NEW
YORK
STRIP
W.J. COSTELLO
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
NEW YORK STRIP
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2017 by W.J. Costello.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. For information address: wjcostello.com
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The Rip Lane novels:
Missouri Loves Company
Florida Son
California Bust
New York Strip
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER 1
THE MECHANIC SHOOK his head.
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I know,” I said.
He tapped his knuckles on the side of my motor home.
“These things can be deadly when the brakes go out.”
“Fortunately I was on a flat road when it happened. Would have been a different story on a mountain road.”
“No doubt.”
The warmth of the garage felt good.
I looked out the window.
A light dusting of snow on the ground. Trees shivering in the Lake Ontario breeze. Gloomy sky.
A parade through town. Despite the snow. The cold. The gloom.
A Thanksgiving Day parade. Turkey float. Pilgrim costumes. Marching band. Waving flags. Cheering spectators.
The town of Rising Falls lies some forty miles north of Syracuse. A small town. A New York town.
I sipped my coffee. It warmed me. I turned back to the mechanic.
“How long will it take you to repair the brakes?”
“Not long. You and your wife should be back on the road by late afternoon.”
“She’s not my wife.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Friend.”
“With benefits?”
The man liked Kelly. He made that clear. With his eyes. With his words. Not that I could blame him. But he was old enough to be her father. She was only twenty-one and he looked to be in his forties.
Men are all the same. No matter the age. No matter the culture. We all desire young women. Our brains are genetically hardwired that way.
“What are you two talking about?” Kelly said when she entered the garage.
“Earl here was just telling me we should be back on the road by late afternoon.”
“Cool.”
Earl the mechanic wiped his hands on a greasy rag while he studied the front of Kelly’s black turtleneck sweater.
Earlier that morning she and I had left a Watertown hospital where her father lay dying of lung cancer. The lifetime smoker had tried to kick the habit but never could. Now it would cost him his life.
“Been behaving yourself, Rip?” he had said from his hospital bed.
“Nope,” I said. “Have you?”
“Of course not.”
Kelly waited out in the hospital hallway while Blake tearfully poured out his heart to me.
“Kelly’s a stripper. My own daughter. She works at a strip club called Starbutts. It’s the sleaziest place in Watertown. Have you got any idea how much that hurts me? Where’d I go wrong? I sent her to private schools. I supported her dreams. So what the hell happened?”
“Not easy being a single father. Especially with a girl.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I think you did a great job with her. You really did. Mary would have been proud of you.”
His wife had died shortly after Kelly’s birth.
A nurse entered the room.
“I see you’ve got a visitor,” she said and set down a tray of food.
“This is Rip Lane,” Blake said. “We used to work together. Rip was a deputy U.S. marshal too. One of the best.”
I tried to look modest.
“Rip retired in his mid-forties after twenty-five years of service. Now he travels around the country in an RV. Living life as free as a bird. Going where he wants when he wants.”
The nurse turned to me.
“What kind of RV?”
“An Outlaw Class A toy hauler.”
“Toy hauler? What’s that?”
“It’s got a garage in the back. I keep my toys there.”
“What kind of toys?”
“Motorcycle. ATV. Bicycle.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You’re welcome to join me. Anytime.”
She waggled her wedding ring.
“Nice meeting you, Mr. Lane.”
When she had gone Blake chuckled.
“Mr. Flirt. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Why mess with perfection.”
A machine beeped. The one that monitored his vitals.
“That a problem?” I said.
“Only if it doesn’t beep.”
“What are you supposed to do if it doesn’t beep?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not.”
“Because it means I’m dead.”
“Oh.”
“I’m pulling your leg.” A grin. “I don’t know what the hell the beep means. You think I’m a doctor or something? I think they’ve got it rigged to beep every so often just to irritate me.”
“Must be part of the Hippocratic oath.”
Hospitals make me uneasy. That feeling is a recent development. It had started a year earlier when my father had a heart attack.
At the time I had been visiting my parents in Maryland. The three of us were watching TV when my father compl
ained of a pain in his chest. We immediately drove him to the closest hospital.
Good thing too. He had a heart attack minutes after arriving.
