No Way Out

by Simone Scarlet

  “Okay, Recon,” more jubilant now, Coyle reached for the whiskey, and poured them both another measure. “So, what’s the situation? How are you gonna deliver up the weed, and keep us out of a crossfire with the fuckin’ FBI?”

  “The Feds aren’t planning to hit you when you clean out Christi’s farm,” Mason explained. “In fact, they won’t be within twenty miles of that place. They don’t want to spook you – they want you to fill your trucks with indictable evidence, so when they do crack down there isn’t any question about getting a conviction.”

  Coyle listened to this silently.

  Eventually, he demanded: “So? When are they gonna hit us?”

  “They’re planning to hit you when you take the shit to Grundy’s,” Mason shot back. “They know all about Old Man Grundy, and they’re using this as an opportunity to bust him as well as you.”

  Coyle’s eyes narrowed.

  “So, whaddya suggest, Recon? Got any other way to shift hundreds of pounds of stolen marijuana?”

  “As long as you don’t use Grundy,” Mason shot back, “you’ll be fine.”

  “Fine,” Coyle snorted, shaking his head. “You’ve got a funny way of thinkin’ fine.”

  He gulped back his whiskey with a snarl.

  “This sounds like anything but fine to me.”

  For a moment there was nothing but an angry, awkward silence… And then Coyle’s brother Raine spoke up.

  “Bro,” he hissed, tugging at Coyle’s sleeve. “There’s Donovan, out in Phoenix. Ever since Trump built that wall he’s had his Mexican shipments cut off, so I reckon he’d pay top dollar for medical-grade weed.”

  Coyle’s eyes widened.

  Wheeling around, he looked at his brother and growled:

  “Holy shit, you’re right.”

  As I stood there, watching, I saw some of the energy flow back into Coyle. His spine straightened. His shoulders widened. Even the air around him seemed to crackle with a dangerous buzz.

  When he turned around again, it was with a sinister smile on his grizzled face.

  “Shit,” Coyle swore, grabbing Mason’s burly shoulder. “Donovan’d probably pay us even more than Grundy. Old Man Grundy’s been a fuckin’ miser since they legalized weed in California.”

  His eyes flashed.

  “And you’re sure about this, Recon? Y’ain’t bullshitting?”

  He glanced over towards me.

  “’Cos I don’t need to tell you what happens to Christi’s ass if you are.”

  “I’m not bullshitting,” Mason promised him. “The Feds are going to be looking for you riding north, towards Bill Grundy’s place. If you load up and ship out east, towards Phoenix, you’ll be free and clear before anybody even realizes you’re gone.”

  Coyle stared at Mason, studying every line in my handsome lover’s face. I could tell he was trying to read him – trying to figure out if Mason was lying, or trying to play an angle…

  But, in the end, he was inscrutable.

  “Okay,” Coyle finally conceded. “It’s a plan.”

  “You really want to make it a plan?” Mason fired back. “You really want to get away with this, free and clear?”

  Coyle narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m listening…”

  “Then send Big Mac and Rooker out tonight. Go rent a couple of vans from Enterprise – all legitimate, like. Make sure you’ve got paperwork. Then send ‘em up to Bill Grundy’s with every biker you’ve got who doesn’t have a warrant ridin’ right alongside them.”

  “Ha!” Officer Dempsey injected from behind us. “Good luck with that.”

  Mason ignored him.

  “Roll up to Bill Grundy’s place like they expected you to – only when the Feds close in, you give up without a fight.”

  Coyle nodded, catching my drift.

  “So, when the cops tear open the rental vans, and search all my boys ridin’ with ‘em – they don’t find a goddamned thing.”

  “Exactly!” Mason clicked his fingers.

  “So, they’ll reckon it was all a setup. That you fed ‘em bad intel – and that’ll take the heat off the Knuckleheads.”

  Mason nodded slowly.

  Coyle pursed his lips, digesting this plan.

  Eventually, he admitted: “That’s fuckin’ clever.”

