Bad Penny Page 13

  Frank had years of training, multiple tours, numerous missions. He’d lost some of his edge, but Ed was nothing more than a psychopath. There was nothing in his muscle memory except evil. And now he was going to go down.

  Frank said, “Ed, your hair looks like crap. Looks like someone’s been at it with a leaf mulcher.”

  “What?”

  Now, Frank thought.

  But at that moment a white panel van shot past the back end of the car and slammed on its brakes, cutting off Frank’s escape. The side door slid open. Inside was a Hispanic guy in his early twenties. His hair had been moussed up. His arms sported a number of tats. He knelt on one leg. In his hands was a twelve gauge shot gun with a short eighteen inch barrel. A riot gun. Perfect for crowd control, for home defense, and backing up your fellow crack-brained vato in parking lots. He pointed it at Frank. The driver opened his door and jumped out as did another man riding in the passenger’s seat.

  Frank could try to draw Jesus’s piece in his pocket, but he wouldn’t be quick enough. Not with three of them. Not with him kneeling all awkward over Jesus.

  Ed said, “What am I going to do with you, Frank? You’re like a freaking bad penny. Showing up here. How the hell?”

  “Just give me Tony, and I’m out of your hair.”

  Ed motioned at Jesus who was trying to squirm out of his bonds. “You’ve gone and complicated things, Frank. You’re going to get into the van; we’ll talk on the road.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  Ed motioned with his head, and the driver and third man walked around to the other side of the Nissan and opened the rear door. They pulled Tony out, who was awake, but groggy, and helped him into the van. His wrists were zip-tied. Then they went back for the girl, who was zip-tied as well. Somebody must have got a bulk deal on those restraints.

  Frank glanced around the parking lot. If anybody had been watching, it would have made a real spectacle. But nobody was looking. The Nissan was way out in the corner of the lot, in the shade. And anyone looking this way from the truck stop would have the sun in their eyes.

  Ed said, “You’re starting to piss me off, Frank. Now get in the van.”

  Ed’s eyes were flat and lifeless. He was ready to kill.

  Frank said, “I’ll get in the van. Then we’re going to talk about things you don’t do to your ex-cellie.”

  Ed said, “Lie face down on the ground and put your hands behind your back.”

  If Frank started shouting, nobody would hear over the wind. Not clearly. They wouldn’t know what was going on. And Ed still had Tony.

  Frank had blown it. He should have done a 360 recon round the whole place, but then he probably would have missed his opportunity. Frustration bunched up inside him, but there was nothing for him to do. He’d lost this round, so Frank lay down on the ground and put his hands behind his back. Made nice big fists side to side, gave himself lots of room.

  The driver obviously knew Frank’s fist trick because he turned Frank’s hands so they were facing each other and only then bound them up with a sturdy cuff zip-tie. He searched Frank and took his phone and Jesus’s gun. Then he stepped back.

  Ed hid his gun in his vest pocket, but kept it pointed at Frank. No reason to flash it in public for all the truck stop patrons to see.

  Frank walked over and climbed into the van, the guy with the shotgun tracing him the whole way. The back of this van was mostly bare like a delivery truck. A piece of filthy carpet had been thrown on the floor, and someone had made a solid bench out of particle board to go over the wheel well along one side. The bench was bolted to the floor. One end of a long cable used for locking bicycles up was bolted at one end. Frank wondered what it was for.

  Tony and the girl sat on the carpet. Shotgun motioned Frank toward the bench. Then the driver came up and slid the bicycle cable between Frank’s bound arms, then through the bound arms of Tony and the girl. Then he padlocked it to the bolt on the far end. The mystery of the cable was solved. They must be transporting a lot of people to go to the trouble of pounding together a bench and rigging a line. And that presented another mystery.

  “Worried someone might steal me and ride off?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah,” Ed said. “This place is lousy with thieves.”

  The others helped Jesus onto the floor of the van. His nose was off kilter, and there was blood all over his face. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, but that’s what happens when your face meets a hard object.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Jesus snarled.

