American Blood

by Ben Sanders

  Nothing in Rojas’s face. A this-is-how-it-ends blankness to him. He couldn’t see Shore.

  Leon said, “Need someone to go down and move the woman’s car. Just down outside the elevator there. Keys are still in. There’s a gun by the passenger door, better bring that up, too.”

  Marshall heard him stand and move away. Then he paused.

  Marshall counted it, growing cold—

  Six, seven, eight.

  Jackie Grace said, “What?”

  Leon came over and crouched again. Marshall felt his hands at his waist, lifting his shirt. Folding his belt over.

  “Huh. That could have been interesting.”

  He felt Leon pluck free the two razors, the delicate metallic tinkle as he tossed them on the bench. He laughed, heard a larger blade spring open, Leon pulling his head back, holding a switchblade below his nose. Marshall tried not to blink. The thing so close his breath clouded on it.

  Leon said, “You bring a blade to a meet, this is what you need. That other shit just won’t cut it. See how sharp this is.”

  He let go of Marshall and stepped over to Rojas, knelt again and scored the blade cleanly across his forehead, Rojas yelping and hissing through his teeth, blood already starting from the wound, a sheet of it hanging off the straight cut, a crimson shelf at his eyebrows.

  “Whoa, Leon, easy. I don’t want too much mess if we can help it.”

  Jackie put his beer down and leaned in close. “Don’t want any soaking into the wood, be a right hassle.”

  Leon said, “Move Shore’s car, and then bring the SUVs round. We’ll take them over to my place.”

  * * *

  They dispatched Carlos to deal with Shore’s car. Ten minutes later he returned with Marshall’s Colt, passed it to Leon.

  Leon held it low on flat hands, tipped it back and forth. He dropped the clip and inspected the load.

  “Nice piece.”

  He clicked the magazine home and put the gun in the back of his belt, shirt pulled tight as he reached behind him.

  Carlos said, “I brought the cars round too, so we’re all good to go.”

  Leon looked down at Rojas, leaned against the counter. He spread his arms. “Well, the news just keeps getting better.”

  A pleasant look on his face as he looked out at the view, like he could see more than just the end of the day. “Jackie, why don’t you take Troy now, I’ll look after Marshall and the detective.”

  “Yeah, fine. You want to see the new bathroom before you go?”

  “Not today, but I will soon. Is that garage okay? I don’t want a walk-in or anything while we’re loading up.”

  Jackie waved it off. “Yeah, contractors aren’t in for another week, don’t worry about it. Look, I’ll give you the number for the bathroom guy anyway, might see something you want. You never know. Or even just look at their Web site. Some classy stuff, I tell ya.”

  Rojas gurgling as they dragged him away, smearing his own blood. Marshall heard the ding as the elevator arrived. A pause, and then a very faint rumble on descent. When he looked back at Leon, the man was watching him, waggling the knife, still red at the tip from where he’d cut Rojas.

  Leon said, “Best behavior for the trip, or I’ll have to use this.”

  He folded the blade closed, a gentle snick, dropped it in his left pocket. The Ruger on his right hip beneath his shirt and Marshall’s Colt in his belt at the small of his back.

  Marshall looked across at Shore but she was turned away from him, Leon laughing as he saw the failed contact. He said, “All right. Who wants the girl?”

  A minute later the chime of the elevator, the muted rumble as Carlos and Miguel took her down.

  Just Marshall left.

  Leon watching him with a funny light in his eye, like good things were imminent. He said, “Don’t forget what I said. Never had to gut a man in a car, don’t want to make today a first. Imagine the mess.” He nodded at Rojas’s puddle. “Make this stuff look like nothing.”

  Marshall didn’t answer.

  Tyrone collected his suit jacket from the back of an armchair and donned it with a flourish, swung it high to slip his arms in.

  Leon gripped Marshall’s bicep and pulled him upright.

  “Three feet ahead and left of me at all times. Understand?”

  Marshall nodded.

  Three feet ahead because that was his comfortable clearance, and keep left because the Ruger was on his right hip.

  They walked to the elevator. Tyrone pushed the button to call it.

