WHEN THE MUSIC DIES (MUSIC CITY MURDERS Book 1) (29 page)

“I didn’t.” Ahmed shouted. “I had on my uniform.”

“I told him when I would be there, and he said he would see me later to discuss the insurance company paying for his car. He said he didn’t have time to call the police and wait. He said he would report it later.”

“What are we supposed to do if he contacts the police and gives them your numbers?”

“That will not happen.”

“How do you know it will not happen?” Abdul shouted.

“He will not contact anyone,” Ahmed said defiantly. “He is dead.”

“Dead? Tell me you did not kill this man.”

“I had no choice. He would have exposed us and ruined the plan.”

“You idiot. You could have paid him off; given him money to repair his car, even more money than he would need to repair the car.”

“I took care of the problem. It is over.”

“You took care of the problem? You took care of nothing. You
are
the problem.”

“What did this Mustafa at the restaurant tell the police?”

“Jamil said he told them about the wreck, and the little he thinks he knows about me. They want to talk to me. Jamil said they would be there tonight when I arrive for work.”

“Ahmed, why do you have to be so careless? I cannot believe this. You continue to put the entire plan at risk. You have jeopardized all our work; our plans as well as our future rewards. I cannot believe you have failed at such a simple task.”

“Relax. Everything will be alright.”

“No, everything will not be alright. These police will not stop until they find you.” Abdul paced the floor smoking, all the while knowing precisely what had to be done. He continued to pace the floor making al-Zubaidy even more nervous with each frustrating pass. Suddenly, Abdul stopped behind him. He grabbed Ahmed’s hair and jerked his head backward. “You are unworthy!” The razor sharp dagger completed its task and was held dripping at Abdul’s side.

Al-Zubaidy’s throat was sliced through with such force the only thing stopping decapitation was his spine. As his heart continued to pump, blood gushed from his neck like water from a spigot. His head fell forward onto the table and into the overflowing ashtray before him. Sajid and Karim gasped, then stood frozen, staring at Abdul.

Abdul spat on the man’s motionless head. “Karim, Sajid collect everything; all your possessions and his, anything that could connect you to this apartment. Do it now. We are leaving this place.”

“What about the plan?” Sajid asked.

“Ahmed’s stupidity has altered the plan.”

Sajid looked at him with a questioning stare, but he knew better than to challenge him a second time. The reason was evident and lying slaughtered like a goat on the table in front of him.

“Empty his pockets. Remove his wallet, his cell phone and all his personal possessions. We will take them with us.”

The two young men were still moving in slow motion, dumbfounded by what they had witnessed.

“We are leaving, now. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sajid mumbled.

“Then move!”

Details-Details Car Wash

Nashville, Tennessee

Wednesday Afternoon

Marcus Dalton grabbed a towel, moistened with leather conditioner, from a bucket marked
Interior.
In one graceful motion, he opened the door and fell into the driver’s seat of the Lexus 430 as it rolled from the drying bay at the end of the wash line. He yanked the shifter into gear and pulled the black beauty into Detail Station 3.

As always, Dalton kept a casual eye out for Henry Boudreaux while wiping down the car interiors. Henry, the owner of Details-Details; was an ex-con. Convicted in 1990, he served six years in Riverbend for armed robbery and car jacking. While inside, Henry met a man with Christian Prison Ministries who spent time with him and helped him to see a different side of life; one worth living without all the anguish that put him there.

For five years, Henry had been hiring ex-convicts to work at the car wash. He was doing his best to help turn them from their criminal ways. Some made it and moved on to higher paying jobs and productive lives. Others, for various reasons, couldn’t make the transition; they returned to their old habits and then back to prison. Henry Boudreaux received a tax incentive for employing each of them, success or failure.

Dalton swapped places with Razz Pitts who had finished cleaning the inside of the rear windows. As soon as Dalton climbed into the backseat, he began wiping down the backs of the leather front seats with his right hand while his left hand performed a more profitable task. He pulled open the backseat ashtray at the rear of the console and removed the tight roll of U.S. presidents. In the same motion, the plastic bag he had been palming, dropped from his hand into the ashtray. He closed the ashtray, finished wiping down the rear seat interior and exited the car.

