“Ever hear the name Bob Munden?” Miro asked.
“That the game-show guy, Merle?”
“The Munden I’m talking about is the guy I’m as fast as.” Miro drew two fingers, extending them at Wally’s forehead. “Tell you one more time, the name’s Miro.”
Wally brushed the fingers away.
“Bob was a revolver man, got more trophies than anybody, fastest man alive,” Miro said. “Got himself in the Guinness book.”
“No shit, huh? You got anything else?”
“Think I’m going to carry a Kimber Raptor, a Sig Sauer Combat, a Colt Python and a Walther around with me?”
“You got a Walther?” Mitch brought the mugs over and set them down, picking up the Glock, checking its action.
“Yeah, a P5, same kind the Kraut cops use.”
“Not much good to us under your mattress, Merle.” Wally flipped open the Smith’s cylinder, one-eyeing inside.
Miro went to snatch it from him.
Wally pulled it back. “Just kidding around, Merle. Take it easy and say what you want for these.”
Miro looked at Mitch, wondering how you fuck up instant, then said to Wally, “Eight bills—nine if you say Merle again.”
Wally let out a low whistle, sipping his Sanka.
“Let’s call it six, but I want to take a look at the Walther,” Mitch said.
“What I’m not is fucking Walmart. You boys can do better, be my guest.” Miro tossed the shells back in the bag, reaching for the pistols. “I’ll tell Stax you’re out.”
“Hey, we’re here now, right?” Wally checked his watch, fishing a wad of bills from his stash pocket, counting off his half. “Eight bills, you say. Let’s do this; I got somebody waiting.” He didn’t say Merle again, figuring he pushed Miro’s buttons enough.
“Look, I don’t know you guys from Adam,” Miro said. “But Stax says you guys are right for this job.”
“What’s the job?”
“One we’ve got brewing.”
“Bank job?” Wally asked. “Surveillance, armed guards, tellers with alarm buttons, exploding dye packs, shit like that?”
“You done?” Miro asked.
“Yeah.”
“Tell you this much, what we take we take from those who can’t call the cops.” Miro wasn’t sure which one was Mutt and which one was Jeff, but Stax was right about one thing: here were two losers nobody was going to miss.
swatting the hive
Karl picked up his serves at Sea-to-Sky, making chitchat with Bob and Joyce, the two of them exactly as Marty Schmidt had described them, Joyce inviting him and PJ over for drinks and a hot tub, saying she whips up a mean screwdriver, Karl saying he’d get back to her. Getting on the elevator, he checked his watch, pressing the button for PJ’s floor, thoughts of an early lunch, treating her while she waited for her new AmEx to show up. Rifling through the serves, he spotted the envelope from Global Trace. The elevator pinged off the floors, and his cell rang. The display told him who it was.
“Hey, Marty, speak of the devil.”
“Hey buddy, you get my mail?”
“You’re turning psychic on me?” Karl said. “I’m holding it in my hand—just got it.” He tore it open.
“Man, wish I could see the look on that Knott-fuck’s face when you do your thing.”
Karl pulled out the photocopies of the U.S. bench warrant, skimming over it.
“You find out where he is?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, hey,” Marty said, “I hereby volunteer to drag his ass back.”
“I’ll tell him you said hello.”
“You do that.”
Hanging up, Karl was feeling the old excitement, the thrill of the chase, the old Lady Luck. How good it would feel to drag Miro across the border, hand him off to Marty. The elevator stopped and he stepped off, seeing PJ through the glass door of Walt Wetzel Legal.
talking two-bit
Wally was showing off again, not with the Rolex this time, but with Sunny. Not enough meat on her bones for Miro’s taste, but still more than a guy like Wally rated. He hadn’t paid her much mind when he was in here with Stax yesterday. To him, she looked like a hooker Barbie with a cute face and perky tits, one of those turned-up noses and big hair like disco chicks wore back in the day.
