chapter 68
AFTER HANGING UP with Levi, Moon Pie started to wonder how the doctor had known he would be there. In order to keep a property fresh, he rarely poached on the same piece more than a couple of times a year. The most plausible explanation was that the law had placed a tracking device on his truck. That’s the only way they coulda known where I was this mornin’. I know Levi didn’t tell ’em, and I doubt that my janitor buddy at the hospital ratted me out, cuz he knows that I’d kill him.
Moon Pie quickly entered the Gold Mine through the back door, stopped, and looked around. Something felt wrong. He pulled a pistol from its holster inside the waistband of his jeans. He realized that the alarm wasn’t chirping. He went to the keypad and saw that the system was activated. He typed in his code, and the lights flashed to green and the LED screen changed to “UNARMED.”
“That’s really freakin’ weird,” Moon Pie said aloud and re-holstered his pistol. His mind went through the mechanics of the alarm, but nothing added up. Maybe the rain shorted something out.
As he stood in the dark thinking, he heard Levi’s truck drive up. He relaxed a bit and walked into his office. As soon as he sat at his desk, he saw the tobacco can with the shiny silver lid. He reached out to touch it. What the hell! he thought.
Levi busted in the office door, full throttle as usual. “You ready, dude?”
“Almost. I just got here.” Moon Pie started to tell Levi about the alarm but decided against it.
Levi had brought biscuits from the gas station and dropped one with sausage and mustard on Moon Pie’s desk.
“You know whose this is?” Moon Pie asked Levi, tossing him the can of Copenhagen. “It was on my desk. Who do we know whose name begins with a W?”
Levi looked at the lid and turned it in his hands. “That’s not a W; it’s an M.”
Moon Pie took a bite of his biscuit. “Well, genius, who do we know whose name begins with an M?”
“Mom.”
“That dips Copenhagen?”
“Mom.”
“My mom or your mom?”
“Mine.”
“You sure come from trash.”
“Like your ass is any better.”
“My momma don’t dip Copenhagen! Is that your mom’s can?” Moon Pie asked, exasperated.
“Nope. I don’t know whose it is. Maybe it was brought in to get some cash for it. The M’s gold-plated.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Bailey probably didn’t know what to do with it and laid it on my desk till Monday.”
Levi leaned against the doorframe, slowly eating his fried-bologna biscuit. “So the doc knew you were there?”
“I think so.”
“That’s weird.”
“How could he know that? Lucky guess, you think?”
“I doubt it. Maybe. But I doubt it.”
“It’s the first weekend. It stands to reason that he could be thinkin’ he might have poachers.”
“What about that device on your ankle?”
“It ain’t like they’re gonna be sharin’ info with the law.”
“Yeah, you’re right ’bout that.”
“I gotta have a trackin’ device planted on my truck.”
“Damn…we should check it out. We need to use a lift to look underneath. That’s where it would be.”
“You think they could track my cell phone?” Moon Pie asked as he looked at it.
“Hell yes! I’ve heard how they can triangulate off cell towers and figure out real close where folks are at.”
“Now that I think about it, they don’t even gotta do that. I got this app that lets me find my phone wherever it is. They can get the carrier to do it for them. Damn phone companies. All big businesses are hooked into the government and politicians and vice versa, and we’re the ones gettin’ screwed cuz of it!”
“That’s gotta be it.”
“We should go back to prepaid cells. They’re almost impossible to trace and track. We’ll check out my truck after we meet. We’ll use your truck today to be safe.”
“Dang it. I love my BlackBerry. I hate to give it up.”
“You can keep it; just don’t carry it when we’re workin’.”
“Good. Okay. Thanks.”
“Let’s get the dough and hit the road. Go look out the back door and make sure it’s clear,” Moon Pie said as he stood to open the safe.
Touching the coded keypad, Moon Pie thought about his phone betraying him. He had never considered that before. The last code beeped, and the lock released. He turned the handle, swung open the door, and almost immediately started screaming a string of cuss words that would make a crab fisherman blush.