Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  “Can I see the binoculars?”

  Hurlocker passed them. Alan scanned the whole building. He looked a long, long time. Then he said, “So, just boost one of those big trucks. Like boosting any other car.”

  “Just steal the truck,” said Hobbs.

  “But not like any other car,” said Hurlocker. “With another vehicle you’d be able to run for it like a spooked moonshiner. But with one of these big sombitches, you gotta get away clean, or they’ll chase you. And if they chase you, they’ll catch you. So no hurting people, no triggering alarms, nothing. All very professional and untraceable. Like a movie—if it’s the most boring movie you’ve ever seen.”

  “What are they doing in there? All those sparks?” Alan asked, still looking through the binos.

  Hobbs said, “They’re putting old truck bodies on new chassis. New engines, new springs, new everything.”

  “OK, which one you want?” asked Alan.

  “Doesn’t matter, just make sure you steal one that runs.”

  Alan handed the binoculars back to Hobbs. “OK, let’s do it.”

  Hurlocker smiled a pained smile and looked away.

  “Kid,” said Hobbs.

  “Seriously, why fuck around? I’m gonna go steal a truck. Right now.”

  Hurlocker said, “Got to love a game rooster,” in a way that suggested he really didn’t love this one.

  “Well then, fuck you. You steal it.”

  “Easy. Easy!” said Hobbs. “Look, there’s a right way and a wrong way. A lotta wrong ways. There are steps to this dance, and we’re gonna show you.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “We wait. We watch. We take notes. We—”

  “That doesn’t sound like the next-level, badass shit I signed up for.”

  Hobbs rubbed his eyes. “You didn’t sign up. You applied. And you haven’t been accepted yet.” He threw down a composition book and a pen. “Take notes, you’ve got the first watch.”

  Alan looked at the pen and paper as if they were something from the Jurassic period. “You want me to sit here and just watch.”

  “Eight-hour shifts, you’ve got the first one.”

  “In the middle of the night? But I won’t get any sleep.”

  Hurlocker chuckled a low, wry chuckle. As he walked to the stairwell, he muttered, “I hate this town.”

  THIRTEEN

  The next morning Hobbs and Hurlocker ate breakfast and went to the stakeout. When they got there, Alan wasn’t on the roof. The notebook was there, but nothing was written in it.

  “Well,” said Hurlocker, “now we know.”

  Hobbs grunted and looked around.

  Hurlocker said, “I wanted to catch him sleeping.”

  Hobbs said, “What difference would it have made?”

  “Kicking the shit out of him would have served as my daily constitutional. Besides, you get to be my age,” said Hurlocker with a grin, “you’ll jump at any excuse to feel young again.”

  Hurlocker turned and walked to the stairs. Hobbs stayed a minute, looking out over Regent Armored. Five stories below him and across the vacant lot, ordinary men were filing in for their ordinary day of work. For a moment Hobbs envied them. Men who had a respectable trade, never worried about the law or the double cross. Then he rubbed his eyes and saw them for the tame creatures they were. He’d be bored out of his mind in a job like that. What was he going to do when it finally did come time to retire? Would such a thing even be possible? He shook it off. He wasn’t retiring today. Today was all that mattered.

  He caught up with Hurlocker in the stairwell. The rangy man was standing motionless, halfway down the flight of stairs, as if some movers had abandoned a wooden Indian. Then he turned and beckoned to Hobbs with one finger while he held the other to his lips. Hobbs closed the rooftop door gently and tiptoed down the stairs.

  Hurlocker whispered, “You don’t hear it?”

  Hobbs shook his head.

  Hurlocker whispered, “Hearing’s the first thing to go.”

  Hobbs descended.

  By the time they got to the fourth floor, Hobbs could hear it, a little at least. Music, high and tinny, no bass. And shitty music at that. Rap, hip-hop, some shit. He looked down and saw that Hurlocker had a pistol in his hand. He held it naturally, conversationally, as if it weren’t a weapon, but maybe a flashlight that he would use to point out structural repairs in the crumbling building.

