So what was holding the Sweeper back? Could he actually be afraid of Andres, in a spiritual way? Didn’t make any sense. Man like that shouldn’t be afraid of anything.
Prez shook his head. Whole world was going crazy around him. From the fridge, he got out his usual carton of cold soymilk, then picked up a can of Schlitz and stood there for a moment, looking from one to the other, pondering.
No, he decided. Schlitz and protein powder, most definitely a bad idea.
He put the beer back, popped the top on the soymilk, and poured it in. As the blender buzzed everything into a thick pink froth, Prez tried to figure out his next move.
The presses made DMT nervous, like the Secret Service was about to raid the place any minute now. But the FBI honey, Cleo, he’d gotten rid of her easy enough. He smiled. Having the presses around, making the hinky cash, it was just like old times. Made him feel alive.
In the distance, something popped, like a bag full of microwave popcorn. He shut off the blender and listened.
Gunshots. Inside the warehouse.
Prez’s heart pounded. Forgetting the smoothie, he sprinted to his desk, feeling like he was trapped in a bad dream. He couldn’t move fast enough. Couldn’t make his feet work hard enough.
The top drawer held his glossy black .380, already loaded, and a spare magazine. He grabbed both, then hit the intercom. “D?” No response. “D! Who’s shootin’?”
The paneled wooden door to his office swung open and two of Andres’s goons marched through, guns out. First came Lazaro in his leather vest showing his tattoos, then came ugly Salvador with his assault weapon.
Prez had never shot at another human being in his entire life. He froze up for a second, then willed his arm to move. Brought the little .380 up.
He pulled the trigger. The gun kicked in his hand. The bang was louder than he expected, making him blink.
Lazaro stopped in his tracks and stared down at his arm. Blood poured out of an ugly bullet hole in the middle of his tattoos.
Prez felt a pang of cold that wiped away all of his thoughts. His hand froze around the gun, as if it no longer belonged to him.
Salvador came at him, and Prez swung the gun around to aim at him, but the man moved in a blur.
In one smooth motion, Salvador bent Prez’s arm around backward and forced him face down onto the desk. The breath exploded out of him. Papers flew. His phone crashed across the floor.
Prez didn’t have the strength to hold on to the gun. Salvador pulled it from his fingers.
Andres strolled into the room. He guided Lazaro to one of the leather guest chairs and made him sit. Talking softly in Spanish, Andres pulled a black silk kerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around Lazaro’s bloody arm.
Pale and stunned, Lazaro listened to Andres and nodded. Sweat stood out on his face.
Andres patted him on his uninjured shoulder, then turned and marched over to the desk, fury in his eyes. He bent down close enough that Prez could see a trail of saliva arcing between his teeth as he spoke.
“Where is the spider?”
Prez groaned. “The what?”
“La Araña. Lazaro seen Ash bring her in to you this morning. Now you are talking to the FBI. Where is she?”
“FBI lady already left. She’s gone.”
Andres slammed his fist down on the desk beside Prez’s head. “No. The spider. Where is she?”
Shaking, Prez twisted his head so he could peer up at Andres with one eye. “I don’t know about any damn spider.”
Andres’s nostrils flared. He took quick breaths, each one seeming to fill him with more and more energy. “This is the wrong answer for you, my friend.” He marched across to pale, sweating Lazaro and took the gun from his listless hand.
Andres came back and lifted the huge black pistol until it was inches from Prez’s eye. He could smell the gunsmoke clinging to its muzzle, feel the flush of heat radiating from the barrel.
“One last time,” Andres said, breathing through his nose. “Where . . . is . . . she?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Sobrino
Ash parked the Galaxie on the street, out of sight of Prez’s place, and left the window rolled all the way down for Moolah.
“You sure that’s safe?” Mauricio said as they walked down the street, past vacant storefronts and a fenced lot full of white fleet vans.
“What’s safe? The car, or Moolah? He’ll protect it.” The sun beat down on Ash’s back as he strolled along. “So how do you want to do this?”
