by C. J. Box
“My guys are labor, not muscle.” Bax rotated the diagram. “I’ll have one on each side to meet the buyers. The Bandidos come in from the northeast side, the Cossacks from the southwest. Once my guys get them in the warehouse, you and me, we’ll take over from the dispatch office and my guys take off.”
Owsley nodded. “You strapped?”
“I’ll have a nine on my hip and a thirty-eight on my ankle. You?”
Owsley opened his jacket to show twin shoulder holsters. “I carry forty-fives here and a thirty-two in my crotch.” He grunted. “They never frisk your package.”
“Smart.” Bax had learned there weren’t many things a dumb guy liked more than to have someone tell him how smart he was.
“What about your idiot brother?”
“I don’t let him carry.”
“He just hurt himself.”
Bax forced himself to laugh along with Owsley. “You have no idea.”
* * *
Bax had braced Russell twice—once before Russell went to sleep, once after he woke up—to make it sink in.
“You got one job,” Bax told him the night before. “You stand behind me and look mean. The less you talk, the meaner you look.”
In the morning, over coffee in the kitchen, missing his eggs with bacon and jelly with toast and Venetta with him, Bax said, “What’s your one job?”
“Stand behind you and look mean.”
“Good. And how you look mean?”
“By not saying nothin’.”
“Very good. Now Ima tell you your second job.”
“All right.” Russell beamed. “What you—”
“Shut up.” Bax opened the cabinet above the refrigerator and lifted out a big round tin of Danish cookies that had gone stale and hard years before. He wiggled the lid off, lifted out the first layer of cookies, and removed a .38 pistol. “This a Ruger LCP.” He pointed it at the wall, at a framed poster he’d bought at Big Lots, a black-and-white photo of a coastline he didn’t know where. “When you squeeze the grip”—a red dot appeared on the poster—“it’s got a laser pointer. Now you do it.” Bax handed the gun to Russell. “And don’t point it at me.”
Russell squeezed and released the laser pointer a few times. “This my second job?”
“If anything goes down, you point this at Owsley and pull the trigger before he starts doing the same to you.”
“Wait—Owsley?”
“You keep pulling the trigger till ain’t nothin’ coming out of that gun.”
“Owsley gonna be there?”
“Don’t matter. Nothing gonna go down.”
Russell started to fit the gun into his pocket.
“Gimme that back.” Bax extended his palm.
“I thought—”
“Gotta load it.” Bax took a magazine from the tin, slapped it in, and racked the slide. “You think Ima let you wave around a loaded gun in here?”
* * *
Bax had set up Berberian’s most recent burner to text QUEENS GO when he pushed just one button, but he had to wear a jacket loose enough to keep the flip phone both open and hidden. He felt like a damn fool in one of Russell’s pimped-out hip-hop jackets.
When Owsley gave him a critical glare, Bax jerked his head at his brother. “It’s his OG jacket.” Rolled his eyes. “Told me he’d feel better if I wore it.”
“That coat, all his shiny banger shoes—he must be joking.”
“I don’t even know where he gets those shoes. But I’m his only family.”
Owsley nodded, then shook his head.
“I hear you.” Bax extended his fist for a bump and was gratified when Owsley did the same.
“I got the boys from Tyler,” the Audi guy said through the radio. “Two blue box trucks and a white Escalade.”
“Tyler is in the house,” Bax replied. “Any sign of San Leon?”
“I think they missed the turn and gotta come back around.” The Jaguar guy, his only other labor outside, was on the northeast approach. “Two Ryder trucks just went by on the—yeah, here they are. Two yellow moving vans and a—ah, shit, they got like a minivan.” Laughter on the open channel. “A black Chrysler.”
“Good. Don’t make fun of their minivan, right? Get them backed up to the docks. Tyler at four and five, San Leon at fourteen and fifteen.”
In the dispatch office, Bax couldn’t hear anything outside, but he felt the bumps as the trucks hit the loading docks. “Tyler good?” Bax said into his radio.