  They waited.

  Leon tugged his throat leash gently. “Be a good doggie now.”

  He laughed. Then he reached behind him and drew Marshall’s Colt and pushed it against his kidney.

  The elevator pinged. The doors withdrew.

  They turned one-eighty and backed in: Leon on his right, Tyrone left, both of them maybe three feet behind. The doors closing. The penthouse view narrowing to a slot and then nothing.

  The pause and the silence. Leon watching Marshall watching the counter waiting on P.

  Tyrone leaned carefully and pressed B2. The gun hard in Marshall’s side. A revolutionary firearm that Colt: incredibly reliable, the basics of it barely modified since 1911, but one of its few disadvantages was that by pushing back the slide just a fraction of an inch, the interrupter could engage and lock the trigger.

  Leon nodding to himself. He said, “Need some music.”

  The weightlessness as they began the drop.

  The counter descending—

  Eight.

  Seven.

  Six.

  Leon’s hand on Marshall’s right elbow, Colt muzzle in his kidney. Tyrone with a pistol on his right hip. The knife in Leon’s left pocket—

  Four.

  Three—

  Marshall leaned right and felt the Colt’s mechanism shift that golden fraction, just enough to seize the trigger, and took a fast backward step and twisted left, lunged from the waist and head-butted Tyrone clean on the temple. A huge impact, and the guy was out cold and falling, but Leon was fast enough he’d already dropped the Colt and had the Ruger clear, so Marshall leapt backward and smashed into him, pinning the arm against the wall. He heard the pistol fall, head pounding and his face almost bursting as Leon yanked the leash around his neck, and Marshall slammed into him with all his weight, trapping him against the elevator corner, snapping his head back to hit Leon in the face. With his bound hands, he felt for the guy’s left pocket, tore the seam when he got a hand on the switchblade. Leon thrashed and kicked, and Marshall almost dropped it, his vision blurred and red as he sprung the blade and thrust it deep in Leon’s thigh. The guy twitched and jerked as Marshall dragged upward, a savage wound, bone-deep and femoral, all the way to the hip.

  He felt the man go slack, Leon biting back screams as his breath hissed warm and spit-laden on Marshall’s neck, pure animal now as he flailed. Marshall kept his weight on him, gasping. His face was puffed and throbbing from the pressure of the noose. He turned slightly and kept Leon pinned with a shoulder, almost slipping in the blood on the floor, pushed the knife blade up between his own bound wrists.

  Felt like he sawed a long time before the plastic finally gave. A desperate pounding in his head. His face felt like it could split. The noose so tight it had cut a little furrow in his skin, almost have to dig it out. He tilted his head back and wedged the point of the knife up inside the plastic, through the shallow valley between his throat and carotid. He rotated the blade slightly and pushed outward, and he felt the edge catch, and a second later the cable broke and he felt the pressure release from his head, the red throb subsiding.

  He leaned there gasping and exhausted and finally saw the details of it:

  Leon trapped pale and weak against the corner and the blood from his leg halfway across the floor, making steady progress. This wide, gaunt grin, almost reptilian, and the morbid sibilance of his panting.

  Tyrone in a heap, dead, just beneath the button panel. Maybe
a better head butt than he thought. The elevator doors open, and the basement beyond. White exhaust smoke drifting from the right and a heavy stereo beat faintly audible. Their SUV, patiently waiting.

  The elevator light flickering gently.

  Last thoughts, eyes closing, deathbed moments.

  He kicked Leon’s gun into the corner out of reach. Then he picked up the .45 and sat the dying man down in the pool of his own blood. He held the switchblade in front of him on his palm.

  He was going to say something glib like: I promise I’ll bring it back. But what was the point, other than spite. So he didn’t say anything.

  Leon on the brink of slipping away.

  Marshall didn’t stay to watch.

  FORTY-SIX

  Lucas Cohen

  At his desk in the courthouse on South Federal Place, typing up a day best forgotten, his phone started ringing. He was tempted to leave it, wouldn’t be anything cheerful, but then Miriam put her head through and said it was that guy from Bernalillo Sheriff’s. If she came and told you the caller, you’d better answer, meant she was sick of having them in her ear.

