Previously on RUNNER RAMIREZ & THE RACETRACK FROM HELL…
After tracking the track official and the Summoner to the speakeasy Runner spots a woman, infamous among the locals, leading a short man down into the bowels of the building. He follows them only to discover that the woman is not a woman at all, but the Summoner! And he was just about to do something awful to the short man. Runner intervened, despite his ‘friend’s’ warnings, and got his butt kicked.
And now…
Runner Ramirez & the Racetrack from Hell
By Tyler Tarlton
Chapter 6
The next morning I woke with my muscles stiff, my back in pain and with a hangover from, well, hell. I hadn't drink a thing last night but the morning after receiving 'help' led to the same feeling. It was just this side of miserable. You would think that all these cycles of supernatural exertion would do a number to my body but my 'friend's' actions served to keep me rather healthy and actually prolonged the active portion of my life. That's why the man you see before you appears to be in his late 80's instead of my actual age, which I won't mention.
I was staying in some cheap-ass motel on the outskirts of town. The room was passably clean but barely the size of two closets rammed together. My line of work, such that it was, didn't pay too awful well. I still got my Army pension every month but that was getting smaller and smaller while paying for less and less. Detecting some witch or saving a kid from a crazed cult or battling a forest of sentient hell trees just didn't put that much money in the bank. Weird, supernatural crap only seemed to happen to the dirt poor and never the rich. Don't rightly know why but thems the shits I guess. Nothing bad happens to those with money At least nothing strange or crazy. At least that's how it appeared to me.
I ate the rest of a sandwich I had picked up at the diner just a few hours earlier and then dragged myself into the shower. Ever since my 'friend' arrived I found that I could only take showers with the absolute hottest water possible. Anything cold felt awful and burned my skin. I guess you can take the demon out of hell but can't take the hell out of the demon.
I felt a bit better as I pulled my clothes back on. I didn't have much of a wardrobe, so I was often forced to wear the same clothes for several days in a row, not a pleasant experience after a battle with a wizard. I made myself as presentable as possible and headed right back to the diner for breakfast. The waitress that came to my table was still on shift from overnight and looked at me with surprise.
"My goodness, that's 3 times you've been here in the last 12 hours," she said with a crooked smile. "I'm thinking you just might be a little sweet on me..."
She gave me a look that I would've gladly answered had it just been me to whom she was talking. I found out rather quickly that partaking in the physical aspects of romance were a might different when you had a you know what inside you. There had been some, um, issues with a couple females that I won't discuss here. And as you can tell, I'm not married. I instead gave her my best smile in return.
"The food here is mighty good and I'm a growing boy," I said as I patted my stomach. "Bring me the works again sweetheart."
She gave me a pouty frown I couldn't tell was genuine or not and walked away. As I waited for my food, I glanced through the newspaper I had picked up on the way in. As with the previous day most of the stories had something to do with the racetrack construction. One in particular caught my eye. It was about the jobs the track was set to bring and turned out to be the only article I had yet seen that mentioned the track's owner, Mr. Clyde Bohannon. The name had a familiar ring to it, but I couldn't place from where. (Remember, at the time I had no idea who this guy was or what he did.) Unfortunately, there wasn't much more in the article besides his name and the fact he hailed from Miami. Knowing more about him would be key to figuring out what was going on. Unless this guy was different from every other owner of a project this big, he would know everything about it. I had but one place to go for information in those days. The library.
Most people don't realize that a library is good for so much more than checking out the latest dime novel or the newest issue of Life. It is a repository of history and information for the town in which it sits. I know, I know, I sound like I'm on the advertising committee for libraries worldwide but it's true. I know in today's world you got all these fancy electronics and what not but back then everything that was anything was covered in the papers. In those days they put everything in the newspaper, and I mean everything. Especially in a smaller town like this one in Florida. If you sneezed outside your home, it got reported. Sometimes even if you were inside you home.
Anyway, after my first breakfast I headed over to the Johnson Memorial Library right on Main Street in the heart of the city. I thought about asking the librarian where I should start but if this was the type of guy I suspected him to be then she would’ve been too afraid to say a word.
So I went about it in my own usual way, starting with the most recent day's newspaper and working backward. It took some digging but I found a special insert in the paper from 6 months prior that gave an in-depth report on the proposal to build the track in the first place. It mentioned in passing that the primary funder for the project was a Reginald Watkins, a businessman out of Miami. He had apparently owned several military-related businesses that had produced great profits during the war. The end of that conflict must've dampened his bottom line, so he had to start a new venture. One involving an oversized horse track. There wasn't much else I could find out about him. He had made a couple trips here for the groundbreaking and a few meetings before and after but nothing that indicated what his purpose or goals could be concerning the track. The article made no mention of any sort of connection between this Watkins character and Clyde Bohannon either. Years later I happened to be back in the Florida area on a case involving a werewolf gangster, yes that's a thing, where I learned that Bohannon and Watkins were one and the same. Ole Clyde had created that persona for his more legitimate business. Sounded like a solid idea in that line of work but it didn't help Clyde much, a business associate murdered him.
But my trip to the library was not fruitless. I did find something interesting in the pages of several issues since the track's construction had begun. In a 6 month period there had been a major increase in both unexplained deaths and missing persons in the area. There seemed to be almost one a week. The articles never really indicated if the local police had any leads or if they suspected a connection with the building of the track. Very strange. It was also odd that none of the articles mentioned any of the names of the deceased or those that had gone missing. And all the pieces were short and buried in the back sections of the paper. I checked the credited reporter of each and sure enough, all the same guy. Either he was incredibly incompetent in his reporting, or he was keeping some things a secret. My guess was the latter.
I sat back and considered what I had just learned. The reporter obviously had a source in the police department and wasn't learning about these events from the victims' families. Otherwise there would have been a much greater uproar where instead there had been none.
Another thought occurred to me however; most of the victims were probably drifters or those without family or close friends. The man I had saved in the speakeasy, at least I think I had saved him, the Summoner ran away without him around, had come in alone and sat in what appeared to be his usual spot without talking to anyone, not even the bartender who handed him an unspoken order. Those types of guys were in high supply after the war.
I had a decision to make at that moment. I could go find this reporter and see what he was hiding, or I could go to the police station and see what they knew. Going to the reporter would be much safer but it could take awhile to track him down. So there really wasn't much of a choice. It was time to talk to the police.
The plot thickens! Just what will Runner find at the police station? Find out next week in Chapter 7!