Mauricio held up his hands. “I don’t know. I still can’t believe you ditched the spider at Prez’s.”
“Piece of cake. Considering he was a little distracted at the time. Sitting in his car, inside, for whatever reason.”
“You don’t think he was trying to . . . I don’t know. I mean, sitting there in the garage, engine running. You don’t think he’s . . .”
“Suicidal?” Ash thought it over as they rounded the corner.
“Not to put too fine a point on it.”
Prez’s building came into view. An eighteen-wheeler sat idling in the corner of the lot. Its brakes let out an explosive hiss. Near the cab, the driver huddled with DMT over a clipboard full of forms. A couple of Prez’s other boys stood around nearby, smoking, their shirtsleeves rolled up.
“I don’t think he’s happy, necessarily,” Ash said. “But I don’t know about suicidal. One thing the man’s got is willpower.”
“I say we just go in and tell Prez everything,” Mauricio said. “The curse, the jungle city. The preacher.”
“You think he’ll believe that?”
“I don’t know.” Mauricio was quiet for a moment. “But I’d rather tell him the truth.”
“I know. You’re funny like that.”
They crossed the hot blacktop lot, thick with the smells of melted tar and diesel exhaust from the idling truck. Ash headed for the back door he’d used last time, a gray metal slab with a cracked EMPLOYEES ONLY sign peeling off of it. He grabbed the doorknob, but Mauricio stopped him.
“Wait.” Eyes wide, Mauricio pointed. Near the corner of the building, half-hidden by a green Dumpster, the black Trans Am sat gleaming in the sun. Empty.
Ash swallowed. He looked over both shoulders, but there was nobody else around. He eased the door open. Inside, a long rectangle of sunlight fell across the concrete floor, widening to include his silhouette. It illuminated a creeping puddle of blood.
Beyond, the bodies of three young black guys in suits lay scattered on the floor. Bloodstains marred their white shirts. A pack of cigarettes lay on the floor nearby, popped open and spilled. Three guns lay scattered away from their outstretched fingers, as if someone had shot them all and then kicked the weapons out of their hands.
Ash silently closed the door. A wave of nausea rolled over him. His knees shook.
Mauricio gave him a helpless look. “They’re dead, aren’t they? What about Prez?”
“Wait. We need a plan.” Ash turned to the truck idling at the far end of the lot. “Come on!” He sprinted toward DMT, waving his arms to get his attention.
*
Prez fought for breath. Salvador had him pinned face-down on his desk, crushing him. Andres kept the gun in his face, his hand steady. He seemed to have all the time in the world.
“Andres!” Ash’s voice cut through the room.
Prez looked up. It took him a second to spot Ash crouched behind the far side of the printing press. Through the cage, he could barely make out Mauricio huddled next to him.
DMT’s voice rang out. “Let him go!” He peered around the edge of the kitchenette, the black length of a shotgun tight against his shoulder.
Andres betrayed no emotion at all. He stood motionless, breathing through his nose, as if he hadn’t heard either of them.
“Let him go!” DMT shouted again. “I shoot every last one of you if I got to!”
“No,” Andres said flatly. “You will not shoot anyone.”
&nbs
p; A heavy silence fell. Prez tilted his head, watching all of them, his heart hammering against the desk.
“I’ll give you what you want,” Ash called. “It’s here. I can show you.”
“I want mi sobrino,” Andres said to Mauricio, and beckoned him closer with one finger.
After a moment, Mauricio stepped out from behind the cage.
“That’s not what I meant.” Ash reached out and grabbed Mauricio’s arm. “Don’t do it.”
“I have to.”
“He’ll kill you!”
“No,” Andres said, pressing the gun against Prez’s head. “On that, you have my word. But this man, I will kill—if you do not come with me this very instant, Sobrino.”
Mauricio stepped out into the open, shuffling one foot after the other as if he was sleepwalking. Closer he came, closer, until Andres put an arm around his shoulders and dropped the gun away from Prez’s head.
