Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  “Ray? Ray!” Pete said. As if in answer, Ray slumped over on him. “Get off of me,” Pete snapped, not realizing his co-driver was dead. As the water rose higher and higher on the windshield, Pete fought against the panic. He heard the water gurgling in through the vents, filling the compartment.

  Not even anchors sank this fast.

  The truck hit bottom, settling on its tires, and Ray’s body tumbled off the side window and splashed into Pete. “Jesus, Ray!” Then he realized Ray was dead.

  Thrashing wildly, on the ragged edge of losing it, Pete pushed Ray’s corpse away from him. The water was up to Pete’s chest. He chanted, “Could be worse, could be worse, could be worse.” Worst mantra ever.

  Pete waited until the water was all the way up to the ceiling before he tried to open the heavily armored door. But it wouldn’t budge. He took another breath in the rapidly dwindling air space, then tried again. Nothing. He tried the other door, but it wouldn’t open. He went up for air and there was nothing.

  He died fighting to get the passenger side door open.

  THREE

  “Whooooooooo!” In the seat next to Hobbs, Alan beat on the steering wheel in triumph. “Gooooooooooooooooooooooooal!”

  “Enough,” said Hobbs, but happiness leaked through his gruff demeanor. Alan threw the door open and ran around outside the car yelling, “—ooooooooooooooooooooooooal!” like an Argentinian who’d just scored in the final of the World Cup.

  “Get back in the car, you jackass,” Hobbs called, laughing, “unless you want me to drive.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said from the other side of Hobbs’s window. “Did you see that? It was like a movie, man. Like a movie. Better than a movie. In a movie the bad guys don’t get away with it.”

  “We haven’t gotten away with it yet,” said Hobbs grimly. It was the hard-won knowledge of a career that had lasted longer than this kid had been alive—there were a million ways a job could go wrong and only one it could go right. Just a matter of the odds. Still, he had to smile at the kid’s euphoria. It had been a thing of beauty.

  When Hobbs had pressed the button, two high-pressure ram jacks had lifted a piece of the metal bridge decking. The left side had risen a full eight inches higher than the right. The result was that the surface of the road had, almost instantly, become a ramp. As the fifty-five-thousand-pound truck hit it at fifty-three miles per hour, it was lifted sharply into the air and drifted over the guardrail. It seemed impossible that something that heavy could fly that far, but fly it had. Nearly thirty feet out into the center of the freshly dredged channel, before it hit the water.

  The rear bumper splashed first, and then the front end of the cab. The sudden upward shock of the ramp and then the whipping action of the cab hitting the water caused Hobbs to wonder if the guys inside had been wearing their seat belts. Would be better for them if they hadn’t, he thought grimly.

  Hobbs didn’t like killing people. His dislike wasn’t unprofessional, because killing people just brought more heat. But this was the cleanest way, the only way, he could figure how to do the job. Hobbs didn’t waste time feeling sorry for himself. He couldn’t see why he should feel sorry for somebody else.

  As he watched $23 million sink into the murky water of the Ochlockonee River, Hobbs said, “And for my next trick…”

  It was all hell getting the kid to drive slowly back to the house.

  FOUR

  And then, more waiting.

  All good heists are magic tricks. You take a thing in such a way that the audience doesn’t know where it was taken and doesn’t even know how to find it. Misdirection for ill-gotten gain.

  Everybody professional knows that the best way to make a getaway is not to get away at all, but to stay put until the search radius has spread out, then leave slowly and quietly. You don’t have to get ahead of the pursuit when it’s far in front of you, or it’s been called off.

  But what Hobbs had just pulled off was even better. It really was stealing something without taking it. For the rest of it, they’d just be three guys on a fishing trip. All but impossible to prove otherwise. They’d let all that money soak, and when the soak was done, they would pull it up from the bottom of the channel and drive away like any other right citizen, but with a trunkful of damp cash.

  Sure, none of the three of them was going to let either of the others out of his sight until the split, because there was always that danger of somebody going for the cross on any job. But this one was safer. Fewer people. And it wasn’t as if there were a ready bag of cash anybody could grab and go. They had to dredge it up.

