Dirty White Boys by Stephen Hunter

Author:Stephen Hunter [Hunter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780440221791
Amazon: 044022179X
Barnesnoble: 044022179X
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1995-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

Bud was changing the oil on his truck when Jen came out and told him the colonel was on the phone. It was Tuesday afternoon, about two. He’d gotten back from Wichita Falls the night before last, not even bothering to call Holly.

Then he had slept late, had had bad nightmares, awakening in a foul mood, no good to man or beast, wife, son, or girlfriend. He had laid low the whole day, grouchy and forlorn, like an old cougar in its cave.

Now he was trying to make himself something human again.

He wiped Valvoline off his hands and went in the house.

“Sir?”

“Bud, I figure if you’re well enough to go bouncing out to Wichita Falls on your lonesome, you might be well enough to do some real work. Am I right?”

“Yes, you are.”

“No uniform necessary, Bud. You can go in plainclothes. I’d carry, though.”

“I always carry, Colonel.”

“You use your truck. Write the mileage, we’ll reimburse.”

“Got it.”

The colonel then explained what had happened.

Around ten yesterday morning, two Rangers had discovered the abandoned Camaro and the Volvo that Lamar had stolen on the Texas side of the Red River. A print team lifted some good latents, which were quickly made as Lamar, Odell, and Richard’s. Also discovered was a hundred yards of green No. 7 rigger’s rope, which could have been bought in any hardware store between Dallas-Ft. Worth and Oklahoma City. It had been stretched across the river. The team had evidently used it to get across.

“Don’t that beat all, Bud? That Lamar, he’s a goddamned genius. We got the bridges covered and helicopters with infrared, and he still beats us. Bud, he’s smarter than that even. The shell that was ejected from the shotgun that killed that lady probation officer? There was a print on it. Lamar’s! He loaded his buddy’s gun, because he knew we already had his prints!”

“He’s a goddamned smart boy, all right,” said Bud, wondering where he fit into the operation.

“Well, maybe Lamar done slipped up just a bit,” said the colonel. “On our side of the river, we found tracks of the car they had stashed to take them out of there. Old C. D. Henderson threw a goddamned red-ass tantrum and got them to make a cast. We faxed the tread to the FBI and we got a make just like that: It’s the pattern for a Goodyear 5400-B, a low-end nonreinforced radial made entirely for Japanese cars with sixty-inch wheelbases and six-inch tire wells. Goddamn if that old drunken coot didn’t hit a jackpot. Only three varieties of car can wear it—your Hyundai Excel, your Toyota Tercel, and your Nissan Sentra, from the years 1991 on. Moreover, two of the companies changed their design last year. So it can only be three model years of the Hyundais and the Toyotas and four model years of the Sentras. The last getaway job’s got to be one of those, you follow?”

“Got you,” said Bud.

“We shook out about forty-two hundred cars registered in South Oklahoma that can wear that set of tires, Bud.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.