The Dead Run (12 page)

 

CHAPTER 19

T
hey stayed frozen in their poses for a few ticks, Galvan and the woman with the gun. Like some sick art installation.
Strangers on the Verge of Murder.

He could feel his arm tremoring invisibly beneath the weight of the machete, a million ready-to-rock nerves vibrating furiously. For no decent reason Galvan could think of, his brain chose that moment to offer up a few more pearls of wisdom from Kodiak Brinks.

Adrenaline the medicine / messin' with the specimen / this brethren stand strong weatherin' / storms with a regimen that make your head spin / ten thousand strong men who never sin / nourishin' like niacin, minds with messiah bends / Leviathons stalk iron men / in the lion's den . . .

In his periphery, Galvan could see Payaso and Britannica edging closer. The woman saw them, too—flicked her eyes at one and then the other, probably running the numbers. Size, weight, speed. How many bullets, how much time. Galvan was punching the same buttons on his mental calculator.

The math, as it so often tended to be, was a bitch.

A second crawled by, and then another. Galvan's boys had gotten as close as they dared, neither one enterprising enough to find a rock and creep up on her blind side, double the threat and change the whole equation.

Somebody do something,
he thought.

And then,
You don't wanna shoot me, lady
.

Finally, the driver's voice, rough and dry as sandpaper, intruded on the tableau.

“What's in that box?”

His tongue darted from his mouth, and he licked his lips.

Galvan peeled his eyes away from the gun and checked him out. Dude was staring at the object with a manic intensity, eyes bugging out of his head.

“What's in it? What's in it?”

He was rocking in his seat now, oblivious to the knife at his neck. And he'd captured his wife's attention, too. She kept the gun trained on Galvan, but she leaned toward the black metal container and cocked her head, as if expecting it to make a sound.

The girls in the backseat slid closer together. They looked like they were holding hands under the blanket.

Payaso took another couple of steps toward the passenger door. The woman paid him no mind at all, blind to everything except the box.

“What's in it?” she asked, taking up her husband's refrain just as he changed his tune.

“I want it,” the guy said. “I want it.” Louder this time.

She wagged the gun at Galvan. “Give it over. Now. Right now.”

Payaso looked like he was getting ready to make a move, but he'd waited too long. She wasn't looking to get out of this unscathed anymore; she was looking to prosper. That made her infinitely more dangerous.

Galvan caught the kid's eye and shook his head a fraction of an inch:
We're outgunned, don't be an idiot.
Payaso nodded and fell back.

Galvan studied the couple, both of them staring intently at the box, the expression on their faces not unlike the one he'd seen slapped across Gutierrez's mug as that awful, corrupting lust crept into the enforcer's soul.

An idea wriggled its way into Galvan's head.

Not a good idea, necessarily.

Possibly a lethal one.

But it wasn't gonna kill him any quicker than that gun.

He withdrew his machete, handed it behind him to Britannica. Pressed the box between his palms, held it before his chest like a birthday cake.

“What'll you give me for it?”

The woman lowered her weapon a few degrees. “What do you want?”

Galvan thrust his chin at the girls.

“Them.”

He felt Britannica and Payaso deflate a little bit, both of them presumably expecting to hear him demand the car. Well, tough shit. That might as well have been his little girl sitting back there, bound for Cucuy's lair and a fate worse than death. And hell, they were supposed to
travel as men did in ancient times
and all that bullshit.

The woman looked at her husband, or co-kidnapper, or whatever the hell he was.

Apparently, dude wore the pants, even if she handled the artillery.

He mulled it over.

Galvan waited. Mr. Patience.

“You can have one,” the guy declared at last, baring a row of butter-yellow teeth in a lascivious parody of a smile. “Choice is yours.”

Galvan shook his head. “Uh-uh. I need 'em both, or no dice.”

The driver kept on eye-raping the box as he replied, voice hollowed-out and distant. “Those're my daughters you're talkin' about. A man's family is all he's got.”

“It's worth it,” Galvan replied, letting a little more magic creep into his voice. He tucked the box under his arm again, allowing them to imagine what losing out on it would feel like. Leaned in close, downshifted to a gruff whisper. “You
know
it's worth it.”

They hoovered that up.

Galvan used the silence to reflect on the fact that neither one had asked what was inside the goddamn thing.

And on the risks inherent in the idea he'd just mortgaged his life on.

“Fine,” the driver said at last. “Fine. Now give it here.”

Galvan took another step back. “Send them over to me first.”