  “I mean, the Feds are going to wake up tomorrow and still find Bandy Canyon Cannabis all stripped clean – and they’re gonna think it was you responsible…”

  “…but without any evidence, and with a baseless search warrant, they’ll have no choice but to leave me and my boys the fuck alone.”

  Mason nodded – lifting his empty glass up, and waggling it expectantly.

  I was kind of impressed. He’d downed a quarter of a bottle of bourbon in the last few minutes.

  Coyle seemed to think so too – but didn’t hesitate to refill his glass.

  “It’s a fuckin’ shame you’re a double-crossin’ son of a bitch, Recon,” the big biker sighed, refilling his own glass, and chinking it with Mason. “With a brain like yours, you’d have made a fine Knucklehead.”

  Mason sipped his drink, and shrugged his big shoulders.

  “Well, for the couple of months I was pretending to be one, it felt pretty damned good.”

  I watched with astonishment as the two men interacted. Not twenty minutes earlier, Coyle had been pinning Mason to the ground, and pummeling his face like a pizza chef pounds on a ball of dough.

  Now, though, they were acting like old friends.

  I was kind of hoping that camaraderie continued – at least long enough for Coyle to rethink the death sentence he’d threatened Mason with…

  …but then Officer Dempsey spoke up.

  “Yo,” he snapped, prodding Mason in the shoulder. “You said the Feds knew everything.”

  He and Officer Sanchez were standing there looking very nervous.

  “Does that include knowing about us?”

  Mason turned to them, and raised his glass.

  With a smile on his face, he delighted in telling them: “It sure does, boys.”

  Officer Dempsey slumped against the wall behind him.

  “The Feds know all about your crooked little racket. The cooked-up search warrant. Shooting Christi’s dad. And then making an arrangement with the most dangerous biker gang in California to shift three million dollars’ worth of stolen drugs.”

  Mason sipped his whiskey.

  “Looks like you boys will be goin’ away for a long time.”

  Of course, I knew Mason wasn’t being entirely honest. Sure, the FBI knew about all that shit – but they barely seemed to care. Not about my dad, at least…

  But Officer Dempsey and Officer Sanchez didn’t know that.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Sanchez’s normally brown face was practically alabaster. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”

  Mason didn’t answer that question. But, let’s be honest, he didn’t need to.

  Dempsey turned to his partner.

  “We’re fucked, bro,” he hissed. “They’re gonna throw the fuckin’ book at us.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Sanchez grabbed a fistful of his own hair, and tugged at it. “I fuckin’ knew this was a bad idea…”

  “That’s not what you said the last time,” Dempsey fired back. “That’s not what you said when we were collecting protection money from the weed farms up in Escondido, or the dispensary in Del Dios. Don’t fucking blame this on me.”

  Sanchez didn’t seem to listen.

  “We’re gonna go to fucking jail, man,” he panted. “They’re gonna lock us the fuck up.”

  Sanchez was trembling as he said it, his chest heaving.

  “Fucking relax, man,” Dempsey spat back. “Let me think for a goddamned moment.”

  And then he turned to Mason, and demanded:

  “How do they know? You told them?”

  Mason nodded, sipping his whiskey.

  “You and who else? Her?” His eyes turned to me. “Got any other witnes
ses?”

  The smile on Mason’s face faded.

  I sensed it too. A sudden change of atmosphere in the cramped little trailer.

  “So, without Agent Stone here, and this little bitch, they ain’t got nothing.” Sanchez’s eyes lit up. “Nobody else who’d testify in court. Nobody else who fuckin’ even knows about us being involved.”

  The tan cop turned to Coyle, and demanded: “And you were gonna fuckin’ ice him, right?” He took a ragged breath. “If you take him out of the picture, they ain’t got nobody to point a finger at us. We’re out of this free and clear.”

  “Not so fast.”

  Dempsey held up his hand cautiously. Glaring at Mason, he barked:

  “We ain’t out of the woods. If that fucking weed goes missing, just like this asshole told the FBI it would, then they’ll still know we were involved – even without any witnesses.”

