Authors: John D. Brown
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Kidnapping, #Organized Crime, #Vigilante Justice, #Military, #Spies & Politics, #Conspiracies, #Thrillers
He sighed. “When we get back, I’m going running,” he said. He’d never really liked running as a kid. Never liked it when he was in the Army later. But he’d missed it in prison. Almost as much as he’d missed the shine and smell of a woman’s hair. Almost as much as fries, coleslaw, and ribs. Sometimes he missed it more than either of them. There were times when he’d wake in his cell, the dream of rucking a pack over hills and through woods still looping about him. There were a number of days where holding the remnants of that sweet dream of running free in the sunlight was all that had kept the blackness away.
And it was running that now kept him focused on the future instead of the bright and happy moments like his excellent interview at Cowboy Donut. The exertion would also clear his mind. Let him think. There had to be a way out of his non-employment cage. Frank was a man with dreams. He was still in his thirties. He still had the possibility of a long, happy life ahead of him, but he was going to need a lot more cash than Uncle Wally provided for what he was planning.
“I’ll run part of the way with you,” Tony said, “but you’re all crazy with that running crap.”
“Fair enough,” Frank said.
They cruised back toward the center of town, Frank’s worries bearing down on him. “We’re not in a nuclear war,” Frank said, trying to keep himself positive.
Tony pointed at a police car coming the other way. “And that guy isn’t coming for you. That’s a positive.”
Frank’s heart jumped a little at the sight of the patrol car. When it was closer, he saw that Sergeant Lee sat behind the wheel. Rock Springs liked to keep tabs on its felons, and Lee had paid him a friendly welcome visit not long after he’d moved in. Frank waved at Sergeant Lee. Sergeant Lee waved back. No reason not to be on waving terms.
“That is indeed a positive,” Frank said. He hung his arm out the window to feel the wind. “And it’s a glorious sunny day. An amazing day to be out of a cement box.”
“What else could a man want?” Tony asked.
The car chugged. “Gas,” Frank said. But then the engine picked right back up where it left off, and they continued on to the house he was renting north of the cemetery in the old section of town. On the way, he and Tony finished off the bear claw and licked their fingers, which he supposed was another positive.
They pulled up to the house. It wasn’t much. An old 1950s bungalow that hadn’t been updated since the 1970s. It was barely 900 square feet, if that. But Frank thanked the Lord every day for it, orange counter tops and all. Besides, it was only temporary. Frank had himself a five year plan. He’d work like a dog now, save up some cash. He’d get himself through technical school. And along the way he’d accumulate himself some assets. Five years from now Frank was going to be in a different situation entirely.
There was a driveway and stand-alone garage on one end of the house; on the other end, an empty cement RV pad ran all the way into the backyard. Frank backed into the driveway and saw that someone had left something on the front door step. He parked and cut the engine. The car bucked and kicked, fighting to stay alive a bit longer, obviously much preferring to be out on the road. Actually, it dieseled because he couldn’t get the blasted timing right. But that too would be fixed. The car and Frank were on this journey together.
He and Tony got out. Tony went for the mailbox at the curb. Frank walked over to the front door. A plate of homemade cookies wrapped up in blue cellophane sat on the stoop. Frank picked the plate up. A business card from Sam Cartwright, the local neighborhood nice guy, had been stapled to it. He tore off the business card, put it in his shirt pocket, and opened the cellophane. Chocolate chip cookies. Last time it had been homemade bread.
“Food,” Frank called out to Tony. Another positive. A healthy addition to his cuisine of sardines on toast. “I think that Mormon’s trying to make me fat.”
“He’s just buttering you up for their missionaries,” Tony said, crossing the lawn with a handful of what looked like junk mail. “It’s like that witch with Hansel and Gretel.”
“I’ll be sure to look for indications of cannibalism.”
“I’m telling you,” Tony said.
Frank said, “That Mormon’s the one who greased the wheels for me at Walmart.”
“And you don’t think that’s suspicious?” Tony asked. “Who goes making friends with ex-cons? I bet it’s all part of some racket.”
“Maybe you can penetrate their networks and find out the truth.”
“Maybe,” Tony agreed.
Frank put his key in the lock and turned, but the door was already unlocked, which was wrong. He always locked both doors to the house.
He swung the door open, took two steps inside, and stopped. Tony pushed past and stopped as well.
A man stood in the entry leading from the kitchen. He was a little under six feet, wearing a black leather vest over a denim shirt. He had a dark goatee and receding hair line, but the hair he did have was a bit long and mussed like he’d been riding in the wind, like he was Mister Born To Be Wild. He held a nine millimeter gun in his hand. A Springfield XD-9 subcompact.
