“Let’s skip that part,” Karl said, touching his bleeding shoulder, opening his car door, letting the light spill out. The kid’s name tag said he was Norm. “Far as I’m concerned, I owe you, Norm.”
“Forget it.”
Finding his keys on the ground, Karl asked if Norm saw the Late Show where Letterman let Richard Simmons have it with a fire extinguisher. Norm said yeah that was a good one, adding he had a first-aid kit in the booth. Karl shook his head, picked up the Taser, looked around for security cameras. Not seeing any, he tossed the broken side mirror into the car, asking, “Know anybody at ICBC, Norm?” He started the car.
Back in his booth, Norm raised the barrier, waving Karl through, saying the seven-fifty flat rate was on the house.
riding the lightning
Karl parked in the same spot above Trail 6, next to the same Cadillac, the pines along the top of the trail making a perfect spot for another ambush. What the hell had he been thinking giving Miro and his crew a heads-up?
A lump was growing like a tumor on the side of his head, blood dripping down his sleeve. No guilt now about giving up Miro and his merry band of assholes. He checked the Taser’s AAs and air cartridge.
Going down those stairs was slow murder, each step hurting more than the last, four hundred and seventy-three of them. At the trash can at the bottom, he caught his breath, spotting Artie and Stax near the shore, one sitting, one standing, a beached log and a hamper next to them.
A few vendors stood by their folding tables and barbecues, waiting for naked diehards to brave the unseasonable cold. Whitecaps rolled in, churning the water brown.
Artie was sitting on his beach blanket, lathered in lotion, waiting for the sun to poke out from behind drifting clouds. He was letting Stax think it was business as usual, making like he cared who robbed him, burned his place down. Tonight he’d stay at the Fairmont with the twin suitcases in the trunk of his Caddy stuffed with hundreds, over 1.2 million in each. Tomorrow he’d board the Korean Air flight to Seoul with the money and a fake passport. Half his holdings had been sold off, the proceeds transferred to his bank in Gyeongju; the rest could be handled offshore.
Stax stood in his jeans and T-shirt, showing off the serpents, watching Karl walk up.
“How you going to work on your tan like that?” was Artie’s greeting, noting the bloody jacket, the way Karl was holding himself.
“Sign says clothes are optional.”
Stax got in front of Karl, motioning for him to put his arms up.
Karl drew the Taser. “Had enough of people putting hands on me for one day.”
“You want to play Flash Gordon?” Stax guessed he could stand a little jolt before ripping this guy a new one, looked like somebody already got the job half done.
Walking around them, his back to the water, Karl pointed it at the big man’s chest, “Brought it in case the assholes who just jumped me want to go another round.”
Artie motioned for Stax to ease up, saying, “Saw on the news when the cops used one of those on that Russian guy at the airport. Killed the poor fuck.”
“Tasered him like five times, and I think the guy was Polish, but anyway, I got your names. You bring my money?”
Artie motioned to the hamper, and Stax reached in and came up with Jeffery’s king of handguns, not aiming it, just holding it at his side.
Artie snapped his finger like he was trying to remember something, asking Stax, “What’s the girl’s name again?”
Stax looked at Karl, saying, “PJ Addie.”
Karl lowered the Taser.
“Your names pan out, Stax forgets hers,” Artie said. “Then you get your cash.”
“My names’ll pan out alright,” Karl said, then started grinning, nicking his head, wanting them to turn and look, saying, “Fact, you don’t believe me, ask this guy.” Karl was looking toward Vendors’ Row, Miro stiff-legging it over the sand, blood crusting on his face.
His jacket hung open, showing the old-time gunfighter rig. Miro could have made the shot from the trash can at the bottom of the stairs, even with his leg unsteady, but he wanted to look into Artie’s eyes when the light went out of them. The asshole bounty hunter, too. Nice and close. If Stax made a move, he’d kill him, too.
Artie’s face tightened, the unibrow bunching. Stax tucked the Python in the front of his pants, stepping to the side.
