Drago #1

By Art Spinella

When a Nick Drago's friend's '55 Thunderbird goes missing and people wind up dead, the puzzle becomes international. And quickly turns to something other than heisted classic cars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456602338

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www.cnwmr.com/DRAGO

      Art Spinella

Drago #1

Art Spinella is a long-time writer, journalist and publisher. He lives in Bandon, Oregon with his wife Stephanie and has five children. Drago #1 is his first published novel. Any resemblance of Nick Drago to the author is purely coincidental. Honest.

DEDICATION

For Cookie

Drago #1

PROLOGUE

As a kid the highlight of each week was a trip to J. L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit where I could pick a new book. The Hardy Boys and Tom Swift were high on the list.

That eventually turned into Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald and Agatha Christie.

Simultaneously, TV shows of detectives and cops became regular faire. 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Route 66, Mike Hammer and a host of others.

There was a symbiotic sameness to what I read and what I watched. Implausible stories that required a suspension of reality.

Today, writers I highly admire turn out action adventures with characters like Jack Reacher and Lucas Davenport.

The difference for me is that these master storytellers go to great lengths to generate plots as potentially real as possible even if characters like Reacher are – a reach. The suspension of reality is still there, but the foundation of the stories is rooted in the plausible.

When I began writing short stories and mysteries, I wanted to reverse the usual books-to-TV mindset. Rather than Mike Hammer the TV show coming from Spillane books, I wanted to see TV in print.

That’s where Drago is rooted.

When reading Drago #1 or subsequent Drago novels, I want readers to be able to suspend reality and enjoy a story that may not be plausible, may not be real but like TV shows such as A Team or NCIS or Castle or Firefly, offer an opportunity to pull back from reality and read with a clear what-the-hell mind set.

I suggest reading Drago from the same chair or couch used to watch television shows. A cup of coffee, a cold beer or a Coke near by. Mind cleared of the daily grind with the sole purpose of having a bit of fun. Spending the next hour or two or three in suspended reality.

Drago stretches credulity. Some of what you’ll read could happen, but is highly unlikely. Portions are ripped from the headlines. Other parts are simply improbable, implausible or even impossible. But that’s okay. Because this is TV in print.

Art Spinella

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Most important to Drago #1 is Stephanie, my lovely and patient wife who read every word at least three times. Also key to this book were Bruce English who knows and builds hot rods like no other; Seth – aka Zeke -- for his innate skill in translating automotive ideas into masterful paint; Brian and Linc, the two wrenches at Highway 101 Harley-Davidson in Coos Bay who keep my bikes right side up and George Woolcock who keeps them in line and is a true friend; Tony Dub and David Kimes who unknowingly were terrific sounding boards; and finally, and perhaps most directly responsible for Drago #1, Tony Messerle whose Harley was stolen right from under his nose. 

PREFACE

Sal and I sat across the table at the Mexican restaurant in Bandon going through our usual routine of picking a discussion topic. Nothing helps the digestion of grease more than a spritely argument with a friend during dinner.

The Cowboys will be in the Super Bowl.

False, I answered. Sal agreed so scratch that as possible chatter over tacos, refried beans and Dos Equis.

My turn. The U.S. will drill in Anwar within 20 years.

No argument. True.

His turn. The dollar will be replaced as the international monetary currency.

False.

Sal’s eyes sparkled. Actually, I think it will happen.

We’re here for a couple of quick burritos, not an eight-course French dinner. Dipping a nacho in the salsa, The moon landing was a hoax, I offered.

"We did that one already, Nick. We agreed finally it was. My turn. House of the Rising Sun is the best cross-over blues song ever."

I scratched my head, giving it a few seconds’ thought. "Interesting. It’s high on the list, but the best? Not so sure. Other genres fair game?"

Sure.

Okay. That’s a possibility. Another nacho and swig of beer. Breaking up Ma Bell and deregulating the airline industry are two of the most counterproductive government boondoggles on record.

Sallie grinned. Best thing that ever happened to phones and the airlines. Let’s do airlines.

