It was a circus, but only a one or two ringer. Peter Murke’s days of inspiring a full-on three ring act were two years gone. There were bigger stories these days. The guards shoved their way through, stone-faced and stoic. The prisoner was shackled with chains on his legs and arms. His head was hidden in the hood of a heavy ski coat. He kept his face down.
From up the block, they watched the circus. Crowe had the back seat of the Hummer to himself, and had to peek between Chester and D-Lux to get a good view.
When the procession was a few steps from the transport van, Crowe said, “Okay then. Head around to the back of the building. That’s not Murke.”
“How you know that?” D-Lux said. He was a big, wicked-looking guy with a shaved head and a neck as thick as Crowe’s torso. His heavy fingers drummed impatiently on the steering wheel.
“Head around the back,” Crowe said again.
Grumbling, he put the Hummer in gear, flipped on the radio, and in the best tradition of the sort of people who drive Hummers, did an illegal U on Main Street. Rap came blaring out of the car’s rear speakers, thumping too hard and rattling the windows and seats.
Chester irritably stabbed the off button with his finger. “Turn that shit off, man. We got work.”
D said, “Motherfucker, you don’t touch a black man’s radio. If I turn the fucking thing on—“
“D, shut the fuck up,” Chester said.
D shut up, but he didn’t look happy about it.
They turned left onto the next street, just in time to see the real transport van nosing out of the alley behind the courthouse and hooking left, toward the river. Tricky boys, those Sheriff’s Department cops.
“There it is,” Chester said. “The fuck, man, don’t you see the goddamn thing? Stay on it.”
D scowled. “You wanna watch yourself, Paine. I ain’t having it. I ain’t having you disrespecting me.”
Crowe said, “Both of you, shut up.”
D timed the traffic flow nicely, swung the Hummer into the next lane without getting them killed. One guy in a VW van had to slow down two or three miles per hour because of them. He honked his horn uselessly, and D flipped him off.
They were about four vehicles behind the transport van. Crowe said, “Good. Don’t get any closer, we aren’t exactly unobtrusive in this monstrosity. Concentrate on the road. Chester, call the other guys. And keep your eyes on the van, you’re navigating.”
Chester said, “No shit. In the meantime, why don’t you just chill back there, huh?”
Crowe said, “Good idea,” leaned back in his seat, and bit into the apple he’d brought with him. He didn’t get fresh fruit in prison, and in the few days he’d been free he’d developed a real taste for it.
Chester snapped open his cell phone and barked at the person on the other end. There were two of them, a couple of Vitowers lower-ranking goons, ordered to follow them and do exactly what Chester told them to do.
The weight of a revolver pulled the pocket of Crowe’s new overcoat out of shape. It was a Colt .38, with a three inch barrel. In his other pocket were a handful of speed re-loaders. A good reliable caliber, nothing fancy. If he had to shoot it he knew it wouldn’t let him down.
The transport van got on 51 from Riverside, by the DeSoto Bridge, headed east. The monstrous glass Pyramid reflected the churning Mississippi to their left. D did a good job staying a few car lengths behind.
There wasn’t much traffic on the freeway, so Crowe said, “Fall back a little, D,” and miracle of miracles D did what he was told without complaint. The weather had warmed up a little that morning, and all the clinging ice was gone, but the sky looked washed-out and tired, as if it had had quite enough.
The transport van took 14 up to the 40 connection, passing the exits for North Parkway, Jackson, Chelsea. Where 40 headed east, the freeway opened up and very quickly they left the city behind them.
For a long time, they rode in silence. The deputies had chosen 10:30 in the morning to avoid any remnants of rush hour, and it had paid off, especially heading away from the city. They kept a steady clip, about seventy miles per, not having to do too much weaving or changing lanes. Crowe, Chester and D followed in their giant gas waster/status symbol.
The tension had been rising steadily in their vehicle. Chester kept fingering the revolver he carried in a shoulder rig, tapping his foot rhythmically on the floorboard and grimacing. D-Lux drove stiffly, huffing and sighing every few seconds. Finally, D-Lux said, “Sure would make this drive a little nicer if a man could listen to his rhymes.”