  Nope, nothing to do for at least a week but fish and tell each other lies.

  That night they built a fire in the sand and roasted oysters on a steel plate. They scattered them with a shovel and then covered them with a beer-soaked towel. As soon as the oysters popped open, they scooped them into the bed of one of the trucks, cracked them with screwdrivers, and sucked them down. The fresh, sharp tang of the sea, mixed with the beer, tasted like victory.

  When they had eaten their fill, Hurlocker said, “I don’t know about you boys, but I’m goin’ to bed. We gotta lotta fishin’ to do this next week. I need to save my strength.”

  He went back to the house and left Hobbs and Alan out underneath the stars beside a dying fire. To Hobbs’s surprise, the kid was quiet and didn’t ruin the moment with some pointless chatter, or shitty music pouring forth from earbuds.

  They looked up at the sky for a long, long time before Alan asked, “Is that the Milky Way?”

  “Yeah,” said Hobbs.

  Alan pitched his empty beer can into the back of the truck. Then he looked out at the ocean. Far, far out to sea were three flashes of lightning. There was no sound. Alan said, “You know, I don’t know how to fish.”

  “You’ve got nothing to do for the next week but learn.”

  Alan smiled at him and said, “I’ve got nothing to do. I mean nothing.”

  Hobbs thought of Grace and it pinched his heart sharply. He tried not to think of her while he was working. Jobs usually didn’t go on long enough for him to miss her. For a foolish instant, he wished she were there on that beach with him. He would take her in his arms, kiss her, and tell her what she wanted to hear more than anything in the world. That this was the last one. That he was done. That she would get what she wanted and never have to worry about him again.

  He’d pause after that. She would be crying, softly. Then he would wipe away a tear and say, “Be careful what you wish for.” And he would tell her all this even though he would be sure it was a lie. Because, even though he rarely admitted it, even to himself, he loved her, and the words would make her happy. There, on the beach, under the stars, with storms far off in the distance, next to a dying fire, it would be a perfect moment. And even though he was a thief, he would not dream of robbing her of that.

  “How many guys do you think were in the truck?” Alan asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “It’s just, I never killed anybody before.”

  “And you still haven’t. I pushed the button. It’s on me,” Hobbs said.

  “I helped you set it up. I carried gear, ran hydraulic tubes, I helped.”

  “If you loaded a gun for me and I shot somebody with it, would that be your fault?”

  “No, but…”

  “Kid, forget it. It’s done and there’s no undoing it.”

  “What are you going to do, huh? I mean after,” Alan said, either ruining the moment or bringing Hobbs back to his senses.

  “I dunno, kid. Ask me when it’s over.”

  “But it’s over. I mean, we did it, right? We got away with it.”

  Hobbs shook his head. “Not until we’ve got the cash and get away clean. Not until it’s laundered. There’s a thousand kindsa things that can go wrong with a job. Probably a thousand and one. But I’ve seen a thousand. We had a good day, that’s it.”

  “I got a good feelin’, though,” said Alan.

&nbs
p; “That’s when it all goes sideways, kid. You just stay calm, don’t do anything stupid, and take it like it comes.”

  FIVE

  They spent the next two days fishing, not catching much of anything, and not minding in the slightest. The tropical storms remained visible in the south, but they stayed there. They could see flashes of lightning even during the day, but above them the skies were clear. They were up before the sun and in bed before the moon rose. Sunburned and happy, they grew forty-eight hours older.

  On the third day, Hobbs woke up to the sound of a mechanical voice reading a hurricane warning. Hurlocker looked up from the weather radio and said, “Sounds like the ocean is closed.”

  Hobbs rubbed his eyes and poured himself a cup of coffee. They let the kid sleep and the radio cycle through its prerecorded message. Neither of them said anything. They just took turns refilling their coffee and looking at a map of the Gulf of Mexico that hung on the wall.

  When the dawn came, it was ugly and wet. No yellow or red in it at all, just lighter and lighter black visible through the rain-spattered windows. The wind picked up and they heard the surf pounding the Gulf side of the point.