It was a topic I could either defend or oppose, being conflicted over the results. People in sandals with their dirty toenails would never have been allowed on commercial flights prior to the ‘70s. Now it was the norm. But airline ticket prices would have remained high without deregulation. Prices were heavily regulated supposedly to avoid airline bankruptcies and assure sufficient spending on safety and maintenance. Yes, I could go either way on that one.

Good one. You first, I said, taking a long pull of my beer.

CHAPTER ONE

June rolled in like a warm kiss. Enticing although a bit distant. A hint of moisture and a prelude to heat. Typical summer Oregon, at least on the southern Coast where highs rarely exceeds 80 degrees or fall below 45.

Willow Weep, the name given our property by my oldest daughter some 20 years ago when she was barely 6, has settled into the terrain; shore pine, Douglas fir, alder, blackberries and gorse intertwined into a hodgepodge of greenery and thickets making access to much of the land impossible or requiring serious thinning.

Unlike this gentle June morning, Sallie Rand barged through the undergrowth from his neighboring property, ever present thermos clutched in a massive hand, a bulldozer where only a shovel is needed. He pulled up a plastic lawn chair and settled into it with a grunt, the acrylic crackling under his 295 pounds.

No greeting. We had been friends since high school and swore we’d never say Good morning because it reminded both of us of Mrs. Sworthborg in home room who made those two words sound like a medieval salutation just before the gallows doors snapped open.

Sallie sucked on the thermos.

How many this morning?

I looked down at the notepad and counted the hash marks grouped in fives. 113. Six more than yesterday.

He pondered a second. Well, we know trees don’t grow that quickly so obviously you miscounted.

Probably.

Another pause.

Why do you do that, Nick? he asked.

Count my trees? You know why. I’m manic.

Manic.

Obsessed.

True.

Curious.

No doubt.

And I like numbers. Pulling from my own coffee mug, I added, Did you know there are 203 steps between the back fence and the batting cage over there?

203. Not 204. What if you take small steps?

That’s for me and anyone else my height and stride. You might take 220 or more.

You saying I waddle because I’m fat?

I’d never say that.

Good. Otherwise I’d have to sit on your head and crush that thick skull to pulp.

Mornings with Sal were like that. Neither one of us looked at the other. Legs stretched out, eyes focused on some distant point in the woods that made up the bulk of my acreage.

Paths had been cut through the brush over the past 20 years uncovering old events and mysteries. Charred stumps the likely remnant of the fire that burned Bandon to the ground in 1936. A 10-by15 foot area of dead vegetation where nothing would grow even though blackberries were thick right up to the border of the dead patch.

What’s the plan for today?

I shrugged. Same as yesterday.

Nothing planned. Sounds like a plan, he sighed and smiled. Sounds like a damn good plan. A swig of coffee. Fishing?

You know I don’t fish. How ‘bout a ride to Roseburg for lunch.

That’s sad, Nick. Not fishing, I mean. How ‘bout hot dogs in… 

My cell phone vibrated in my shirt pocket. Pulling it out, I flipped it open.

Drago.

I was greeted with a rush of sputtering; virtually all a single word spoken so quickly it was difficult to understand the context.

God damn it, Nick! Someone stole my T’bird! Jeeesus. Right out from the parking lot at the Eatin’ Station. No one saw a thing. What am I gonna do, Nick? I got…

Bo?

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah it’s me Nick.

Slow down and tell me again.

I was at the Eatin' Station. Parked my T-bird in the rear lot so some numbskull couldn’t put a door ding in it. Like I do almost every morning. I went in, grabbed a seat and remembered I wanted my briefcase which I’d left in the car. Got up. Walked out. And shazaam! The damn car is gone, Nick. GONE. I couldn’t have been in the restaurant for more than what? A minute? Maybe two?

"Where are you now?

Standing in the lot looking at a couple of drops of oil on the pavement where my car used to be. Damn engine builder. Could never get that oil pan to stop leaking.