  “Oh, they’ll know anyway,” Mason growled back. “They’ll check your phone records, track your movements. They’ll connect you and the Knuckleheads one way or another.”

  Sanchez’s face lost its color again.

  “Fuck,” he hissed. “We’re fucked, man – whichever way you look at it.”

  “Shut the fuck up for a moment – I’m thinking.”

  Officer Dempsey’s hand was still in the air, and as he spoke it was more like he was processing his thoughts than actually addressing anybody in that cramped little trailer.

  “We can still get out of this,” he murmured, brow furrowing. “If we’re smart…”

  And then he turned to Sanchez.

  “Shit – I’ve got a plan.”

  “Yeah?”

  Dempsey nodded – and suddenly he reached for the .40 Glock strapped to his waist.

  Without even thinking about it – the instinct of a cop, and a partner – Sanchez did the same.

  As we all looked on, the two cops drew their guns and we were suddenly staring down their barrels.

  “We can’t get accused of workin’ with the Knuckleheads,” Dempsey explained, bringing his gun to bear on Mason and Coyle, “if we fucking arrest them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Mason

  How many gun barrels had I looked down in the course of my life?

  Far too many – both out in the baking sands of Iraq, and as a Homeland Security Agent, back home in California.

  But this time, it was different.

  As Coyle, Christi, Raine and Bertha stood around me, in that cramped little Airstream trailer, we all must have been thinking the same thing:

  Somebody was going to die in here.

  Officer Dempsey and Officer Sanchez had their guns out, and the look in their eyes was that of two men desperate enough to pull the trigger.

  “They can’t accuse us of working with the Knuckleheads if we fuckin’ arrest them,” Dempsey repeated – almost as if he was trying to convince himself more than Sanchez. “We’ll bring this asshole in, in cuffs, and then just tell the FBI that it was all a setup – we were fuckin’ working a sting, just like Agent Stone over there.”

  Dempsey nodded at me as he said that – as if gauging my reaction.

  I didn’t give him one.

  “Okay, okay,” still visibly flustered, Officer Sanchez started trying to figure out his partner’s logic. “So, what are we gonna tell ‘em? That we offered to let ‘em steal that weed, just so we could bust them for it?”

  “Yeah,” Dempsey nodded. “Yeah! We’ll just tell ‘em we were working undercover, too. We weren’t working with the Knuckleheads. We were just trying to gather enough evidence to build a case against them.”

  Dempsey was nodding as he spoke – again, like he was trying to convince himself that this half-baked plan would actually work.

  But Coyle quickly put paid to that.

  “You dumb, double-crossin’ bastards,” he growled – totally nonchalant about the two guns being pointed at him. “The Feds are never gonna believe that shit.”

  “T-they might,” Dempsey stammered, his gun trembling in his hands. “Especially if we get one of their own to vouch for us.”

  “Yeah,” Sanchez nodded now, finally getting the big picture. “If we can get Agent Stone to tell ‘em we were working undercover, they might just believe us.”

  The two cops turned to me, and I noticed neither gun was pointed in my direction any more.

  “Whaddya say, Agent Stone? Would you vouch for us?”

  I stared at them incredulously.

  “It’s a good plan,” Sanchez nodded. “You just tell ‘em we were working undercover with you. We were part of your plan to bring down the Knuckleheads. That this was all part of some elaborate sting operation.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Coyle shook his head. “If brains were water, you two would die of thirst.”

  He jerked his head towards me.

  “Recon here has already told the FBI that you two are dirty cops. Why the fuck do you think they’d believe him if he suddenly changed his story?”

  “Because we’d have you,” Dempsey growled. “If we bring in the leader of the Knuckleheads, in handcuffs, they’ll be so fuckin’ happy they’d gloss over the details.”

  “Sure,” Sanchez was still nodding – still trying to convince himself that this plan would work. “The ends justify the means. This state’s sick of stories about dirty cops.”

  Dempsey turned to me, and repeated: “How about it, soldier?” He jerked his head towards Coyle. “You willing to bring him in?”

  I just stared at them, in disbelief.

