Gibson went back to combing through dark-net sites without any luck.
Their new routine was to meet in Lea’s apartment above the Toproll every night after her shift to recap their progress. It didn’t make for long conversations. They were getting nowhere but fed up. Lea and Gibson were both losing faith in the mythical Truck Noble. Instead, they spent more and more of their time trying to scheme ways to get Merrick’s SIM card, which largely consisted of Lea and Gibson drawing up a plan to take it from Merrick in the prison, and Swonger shooting holes in it. Cue another argument.
But the real source of tension looming down over them all was the mysterious guest of the hotel’s fifth floor. No one in town had the first idea about who was up there. Well, Jimmy Temple knew, but he’d made his deal with the devil and wasn’t saying. However, his demeanor painted a grim picture, having turned jumpy, eyes red-rimmed, a white stubble settling across his jowls, as if sleep wasn’t coming so easy these days. The look of a good man who knew more than he cared to know. Even housekeeping had been banished from the fifth floor. Meals were delivered by the phalanx of bodyguards, who also collected fresh sheets and towels each morning.
In a town devoid of juicy gossip, the fifth floor had become the lead story. There was a sense of personal affront that an entire hotel floor had been booked for one guest. That kind of excess served only to remind Niobe of its own perpetual insolvency, stirring resentment. Resentment and curiosity as the identity of the guest on the fifth floor festered in the imagination of Niobe. And, as any good horror-film fan knew, the human imagination was its own worst enemy.
Most nights at the Toproll featured drunken talk of confronting the bodyguards and demanding an explanation, but whenever the bodyguards came around, the tough talkers made themselves scarce. The bodyguards favored the booth by the door, and anyone sitting there would vacate spontaneously when they arrived, the bar muted and sullen until they departed. One more thing in town the visitors in Niobe owned.
Gibson wasn’t surprised at the town’s reaction: the bodyguards gave off a professional, not-to-be-messed-with vibe and were definitely not in the question-answering business. Gibson felt hostile eyes on him too and had stopped visiting the Toproll except after hours. He might not be from the fifth floor, but he also didn’t belong, and, like white blood cells, the locals felt an indiscriminate need to excise any and all foreign bodies from their midst. Bottom line, the tension building in Niobe needed an outlet. There had been a steady uptick in the number of bar fights, petty theft, and domestic violence calls, and the drunk tank was standing room only most nights.
Niobe sheriff Fred Blake was a thin white man in his late sixties whose defining characteristic was a certain world-weariness. His default expression was the almost-imperceptible shake of the head of a man who couldn’t quite believe the incompetence surrounding him. Despite being a sheriff’s department of one, Fred moved at his own pace and of his own volition. If the town didn’t like it, they could get off their asses and hire him some deputies. So far the town hadn’t taken him up on his challenge. Thirty years in the Army as a transportation-management coordinator clearly informed his philosophy about law enforcement. His job was to keep the town running. Some town sheriffs resented outside interference, but according to Margo, Fred Blake was the first one on the phone to the state police on the rare occasions that something outside his typical purview occurred. Unfortunately, a full drunk tank didn’t warrant a call to the staties. So what to do? The sheriff had gone so far as to contemplate an outright shuttering of the Toproll for a week until people settled the hell down. That had not gone over well.
“Instead of threatening us, who live here, you need to go on over to the hotel and—” Old Charlie began.
“And what?” the sheriff shot back. “Arrest them for pissing you off? For renting more rooms than they need? Conspicuous consumption isn’t a crime, last I checked.”
“What about the women?”
Gibson hadn’t been the only one to note the steady stream of young working girls being escorted, two at a time, up to the fifth floor.
The sheriff shrugged at this too. “No law against that either.”
“They’re prostitutes. Everyone knows it.”
“Everyone knows? Well, hell, if everyone knows, then I should probably go arrest them,” the sheriff said with a patented shake of his head.
The tension in town continued to rise.
On the second day, Swonger lost contact with Truck Noble. A dozen text messages went unanswered without a word. It didn’t surprise Gibson. Noble had grown either tired or suspicious of Swonger’s insistence. Probably read it as desperate, which they were. Why would Noble risk exposure for a one-off deal that wasn’t going to see him retire to an island? Gibson said as much and left Swonger and Lea to argue among themselves.
It was past two a.m., but Gibson didn’t feel much like sleeping, so he walked down Tarte Street, hoping the night air would give him fresh eyes. He didn’t see anyone on the street and liked having the town to himself. His evening stroll didn’t last long, however, before Sheriff Blake’s cruiser pulled alongside.
“Evening, Sheriff. Can I help you?”
“Come on and get in. I’d be appreciative if you spared me making this difficult.”
The cruiser came to a halt, and Gibson heard the doors unlock.
“So don’t ask you what this is all about or if I’m in some kind of trouble? Just get in the back?”
“Like I said, I’d appreciate it.” Blake’s hand rested lightly on the grip of his service weapon.
Gibson looked up and down Tarte Street, suddenly wishing for a little more foot traffic. Whatever Blake wanted, it wasn’t official. Gibson felt curious to know if his suspicions were correct. He tried the passenger door.
“In back is good,” the sheriff said.
Gibson did as he was asked, and the doors locked behind him. The cruiser made a U-turn and drove back up Tarte Street. They stopped in front of the hotel. He’d been in the cruiser for less than a minute. Long enough to rattle him, which he guessed was the point.
“Inside,” Blake said as the doors unlocked.
In the lobby, a pair of men from the fifth floor patted him down and directed him to the oval parlor off the lobby. Gibson recognized the man at the chess table as the one who’d been reading a newspaper in the lobby the day he’d checked in. Gibson sat opposite, the board empty—not that they weren’t playing a game.
“I wonder . . . Will we get off on a good foot?” the man purred in a soft Mexican accent. “My name is Emerson Soto Flores.”