Bo Jangles Clemons – what was his mother thinking? -- spent 4 years looking for a restorable matching-numbers ’55 Thunderbird and another 9 years tearing it down to the frame and rebuilding or replacing every piece and part. All told, more than $150,000 worth of precision went into the flame red ‘Bird. Not counting the 10,000 hours of his personal time.

Sal and I’ll be there in a few.

I flipped the cell phone shut.

Did you hear? I asked Sal.

Bo’s a loud talker. Every word.

Shall we?

People think of Ford Crown Victorias as a cop cars or New York taxi cabs. Over the years, I’ve spent enough time in both versions to know any vehicle that can be driven hard for hundreds of thousands of miles without a glitch was a pretty good piece of basic automotive engineering. No fancy hybrid complexity. High-tech electronic dashboards. Engine controls run by 20 back-up computers with dubious software. None of that. And when Ford announced it would stop selling them to consumers and only to fleets, I figured I’d get the last of the breed.

I added a few modifications to the silver Vic like side exhaust, custom wheels, a glass sunroof the size of a basketball court. And orange and red flames, compliments of one of the best car painters in Oregon. Looks like a hot rod. Rides like a Lincoln. Has a three-body trunk, which is why the East Coast mafia guys like it.

With Sal’s near-300 pounds and my 230 settling into the front seat, a Mini Cooper wouldn’t do.

We left Willow Weep and took the short gravel road to Randolph Road, swung south onto Highway 101, crossed the Coquille River bridge and slid into town covering the six miles in under five minutes.

If there were a better location for a restaurant, you’d be hard pressed to find it. Eatin’ Station sits on Highway 101 in a 30 mph speed zone just on the edge of old town. A big parking lot and easy access make the eatery a favorite for passing-through tourists and locals. Good food helps.

Standing in the rear of the lot next to the building, Bo was waving his arms frantically as if we couldn’t see him. A police version of the Crown Vic was pulled diagonally across two parking spaces and Billy Jenkins, one of the local kids I’d coached in baseball a decade before and who never left the Bandon Womb, was writing in a small cop notebook. He looked up when he heard the Vic and smiled.

Why do cops park diagonally like that and take up two or three spaces? Sal asked. Not perturbed as much as observing.

Because they can, I said.

There has to be a better reason than that.

Ask me again later and I’ll tell you.

We climbed out and Bo ran over.

See Nick! It’s gone! pointing to the empty parking space. Gone!

Billy followed Bo.

Morning, coach.

Hey Billy. Have you been able to get him to stop sputtering and give you any details?

Not much, Billy responded. "Came for breakfast. Inside a minute or two. Came back out and found an empty chunk of concrete where his ‘Bird used to be. He called you then us. I told the chief who had Lucy send word immediately to State Mounties, Sheriff’s Department and cop shops up and down the coast as far as Roseburg, Florence and Gold Beach. He even went up in his Piper and flew south over 101, across 42 and back up 101 all the way to Coos Bay figuring it wouldn’t be hard spotting a blood red T-bird on the highway.

Nothing."

How long before the call in and the chief getting airborne?

It’s his day off and he was already planning on flying to Eugene for the day so he was pre-checking the plane when I called him. Maybe five minutes.

I walked over to the spot where the T-bird once was. It was empty, for sure. A few drops of fresh oil, a cigarette butt at least a few days old judging from the color and a gum wrapper, also old.

What’s that? I asked, directing the question to Sal and nodding toward a scrape in the pavement.

The big man straddled the mark and looked down at it.

Fresh, I’d guess. Scrape in the pavement looks to be an inch wide, maybe 20 inches long.

I walked to what would be the opposite side of the vanished T-bird. No mark.

Billy stood approximately where the rear of the T-bird should have been and paced off the distance to the scratch in the pavement.

"Looks like nine feet, coach.

Bo, sensing a clue, asked, What’s that mean, Nick? What’s it mean?

My guess, Bo? Not much. Looks like something heavy, metal probably, got dragged across the pavement. Could have happened before you parked.

