“Did you take it lying down? Or did you show a little gumption?”
“Lying down. Besides, he had a good idea,” she said. “I’ll knock on your door in twenty minutes.”
—
THE DALLAS MORNINGwas crisp and cool, with the nice smooth feeling that a hot place gets at night. Not quite real autumn in Texas, not yet. Rae drove, Bob yawning next to her, and they swung through a Starbucks for coffee.
“So what do you think of Lucas?” Rae asked when they were back in the car again. She’d told Bob about looking Lucas up on the Internet, and what she’d found.
“He’s a smart guy,” Bob said. “And he likes the pressure. You know that thing about getting too close to the fire and you’ll get burnt? He’s already been burnt a few times, and I believe deep down in his little black heart, he likes it. Likes the action. He’s been chasing Poole for less than a full week and he’s already been in two shoot-outs.”
“Yeah. We gotta think about that,” she said, sipping at her latte.
“I’ve already thought about it,” Bob said.
“What’d you conclude?”
“He’s like us,” Bob said. “If he doesn’t get killed, or get one of us killed, he could be somebody you could hang out with.”
“A friend? You think?”
“Something like that. Maybe. At least you’ve got somebody to play basketball with.”
“I’m interested in seeing how that’s going to work out—is he gonna get tougher with me, like really rough, or is he gonna back off a bit? Not polite, exactly, but you know—try to finesse me.”
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna try to cut his heart out,” Rae said. “But I don’t know if I’ll get it done.”
—
THE TRAFFICwasn’t bad going across town—they got behind a car with a bumper sticker that said “OLD AND RETIRED” and in smaller letters “Go Around Me.”
They did. They were at Derrick Arnold’s place by seven o’clock, met by an Addison cop who had a key.
They went inside, found that it had been thoroughly scrubbed and smelled of industrial-strength lemon-scented bleach. The bird was missing, and the cop said it had been picked up by the local humane society.
The guitar was where Rae had first seen it, sitting next to its amp. They examined it inch by inch and found several different brand names, on the bridge, the tuning machines, and pickups. All those looked specific to the parts, though; then Bob spotted the guitarcase, which had been stuck in a closet, and inside, the papers for the guitar, including the guarantees for all the parts and also guarantees on the body parts from Poody Parts of Indianapolis, Indiana.
“That’s what we need,” Bob said. He looked at his watch: “Too early, the place won’t be open yet. How about some breakfast?”
—
ON THE RECOMMENDATIONof the Addison cop, they drove out to the Ray ’O Sun diner, ordered pancakes (Rae) and waffles (Bob) and eventually got a phone call through to a man named Cy Wynn, who said he was the owner and sole employee of Poody Parts; Poody himself was dead.
Rae told Wynn, “What we need is addresses for people from Dallas who bought parts from you.”
“I’d be happy to give them to you, but my, uh, computer record system isn’t exactly fast,” Wynn said. “It could take a while to search through... a few hundred names, at least, in a place as big as Dallas.”
They were on Rae’s speakerphone and Bob said, “This would probably be a repeat customer, not a one-off. Might have bought a bunch of stuff from you. As we understand it, this guy built quite a few guitars.”
“That’d narrow it down,” Wynn said. “You know what brand name he sold them under?”
“There’s really nothing on the guitar like a brand name. He supposedly hand-carved and hand-painted the tops and backs. The one we saw had this kind of distorted checkerboard on it, wrappingaround the back, where it narrowed down and twisted into a painted hole...”
“Oh, sure, that’s Chuck Wiggin,” Wynn said. “Like Chuck Wagon, but W-I-G-G-I-N. He does good work, mostly on Les Paul, Tele, and Strat replicas. He’s not in trouble, is he?”
“You got a name and address?” Rae asked.