Setting his pack of Newports on the table, Miro draped his arm over the back of the seat, the vinyl squeaking—everything going to plan, running it through his head: Artie set to bolt with his safe full of cash, Stax sure it was in Artie’s house up in the Properties. These two clowns break in, find it, bust into it, steal the cash and end up dead. Miro sets Karl Morgen up to take the fall, and him and Stax end up rich.
“You with us, Merle?” Wally asked.
“Waiting for you to shut up,” Miro said, seeing Chickie behind the serving window, sweating and waving his arms like a conductor over his patties and wings—the prices as low as the fare.
Rain beat on the seamless roof, loud enough that Mitch and Wally had to lean in to hear Miro. In spite of the run of bad weather and the Tim’s and Wendy’s across the street, the usual crowd from the retail stores and the North Van shipyards filled the place.
Wally told them he was getting Sunny to quit this dump, how he was coming in solo one night to catch Chickie with his greasy fingers on the day’s take, teach him a lesson for serving this shit. Miro said that was real Robin Hood of him, Sunny scooting back with mugs and a coffee pot, her hair bouncing past her shoulders. Setting the mugs down, she poured and gave their table a wipe, her breasts jiggling inside her uniform. Wally slipped his hand around her waist like he was claiming his territory.
Miro could see Sunny wasn’t retarded, so she had to be doing tricks on the side to let a guy like Wally put his hands on her. To him, the girl was no Bruna, but he made sport out of checking her out, liking that it pissed Wally off. Playing with her, asking for a three-egg omelette, smiling as she explained Chickie only did what was on the menu: a one- or two-egg omelette with a choice of topping. He ordered a two-egger and told her for a topping he wanted an egg. Twirling a curl around her finger, she said Chickie would have her for lunch if she asked him that. Miro said so would he, but he didn’t see her on the menu, liking that she laughed. Then he ordered a round of cheeseburgers and rings for the table, eyes on her as she went to the pickup window.
“I got to ask again, you with us, Merle?” Wally checked his Rolex, helping himself to a smoke.
“Right here.”
“So, how about we get to it,” Wally said, tired of Miro’s game, pouring cream in his cup.
Miro leaned in, saying, “No offense, boys, but what you’re into’s a little high school. Pulling B and Es and muling dope, come on, man. You’re better than that.” He said it but doubted it, getting up, saying he was going to the can, looking over at Chickie through the pass window, the guy tossing patties on the grill, a drop of sweat forming at the tip of his fleshy nose. Coming back, he looked over just as the drop of sweat dripped from Chickie’s nose onto a patty on the grill.
Sunny came back and set down a ketchup and vinegar trolley, flicking Wally’s hand from her hip, thanking Miro for the twenty he laid down, not saying anything about there being no smoking.
Wally snatched the bill and tossed it back at Miro. “You want to talk talk, just cut the horse shit, Merle.”
“What’s eating you?” Miro said, winking at her.
“In this country, you eat, then you pay,” Wally said, then to Sunny, “Ever have a gunslinger give you a tip before, doll?”
“Not with you around,” she said, saying she’d catch Miro later, and walked back behind the counter.
Wally took out a coin and flipped it. Heads, he’d deck this bucktoothed freak, show him a thing or two. Tails. He lit up and eased back, catching Sunny handing a menu to a guy who wor
ked road crew sitting on a stool at the counter. The orange vest, hard hat on the counter, unlaced work boots, jeans riding low showing his crack. The guy was bitching about the piss-poor service, pointing over at Wally smoking. Sunny was apologizing all over the place, saying the other girl called in sick, hurrying to the pickup window and pinning his order to the rack.
“My guess, I’m looking at two guys ready for a bigger slice,” Miro said. “Am I right?”
Wally was still eyeing the road-crew guy, then tapping the tat on Miro’s forearm, saying, “The kind of slice that gets you one of these?”
“The trick’s to minimize the risk and maximize the payoff,” Miro said. “What else you need to know?”
“Want to know how do you call this a cigarette?” Wally stubbed the menthol on his saucer.
Mitch asked Miro to go on.
Miro dumped a third creamer in his cup, hoping to kill the bitter edge, saying, “Basically we hit outside the law.”