“One truck at four,” Audi said, “and one truck at five.”
“San Leon good?”
“Fourteen and fifteen,” Jaguar said.
Bax pushed the buttons that opened those doors. The Bandidos’ and Cossacks’ rented trucks were lower and smaller than the big rigs the docks had been built for, and sunlight mixed with the overhead fluorescents. A breeze swirled crispy leaves through the Cossacks’ bay.
Bax told Audi and Jaguar to let the dealmakers through the staff doors on each side. “Then you guys head back to the shop. Clock in Russell when you get there, and then make sure that container we emptied out is completely shredded.”
Moments later the Bandidos’ and Cossacks’ leaders entered their respective loading bays. Audi and Jaguar pointed their buyers at Bax perched in the dispatch office. They could see him, but neither could see over or through the concrete wall on top of the state line.
Bax hit the speaker switch for the loading bays. “I’m Bax. We talked last night. Up here are my associates, Owsley and Russell.”
Cossacks and Bandidos began drifting out of the box trucks. They carried shotguns and rifles. A couple waved wicked-looking machine pistols. Half established a perimeter, half trained their weapons on the dispatch office.
“This look like the deal we talked about?” Bax said through the speaker.
The Cossack flashed two thumbs up. The Bandido said, “You hear me?”
Bax thought about his response, how he could respond without betraying that he was talking to two people instead of just one. “I can hear you when you talk.”
The Cossack said, “This looks like what you said,” and the Bandido said, “Looks like what we agreed to.”
“Like I told you when we talked, you can grab any crate to check the contents are what you expect.” Which would work as long as neither gang moved more than three stacks of crates and found the scrap filler.
Two men on each side slung long guns over their shoulders and approached the stacked crates. The Cossacks grabbed the closest crate on top. The Bandidos moved one stack of crates, then another.
“When you’ve confirmed the contents,” Bax said, “then you’ll show me your side of the deal.”
He waited to see if the Bandidos would dig deep enough to get to a filler crate. He grasped the hidden flip phone, positioning his finger on the Send button.
The Cossacks opened their crate before the Bandidos chose a crate from the third stack.
Bax waited until both crates were open. While the guys pulled out sleek, ray-gun-looking rifles, horsed around with them, put them back.
“I showed you mine,” Bax said. “You show me yours.”
The Cossack whistled. The Bandido spun his finger in the air. Cossacks hauling rainbow-striped rectangular nylon duffels emerged from their truck. Bandidos dragging black roll-aboard suitcases strolled in from theirs. Both opened their luggage to show bundled stacks of cash.
Bax pushed Send in the same motion as he raised binoculars to look at the Cossacks—
“What the fuck you looking at over there?” a Bandido shouted.
That’s when the windows shattered, when Bax yelled “Get down,” when his ears popped and his eyes dazzled from flash-bang grenades, when he heard men yelling over gunfire, “U.S. Marshals—drop your weapons,” when men started shrieking, when Owsley started for his shoulder holsters, when Russell painted a red dot on Owsley’s midsection, when Bax bellowed, “Russell, what did you do?” when bullets clanked and plinked on the sh
eet metal, when a spurt of blood stained Owsley’s shirt and Owsley fell to one side and drew his other pistol.
“Russell,” Bax shouted what he’d rehearsed, springing at his brother, pushing him through the door to outside, drawing his pistol, “you traitorous piece of shit!”
Bax fired three, four, five shots over Russell’s head and kicked the door shut behind him.
Russell was half over the railing when Parker grabbed his belt and hauled him back onto the landing.
Bax grabbed his brother’s head, shook it. “Russell, listen to me.” Got his brother’s eyes. “This is Parker. She’s going to get you out of here.” They flinched as bullets pierced the transom behind them. “You’re getting a new life somewhere else.”
Russell’s eyes got big, then rolled a bit as he pissed himself.
“Are you kidding me?” Parker muttered.
