28
Take The Money And Run
Jed reached the dock and found a spot next to Country’s heap of a brown pickup truck. At least he thought it was brown, but it might just be that the rust had taken over every square inch of it. The idiot was sitting out on the deck of the boat, shirt off, drinking from a rum bottle with his radio blaring. Way to keep a low profile, jackass, Jed thought. At least it was starting to get dark. Country was leaning back, his chin jutted skyward. His chest was covered with budget tattoos, some of which reminded Jed of the ones he’d seen prisoners giving each other with a ballpoint pen and a needle.
He crept onto the boat, careful not to make any noise or rock it significantly. He tiptoed next to Country and pulled his gun from its holster. He aimed it high in the air, but close to the man’s ear. He squeezed the trigger and screamed at the same time. The blast sent Country flying over the chair backward, whooping and hollering all the way. He jumped up, the bottle of booze sloshing all over, and stumbled backward three steps. His heel caught on the edge of the threshold leading out to the front of the boat and he flew back onto his butt. The bottle of rum flew up into the air and before Country could react, it slammed down hard onto his lap.
He screamed and crab walked backward away from it as if he had caught a hornet’s nest. His back thumped against the bow of the boat and he clutched his groin, yelping like a dog in heat. Jed bent over, his hands on his own knees, laughing so hard he thought he would cry. He was right. Soon, tears poured out of the corner of his eyes and he fought to catch his breath.
“Shut the hell up,” Country screamed. “What in Jesus’ name did you do that for? Holy shit, ya scared the fuck out of me. Oh my God. My balls.”
This sent Jed into a fit of laughter that made him kneel down and slap the deck of the boat. Country slowly pulled himself up to a crouch position and Jed was stunned to see a river of blood running down the man’s leg.
“God,” Country said, touching the slick flow of dark red liquid. “What the hell did you do?”
“Damn, Country. Didn’t you get that stitched up?”
“Frickin’ thing keeps bustin’ loose. Cain’t keep it closed.”
“Jesus, man. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Help me. Get me a towel and some ice from down below.” Country grabbed his shirt off the side rail of the boat and smashed it onto his groin. “Gotta keep the pressure on it. Get it to stop bleedin’.”
He let the pressure go for a second and a fresh flood of blood came down both legs.
“Oh, shit,” Jed said, moving toward the ladder down into the boat. “Hang tight, Country. I’ll get you something to make a tourniquet.”
He skipped down the steps into the boat and grabbed a dish towel from the sink. Then he thought better of it and looked for the bathroom to find a larger towel. He found two beach towels and flung them over his shoulder. He jerked the refrigerator open to find a half a bag of ice stuffed in the back. He pulled the bag out and a stack of money fell forward. Two more just like it were stuck under the ice trays. Thirty thousand dollars total. Well, I’ll be damned, Jed thought. Country is on the take.
As he reached for the cash, he heard a muffled voice cry out.
At first he thought it was Country, but then he realized it was coming from the bedroom door. He walked down the hall, his ear toward the door listening. The closer he got, the clearer the voice sounded.
“Hey, who’s there?” the voice called.
Jed froze in his tracks. He recognized the voice immediately.
“Banksy?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Who’s there?”
Shit, shit, shit, Jed thought. Country’s kidnapped a damn cop. The voice behind the door was his old captain, Michael Banks. He was stunned for a minute, unsure of what he should do next. Kidnapping and making a regular person disappear was one thing, but a cop? That was felony territory and juries liked to send those who committed that one to the chair. He remained quiet, trying desperately to work out a plan.
“Jed?” Country’s voice echoed down into the room. “What the hell’s takin’ so long?”
“Jed?” Michael asked through the door. “Jed Manning? Is that you? Jed, you gotta get me out of here.”
Dammit, Country. He backed away from the door as quietly as he could. Things had changed now. A cop had put him at the scene of the crime. And he sure as shit wasn’t going to be a cop killer. It was time to blow this popsicle stand. He tossed the towels aside and dropped the ice. He went to the fridge and grabbed the money, shoving it into his waistband. He climbed the ladder to find Country lying on his back on the deck, hands still holding his shirt—now fully soaked through with blood—tightly to his crotch.
