Bad Penny Page 4

  Frank grabbed his cell, slid it open, and thumbed down for Tony’s number. He hit the green button to dial then started to run, not south after Tony or the Nissan, but north. He held the phone to his ear and began to run down the middle of the road, his tan work boots slapping the asphalt.

  Tony needed to go west. He needed to get on Thompson, run along the north side of the cemetery, or go around the south end, then get himself to the sheriff’s office on C Street. It was just a few blocks away. He needed to pull right in, horn blaring. Let Ed and the zombie pull in behind him. No sense waiting for the cops when he could go right to them.

  Tony’s phone rang. Rang again. Come on, Tony, pick up!

  Frank reached the top of hill on G Street and ran down the other side. The steep hilly streets were like something out of a baby San Francisco. Lines of bouncy tar squiggled across the asphalt like thin black snakes where the road crew had been filling cracks.

  G Street was so narrow the drivers had to parallel park their cars with half the car up on the curb to make room for one lane down the middle. The street was in an old residential neighborhood filled with small bungalows and ramblers from a time when a house cost $7,000 dollars. The front yards had small front lawns, some behind chain link. Willows and elms, stunted by the harsh Wyoming climate, grew out over the narrow street. The leaves rustled in the hot wind. Frank ran down past the houses and the cars, the incline letting him stretch his stride and pour on the speed. Tony’s phone kept ringing.

  A vehicle turned onto the narrow road behind him. He glanced back. It was an old green Suburban with a mismatched door panel. He moved over and waved the driver for help.

  The woman behind the wheel gave him an alarmed look, punched the gas, and sped on by.

  Frank must have been scowling in the hot sun, must have looked like a mad dog. Problem was he didn’t think he could do bunny rabbit at the moment. There was a tower of anger rising up in him. Who did Ed think he was? Frank had a life going here. That girl had a life, although who knew if she was clean or some nasty piece of drug work? More importantly, Tony had a life, bless his freaking white hat head.

  Tony’s phone went to voicemail.

  Frank cursed, cut the call, and dialed again.

  He ran past a yard where a Daschund and some other bigger mutt charged the chain link to bark at him. He ran past an old woman digging in a bed of flowers that was looked over by a fat and happy gnome. He ran past a place where the lawn looked like each blade had been tended with a pair of scissors and watered every day and another place that looked like they’d used gasoline on it. He kept running, big old strides thumping the asphalt, his work boots feeling large and loose on his feet.

  Up ahead, a dozen kids were squealing at a birthday party out in front of a blue house. They had balloons and a clown with yellow hair. Clowns? What kind of parents invited clowns to their kid’s party? Clowns had to be one of the scariest things on the planet. Ed probably had clowns at his parties when he was a kid. In fact, Frank was willing to wager that if you did the research, you’d find clowns featuring prominently in every serial killer’s history.

  Frank ran past the kids and their horror show and turned onto New Hampshire.

  Tony’s phone was still ringing. “Pick up!” he growled. “Pick the phone up!”

  Tony picked up.

  “Tony!” Frank said.

  “Frank—”

  “Shut up and listen. Get to C Street. Lead them to the sheriff’s office.”

  “Sheriff’s? Down past the bowling alley?”

  The police station was by the bowling alley. The sheriff’s office was about half a mile closer. “No, the other end of C.”

  The phone went quiet. Frank stopped running and stood in the middle of the road. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here—”

  Now was not the time to give five minutes of directions. “Just get to the cops. Forget the sheriff. Go to the station by the bowling alley. You hear me?”

  No response.

  “Tony!”

  Frank looked down at the phone. The call was gone. He pressed dial again; it rang and went directly to voicemail. He broke the call, dialed again. This time he hit the speaker button then lit out with all the speed he could muster. He came to the end of New Hampshire, turned on Massachusetts. The phone rang and rang. He cut across a vacant lot and field at the back of the Boy and Girl Scout office, and emerged on C Street.

  To his left, next to the Scout office, stood the sheriff’s office. Frank ran past and turned right toward the police station.

