Cherry waved his waitress over. “Couple of beers here, hon,” he said. She had the bottles on our table in under two minutes.
I told Cherry everything I could think of. Finding Martin Benson’s body, Trixie’s disappearance, my being left handcuffed in the basement. Flint’s investigation. How Trixie’s dragging me into this mess might cost me my career with the paper. That once I’d learned all I could in Canborough, I was off to Groverton, based on no more than a gas station receipt I’d taken from Trixie’s car.
“If you find her,” Cherry said, “you might learn something that could help me with my open file on the Kickstart murders.”
“Maybe,” I said.
He took a swig from the long-neck bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Are you going to dick around with me anymore?”
“No,” I said.
Our cheeseburgers arrived. They were the size of curling stones, without the handles.
“That’s good. Because you seem like a nice guy, and I’ve set up this thing with Bruce, and it would be a shame to cancel.”
“I appreciate it,” I said.
Cherry worked his hands around the cheeseburger. “If this doesn’t make your heart stop, you’ll really enjoy it.”
My heart was still beating when we left, but I was pretty sure I’d come down with a touch of lung cancer. My clothes reeked of cigarette smoke. When we came out into the night air, I sucked in as much of it as I could, feeling as though I’d just emerged from a house fire.
“You need to hang out in more dives,” Cherry said. “I thought newspaper reporters were a bunch of hard-drinking, heavy-smoking types.”
“That’s kind of changed over the years,” I said. “Now we all own minivans and have to leave work early to get our kids to soccer.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Cherry said.
“What?” I said.
“You’ll see.”
Cherry turned into an industrial area on the outskirts of Canborough. He slowed as we passed a low-rise concrete-block building with bars on the windows. Surveillance cameras and spotlights were mounted in several spots just under the eaves. Half a dozen motorcycles, big ones with sweeping handlebars, were parked out front.
“Clubhouse,” Cherry said. “This is where the Comets hang out, conduct their business. Some of them even sleep here, pretty much live here.”
“Wingstaff?”
“No. He’s got a house in town. Doesn’t look like a bunker, but it’s still got plenty of surveillance equipment around it.”
I felt a sense of unease sweep over me. “We’re going in here?”
“Huh? No. This is just part of the tour. We’re meeting Bruce someplace else.”
Cherry turned around in the gravel lot out front of the clubhouse and headed back into the city’s older residential district. We were driving through a neighborhood of traditional Victorian-type homes when we came upon a large park illuminated with flood-lamps.
We parked, and as we walked toward the park, we could hear the sounds of children’s voices, pounding feet, soft chatter. It was a kids’ soccer match, boys about ten years old, kicking the ball back and forth, working their way from one end of the field to the other. Standing along the sidelines, and sitting in a set of wooden bleachers, parents watched and cheered.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
Cherry ignored me, working his way through the parents. He glanced up the bleachers and started climbing them, a row of seats with each step. Sitting at the top, off to one side, was a large man in his forties, not fat but big, dressed in black jeans and a windbreaker. He was clean-shaven, with dark, neat hair and glasses. A bit Clark Kentish. This, I concluded, could not be the head of a biker gang. Maybe this guy was going to tell us where we could find Wingstaff.
“Hey, Bruce,” Cherry said.
Okay, so I was wrong.
Wingstaff kept his eyes on the field. “Mike, how’s it going?”
“Who’s winning?”
“Other side. We’re getting our ass kicked. Blake got a goal, though.” His eyes caught something, and he was on his feet. “Hey!” he shouted. “Come on!” He sat back down. “It’s not hockey, for Christ’s sake. You can’t check a guy like that.”
“This is the guy I told you about,” Cherry said. Wingstaff sized me up in half a second and returned his eyes to the field.
“Hi,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Anything for Mike here.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You’re looking for some woman?”
“That’s right. I think, although I don’t know for sure, that she might have something to do with Gary Merker, maybe from a few years ago. Or Leonard Edgars.”
“This lady you’re looking for got a name?”
“Trixie Snelling.”
Wingstaff was on his feet again. He coned his hands around his mouth and shouted: “Hey, ref! You wanna borrow my glasses?” He sat back down. “Name don’t mean nothing to me.”