The following day he transferred to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. A cardiologist diagnosed him with atherosclerosis. My father needed an operation. He needed a stent.
The operation took only a few hours but it seemed like a lifetime to my mother and me. Hours of pacing. Crying. Praying.
Memories ran through me. Memories of the best father in the world. The best husband ever.
Memories can torture you. Especially the good ones. Especially.
The happiest moment of my life was when I saw my father smiling after the operation. The same smile I had seen all my life. The same smile I hope will always be there.
“Kelly made me a promise,” Blake told me. “She did that when I told her about my condition.”
“What’d she promise?”
“To turn her life around. To stop stripping. To get a college education.”
“Good for her.”
“She’s been accepted to nursing school.”
“Where?”
“University of Rochester.”
“Isn’t that where Mary went?”
He nodded.
“That’s why Kelly chose it.”
“When’s she start?”
“End of January.”
“She going to live in the dorms?”
“She wants to find an apartment off campus. Dorm life isn’t for her. Too much noise. Too many interruptions. Not enough privacy.”
“That’s how I remember it.”
He frowned.
“I’ve got a problem though.”
“What.”
“Kelly needs help finding a good apartment in a safe neighborhood. But I can’t help her. Not in my condition.”
He let that hang out there for a moment.
“Anyway that’s my problem.”
He could have asked me for the favor. I would have gladly said yes. But he chose to let me step up to the plate.
“I can help her.”
“Really?”
“You bet. I’ll drive her to Rochester and help her find an apartment. Problem solved.”
CHAPTER 2
EARL THE MECHANIC blew his nose like a French cop car.
“Bless you,” I said.
“Thanks.”
He had a tattoo under his left eye. A prison tattoo. The kind of tattoo you get when you kill somebody.
Unfortunately I couldn’t take my RV to another garage. Earl’s Pump-n-Munch was the only game in town and it would have been too dangerous to drive any farther with faulty brakes. Especially with the snowy blacktop.
Snow. Not my favorite weather condition. I try to avoid it.
Not just snow but all unpleasant weather. Floods. Hurricanes. Wildfires.
Usually I can outrun bad weather. Sometimes I can’t. But I always try.
The older I get the less tolerance I have for extreme temperatures. Extreme cold. Extreme heat.
I prefer moderate temperatures. Spring and fall temperatures. Not summer and winter temperatures.
Summer in northern states. Winter in southern states. That is how I travel. Like a migratory bird. It is one of the many benefits of the mobile lifestyle.
Late November in upstate New York? Not part of my plan.
But life happens.
Death happens too. Soon it would happen to Blake. I wanted to see him one last time before it did.
Earl’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen. Then he looked at me.
“I’ve got to take this call. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“No problem.”
He entered the office and shut the door.
Kelly and I went to the window and stood watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Drummers marched in place for a moment. Beating in unison. Louder and louder. Then they moved on. Stepping with military precision. Legs up. Legs down. Legs up. Legs down.
Girls twirled batons. Costumed people waved. Cops rode motorcycles.
Spectators stood huddled. Hugging themselves against the cold. Puffing out white plumes of breath.
I sipped my coffee. Wishing I were in Florida. White sandy beach. Bright orange sun dipping into the glittering sea. Wet bikinis sashaying past.
My reverie ended when the office door creaked open.
“The burger joint down the street phoned me,” Earl told us. “Said my lunch order’s ready for pickup. I won’t be gone long. You two want me to bring anything back for you? Burgers? Fries? Drinks?”
“Not for me,” I said. “But thanks.”
“Me neither,” Kelly said.
Earl took three steps toward the door. He stopped. He turned back.
“You two in a hurry to get out of here?”
I nodded.
“We’d like to hit the road as soon as possible.”
“That’s what I thought. Maybe one of you could go pick up my lunch order for me? That’d give me more time to work on your RV. You’d get out of here sooner.”
I thought about that.
Seems like a good idea. But who should go?
Not me. I’m not leaving Kelly here alone with Earl. Who knows what the man would do?
Not both of us either. Somebody needs to stay here and keep an eye on Earl. Otherwise he might try to overcharge me for unneeded work. Everybody’s got an angle.
“You want to go?” I said to Kelly.