  He dialed Tony again, then prayed the Lord to let him make it, let him make it, let him make it, even though Frank didn’t know how easily the prayers of an ex-con rose up into the ears of deity. The call went to voicemail. Frank dialed again, the speaker playing the tone, and he continued to hoof it down the middle of C Street, his boots eating up the pavement. It was still residential here, same 1950s and 1960s bungalows, some with green siding, some with rust red, most with white. The sun was hot, shining off of the chrome and windshields of the parked cars with bright little spots of arc light. The phone rang and rang and rang and went to voicemail again. He killed the call. Maybe Tony was trying to get through on his end.

  Frank ran a few more blocks and entered the commercial district. He ran past the bowling alley, through the intersection on 2nd, and arrived at the police station. He turned into the narrow parking lot at the back, but Tony and the Nova weren’t there. He skirted around front.

  Nothing.

  On the pole at the station, the flags of the United States and the great state of Wyoming snapped in the wind. Stars and stripes over a buffalo.

  The parking in front of the station spanned the whole block. Frank ran through the parked cars to the D Street side, ran around the back corner there. But there was no Tony. No Nova. No Nissan. No nothing.

  Had he gone to the sheriff’s after all? Frank prepared to run back when the phone rang. Tony’s name came up on the screen.

  Frank pushed the answer button. “Where are you? You okay?”

  “I can’t come to the station, Frank.”

  A chill shot right to Frank’s core. “If Ed has you, say the word ‘five’ into the phone.”

  “No, Ed’s out of the picture right now. It’s the girl.”

  “What do you mean? She got a gun to your head?”

  “More like box cutters. To the throat.”

  “Box cutters?”

  “I used them to cut the zip ties on her wrists and ankles.”

  “Hang up,” a woman said behind Tony. She had a Spanish accent.

  “We’ll be okay, Frank. She just wants to get out of town. She says not to call the cops. She says they’re dirty.”

  “Tell her you’ll let her out.”

  “She doesn’t want to get out here.”

  Who knew what this woman was strung out on? Who knew what she might do? “This isn’t happening.”

  “I think it’s happening, Frank.”

  Frank took the calmest tone he could. He needed to keep Tony focused. “Tell me where you are. Tell me your direction.”

  “We’re on the belt route. I’m going to try to get to I—”

  There was a double tone then nothing. Frank looked down at the phone. He knew Tony wouldn’t answer if he called back.

  I-80. Tony was going to I-80, but was he going to get on at the north, east, or west end of town. And which direction would he go then?

  Frank took a calming breath. He needed to get his mind straight. Needed to put it into gear. Needed to start listing his options.

  A kidnapped woman had box cutters at his nephew’s throat. She didn’t want to go to the cops. Maybe she was from some rival organization, a criminal in her own right. Or something else. Didn’t matter. Frank was right here at the station. He could walk in and spill the whole story. They’d call it out. They’d share it with the sheriff’s office and the Highway Patrol. He could have a dozen eyes on the street, minus those that wer
e otherwise engaged and those too far out to be of any help. He turned to go into the station and then stopped.

  He had no doubt the Rock Springs officers were good. But he’d learned long ago that delegating sometimes meant the job didn’t get done. If he sequenced it right, he could get all those officer eyes plus his own. All he needed was a vehicle.

  He looked at the cars in the parking lot. No way was he going to steal a car here. And he didn’t have to. He fetched the business card that had been stapled to the cookies on his doorstep out of his pocket. Didn’t Sam, the happy neighborhood Mormon man, work around here?

  Frank turned the card over and looked at the address. Sam Cartwright, accountant by day, cookie man by night. He was a few blocks down and across the tracks. Frank punched Sam’s number into his phone.

  Sam picked up on the second ring. “Good afternoon, this is Sam.”

  “Sam, this is Frank Shaw—”

  “Frank, my man. You’re eating those cookies right now, aren’t you? You’re a puddle of joy on the floor. You’re calling to thank me.”

  “Actually—”

  “Dude, that recipe is contraband. Contraband! Half-a-dozen caterers in this town would kill to get that.”