The vendors didn’t see a movie crew filming the guy with the greased hair acting like a gunslinger with his black eye, flattened nose and the hitch in his step. After the gang shooting there last spring, they knew better than to stand around, so they scattered into the pines, abandoning their grills, leaving a dog tethered to a chair leg.
Wishing he had his old Smith, Karl half-turned, hiding the stun gun along his leg, not sure about the range from where he stood. Watching Miro, he missed seeing Stax step in and snatch it, shoving him into the sand.
“Popeye—thought you were in Seattle,” Artie said, greeting Miro, playing the man in charge.
“Got business here.” Miro’s hand swept the jacket back, making sure Artie saw what was coming.
“What business is that?”
“The unfinished kind.” Miro was set, looking into the old prick’s eyes. Naked or not, didn’t matter.
“Well, you look like shit,” Artie said to him, then looked at Stax, the Python tucked in his belt, the Taser in his hand. “What do I pay you for?”
That’s all Artie got out; Stax raised the Taser and fired, the probes biting into the old man’s tanned chest. Artie’s eyes went wide, his face contorted, and his body flopped backward into the sand.
“Fuck!” Miro yelled, rushing forward, looking at Artie twitch in the sand, then at Stax. “What the . . . He was mine.”
“No way I’m doing time ’cause you want to put on a Wild West show.” Stax looked down at his boss, electrodes sticking in his chest.
“After what he did to me?”
“You got to see him ride the lightning, that’s as good as it gets.” Stax motioned at Karl. “Shoot this asshole you need to shoot somebody so bad.”
His pistol still in its holster, Miro looked at Karl.
“But not in front of me,” Stax said.
“What the fuck are you going to say when he wakes up—‘Oops’?” Miro said.
Stax turned to leave.
“Suppose I do him anyway?”
“Do what you want.” Stax looked back at him. “I’m out of here. Going to see a man about a dog.”
Miro couldn’t believe this guy, thinking about the dead dog again, saying, “Toss him the gun.”
“Like fuck.”
“It’s Jeffery’s.”
“With my prints.” No way Stax was giving up the gun.
“Then that thing,” Miro motioned at the Taser still in Stax’s hand. “And I’ll tell you where to find Wally, guy that killed your dog.”
Stax thought a second, bent and checked Artie’s vitals.
Miro told Karl Stax had been wearing a wire all along. “Got you and Artie on tape first time you came down here, making a deal to find the guys robbing him. Been setting you up for a double murder. Wanted to see you doing time, but now I’m thinking your time’s up.”
Karl checked around, nothing but abandoned tables and grills, the dog tugging and barking.
Miro got himself set, saying, “Still owe me for that date you fucked up, dragging me off that couch. Why I’m going ’round to your girlfriend’s when this is done, drive up in your car, slap the cuffs on her and take a spin someplace quiet. Show her a good time.” He said to Stax, “Gonna throw him that thing or what?”
Stax came up with a bewildered look. “Fuck me.”
Miro’s eyes flicked at him.
Stax looked at the spent Taser in his hand, the probes still sticking in his boss. “Fucking things are supposed t
o be safe now.” Wiping it, he tossed it at Karl’s feet, thinking it was discharged, telling Karl, “You live, you got some explaining to do, asshole.”
“Forgot the goddamn pacemaker,” Miro yelled at Stax, getting set to make this a three-way killing.
“Just tonic-clonic seizure,” Karl said, bending for the Taser.
“What?”
“Just got to jump-start him.”
“And what the fuck are you—”
Karl was swinging the Taser, Miro drawing as the copper probes shot out, biting in. Miro’s body jerked, his piece dropping from his fingers.
Karl was whirling and firing again as Stax rushed in, head lowered like a tattooed rhino, both of them going down in a heap. The wind knocked out of him, Karl pushed Stax off, the guy stinking of sweat, mouth foaming and his eyes rolled up, showing just the whites.
Getting to his feet, Karl spit sand and stumbled over to Miro. A dark urine stain was spreading over his crotch, the scrawny bastard still breathing, blood blotting the gauze on his leg. Sand stuck to his greasy hair. Fishing out his cell, Karl punched in the number Bruna gave him, then walked over to Artie, the St. Peter’s cross around his neck.