  Cohen picked up and said, “You’re the closest thing I ever had to a stalker. Actually kinda flattered.”

  “One meeting and a few phone calls isn’t much of a stalk.”

  Which was a fair point, but Cohen held on a little longer: “Maybe you’re just getting started, building yourself up. Mighta caught you early.”

  The guy said, “Mmm. Anyway. They cracked that phone I was telling you about. That they found in the Chrysler.”

  Cohen said, “Okay.”

  He hovered a pen over his blotter.

  The guy said, “It had like a GPS tracking thing in it. Funny thing was, getting into it wasn’t even that hard. The password was just one of those things where you have to draw a line that’s a certain shape on the screen, you know those ones? But if you just angle it in the light a bit, you could see the grease marks where he’d done it, and the whiz girl at the lab reasoned, well, it’s gotta be one continuous movement, and there’s only two combinations because you start at either one end or the other. So knowing that, she got in.”

  Cohen said, “Great.”

  “Yeah, so, like I said, it had this tracking program on it, big mess of lines on a map, like he’d been following something round.”

  “Okay.”

  “And we looked at the current position of whatever it is he’s tracking, and it’s showing this point just off the 25, down South Albuquerque. Called APD to see what’s down there, whaddyaknow: it’s that red Jeep you were telling me about, feller lying dead beside it, ’nother feller in back all chopped up and wrapped in plastic.”

  Cohen said, “Can you just bear with me a moment.”

  He turned the phone against his shoulder to mute it and leaned back in his chair and said, “Miriam. Could you be a darling and get a message to my Mrs. Cohen I won’t be home for dinner tonight? Maybe just put it in the lower oven if that’s appropriate. The meal I mean.”

  Back to his call. He said, “Was it Rojas?”

  “Well, sounds like his car, but neither of the bodies are him. Homicide guys down there reckoned it was a car swap or something. Pulled a guy over, shot him, took his ride. Actually saying the feller in back could be Cyrus Bolt, but nothing’s been confirmed. Too grisly to call it.”

  Cohen, still leaning back, the phone cord stretched across his chest, swung side to side a little and said, “Where else has that Jeep been?”

  “You mean according to the GPS thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, a bunch of different places really.”

  Cohen said, “I’ve got a pen.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Marshall

  The SUV was an Escalade, seven seats: Shore in back, Miguel in the middle row behind the driver, Carlos at the wheel. They didn’t know what was happening until he was in the car. Like some vision of the undead this bloodied figure with a gun outstretched.

  Miguel not much now he had a pistol in his face. He shrank back against his door and raised his hands, and Marshall said, “Where’s the other car? With Rojas?” To Carlos: “Keep your hands on the wheel.” Shouting over the stereo.

  “It’s already gone, bro. Just chill, man.”

  Marshall put the gun on Miguel. “Get out.”

  Eyes on the gun, Miguel opened his door, and Marshall swung a leg up along the seat, kicked him in the shoulder, and the guy fell sideways out of the car, rolling as he hit the ground.

  Gun on the driver. “Go.”

  Carlos hit the gas, the back end dropping with the boost, Miguel in a heap with his jacket up around his shoulders. Marshall waited for the left-hand turn onto the ramp, and as they reached it he leaned across and helped the door closed as it swung toward him.

  “Shut that stereo off.”

  “Yes, sir.” Done.

  “Yes, sir. We’re all polite now, aren’t we? Keep your hands on the wheel and catch that other car, you might not get a bullet.”

  He looked in back. Shore lying across the seats, not quite as composed as last time, but still with it.

  She said, “You’re covered in blood.”

  He showed her the switchblade. “Turn around.”

  She rolled over awkwardly, and he reached down and cut the cable tie securing her wrists. She lay back and covered her face with her hands. He could hear her panting.

  He said, “Are you all right?”

  “Uh. Yeah. I think so.”

  She sat up shakily, her balance off, bracing herself against a window. Marshall slid to the center seat and leaned over the console. Eastbound in light traffic on Central.

  “You know what that other car looks like?”

