I lifted the binoculars again and saw the two cars, the Taurus and the Malibu, pull up in front of the house, on schedule.
Seconds later, the four of them came out of the house, Frenchie supporting Pink and helping her down the sidewalk, McNasty with his gun against the back of Scubberd’s neck.
Cobb was looking through another set of binoculars. “You sure she’s okay? Does she need medical attention?”
The answer came back in French.
“English,” Cobb ordered. “I want everyone to know what’s going on.”
Frenchie switched to English. “She says she’s okay. She’ll have a black eye and she’s got some blood in her mouth. She says her teeth are sore but none of them are loose or gone.”
“Stay with her,” Cobb told him. “I don’t want her by herself. When you get to Grover, give him your headset and microphone, I’ll want to talk to him.”
I could see Frenchie gently helping Pink into the back seat of the second car. What was happening at the front car was anything but gentle, and I wondered what might have happened if Cobb hadn’t given the order that he wanted Brock Scubberd alive. I watched McNasty open the back door and shove the kid inside. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like Scubberd hit his head on the roof of the car on the way in. McNasty piled in beside him and both cars sped away.
Chip was already out of the van and jogging toward the house.
“Does he need help?” I asked Cobb.
He shook his head. “I don’t want anything left behind and he’s the only one who knows the exact set-up.” He glanced at his watch. “He said ten to fifteen minutes at the most. I hope he’s right.”
I followed his lead, stole a look at my watch. I was as impatient as Cobb. I wanted to be the hell out of there, and the sooner the better.
Eight minutes in, a voice crackled over the headset. It was Frenchie. “Cobb, you there?”
“Yeah … go.”
“Grover’s not here.”
“What?”
“He’s not here.”
“You sure you’re at the right place? North side of the old Shamrock Hotel.
“I’m there … and he ain’t.”
“What about his car? Old red Caddy, you see it anywhere?”
“Rien … nothin’.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Couple of minutes.”
“All right, give it three more minutes, then get away from there. Get back here but stay away from the house. Park behind my van … not right behind. A few car lengths back.”
“Got it.”
“Goddamn it,” Cobb whispered, then hissed into the microphone, “Chip, you nearly done?”
“I’m out that door in thirty seconds,” came the answer.
“Right.” Cobb looked at me. “Grover’s pulling something, that son of a bitch. Reach down behind your seat there. There’s a rifle — get it.”
This whole thing was starting to worry the hell out of me. For all Cobb’s careful planning, we both knew Grover was the loose wheel, and now it looked like … I didn’t know what it looked like.
“Christ,” I said, “I didn’t expect there to be shooting.”
“Get the rifle.”
I reached back, lifted it off the floor. Looked at it. Bolt action — looked like a deer rifle, maybe.
“You know how to shoot, right?”
“I know how to shoot.”
“And you can use one of those?”
“Yeah, but —”
“Good, it’s loaded. You don’t shoot unless I tell you to, but if I tell you to, you shoot, okay?” He pulled a handgun out of a shoulder holster I hadn’t noticed and set it on the seat beside him.
“Okay.” I set the rifle on the floor at my feet, picked up the binoculars again. Chip was out of the house and running for the van. He dropped something on the lawn, bent down to pick it up, was running again.
Cobb started the van. “Open that door for him.”
I pulled off my headset and slid the door open.
Chip started handing me cameras and microphones and some stuff I didn’t recognize. I piled it into the back of the van. When all the equipment, most of it smaller than I expected, was inside, Chip climbed in. As he did, I looked back and saw Frenchie and Pink and their driver pulling to the curb a few car lengths back of us. I pulled the door shut.
I heard Cobb in the front seat on his cellphone. “Everything good?” I couldn’t hear the answer. “Okay, we take a little time now. Start to sound concerned.”
I put the headset back on and could hear McNasty as he talked to Cobb on his cell.
“Aw fuck, you’re kidding,” he said.
“That’s good,” Cobb said. “Keep going. Give me more of that.”
“You gotta be shitting me. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
“Okay,” Cobb said. “Is he paying attention?”
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t fucking believe this.”
“Okay, get ready to hang up, think about it for a few seconds, then tell your driver to take you and Scubberd back to the house. Is he okay to make it from the car to the house on his own?”
“Yeah. I do not believe this. Jesus Christ.”
Cobb ended the call and pulled his headset back on. We heard McNasty swear some more, then say, “Okay, drive us back to the house.”
The driver said, “What?”
“You heard me. Just do it. What a bunch of shit.”
Scubberd must have said something because McNasty said, “You shut the fuck up or I’ll plant this thing so far into your skull they’ll have to dig it out with a shovel.”
There was silence in the car then. And I guessed it was moving and would be back at the house in a few minutes.
Cobb looked at me. “I want you to go back to Frenchie’s car and get the computer. Bring it here.”
I nodded and was out the door. I walked quickly back to the car. Frenchie had the passenger side window down and passed me the computer. I looked into the back seat to where Pink was. I could see bruising and swelling on both sides of her face.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“I’ve been better … but yeah, I’m okay.”
“You did good in there,” I told her and tapped Frenchie on the arm. “You both did.”