“Sure.”
Earl looked disappointed. As if he wanted me to go.
I knew the look. I had seen it before. On my ex-wife’s face.
Earl handed some cash to Kelly.
“The burger joint’s called Burgatory. You go three blocks down that way and then turn left at the light. You go two more blocks and you’ll see it on your right. Big sign out front. You can’t miss it.”
“I’ll be right back.”
CHAPTER 3
WITH ALL THE grease on Earl you would think he would move like greased lightning.
But he moved in slow motion. Fumbling with tools. Accomplishing practically nothing.
I watched him. He didn’t seem to know the first thing about repairing brakes. Or about tools.
“Where’d you train to become a mechanic?”
Prison?
“Here and there,” Earl said from under my RV.
“Here? There? Never heard of those places.”
He cleared his throat.
“Yeah. Well. I moved around a lot.”
I let it go. No point in irritating him.
A TV sat on a table.
“Mind if I turn on your TV?”
“Go right ahead.”
The TV flickered to life. I sat down on a bench where I could watch TV and Earl at the same time. I sipped my coffee.
A talk show.
A seventyish host. Gray hair. Glasses. Dark suit. No tie.
Rough-looking guests. Two of them. A married couple. Not Harvard grads. Probably not even high-school grads. A fat woman in skimpy clothes. Hair like straw. Tattoos and piercings in places that hurt. A thin man in a flannel shirt. Not lucky in the hair department.
The crowd hoots. The crowd howls.
Excitement builds.
Two security guards stand ready.
The two guests start arguing. The wife jabbing her finger into the air. Acres of flesh jiggling disturbingly.
Apparently somebody cheated on somebody. Big surprise.
The woman stands up from her chair. She pushes her husband. He stands up from his chair. They stand face-to-face. Spitting out bleeped words.
A security guard steps between them.
The yelling gets louder. More violent. Ugly.
The host stands idly by. Doing nothing. Allowing the circus to continue. Probably thinking about the ratings going through the roof. All the money he will make. The things he can buy. An infinity pool. A better mistress. Maybe a mistress with an infinity p
ool.
Somebody else comes out onstage. A transvestite. Big feet bulging out of pink stilettos. Sequined cocktail dress. Smeared lipstick.
He/she plants a big kiss on the husband. They hug. They hold hands.
The crowd explodes with cheers.
A chair rises. It hits the transvestite. He/she crumples to the floor.
The wife drops the chair. Then tramples the transvestite.
Applause. Whistling. Laughter.
I shut off the TV. I sipped my coffee. I eyed Earl.
Still working. Still moving like a snail.
I took out my phone and checked the time.
Where’s Kelly? She should have been back by now. What’s taking her so long?
“Hey Earl.”
His head popped out from under my RV.
“Yeah?”
“That burger joint’s only five blocks away. Right?”
“That’s right.”
Five blocks there. Five blocks back. Ten blocks total. A brisk walking speed is three mph. At that speed Kelly could walk one block per minute in this town. So it should have taken her no more than ten minutes to walk to the burger joint and back.
But it’s been half an hour.
Maybe she had to wait for the lunch order.
Maybe she stopped to watch the parade.
Or maybe something happened to her. She could have slipped on the snow. She could have gotten lost.
I hit the speed dial on my phone.
Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring . . .
No answer.
Her voice mail picked up.
“Kelly? It’s Rip. Where are you? You okay? Phone me when you get this message.”
Damn.
Now I’ve got to go look for her. I hate to leave Earl unsupervised. That could lead to all kinds of new problems. But I’ve got no choice.
I wrote my phone number on a slip of paper.
“Hey Earl.”
He rolled out from under my RV.
“Here’s my phone number. I’m going to go look for Kelly. She should have been back by now. Phone me if she shows up here. Okay?”
“You bet.”
“How’s the repair going?”
“Should be done in no time.”
Yeah. Right.
CHAPTER 4
WHEN I EXITED Earl’s Pump-n-Munch a blast of cold air hit me.
I put on my knit cap. My ears thanked me. My hands smiled gratefully when I thrust them deep into the pockets of my heavy wool coat. Happy ears. Happy hands. Happy man.