  I don’t think I’d seen two more cowardly sacks of shit in my whole goddamned life. They were standing there in their uniforms – the black, sightless eyes of their .40 handguns staring at us – and I could tell that they’d do anything to wriggle out of this.

  When Dempsey sensed my hesitation, he hissed:

  “Jesus, man. This asshole here,” he jerked his gun in the direction of Coyle, “said he was going to fuckin’ kill you.”

  “Yeah,” Sanchez was still nodding – he looked like a fucking parrot by now. “It’s a fuckin’ no-brainer, man. You get our backs and you live. It’s the only way you’re walkin’ out of here.”

  “Oh, neither of you boys are walkin’ out of here,” Coyle sneered, staring fearlessly down the barrels of those two guns. “That’s a goddamn fuckin’ promise.”

  “Yeah?” Dempsey’s knuckle whitened, as he tightened his grip on the trigger. “That’s some bold shit to hear from a man with a gun pointed at his head.”

  “There are fifty of my boys out there,” Coyle pointed towards the door of the little trailer. “They ain’t gonna let you get ten feet before they take you down.”

  “Sure they will.” The gun in Dempsey’s hand was shaking. “We put a gun to your head and walk on out of this trailer, and we tell those assholes outside that we’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out if they stand in our way.”

  Sanchez added: “Especially if we have Agent Stone on our side.” He turned to me, and asked: “How about it, man?”

  Again, I just stared at the two cops in silent judgement.

  “C’mon, man,” Dempsey prompted. “What are you even hesitating for? You stay here, you die. You come with us, you live.”

  “Shit, you’ll do more than live,” Sanchez hissed. “If you help us bring Coyle in, they’ll fucking promote you.”

  “Yeah!” Dempsey’s eyes flashed. “That’s fuckin’ right! You rode for months with the Knuckleheads, just so you could bust him. Bring this asshole in,” again, he was indicating Coyle, “and it’d be Mission Accomplished, right?”

  “You got a choice, man,” Sanchez told me. “You walk out of here a hero, or you stay here and die like a crook.”

  The dark-skinned cop narrowed his eyes.

  “What’ll it be?” He nodded his head at me. “You willin’ to partner up?”

  For a second I was silent – just standing there, looking at the two terrified, desperate cops.

  They wer
e right, of course.

  Coyle had said he was going to kill me, and half a bottle of whiskey between us hadn’t changed that.

  Right then and there, I had the opportunity to turn this shit around. I could grab a gun, and turn it on Coyle and the others, and go back to being an undercover agent with Homeland Security.

  The FBI, the cops, and anybody else who looked into it would never know that I’d questioned my orders, or my mission. They’d just see a diligent, brave, resourceful agent who got his man, after months of dangerous undercover work.

  Officer Sanchez was right. I’d be a hero.

  Of course, the price I’d have to pay would be lying about those two dirty cops. Pretending that they’d been my partners in this, instead of two cowardly little rodents who’d do anything to save their own asses.

  I glanced over at Christi, standing there with her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  These two cops had killed her father, and the price of saving my own life was guaranteeing that they’d never have to face any consequences for that.

  It’s funny, people throw around the phrase “I couldn’t live with myself…” a lot. But in my case, it was literally true.

  I could team up with those cops, and save my own life… But in doing so, I’d betray Christi, and Coyle, and everything else I’d come to realize about myself.

  And honestly? I’d rather die.

  Which was convenient, since that’s what Coyle had in store for me if I stuck around.

  “C’mon,” Dempsey prompted me again. “You gonna save your ass, or what? You gonna partner up?”

  I looked him right in the eye, knowing that I was about to sign my own death warrant.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I told him.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Christi

  What are the chances you remember the exact moment you fall in love?

  I don’t know. All I did know was that the moment I heard Mason tell that dirty cop to “go fuck yourself”, I fell in love with him even more so than I had already.

  Here he was, staring down the barrel of a gun – facing a death sentence if he didn’t cut a deal…

  But the man I loved would literally rather die than give an inch to those two cowardly sons of bitches – the ones who defaced everything the badges they wore stood for.