I hurried back to the van and let myself in. I set the computer next to Chip and got myself back to where I’d been before. The seconds ticked by, it seemed to me, in slow motion. I could feel the rifle at my feet and hoped that’s where it would stay.
We heard McNasty say, “Looks like this is your lucky day.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Scubberd demanded.
“This is what it means, you little turd. It means we’re taking you back to your house, where I’m going to drop you off and you get to go inside and make yourself a cup of tea. Trust me. I’d love to shoot your ass right now. But somebody fucked up and I don’t get to do that until next time.”
The kid said, “Fuckin’ losers.”
“Don’t push your luck, piece of shit. I haven’t kneecapped anybody in way too long.”
That ended the conversation for the moment.
Cobb put the van in gear, moved to the intersection, and rolled through it. At the next corner he turned left, drove for two more blocks, then about halfway down the third block pulled in behind a dark-brown SUV with Patriot at the wheel.
Chip, who had been sorting the stuff in the back of the van, including the computer, into a small duffle bag, said, “I’ve got everything I need. I’ll see you at the motel.”
Cobb nodded and Chip rolled the side door open, climbed out of the van and into the passenger seat of the SUV.
“Turn your cellphone on,” Cobb told him. “In case I need to talk to you.”
Chip nodded. We waited a few seconds until the driver pulled away from the curb. When it was out of sight, Cobb made a U-turn and we retraced our route back to where we’d been previously. Another U-turn and we were in almost exactly the
same place we’d been.
We were only there a minute or so when the Taurus pulled up in front of the party house and Brock Scubberd pulled himself out of the car. He took a couple of steps, turned, and unleashed a barrage of curses at the car that was already pulling away. Then he continued unsteadily on his way up to the house and disappeared inside.
“Your guy McNasty’s a pretty good actor,” I told Cobb.
He shrugged and came close to a smile. “I’m not sure he was acting.”
“Yeah, I sensed that he didn’t like Brock Scubberd.”
“I got that same sense.”
“Kneecapping what I think it is?”
“You shoot the victim in both knees.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That was my guess. What do you think the kid’s going to do?”
“Well, I don’t think he’s going to phone up his old man and ask for help. So that limits his options. I expect he’ll think about it as much as his IQ will allow him to, and then he’ll shrug his shoulders and get on with his life. Maybe call Ernie and tell him to get him a girl. But I doubt if that will happen tonight.”
“Okay, so what’s next for us?”
“We’re wrapped here. Time to reconvene back at the motel.” He pulled his headset onto his head again and spoke into the microphone. “Okay, everyone, one last thing … anybody see Grover?”
There was a chorus of nos and uh-uhs. Cobb nodded and started to speak, then stopped, slid the headset down over his neck.
“Frenchie, you read me?”
“Yeah.”
“Ask Pink if she wants us to take her to the hospital.”
We could hear Frenchie relaying the message. “She says no, she just wants to go home.”
“You got her envelope?”
“Yeah.”
“You have any money?”
“Yeah.”
“Put an extra two hundred in her envelope. I’ll settle with you when we get to the motel. You have that much on you?”
“Yeah, I got that much.”
“Okay, then I want you to take Pink downtown and put her in a cab. If this is a set-up, I don’t want you driving into an ambush. Then you head for the motel. You got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, I’ll see —” Cobb stopped in midsentence. “Oh-oh,” he said softly.
I looked at him and saw that his attention was drawn in the direction of the house. I picked up the binoculars and looked down the street. A block past the house, a car, its headlights out, was moving slowly up the street. It was too far away to know for sure, but it looked like there were two people in the front seat. I couldn’t tell if there were more in the back.
Cobb spoke into his microphone. “Everyone stand by. There’s a car approaching the house. Lights off. Not one of ours. Nobody moves except on my command, but be ready.”
The car slowed even more and came to a stop alongside the decoy van. From that distance I was certain there were at least two people in the car. The person in the passenger seat opened his door and, though I couldn’t say for sure, it appeared that he — I was fairly certain it was a man — threw something under the van. He slammed the door shut and the car roared toward us, lights still off.
“Get down!” Cobb barked.
As it roared by us, I managed to glance up over the dash and was sure it was Minnis I’d seen in the passenger seat. I wasn’t positive, but I thought I saw Grover in the back seat. And I knew the driver, too — Rock Scubberd, the kid’s dad.
All three of the car’s occupants were staring straight ahead, grimly concentrating on the road in front of them, not looking right or left. Not seeing us.
I turned to Cobb, who, like me, had stolen a peek over the dash.
He said only one word. “Grover.”
We sat back up and Cobb started to speak into the microphone once again. He didn’t get the chance.
The explosion, though it was more than a block away, was powerful enough that the van we were in rocked from side to side and I felt myself actually shifted to my left. A huge fireball raced up into the night sky while metal debris from the other van flew like shrapnel in every direction. What looked like part of the hood or a door landed on the pavement just a few feet in front of us.
As the initial noise died down, there were a few smaller bursts and concussions. Cobb spoke into the microphone. “Code Orange,” he said. “Code Orange. Does everybody read me?”