  By the time Alan woke, the mechanical voice on the radio was talking about “mandatory evacuations.” Hurricane Kristy was expected to make landfall as a category three sometime late that night or the next day. Alan rubbed the sleep from his eyes and headed straight to his laptop.

  Hurlocker said, “We outstayed Mother Nature’s welcome.”

  Hobbs said, “She’s a bitch, anyway,” as he looked out the windows toward the pounding of the ocean.

  “This thing is a monster,” said Alan. On his screen he had weather maps and forecasts. Over the last forty-eight hours the storm had turned nearly ninety degrees and accelerated rapidly to the north. All the projections for the path of the hurricane came right through them. Like the wrath of God, headed straight for them.

  Hurlocker looked at the screen and said, “That’s the kind of thing that gives beachfront property a bad name.”

  “One thousand and one,” said Hobbs.

  “What?” asked Hurlocker.

  “Ways a job can go wrong.”

  Alan looked at Hobbs and asked, “What do we do?”

  Hurlocker said, “No offense, gentlemen, but I don’t trust either of y’all fine motherfuckers enough to let y’all outta my sight until this thing is done.” Then he laughed, but the laugh had teeth in it.

  Hobbs nodded and stared at the weather animation. A screen filled with green and red, clawing their way out of the Gulf of Mexico. “There’s no way they’ve called off the search for that truck already. But a hurricane…” Hobbs rubbed his left cheek with his right hand.

  “We go get it. Right now, get it and get out of here,” said Alan.

  Hobbs shook his head. “Patience. We wait. The way to do it is wait until everybody is gone, wait until the leading edge of the storm hits, and then grab it.”

  Alan said, “But it’s a fucking hurricane!”

  Hurlocker and Hobbs both gave Alan a flat look.

  Finally Hurlocker said, “You gonna melt if you get wet, kid?”

  “It just seems, I dunno, risky.”

  Hurlocker burst into laughter, doubling over in amusement. Even Hobbs couldn’t keep from chuckling. Especially when Alan looked hurt. When he couldn’t get a word in through the wilderness of Hurlocker’s laughter, he pouted.

  “Shit, son,” Hurlocker said, struggling to regain his breath, “that’s what we do. We take chances and hope they pay off.”

  Hobbs said, “We’ll be underwater for the worst of it. Then put the cash in the dive bags, layer of gear on top, then we’re just evacuating like anybody else. If it doesn’t hit hard, we’ll be fine. If it does hit hard, that’s more cover and distraction for us.”

  Hobbs looked at Hurlocker, who was nodding in approval. Hobbs said, “Hurt, we’re gonna need a chain saw. There’s no way we’re getting out of here in a boat. Anything we can’t drive over, we’re gonna have to hack through.”

  “Walmart is about twenty minutes inland.”

  “No, there has to be one somewhere on this island. Wait till most everybody clears out, then go shed to shed.”

  “It’s an isthmus,” said Alan.

  “What?” said Hobbs.

  “We’re not on an island,” Alan mumbled. “It’s attached to the land. It’s an isthmus.”

  Hurlocker tapped Alan’s computer screen. “Son, in about twelve hours, this is gonna be an island, one way or another. Maybe even a reef.”

  Hobbs said, “We’ll stage a truck up at the bridge. We’ll try to take the boat upriver; if not, we’ll drive and work from the land.”

  “So what can I do?” asked Alan.

  “Right now? You’re gonna wait,” said Hobbs.

  Alan frowned. “I don’t like it. I don’t like the waiting. I don’t like any of it.”

  The last hint of a smile fell from Hobbs’s face, and he said, “You have a better chance we can take?”

  Alan shook his head.

  “OK,” said Hobbs.

  They pulled the trucks around the back of the house so that they were no longer visible, then sat on the screened-in porch with the lights off and watched the residents of Alligator Point, Florida, pack up and leave.

  That night, under the cover of a driving rain, they drove back to the bridge and hid one of the trucks by the bridge footing.

  By four in the afternoon the next day, the rain and the wind had driven them inside. The waves on the beach sounded like shelling, and the scrub pines and scraggly palms outside the windows were often bent horizontal by the wind.