Frank knew the man. Knew him far too well. He also knew that he had the subcompact, not because it was easy to conceal carry. Ed Meese needed the small gun because of the size of his idiot baby girl hands. The Springfield wasn’t a bad gun, even the subcompact, but a gun was the last thing that man should be holding. Not with where he’d been.
“Jockstrap,” the man said with a wide-mouthed grin. “We just about figured we’d come to the wrong place. You had us worried.”
In the kitchen, someone scraped back a chair.
Frank bristled all over. “What are you doing in my house, Ed?”
Ed looked all surprised at Frank’s tone. “That’s no way to talk to a friend.”
“You’re not my friend, Ed.”
“No gratitude,” he sweetly reprimanded. “I saved your life.”
“You did.”
“Well, Frankie boy, now I’m coming to collect.”
2
White Hat
FRANK WASN’T ON parole anymore, but he was on a journey, and the conditions he’d set for himself were similar. And they were clear. The first was that you did not have any contact with other convicted felons. Having contact with someone like Ed would get you a free ticket back to the big house.
It would also probably get you infested with roaches. Maybe give you a flesh-eating skin disease. Ed looked fine on the exterior. He was all smiles and clean teeth and had gone to prison for nothing bigger than a small drug rap, but that small-time criminal bit was a facade.
Spend three minutes with him and you’d know something was a little off. Five minutes and a faint warning would start sounding in the back of your mind. Spend two years sleeping above him, listening to his jabber, smelling his excrement, and there wouldn’t be any doubt. Frank had lifted the lid on Ed’s soul and found a wriggling tangle of two-headed snakes roiling in a filthy backwater. Frank was all for rehabilitation, but there were some folks who’d gone rotten to the core. Some folks who couldn’t be fixed, at least not in this life. There were some folks who simply needed to be culled from the herd.
Frank said, “Here’s the deal, Ed. You’re going to leave right now, and I’m not going to break your neck.”
Ed grinned. “I don’t think so.”
The person in the kitchen began to walk toward the front room. Each step knocked clearly on the old brown octagonal-patterned linoleum like maybe he was wearing cowboy boots or dress shoes. Something with a hard heel. He stepped into view behind Ed and stopped.
“Jockstrap,” Ed said, all pleased with himself, “say hello to Jesus.”
Jesus was Hispanic. He was taller than Ed. He was north of two hundred pounds, and most likely pronounced his name as “Hey-SOOS,” not “GEE-zus” as Ed did. His face was pock-marked and rippled, like something knobby was growing there. There were tattoos on his arms, a sleeve of them around his neck. The blue gothic script on his neck tagged him as Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, which meant Frank had not only a felon but also a member of one of the nation’s finest upstanding drug gangs in his house. Excellent. The neighbors were bound to love that.
The tattoo on his upper arm and shoulder marked him as a follower of Santa Muerte, Saint Death, the cult saint of the narcos and poor. Frank had seen these tattoos in prison. Some were of a grim reaper. Others were of a dead woman’s face, stitched lips, black eyes rimmed with the petals of flowers, a spiderweb on her forehead. This was the classical version, a play on the image of Saint Guadalupe—a skeleton in the robe of a holy order belted with a rope, hands pressed together in prayer. About her was a cloak of stars. Rays of light like sharp yucca leaves ringed her, shining out to indicate her holiness. The original Saint Guadalupe stood in flowers. This one stood in a vine of roses mixed with the skulls of the dead.
Nice. But it wasn’t the tattoos that told Frank this situation had gone from orange to red. It was Jesus’s eyes. They were flat and lifeless. The spark of remorse and sympathy had been sucked out of them. There was no smile to those eyes. There was nothing human there at all. Jesus was nothing more than a shell of bones and flesh. Frank had plenty of experience with a collection of such shells during his years in the fine Pleasant Valley state prison in Coalinga, California.
“Tony,” Frank said, “why don’t you go out and mow the lawn.”
Tony had read the situation as well. His face showed a bit of alarm, but that quickly started to turn into something else.
“Go on,” Frank said. “We’re just going to talk.”
“Ooh,” Ed said as if impressed, “he’s got himself a Tony. I didn’t think you swung that way, Frank. But I will hand it to you—he’s young and sweet. Sweet enough to tempt even me to take a dip from that honey pot.”
Frank nodded at door with his chin. “Go,” he said to Tony.
Tony went. He glanced up at Frank on the way out. His jaw was set; there were small sparks of anger in his eyes. The kid’s mind was whirring; Frank could see that. Tony did not like jerk morons. He did not like being pushed around.