“Go,” Bax said. “I’ll tell you this now because I got to go in for Owsley and I won’t see you again. Ever.” He planted a kiss on Russell’s forehead. “I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered. “For everything.”
* * *
Bax crouched low outside the door. “Owsley,” he shouted. “You hear me? Ima open the door.”
No response.
Bax cracked the door. The crescendo of explosions and gunfire shocked him, knocked him back. The smell of gunpowder and smoke covered the smell of Russell’s piss. The plinks on the sheet metal had stopped as Bandidos and Cossacks concentrated their fire on the feds. He peeked in, saw Owsley on his side, leaking blood, one pistol trained on Bax.
Bax ducked. “Owsley—can you move?” Owsley didn’t fire. “I got the car. I can get us out of here.”
Owsley rasped, “That idiot brother of yours shot me.”
Bax didn’t tell Owsley that he’d loaded only a single round in the Ruger he’d given to Russell, figuring close range and a laser pointer would get Russell in the general vicinity of Owsley’s bulk without being fatal.
“He set up Mr. Kline,” Bax told Owsley. “That must be what his whole thing with the other gang was about.” Bax crawled through the door. Owsley’s gun arm had dropped. “He set us up and I killed him for it, but now I gotta get you out of here.”
“I don’t—” Owsley yelped. “I can’t make the stairs.”
“I’ll carry you.”
Owsley spit up some blood when he laughed. “You’re as big an idiot as your brother if you think you can carry me.” Then he passed out.
* * *
Bax turned down the volume on the TV news coverage of the gang-war gun battle when Mr. Kline came out of the bedroom and closed the door. Behind it, Owsley lay in a queen-sized bed that he made look like a twin, breathing raggedly after the horse-farm vet pulled out the .38 slug and sewed up a couple of holes in one of his lungs.
Bax had held Owsley’s hand through the surgery. His joints ached from the crushing grip.
“Owsley says you saved his life,” Mr. Kline said.
Bax moved the morning’s newspaper off the couch so Mr. Kline could sit. “He’s heavier than he looks.”
Mr. Kline chuckled, then grew solemn. “He also told me that you made sure your brother won’t be assisting the feds he sold us out to.”
“I’m real sorry about him, Mr. Kline.” Bax let the real emotion of never again seeing Russell show on his face. Leak from his eyes. “After all you done for him—”
Mr. Kline patted Bax’s knee twice. “It’s not lost on me that you did a lot for your brother too.”
Bax wiped his eyes. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Mr. Kline knew what he’d gotten away with, what he’d stood up and done Russell’s time for. But he knew better than to acknowledge it, than to give Mr. Kline even more power over him.
“However, I must be absolutely confident we’re covered on that flank. I can blame Russell to the Cossacks, but my assurances to the Bandidos have been met with some . . . skepticism.”
“Yes, sir. When Russell shot Owsley, I put four in his chest and he went over the railing onto the ground. After I got Owsley out, I put another in his head and put his body in the trunk. I can show you a picture on my phone.” Parker’s people had made Russell look like a chainsaw victim in the movie that had scared the piss out of him.
“Not for me, Bax. But the Bandidos might ask.”
Bax put back the phone he’d started pulling from his pocket. “I drove Owsley here, to your ranch to see the doc, and then drove the car with Russell’s body out to that quarry in Jefferson County. Wrapped the body with canvas and chain, like we do, and sank it separate from the car.”
“Like we do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m out both the guns and money I expected to get for the guns.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that I’m still in your debt.” Bax waited for Mr. Kline to acknowledge showing his belly and got a small nod. “I did hold out one crate of those guns for you.”
Mr. Kline’s mouth twitched to the right.
“The feds are telling the news that it was between the Bandidos and the Cossacks.”
“I believe we shall find that sinking that driver in the quarry will pay greater dividends than I originally anticipated.”