The three men who had been drying the exterior now moved to the White Pearl Escalade parked in Station 2.

Dalton craned his neck to see into the waiting area. He was trying to capture the attention of the Lexus owner. The man stood. Dalton raised his rag into the air and rotated it, signaling the interior detail was complete. The owner walked to the front of the car, made eye contact with Dalton and handed him the pickup ticket confirming he had paid for the wash. Dalton knew the man had paid. He also knew the man had received some extra fine cocaine in exchange for his payment.

“We appreciate your business, sir.” Dalton smiled flashing his gold tooth. “Have a nice day.”

Dalton’s system included paying each of the men at the car wash a fee for helping to cover his enterprise, keeping it from Henry and allowing them all to make a little change on the side. The success of the group relied on the silence of each member. Their solidarity was formed and supported by their common experiences as former inmates of the Tennessee State Prison System.

Dalton knew he was putting himself at risk of returning to prison, and for a much longer visit this time, but he couldn’t quit selling. The money was too easy. He couldn’t get another job and he couldn’t make enough money at the carwash to support his lifestyle. He had to sell the dope in order to make enough to get by.

“Besides,” he always said, “there ain’t no way Marcus Dalton is ever gonna work a straight job. Hell, the only reason I took this shit job was so I had another avenue for distribution.”

Marcus wasn’t like everybody else. According to Marcus, he was unique.

“Yo, Ty,” Coop said, as he wiped the beaded drops from the hood of the Escalade. “Sup with dat bitch you been seein, man?”

“Man—I dunno. She a freak,” Ty said. “She always wantin’ to change me and make me into sumpthin’ she wants.”

“She’s hot,” Coop said, “but, it ain’t worth all dat.”

“Ain’t dat da truth,” Ty said. “All dem bitches think dey be changin’ ya. Shit gets old, man.”

“Yo, cuz,” Coop said to Razz in the SUV’s backseat. “Who da suits?”

All the men’s heads turned, searching.

“I dunno,” Razz said. “Dey look like cops.”

Dalton was stretched out inside the SUV wiping down the dash. He lifted his eyes enough to see through the bottom of the passenger side window.

“Shit. They is cops,” Dalton mumbled. “I seen enough cops in my day. Hell, I can see da bulges in their coats from here.”

Dalton continued to wipe down the interior as he slid out the drivers seat and down to the pavement. The suits were still talking to Henry and repeatedly looking his way. As soon as they looked back at each other, he bolted for the rear parking lot.

He heard one of the cops yell, “He’s running. Get the car.”

Dalton was making plans as he ran. He knew there was an eight foot chain link fence he could climb and use to slow the pursuing cop. He hoped these two were donut connoisseurs and would find it hard to match his speed. He knew the big one didn’t have a chance, but the other cop looked fit. Unfortunately, he was the one tailing him. He might be a problem.

As Dalton approached the fence, he could hear the cop closing on him. He tried to stretch his stride into a higher gear. At about five feet from the fence, he left the pavement. Reaching out, he grabbed the chain links below the twisted barb top. He pulled up hard, all the while digging with the toes of his second-hand Nikes and climbing up the diamond shaped openings in the galvanized fence. His feet reached one of the horizontal supports giving him a sturdy point from which to push off. He jumped and cleared the fence.

He
cleared the fence. His baggy jogging pants caught on the twisted barbs along the top and remained there when he fell to the pavement. He scarcely avoided landing on his head. He turned with the intention of grabbing the pants and their high-value contents, but the cop was already making his leap to the fence. Dalton changed his mind and instead sprinted down the sidewalk behind the building next door.

Dalton slowed as he approached the blind corner of the building. He planned to turn right at the corner and get out of the sprinting cop’s line of sight. As he rounded the corner, something grabbed him at the throat.

Dalton had run into the big cop’s huge left hand. The collar of his jacket and his ability to breathe were now under police control. His eyes were staring into the business end of a Glock Model 22 appropriately backed up by the enlarged eyes and sweaty red face of a three hundred pound pissed-off detective.

“Freeze, asshole,” Norm said. “That’s right. Your ass is mine. You made me run, Marcus. I don’t like to run.”