The dude opened his mouth to argue, but his wife was already out of the vehicle, keys jangling in her hand, unlocking one back door and then the other.

“Out,” she ordered, and the girls obeyed, sliding from beneath the blanket. Their wrists were tied in front of them, the twine cutting into the flesh, the hands purpled.

Galvan felt his fury expand outward, rising from his stomach up his throat.

Easy, Jess. Easy.

Britannica stepped close enough to whisper in his ear.

“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed.

Galvan twisted toward him. “A pure man must carry it,” he intoned. “Those two child-trafficking assholes look pure to you?”

Fear danced in the priest or not-priest's eyes. He blinked it back and stared at Galvan, uncowed.

“You're gonna get us all killed.”

“We were dead already, Padre.”

The woman stalked over and planted herself directly in front of Jess, the gun clenched at her side.

“Give it over.”

He looked past her, at the girls. “Come here,” he called. “It's okay. You're safe now.”

Maybe.

They plodded toward him, molasses-slow, and Galvan gave them the once-over, trying to determine what condition they were in. Was it fear that had them in this affectless state, this walking catatonia? Or were they drugged?

Either way, they'd better be able to shake it off when push came to shove.

Which oughta be in about eleven seconds.

Give or take.

“Now!” the woman screeched. “Right now!”

“All right, already. I heard you. Here.”

. . .
goes nothing.

He held it out.

She ripped the box from his hands and turned back toward the car.

A surge of panic tore through Galvan as he watched her go—with the heart, and the gun, and the car.

As nothing happened.

He did the math. He could be on her in three strides, quicker than she could spin and fire.

Probably.

Hubby had moved to the passenger seat, and he didn't have the keys, wouldn't be able to mow them down. It was a decent plan. Galvan tightened his grip, prepared to lunge.

Then the ground began to tremble. By Galvan's feet, and directly beneath the car.

And twenty yards west of where Payaso stood.

And in three separate spots along the winding road.

Thank god,
Galvan thought, well aware of how incredibly fucked up that sounded.

 

CHAPTER 20

T
he cop took his time getting out of the car—like all cops everywhere, Nichols thought wryly. He was a big, towheaded lunk, probably no more than two or three years out of the academy, and he sat there behind his steering wheel, running Cantwell's plates and enjoying his air-conditioning and making them wait.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cantwell hissed, and for a second Nichols thought she was talking to the other cop. “Go over there and talk to him.”

“If I open the door, he'll be on the loudspeaker ordering me to stay in my vehicle before I get a foot on the ground. They drum that into you, believe me.” He gave her the hairy eyeball. “There are ways of doing things.”

“But you're a cop! And this is—”

“An emergency. I know.” Nichols glanced in the mirror. “It's protocol. He'll be here in a second.”

“We don't have a second.”

And she was off.

Nichols had to give her credit. Not only did Cantwell get both feet on the ground, she was halfway to the roller by the time Officer Lunkhead got his hands around the radio.

“Ma'am, return to your vehicle immediately.”

“This is an emergency,” Ruth called, without so much as breaking her stride. Nichols heaved a sigh and heaved his bulk up out of the low-slung Audi.

Officer Lunkhead mirrored him, emerging from the cruiser, left hand pointing them back to the car, right resting atop the service revolver on his hip.

“I'm gonna need you to go back to your vehicle, ma'am. Right now. Sir—do not come any closer! I need both of you back in the car right now.” Everything by the books: repeat yourself, speak in commands, use the first person, lean on the verb
need,
leave no room for discussion. Officer Lunkhead must have graduated at the top of his class.

Nichols raised his hands to chest height. “I'm a cop,” he called out. “Sheriff Nichols, Del Verde County.” The badge was in his jacket's breast pocket, and Nichols reached for it without thinking, the way he had a million times before.

“Hands where I can see them!” Officer Lunkhead barked. He drew his gun, wrapped both hands around it, and advanced.

Christ on a cracker. This was turning into a grade-A clusterfuck.

Nichols obliged, showed the guy his palms again. “Just going for my badge,” he said, trying to project a calm, we're-all-on-the-same-team tone.

The trooper ignored him, swung the weapon toward Ruth. “Down on the ground!” he yelled. “Now!”

She threw a look at Nichols and obeyed haltingly, hands fluttering in the air as she lowered herself, knees first, into the dust.

“Hands interlaced behind your head!”

He watched her comply, eye-checking Nichols all the while, the gun darting from one to the other.

“Can I show you my badge now, Officer . . .” Nichols peered at the name adorning the uniform. “Lautner?”

