The Devil's Highway Read Online Free
Author: Timothy C. Phillips
“Would you ever sell someone a car without an I.D?”
“Can’t do that no more,” he replied, his face serious. “If they pay cash, I have to see some I.D. I don’t want to handle no drug money and have any trouble come back on me.”
“You didn’t find it odd that someone would walk in here and buy a car with cash?”
“A sale is a sale, if I can see some I.D, mister. Besides, I just hate to see folks a-walking.” Old Al smiled at me. I bet he did, at that. I asked him if he knew anything else.
Big-Hearted Al knew just one more thing. Brad had gone west. That’s all that Big-Hearted Al could tell me, aside from the interesting fact that young Brad had paid his $650 dollars in cash from a backpack and had been last seen taking the onramp towards New Orleans on I-20. The old man had sat there in his rocking chair after making his sale, and watched Brad drive down the road to the Chevron, where he presumably filled up his newly acquired automobile, made whatever other purchases he was going to make, and took to Interstate Highway 10 via the westbound entry ramp. Hence, Al concluded, the young man was headed west. How far west was anyone’s guess.
I walked back down the road to the strip mall, and collected my own automobile before Al could convince me that I needed to buy one of his, and I drove, retracing the path I’d just walked, following Brad Caldwell on the start of his mysterious odyssey. I threw Big-Hearted Al a wave as I turned through the intersection and drove down to the same Chevron where he’d seen Brad fill up. I started the nozzle in my own tank, perhaps the same one Brad had used that day, and walked inside.
I walked up to the counter and showed the picture to the woman behind the register. She remembered Brad. He’d bought some gas, a lot of road food, and, oh, yes, a big bag of candy. He said what he needed was fuel, for the car and for himself, because he had a long way to go.
She couldn’t help me any more than that.
Chapter 5
The car that Brad had bought had come with a tag from the previous owner, which I doubted that Brad had bothered to change. A guy buys a cheap car to get out of town with, my guess was, he wasn’t planning on hanging on to the vehicle, once he got to wherever it was he was going. I’m sure he had cursed himself for failing to secure a fake I.D, so as not to leave a paper trail with Big-Hearted Al, but since no one had a clue where he was headed, maybe that hadn’t bothered him too much, after all.
On the off chance Brad had gotten a speeding ticket or run into some other misadventure with law enforcement, I called an old friend in the Birmingham Police Department and got him to run the tag for me. Whatever Brad had been up to, he hadn’t gotten into any trouble on the road. The search came up negative.
* * *
When I got to my office, the day was dying, and the stairwell of the Brooks Building was lit by the soft light of the waning sun. The Brooks Building is an old Brownstone that lords over Brooks Plaza, just off Third Avenue North and 20th Street. Both the building and the plaza were mostly deserted for years, until recently, when the North Side started undergoing a kind of renaissance. A lot of upscale businesses started moving in, turning around a part of town known, up until then, for street crime and lurid scenes of destitution and violence. Affluent businesses were buying up and renovating all the old relics. Think of it as Urban Renewal from the private sector. These days, you could walk down the street after nightfall without getting panhandled, mugged or even propositioned.
There was a young woman waiting in the lobby as I stepped in. She was sitting in a lobby chair, holding a backpack in her lap. She was pale, and her hair was dyed jet black, though her light brown roots had started to show, and there was a silver ring in her bottom lip. She was wearing torn black fishnet stockings and a short black dress under a
“Can’t do that no more,” he replied, his face serious. “If they pay cash, I have to see some I.D. I don’t want to handle no drug money and have any trouble come back on me.”
“You didn’t find it odd that someone would walk in here and buy a car with cash?”
“A sale is a sale, if I can see some I.D, mister. Besides, I just hate to see folks a-walking.” Old Al smiled at me. I bet he did, at that. I asked him if he knew anything else.
Big-Hearted Al knew just one more thing. Brad had gone west. That’s all that Big-Hearted Al could tell me, aside from the interesting fact that young Brad had paid his $650 dollars in cash from a backpack and had been last seen taking the onramp towards New Orleans on I-20. The old man had sat there in his rocking chair after making his sale, and watched Brad drive down the road to the Chevron, where he presumably filled up his newly acquired automobile, made whatever other purchases he was going to make, and took to Interstate Highway 10 via the westbound entry ramp. Hence, Al concluded, the young man was headed west. How far west was anyone’s guess.
I walked back down the road to the strip mall, and collected my own automobile before Al could convince me that I needed to buy one of his, and I drove, retracing the path I’d just walked, following Brad Caldwell on the start of his mysterious odyssey. I threw Big-Hearted Al a wave as I turned through the intersection and drove down to the same Chevron where he’d seen Brad fill up. I started the nozzle in my own tank, perhaps the same one Brad had used that day, and walked inside.
I walked up to the counter and showed the picture to the woman behind the register. She remembered Brad. He’d bought some gas, a lot of road food, and, oh, yes, a big bag of candy. He said what he needed was fuel, for the car and for himself, because he had a long way to go.
She couldn’t help me any more than that.
Chapter 5
The car that Brad had bought had come with a tag from the previous owner, which I doubted that Brad had bothered to change. A guy buys a cheap car to get out of town with, my guess was, he wasn’t planning on hanging on to the vehicle, once he got to wherever it was he was going. I’m sure he had cursed himself for failing to secure a fake I.D, so as not to leave a paper trail with Big-Hearted Al, but since no one had a clue where he was headed, maybe that hadn’t bothered him too much, after all.
On the off chance Brad had gotten a speeding ticket or run into some other misadventure with law enforcement, I called an old friend in the Birmingham Police Department and got him to run the tag for me. Whatever Brad had been up to, he hadn’t gotten into any trouble on the road. The search came up negative.
* * *
When I got to my office, the day was dying, and the stairwell of the Brooks Building was lit by the soft light of the waning sun. The Brooks Building is an old Brownstone that lords over Brooks Plaza, just off Third Avenue North and 20th Street. Both the building and the plaza were mostly deserted for years, until recently, when the North Side started undergoing a kind of renaissance. A lot of upscale businesses started moving in, turning around a part of town known, up until then, for street crime and lurid scenes of destitution and violence. Affluent businesses were buying up and renovating all the old relics. Think of it as Urban Renewal from the private sector. These days, you could walk down the street after nightfall without getting panhandled, mugged or even propositioned.
There was a young woman waiting in the lobby as I stepped in. She was sitting in a lobby chair, holding a backpack in her lap. She was pale, and her hair was dyed jet black, though her light brown roots had started to show, and there was a silver ring in her bottom lip. She was wearing torn black fishnet stockings and a short black dress under a
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