“You get all that?”
“Still waiting on the warrant,” Bruna said, then hesitated. “Get all what? What’s going on?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Karl rifled through the hamper, guessing she thought he’d actually waited at the top of the stairs till she got her warrant. No cash in the hamper. He started back for the stairs, coming up with a new deal for Bruna. “I’ll fill you in, maybe even testify, but I get to snap the cuffs on the runt, read him the you-have-the-right-to shit.”
“Keep talking like an asshole,” she said, “and I’ll be cuffing you.”
He told her how it just went down as he climbed the stairs. “I’m guessing you’ve got five, maybe ten minutes before the two assholes come around,” adding, “and better bring a stretcher and one of those Ziploc bags for Artie.” He kept climbing, filling in the details.
Bruna ordered him to stay where he was, said she was en route, told him units were on the way. He clicked off.
pj’s parts
PJ jerked awake, her head and heart pounding. Wet with fever. In the stupid dream Cam and Dara stood in a mortuary facing Karl in front of refrigerated doors, Karl acting like Carol Merril in front of the three doors on that game show, rolling a gurney out, drawing the zipper down. The corpse was PJ herself, peaceful and serene, once pretty.
First time her mother’s lips had ever been sealed, Dara said. Karl yanked the zipper and parted the plastic, asking them to guess what these babies set him back. Cam said nice rack, Dara saying she’d take them, asking how long to pop them out. Karl pulled a watch and chain from his pocket, and the dream dissolved.
God, even in a feverish dream the kid was a bitch. Getting out of bed, PJ went to Karl’s bathroom, careful where she stepped, head feeling heavy. Splashing water on her face, still wondering how anyone slept with that noise outside. Then she smiled at the mirror, thinking of Dara coming to identify her mother’s body, bringing a date, harvesting implants like they were organs. She put a hand to her forehead. Man, that NyQuil was something. She was toweling her face when the phone in her handbag rang.
It was Karl on his cell, tension in his voice, asking how she was feeling. Traffic sounds in the background.
She put a hand over her other ear to hear him over the bridge construction, told him they needed to talk. What she wanted right then was for him to stick his key in the lock, wanted his lips to get in the way of her giving him hell for lying to her, knowing he wasn’t out serving paper, worrying about him and the people he was mixed up with. Karl told her he was on his way, said he’d explain things, and then he was gone.
a man about a dog
His phone rang. It was Bruna, standing on the beach, a dozen uniforms working the scene, no sign of Miro or Stax, just tracks in the sand of a struggle and the hamper with sandwiches and lotion.
“How about those stairs, huh?”
“Where the hell you get off leaving a crime scene?”
“Things to do.” He rolled through an amber light, traffic ahead getting heavy.
She ordered Karl to get his ass down to 312 Main, told him to wait at her desk till she got there, told him she wasn’t asking.
Karl hung up, thinking she made a better skank than a cop. He dialed PJ back, told her to get out of the apartment, wait outside for him, then told her to call Dara and get her out of the house in case Miro showed up there first. He gave PJ the short strokes of what went down on Wreck Beach, Artie getting tased, Bruna turning out to be a cop, Miro and Stax getting away. Cutting off her questions, he promised to tell her the rest when he got there, said he just wanted her safe, and hung up.
They had trudged up the stairs, both of them out of it. Stax helped Miro, taking a hold on his arm, minimizing the risk of getting shot in the back, Miro holding the railing. Focusing on how bad he wanted to kill that fucker Morgen got him to the top.
Hearing distant sirens, Stax, nearly at the parking lot, had pulled Miro off the stairs, the two of them hiding among the ferns. Cars swept in and doors slammed, then voices, then more doors. Keeping low behind a burned-out tree trunk forty feet from the stairs, Miro and Stax watched and waited as a dozen cops hurried down, Dom and Luca the last to arrive.