With the gun gone, Prez felt the air around him change, like the moment the sun peers down between clouds. The room felt lighter, the air around him fresher.
Salvador let go of him, and the pain in his joints eased to a dull throb. He got his hands underneath himself and pushed up off of the desk, shaking a little.
Holding on to Mauricio, Andres had already moved to the back door. His two gunmen guarded him, guns up at DMT. Andres opened the door, letting in a flare of sunlight.
“Andres, wait.” Ash stepped out into the open, holding up his empty hands in surrender. “You don’t understand. I can give you the spider. Right here, right now.”
Andres kept moving. “You think I am a fool? No more games. I am finished with your lies.”
“No, I’m telling you. It’s right there.” Ash pointed at the Torino. “You can have it. Just leave Mauricio alone.”
Andres’s face was impossible to see in the glare, but his voice carried the unmistakable glow of victory. “Who is to say I cannot have both?” He backed out into the sunlight, taking Mauricio and his gunmen with him. “You will go get La Araña and bring her to me.”
The door slammed, a clap of thunder in the warehouse.
Ash staggered as if he’d been punched. He sagged against the pool table, barely able to hold himself up.
DMT hustled over to Prez. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “You okay, Boss?”
Prez nodded. “Check the rest of the place. Find out, did anyone else get hit. They came in shootin’.”
“You want me to call the cops?”
“Not less I tell you.”
Ash heaved himself up off the pool table and sprinted across the room. He hit the open button on the garage door and tugged the fabric cover off of the Torino.
Oh, hell no, Prez thought. He limped across the room. “Ash. The hell you think you doin’?”
“Going after them.” Ash tossed the armload of gray fabric aside and climbed into the Torino. The engine coughed and rumbled to life.
As the garage door rattled up, Prez planted himself in the doorway, blocking the exit. “The hell you goin’ anywhere. You can’t take this thing on the street.”
Ash leaned out the window. “Andres has got my brother.” For once, his eyes showed nothing but the painful truth. “If I don’t go get him, right now, then what the hell am I?”
“Police catch you drivin’ this car, you goin’ away for a long time.”
“Then I’ll take the fall. But I’ll get Andres first.” Ash’s eyes narrowed. “How many of your crew has he killed so far?”
Prez felt something stir inside him, a deep righteousness he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“No matter what it takes, I’m getting my brother back.”
Prez nodded. “D!” he yelled, bringing the big guy running. “Get the car door!”
DMT opened the Torino’s passenger door for him. Prez limped around and climbed into the enormous back seat, then motioned DMT to get in front beside Ash. The Torino sagged as he sat.
Ash turned his head and stared at Prez, his eyes asking a silent question.
“You gonna sit there?” Prez said. “Or you gonna drive?”
DMT looked over and grinned. “Ash, you are one crazy mother—” The rest was lost as Ash hit the gas, squealing the tires. The stench of burning rubber filled the air. The acceleration shoved Prez back into the deep seat as the Torino rocketed outside.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Throttle
Drops of summer rain dappled the windshield. Ash could just make out the black Trans Am through the traffic ahead.
From the back seat, Prez kept up a steady stream of directions. “Get over in the right lane. Put the hammer down, man. We gonna lose them!”
“Hang on!” Ash said. He swerved around a silver pickup.
DMT clutched onto the armrest. “What we gonna do if we catch them?”
“I don’t know,” Ash said. “But I’ve got to get Mauricio out of this.”
Up ahead, the Trans Am shot through a red light, making an old wood-grained station wagon stop dead in the intersection and get rear-ended by the van behind it. Ash ran the light, streaking past the shouting station wagon driver, feeling his chest tighten up with fear as he flew across the oncoming traffic.
The Trans Am braked and took the next left onto a narrow side street. Ash followed, taking the corner too sharp. The Torino bumped up onto the sidewalk and smashed through a newspaper box. Stacks of Westword newspapers fluttered across the hood and sailed off behind them.
“This thing handles like a pig,” Ash muttered.