“Just mow the lawn,” Frank warned. “Okay?”
“Sure,” Tony said and pushed out the door.
A few more years and bit more muscle, and Tony would be exactly the kind of operator you’d want with you behind enemy lines. But not just yet. Not here. Not now. Not with these two.
With Tony outside, Frank turned back to Ed and Jesus. “Who gave you my address?” Frank demanded.
“A little bird,” Ed said. “Just making sure I keep tabs on my friends.”
More like tabs on those he thought owed him, folks he could exploit. Ed was always talking about keeping score. He probably had a book like a businessman for collections. Problem was, there was no way Ed could have known this address, not unless he had someone inside the California justice system who could have gotten into the records and read it to him. Frank had tried to cut all ties, to break away from old acquaintances and haunts, to change the patterns that would work to suck him back into his old life. Frank had come to Wyoming to start fresh. And here Ed was, like a chigger wanting to dig in.
Ed moved into the front room and motioned nonchalantly with his gun at the couch and chairs. “Sit down; let’s talk.”
Frank didn’t move. “No time to chat. You’re on your way out.”
“Frank,” Ed said, “you’re talking to me, your cellie.”
Ed stood about three strides away. Not too far if Frank was fast. It had been almost seven years now, but the old skills had been burned into him. No way he’d be as fast or as exact in his moves as he’d once been, but he’d been trained to disarm men like Ed.
Then what? Jesus would be carrying. He’d pull. Or not. Who knew? Maybe Ed was carrying another piece. Or maybe he wasn’t. There was a good chance Frank would walk the two of them out at gun point. But there was also a good chance he’d have to put one or both down. That was the truth written in Jesus’s lifeless brown eyes.
Officer Lee and his pals would not look kindly upon a dead body and a few pints of blood in the living room. Not kindly at all. Even if it was the result of Frank ridding the world of a bit of filth. “What do you want, Ed?”
Outside, the garage door rattled up. Moments later the mower kicked to life and droned.
“Here’s the thing, Frank. Jesus and I have had a big day, getting some old-time religion out west; we talked to some of them Mormon missionaries, picked up an extra wife.” He grinned at his own joke. “We’re bushed. We just need a place to crash. Maybe a new set of wheels. I saw that junkyard you drove up in. We’ve got a nice Nissan out back. Let us borrow it.”
“You drove hours just to switch me cars? Is that it, Ed?”
“You were on the way. Why not stop in? Besides, we’ve been going since early yesterday morning. Driving sleepy is as bad as driving drunk. We’re trying to be responsible citizens and keep the roads safe. We just need a bed.”
“Get a room at a motel.”
Ed sighed and dropped the old buddy routine. “Frank, you owe me. You yourself said you owed me. Now it’s time to pay up. I’m not asking anything unreasonable.”
“You’re not staying here. I’m not putting anything on the line. Not for you and especially not Señor Zombie there.”
“Okay,” Ed said, “but I do need your car. You’re going to give me your car.”
Jesus had his hand behind his back, up under his untucked shirt. So that’s where he carried his piece. Or maybe that’s where he carried a knife. Maybe he’d used that knife to saw the heads off of a couple of victims south of the border.
Jesus was giving him the eye.
Frank gave him the eye back. “What? You want this?”
Jesus cocked his head, his expression begging Frank to say one more word, to just give him an excuse to pull his hand out of the back of his pants.
Frank cocked his head and invited Jesus right back. Señor Zombie was big, but not as big as Frank. And there was a bit of a gut on him. He’d looked like one of those brawlers that could take a punch, and from the looks of his nose he’d taken a few. But Frank hadn’t been trained to dink around giving punches. He hadn’t been trained to brawl. If Jesus wanted to throw down, it would be the last time he did.
The tension ratcheted up, and then Señor Zombie’s eyes slid to the side. He shook his head and looked over at Ed. “It’s time to blow,” he said.
“Give us the keys,” Ed said in a hard flat tone. “Jesus is going to move some bags. And we’ll be out of your hair.”
Frank had heard that tone of voice before. He knew Ed meant business.
Frank didn’t have any good options. Their car was dirty, no doubt about that. It was stolen, or they’d been tagged in it, or they were being followed. Or it was something else. It didn’t matter—the car was a liability every minute it was around. Which meant Frank was going to have to get rid of it.
But that wouldn’t solve his problem because if Ed had Frank’s car and something happened, if they pawned the Nova off to someone else who got into trouble, the VIN would go into some cop’s computer and a moment later point directly back to him. It would reach across state lines, and the next thing he knew, here’d come Sergeant Lee with his sunny cop pals.