  Hurlocker always did like guns too much, but he’d never been the trigger-happy sort. Hobbs had left his pistols where they belonged, in the trunk of the car. All the same, he eased out onto the floor quietly.

  This floor had been a workshop of some kind. High ceilings, exposed timbers. In the corner was an office constructed of lath and plaster. At one time a foreman would have worked there, or maybe the plant manager. The door was closed, but the sound was definitely coming from in there. They picked their way through empty beer cans and spray paint, through trash, and over the grease marks and bolt holes where large machines had once been mounted to the floor.

  They set up on either side of the door. Hurlocker held up three fingers and raised his eyebrows. Hobbs shook his head no. He tried the knob and the door swung easily. Hurlocker leaned around the jamb, fanned the room with the pistol, and leaned back. Relief flashed across his face, quickly replaced by disgust.

  Hobbs looked for himself. Alan was asleep underneath a table. On top of the table were his laptop and some scattered gear.

  Hobbs walked through the door and yelled, “Rise and shine!” Instead of jerking up and hitting his head as Hobbs had hoped, Alan rolled over and said, “Oh, hey.” Hurlocker stayed on the other side of the door.

  “Well, you’re fired.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sleeping on the job. Leaving your post. Fuck did you think was gonna happen?”

  “I got it all,” said Alan, rubbing his eyes, still not quite awake.

  “You got it all my ass. You got nothing. The notebook is blank. You fail, kid.”

  “Notes? By hand? Are you shitting me? I took pictures.”

  “Pictures?” Hobbs said, turning around. “Best of luck, kid. Maybe you can get a job doing data entry on punch cards or something.”

  “Hey!” Alan yelled. He scampered up from the floor and blocked Hobbs’s path, putting a pale, weak finger on Hobbs’s chest. Behind him Hurlocker lifted his pistol and mimed bringing it down on the back of the kid’s head. Hobbs shook his head no. He didn’t mind the kid showing some grit. Even if this one was an idiot, it left some hope for future generations.

  Alan said, “You’re the asshole that wanted an audition, right? So let me show you what I can do.”

  “You showed me. You were asleep. I need guys I can count on.”

  “Job’s done, jackass. Job’s been done. And this? This is bullshit. This is a shitload of busywork just to show you what I’m capable of. But you’re the jackass that wanted an audition. So let me audition.”

  Hobbs stared him down. Shitty music crackling away in the background, some kid yelling about bitches over a beat. It was a sound that should have been riding on twenty-two-inch rims rattling a trunk lid somewhere, rather than coming out of laptop speakers. Hobbs said, “Turn off that shitty music and show me what you’ve got.”

  Alan turned around and went right to the laptop. Next to the binoculars was a fancy digital camera with a long lens on it. Alan tapped some keys and a screenful of photos came up. They were a little grainy, but they didn’t look as if they had been taken at night. They looked as if they could have been taken on a cloudy afternoon.

  “I didn’t take notes, you’re right. I took pictures.”

  “Yeah, but what time did all that happen?” Hobbs asked as he watched the entire night play out in photos. Second shift going home. Third shift coming on. The doors opening to let the fresh summer night air in. A truck being finished and moved to the side lot.

  “I’ve got time stamps on all of them.�
� He fiddled with the computer and all the photos were displayed in a timeline. When he rolled over them, they zoomed to fill the top third of the screen.

  Hurlocker was impressed in spite of himself. “That’s one fancy notebook.”

  Alan held up a finger. “Just wait, my grim friend.”

  “I ain’t your friend,” said Hurlocker.

  “Do you even have friends? Or is it just farm animals that can’t outrun you anymore?”

  Hobbs snickered and wished he hadn’t.

  “Boy, I got a gun.”

  “And a love for old, slow-moving sheep. Now watch this. See this guy right here?” He zoomed in on one picture of a man standing in the doorway, taking a break at about two forty-five. “This is Timothy Grahl, ASE-certified master mechanic. I picked him out using facial recognition technology and cross-referencing it with Facebook.” He clicked and another window popped up, displaying a map. “This is where he lives.”

