Free Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller by Al Macy Page B

club.
    I took a bite of my sandwich and washed it down with a swig of coffee. “And we’re not mentioning that to Mrs. Winkel, unless it becomes necessary.”
    Peggy mimed locking her lips and dropping the key into her cleavage.
    “Well, that’s an appropriate place for an imaginary key.”
    She punched me on the shoulder. Ow.
    We divided the meager list of Roman’s friends and made some phone calls. And no, I can’t read minds over the telephone. Through walls, yes, long distances, no.
    We came up with only two reachable individuals who might help us. The first, fittingly, was in prison himself, a man known simply as “Eyeball.” I finagled a prison visit, and Peggy and I drove out to the small, low-security facility in Concord. She’d been angling for more involvement, and pointed out that I wasn’t getting a lot of phone calls.
    We took my gas-guzzling, fifty-mile-per-gallon Yaris. We pulled into the parking lot, and Peggy waited by the car while I went through the bureaucratic procedures for my first ever visit to a prison. Mr. Eyeball lived up to his nickname, having a realistic eye tattooed in the center of his forehead. He sat down across from me in the visiting room and picked up his phone. Leaning toward me, he closed his real eyes.
    “Thank you for meeting me today, sir.” I spoke directly to his tattoo, shaking my head. “I’m sorry for the loss of Mr. McCrea, your friend. I’m looking for some information that might save a life.”
    “I’m happy to help you, sir. I don’t get no visitors.”
    Back in the parking lot, Peggy leaned against the car, waving to her new friends. The inmates whistled and waved back from their cell windows.
    “That was quick,” she said.
    “Dead end. Let’s go.”
    I hoped for better luck at the nearby home of a Ms. Irene Nordman. On her sweltering porch, I laid out the situation.
    Irene was pushing fifty, but built right, like a sexy sports car. She laid her hand on my forearm. “I’d get us some iced tea, but every second counts, don’t you think?”
    Her sensuous movements made me sure she’d known Roman McCrea from the sex club. Seemed old for a club like that, but maybe appearance counted. I pictured some carnival-like sign at the entrance: You Must Be This Sexy to Ride.
    “Did you know Donny, or just Roman?” I asked.
     “Yes, I knew them both. Have you checked with Jerry … I can’t remember his last name.”
    Peggy checked the list. “Jerry Edgar.”
    “Right, Edgar. He was Roman’s best buddy.”
    Peggy nodded and looked at her notes. “We couldn’t reach him. He’s on vacation, some backpacking thing, he won’t be back for—”
    Irene snapped her fingers. “Jerry has a shack in Isleton. Isolated. The perfect place to stash someone. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
    We were, in fact, all thinking the same thing: Donny was locked in Jerry’s shack. Irene drew us a map. The place was an hour away, and Peggy and I set off, driving as fast as we could get away with. That is, just above the national fifty-mile-an-hour speed limit.
    Peggy slid her seat back and put her sandaled, waxed, and manicured feet on the dashboard. “So you think this Edgar guy was in on the kidnapping?”
    “Not necessarily. Maybe Roman just used his place without his knowledge, while Edgar was away. Maybe. We’ll know when we get there.”
    After a few wrong turns, we pulled up in front of the shack. “Shack” was the right word for it, assuming it was preceded by “broken down.” Built with scrap lumber, it sat in a yard so full of junk that the place looked as if someone were running a garage sale—a discolored claw-foot bathtub, a treadmill, assorted garden gnomes.
    We called out, “Donny? Donny?” Nothing.
    I broke in, and by that I mean I shifted a sheet of plywood that covered an opening in