Bax flinched inside. Maybe Berberian could find out whether the driver’s daughter was off the streets in Memphis. “The feds say the Bandidos stole the guns, and the Cossacks ambushed them while they were breaking down the container for distribution.”
“Certainly that’s not the story your brother fed them.”
“I figure that’s their cover for flipping Russell, because they ain’t know I killed him.” Bax shrugged. “But the closest they can get to you from him is me. And I know how to keep my counsel.”
* * *
Venetta didn’t take much care when she tossed his plate of eggs with bacon and jelly with toast on the counter.
Bax folded the paper he’d brought with him from the horse farm. “I missed you yesterday,” he said.
She leaned over the counter, one hand planted deliberately over the front-page photo of the still-smoking, bullet-riddled warehouse. “I ’spect you musta been pretty busy yesterday.”
“I finally got it through my brother’s head that he needs a fresh start somewhere else.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Spent the day packing his things and then put him on a bus to Houston. He got a cousin there who can help him get established.”
“You said you’s his only family.”
Bax chewed on a slice of bacon. “I think I said he’s my only family.”
Venetta looked like she might raise an eyebrow, but she didn’t. “Now that he gone, you gonna tell me the rest of that story?”
“You gonna let me take you to the supper club on Saturday night?” Bax finished his eggs, appreciating that they were still hot.
“I have never met Napoleon, but that ain’t our deal.”
Bax nodded. “My mom—she was Russell’s mom too, you know—when I came along, she was a working girl. After I arrived, she got on a different track. Started waiting tables in a diner.”
“Really.”
“This diner.” Bax smeared strawberry jelly across his sourdough toast. “I bused tables here, for tips, after school, when I was eight, nine years old.”
Venetta perched on a stool behind the counter and took her hand off the newspaper.
“But Russell’s dad, when she took up with him, he wanted her earning more. After Russell come along, he hooked her on dope so he could turn her out.”
“Gonna put his baby momma on the street.”
Bax wiped his mouth. “So I killed him.”
Venetta cleared his plate and ran a towel over the counter. “You did Russell’s bit for what you done that you ain’t got caught for.”
Bax took a twenty from his wallet and laid it on the counter. “I don’t need no change.”
Venetta extended his paper. She didn’t let go of it when he tried to take it.
Bax look
ed at Venetta’s hand. Its firm grasp on the news.
“Not Saturday night,” Venetta said. “But you can take my daughter and me out for lunch after Sunday services.”
WALLACE STROBY
Nightbound
FROM At Home in the Dark
“Leave him,” Crissa said. “He’s dead.”
Adler was facedown in the alley, not moving, Martinez kneeling beside him. She could see the entry wound in Adler’s back, the blood soaking through his field jacket. From the location of the wound and the speed he was bleeding out, she knew he was gone already, or would be soon.
They had to keep moving. Back at the stash house, the Dominicans would be recovering from the flashbang she’d thrown on her way out the rear door. The three of them had been halfway down the alley when one of the Dominicans had stumbled out of the vacant brownstone, firing blindly. She’d snapped a shot at him with her Glock, chased him back inside. But Adler had caught a round, gone down hard.
Now Martinez looked up at her, panic in his eyes, all that was visible through the ski mask. She shifted the strap of the gear bag, heavy with money, to her left shoulder, grabbed him by the coat sleeve, pulled him up. “Move!”
Forty feet away was the mouth of the alley, the street beyond. To their left, more empty houses. To the right, a high chain-link fence that bordered a vacant lot. The only way out was ahead.
More shots behind them. She spun, saw two men run out into the alley, guns in their hands. She fired twice without aiming. One round ricocheted off blacktop, the other punched through a plywood-covered window. The men ducked back inside.
She fired another shot to keep them there, shoved Martinez forward. The street ahead was still empty. Where was Lopez? The Dominicans would be going out the front door as well, would try to circle around, block the alley. If they beat Lopez there, she and Martinez would be trapped.
Broken glass and crack vials crunched beneath her feet. She could hear Martinez panting behind her.