Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay by Gordon Carroll (good books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

were also getting paid for taking the risk, but since the firm of Kinsley, Gifford and Vanderzee were the proxy cosigners of the bond, there wasn’t much risk to be had on this deal. Even if Pimples didn’t show for court there was no doubt the rest of the bail would be paid in full.

Of course, there was no way a couple of slugs like Pimples and Baldy could afford Kinsley, Gifford and Vanderzee, so the question was, who had paid for them? And why?

Perhaps I would visit their office tomorrow. Trying to sweat information out of lawyers like them would be as useless as trying to sweat info out of Sasha. I guess I’d have to use my charm. I hoped that would work better than it had on Sasha, I was all out of money.

My watch showed it to be ten to four. Too early for the lawyers. I decided to try Pimple’s house. By now Baldy should have gotten his car from Gage’s place and maybe they were hanging around out front talking about their big day. Right.

I pulled across the street from the house. The lights were out and the torn screen mesh of the open storm door flapped in the breeze. The three junk cars were still in the driveway as was the old Merc by the curb. No sign of Baldy’s car.

Hmm. I could wait but it seemed useless for now. If he was inside he was probably sleeping. Besides, my cooler from earlier was practically empty and the ice was all melted. A stakeout with no snacks is like a day without sunshine. I took out the other two driver’s licenses I’d confiscated from Baldy and Skull Shirt. Baldy lived about ten miles away in Adams County. Skull Shirt lived in Sheridan, closer to my place. I drove to Baldy’s.

When I got there I found a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn, if you could call it a lawn. The place made Pimple’s house look like a palace. There were no curtains. I looked inside and there was no furniture either. I saw a bunch of trash and a charred circle over by a corner where someone tried to start a fire. Around the back I found a boarded up window and two other windows that were broken out. I could have gone inside but the place was obviously deserted.

By the time I got to the address in Sheridan it was after five and on the verge of getting light out. The place was a nasty little trailer park on Santa-Fe. There were about fifteen trailers and seven or eight adobe shacks the landlords had the gall to call houses. The place was named Twilight Trailers and was obviously section eight housing where people on welfare paid a minimal fee to stay there while the government paid the rest of their rent. Talk about a slum. This was the slummiest slum I’d ever seen.

There were two entrances, one from the west the other from the east. I took the long way around and came in from the west. I parked at the far end and walked the single street between the trailers and shacks. The street was about a car and half width. An eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the park except for the two entrances. An old dog, so lean his ribs showed cleanly through his short fur, looked up at me from where he was lying near a porch. His eyes were clouded with cataracts but he raised his nose, searching me out. I figured him for a guard dog; they’ve grown real popular with the druggies lately. I thought he might bark, but as I passed, he just laid his head down and went back to sleep.

This place had tweakerville written all over it. Meth houses had been popping up all over Colorado for the past decade. The difficulty in obtaining ephedrine by stealing allergy and cold medicine since government regulations made it harder for tweakers and cookers to steal it in large quantities, had slowed the tide for awhile, but where there’s money to be made, there will be drugs to be consumed, and once again Meth was on the rise.

Baldy lived in trailer 19. Three trailers down from the east entrance on the north side of the street. It was dark inside, with no porch light, but there were curtains on the windows. Tweakers love to set up house in trailers and hotel rooms. There’s less overhead and fewer nosey neighbors with property values to worry about.

I heard a door open behind me, and a big, bald guy with glasses and a sack lunch came out of one of the adobe shacks. He saw me and nodded in my direction. I nodded back. Nice enough fellow. The guy started to get in his pickup but stopped and looked at me again.

“You looking for Anna?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m looking for Jimmy Ballantine.” Baldy’s real name.

He pursed his lips as though giving it some thought. “Used to be a Ray Ballantine lived there three or four years ago. I don’t remember no Jimmy Ballantine though.” He thought some more, rubbing his chin with spade shaped fingers. “I do seem to remember him talking about having a son once; never seen him around here though. Ray died two years ago. Miss Anna Poulton lives there now. She’s a widower and a sweet old lady. She don’t get out of bed this early though. You need to talk to her you’d best come back after ten.”

I sighed. “No, just looking for Jimmy. Thanks for the help.” I waved and walked back to my car. Bald Guy waved back and got in his truck. The old dog didn’t even raise his head this time. Some guard dog. So much for my tweakerville theory. Nice bald guys and sweet old ladies. Sheesh.

My house was about fifteen minutes away so I went home and started loading up my cooler again.