“You mean the burbs?” Wally grinned.
“I mean a place that’s got thirty Gs worth of bud.” He looked from one to the other, banking that neither of them had any idea what top-grade bud really went for. “It’s the new bathtub gin. Maybe you read about it on the net?”
“Sure, customers who bought B.C. bud also bought X and crack.”
Sunny came back and set their burgers and rings down, said something to Wally about not smoking.
“Where’d you find this guy?” Miro asked Mitch, then said to Wally after Sunny left, “What you don’t know, smart guy, I blueprinted Artie Poppa’s grow houses, every one of them, set up the microclimates, retrofit the electrical and ventilation systems, the sequencers, drying systems, everything. Came up with the nutrient formulations, all the bells, all the whistles, all the stuff you know shit about.” Looking around, he saw Chickie’s glistening forehead, guessed more sweat was building on his nose.
“That’ll look good on a resume, Merle, but don’t go thinking I don’t know shit,” Wally said, picking up Miro’s cigarette pack, helping himself to another one, throwing a look at the road-crew guy, hoping he’d say something.
“Let the man talk, for fuck’s sake,” Mitch said to Wally, taking a bite, his stomach churning. He remembered reading about the cops busting a pot operation at the old Molson brewery in Barrie a few years back, something like thirty million bucks of the shit. A handful of arrests for something the cops figured had been running for over a year. Man, what he could do with a piece of something like that.
“Set up the first grow house in a bunker out in Abbotsford,” Miro said. “Back when you were in short pants.”
“Yeah, yeah, way back, heard about it from my granny,” Wally said, squeezing mustard on his burger. “Time of peace and groovy shit, right?” Wally turned to the counter, the road-crew guy giving Sunny flack again on account of the smoke.
“Maybe I’m talking to the wrong guys.” Miro pushed his burger away, picked up an onion ring, considered the grease on his fingers and tossed it back.
“Point is, you’re not talking,” Mitch said, the Big Bowl Breakfast still sloshing around below, making a poor foundation for the burger and rings. He said to Wally around a mouthful, “And how about you let him get a word out, and maybe we’ll get somewhere.”
“Whatever.” Wally wagged a hand, looking at Miro’s burger. “You don’t want that?”
Miro shoved the plate to him and leaned forward. “Here it is, we’re going to hit Artie Poppa again.” Miro straightened as Sunny came back, knowing why she was coming, saying to her, “You got an ashtray for your boyfriend here, doll?”
She smirked. “Sure, right out back next to the rolling pins and broom handles. Come on, guys, I’m catching a lot of crap here.”
Wally turned, eyes on the road-crew guy, blowing a smoke ring in his direction, grinning as the guy turned away.
Miro took Wally’s hand and dunked the cigarette in his coffee, saying as Sunny left, “So, like I was saying, there’s thirty Gs of bud waiting.”
“Along with armed stoners and pit dogs,” Wally said, tossing the soggy butt on the floor, wiping his hand with Miro’s napkin.
“I just sold you boys some serious fire power, didn’t I?” Miro looked from one to the other. “All Artie’s got at this place are two fuck-ups that keep watch, and one of them’s a chick.” Miro grinned, thinking of Pinkie and Loop guarding the place, Wally right for once about the armed stoners, saying to him, “House full of six-footers, cured and ready for the taking. And we’ve got a buyer standing by with twenty-five large.”
“You just said thirty,” Mitch said.
“Yeah, minus expenses.”
“Like what?”
Miro waved his hand like that didn’t matter, saying, “Look, this place’s got sealed ventilation. How we do it is we tap into the air conditioning unit out back, pump in enough nitrous oxide to put anyone inside on their ass. Worst thing they’ll do is drool on your shoes while we walk out with their bud.”
“Where we getting this gas?”
“All part of the expenses.”
“So how come you and Stax don’t work for this Poppa guy anymore?” Mitch asked.
“Got my reasons. As for Stax, you’d have to—”
“Hey, if we’re going to do this . . .” Wally started.