Chester glared at him. “You want a rhyme, D? Try this one: Roses are red, violets are blue, shut the fuck up. You like that one?”
D gritted his teeth. “Once more. Talk to me like that just once more.”
Chester said, “Your job, D, is to keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told.”
“Aw, hell no. My job, motherfucker, is to drive you two lily-white asses and look good doing it.”
Chester said, “Well, you’re halfway there.”
D huffed again. “Just my goddamn luck,” he said. “Stuck in a goddamn moving vehicle with two goddamn crackers.”
Chester said, “Crackers? Did you just say crackers?”
D said, “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“No, but it just reminded me I haven’t had breakfast. Some crackers sound pretty good right now.”
They eyed each other for a moment and then Chester grinned and D grinned and they started cooling off. D shook his head and said, “I changed my mind. Our man Crowe back there is the cracker. You, Paine, are the cheese.”
That got both of them laughing. Crowe leaned back again and gazed out the window. They were giving him a headache.
Twenty minutes later, well and truly out in the boonies, the transport van left the freeway.
“There,” Crowe said. “They’re taking the scenic route.”
As the deputies got further into the rural areas between Memphis and Jackson, the possibility of ambush became greater, so they had chosen this particular exit onto a state road that didn’t see much traffic. It was one of about ten choices as a route to Jackson, and not a very direct one, either—it wound and twisted through heavily forested areas, simple two-lane blacktop that would add another hour, at least, to the trip.
Not a bad plan, unless the ambushers happened to know in advance which road the deputies had chosen.
They followed them off the exit. Crowe said, “Fall back a little more, D. We know where they’re going, we’re not gonna lose them. Chester, call the boys in the other car and make sure they know which exit to take.”
“They know which exit.”
“Remind them.”
Grumbling, he pulled out his cell phone again and punched them in. He spat the exit number at them and snapped the phone shut again. “Happy?” he said.
Crowe wasn’t, not really, but he didn’t say anything. The closer they got to doing this, the less secure he felt about it. He wasn’t scared, exactly—if getting killed is the worst thing that can happen to you, well, big deal, right?—but he didn’t want the plan to fall apart. He didn’t want to get taken out before he’d finished what he’d come back to Memphis to do.
They slowed down, deliberately losing sight of the transport van. The road was a lonely stretch of black, weaving through dense icy woods. They weren’t far from the state park, deemed a wildlife sanctuary, but Crowe didn’t see any wildlife other than the small mammal variety littered along the sides of the road. There’s not much sanctuary against a ton of speeding metal on wheels.
No one in the Hummer said anything for a long time. They drove on through the woods, always just out of sight of the transport van. Crowe kept checking his watch.
When they’d been on the state road for exactly ten minutes, he said, “Okay. It’s time. Chester—“
“Yeah,” he said. “Calling.” He dialed again, said, “Move it,” and tossed the cell phone on the seat next to him.
“D,” Crowe said, “Give this ugly thing some speed.”
D slammed his foot down hard on the gas and they rocketed forward hard enough to push Crowe back in his seat. He handed a tranq gun to Chester, who took it with a sneer. They loaded them up.
Crowe could see the speedometer over D’s massive shoulder. They hit ninety miles an hour, just coming around a wide curve, and the transport van was suddenly in front of them, doing about forty.
“Do it,” Crowe said to D. “Just like you see on the cop shows.”
“Oh yeah,” D said. “I always wanted to do this. Brace yourselves.”
About five car lengths behind the van, he swung out to the left, ready to slam their left rear with the right nose of the Hummer. Crowe held tight to his seat.
Right about then, their plans took a slightly unexpected turn.
From the corner of his eye, Crowe saw a flash of steel through the trees off to the right, heard the deafening roar of a horn, and an enormous eighteen-wheeler carrying a full rig roared out of a hidden road and crashed full-speed into the side of the transport van.
D slammed on the brakes, slid out of control off the road.
Chester’s head smashed against his window and he dropped behind the seat, out of Crowe’s line of sight.
They were spinning, but Crowe was peripherally aware of the terrible screech of shattered glass and metal and wood as the eighteen-wheeler squashed the transport van against the line of trees like a bug.
