Free Cold Quarry by Andy Straka Page A

what do you know?” Toronto said, surveying the landscape. “I’ve heard of this place.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Buildings are mostly controlled by rival gang bangers from Detroit and Philadelphia, other cities up north. Lot of dealing going on in here.”
    Right now the place looked asleep.
    “Where is the coordinate exactly?” We were passing over a speed bump, curving uphill between the buildings.
    “Hold on a second. Pull over here.”
    Toronto punched a few buttons on the unit and waited for a response as I pulled to the curb.
    “Looks like you’re just about right on top of it,” he said.
    “Okay. So my friend from the woods visited here. A user maybe?”
    “Nah. White boy’d be more likely to get his fix over on the West End.”
    “Maybe Higgins has mounted a new recruiting drive.”
    “Sure. ‘Cept I doubt the brothers who live here would throw him and his bunch much of a grand reception.”
    “I see your point.”
    “I think we’re going to have to have a talk with Bo Higgins about this one,” he said.
    “Let’s,” I said.
    We drove back down along the interstate, past the few high-rise hotels and office buildings and state capitol, before crossing the Kanawha again back into the far south side of Charleston, which didn’t border South Charleston. Go figure. The way the topography, the interstate, and the river twisted out here, you knew you still had a long way to go before you got to Kansas.
    The West Virginia headquarters of the Stonewall Rangers Brigade on MacCorkle Avenue was not as impressive as the name might imply. The building Toronto pointed out as we drove into the lot looked like the sawed-off end of an old tobacco barn attached to the back end of Bo Higgins’s used-car dealership—BEST DEALS ON WHEELS—RIDE TODAY FOR LESS! An array of late-model sedans, station wagons, and sport utes with a decidedly made-in-the-USA flavor occupied the lot.
    The gray sky had begun to brighten some more, revealing a flurry or two, but despite the cold, a door to the small showroom floor hung partway open. Traffic out front on the street at this hour of the morning was all but nonexistent.
    “So let me get this straight,” I said, searching for a wide enough parking spot among the mostly occupied spaces. “Chester and you listened to this guy’s spiel. What else did Chester have to say about it?”
    Toronto shrugged. “He said he thought the speakers raised some interesting questions, even if they were quite a ways off on the answers.”
    “White supremacists raising interesting questions?”
    “Well, just when he was talking to me, Chester liked to call them proletariat whores.”
    “Proletariat whores?” I was trying to figure what Chester might’ve meant by that when a wide spot presented itself. I twisted the pickup into the slot. “At least maybe these guys can tell us what happened to Elo.”
    “Maybe.”
    “While they’re in the midst of divulging all their goals and schemes to us.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Which we plan to discuss now with this major general head of the whole operation.”
    “Not major general. Lieutenant colonel.”
    “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
    The man who poked his head out of the showroom to see who’d entered his parking lot was a bony figure with a high-domed head and a coif of white hair neatly combed to one side. His face had that rugged Western look that said he mostly didn’t give a damn; his uniform, despite his apparent rank, was a blue-and-white-checked flannel shirt over blue jeans, black cowboy boots that resembled the pair Toronto had on, and a white turtle-neck. He squinted suspiciously at my truck with its Virginia plates until he recognized Toronto climbing out of the passenger side.
    “Jake Toronto, sir. What brings you over here this early hour of the day? Got someone wanting to buy a new truck?” Higgins, now grinning, was marching out to greet us. The air smelled of cold paint and chemicals from an auto body place next door.
    “Not