Miro looked out at the rain. “Okay, I worked a field for him in the Okanagan, another one over in Chilliwack back before the whole works went indoors. When it did go indoors, I put it together for him till the asthma put me out.”
“Asthma, huh?”
“Dampness had me going through puffers like a junkie.”
Wally asking, “But you still smoke the shit?”
“Bothers some, others not so much. Me, I’m one of the lucky ones.”
“Yeah, that’s great, Merle,” Wally said. “So what’s the split?”
“Fifty fifty,” Miro said.
“You mean a third each,” Wally said.
“No, I mean fifty for you two, fifty for me and Stax.”
“And he’s doing what?”
“He’s the guy who runs things for Artie, our guy inside. You guys were there when Jeffery bought it, right? Figure it out.”
“Poppa tied in with anybody, bikers or that Circle gang, people like that?” Mitch asked.
“You been reading the papers, huh? Catch the bit about the politicians and the RCMP cracking down. Look, Artie’s an old dude with a pacemaker, more interested in getting his putt right than spending his last days in prison.”
“He’s just going to stand by and let us take it, huh?” Wally scratched under his do-rag.
“We stick to the plan, we go in invisible and come out rich, and Stax sends Artie in the wrong direction. Again.”
They didn’t look convinced.
“Look, there’s another part to this, even bigger.” Miro leaned close. “Artie’s planning to check out, and he’s keeping a stash of cash at his own place, mansion up in the Properties.”
“You want to hit him twice?”
“The mansion first, then the other.”
“How much cash we talking?” Wally asked.
Miro said there was no way of knowing for sure, then told them about the drug lord whose house got raided in Mexico City, the DEA and Mexican cops seizing over two hundred million in bills stuffed inside his villa walls. “Only difference, Artie keeps his in a safe.”
“Where’s this safe?”
“A couple of sharp guys shouldn’t have too much trouble finding something the size of a safe, right? You tap out a back window while Artie’s getting himself good and healthy down on his nude beach. Hey, why am I telling you?”
“And if there’s no safe?”
“There’s five hundred bucks in it either way. You find it or not, you make five bills just for showing up.”
&
nbsp; “Where are you going to be?”
“Getting you the five bills.” Miro looked from one to the other and knew he had them. “Just be sure the sun’s shining when you go in.”
mano a mano
Wally flipped a coin and said he was going to hang back for Sunny’s shift to end. What he did, he went up to Third for a decent cup of coffee and got himself the bold pick of the day, preferring Starbucks over Tim’s, came back and stepped back inside to tell her he’d be waiting. The construction guy was still shoveling it in, bitching about finding one of Sunny’s hairs in his rice pudding, Wally figuring the guy should be so lucky.
Turning around, Wally went around to the parking spots, no windows on that side of the diner. The pickup had Karlson Construction painted down the side in orange, a Ford from before the time of alarms and airbags. He tried it—the door unlocked—taking out his all-in-one. If he hadn’t downed two orders of burgers and rings, he would have waited and done the guy mano a mano. Getting in, he inserted the screwdriver into the ignition, slapped the handle with the butt of his hand just hard enough and had her purring in no time flat.
Rolling onto Cotton and through the intersection, he burped up onion and lit a Newport from the pack he’d lifted off the table. Chirping the tires, he coasted along Third to where it became Marine, spinning the radio knob until he found Rock 101, the afternoon DJ putting on “Thunder Road” after saying he was giving away Springsteen tickets to the first ten callers. Wally dialed the station’s number, getting a busy signal. The Boss had really rocked that time at the Tacoma Dome. Hitting redial like a Morse operator he slowed along the detour lane, still burping onion, getting a busy tone every try.
The bridge crew was busy slamming the piles for the bridge over the Capilano, Marine Drive reduced to two lanes, Wally checking out the flagger chicks. To Wally’s way of thinking, traffic was getting more fucked every time an immigrant stepped off a boat. An extra bridge lane wasn’t going to make a shit bit of difference. He drove past Park Royal, remembering the bowling alley, movie theater and driving range, back when there was stuff to do in West Van besides shop.
Ride the Lightning Page 5