They climbed up the rest of the way through the trees. Motioning Miro to stay still, Stax crept past the “Clothing Optional” sign and came up behind the lone cop waiting by his unit in the lot. Doubling his fists, he clubbed the cop on the side of the head, the cap tumbling off as he fell. Stax took the service SIG from the holster and threw it into the trees, reached in the cruiser and yanked the handset from the radio, threw it too. Climbing into Artie’s Caddy, he looked at Miro, then at the parked cruisers, saying, “Take your pick.” He cranked the Caddy to life, then said, “Better pray Wally’s at that address.”
Miro watched him squeal away, stepped over the cop, looked inside the cars, finding keys dangling in an unmarked Chev minivan. Man, he wished he had his radar-red Challenger. Still, with any luck, he’d get to Morgen’s right behind him and get it done. Couldn’t believe the guy beat him to the draw, even with the swollen hand and bum leg.
sunny with a chance of blow
The rain tapped like fingers on the standing-seam roof, the screened-in porch letting the cold damp bite. It brought Wally around, the ratty sofa’s springs poking his back. He must have nodded off, waiting for Miro’s call, his phone on the glass coffee table. No messages.
No fouler taste than that after-the-party mouth. Reaching the bottle, he swished a mouthful of wine like it was Listerine, moving his jaw, giving the FedEx guy credit for knowing how to throw a punch. He would have shot the prick in the parking garage if it wasn’t for Miro screwing it up, wanting the guy for himself, the hotshot getting his cowboy gun knocked away.
Miro’s last word was for Wally to go jack a van, sit tight and wait for his call while he took care of business. Wally was pretty sure the business meant round two with the FedEx guy. The plan was to lay low until later, then hit Artie’s place in Burnaby.
Fingers spidered on the floor, he felt around for his Smith. Then checking his Rolex, he looked at Sunny curled up at the other end with a magazine, hair smelling of Suave, the same brand he was using these days. He laid a hand on her thigh, guessing they were good together.
Her eyes flashed, blue and pissed off, and she shoved his hand away. “You mind?” Wet landed on her lip, and she sat up.
“What?”
“Stick them down your own pants; see how you like it. Fingers like goddamn frozen fish sticks.”
Wally straightened his do-rag, thinking fuck this, he may as well go see about that van. Working through the coke, smoke and wine fog, he couldn’t remember screwing her. What he did remember was telling her a
bout the construction guy at the diner, how he took care of business for the way the guy ragged on her. He didn’t say exactly what he did to the guy, only that he took care of it. Point was, he showed how he felt about her. And here she was playing the bitch.
He patted his stash pocket for the folded tinfoil that wasn’t there. Tossing the magazine, leaning forward, she picked the foil off the table and opened it, shaking the last of the coke out, tapping the razor, her hand shaking and making a mess of the lines on the glass top.
“Here,” he said, sitting closer and taking the razor from her, telling her she wasn’t chopping wood. “Nice and easy like this, this shit’s the real deal, not that lactose and talcum crap you’re used to.” Probably why he couldn’t remember getting it up, pure coke mixed with red wine and a couple of joints. Should have popped a couple of zoomers instead of the wine. Go in clean, put it to her, then guzzle some wine.
She grinned at him like she knew what he was thinking and snorted a line, saying, “Beam me up, Scottie,” handing him the rolled Post-it note. She watched him do the other line. “You were so wasted, you couldn’t . . .” She draped her forefinger and laughed.
“Uh huh.”
“Then you just passed out with your eyes like this.”
“Like I said, the real deal.”
“Blow makes you horny, not . . .” she said, crooking her finger again, knowing she was pushing her luck.
“One of your hooker buddies tell you that?” The coke rush saved her from having her finger broken, Wally easing into the sofa. “How about now—now’s good?” He wiped his nose, sniffing.
“You still owe me.”
“Owe you what?”
“For the first one.” She eased into the cushion, enjoying the rush.
“You just finished saying nothing happened.”
“Hey, that’s not my fault. You know how this works. You want to go again, peel off another hundred and slip on a raincoat.”
Ride the Lightning Page 17