Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  Leproate and Wellsley split up everyone who had worked the shift that night, and interviewed them separately. When they were done, he didn’t have to ask her. She shrugged and he knew. They had nothing. Not even the guy who’d gotten sapped on the sidewalk could give them a description.

  They bagged the surveillance camera’s hard drive and stepped outside into the late afternoon.

  “So,” said Wellsley, “you might be right, but I don’t see how it gets us anywhere.”

  Leproate scanned the street, head on a swivel. “Why didn’t they catch the kid in the armored car?”

  Wellsley nodded, getting it. “Yeah. They call the cops, everybody is looking for it…a slow, obvious vehicle. How did he get away?”

  Leproate looked at the decaying industrial district that surrounded them. Across the street was a five-story brick building that took up the whole block. The double doors were closed with a padlock and chain. All the windows were broken out. Even the panes on the top floor. Must have been done from the inside. It’d be real work to pull that off from street level. Vandals wouldn’t have that kind of work ethic. They would have the time. Scumbags have nothing but time.

  “They didn’t get away,” Leproate realized out loud.

  “But they weren’t caught?”

  Agent Leproate was already walking away, right down the middle of the street. “They headed away from the river.” He stood in the first intersection. To the right he could see the river cutting northeast across the grid of the city. North were more surface streets, abandoned warehouses, and factories. “Ennh…left turn.” He continued walking.

  “Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick?” asked Wellsley. “Because I don’t remember them teaching this at Quantico.”

  The next intersection went all four ways. Barry sighed and stood there for a minute. Wellsley said, “If you are that serious about it, we should get some help and have all of these buildings searched. Get it done quickly.”

  Leproate asked himself, “Which building would I use? And why? Big enough…and I would have needed to scout the job.” He turned left again and walked quickly. In the middle of the block, when he saw the alley leading into the center of the large brick complex across the street from Regent Armored, he knew.

  “This one.”

  “Bullshit,” said Wellsley. Then she followed him in.

  Leproate’s voice rang off the brick walls of the alleyway. “They would have scouted it from up there. And if there was a place, they would have stashed the truck here, even holed up for a while.”

  In the far wall of the courtyard was a large sliding metal door, the kind with counterweights. It had been battered to shit, but it opened easily and without a sound.

  The light of the setting sun came through the alley behind Leproate and illuminated the large room on the other side of the door. There, cut through the dirt and refuse on the ancient factory floor, were skid marks from where a large, heavy truck had come to a short stop. Wadded up in the corner were several large tarps.

  “How the fuck did you do that?” asked Wellsley.

  “Call them,” said Leproate. “Call everybody.”

  SIX

  Late, late that night, Leproate lay on the bed in his motel room and stared at the ceiling. At first he didn’t know why he couldn’t fall asleep. Then he recognized the reason as excitement. It had been so long since he had been so excited about a case that he had forgotten the name of the feeling.

  He still hadn’t talked to his wife. She had called twice and left a message that he hadn’t listened to. He felt strange about this, maybe even bad, but he hadn’t done anything about it. Now it was too late.

  There was a knock on the door.

  He opened it. It was Wellsley. She stood there for a moment, wearing a T-shirt and her suit pants, saying nothing. Her eyes were red, maybe from crying, maybe from lack of sleep. Her hair tousled from turning and turning on a hotel-room pillow. She bit her upper lip and let it go. It should have been awkward, not sexy, but this show of vulnerability somehow made her human. The sight of her nipples poking through the T-shirt sent a shiver of guilty schoolboy pleasure racing through him. With an effort he pulled his gaze back up.

  “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this,” she said, looking either way down the long hallway.

  Leproate parted his lips to say, “OK,” and she stepped into the room and kissed him. Hard. A grinding punch-in-the-lips of a kiss. She drove him backward and the door shut behind them.

  “Hey, hey,” he mumbled, but she pushed him onto the bed.