Sal, dismissing the mark on the pavement and returning to the quickness of the heist, added, Could have used a dolly or some special tow truck gear.

But in under a minute? Bo whined.

Scratching the front of his hairline, Sal said, Speed isn’t the issue. Knew a guy in L.A. who could jimmy a car door, climb in, yank the stereo and be gone in under 15 seconds. What’s puzzling is that no one saw anything. A classic perfectly restored T-bird on the back of a tow truck isn’t something people forget.

Would have to drive right past the restaurant windows to get back on 101, I added, raising an eyebrow at Bo.

Huh? No. Sure. I would have seen it. I asked everyone inside if they saw my car get stolen. Nothing. And there were a gazillion people in there this morning. His tone had taken on the note of rejection and dejection. It was dawning on him that the Thunderbird had truly vanished.

We stood around in silence staring at the pavement, not having much more to add or observations to make.

Bo broke the silence. You’ll find it for me, right Nick? A plea.

Let the cops start the process, Bo. If they run into a dead end, I’ll pitch in and do what I can.

But you’re the puzzle man, Nick. You figure stuff out. Can’t you get started like right away? I’ll pay you. Still a plea.

We’ll talk later today, ‘kay?

Billy added, We’ll do whatever we can, Bo. Like I said, we’ve alerted every cop shop in southern Oregon. Something has to show up. We’ll find it. I’ll write up a report and send it out. As far as Portland and Seattle.

Thanks Billy, Bo said, head hanging.

Need a ride home? the officer asked.

Yeah, looking at the empty parking space. Guess I do.

Hop in.

The two climbed into the cruiser, idled through the parking lot and turned south onto 101 toward Bo’s home.

Sal and I watched the cop car leave.

Hungry? I asked.

Always.

Shall we?

Absolutely.

Steak and eggs were in the offing for me. Sal would probably have his usual, a rancher’s favorite: biscuits and gravy with two sides of bacon and a side of sausage links.

Cholesterol be damned.

CHAPTER TWO

Bandon isn’t the typical Oregon coastal town. On the surface, it may look like it with an assortment of craft shops, trash-and-trinket outlets, fish and chips restaurants offering clam chowder, outside seating overlooking the Coquille River and a postcard view of the Bandon Lighthouse in the distance.

Behind the scenes, though, it’s a relatively wealthy little town of 2,400 folks with cranberry bog farmers, well run schools, efficient government and a pro-active business community that keeps everyone focused on economic growth. Tourism may be the front man, but catering to businesses and entrepreneurs oil the machine. Streets are paved and well maintained. Street lights are never burned out. And the cops stay on top of mischief, following the Rudy Giuliani formula used in New York: Keep the small infractions in check and major crimes diminish. The psychology of this law enforcement method is simple: Kids who commit small crimes graduate to larger ones. Smother the small stuff and it suffocates the source for big stuff.

Since its founding in the 1800s, the town has gone through its phases from ship building to lumber mills and logging to the day hippies came to town in the 1970s to make candles and stained glass lamp shades and leather belts and jewelry and sell crafty little items ranging from geodes to silver trinkets from run down store fronts.

Hippie-Artists set up a community of thespians and painters. Long hair, beards and the smell of patchouli incense blanketed the town until the mid-1980s when the counter-culture dope smokers woke up to discover their scruffy little shops had turned into real businesses and the schools where their kids attended needed serious upgrade.

Bandon grew up.

They went about their business with hippie-dreamer tenacity and established tougher teaching standards, hired first-rate instructors, focused on the arts and holistic subjects. The result was an education system that generated high comparative scores vs. virtually any school in any part of the state including Portland, Eugene and Salem. Of the annual graduating class of only 60 or so students from Bandon High, the vast majority move on to college becoming professionals in a variety of fields from medicine to architecture to engineering while their counterparts at other local high schools returned to an ever diminishing number of mills, fighting for timber work that was fast disappearing.

