by Tim Green
Jenny leaned over without a word and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. Striker allowed himself a smile.
"Hungry?" he said with a wicked grin.
"Always," she answered.
Joe Thurwood was working late in downtown Austin. He walked down one of the side streets just off the university campus toward an old run-down apartment house. He wore a pair of old Wrangler jeans, tennis shoes, a shabby, gray hooded sweatshirt, and a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. He looked like an overweight garbage collector. He felt naked without his pistol, Joe had carried a gun since he first came to the great state of Texas to join the Outlaws. Gleason, however, had insisted that he leave his piece at home or in his car until the proceedings were over.
"That's the last thing we need," Gleason had told him, "for you to be picked up somewhere with a gun on you. I'm telling you, Joe, don't even cross the street without making sure the light is green until this thing is over. I know this is Texas, but it won't fit your new image if one of the kids at the Y sees a gun sticking out of your pants and tells someone."
There was no one else on the street. Joe had taken a job as the heavy for a small-time drug dealer near the university. It was nothing glamorous, but nothing dangerous either. He basically had to scare the shit out of wise-ass college students who thought they were smart enough to be able to fuck around with their supplier. His boss dealt almost exclusively in marijuana. The big time stuff, cocaine and heroin, were handled by the really bad people who drove around in big cars and wore dark suits.
Even though Joe's boss was a twenty-six-year-old long-haired freak, he was a pretty competent motherfucker. At least that was how Joe described him, and he paid his employees in cash. Joe needed that. He wanted to look poor. He planned on sucking enough cash out of his bitch ex-wife's bank accounts so that she'd never forget he was right there breathing down her neck.
That was his goal now, to remind her, to punish her. She had fucked him over worse than he could ever have dreamed anyone would. He had provided for her since the moment they met, and her fashion of repayment was 10 humiliate him publicly and rob him of the equity he rightly deserved, a pieic of her legal practice. But that was then. This was now. She caught him the first time around in a state of weakness, when he was so fucked up on drugs and booze that he didn't know if he was coming or going, let alone who should represent him against his wife.
Joe thought about how his attorney had fucked him over. It was two years ago. He wondered who had fucked him worse, his ex-wife, his ex-attomey, or his ex-team who had cut him to save money in the final years of his cancer. Now he knew better about the attorney end of it, though. He knew that when you hired an attorney, it wasn't something that you fucked around with. You got the best and went from there. It was like a doctor. You didn't just go out and get any swinging dick with an M. D. to remove your gall bladder,- you got an expert who took those little bastards out three times a week and never got sued for doing it wrong. Same thing with lawyers. Joe knew that now. Just like a bad doctor could fuck up your life, a bad lawyer could fuck it up too, only twice as bad. If a bad doctor fucked you up, chances are that you'd die. If a bad lawyer fucked you up, chances are you'd have to live with the shitty consequences for years to come. That was exactly what had happened to him.
Fortunately, the way the legal system was these days, nothing meant anything anymore. Criminals got parole. Death-row scum bags lived for ten years off the hit of the land. People sued people for sneezing in the wrong direction. Every decision ever made was appealed and re-appealed and then sometimes repealed altogether. Laws got bent so bad, no one knew what the damn things really meant anymore. Winners could be the losers and losers half the time were the winners. It was the perfect system for a guy like Big Joe, who was willing to lie and cheat, all the while feigning choirboy sincerity. It was a system that would bind him to Madison McCall for the rest of her bitchy life.
Joe got to his destination and walked in through the front door. The light was low and yellow. The traffic patterns in the hallway had worn the wood floor to a dirty gray. When he got to the last door on the right, he knocked. It got quiet inside where he'd just heard noise from a TV and some talking. He knocked again, pretty loud this time, and put his thumb over the peephole in the door. The light leaking from the crack under the door went out. There was some scuffling around on the other side of the door, and Joe thought he heard a window bang open. He spun around and headed for the front door.
By the time he got around to the alleyway, the two kids from inside already had their feet on the ground. Joe yelled at them to stop. They took one look at him and ran. It was the wrong decision. Joe could run, even though it hurt him. And a football player hurting would only get madder and be more determined to hurt back. Joe grimaced at the pain in his joints and back as he shot down the street after the kids. Even wom-down and overweight, he still had enough speed to make most people's mouths drop. The college kids not only made the mistake of running, they made the mistake of running down some dark alley that led between a couple of old abandoned houses.
When Joe got within about six feet, he launched his bulk toward the backs of the two kids' legs, twisting their ankles and knocking them over. They went down like pins. Joe popped up with the quick feet of a wrestler. As the two students started to rise, Joe grabbed each by a handful of hair and smashed their heads together like coconuts. He then proceeded to kick the stuffing out of them, stopping only to grind his feet on their ankles and knees while they screamed in pain like little pigs caught in a gate. He wanted to make sure they felt even worse than he would tomorrow morning. That was a rule he'd learned in sports long ago. Win, lose, or draw, you always made sure you did more physical damage to your opponent than he did to you.
When they started to bleed, Joe slowed down. When they lay still, he hiked his pants back up onto his gut and ambled away. When he got to the street, he checked both ways and wiped his brow with his hat while he ran his other hand through his long locks of hair, pushing them out of his face. When he got himself under a street light, he glanced at his watch. It was 2:17 A. M.