Norm’s size alone was enough to make anyone whimper, but a close-up view of the exit end of the .40 caliber Glock was enough to weaken a person’s bladder. Norm pulled Dalton toward him lifting the man onto his tiptoes.

“Marcus, were you going somewhere?” Norm looked down at the man’s bare legs. “Forget something, Marcus?”

Everything Dalton tried to say was unintelligible.

“You got him?” Mike asked as he rounded the corner panting.

“Do I have you, Marcus? Detective Neal wants to know.”

Dalton nodded his head.

“Oh, I’d say I got him.” Norm twisted the jacket tighter. The ex-con’s facial coloring was beginning to resemble a plum.

“Detective Neal, would you be so kind as to cuff Mr. Dalton while I recite to him his constitutional rights as a citizen of our city who has been placed under arrest?”

Mike removed the cuffs from his belt and secured Dalton’s hands behind his back.

Norm quoted the Miranda then lowered the Glock and eased the twist on Dalton’s collar. Dalton gasped for air. The imprint of the barrel tip remained on Dalton’s forehead giving him the appearance of having a third eye.

“What happened to his pants?” Norm asked.

“He left them hanging on the fence,” Mike said.

Norm looked at Dalton’s colorful underwear. “Man, you got some kinda serious package going on down there, don’t ya? Or, is that not your manhood, but maybe your inventory dangling there?”

Still gasping for breath, Dalton refrained from comment.

The sirens were approaching from all directions. “Let’s join the cavalry, shall we?” Norm took Dalton’s arm and marched him toward the arriving patrol cars.

Norm turned Dalton over to the uniforms for transport to booking and asked them for Mike’s handcuffs.

“Check his pants hanging on the fence back behind the carwash,” Mike said to the officers, “and be sure to examine those drawers. I inspected the jacket when I cuffed him, but I don’t think the bulge in those fancy panties is all manhood.”

“Put him in the backseat of this patrol car and search him,” Sergeant Arnold told officers Norton and Van Horn.

“I’m gonna unlock the cuffs,” Officer Norton said, as he positioned the cuff key in his gloved right hand, “and then you need to drop your drawers so you can be searched. Understand?”

“Drop em? Right here? In the car?”

“If it was up to me we’d do it standing out there in traffic, but I think the Sarge meant for us to do it with a little respect for the citizenry. We wouldn’t want to embarrass all the men in Nashville by showing off your obviously superior toolkit.”

“So,” the other officer said reaching into his pocket, “you want to be able to wear ‘em again or not?” He pushed the chrome release button on the six-inch switchblade. It flew open and locked with a solid click. Dalton’s eyes widened at the sight of the shining blade.

“Okay, okay. Damn. I’ll drop ‘em.” Dalton looked up at the officers. “Now?”

“No, later this afternoon, dumbass,” Van Horn said, still holding the switchblade at his side. “Get ‘em off.”

Without taking his eyes off the knife, Dalton hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband on each side, and as he pushed down on the floor of the patrol car with his feet he elevated himself off the seat. He slid the briefs down his legs and four small plastic bags of white powder dropped to the seat and onto the carpet. Dalton closed his eyes and tightened his lips. He was headed back to prison, and he knew it.

“Well, looky here, Nate. I think our man Dalton took a drug dump.”

“Yeah, it looks like it, but I don’t think this dump is gonna make him feel any better. Get your hands on top of your head, now and keep ‘em there.” Van Horn folded the knife closed and pulled out his cuffs.

“Hey, Sarge.” Norton shouted. “We got something to show you over here.”

Back at their car, Mike walked up to Norm. "Buddy, I haven't seen you move that fast since the last time we ate Mexican for lunch." Mike smiled.

Norm usually laughed at Mike’s rare humor, but he didn’t look so good. With his breath still labored, Norm leaned back against the car and wiped the sweat from his face with his jacket sleeve.

“What’s the matter, partner?” Mike said. “You look whipped.”

Still having trouble breathing, Norm began to rub his chest from side to side. “My arms, they’re so heavy.” Norm winced, barely able to speak. “I feel pressure—in my chest.”

“Get in the car, now.” Mike opened the passenger side door and forced Norm into the seat. He ran around the car and jumped into the driver’s seat. He reached across the big man and pulled his seat belt until he could latch it. Mike accelerated the cruiser as he lit it up.