Chapter 62 Chapter 62

Domed cement building.Puller watched carefully as the car passed it. "Maybe Drake County should turn it into a tourist attraction," he said. "Yeah, it must be attractive. Spend a dollar and stare at the concrete wall for half a day," Cole replied. She turned into a side street and drove into the residential area where the men who had worked in the fort had once lived.They passed some abandoned houses that were collapsing, and they also saw some residences that had been repaired to some extent and some people were living there.Puller looked out the window at the dirty-faced children and the bony women running after them.He didn't find too many men, probably all the men went to work to earn money, or at least went out to try to find work.

He smelled it. "It's really fragrant." "We want to mobilize them to collect their rubbish at the dump site, but it's an endless tug-of-war. And the toilets here have been out of use for many years, and most people just empty their hands outdoors." "A picture of the good life for residents of the richest country on earth." "Oh, the wealth in this rich country is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people. We don't have that many rich people here." "It's true," Puller said. "The wealth is in the hands of people like your brother-in-law." He looked around again. "There are a lot of power poles here, but the transformer doesn't look like it's working."

"Someone here tried to connect the wires privately, and there was an electric shock accident. We asked the power company to shut down the power grid in this area and use a roundabout way to supply power to them." She pointed to a telephone pole from which some cables came from. The roof fell to the ground, and then wound around into several houses. "They're still hooking up phone lines, that's all you see. We just turn a blind eye. People here can't afford a cell phone, but they need to communicate. The phone company is paying them too much. .more and more people don’t use landlines now, and the phone companies can make money off things like cell phones and internet traffic.”

Cole pointed ahead and said, "Our destination." The building was at the end of the side street and was much larger than the houses next to it.Puller saw rows of red-painted gates, though most of the paint was chipped and peeled off. Puller suddenly understood what was in front of him. "Fire station?" "It was. The firehouse hasn't been used since the cement dome was put over the fort. At least that's what I heard, when I was a kid." "So what do you use it for now?" Before the words fell, Puller heard the roar of the motorcycle.More than one motorcycle, to be precise.

"The Harley-Davidson Club," Cole said. "Dicky Strauss is a member here. Their club's called 'Shangdu'. Some of them probably don't even know what that means." , but this club has helped many of the boys who joined it out of trouble." ①Xanadu: The English word Xanadu is a transliteration of "Shangdu", which refers to Shangdu, the grassland capital of the nobles in the Yuan Dynasty in China. In 1797, the British romantic poet Coleridge described the Yuanshangdu he read in the book and saw in his dream in his poem "The Old Sailor", which made the word Xanadu popular in the West. Language has a unique symbolic meaning. Xanadu can also be translated as a paradise, a poetic place, a magnificent mansion, a palace, etc.

"Terryville is a member, isn't he? He owns a Harley. Is that tattooed sleeve a club logo?" "I don't know what the cuffs are about. But not every club member wears something like that." "However, it's good to know that Dickey and Triwell belong to the same club." "We just found out that Dickie might be the guy who ran away from the Halvorson house. I didn't have any reason to suspect that he was involved in this before that." "But maybe the bikers were connected to Trivel's death." "It's a club, Pooler, not a gang. Most of its members are old enough. They have families and bills to pay."

She parked the car in front of the former fire station, and the two of them got out of the car.Following a row of open doors, Puller saw in one of the large bays a red fire truck with rusted wheels, next to the vertical fire glide pole that must have been found in such a place.Wooden lockers are lined up on the walls on both sides, and many dilapidated firefighting equipment are piled up on the ground. In another large compartment are several vintage Harleys lined up.Puller counted, there were five people inside.Two of them were on the gas pedal on their motorcycles, and the others were maintaining their rides.

"Why don't these guys go out and work?" "Maybe it's because they can't find work." "So they just sit around and ride around on this expensive thing?" "Most of their cars are twenty years old, Puller. Nobody's hanging around. I know most of the guys here. They work hard. But when you can't find a job, what do you tell them to do? The unemployment rate in the county is approaching 20%, and these people are still looking for jobs everywhere. There are also many people who have given up on themselves.” "Is this where their motorcycles are stored?"

"Sometimes. What's the matter?" "You said people around here picked up trash for a living." "Yeah. But they don't touch motorcycle club stuff." "why?" "Because members of the club help them." "How can I help?" "Members collect food and blankets for these people, and when there is more work at hand, they hire the residents here to do it together. Most of these members are people with specialties, such as mechanics, plumbers, electricians, carpenters What. Like I said, they work hard. They go to people's homes around them and do repairs and stuff for free."

"A group of people who do good." "It's not like we don't have people like that at Drake." They approached along the broken concrete driveway.Some looked up at them.Puller spotted Dickie Strauss coming out of a back cabin.He wiped the oil off his hands with a rag, and stopped when he saw them. Cole said, "Hey Dickie, we want to talk to you." Dickie turned and ran back. "Hey!" Cole yelled. "Stop! We're just talking to you." Puller had already rushed into the fire station. Two guys who had been fiddling with Harleys got in front of Puller.Both were built like fire hydrants, both were older than Pooler, both wore eye-catching hoods, and both wore the same overconfident expression.Their hands are thick and big.Visible bulges in the arms indicate that the two men were engaged in strenuous physical labor for their daily livelihood.