  “I need this,” she said. And then he felt her press a gun into the side of his head.

  “What the fuck?”

  She kissed him and the steel pressed harder. She broke the kiss with a giggle, a horrible, brittle sound that scared him. But not all of him. He was harder than he had been in years.

  She leaned back and held the gun on him. She smiled, almost apologetically, and said, “Don’t make a sound.”

  From her back pocket, she produced a knife. The spring-assisted blade snapped open and she slipped it under his waistband. He gasped at the touch of steel along the inside of his left leg. She sliced and then his sweatpants and boxers weren’t in the way anymore.

  She leaned back farther, grinding her pelvis hard into him, and repeated the same trick with her pants. He felt the tip of the knife graze his belly, and when he looked down a thin cut welled with a trace of blood.

  She pressed her forehead to his chest and slid it forward, using her forehead to pin him by the throat on the bed. He heard fabric ripping and then she slid her hips down and took him inside her.

  She rode him slowly at first, and then with a ferocity that scared him. It felt great. Was this crazy bitch gonna kill him? Oh God, it felt great. This crazy bitch was going to kill him.

  She made tiny, mewling cries, weak and soft, in contrast to the sexual assault that was blowing his mind.

  When he came he cried out and she cracked him across the face with the gun. She choked him with her left hand and rode him all the harder. Leproate bit the inside of his cheek to stay quiet and everything went white for a while.

  She made a violent, spasming finish, and he felt the grip on his throat relax. He heard her panting and opened his eyes. All he saw was the cold, black hole of a .40-caliber muzzle pointed right at his face. It was a small thing, but pointed at him, it looked big enough to swallow his whole world.

  From beyond the gun, she said, “Don’t fucking move.”

  Yes, ma’am, he thought, realizing that he was out of breath.

  She got up, wrapped a towel around her shredded pants, and left.

  Leproate lay on the bed, panting, excited, satisfied, and very afraid. When he stopped shaking, he got up and looked at his face in the mirror.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  He was still asking himself as he fell asleep.

  SEVEN

  The next morning it might have all been a dream, except for the bruise on his temple and the raw patch on his throat. Wellsley had said, “Good morning,” and nothing else. Every bit as cold and distant as she had ever been. In a way he was grateful he wasn’t sitting next to her on the plane flight back. He was confused. He had no idea how to feel about any of this. Cheap airline coffee, guilt, and lust churned around in his stomach all the way back to Tallahassee.

  He still hadn’t called his wife. How could he? What would he say? She would hear in his voice that something was wrong. He didn’t know what she would assume, but it would be bad. She would probably worry about him. She always worried about him when he was away. That he would be in danger, be shot on the job. A flash of pleasure through his loins and the image of Wellsley’s athletic, gyrating body on the other side of the .40-caliber muzzle.

  He shook his head and tried to get a handle on things.

  By the time the plane landed, he had almost convinced himself he was in the catbird seat. He was running a shit-hot case, had a hot partner whom he was ban
ging. Sure she was crazy, but that added to the spice. After years of boredom and drudgery, life was finally paying him back. He walked quickly through the airport, but couldn’t outrace the doubts. Focus on the case, he thought. Just focus on the case.

  When they got back to the war room at the Florida Highway Patrol HQ in Tallahassee, everything had fallen apart. The video techs were gone and the walls were bare. A trooper said, “Don’t worry, we put everything in a box for you after we took it down.”

  “Why’d you take it down?”

  “Game was called on account of rain,” said the trooper.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” asked Leproate, his lack of sleep getting the best of him.

  “Hurricane. Governor’s declared a state of emergency.”

  “What?”

  The trooper explained that in the last forty-eight hours a tropical storm had become a hurricane and was bearing down on the panhandle. How quickly your luck could change. Wellsley said, “I’ll get the stuff,” and left in search of the stuff.