Sal and I returned to Willow Weep, took up our post in the two lawn chairs, fresh cups of coffee balanced on our thighs.

The sun was at its 11 a.m. position, warming the patch of ground we were occupying and combined with high-carb breakfasts, both of us were on the verge of nap time.

Eyes closed, Sal asked, What do you think Bo’s ‘bird is worth?

Matching numbers. Perfect restoration. All first rate work. Maybe a hundred fifty thousand. $200,000 at the outside. Half a mil at one of those Barrett-Jackson auctions if the right bidders are there.

"Worth stealing, but who’d buy it?’

I chewed on that for a second. True. It had been registered with the Ford Thunderbird clubs, insured to the hilt, well known on the car show circuit.

Tough sell. Too easily identified. At least to someone who plans on driving it.

Repaint?

Yeah, I guess that would help. But a first-class spray guy is going to recognize that the car doesn’t need paint and would be suspicious, I would think."

Sal groaned. Maybe. Faced with a twenty or thirty-thousand payday, most would be tempted to look the other way.

It’s a puzzle, I said, the sun warming my body to just the right temperature for a doze where images scrolled behind my eyes of things loved, hated and seen. Cookie, braggers, the loss of civility respectively. But mostly Cookie. Gone now for a year.

My cell phone shook me awake, but Sal had fallen into a deep sleep chin on his formidable chest looking like Merlin Olsen, the gentle giant actor and one-time football player.

Drago.

Nick, Chief Forte. Got a second?

Sure chief. What’s up?

Need your powers of observation out on the North Spit. Got some time?

On the way. I’ll bring Sal along if I can wake him.

Nap?

It’s June. The sun’s warm.

Nice life, pal.

You’re welcome to join us any time, chief.

Forte just snorted and hung up.

Sal groused about being awakened but wriggled out of the chair growling a yawn.

It took 10 minutes to get to the North Spit and less than a minute to spot the cop cruisers, blue and red lights flashing against the light tan sand and moss-covered coastal rocks. Oregon rocks aren’t the kind one thinks of. These are mammoth mountains of basalt jutting scores of feet above the surf. Craggy, foreboding even in bright daylight. As big as some Micronesian islands.

The bar between the Northern Pacific and the Coquille River is treacherous. It took its share of tall ships a century ago, fishing boats, day trippers and small trawlers over the decades. Crossing the bar is a skill best left to the experienced. On good days it’s simple. But leaving the river into the ocean on a good day may mean coming back a few hours later on what has turned into a bad, very bad day.

When it comes to the Bandon Bar, a fool and his fishing boat are soon parted.

Sal and I walked the 100 yards from the parking lot to the beach where the entire Bandon police department – all 11 officers – stood. The day shift in uniform, the night crew in typical Bandon attire of jeans, flannel or plaid shirts, work boots and baseball caps bearing the logos of John Deere, PAPE Cat, Caterpillar and the Chicago Cubs. On the sand what looked like a 21 foot open bow Wellcraft outboard fishing boat, partially filled with brown Pacific water. Fiberglass, maybe a half-dozen years old but seemingly well maintained and clean. Fresh white upholstery and a center console packed with gauges below a near vertical windscreen. A good boat.

Chief Forte was standing next to the boat and waved us over.

I said, Busy day, chief. Two majors in a few hours.

Forte snorted. I was LAPD for 25 years. A stolen car and a beached fishing boat wouldn’t have registered on the radar screen. Here’s it’s a damn Agatha Christie ground swell of crime.

He turned toward the boat. What do you see, Nick?

Sal and I shuffled through the sand to the bow of the boat and walked around to the port side. Nothing odd at first glance. Clean inside and out like the owner cared. A few scuffs on the hull probably caused by scraping a dock, but surface mars only, none breaking the gel coat.

I scanned the controls and gauges.

Ignition key is on. Throttle’s pulled back to idle. Gas gauge reads empty. Battery is charged if the amp gauge is right.

Sal pulled open the bait well locker. Empty. Didn’t catch anything, He said, feeling