeys.”
    He turned and walked into the adjoining room, which was the bar, and ordered a beer. He spotted four cameras in the bar alone. Over the years he had gotten into the habit of learning and remembering where all of the cameras were. This motel had more cameras than he had ever seen outside a bank. Besides the restaurant and bar, the motel didn’t have a hallway, stairwell, or lobby that wasn’t covered by cameras. He was sure that the grounds outside were also being viewed at that moment on a monitor somewhere within the motel.
    He was on his second beer and was looking at the mirror behind the bar when he saw Wayne pass the door heading back to the main lobby. He wondered what the odds were that they would both end up at the same motel.
    Rainbow ordered a burger and fries at the bar, where he sat to eat them, and had one more beer before heading back to his room. He was glad not to find Wayne waiting for him in the lobby.
    The message light was flashing on the suite’s phone. Rainbow picked up the receiver, hoping like hell it wasn’t Wayne.
    It was Larry informing him he had passed his background check and would be picked up at 8:00 in the morning and taken to his new home.
    The next morning Rainbow stepped off the elevator into the lobby. He spotted Wayne in a chair across from the checkout desk. Before Rainbow could make it to the desk, Wayne had risen from his chair and walked out the side door toward the parking lot.
    Rainbow handed the key card to the clerk and followed Wayne out the side door. Wayne was already pulling out of the parking lot. Rainbow observed that the fire escape above the side door created about a 6-foot blind spot from the cameras. A plastic garbage can with a rounded top sat beside the exit, and an unopened piece of gum lay on top of it. He picked it up, unwrapped it, and stuck the gum into his mouth as he read the note on the inside of the wrapper: “I believe Banks is KKK.”
    He wadded the wrapper into a ball and shoved it into a pocket, to depose of later. Larry pulled up as he walked out into the lot.
    Rainbow opened the door and got in. “How did you know I was in the parking lot?”
    Larry made a U-turn and came back to the street. “I got a call from the desk clerk. He said you followed a coon out the back door and looked like you were going to tune him up.”
    Larry turned right and headed toward town. Rainbow removed the wrapper from his pocket and the gum from his mouth and threw them both out the window. “I thought about it, but the bastard got out of the parking lot too fast.”
    Larry was shaking his head. “That’s one black boy you need to give a wide berth to – he’s Federal.”
    Rainbow could have gotten an award for his next performance. “Federal? Why didn’t you tell me you had the Feds climbing on you? Hell, I need to get out of town!”
    Larry waved his hand toward Rainbow. “Hold on, don’t get all worked up. This has nothing to do with us. A few blackies have been killed and the Feds think it’s a serial killer. We had nothing to do with the murders, so just stay the hell away from him and you’ll be fine.”
    Rainbow put his head in his hands. “You know I have a warrant out for me in Mississippi. What if he has the sheriff check out any new arrivals?”
    Larry sighed. “Listen, I know what it’s like to be on the run, but believe me, you’re safe here. I’m putting you up at the sawmill. Kirk Johnson has a room and a job waiting for you. This is the beginning of a new life for you.”
    Rainbow smiled. He was inside.

Blake was about to pour more coffee when his phone rang. “Good morning, Wayne.”
    “I thought I’d better check in. Blake, did you know this place is a hotbed for the Klan?”
    Blake smiled. “Well, the sheriff did say something about it.”
    Wayne’s voice became high and louder. “The sheriff said something about it? The sheriff is part of it! The last sheriff, his father, was not only sheriff but also Grand Wizard. I’ll be lucky to get out of here without being hanged. On top of that, Tony hasn’t checked in with me since I saw him at the motel.”
    Blake drank some of his coffee. “I think you mean Rainbow, and I only spoke to the sheriff once, but I didn’t get the impression he was a Klan member. In fact, he seemed concerned that they were the ones doing the killing.”
    Wayne took a deep breath. “Blake, there are small things that you white people do, that us black people pick up on. You don’t even know you’re doing them, but we hear a change in the way a word is used or a person’s head is tilted, and I’m telling you, the sheriff is part of them, or at least in bed with them.”
    Blake had counted on Banks’ help. “Can you work around Banks? And does Rainbow know about the sheriff?”
    Wayne didn’t answer for a little bit. “Sorry, I just pulled into a Kroger’s parking lot and stopped. Yes, Rainbow knows. I dropped him a note back at the motel. I’m going to try to work around this, but black people here are scared. The Klan controls the town. I’m sure that around here everybody believes the Klan is behind these murders. Hell, if not for Bob Rivers’ report, I would believe it too. The Klan hasn’t come out and admitted it, but they also haven’t denied it. I’m not sure how much help I’m going to get from the locals. I’ve tried to make friends with a few, but even the only black cop in town won’t tell me anything – they’re not going to go against the Ku Klux Klan.”
    Blake thought for a few seconds and realized that Wayne and Rainbow might be out of their element. It was sounding more like it would take a long-term FBI probe to determine what was really happening in Decatur. “Wayne, give it more time, and if you find yourself still spinning your wheels, pull the plug and we’ll hand what we have over to the FBI.”
    There was another pause on Wayne’s end of the phone. “I hate the idea of doing that, but without the sheriff in our corner, we have no one covering our back.”
    “Keep me updated.” Blake ended the conversation and laid his phone on the table.

Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers