The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

by C. J. Box

  Farther down the street behind her, another vehicle was coming fast. The Acura. She ran into the alley the Navigator had come out of, heard the pop of guns behind her. A bullet ricocheted off the pavement to her right. She cut across the alley into a vacant lot, ran through thigh-high weeds. More shots. Something tugged at the tail of her jacket.

  The Acura turned down the alley after her. There were men on foot as well, coming through the weeds. But she was away from the streetlamps now, and they had no clear target. She hurdled an overturned shopping cart and then she was back on cracked sidewalk, another empty street, this one wider. There was an elevated roadway ahead, cars speeding along it, a dark underpass below. She heard the men behind her, didn’t look back.

  She crossed the street, ran for the shadows of the underpass, cars humming above. The Acura turned left, caught her in its headlights. She made the underpass, lungs burning, came out on the other side. There on the right was a lot full of tractor trailers, surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire. Parked in front of the closed gate, facing away from her, was a police cruiser.

  She stumbled onto the weedy shoulder at the fence’s far corner, about thirty feet behind the cruiser. She couldn’t breathe. To her right, a dirt access road ran parallel to the overpass.

  The cruiser’s interior light was on. A uniform cop sat behind the wheel, drinking from a Styrofoam cup.

  The Acura emerged from the underpass, the front passenger window gliding down. The car slowed and came to a stop, headlamps illuminating the cruiser. The uniform turned to look back at it. Traffic rumbled by above.

  The Acura didn’t move. After a minute the window slid closed again, and the car made a long, slow U-turn away from the cruiser. Giving up.

  She raised the Glock above her head and squeezed the trigger three times. The sharp cracks split the night. The Acura’s tires squealed as it pulled away fast. The cruiser’s rollers flashed into life, and the cop swung it into a hard U-turn, headed after the car, siren rising and falling.

  Across the street, the lot was empty.

  She sat down in the dirt of the access road, couldn’t seem to get enough air. Head between her knees, she resisted the urge to be sick. She put the Glock away, felt the right side of her jacket, the rent where a bullet had passed through the material without touching her. Pure luck, she thought. The only reason you’re alive.

  From the access road, an embankment led up to the overpass. She started up it, heard another siren. A second cruiser sped past below, lights rolling, following the first. Backup.

  Once on the elevated roadway, there was a shoulder wide enough to walk on. A car flew past, so close she felt its slipstream. Another slowed, beeped its horn, came abreast of her. She put a hand on the Glock in her pocket. A man yelled something at her from the passenger-side window, then the car sped up and passed her.

  She walked on. There was a major intersection ahead, where the highway dropped down to cross another main road. On one side of the road was a dark strip mall. On the other, a three-story building with a bright lobby and a sign above it that read PARKWAY MOTOR INN.

  She let two cars pass, then sprinted across the road toward the motel. The parking lot was less than half full. She stopped to get her breath back, brushed grit and dirt from her clothes as best she could.

  She gripped the big silver handle of the glass door, pulled. It wouldn’t open. Inside the lobby, a turbaned clerk stood behind bulletproof glass at the front desk. He frowned at her.

  Wearily she took out the hundred she’d offered the cabdriver, unfolded it, and pressed it against the glass. She held it there, waited. The door buzzed.

  She opened it and went in. She was done running.

  * * *

  The clerk took the two hundreds she gave him without a word, offered no change, and asked for no ID. A key card attached to a diamond-shaped piece of green plastic came back in the pass-through slot. Room 110.

  The lobby smelled of stale cigarette smoke and disinfectant. There was a skinny ATM near the front desk counter, a couple of worn chairs, and planters full of dusty plastic flowers.

  She went down the orange-carpeted hallway. An ice machine rattled in an alcove at the end of the corridor. She heard grunting from behind a door she passed.

  The room was as she’d expected. Mirror on the ceiling over the bed. Dresser and nightstand, a single chair, and no windows. White shag carpet and a TV bolted to a brace on the wall. The cigarette smell was strong in here as well.

  A door led to an adjoining room. The connecting door was locked. She put an ear to it. No sound inside. She closed her door again, bolted it.

  The bathroom was small, the sink mineral-stained. She realized then how thirsty she was, ran water, cupped some and drank, then spit it out. It tasted of metal.

  The chair went against the hall door, the top rail wedged under the knob. It would give her warning at least, if the clerk or someone else with a key tried to come in. Then she took the Glock into the bathroom, set it on the toilet tank, undressed, and showered, let the spray wash the last bits of safety glass from her hair, the tension from her shoulders. She would be sore and aching tomorrow.

  When she was done, she dried off with a towel that smelled like burned hair, dressed again. She checked the doors a final time, then sat on the edge of the bed. She thought about the cabdriver. He was dead, almost certainly, and for no other reason than he had tried to help her.

  She stretched out atop the comforter, not trusting the sheets, looked at her watch. Three a.m. Only three hours since they’d gone in the back door of the stash house. You’re alive, she thought, and a lot of people aren’t.

  She needed sleep. Tomorrow she’d get a cab to take her into Manhattan. From Penn Station she’d catch a train south to New Jersey and home. It wouldn’t be safe to go back for the money tomorrow. They’d still be looking for her. She’d have to wait, return another time, hope it was still there when she did.

  She moved the Glock to the bed, in easy reach. She was too tired to turn out the lights, too tired to do anything. She looked up at her reflection and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  She woke in silence, not sure why, raised her watch. Four thirty.

  Muscles stiff, she slid off the bed, picked up the Glock, went to the hall door, and listened. Outside, the hum of the ice machine. Then, from the direction of the lobby, the quiet voices of men, too low for her to make out the words. After a moment she realized they were speaking Spanish. Her stomach tightened.

  She slipped on the jacket and gloves, pocketed the Glock, got out her knife. She went to the adjoining door. Still no sound from the other side. She worked the blade into the jamb of the inner door, pried at the deadbolt. The wood there was soft. The door opened easily.

  This room was the mirror image of hers. She went in, closed both connecting doors behind her. On the far side of the room was another door. She used the knife again. The next room had the same setup but this time no connecting door. It was the last room in the hall.

  She closed the knife, went to the hall door, looked through the spyhole, got a distorted, fish-eye view of the hallway, the vending alcove with the ice machine. Next to it a stairwell door.

  She took out the Glock, held her breath. The voices down the hall had quieted. Easing the door open, she looked back toward 110. Three Dominicans stood outside the door. One of them held a gun to the back of the turbaned clerk’s head. The clerk slid a key card into the reader, and when the door unlocked, they tried to push him inside, met the resistance of the chair. One of them hit the door with his shoulder, knocked it open. She heard the chair fall. They shoved the clerk inside, crowded in behind him. The third man stayed in the hall.

  “Hey,” she said, and raised the Glock.

  He turned toward her, gun coming up, and she fired, hit him in the shoulder. It spun him around and dropped him. She ran to the fire door, slammed her hip into the panic bar, found herself in a dim concrete stairwell. To the left, stairs ran up. Strai
ght ahead, another fire door, this one leading outside, with a sign that read EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY! ALARM WILL SOUND!

  Shots from down the hall. A round hit the door frame behind her. She kicked the bar with the sole of her foot, jolted it open. An alarm began to bleat loudly. Outside was the rear parking lot. The way they’d expect her to go.

  She took the stairs two at a time. At the third landing was a shorter flight that led to the roof. The alarm kept on, echoed through the stairwell.

  Another door, another panic bar. Then she was out on a blacktop roof. She could see the lights of the highway, the overpass. Far to the west, the glow of Manhattan.

  In the front lot three dark SUVs were idling near the entrance, headlights on. One of them was the Navigator. She could see the missing window, the collision damage. Another car pulled into the lot behind them. The Acura.

  People were stumbling out of the lobby doors into the lot now, some half dressed, unsure what to do, where to go. There were sirens in the distance.

  From the side of the roof a fire escape ran down, its last level a hinged ladder. Flashing lights came down the highway and across the overpass, a fire engine and a police cruiser. They pulled into the lot.

  She put away the Glock, swung out onto the fire escape, went down quickly. On the bottom rungs, her weight carried the hinged section down. She dropped the last couple feet to the pavement, landed wrong. Her ankle twisted under her, and she fell hard. A surge of pain ran up her leg.

  Now the night was filled with sirens, people shouting, and the steady blare of the fire alarm. She got to her feet, braced herself against the wall, tested the ankle. It hurt but would bear her weight. She limped to the front corner of the building. Two fire trucks in the lot now, another cruiser. Red and blue lights bathed the vehicles, the people milling around.

  The Acura and two of the SUVs were blocked in by the trucks. The third one, a dark Chevy Tahoe, was about fifteen feet from her, parked away from the others, engine running. The passenger door was ajar, the seat there empty. She could see the man at the wheel.

  Pain flashing in her foot, she limped across the distance. When she reached the Tahoe, she pulled the door wider, pointed the Glock inside. The driver turned, saw the gun. Before he could react, she swung up and into the seat, pulled the door shut behind her. “Drive.”

  It was one of the men from the stash house who’d fired at them as they ran in the alley. He was younger than the others, with long hair slicked back. When he didn’t respond, she aimed the gun at his groin. “Your call.”

  The interior of the Tahoe was washed in emergency lights, red, blue, and red again.

  “You gonna pull that trigger?” he said. “All these cops around? I don’t think so.”

  “I’m betting in all this confusion no one notices. You want to find out?”

  An automatic was wedged between the driver’s seat and the console, a 9mm Steyr. She pulled it out, put it in her left coat pocket.

  “You the one we been chasing, eh?” he said. “Didn’t think it would be a woman.”

  “Go.”

  He looked at her, then reversed, swung the Tahoe around clear of the emergency vehicles, pointed it out of the lot. Through the motel doors she could see that the lobby was full of firefighters and cops. There were horns blowing as people were trying to leave, their cars blocked in.

  The Tahoe bumped onto the highway, turned right. Another cruiser, lights and siren going, passed them from the opposite direction, turned into the lot.

  “Where?” he said. Staying cool.

  “Just drive.”

