Chapter 32
Enlisting Susie to Connect the (maybe) Dots
Skip, Rocky and Jack were the first risers Saturday morning, hoping to get an early start on the 325-mile trek to Mamou, Louisiana. Around 9:30 a.m., the skies overcast, Rocky got the call from Huck. “We made it,” Huck said, “and you guys are missing something special. Just got here a half hour ago. When I opened the door to this place – it’s called Fred’s Lounge by the way – you can’t miss it – downtown’s one block long. Anyways, I go to open the door but bang in to this couple dancing – who couldn’t care less – the music is too loud to apologize and they’re half way across the dance floor before I finish easing in. Half the bar is dancing and the other half all smiles. Crazy! Like midnight at nine a.m. The bar’s about ten-feet long and I’m aiming for it when some hefty brunette with a pretty face says, ‘Let’s dance!’ and I’m prancing around the room like everybody else even before I can get a drink. You should be here.”
“Well, we’re not even on the road yet. Good luck with the brunette. I’ll call when we’re getting close,” Rocky says.
Skip was impatient to get going, “Say Jack, how ‘bout this for an idea: Why don’t you and Sally ride in the Yacht and me and Rocky take your Rover? We’ll all meet in Mamou, or wherever we catch up with Huck.”
“Perfect!” said Jack, tossing Skip the keys.
Driving in the rain south through Arkansas and then Louisiana on an empty U.S. 67, towards Mamou, Skip and Rocky tried again what they’d tried doing the day before – getting a hold of Susie, back in Boulder, and, without telling her too much, get her re-invested in learning what was going on at the hunting lodge/self-defense camp and pressing her to get more information out of her kid Joey in Vancouver.
This time they got through. It was Susie: “Hey you guys, how ya doin’? Where you at? Still hangin’ with that LSD freak in Norman?”
Rocky was driving; Skip on speaker phone: “Say Suze, not going to believe this, but we bumped into a guy who’s also somehow connected to that supremacist group and Charlie Furbush, we think. Have you seen Furbush lately?
“No, he comes in once in awhile, maybe twice since his acquittal.”
“How ‘bout Joey – any chance he’s shared those names with you?”
“What are you guys onto anyhow? Joey and I don’t talk that much.”
“Well, we’re not sure what we’re on to. But you remember how Joey warned you to drop the subject, saying it could be dangerous?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, me and Rocky are driving Pirate Jack’s jeep to New Orleans. Everybody else is in the Land Yacht. We’re not sharing our suspicions with anybody except you. We think the guy we ran into knows why Furbush, or somebody, shot that guy. Remember Joey telling you that Furbush gave him some names to look up in Vancouver? Was ‘Abdul’ really the name of the murder victim? How did they connect Abdul up with Vancouver, you know? I remember reading in the paper that they had Abdul connected up with the hunting lodge, and they thought he was a Canadian, but how did they narrow it down to Vancouver?
“By the way, you’re by yourself, right? Not sure we should even be talking on cell phones, what with everybody tapping everything after the bombing. If Joey is right this could be dangerous, we gotta keep all this between the three of us – you, me and Rocky, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, but what do you want me to do?”
“For now, just keep your ear to the ground and see what more you can find out about the hunting lodge – it sounds like a posse comitatus or Proud Boys place – and next time you talk with Joey, tell him you’ve heard more people in Boulder are in danger and he’s got to give you the names of the guys Furbush knows in Vancouver. Maybe see what else Joey knows about that posse.”
“Holy shit. I had a feeling more was going on. Is Joey safe?”
“Yeah, nothing has changed with regards to Joey. It’s just that he knows Furbush and has been to the posse hang-out. We knew that already – nothing new there. And nothing we know has Joey any more involved. If you call back and get a hold of anybody besides me or Rocky, not a word about this, right?”
“Right. You guys stay safe, okay.”
After driving a few miles, they started talking it over some more: “We don’t really know if there’s any connection between the Vancouver crowd that Joey and Furbush know, and the Vancouver crowd that Ken and Gordy know. Let’s suppose that we find out there is a connection, either through Susie, or maybe by going back to Ken, what does that mean? Is there anything more we can learn about that Abdul fellow, other than what was reported in the paper?”
Rocky thought about it, then “Well, if there is a connection – and I doubt there is – it’s probably just a weird coincidence. But if there is a connection, then what the fuck is a white supremacist group in Montana doing messing around with jihadis in Vancouver? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, they both don’t like the United States Government,” Skip said, “and I’m curious if the government that prosecuted Furbush is in on this flipping of former SLA members.”
“Ah shit man, how much farther did you say it was to this Fred’s Lounge – I need a drink.”