He said, “Yeah.” He pulled out his.45 with one hand and his badge case with the other and said, “U.S. marshal, John. We need to talk.”
Stiner’s eyes went from the gun to the badge and he said, “Aw... shit.”
“You got a gun on you?” Lucas asked.
“One under the counter,” he said. “We don’t got much to steal, so it’s not much of a gun.”
Lucas told him to sit back down in the office chair, wheel it to a closed window, and then sit facing the window. “If you try to mess with me, I’ll beat the hell out of you and then I’ll call the FBI,” Lucas said. “If we can have a civilized conversation, none of that might be necessary.”
Stiner wheeled his office chair to the window and Lucas went around behind the counter where somebody had epoxied a cheap plastic holster to the counter wall. A chrome, long-barreled.38 revolver had been stuck into it. The.38 was probably older than Lucas, but when he dumped the shells out onto the counter, they looked reasonably new.
He scooped the shells into his jacket pocket and said, “Now, I need to ask some questions. What happens afterwards depends on the answers.”
A sandwich sign with a clock face on it, with wooden hands, under an inscription that said “Back in a mo’,” was standing in a corner. Stiner gestured at it and said, “Maybe I should put my clock outside.”
“Do it, but don’t run, ’cause if you run, I’ll chase you down and we’ll talk at the federal building,” Lucas said.
“I’m not running,” Stiner said. Lucas went with him as he put the sandwich board on the sidewalk, then they both walked back inside and Stiner locked the door and asked, “You want a Coke or a beer? I can’t honestly recommend the coffee.”
“Coke is fine.”
Stiner got a Coke and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon from a refrigerator, twisted the top off the Pabst, and asked, “What?”
—
“I TAKE ITyou’ve heard from your sister,” Lucas said.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Stiner said. “That’s the worst thing I ever heard of. They were going to cut off her feet? Jesus Christ, what’s happening in the world?”
“They did a lot worse to Garvin Poole’s folks. They didn’t get interrupted,” Lucas said. He told Stiner about the scene at the Poole house, and Stiner stared at him over the PBR, sweat trickling off the side of his nose.
“Shit, man,” he said, when Lucas was finished.
“Yeah. They’re looking for you—you might be the only clue they’ve got,” Lucas said.
“You know who they are?”
“Not specifically. Gar Poole knocked over a dope counting house in Biloxi, and the cartel wants its money back. We’re thinking that Poole may have walked with several million. They want it back and they want to make a point about people who make the mistake of stealing from them.”
Stiner said absently, “Bil-uck-see.”
“What?”
“You said, ‘Bi-locks-ee.’ It’s pronounced ‘Bil-uck-see.’”
“I’ll make a note,” Lucas said.
“Goddamnit,” Stiner said, sitting forward in the office chair. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I haven’t seen Gar in years, and I don’t know how to get in touch with him. If you bust me on those interstate warrants... well, you know who runs the prisons? It ain’tthe guards. If the right guy down in Mexico tells them to, they will chop me up into tuna chum.”
“These guys are Honduran, not Mexican,” Lucas said. “Listen, if you had to get in touch with Poole, I mean, if somebody put a gun to your head... what would you do?”
Stiner thought for a bit, then said, “I know family people for a half dozen guys who are... connected. I guess I’d call up those family people, tell them to get in touch with their man, and tell their guy to have Gar call me. Somebody would probably be able to make a connection, or know how to get a connection made.”
“Would one of those calls be going to Sturgill?”
Stiner’s head came up. “Sturgill Darling? Is he in this?”
“Could be,” Lucas said, keeping his face straight. SturgillDarling... How many could there be?