  Leproate and the trooper took a second to watch Wellsley walk away. Then got ASAC Harberg on the phone. “Boss, they shut us down,” said Leproate.

  “I know, Agent. Act of God, nothing the bureau can do.”

  “But boss, things are heating up. With what we got from Saint Louis, I think we can nail them if we get a little cooperation. They’re sitting on it somewhere, waiting for things to cool off. If we can get one more piece of the puzzle.”

  “What you’ve got is a hunch. And I like your hunch. But there’s nothing I can do. You are ordered to give the Florida Highway Patrol your full cooperation.”

  “There’s twenty-three million dollars in the wind here. That’s more than Dunbar. It’s the largest armored car heist in US history. If we move now—”

  “Agent, it’s a shit-hot case, but a hurricane is gonna plow into the Gulf Coast. It’ll tear hell clear up to Georgia. That could be billions in damages. Just pray to God New Orleans doesn’t get pounded again.”

  “Game called on account of rain…,” Leproate mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s what a trooper just said to me.”

  “That’s not exactly right. It’s not a game, Agent, it’s a series. We don’t have to win them all, we just have to win most of them.”

  Leproate hung up the phone on the shittiest pep talk ever.

  Wellsley came back into the room, carrying three boxes of their casework. She said, “The major asked us if we could stop by his office so he could have our cooperation.”

  Leproate said, “Follow me.”

  Out in the parking lot, she dropped the cases into the trunk. Leproate slid in behind the steering wheel.

  “What about the major?”

  “I don’t have any cooperation to give right now. I’m going to drive around and try to find some,” said Barry, surprised at how those words sounded in his voice. She slid into the passenger seat and smiled at him. For the first time since last night, she didn’t look so sinister to him.

  He wheeled out of the parking lot, following the flow of traffic, neither of them saying anything. Finally Wellsley said, “They’re still there, right?”

  “Probably.”

  “I mean, if that’s their MO, then they’re down there somewhere, waiting for the heat to pass.”

  “Yeah,” said Leproate, “they don’t know that the game was called on account of rain.”

  “Just because the FHP doesn’t want to get muddy.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve called a mandatory evacuation,” said Wellsley.

  Leproate nodded.

  “Would you just leave twenty-three million dollars lying around?”

  “No,” said Leproate, “I’d wait until everybody else cleared out, and then split at the last minute, letting the storm cover my tracks. Everybody else running for cover, nobody standing out in the rain, looking in trunks.”

  “Or you might hunker down and wait out the whole thing. Either way…”

  “There’s always a few that stay behind,” said Leproate.

  “So we drive around, see who’s left.”

  Leproate pulled into a supermarket parking lot. He opened the trunk and rummaged around until he found a map. He unfolded and refolded until it showed the panhandle. He drew a small circle around Sopchoppy. “Somewhere after this.”

  Wellsley leaned in close and he caught the smell of her. She was sexy without even meaning to be. Leproate enjoyed it anyway.

  Wellsley took the pen and drew a wider circle. Panacea, Alligator Point, Carrabelle, Ochlockonee Pointe. It was a lot of territory. “It’s big,” he said.

  She indicated Alligator Point. “Lotta rental houses around here. Wouldn’t you want to stay on the beach?”

  A fat raindrop hit the map with a surprising crack. Then another. Leproate folded the map up, and they got back into the car.

  “Let’s just go have a look. Maybe we get lucky,” said Wellsley.

  “Are you asking me?”

  “You are the agent in charge,” she said, her expression neutral.

  He put the car in drive and turned south.

  EIGHT

  As they drove they heard that Hurricane Kristy had been upgraded to a category two. What had seemed like a good idea in Tallahassee felt worse as they drew toward the coast.

  Leproate recognized the surreality of it. The steady flow of cars to the north as they flashed badges through checkpoint after checkpoint. One trooper told them, “I know you’re FB of I, but I wouldn’t stay down there long, unless you feel like getting washed out to sea.”