  “Sam, look, you told me to call if I needed anything. Bro, I got a situation. It’s crisis. Condition red.”

  Sam’s voice modulated to a serious tone. “What’s going on, Frank?”

  “It’s a long story. But I need a car.” Frank knew how that sounded. “You can drive. I’m not asking to take your car.”

  “That old Nova finally gave up the ghost?”

  “Tony’s been abducted.”

  There was a pause. “What?”

  “They’re still in the city. I need some help, Sam.”

  “Holy crap, Frank. Did you call the cops?”

  “I’m going to call them, but we need all the eyes and ears possible on this. There are only so many officers in this town. Every minute counts.”

  “Right,” Sam said.

  “Can you come?”

  Silence. Frank thought he was going to make an excuse, and then Sam said, “Tony’s a good kid. You bet your boots I’ll come.”

  “Let me meet you. You in the office or out with a client?”

  “I’m at home.”

  “Okay. I’ll be running your way on D Street. Come as quick as you can. Bring something fast. Something tall so we can see is even better.”

  “I’m heading out the door right now.”

  Frank shook his head; what kind of people were like that? People that were too naive or had some angle, that’s who. Maybe Sam did have a racket going. Maybe he thought Frank had some ex-con criminal connections that might come in handy some day. He was going to be disappointed. But it didn’t matter what Sam’s scheme was—Sam had wheels, and that’s what Frank needed at this particular moment.

  Frank ended the call and punched in 9-1-1. He wrestled with what to tell them. Did he go into MS-13? Did he talk about Ed’s connections to some drug lord named Rico and his supposed western state operation. Ed had said he was Mr. Logistics for the guy, Mr. Get Her Done. Which could have all been a bunch of blather. Frank decided not to go into all that. Not now. What they needed to know was that Tony had been kidnapped. He started to run, phone ringing in his ear.

  The dispatcher picked up. Frank identified himself, told her about the kidnapping, described Tony, the car, and the woman. The dispatcher took the information. Asked him for his contact info. Asked him if he could come in with a picture, or email it. Frank said he was on the street looking for the kidnappers that very moment and wasn’t near a computer. Told her Tony had been heading toward I-80. Then he hung up and began to run. Big-booted strides.

  His phone rang. It was the dispatcher. He let it ring.

  He ran across the intersection on D and 2nd, past the bowling alley on the back side, past the lumber store and into the old residential part of town. He approached the fuel oil dealer with the yard full of oil tanks stacked up next to the fence. Sam should have been here by now. Frank swore Sam had a Mustang. Not tall, but fast. It would do just fine.

  Up ahead, tires squealed. A motor raced. The tires squealed again and some soccer mom with serious road rage came around the corner up ahead in her baby blue Mazda minivan.

  Come on, Sam. Come on.

  And then Frank saw that the soccer mom wasn’t a soccer mom. It was Sam, driving like a bat out of Hell.

  Sam saw him, flashed his headlights, then hit the brakes hard and pulled over in a rush of debris. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Where we headed?”

  A minivan? Seriously? But beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Dewar and I-80,” Frank said and slid in. A box of wet wipes lay at his feet. He picked it up and tossed it into the back seat. Cheerios had spilled out down the center aisle along with a lime green ball and some plastic robot toys. A jumble of other stuff rose from behind the back seat, including some fat PVC pipes.

  Sam was in his thirties, medium height and build, clean shaven, tidy shirt, tidy accountant hair. He was a little overweight, not in a fat greasy sloppy way, but in a cuddly, chubby, happy way. Like a good luck charm.

  Frank had never seen Sam without a Bluetooth receiver in ear. He was wearing one now. “I-80, out past Walmart,” he confirmed to someone on the phone.

  Frank said, “I’ll tell you which direction on I-80 when we get there.”

  “You got it, buddy.” Sam looked in his mirrors. A car was coming up behind, but Sam put on his blinker, stepped on the gas, and the Mazda shot out into the road in front of it.

  The person behind laid on his horn and slammed on his brakes.

