Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set

by T. J. Brearton

“It’s an e-cig.”

  “I don’t care. It’s filling the car.”

  “It’s just water vapor.”

  “Why would you want to inhale that shit?”

  “It’s better than the real ones.”

  “You look like an idiot sucking on that thing.”

  A massive gust of wind blasted the vehicle, which rocked on its shocks. The lookout dropped the e-cigarette to grasp the wheel with both hands. “Ah, man. This is crazy.”

  “It’s going to calm down,” said the guy in the back. “That eye is going to come right over us.”

  “How can they predict that?”

  “We talked about this. Fucking keep it together.”

  “Look at those palm trees.”

  “I can’t see shit.”

  But the lookout could see them. Through the gray blur of the rain, the trees lining the street thrashed violently, like head-bangers at a heavy metal show. Thinking about it like that made him feel a little better.

  “It’s going to pass right over us,” the man in the back said. “All the networks predicted it. All the weather people. This is going to die down any minute now.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” The lookout held the steering wheel in a death grip. The wind was a giant, shouldering into them. Like that movie he’d seen as a little kid, Jurassic Park. The wind was a T-Rex, bashing its head against the SUV.

  They waited. The rainwater deepened along the street. His next concern: they’d be washed away. He’d seen it plenty of times — cars overtaken by water, people locked inside, trapped by all the rushing pressure, drowned like rats. Dead.

  He tried to focus on the house, but it was tough to see through the weather. Just the huge, vague shape of it was visible. And it was dark. Power had gone down throughout the city hours before, also as predicted. That meant no security alarms, no working cameras. The lavish, unoccupied beach home was a sitting duck. “You got your tools?”

  “Yes,” said the guy in the back, exasperated. He was the burglar. The one who would crack the safe. “For the last time — relax.”

  Another ten minutes passed. Each time the lookout thought the storm was dying down, there’d be a fresh blast of wind and deluge of rain.

  The burglar grunted a laugh. “Why do they always give the bad ones Hispanic names?”

  “What?”

  “Hector — what they named it. They always give them spic names.”

  “They go alphabetical by season. They’re named before anyone has any idea what they’re going to be like. Ethnicity’s got nothing to do with it.”

  The burglar grunted. “Whatever.”

  The rain formed massive, ghostly curtains, dark serpents that whipped and frothed in the night. Something clunked against the vehicle — another branch or palm frond. More shapes tumbled past, then another thump.

  “Ah, man,” the lookout said. “Fucking up my ride, man . . .”

  “What do you care? You can buy a new one after this.”

  “Do a radio check.”

  The burglar sniffed. “Fine.”

  The lookout watched in the rear-view mirror as the burglar dug out his radio and pressed the transmit button. “Check, check one-two.” His voice echoed on the unit sticking out of the console.

  The lookout picked it up and pressed the button. “Check, check.” Because the radios were in such close proximity, there was an ear-splitting whine of feedback.

  “All right, you happy? Put it away now.”

  The lookout put the radio back in its place. “And we’re sure about the lockdown?”

  “Yes, for fuck’s sake. We’re sure. Why are you . . .? I never knew you were this much of a pussy. You lose your balls over there or something?”

  Their eyes connected in the mirror and the lookout felt his skin tighten and scalp tingle. The mouth on this guy. The disrespect. He had no idea . . . “I’m thorough. I’m careful. I’ve got shit to lose.”

  The burglar leaned forward and the lookout braced himself for a fight, ready to take the guy’s big head and put it through a window, but the burglar pointed out the front windshield. “Look at that . . .”

  The lookout tracked his pointing finger. “I see it.”

  There were stars in the sky. The weather was calming and the clouds were opening up.

  “Boom,” said the burglar, his lips next to the lookout’s ear. “Fuckin’ told you. That’s the eye. Five minutes.”

  “All right, five minutes. Sit back in your seat.”