Ed was taking a risk coming here. He was into something. Something that might require leaving no witnesses. Suddenly Frank didn’t think it was such a good idea to be in this house with the two of them. It was a lot easier to kill someone behind four walls than outside where some nosey neighbor might see.
Frank said, “Sure, I’ll give you the keys. Outside.” Then he backed up a step, and before they could say anything, he opened the front door and walked out to the porch.
Ed and Jesus shared a moment of silent communication, and then Ed shrugged. He slipped his gun in his vest and said, “I knew you’d see it my way, buddy.” Then he walked out and joined Frank on the porch. Jesus followed.
Ed smelled of cigarettes. Señor Zombie had some kind of rancid medicine breath, the kind that reached out three or four feet to shake your hand. He walked past Frank down the steps and around to the side of the house where the RV pad lay, dragging his bad breath with him.
Ed stayed on the porch, took in a big breath of air. “We’re going to use your garage,” he said. “Jesus will bring the car around. It will be easier to switch the bags in there.”
Frank glanced back into the house and noticed his blood money jar stood on the counter. It was empty.
“You took money out of the jar in my kitchen.”
“Jar?” Ed said all innocent. “What are you talking about?”
He should pound Ed right here. One-on-one. Take his gun and deal with Jesus. But Tony was out there.
Ed smiled and moved down the steps and out onto the lawn. “Thinking can get you killed,” he said.
“When are you going to bring my car back?”
“Oh, we’ll get it back to you tomorrow at the latest.”
Right, and there were gold bricks in Frank’s basement. “You’d better have it back. And the money better be on the seat. That car and I are on a journey, Ed. Don’t mess with my journey.”
Some kids a street over squealed with delight. In the distance someone honked a car’s horn. Then Frank noticed the lawn mower wasn’t running. It hadn’t been running for four or five minutes.
Frank looked for Tony, and then Señor Zombie cursed from around the corner of the house and shouted for Ed.
Ed looked at Frank with one of those “what did you do?” looks and then ran toward the corner of the house, his black vest all shiny in the sun. Frank followed. The concrete RV pad on that side of the house ran along a wooden fence between his yard and the next door neighbor’s all the way to another fence at the back. Tall junipers grew along that back fence, shading a two-toned silver and gray Nissan that sat below them.
Frank and Tony had driven up from the other direction; they’d pulled into the driveway on the other side of the house, and, therefore, had missed seeing the Nissan. The car was chopped low and had windows dark as cola. Jesus stood at the back end, the trunk high and open, showing nothing inside. “Gone,” he said.
“What do you mean
gone
?” Ed asked.
Jesus pulled back his top lip tight with anger. “Gone,” he said.
Ed’s eyes narrowed, then his face took on a feral look. “I don’t hear a lawn mower, Frank. I thought Tony was supposed to be mowing the lawn.” He reached into his vest and pulled out his gun.
At that moment, on the other side of the house, the Nova rumbled to life.
Both Ed and Jesus looked at each other and then turned and ran toward the sound. Jesus raced through the backyard; Ed took the front.
But they were too slow. The Nova shot out of the driveway. It bounced out onto the street with a scrape and turned in front of the house with a squeal of rubber. Tony sat in the driver’s seat, both hands at the wheel. In the passenger’s seat was a woman in her early twenties. She had dark hair. She looked Hispanic. She held her hands up in front of her like she was praying, except her wrists were bound together with a long white zip tie.
Tony floored it. The Nova’s engine roared, and the front of the car lifted a bit as the vehicle accelerated. Tony glanced over, saw Frank, and then he was gone, hurtling past the neighbor’s lot and down the road.
Not bad acceleration for an old piece of junk. Frank just wished Tony had decided to race in more friendly circumstances.
Ed shouted over the roof for Jesus to get back to the Nissan, then he came at Frank, gun in hand, murder in his eyes. He stopped maybe four feet away and pointed the barrel right at Frank’s face.
The hackles raised on the back of Frank’s neck. “Put it down,” he said.
“You call that boy back here!”
“My phone’s inside,” Frank lied. “Half the time I don’t carry it with me.”
“You call him now!” Ed said through clenched teeth.
In the backyard, the higher-pitched Nissan motor raced. Then Jesus and the Nissan came barreling out in reverse, the motor whining. He slammed on the brakes.
“You have no idea!” Ed said. “You stupid pile. That boy just bought himself a plot.” Then he ran over to the Nissan, skirted around the back, and slid into the passenger’s side.