  “Not here,” Ed said.

  Jesus gently felt his nose, then groaned and jerked his hand away. Ed climbed into the driver’s seat and closed his door. Shotgun moved into the passenger’s seat. The original driver got out, and he and his original passenger closed the side door. This van had obviously been called in for a switch.

  Frank was kneeling in front of the bench, his arms behind him. He wasn’t going to ride this way. He wasn’t the slender steel of seven years ago. He had a lot more muscle on him now, but he’d made sure to stay limber. He lay on his side and brought his tied hands down below his thighs and then, with a bit of a struggle, slid his legs through and sat up on the bench with his hands in front of him like a regular Harry Houdini.

  Frank looked at the cables and bench. They were worn, well-used. How many people had they transported in this van? And to what destination? He looked for blood and saw a dozen blotches of various sizes on the filthy carpet that could have been blood, but could have also been the drippings of someone’s cheeseburger.

  Frank said, “You ordered a replacement vehicle, and they brought you this? You need to rent from a different car company.”

  Ed said, “You’re a funny man, Frank. Unfortunately, you’re not too bright.”

  “All I want is Tony.”

  “I heard you the first twenty times,” Ed said. “I don’t need a rerun. So just chill, and think about your future. One that’s most likely going to feature you getting well acquainted with Jesus.”

  11

  Precious Cargo

  FRANK GOT HIMSELF comfortable on the particle board bench. Then Ed pulled out of the truck stop and turned onto the road. They passed the fat motorist and his dog; the man was still oblivious. A few moments later, Ed made a right and accelerated up the on-ramp to the interstate heading east.

  Jesus lay on his back behind the front seats and gingerly felt his nose. He said, “It’s broken.”

  Shotgun looked down at his face. “You look like a bulldog, man.”

  Jesus cursed, something in Spanish. “We’re getting it looked at,” he said.

  “Sure,” Ed said. “But we lock down everything first.” He looked in the rearview mirror.

  Frank ignored Ed and turned to Tony. “I didn’t know Yeti Inc. had expanded its services.”

  Tony shrugged and looked down. He was completely strung out. Heavy-lidded eyes he could barely keep open.

  “What did you give him?” Frank asked.

  “Bugs Bunny vitamins,” Ed replied. “They’re chock full of B.”

  Frank turned back to Tony. “You’re going to be all right.”

  Tony didn’t respond.

  Frank nudged him with his foot. “Look at me.”

  Tony looked up through slits.

  “I told you I’d find you. We’re going to be all right.”

  Tony gave a half nod. His lids fell. “Dude.”

  “You lie down,” Frank said. “It will all work through your system.”

  “Hey,” Tony said, but the rest was mumbled. Then he lay down on the carpet.

  Frank looked at the girl. Early twenties. Smooth brown skin. Jeans and a green button-up blouse that had come untucked. She wore work boots. What kind of girl wore work boots? And those weren’t designer jeans either. They looked like they belonged on a man. Her dark hair hung down loosely to her shoulders and covered part of her face. What it didn’t cover revealed recent bruising. There was a scrape on h
er cheek. One lip was cut and swollen like she’d taken a fist or elbow to the mouth. She was out, sleeping like a baby on the filthy carpet next to Tony, her zip-tied wrists all angry and red like she’d been working at her bonds.

  From Frank’s position it appeared she’d been abducted, beaten, thrown in a trunk, probably beaten again. She had not had a very good recent twenty-four hours.

  He wondered how much these dirt bags were asking for her. Was she some drug dealer’s daughter? Or the daughter of an illegal who was now a prosperous businessman? Someone who could pay a hefty ransom. Or maybe this was blackmail—maybe her daddy was a politician, maybe someone in her family was chosen to testify in some court. Or maybe this was payback.

  Frank shook his head. There was a whole shadow world out there where people were killed and kidnapped; they lived and died and worked for dirt, unseen, in the shadows, and only the tip of the iceberg ever came to the attention of the police. They lived on U.S. soil, but the suburban-apple-pie-fourth-of-July Americans rarely saw them. When they did, it was like the fleeting sighting of a mountain goat up in the rocks as you raced past at seventy mph.