“Ain’t the car, man. It’s who’s behind the wheel.” Prez leaned closer. “D, you think you can shoot out one of them tires?”
DMT nodded. “Yeah, he ever gets me close enough.”
Ash weaved around a garbage truck. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“Driving like a fool,” Prez said. “What’s this spider he’s on about?”
Ash spotted the Trans Am up ahead and put his foot down. The engine picked up speed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Huh. So where is it?”
“You wouldn’t believe that, either.”
A white Denver police cruiser turned onto the street behind them, its blue and red lights flashing to life.
“We got company,” Prez said.
“I see them.” Watching the cop, Ash nearly lost track of the Trans Am as it shot into the next intersection and took a fast right onto an underpass.
Ash braked and turned hard, but too late. The Torino’s rear tires lost traction on the wet road and skidded, swinging the car around almost three-quarters of a circle.
The cop swerved into the intersection to avoid them, just as a delivery van barreled through the yellow light, hitting the cruiser broadside. The impact shattered the cruiser’s windows. Ash flinched as the car was instantly bent into a kidney shape.
“Damn!” Prez yelled. Then he cackled.
“Sorry,” Ash muttered under his breath. Instead of fighting the long skid, he fed gas into it and brought the Torino full-circle, facing the underpass. They’d gone too far and ended up on the wrong side of the center guardrail, but there was no way to go back. The tires found traction again and Ash floored it.
The downshift threatened to snap his neck. The Torino roared downhill into the underpass, against traffic, concrete walls rising around him. A white minivan raced toward him and he dodged around it, inches from the concrete wall. He caught a glimpse of the driver’s shocked face as she flashed past, her mouth frozen open.
To his right, the Trans Am dodged around slower-moving traffic as the road rose up toward the next light. The concrete columns supporting the highway above blocked Ash’s view for just a moment, but he could make out Andres at the wheel, his black hair flying in the wind.
A blue pickup came at him, flashing its headlights. Ash tried to dodge around it to the left, but the pickup driver had the idea to pull over, and they ended up coming head-on.
Ash dodged right and squeezed between th
e pickup and the concrete columns. The truck’s horn dopplered from high to low as it flew past. Ash caught a glimpse of the Trans Am again and picked up speed, pulling alongside it.
“Get the tires!” Ash yelled over the wind noise.
DMT leaned out the window with the shotgun. “I can’t. The curb’s in the way!”
Ash glanced over. The concrete divider that supported the columns blocked the shot.
A big rig blared its horn ahead. An eighteen-wheeler came at Ash, its wide-load flat bed hauling a chained-down bulldozer. The truck squeezed itself to the side, scraping off its passenger-side mirror on the concrete wall. The chrome grille loomed like a steel wall.
DMT pulled his head back inside the car. Ash jammed the Torino right, against the concrete divider, raising a curtain of sparks. The edge of the trailer flashed past his window, so close the wind blasted him in the face.
And then it was gone. They made it out of the underpass just as bright sunlight broke through the clouds, making the drops of rain on the windshield shine like gold. Prez let out a brief keening sound, which broke into brittle laughter.
The Trans Am cut left across the road like a black arrow. Ash hit the gas and followed, adrenaline pounding through him. He had to find a way to stop Andres before anyone else got hurt.
But what if the worst happened? What if they crashed into someone innocent? Could he live with himself after that? He pushed the thought out of his mind. He had to stay focused. Had to save Mauricio.
As the Torino upshifted and the engine noise throttled down for a moment, Ash caught a strain of music. Unconsciously, he leaned closer to the dashboard, listening.
It sounded like disco.
He caught DMT doing the same thing. The two of them traded glances, then looked down at the 8-track.
“The Temptations,” Prez said, matter-of-fact. “Turn it up, man.”
*
Graves turned off the radio. He felt his shoulders tense up until the ache shot up his neck and pulled at the back of his skull. It was nearly silent inside his car, now stopped in traffic, but unspoken words echoed inside his head. The words he should have said.
The Spider Thief Page 17