  “Yeah. Like this one.”

  “Black SUV.”

  “Yeah, just like this.”

  “All right. Your one purpose in life is to catch it, okay? If you can do that you might have a story for later.”

  He looked in back. “Are you all right?”

  “You asked me that.”

  “You’re a bit pale.”

  “Well, yeah. What do you expect?”

  “You’re shaking.”

  “Yeah. Don’t sound so surprised.”

  Marshall said, “You know where they’re going?”

  Carlos’s eyes in the mirror. “Me, boss?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “They going to Leon’s. Up 25 some ways. Maybe Santa Fe, I think?”

  “You don’t know the way?”

  “No, boss. That’s why we had Leon.”

  Marshall cocked the Colt. He said, “All right, well. I just killed him so you’re going to need to catch that other car. Okay?”

  They picked up speed and reached the interstate. The car listing as they came round the ramp, faint squeal of the tires only just clinging. Pedal flat to the floor as they merged with northbound traffic.

  “You don’t stop for anything, you understand?”

  “Yes boss, okay. Look, I can see it up ahead. They not as fast as us.”

  Marshall ducked and watched through the windshield, the other SUV maybe ten cars ahead. “Okay. This speed is good. You keep this lane, and then get in behind them, okay?”

  “You want right behind, boss?”

  “Uh-huh. Right behind.”

  The needle showing seventy-five. To the east Albuquerque and the Sandias beyond, and westward the sun collapsing orange at the edge of the world. Its heated lip spanning the barren width.

  Gaining ground now on the lead vehicle, six cars ahead.

  Marshall said, “Get in behind it.”

  The guy didn’t answer. Marshall lowered a window, leaned across and did the same on the other side. Noise dissipation: he didn’t want to lose his hearing if he had to fire in the car.

  He said, “You honk your horn or flash your lights or anything, I’ll put a bullet through your knee.”

  Two cars behind now. An exit sign: turnoff approaching.


  Marshall said, “Come up alongside.”

  “Stay in this lane, boss?”

  “Yeah, stay in this lane. Get up alongside. Faster, come on.”

  Eighty now. A rotorlike buffeting from the wind in the open windows. The exit approaching.

  One car-length back.

  “Come on, faster.”

  Closing now. Fifteen feet. Ten. The exit up ahead.

  “Marshall, the hell are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Jackie Grace in the passenger seat, reaching across the driver to point them out as they drew alongside, something like holy shit on his lips when he saw Marshall with a gun to Carlos’s head. Too late when his driver glanced, Marshall yanking the wheel, and the two cars clashed with a screech of metal. Shore screamed as both vehicles bucked horribly, rubber squealing and smoking as each driver stomped the brakes. The SUVs skidded as one across the mouth of the exit, a colossal smash as Jackie’s car struck the concrete apex of the lane dividers. The truck reared up on its front axle, teetering almost vertical before the drop, back suspension crushed flat as the wheels thumped down.

  Their own car still doing thirty when Marshall ripped the brake. The sudden halt sent him sprawling, and he hauled himself off the console into his seat. He threw open his door and ran back along the shoulder, northbound traffic pulling over to assist.

  Burnt-rubber smell and four matching black swathes stretched across the exit lane.

  The crashed SUV was windowless from the impact, and the edge of the barrier had gouged it from grille to firewall, the engine bay halved lengthwise. The chassis was warped and crumpled like a halfhearted concertina, and Jackie Grace and the driver were sprawled inert beneath a wilted mess of airbags. Steam and radiator fluid spreading, a pungent smell of gasoline.

  He opened the rear door of the truck, and there was Rojas laid across the seat. Marshall cut the cable tie at his ankles and pulled him out onto the road, Rojas stumbling, dropping to a crawl.

  “Up, get up. Come on.”

  Crunch of glass under his feet. Stopped drivers watching aghast, the gun keeping them well back. Rojas’s face covered in blood. Marshall hauled him limping along the shoulder and shoved him in the backseat of the Escalade. Keys still in the ignition, Carlos in a sprint down the exit ramp. Shore at some guy’s window, screaming she was a police detective, call 911.