  The burglar hesitated. The lookout could feel his breath on his skin, smell the pastrami sandwich he’d eaten a half hour before. Finally, the burglar sank back again. “Pussy,” he muttered.

  The lookout picked up the e-cig, took a big pull of it and filled the confined space with water vapor. “Bite me.”

  The burglar laughed until he coughed. They waited five minutes. “All right,” the burglar said. He pulled a black mask over his face, grabbed his bag and opened the door. Specks of rain came swirling in but most of the sky was clear and there was no sense wasting time.

  The lookout picked up the night-vision goggles and looked through them. The world turned bright green. The burglar was a phosphorescent shape, walking briskly to the house gate, then past it. The house had a high iron fence, but it was intended for vehicles and didn’t go all the way around. The burglar disappeared into the bougainvillea. Ten seconds later, he reappeared on the front steps of the house and went to work on the door. Ten more seconds. The door swung open.

  He was in — easy-peasy. With no security system, it was just a matter of picking a lock.

  The lookout kept the goggles up, feeling relieved. This was his big ticket out. With this, he might just manage to finally get free. He was young and still had his life ahead of him. The burglar acted like this was his calling, but the lookout had gotten sucked in — no choice. Guys like the burglar went back to jail because they didn’t know any other way. Or, to be fair, they didn’t want any other way. The burglar was good with engines, he knew machines and how little complex pieces — like the locking mechanism of a safe — fitted together. He could have had a life, a legitimate career, but he didn’t want that. He’d gotten addicted to the fix.

  The lookout saw the burglar’s shape in the second-floor window. He gave the sign that he was in the room. Good. Even though there would be no alarms, no police response time to calculate, the lookout hit the stopwatch on his phone anyway, set for ten minutes. In the movies the safe crackers boasted ridiculous times like two or three minutes, but in real life you—

  Headlights.

  Coming down the street.

  He’d lowered the goggles to set his watch and had seen the light hit the mirrors. A car was rolling slowly down Gulf Shore Road. The lookout held his breath, grabbed the radio and clicked three times. Then he took the pistol from the console and rested it against his leg.

  The headlights drew closer. Was it a cop? No way — they were all deep in some concrete bunker or wherever they went during a Cat 4 hurricane. Didn’t look like a state or county cruiser anyway. These were sloped headlights, like on a sports car.

  The burglar clicked back twice. Message received.

  Nobody was supposed to be out on the road. The stars were shining now, almost a full picture of the sky — relax. It was someone from a neighboring home and they were just making their escape while it was calm.

  He let out the breath. That seemed plausible. Just because evacuations had been called days ago didn’t mean everyone actually left. There were always holdouts. The homes along the Gulf Coast were sturdy, built to withstand brutal tropical storms. But the street had been cleared — the luxury homes were scarcely occupied as it was, their rich owners typically in residence for a few weeks at a time, usually around Christmas, still three months away.

  So who was it? Someone from out of range. Up a few houses, just making their way out of the area before the second half of the storm kicked in.

  They were slowing down. Coming up alongside
of him, plowing through the inches of water flooding the street. He lifted the gun onto his lap as the vehicle came to a stop — a sports car, just like he’d thought. Looked like a Jaguar F-Type. The moonlight tinted the vehicle silver, the rain forming crystal beads on its surface. The lookout pointed the pistol, keeping it out of sight.

  The tinted passenger window of the Jaguar rolled down.

  A woman: blonde, pretty, middle-aged. She looked worried. The man driving had to lean way over to see up out of the car.

  They saw him. He could’ve ducked, but then they might’ve lingered. Told someone about the car later on. The lookout hit the button for his window.

  “Hey,” the man said. “You okay?”

  The lookout forced a smile. “I’m good.”

  “You getting out?”

  “Yeah — yeah. Just waiting for my wife.”

  The man continued to lean awkwardly across the seat, looking up at the lookout who sat higher in the SUV. He seemed to think a moment then said, “You live here?” He pointed at the house with the high iron gate.