  She tried to calm herself, figure out her next move. They were headed east, deeper into Brooklyn, the streets empty, the sirens fading behind them. Ahead on the right was the empty lot of a darkened pancake house.

  She pointed. “Pull over in there.”

  He slowed, glided into the lot.

  “Kill the lights,” she said. “And get out.”

  He turned off the headlights, looked at her. “You the one got the money?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “If you didn’t, you know where it is, right?”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I make you a deal.”

  “Like what?”

  “You take me to it. You give me half. Then I take you wherever you want to go.”

  “What about your bosses?”

  “Fuck ’em.”

  She looked at him, weighing it. “Why should I trust you?”

  “You got the guns. What do I have?”

  “A lot of balls, rip off your own people that way.”

  “Money’s money.”

  “Half is too much for just a ride.”

  “A ride and a lie. You held a gun on me, was nothing I could do. I let you out somewhere up the road, don’t know where you went. Part of it’s true, right?”

  “You think they’ll believe that?”

  “They’ll have to, won’t they?”

  “Or I could just shoot you and take your ride. Not give you anything.”

  “You could do that. But I don’t think you will.”

  In the console compartment, a cell phone began to buzz.

  “They’re looking for me already,” he said. “Soon they’re gonna know what happened.”

  He was right. It would only be a matter of time before someone found them.

  “Put it in park,” she said.

  He did, turned to her. “What do you say?”

  “Get out.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Out.”

  He opened the door, stepped down. With the Glock still on him, she climbed over the console and into the driver’s seat.

  “They’ll never stop looking for you,” he said. “And when they find you . . . You’ll be begging them to kill you. But first you’ll give up the money. And then you’ll have nothing, puta. Not even your life.”

  She thought about Adler and Martinez and Lopez. The cabdriver. Everything she’d been through tonight.

  “It’ll be bad for you,” he said. “And it’ll go on for a long time.”

  “I believe you,” she said, and shot him.

  * * *

  She left the Tahoe on a dark street in Bay Ridge, two blocks from the Verrazano, keys still in the ignition. She walked down to the bayfront, squeezed through a hole in a chain-link fence, reached the cracked seawall. She tossed the two guns out into the water. The sky to the east had lightened to a pale blue.

  She walked until she found a subway station, took the R train into Manhattan. Three hours later she was home.

  * * *

  “Slow down up here,” she said. “But don’t stop.”

  She powered the Town Car’s rear window halfway down. The tire shop was ahead on the right. More people around now, more traffic, but a lot of the storefronts were still dark, riot gates in place, businesses that were gone for good.

  Luis, the driver, looked at her in the rearview. “This isn’t a good area. Even in the daytime. I know. I used to live here.”

  “Go around the block again.”

  She looked at the shop’s recessed entrance as they passed. No one inside she could see, the door still closed.

  She’d waited two days to come back, taken the train up from home. At Penn Station in Manhattan, she’d called a car service from a burner cell, used a fake name.

  They circled the block, came back around.

  “Pull up here,” she said.

  He steered the Town Car to the curb. She looked at the shop door, the darkness beyond it, wondered what waited for her there.

  Three possibilities. The money was still here, hadn’t been found. Or the Dominicans had searched the building and roof, taken it. Or they were there in the tire shop now, or somewhere close by, watching, waiting for someone to come back.

  The Town Car stuck out here. It would look wrong to have it standing outside the shop too long.

  “Wait five minutes,” she said. “Then come back to get me.” She o
pened her door.

  “Maybe you should tell me what this is all about.”

  “Five minutes,” she said. “That’s all it will take. One way or the other.”

  She shut the door behind her. Her gloved right hand went to the .32 Beretta Tomcat in the pocket of her leather car coat. She limped into the doorway of the tire shop. Behind her the Town Car pulled back into traffic.

  She tried the knob. It was still unlocked. Inside, she eased the door shut behind her, drew the Tomcat.

  The office was as she’d left it. In the bay, a shaft of light came through the roof hatch, lit dust motes. She went to the ladder, listened. No voices, no footsteps.

  Up the ladder to the roof. It was empty. To the west, an airliner traced a white line across the sky.

  She made her way to the air-conditioning unit, pulled back the flashing, and there was the gear bag. She knelt, unzipped it. The money was inside, along with Martinez’s gun and the empty magazine. Her mask. Everything there.

  She zipped the bag back up, slung it over her shoulder, stuck the Tomcat in her belt, climbed down the ladder.

  Back in the office, she stood just inside the door, watched the street, the cars going by, feeling exposed. She glanced at her watch. Five minutes since Luis had dropped her off.

  A dark SUV with smoked windows pulled up outside. She backed farther into the office shadows, took out the Tomcat. The SUV stayed there. She waited for someone to get out, come inside. She raised the gun.

  Horns blew. The SUV drove on. Two minutes later the Town Car slid to the curb.

  Deep breath. She put the gun away, opened the door. The front passenger window came down. Luis leaned over. “Sorry. Traffic. Everything okay?”

  She went out quickly, ignoring the pain in her ankle. There was no sign of the SUV. She opened the rear door of the Town Car, tossed in the gear bag, climbed in after it, and pulled the door shut.

  She met his eyes in the rearview.