“Jed,” he said in a weak voice. “You gotta help me. I dunno if it’s the rum or if I’m losin’ too much blood, but we gotta get this drop done and then get to the hospital.”
“Screw you.” Jed raised his middle finger at him. “I’m gone.”
He took two steps toward the side of the boat by the dock.
“But the drop,” Country cried. “Gotta get the guns and blow out to the drop zone. Then we gotta get rid of Mrs. Summerton—”
“Jesus, Country,” Jed hissed. “Shut the hell up. Everybody and God can hear you out here.”
Jed took mental stock of the situation. The boat he was standing on was loaded with a bunch of guns stolen from various evidence rooms around the state, a pile of blow big enough to make a South American drug lord jealous, a murdered politician’s wife, a kidnapped retired police officer, and a hillbilly stooge lying on the floor bleeding to death. Yeah, this is not where I need to be, Jed thought. He stepped onto the dock and looked around to be sure no one saw him.
“Jed, please…” Country was propped up on one elbow, his eyes sunken in and his skin turning pale and gray.
He’ll be dead in minutes, Jed thought. He walked away briskly without looking back. He got into his car and pulled out of the lot. He turned north on Water Street, pulling his uniform shirt off as he went. He removed all the visible police paraphernalia from his body and was left wearing a pair of khaki pants and a white t-shirt. He parked the car, leaving everything behind except for his wallet, and bought a ticket on the next ferry out.
Country Cooper watched in horror as his pal left him bleeding out on the boat at the Black Dog Wharf. Dadgum, Jed, he thought. How am I gonna do this drop now? He felt all alone. First Troy had ditched him, now Jed. And now he was losing a ton of blood from a damn graze wound to his testicle. He wondered if he was going to die here, all alone. Nobody cared about him, he knew that now. Not Jed, not Troy, not the girl, not Boonesborough. He pulled his lucky little finger keychain out of his pocket and studied the tiny digit. His mama had told him it would bring him good luck, but all that ever seemed to come to him was bad luck—extremely bad luck. But mama was gone and Country was alone again. He wished he could think of someone who cared. No one came to mind.
But then again, he thought, Buff cared. Buff had been there when he was down and out. He gave him work and promised him a place in his war against all that was wrong in Massachusetts. Buff would save him. He gently pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It was smeared with blood, but it seemed to be working. He dialed and waited.
Buff picked up on the second ring. “Is it done?”
Country felt tears well up in his eyes. He had let his general down. The job was so damn easy and it would have been done by now except for the dang hole in his balls.
“They done left me,” he said, sniffing back the snot dripping from his nose. “And I cain’t do the liftin’ right now. Buff, I ain’t feelin’ so good.”
“Where the fuck is Jed?” Buff demanded.
“He cut out a few minutes ago. He got all namby pamby when he saw Banksy down below.”
“Banksy? Who the hell is Banksy?”
“I told ya before. He’s the cop that was gonna help me keep this thing on the down-low. Yeah, well, he
saw Mrs. Summerton’s body and went all moral and shit on me. I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“Jesus Christ, Country. Did you kill a cop?”
“Well, he ain’t dead yet, just asleep in the bed down below.”
“Asleep? What in Sam Hill is going— You know what, I don’t want to know. You need to buck up and get this thing done. I don’t care how you do it.”
“But Buff, I cain’t barely stand up, let alone get the drop done and git rid of these—”
Buff hung up before he could finish. It’s over, Country thought. He wasn’t going to get the drop done. He wasn’t going to be in on the big job. He was through with The Sharks. They would most likely make him disappear somehow. He laid his head back on the deck and stared at the sky.
Unless, he thought. Unless I can somehow get it done. If I can suck it up and make this happen, then Buff will know I’m worthy of the inner circle.
He sat up, groaning with the effort. Somewhere below him, he heard a banging noise and muffled shouts.
“Aight, Banksy,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. “Time to go for a swim.”