  Hobbs smiled wide like a hungry wolf and said, “Ladies, they’re playing our song. Let’s load the boat.”

  Hobbs had his coat on and was outside before either of them could say anything. Alan said, “The worse things get, the happier he is.”

  “Yeah,” said Hurlocker, as if it had been a ridiculous thing to say. Then he slapped Alan on the ass and said, “Giddyap, mule!”

  Most of the dive gear was on the boat already. What took the most time was clearing the house. Hurlocker mixed a bottle of bleach and water and used it to spray and wipe everything they had touched. Then he poured straight bleach into all the drains. “Don’t want any DNA tests,” he said.

  Alan asked, “Won’t they know there was bleach? Isn’t that suspicious?”

  “Oxidant,” said Hurlocker, drawling it out to four syllables. “If anybody thinks to look here, it will just be whatever it is combined with oxygen. And oxygen ain’t suspicious in the slightest. ’Less you want to say it causes global warming.”

  Alan shouldered the last load from the house and carried it outside. The rain came down in sheets and it was hard to see the stairs in the dark. Out by the dock was a high-powered streetlight on a pole. Alan headed for it. Directly beneath it Hobbs had a tank of air and the scuba rigs. He was checking them.

  Alan said as he passed, “You’re gonna get all wet out here.”

  “Better than getting all drowned,” Hobbs snapped. “Bring me that tool kit from below.”

  When Alan came back up from belowdecks, Hobbs and Hurlocker were hunched over a regulator, faces wrinkled with concern. Alan dropped the toolbox in the sand.

  Hurlocker said, “Well, fuck you, then. He can hold the flashlight.”

  Hobbs shook his head in disgust as Hurlocker splashed off toward the boat.

  Then, from the darkness, a voice yelled, “Freeze, FBI!”

  SIX

  Hobbs turned his head toward the voice, but he could see nothing but the streaks of raindrops burned white by the light above. Hopeless. Still, he thought about diving to the side and pulling his gun.

  Hurlocker had frozen in midstep. Hobbs had heard him rail about the “federals” enough to know that he would never be taken alive. Fine, thought Hobbs. If this is it, then this is it. Then he looked at the kid.

  It was a mistake. He saw Alan making the same
slow-motion mistake. Thinking too much. But worse than that, he was just a kid. He had his whole life in front of him. And he was going to go for a hopeless pull on assailants in the dark. Hobbs couldn’t move. Wet and shivering and old and exhausted, something came back to him. He couldn’t have the kid throw all his tomorrows away for…for him, for money, for nothing.

  He opened his mouth to tell him to stop. The kid hadn’t made his move yet, but Hobbs could see it coming. He was too slow. Too late. His lips parted, his diaphragm contracted. The hiss of the beginning of the s in the word stop slid from his lips. And then there was the roar of gunfire.

  Something knocked him off his feet. He went down and gasped for a breath that wouldn’t come. There was no pain. And that scared him even more. He was on the ground and he couldn’t get up. He felt warm urine running down his leg and ignored the shame of it as if it had come from someone else.

  Hurlocker was sprawled in the sand, facing away from him. He wasn’t moving. Hobbs was sure he was dead. On the ground, maybe ten feet from Hurlocker, Alan kicked and screamed, clutching his right thigh.

  Hobbs tried to speak. Tried to tell him. Tried to curse God and fate and the voice in the darkness, but in his chest was only pain.

  A man in an FBI windbreaker emerged from the darkness. He said, “What in the hell did you do that for?” Angry, surprised, sounding off balance and out of control. He did not look away as he spoke, only cycled his gaze and his gun through the three men lying on the ground.

  A blond woman entered the pool of illumination beneath the tungsten light. Her short hair was plastered to her head by the rain. It made her look like a beautiful skull.

  “I said what the fuck!” said the man.

  She walked past the man in the windbreaker and knelt next to Alan. She frisked him and found his gun. “Check the others,” she said, all business.

  “How about fuck you! I’m not doing shit until you tell me why you just went all Rambo.”