  Sam glanced in the mirror. “I put on my blinker, buddy,” he said.

  “Thanks for coming,” Frank said.

  “No problem.”

  The Mazda was small as minivans went, but it accelerated well enough to escape the driver blaring his horn behind. “This thing has a couple of gerbils under the hood.”

  “Couple?” Sam asked. “It’s got a whole village, complete with a town square.”

  Frank was sitting up so high he was looking through the shaded top of the windshield. He fumbled around for seat controls, but only found a lever to lower the back of the seat.

  “The wife’s got the pickup,” Sam said. “Otherwise, I would have brought that.”

  “This moves. It’s better than roller skates.”

  “I can get more help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can make some calls.”

  Who would Sam call? The Mormon pastor? “I don’t think the missionaries on their bikes are going to be much help at this point,” Frank said.

  Sam’s eyes widened like a light bulb had just flashed in his head. “The missionaries have a car. I didn’t think of them, but I could call them too.”

  “I already called 911,” Frank said. “We’re good.”

  They raced past the fuel oil place, took a hard left, worked their way out onto Blair which ran parallel to the train tracks. The whole time Frank scanned for the Nova.

  When they crossed over the tracks onto Dewar, Sam said, “Hey, Honey.”

  Frank looked over at him.

  “Yeah, I’ve got the van. I’m a little busy now. Mind if I call you back?” There was a pause, then, “Chow,” and Sam turned onto Dewar.

  Frank decided yet again that phones in the ear were just plain wrong. Who walked around making everyone you passed think you were talking to them?

  Sam kept his eyes on the road. “So who did this? Why in the world would they want Tony?”

  “It’s kind of complicated.”

  “More complicated than the tax code?”

  “Probably not,” Frank said, “but I’ll give you the details later. Right now I want to focus.”

  They drove past the ridge of short cliffs and the strip mall. Frank searched the parking lots. They passed pickups and SUVs and an old Honda coming the other way. There was no Tony.

&nb
sp; “I figure it’s not some random kidnapping,” Sam said. “Who kidnaps teenagers in broad daylight?”

  “Not too many people around here.”

  Sam weaved past two vehicles that were slowing for a turn. He said, “A car pulled up to your house after I’d dropped off that plate. Colorado plates. They didn’t look much like choir boys, Frank.”

  “They’re not, Sam. Either one would kill you. They had a girl in their trunk. Tony sprang her.”

  Sam’s mouth hung open in surprise. Then he recovered. “So they caught him, and abducted the both of them?”

  “No, Tony and the girl made an escape in the Nova.”

  “So he wasn’t abducted?”

  “She’s holding a box cutter to his throat. She didn’t want to go to the cops. Our choir boys are after them.”

  A car pulled into their lane up ahead, and Sam juked into the lane next to it. “Choir boys, huh? I can do choir boys.”

  Frank looked over at him. Looked at the toys in the back, the princess DVDs in a case in between the seats. Some unicorn and star stickers clung to the glove box where one of Sam’s numerous small kids had undoubtedly put them. Frank had a nose for people. No way Sam had some ulterior ex-con crime connection scheme going. No way. Which meant Sam probably got his ideas about choir boys like Jesus and Ed from TV. He’d probably never seen a real bad guy in his whole life. Never been in a situation where the wrong move meant somebody died. “Well, Sam,” Frank said, “then it’s good thing you’re along. Now we just need to find Tony.”

  “Roger that,” Sam said. He picked up a blue bottle from a holder, took a long drag, then held it out to Frank. “Vitamin water?”

  The lip of the bottle glistened with the residue of Sam’s sucking lips.

  “Thanks, I’m good. You watch the road.”

  Frank gave this rescue chase 50-50 odds. Then he thought of all that could happen to Tony before he got to the interstate, and those chances started to plummet.

  4

  Nova

  FRANK LOOKED AHEAD at the I-80 interchange. Tony knew the Nova wasn’t a freeway car. Not only did it start to shimmy like a hoochie when the speedometer hit sixty-two, but the old engine was tired. You had to be going downhill to even reach that speed.