  “Wait, you’re telling me this ol’ boy has a Facebook page?” said Hurlocker.

  “No, but his daughter does. Anyway, this is the complete list of everybody who was on shift last night,” he said, clicking with a flourish. “Here’s the complete employment records from the Missouri Department of Labor, Unemployment Security Division—I had to pay a guy to get these, so you’re going to have to reimburse me.”

  “How much?” asked Hobbs.

  “One bitcoin.”

  “What’s a bitcoin?”

  “Right now about two hundred and sixty-two US dollars, but that’s not important. ’Cause after that, I really got to work. I couldn’t hack into their security cameras for a real-time feed—that shit is for the movies—but I did get in through their router, and their cameras all transmit images via Wi-Fi. So I grabbed some from each camera…”

  Views of the shop floor scrolled across the screen. “And I noticed something interesting.”

  He stopped on one image of a workbench and a wall. There was a time clock, and some fat guy was holding a strut and gas shock in the air, looking at the joint.

  “What?” asked Hobbs.

  “You don’t see it? How about you, animal lover?” he asked with a smile, looking to Hurlocker. He shook his head no. “Ah come on, it’s right there! I mean for a couple of hardened criminals like yourselves.”

  “Get on with it,” said Hurlocker.

  “You’re no fun at all.” Alan zoomed in. Next to the time clock was a lockbox with a keypad on it. “Bingo, key to every vehicle in the place, including the boss’s new Benz. Not really my style, but the nicest car I’ve seen since I hit this shithole town.”

  “So?” asked Hurlocker.

  “So then I wrote a little script to run a track on it. Pull a capture every half second. The combination is 75309.” He looked over his shoulder at both of them. “So after that, I was tired. So I went to sleep. Oh wait, wait.” He hit another key. “This is their project accounting software. It also handles shipping and receiving. So we don’t even need to steal an armored car. You just tell me where you want it delivered and I’ll have a bonded, third-party transport company drop it off. I just mark it as paid in their system and the fuck does the guy on the floor care?”

  “Huh,” said Hobbs. “Good job.”

  “Sure, you’re tough in the real world, but I kick ass on the data layer, bitches,” said Alan.

  “Bitches?” Hobbs asked Hurlocker. Hurlocker’s expression didn’t change.

  Alan said, “Now if you two Luddites will excuse me, I’m gonna go back to the hotel, shower the smell of this place off me, and get some sleep.”

  As Alan packed up his gear, Hobbs said to Hurlocker, “I hate to say it, but it’s a good job.”

  Hurlocker nodded. “I still don’t like him.”

  Hobbs said, “You’re not the trusting kind.”

  Hurlocker shrugged. It could have meant Sue me. It could have meant I don’t give a fuck. It could have meant anything.

  Alan turned at the door. “Listen, if you guys just like hanging out in old buildings like a couple of crackhead hobos, that’s fine with me. But when you’re done, you just tell me where you want the truck delivered.”

  “It’s not that easy, you still gotta steal it,” said Hobbs.

  “What are you talkin’ about? I don’t…I just told you! We can have it delivered like a fucking pizza. There’s no need.”

  “We need the truck,” said Hurlocker. “But we need to know you can handle yourself more.”

  “Oh, fuck you guys! Why you always gotta do things the hard way?”

  “Not us,” said Hurlocker, finally smiling. “You.”

  FOURTEEN

  Hobbs drank coffee and watched Alan tear into a muffin like an animal. He was short on table manners, but Hobbs had stopped thinking he should have pushed him off that roller coaster. He wasn’t a bad kid, just young and green and looking to prove something, most of all to himself. Those days were so far gone for Hobbs he could barely remember them.

  The kid tried to make some small talk, but Hobbs touched a finger to his lips. “This isn’t the part where you talk. This is the part where we be quiet.” Alan shrugged and said, “OK, this is the part where I go sleep,” and left. Hobbs watched him go. He wondered what it would have been like to have a kid of his own, a son. He tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t go.