  Leproate thanked him and they drove on. In the mirror he could see the deputy shaking his head as they drove off. Maybe he was right.

  Still, not everyone was fleeing. In the small town of Medart, they saw four young kids standing in front of a boarded-up convenience store. They cupped cheap, thin cigars against the wind. Just waiting for traffic to die down so they could loot the place, thought Leproate.

  Wellsley rolled down her window and asked them, “You live here?”

  “Can’t afford to be from nowheres else,” one of them said, and they all laughed. Their laughter sounded as if somebody had disturbed a murder of crows. Leproate drove on, taking a turn around the town. The only other people they saw were covering windows with boards and hunkering down for the storm. Shit poor, but citizens one and all. They drove on.

  The farther south they went, the darker the sky became. Leproate said, “You know what it would mean if we nail these guys?”

  “When,” said Wellsley. “When we nail these guys.”

  But Leproate had doubts. They were off book here, for sure. And the FBI was a by-the-book organization. So far they could write this up and make it come out OK. Hell, everyone knew the rules could be bent, if you showed results. It was just like the army in that way. Sometimes it just wasn’t possible to follow all the orders and get the job done.

  But God help the soldier who broke the rules and didn’t come through.

  They drove south until they couldn’t drive south anymore. Through the swamp, through scattered habitations and the occasional vacation home. On the long, open stretches of road the wind blew the car around more. Leproate began to feel more and more foolish.

  They drove out onto the point, and the unbroken view of the approaching storm it granted them was a terrible thing to behold. Where the road bent, to the right, it looked as if the world had been swallowed up by a vengeful ocean and dragged into the maw of the storm. The waves crashed into the seawall and splashed onto the road. In the ocean beyond, flashes of lightning could be seen amid the darkness.

  Wellsley touched him and said, “We’ve come this far.” He knew it was foolish, but the gesture gave him strength.

  As they drove along the beach a wave broke over the road. Just a fine spray on the windshield, but Leproate said, “We’re gonna make this quick.”

  Wellsley said, “If they’re here, they
’ll be easy to spot.”

  On the left, beach houses stood abandoned against the wrath of the storm. They were so close to the water, the storm was already sending waves into them. Nobody hiding in there. The isthmus widened, and Leproate took the next road to the right, heading toward the bay. They passed a number of fancy houses, built on stilts, with no sign of human life.

  Leproate took another right and drove along a canal that led to the bay. Ahead was a cinder-block house nestled in the trees. The windows were boarded up, but the light in the carport spotlit a battered Subaru BRAT. A man stood next to it with a shotgun cradled under his arm and a bottle of beer in his hand.

  They pulled up and he gave them a wave. And a skeptical look. They hurried under the shelter.

  “What in the hell are you kids doin’ out here? Don’t you know there’s a hurricane on?”

  “FBI. Why haven’t you evacuated?” Leproate demanded.

  “Ain’t got nowhere to go. Too old to care much. What’s your excuse?”

  “We’re looking for men who robbed an armored car,” Leproate said, feeling silly as he said it.

  “Have you seen anything strange?” Wellsley asked.

  The surf crashed against the beach on the seaward side of the point as the old man took a pull off the bottle of beer. He tossed the empty bottle into the back of the Subaru and squinted against the wind.

  “Three guys I ain’t seen leave yet, renting a house two turns down on the canal. Been here about a month. Never talk to nobody.”

  “Thank you,” said Leproate.

  As they got back into the car, the old man said, “You take care of that purty little lady.”

  NINE

  “Condescending old fuck!” Wellsley said as she slammed the door.

  “Forget about him,” said Leproate as he started the car. He left the lights off and drove slowly, winding around the canal. When he got to the second turn, he saw the dock light flickering in the driving rain. He stopped the car.

  “You ever done this before?” Leproate asked.

  Jesus, he’s losing his nerve, thought Wellsley. “Yeah, two-by-two cover.”