  “Just visiting.”

  “So you’re, ah . . . you’re friends with the Balfours?”

  “Honey . . .” the woman in the passenger seat faced forward. She seemed afraid of the lookout.

  Fuck, he thought. Fuck me.

  His radio clicked once. What’s happening? Report.

  The lookout gripped the gun. He’d never wanted this. Never wanted this life. Why had he rolled down the window? They might’ve seen the license plate, might even have written it down and reported it to police a week later from the safety of whatever northern state was their first home — New Jersey, Connecticut, New York. But that was a long shot at best and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Stupid.

  He should’ve worn a damn mask. The burglar was wearing one in case of any battery-powered cameras in the house. But the thinking was, a lookout would raise more suspicion in a balaclava than if he was just sitting there like a normal person. Yet these people had stopped to check on him anyway. Now they sat, engine purring softly and—

  The burglar stepped into view on the other side of the Jaguar, mask on, black bag in hand. Both the man and the woman turned to look at him. He pointed his gun at the man. The woman sucked in a breath and the man raised his arm for protection. The burglar squeezed the trigger.

  The round pierced the man’s arm and the woman screamed again. The burglar shot the man a second time, getting his head. Then the burglar bent low and shot the woman as she fumbled to get out of the car. She slumped over, dead.

  The lookout opened his door and jumped into the water running down the street. The burglar pointed the gun at him then lowered it. His voice was muffled. “What the hell were they doing here?”

  “They just pulled up. I don’t know. They were leaving.”

  “You’re sitting there fucking talking to them? What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

  The wind blew, just a soft breeze. The water on the street sluiced along, babbling like a brook, and poured into the lookout’s shoes. He looked down and realized the burglar’s bullet casings were tumbling down the street, taken by the current.

  “Shit!” the burglar said.

  They chased after the casings.

  Despair churned in the lookout’s stomach: three shots, two dead people. He managed to find two of the casings and stuck them in his pocket, kept searching for the last one. It had to be there somewhere, but the clouds were closing in, occluding the moonlight, darkening the world again as the rain returned. The burglar moved further down the street, muttering curses. The lookout thought he saw a flash of something and pawed at the water, then he froze.

  A low, strangled sound filled the air. He stood upright as it sharpened to a gut-wrenching, powerful whistle. It came from behind him, pouring out the open window of the Jaguar.

  Bile rose up in the lookout’s throat. He hurried back to the Jaguar and peered through the rain-dappled windshield at the child sitting in the backseat, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  CHAPTER TWO: THREE DAYS LATER

  Jack Vance was clearing hurricane debris from around the house and saw blood on the ground. He found more on the gutter spout and followed the drips up to the roof. Something was up there, maybe a dog or a cat. Something hurled up by the hurricane.

  He took the ladder from the garage and set it against the house and started climbing. The day was calm and the sun sizzled above the wreckage littering the neighborhood: pieces of houses and bent bicycles and palm fronds and pine branches and clay tiles from the roof. He reached the roof and looked up the pitch of it. A man’s body draped over the peak.

  “Hey!”

  No response. He left the ladder and crawled cautiously over the tiles — some of them were loose — avoiding the trail of blood. When he reached the body, he saw the gunshot wound. Vance felt for a pulse but knew it was futile. The man, sixty or so, had been shot in the head.

  * * *

  Tom awoke to Katie getting dressed beside the bed. He sat up, the dream of his dead brother still buzzing behind his eyes, and looked at her. “What’s up?”

  She snapped her work pants together. “I looked around. No broken windows. Everything seems okay. But my supervisor called and there’s DBs all over the place. I’ve got to go to one in Orangetree who apparently has been there a few days. Died toward the beginning of the hurricane.” She glanced at him as she buttoned her shirt. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.”