29
Fifty Grand
The Tail Spinner strip club was nearly deserted. The only Sunday night patrons were a couple of truck drivers who may or may not have spoken any English, sitting at the bar with their heads down over a paper container stacked high with microwaved chicken wings. They never looked up at the dancers on stage, and thus the girls were making a pass up and down the catwalk, eyeballing the backs of the two men and plopping down next to the pole.
Daisy Mae and Ellie Mae refused to be deterred. They knew persistence, and sometimes annoyance, paid off. More often than not, a man who didn’t want to be bothered would pay twenty bucks to make them go away. But when they tried to talk to these two guys, they were met with wide smiles and nods.
“They don’t understand you, stupid,” Ellie Mae said to Daisy Mae, smiling back at the men. “Ain’t worth the time.”
“You can give up if you want to, but I’m stayin’,” Daisy Mae ran her fingers through the first man’s black hair.
He ignored her and went back to devouring his wings. The bartender slid two cold beers across the bar to the men, who smiled the same vacant smiles and nodded their heads again and again.
Daisy Mae spoke in a loud and slow voice to the closest truck driver. “Do … you … want … to … buy … me … a … beer?”
The man repeated his head bobbing. Daisy Mae looked at the bartender. “You saw that. Fill ’er up.”
The bartender shrugged and pulled an icy pint glass out of the cooler behind the bar. He filled it and placed it on a coaster in front of Daisy Mae. Ellie Mae tapped the man on the shoulder insistently.
“How’s about one for me?” she asked.
More smiles and nods. The bartender filled another pint and walked away, wiping down the bar as he went.
“See, Daisy Mae, they’s startin’ to soften up.”
The truck drivers finished their wings, laid some money on the bar, bowed to the Gallop twins, and walked out the door.
“Uh huh,” Ellie Mae said. “They softened right on up out of here.”
“Least we got a beer.”
“True.”
The bartender returned to clean up the napkins and sauce-covered plates. He scooped up the bills next to the mess and counted it out.
“Hey, they didn’t pay for those beers, girls,” he said. “Those will be coming out of your take tonight.”
“Our take tonight?” Daisy Mae flung her arm back toward the now empty club. “You want part of our big fat take? Sounds good to me. How about you, Ellie Mae?”
“Uh huh,” she said, pretending to click buttons on a calculator. “Let me see. Ten percent of nothin’ is … nothin’. Here ya go.”
She opened her palm toward the bartender who did not look amused. He reached out before they could stop him and grabbed the two pint glasses. He poured them into the sink and rinsed the glasses.
“Now, that was just a dang waste,” Ellie Mae said. “C’mon, Daisy Mae. Let’s just go home.”
The twins stood and walked past the shattered remains of the two way mirror that still hadn’t been properly cleaned up. Beyond the opening, they could see two men sitting back in the shadows. Ellie Mae nodded toward the dark room and then pointed to a table in front of them. Daisy Mae followed her lead, but wasn’t exactly sure why.
The DJ had stopped playing music an hour ago and there were no dancers taking the stage. In the quiet, the Gallop twins could hear the men talking clearly. It quickly became clear it was the manager, Winchester Boonesborough, having some kind of meeting with another important sounding man.
“I tried to tell you that boy was never going to be a valuable asset to the organization. He’s too stupid to even pull off a simple drop.”
“But that’s the point, Winnie,” the other man said. “You don’t want anyone too smart for that kind of work. He’s a frontline soldier. Dispensable.”
“Well, where the hell is he now? This soldier of yours.”
“He’s on the goddamn boat.”
“Still?”
“Yes, apparently, his injury is more severe than I thought. He can’t lift a crate of rifles, let alone the one with my ex-wife, for crying out loud.”
“Jesus.”
“Oh, it gets worse. Not only is he bleeding to death on my boat with a million dollars worth of heroin, a terrorist army’s wet dream stash of guns, and my wife’s bloated corpse, he’s also kidnapped a cop.”
“He kidnapped Jed?”
“Not Jed, you idiot. He’s got some other cop friend of his out there, but I suppose the cop wouldn’t play ball, so Country locked him in the bedroom.”
“Ho. Lee. Shit.”
“You’re telling me.”
“And where the hell is Jed?”