One by one everyone identified himself and acknowledged the Code Orange, whatever the hell that was. A part of me almost wanted to laugh at the action movie scene unfolding in front of me. But I remembered that Cobb had made the call on the decoy van, a call that I realized now had saved lives, one of them quite possibly mine. So, whatever his Code Orange was, I was okay with it. When he was satisfied that he’d heard from everyone, Cobb threw the van in gear and wheeled left around the corner, heading in the same direction as the MFs car.
I knew we weren’t chasing them; that would have been stupid. What was important now was for us to be out of there fast, before curious eyes noticed us leaving the area. Cobb was careful not to speed. As we headed east, I looked back at the scene behind us. People were already starting to appear at front doors and windows of houses on both sides of the street. The gawkers would be fascinated, at least for a while, by the flames that were soaring skyward and consuming what was left of the other van. And as I continued to stare back at the chaos on the street, I realized there wasn’t a hell of a lot of it left.
Cobb’s voice was calm as he spoke into the headset. “Okay, everybody. I imagine most of you heard that. The MFs and The Grover blew up the other van. We’re okay. I want everybody moving now. Nobody gets followed, nobody gets stopped by the cops — I want everyone back at the motel as soon as you can get there. I repeat — make sure you aren’t tailed, and don’t speed or do anything else to get yourself pulled over. Remember, it’s Code Orange. If you’ve got questions, ask them. Otherwise get moving.”
There were no questions and Cobb pulled the headset off and tossed it behind him.
“They could’ve killed Scubberd’s own kid if some of that flaming debris hit the house,” I said.
“Yeah,” Cobb said.
“Could have been bad for us, too.”
“Yeah,” Cobb said again.
“Okay, I’ve got a question.”
“Shoot.”
“If we’d been in that van, we’d be dead now.”
“That’s not a question,” Cobb said.
“The question is this — how did you know that was a possibility?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why the second van that everybody on the team knows about except Grover? You had to have some idea.”
Cobb glanced over at me then back at the road. “Look, Adam, I’ve known Grover a long time. Long enough to know that he’d sell his mother for the right price. He’s one of the sleaziest bags of shit on the street. Up to now, he’s played by my rules. But I always knew that anytime Grover was part of something, I had to keep looking over my shoulder. That’s what I was doing. I honestly believed this would go off just the way I’d planned it. But because Grover was in the mix, I needed a little insurance. That old van I bought off a guy for three hundred dollars? That was the insurance.”
“Actually, except for that little episode back there, it did go off pretty much the way you planned it.”
“We’re not done yet. We haven’t got you off the hook.”
“When does that happen?”
“Right away. Once we get back to the meeting place and Chip is sure we have what we need, I make a call.”
“I asked you once before, how much is our night’s charade costing you?”
“If things work out, I’m hoping nothing. We’ll know soon enough.”
It wasn’t long before I learned what Code Orange was. The rendezvous had been moved to a second motel, at least as unpleasant as the first. That eventuality had to have been set up in advance, another example of
Cobb’s attention to detail. And maybe his concern about The Grover.
When we got back to the new motel, Cobb circled the block twice, staring at every parked car and eyeing the three people we saw on the street — a woman walking with an elderly man and, on another street, a kid in a hoodie. I wondered about him but Cobb seemed satisfied that he wasn’t a threat. This place, which from the outside looked marginally less grungy than the first, sported a sign that announced it was The Hillside. Terrific name. Not a hill within ten kilometres.
The third time we went by the driveway leading into the motel’s parking lot, Cobb turned in. It was pretty straightforward after that. Everyone was there. Cobb dismissed the three young drivers, handing each an envelope and shaking hands with them. They then left at five-minute intervals.
After they were gone, the rest of us — Cobb, me, and Cobb’s guys — drank coffee while Chip checked video and audio and downloaded it onto a second computer.
“Good news,” Chip finally said. “The cameras worked perfectly, both of them. It was only the monitor that crapped out. I’ve downloaded all the video and audio onto your laptop. I think you’ll be happy with it. Should be just what you need to spoil someone’s day.”
“You have the email addresses where I want the copies sent to?”
“I do,” Chip responded. “They’ll be delivered within minutes.”
“I’ve spoken to all of them. They — and you — know what to do if something happens to me or” — he angled his head in my direction — “him.”
“Absolutely.” Chip nodded. “I hope I don’t ever have to do it, though.”
“Well, that makes me feel better,” I said, trying for a laugh, not managing one myself.
We gathered around the computer to watch. We’d heard the audio so had a pretty good idea what we’d be seeing. No real surprises. Once some of Pink’s clothing came off, Brock was in a hurry. I flinched the first time he hit her and again when he did it a second time. She appeared to be at least stunned by the blows and it looked to me like Cobb was right to send the guys in when he did. It didn’t look like Pink was in any shape to remember, let alone say, the cue lines she and Cobb had agreed on.
And as I had expected, McNasty was far from gentle with Brock Scubberd once he and Frenchie were in the house. I wanted to cheer when I saw him hit the kid with an elbow that snapped his head back and sent him sprawling to the floor.
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