  “Everybody is just coming out of protection, scrambling around. We’re spread thin. There was a shooting in Immokalee, a break-in or something in Naples, and two people — besides this woman — look like they expired of natural causes. Or just couldn’t get to the hospital — so. God, what a mess.” She attached her belt and gun. “What’ve you got going today?”

  He swung his legs out of bed and tested the reality of the floor. The dream had a lasting grip on him, the fear and anxiety still soaking his spine. He remembered running to help his brother — and there’d been some kind of swamp trying to suck him under.

  “Blythe called late last night,” he said. “Wants to meet me later this morning.”

  “She say what about?” Katie lifted her eyebrows. “Could be good news. No more transcribing reports.”

  “With Blythe you never know.”

  Lauren Blythe was his supervisor at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, recently risen to the rank of Special Agent in Charge, or SAC. Tom had spent the last six months doing paperwork for the FDLE in lieu of a suspension. It sucked, but at least he was still getting paid.

  “Well, keep me posted.” Katie stepped in front of the mirror that hung from the bedroom door and pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail. “Anyway, I think things look promising. If they were gonna let you go, I think they would have done it already. But they don’t want to, so they’ve just been trying to figure their way around it — that’s why it’s dragging on.”

  “Yeah.”

  Finished putting herself together, she gave him a long look. “And maybe you need to talk to Jack, Tommy. I can see it in your face. It would be good to clear the air, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Otherwise it eats you up a little at a time.” She moved closer, bent over and kissed him. Then she gazed at him, her brown eyes probing. “He’s a good friend. He’ll understand.”

  “I know.”

  She smiled at him, grabbed her bag and opened the door.

  “Be careful out there,” he said.

  “I will.”

  And then she was gone.

  * * *

  After breakfast he tried Jack Vance and got a voice mail. “Hey, Jack,” Tom said. “You’re probably busy as hell after Hector . . . Ah, haven’t talked to you in a bit . . . Listen, I was hoping we could get together. Couple of things I’d like to talk to you about. Okay? Maybe we go over to Buffalo Chips or something — you can take a break from emptying the spoiled food from people’s
fridges or whatever you’re doing. All right, man . . . hope to hear from you.”

  He tossed his phone on the couch. Still in his underwear, he bent and touched his toes and then rolled his neck around.

  Katie had bought one of those devices you could talk to and Tom always felt it a bit weird, especially when he was alone in the house. But he’d wired up a sound system and calling out the music you wanted to hear was pretty cool for a foster kid from Yonkers. Futuristic.

  “Alexa,” he said, “give me, um . . . give me Melvins.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the robotic feminine voice. “Could you please repeat that?”

  “Ah . . . Alexa, play Pandora.”

  “Okay. Which station?”

  “Melvins.”

  Hard-rock guitar sounds crashed through the room and Tom dropped to the floor, stretched a while, then went into a push-ups and sit-ups routine. The song ended before he was finished and he used the jump rope as The Beta Band played “Dry the Rain.” Beatnik music. He wasn’t sure how it linked up to Melvins, but it wasn’t terrible. He was working up a good sweat when his mobile rang.

  Alexa lowered the music volume and said, “Phone call from Lauren Blythe.”

  He grabbed his phone, noted the time — not yet 8 a.m. — and answered out of breath. “Hey. Everything okay? We still on?”

  “We are, but the meeting place has changed. Well, everything has changed.”

  She gave him an address on Gulf Shore Road. “Can you get here right away?”

  * * *

  He pulled up twenty minutes later in front of a big pastel-colored mansion with a high iron gate. Blythe was standing with a couple of guys from Naples PD and someone else he didn’t recognize. The whole issue was, he’d lied about having a juvenile record when he’d applied to the FDLE. That was why he’d been pushing papers and swinging in the breeze while they figured out what to do with him. He was two-for-two closing major cases so far, so maybe it was like Katie said and they wanted to keep him around. Either that or it was just the slow-ass bureaucratic process at work — somebody needing to respond to someone else’s email and return someone else’s phone call and half a year goes by.