The sound of his own name appeared to startle the kid.

He reached for his cuffs, and then the sheriff's arm.

Whoops.

“No, you may not! Hands behind your back!”

“We're in pursuit of a suspect,” Nichols heard himself say as he let Lautner clamp the bracelet around his left wrist, turn him backward, cuff it to the right. “Driving an early-nineties brown sedan, wearing a fedora, severe facial scarring. My department has him fleeing one murder and on his way to commit another, Lautner. That mean anything to you? Can you call it in, at least?”

He looked over his shoulder, trained every ounce of authority he could muster on the dumb son of a bitch. “Stop and think, son. You want to throw away your career? Because that's exactly what you're doing. Now uncuff me, and let's start over.”

Lautner jerked the bracelets upward, forcing Nichols to bend forward, and leaned over him.

“My career'll be just fine,” he said, and slammed the sheriff against the hood of the Audi, cheek to blazing metal.

Ruth lifted her head and followed Lautner with her eyes as he stalked toward her, boots kicking up a trail of dust.

“Funny you mention murder,” he said, “because that's what the both of y'all are under arrest for. We got eyewitnesses who saw your little red fuckmobile leaving the scene. And as for your department, Sheriff, they haven't heard a peep outta you in hours.”

He snorted a wad of phlegm into his throat and spat it on the ground, inches from Cantwell's head. “That's right, I know exactly who y'all are, and I don't wanna see no goddamn badges. Yours ain't worth the tin it's made from.”

He was strutting now.
Like a rooster in a henhouse,
Nichols thought, remembering what that felt like.

Cantwell spoke through gritted teeth and the hair falling into her face.

“You're making a mistake,” she said, chest heaving so hard Nichols could see her back expand and contract. Her hands were behind her head, all right, but they weren't interlaced, the way Lautner had demanded.

They were balled into fists.

And one looked bigger than the other.

Nichols caught a glint of metal from between her knuckles, surmised Cantwell's plan.

Thatagirl.

He concentrated all his energy on his abdominal muscles and started to pull himself upright, inch by inch, as slowly and quietly as possible.

Lautner was above her now, straddling Cantwell's waist, hands on his hips, taking a beat before stooping and lowering a knee onto her back and cuffing her, everything still by the books except the cock-of-the-walk crowing.

“Tell it to the judge,” he said. “Ain't nothing either one of y'all can say that's worth a hill of beans to me, so you might as well jes' shut your mouth.”

It was one way to administer Miranda rights, Nichols supposed.

Lautner holstered his piece and shifted his weight, getting ready to drop the immobilizing knee.

That was when Ruth flipped onto her back, unballed her fist. Clenched in her hand was a sleek metal canister Nichols knew well; he'd handed out hundreds of them at the women's self-defense classes he taught on the department's behalf. She pressed her thumb against the nozzle and an incapacitating chemical blend shot skyward, with considerable force.

Cantwell had the fancy version, the triple-action combo of tear gas, UV dye, and oleoresin capsicum. The OC slammed an attacker's eyes shut and caused uncontrollable choking, while the tear gas provoked disorientation and waterworks.

Swift kick to the nuts sold separately.

Officer Lautner toppled to the ground, clutching and crying and gasping. Cantwell scrambled out from underneath before he fell and dashed toward Nichols. He was already running to her.

“Get the keys and the gun,” he ordered, marching over to Lautner and dropping to his knees, shins pinning the convulsing lawman's neck.

Cantwell had them in an instant; Nichols rose and turned to let her work the lock. When he heard the click and felt the pressure encircling his wrists abate, he beckoned for the gun.

Cantwell hesitated for a split second, and Lautner's anguished wail floated between them like a wraith.

“I'm not crazy,” Nichols reminded her. “I'm not gonna shoot him.” Cantwell forked over the piece.

The sheriff halved the distance to the cruiser in eight paces, lined up his shot, and squeezed. The front right tire caught the bullet in its teeth, gasped as its life seeped away.

Cantwell had the Audi running by the time Nichols got there, and they were back on the road before he could close the door. He stashed Lautner's gun in the glove box, patted himself down, pulled out Cantwell's phone, jabbed at it.

The doctor was still breathing hard. “Who're you calling?” she demanded.

Nichols's throat was suddenly so parched that he could barely speak. He swallowed hard, worked the spit around in his mouth, listened to the ringing of the phone in his ear and the heavy thumping sound his blood made as it rushed back and forth from his brain.

“The only cop I know I can still trust,” he told her as they shot across the endless plains.