And then they were hitting the trees themselves, only feet away. The airbags deployed, burying D and Chester, but the only cushioning for Crowe was the headrest in front of him. His head slammed against it and he dropped his tranq gun and everything went fuzzy and red.
For what seemed like a long time, nothing happened. He could only hear a kind of dim ringing in his ears, and couldn’t get his head around what had just happened.
An accident? Where we in an accident?
And then,
A semi… a fucking semi-truck just came out of nowhere...
Chester was saying, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” over and over again, weakly, but he sounded far away. D-Lux groaned, his huge fingers groping at the air in front of him.
Crowe wiped blood away from his eyes with the back of his hand and pulled himself up from where he’d fallen on the floorboards. “Chester,” he said. “You good?”
“What the fuck?” he answered. He was good.
“D?”
D turned his head to look at him, and his eyes were glazed. Crowe said again, “D? You good, man?”
He nodded, and Crowe became aware then of noise outside the Hummer, voices raised, people yelling, and a flurry of activity.
At the same time he heard the crack of a powerful rifle shot, the front window of their vehicle shattered, and D’s head exploded all over him.
Crowe dropped behind the seat, his hand instinctively going to the .38 in his pocket. Chester screamed something unintelligible and war-like, and before Crowe knew it Chester had bolted out of the Hummer and was firing like mad at someone. Crowe heard a volley of gunfire matching him.
Chester was providing cover. Crowe was sure that wasn’t his intention, but that’s what the jack-ass was doing. Crowe peeked over the headrest.
He counted seven of them.
One, a guy wearing a dirty yellow parka and snow boots, was firing a sawed-off shotgun at Chester, who was busy diving behind the tail end of the semi-truck.
There was a younger man dressed all in black, with a long trench coat and long, unkempt black hair. He too, was shooting at Chester, with a long-barreled revolver.
There was a muscular guy wearing a white tee-shirt and jeans a la James Dean. There was another, older guy with a red cowboy hat propped on his head. Another in a rusty metal mask. And two more in very ugly business suits right out of the mid-70’s.
And Crowe found himself mimicking Chester, at least in his head.
What the fuck?
Five of them had guns, and were firing at Chester. From his angle, Crowe could see him crouched behind the semi, frantically reloading. He looked pretty panicked. Understandably.
The two businessmen didn’t have guns. One had a long wicked-looking knife, and the other a machete that was already stained with blood. They were using them on the Sheriff’s deputies. Three of them were already dead, sprawled out along the side of the road like dolls that had been ripped apart by mad dogs.
Crowe looked just in time to see the rear door of the transport van pop open and the last of the deputies come rushing out, screaming and firing a shotgun. The businessman with the machete was right on top of him. With a face as placid as a spring day, he sliced off half the cop’s hand, and the shotgun went spinning away with most of his fingers. The other businessman—his partner, Crowe assumed—flicked his blade and instantly the lower half of the cop’s face was gone in a wash of blood.
Crowe saw movement inside the transport van. Peter Murke.
Chester had reloaded and was firing around the corner of the semi. “Crowe!” he screamed. “Mother of fuck, Crowe, help me!”
Crowe kicked open the door facing away from the road and tumbled out of the Hummer. Instantly, some of the shooting focused on him. Bullets pounded into the vehicle and the trees above his head, showering him with wood chips. He fired blind over the hood of the Hummer, hoping to get lucky. No one screamed out any death throes.
The rear of the transport vehicle was visible from where he crouched. The downside: they could see him as well as he could see them. The two businessmen were looking at him curiously, and between them the rough-looking fish-faced Murke was stepping down out of the van.
Crowe raised his gun and fired three times before he had a good bead and his closest shot ricocheted off the bumper of the van. Murke and the machete businessman flinched, but the one with the long knife only smiled and very casually flipped his blade at him.
It thunked into a tree, less than two inches from Crowe’s head.
“Fuck!” Crowe scrambled out of the guy’s line of sight, fumbling in his pocket for one of the speed re-loaders.
From the other side of the Hummer, bullets pounded into metal, and Chester was still screaming for help. Crowe reloaded his revolver as quickly as he could, but he knew he’d never be able to do it before the freaks had moved in on him.