Puller held up his badge. "Get out of the way. Now." "This is private property. Show me your permit," one of them said. Cole said, "Let him pass." Puller stared at the direction in which Dicky was escaping, and at the same time looked at the leader, the guy in the turban. "I need to talk to him," Pooler said, "just talk." "And all I need is to see your license." "This is an abandoned place." "Does it look like it's abandoned? You cunning," another guy said. Cole was about to draw his gun when the leader in the hood put his hand on Pooler's shoulder.In a blink of an eye, this guy was lying face down on the concrete floor. His shocked expression showed that he hadn't figured out how he fell here anyway. Another guy yelled and swung at Puller.Puller grabbed his arm and twisted it down, then pushed hard, and the guy dropped to the concrete floor to join the previous one.They were about to get up when Puller yelled, "If you still dare to get up, I'll send you all to the hospital. I don't want to do it. It's none of your business." The two guys lay back on the ground and stopped moving. Puller had just straightened up when Frank, Dickie's bulky friend, burst out of a dark corner.He still has gauze over his nose, and his eye sockets are still bruised from Puller's previous head hammer.In his hand was a long wooden plank. "Vengeance must be revenged," Frank growled. He swung the board at Puller's head.Suddenly, there was a cracking gunshot, and sawdust flew from the board, and the kinetic energy of the bullet caused it to escape from Frank's hand and hit the ground. Frank, Pooler, and the Harleys all turned to look at Cole.Her King Cobra pistol was aimed at Frank's crotch now. "You figure it out," Cole said. "You don't want kids?" Frank backed away immediately, his hands involuntarily covering his private parts. Puller quickly passed them and out the back door. A roaring motorcycle turned a corner quickly and rushed straight towards Puller.Dickie had wasted a little time trying to put his helmet on, or Puller might not have been able to do what he wanted to do. Puller drew his front M11, took aim slightly, and fired a shot into the rear tire of the motorcycle.The motorcycle suddenly slid to one side, and Dicky fell to the ground.The motorcycle fell down six or seven meters away from Dicky. Dicky was jerked off the ground by Puller. "You almost killed me," Dickie yelled. "If I shot you in the front wheel, you'd go flying head down. The way you're doing now is just your ass. But then again, I don't see any difference between your head and your ass, if If you do have a brain." Cole ran up to them and holstered the gun in his hand.She stared into Dickie's face and shouted, "Are you an idiot or what? What stunt show were you in?" "I'm just freaked out," Dickie said. "Have you ever been an infantryman?" Puller asked. "The 1st Division is a respectable unit, and I'm sure they'd never let you be such a coward." "Fuck you!" Dicky yelled. "The place you are going to is a prison." Cole snapped back. "Why?" "Trying to kill an officer counts as one," Puller said. "You're going to grow up to be a middle-aged man in federal prison for that." "I didn't intend to kill you." "Hitting me on a motorcycle, what do you call that?" "You tried to kill me," Dicky retorted, turning to Cole. "He shot me in the tire, and I almost died." "Well, I bet you gave him good reason for doing it. Now tell me, why did you run away? We just wanted to talk to you." "This guy beat Frank and I don't want him to beat me again. He's crazy." Cole said, "You know you're utter bullshit. Why run, Dickie?" The young man fell silent, just stared down at the ground, panting with his chest rising and falling.His elbow was bleeding from the fall just now. "Well, it's your choice." Cole handcuffed him and read his rights. "My dad must be furious." "I'm sure he will," Cole said. "That's your business. But it'll make your life a lot easier if you talk about it." "I'm not going to say anything. I'm going to get a lawyer. You're accusing me of crimes. My dad will sue you." "Did you kill Officer Wellman?" Puller said. "Your road to jail is a one-way ticket on that alone. It's a pity West Virginia has abolished the death penalty." Dicky's expression instantly collapsed.His angry look was gone, like a deflated ball. Puller continued: "We want to tell you that when Officer Wellman was killed, witnesses saw you happen to be at the Halvorson couple's house. What do you have to say about that? And then they saw You fled from there in haste." They could barely hear Dickie's faint voice. "I didn't... whoever said that must be crazy." Then he broke off, looking like he was about to vomit. "You figure it out," Puller said. "But we have witness statements. And I bet you touched something in their house. We're going to take your fingerprints and DNA samples. traces of the scene, and my intuition tells me that they are connected to you. This way, you can say goodbye to the rest of your life." Cole added: "The stunt you just performed on us gives us a good reason to take your fingerprints and DNA samples." "We don't even have to take samples from you. Since you've been in the military, your fingerprints and DNA must be on file," Puller added. "You can't go through these files from a criminal investigation standpoint," Ditch said, "only when the remains are identified." Puller smiled. "So you've looked up the rules? Funny." Dicky's face turned green. "I didn't kill anyone." "But you went into that house, didn't you?" Puller asked. Dicky looked around.The Harleys gathered in the backyard of the firehouse to watch them.Frank and the two guys who had been knocked down by Puller all had vicious expressions on their faces, but neither of them seemed to want to come forward. "Shall we find a quiet place to talk?" Dicky asked. "You've only said one smart thing since I've known you," Pooler replied.