  It was Grace. She was the reason for every thought that tied him down. She held his life together in ways that he hadn’t even known were possible. He had been some wild thing before he met her. He had been married, but that broad hadn’t been any damn good. She’d had a bad loyalty gland and had killed herself from the guilt of betraying him. He had never figured out how a person could lack loyalty, but still feel guilt about it.

  Hobbs was loyal to work. To the job. He was honest on the job, because that was the best way to get the job done.

  After his wife was out of the picture, he had chopped his way through twenty jobs and twice as many women. He had been a shark. Swim, eat. Swim, fuck. Swim, eat. Swim, fuck. But always swimming. Always moving on.

  Then came Grace. She had been on the arm of an idiot who had fingered a precious metals robbery. It had gone wrong, but when the dust had settled, she’d still been there. That first time, they’d coupled brutishly, with the reckless abandon of people freshly paroled by death. But for some reason she’d lasted where others had not.

  She grounded him. She helped him square away his finances. Launder money. Invest it. He was a sail, she was a keel. And so they had passed through the years. It had been good and he hadn’t thought much about it.

  She didn’t like what he did, and she never wanted to talk about it. She had never asked him to stop. Not with any force anyway. She had suggested, once, that things might have been different if they had had children. He refused to talk about such things, but he had never been able to get it out of his head.

  Hobbs wondered what kind of father he would make. What was that job anyway? Raise a good citizen? He couldn’t square that. Help a kid along his way? Maybe he could do that. But maybe not. Nobody had helped him, at least not any more than he’d helped them. Nobody except Grace.

  And Alan? He was smart, could use computers. Why was he doing this? Hobbs knew. Not exactly why, but he knew that the kid had a hole in him, the kind that might never be filled. He wanted respect—all young men did—but beneath that he wanted freedom. He didn’t want to live under somebody else’s thumb—be a part of some corporate machine, work his way toward a shitty pension that they would jerk out from underneath him at the last minute.

  Hobbs was old enough to know that some holes were just empty, sucking spaces that would never be filled. Someday he might be old enough to stop trying to fill his. But he doubted it. It would have happened by now.

  FIFTEEN

  Thirteen hours later Hobbs and Alan sat in a car that was parked on a cross street a block from Regent Armored. The windows were down and the early summer air, still hot from the day, blew through the compartmen
t. It was just warm enough to be relaxing. It was the kind of breeze that brought with it images of sunburned children, exhausted from running and laughing, being tucked between clean white sheets by loving mothers with the promise that tomorrow would be exactly the same. That summer would never end. That school would never start again.

  Like all good things, thought Hobbs, it was a lie. But what to say to this kid and how to put words to this feeling that overcame him? Hobbs shook his head, trying to rid himself of this strange wave of emotion. What the fuck, was he going through menopause?

  There was nothing he could say to the kid. You can tell people only what they already know—especially in this rough trade. But maybe. Maybe. Then he realized what was bothering him.

  “Gimme the gun,” said Hobbs.

  “What?” asked Alan, shocked and confused.

  “I said gimme the gun. It’s not going to help with what you have to do.”

  “What gun?” asked Alan, trying to sell it.

  “I know you’ve got a piece. Young punks like you always do.”

  “Is this like that scene in Star Wars,” he asked, “when Luke Skywalker goes into the cave on Dagobah, and Yoda tells him not to take the lightsaber with him?”

  “Star Wars?” asked Hobbs.

  “You know, the movie,” Alan said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’ve never seen Star Wars?”

  “No,” said Hobbs, not taking his eyes off Alan. Carefully noting the positions of his hands.

  “OK, well, there’s this Jedi master…”

  “Kid.”

  “…and there’s Luke, right, who’s gonna be a badass later, but he’s just learning—like I’m learning from you, right?” he said, laying it on a little thick.

  “Kid.”

  “And never mind that he’s like a million years old, almost as old as you—”

  Hobbs slapped him across the face, hard. Alan looked back at him in shock. He clapped a hand to his cheek.