  Frank looked around the back of the van. He looked for anything—a screw, a pencil, a piece of wood. There was nothing. Up behind the passenger’s seat sat a clear plastic tub with handles that came up and locked on the sides. It was full of what looked like black socks.

  Frank twisted his wrists: the zip tie was good and tight. They’d done a bang-up job on him, or at least that’s what they thought.

  He assessed the space between him and Shotgun. Jesus was lying still in his own miserable world. Ed was driving. Frank could probably make it to Shotgun before he brought his weapon around. One blow to his face, maybe to his eyes, and Frank could break his skinny, but finely decorated neck.

  But what would the cost be? Shotgun would likely have his finger on the trigger. He would discharge the shotgun with the barrel pointing somewhere in the direction of the back of the van before he said goodbye. It would make one hell of a sound in this little space. Make them all half deaf and put a ringing in their ears that would take hours to fade.

  The shot from such a gun might blow a nice hole in the side of the van and then go on to hit any car that might be in the next lane. It might blow a hole in the floor. It might hit Jesus. But it also just might hit Tony or the girl.

  A bullet from a handgun punched a relatively small hole through the body. In the right spot it could kill immediately. But more likely it would zip on through the target, and you’d have to wait for enough blood to spill out before the heart failed to pump the life-giving juice to the brain. Only then would your man be truly incapacitated. It was all about blood pressure and springing leaks.

  A shotgun, on the other hand, turned everything in its path to ground beef. At six feet, even with that short barrel, the spread pattern would still be just a few inches wide. Maybe as wide as the bottom of a Coke can. If it was loaded with double-aught buck shot, then nine pellets, each about as big in diameter as Lincoln’s head on a penny, would fill that space. It was like getting shot with nine .22 rifles all at once. Except these pellets were .33 caliber, a little bigger, a little heavier than the bullets from a .22. They would blast into Tony at more than 1,000 feet per second, chew up anything in their path, and blow out the other side, leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. A wound that big, taken in the torso, was not something you survived, which was why people who got hit that close with a shotgun rarely made it to the hospital.

  Frank put aside his plan to break Shotgun’s neck and sat tight, watching as Ed followed the interstate through Laramie, home of the University of Wyoming Cowboys. Frank hoped Pinto and Sam hadn’t run into any trouble. Of course, with the plane painted in University of Wyoming colors, they could say they were Cowboys coming for an early tail gate. Surely the locals would welcome them with a beer and open arms.

  The interstate led into the canyon, then up into the mountains. The sun was setting, lighting up the whole hillside in glorious color. Ed kept his speed right around the legal limit. A highway patrol vehicle shot down the canyon on the other side of the interstate, but by the time Frank spotted it, it was too late to have made enough of a ruckus to attraction his attention.

  Frank watched the road and what he could see of the light show out the front, running scenarios through his mind. He could go for them when they unloaded; he could take a dump on the floor and see if that didn’t goad Shotgun to come back; he could go for Shotgun’s weapon, and not Shotgun himself. They reached the summit and the massive monument with Lincoln’s head on top appeared off to the left, a blaze of glory in the fading light, and then Lincoln was behind them.

  Shotgun turned around and opened the plastic tub full of black socks. Except they weren’t socks. They were hoods. He threw three of them at Frank. “Two for them. One for you, dick head. Put them on.” He pointed his shotgun at them.

  Shotgun was a skinny thing, a bit twitchy and drawn out. His teeth were bad, which could mean he hadn’t learned how to brush as a lad or that something more industrial was eating them, something manufactured in great quantities in Mexico and shipped north. Nothing like red phosphorus, Drano, and battery acid to give a man that winning smile.

  “I get carsick,” Frank said. “You want me to barf all over the back?”

  “I think we just kill the big one,” Shotgun said.

  Ed looked into the rearview mirror. “It’s up to you, Jockstrap. You can make this easy. Or you can dig yourself a hole. Where these boys come from, a dead body doesn’t mean a thing.”