“Country says he got spooked and bailed out.”
The two men were silent. Daisy Mae opened her mouth to say something, but Ellie Mae slapped her hand over her mouth. She shook her head sharply and put her finger to her lips. Daisy Mae nodded.
“That boat needs to go away fast. Without Jed, we need someone else to make it happen.”
“But who?”
“I don’t care, Winnie. Get on the phone. Get someone. I don’t care who. Pay ’em fifty grand if you have to, but that boat needs to be on the bottom of the ocean before the election.”
“I can’t just hire a hitman to take out a cop.” Boonesborough’s voice rose and the man in the shadows reached out and slapped him.
“Get it together, Winnie. I know you. You can make this work.”
Daisy Mae could see Boonesborough holding his cheek.
“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice tinged with anger.
The man in the shadows stood up from the rickety card table, tossed back a squat drink and laid the glass back down in front of him. He pulled on a suit jacket, straightened his tie, and adjusted a small American flag pin on his lapel.
“Now, I’ve got a damn speech to prepare for at the Amvets lodge,” he said. “When I get done, I had better have a text message telling me all is taken care of or I will burn you. You will go down with this goddamn sinking ship.”
Boonesborough didn’t say anything. The other man, who looked slightly familiar to Daisy Mae, stalked past them without acknowledging their presence.
“We need that money,” Daisy Mae said when the door closed behind the man.
“Hell yeah, we do. But we ain’t gonna drop no guns and drugs and we sure as shit ain’t capable of killin’ no cop.”
“It’s fifty grand,” Daisy Mae said. “And besides, we ain’t gonna do it. T.J. is.”
“No. We ain’t spoilin’ that boy by gettin’ him messed up in somethin’ like this.”
“He don’t even have to do much. All he’s gotta do is take that boat out and sink it. You heard the man, the cop is locked in the bedroom. Hell, we don’t have to tell T.J. about that if we don
’t want to.”
Ellie Mae thought about it for a second and couldn’t come up with a good reason not to do it. She jerked Daisy Mae up by her bikini, sending her boobs flying out. It would’ve been a dollar-throwing incident at the Tail Spinner strip club except for the fact that no one was present to see it. Daisy Mae tied herself up and hurried after her sister.
“Where the hell we goin’?” she asked.
“We gotta catch that man.”
Ellie Mae flung the door open, and the light of the real world flooded into the backlight lit, tinsel-lined dance club.
The bartender’s voice echoed behind them as they ran out. “Hey, you gotta pay for those beers!”
Daisy Mae whirled around and flipped him off with both middle fingers.
T.J. Gallop sat in the parking lot, behind the wheel of his mother’s Ford Maverick. The radio was tuned to a local station that played a mix of Jimmy Buffett, Bob Marley, Grateful Dead, and Ronnie “Wayfarer” Hobgood tunes. It was his favorite and he listened to it every night he had to wait on his moms to get off work at the strip club. Most nights he would sleep until they banged on the window to wake him up, shouting for him to open the doors. Tonight, the energy drinks and candy were keeping him wide awake. That, and the conversation he kept replaying in his head from the night before with the man named Troy. Pretty cool dude, that guy. He was unwrapping his second king-size Milky Way when the door of the club burst open and a man came stomping out in a halo of purple blacklight. The man’s face was silhouetted so he couldn’t tell what he looked like, but there was something about the way the guy walked that looked very familiar.
He inched down into the vinyl driver’s seat until he was looking through the steering wheel at the man walking toward him. The shadowed figure stopped, pulled out a cigarette, and struck a match. When the flickering light danced across his face, T.J.’s heart stopped. Standing just ten feet away was the man who had chased him out of his yard looking for all the world like he wanted to kill him—Frank McCorker. But best he could tell, Frank hadn’t seen him. He inched farther down into the seat until he was sure his head was hidden. Odds were against Frank noticing him. He wasn’t expecting him to be here after all. He could hear the man start walking closer again. He walked up to the car parked beside his mothers’ Maverick. T.J. held his breath, afraid the man might hear his heart pounding in his chest. And then he heard their voices.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 123