  Frank nodded. A hole was being dug, but it wasn’t his. “Are these your boys?” Frank asked.

  Ed didn’t reply.

  Frank looked at Shotgun. “Is Ed the jefe?”

  Shotgun pointed at Jesus. “You laid out the jefe’s son, verga. Estúpido como un perro.” As stupid as a dog.

  “But I sure am good looking,” Frank said.

  “Put on the hood,” Ed said.

  “Tell me who I’m dealing with.”

  “You just prettied up one of the Goroza family,” Ed said.

  Frank had never heard of them.

  “Estúpido como un perro,” Shotgun said again.

  Frank knelt on the nasty carpet, pulled Tony a bit closer, then picked up a hood and slid it over his head. He wondered who the Gorozas were and the size of their operation.

  “Get it on real good,” Shotgun said.

  Frank pulled it down, but made sure the material was pulled as far away from Tony’s face as possible. He did the same for the girl.

  “Now you, dick wad,” Shotgun said.

  “How long did you spend coming up with that one? The effort must have been tremendous.”

  “Shaw,” Ed warned.

  Frank sat back on the bench and pulled the hood over his head. It was good thick cotton, but it had been used and smelled faintly of rancid hair oil and something else minty that had probably been lip balm. He wondered what woman had worn this last. Frank found he could see out the bottom, so he studied his feet.

  Ed turned on the radio to some Mexican station, then searched until he found something classical. Some guy with a heavy voice came on and said they were going to listen to Claude Debussy. Then the piano music started.

  The light in the van diminished, indicating the sun was finally setting. Frank figured it was past eight o’clock. Ed and Shotgun talked in low tones. They argued about the radio station and getting food, then rode on in silence.

  About thirty minutes later, the van started to slow, and then the blinker began to click-clack and they exited the freeway. Frank concentrated on the movement. They didn’t want him to know where they were going, but he could feel his way well enough. They didn’t make a big cloverleaf turn to go north, nor did they make a gentle bending turn. This wasn’t the interchange between I-80 and I-25. It was just a regular exit before or after that. But he’d heard an increase in traffic five minutes earlier, which meant they were probably
somewhere east of the big interchange in Cheyenne, but not too far east.

  They drove down a slope and stopped. Then they turned right. South. They traveled straight for a while, stopping now and again at what had to be traffic lights, because he could hear the cars to the side and behind stop and speed up. They went south for quite some time, then turned east onto a dirt road.

  It was night, made even blacker by the hood. They rumbled along for a while over the dirt road, made a few more turns, and then Ed rolled onto gravel, let the van idle for a second, then shut the engine off.

  Ed and Shotgun got out and slid open the side door. Cool night air rushed in. Frank listened hard. No dogs. No cars. Nothing but the night air breathing with crickets. They were out in the middle of nowhere. Out in the Colorado plains. Out in old Shawnee land.

  Jesus got out. Then the back doors opened.

  Frank reached up to remove his hood, but Shotgun slapped his head. “Keep your hood on, dick chew.”

  “Please stop,” Frank said. “I don’t know if I can bear up underneath this devastating verbal onslaught.”

  They opened the padlock holding the bicycle cable, and Ed said, “You’re going to get out the back. And you’re not going to do anything stupid, because I don’t want to have to kill you, Frank. Or your fine piece of Tony.”

  Not here in the van, but Ed could very well want to kill him as soon as he stepped out and moved to a better spot.

  “Get up,” Shotgun said.

  The girl got up and exited the van, crunching on the gravel. Tony followed. Frank came last. It was pitch dark outside. No city glow, no street lights, nothing but a bit of moonlight.

  “This way,” Ed said.

  Frank shuffled blindly forward, the gravel crunching under his feet. “Tony, you feeling better?”

  “I can keep my eyes open,” Tony said.

  “Nothing to worry about here,” Frank said.

  “That’s right,” Ed said up ahead of them in his best imitation of a friendly snake. “You’re all going to be fine. Just a little catch and release.”