He cursed. He had to be at the Y for the little brats by ten. The day this thing with Madison was over, he planned on telling them all exactly what he thought of them, a bunch of screaming little low-life bastards who'd never amount to a pile of shit. On his way up the street, Joe spotted a pay phone he'd seen on his way to the little grass-brains' apartment. He stopped and fished around in his pocket for a quarter.
The phone rang seven times before someone picked it up.
"Hello," came a sleepy and bewildered voice. "Hello? Hello?"
Joe stuffed the back of his enormous hand into his mouth to squelch a giddy laugh. He listened while she got worked up into a real panic, then he hung up the phone and allowed the mirthful sound of a fat man laughing to bubble out of his chest. One thing that had always annoyed him about his wife was how upset she got over a little late-night crank phone call. He . Never imagined he'd be able to get such a charge out of it.
Chapter Ten
The general didn't sleep well at all. Even the darkness did nothing to assuage the heat. By 3:00 a. M. he gave up all hope of any meaningful rest. He showered, shaved, and dressed for the day, then flipped on the light next u the bed and sat on his doughnut to read Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. He liked spy novels lately. He fancied himself something of a spy, even though he was more of a thief. After a couple of chapters, the general stood up and walked over to the window to gaze out from behind the curtain at the rising sun. There was nothing remarkable about it at all. The sun just came up with a blinding white light. There were no beautiful colors, no fanfare. The general stood there, alone in his little rattrap, ramrod straight, chin held high. He knew life was nothing like a novel. Novels took the skirmishes and the battles and the love scenes out of life, and lumped them together for the reader to enjoy. Real life was filled much more with little insignificant moments like this, where it seemed like you had to wait
forever for what you wanted, and the sunrise was nothing more than someone turning on the lights. Much of life was so boring and so bewildering to the general that he wondered if people wouldn't all be better off if they lived in caves the way they had thousands of years ago, when their time was spent worrying about things as simple as how they were going to eat or stay warm through the winter.
People in caves was an interesting notion. Maybe what he was doing would somehow lead to that. It was possible. He had no idea exactly who was going to end up with the plutonium he was stealing. He imagined it would end up in the hands of some third-world lunatic, or more likely with some fundamentalist madmen who would unleash it on millions of people in the name of Cod. One thing was certain, both the United States and the former Soviet Union had too much of this stuff floating around to keep it out of other people's hands for long. He was simply ahead of the curve, and because he was. he had to cash in.
The plutonium was the hard part. Unless you could get it raw like what he was selling, you had to go through a lot of trouble to make it, and people would know. There were satellites everywhere. But the real stuff, weapons- grade PU 239, could be hidden in a suitcase and sent anywhere, undetected. Missiles could now be purchased from China by almost anyone. It was certainly conceivable that once the plutonium started to leak out of Russia, a number of radical organizations around the globe would be fully armed with nuclear weapons. People liked to nay-say this. Of course they did. No one had wanted to believe that Imperial Japan would attack the United States in the 1940s. No one had wanted to believe that Hitler would take Poland. The world, especially Americans, were always burying their heads in the sand until confronted with disaster face to face.
Striker's thoughts on disaster were interrupted by a silver BMW pulling into sight on the road. The car slowed down and turned off of the highway into the motel parking lot, pulling up next to the general's Jeep. Striker got out with a woman. Both were wearing small, round black sunglasses and were dressed in jeans and cowboy boots. The general ran his hand through the stubble of hair on top of his head and straightened his shirt. He let the curtain drop but continued to watch through a crack as they approached the door. The woman was radiantly beautiful. Striker didn't knock, he simply stood at the door waiting, as if he knew the general was watching. The general tucked the inflatable cushion into his duffel bag on the floor, then opened the door and let them in.
"General," Striker said amiably, as though they were meeting for drinks at some neighborhood bar. He held a briefcase in his left hand.
The general nodded and fought to keep his eyes from crawling all over the woman.
'This is my associate," Striker said. "You can call her Lucy."
The general snorted at this. "I hope you're not planning on leaving her in the same state as your last friend."
Striker pulled the glasses from his face with one swift motion and gave the general a furtive wink. "Not yet. I wanted you to meet Lucy because she will be making the final exchange for me."
The general considered this information for a moment. Any deviation from the original plan was fundamentally against his nature. He liked things to be done by the book, as planned. Of course it meant something that Striker was changing things. The general stared coldly at his partner. Was Striker in some kind of trouble, or was he simply planning to use the girl as bait, waiting in the wings for a chance to kill him and make off with the last pit without paying him the final two million? Anything was possible. He would have to be cautious the next time.
"You said you didn't like surprises, Striker," the general said. "Neither do I."
"This is my operation, general," Striker said coldly. "I'm paying the bills. I make the rules."
"I'm sure you're not paying this bill on your own, Striker. I'm sure you're getting a lot of money for this deal, a hell of a lot more than I am."
"General," Striker said flatly, "I took a great risk coming here now because I knew you'd be put out by the littlest bump in the road. You never were one for adjusting. That's why I came this time. I won't be here the next, but my commitment to our contract being fully carried out remains the same."
"I think changing the format must be worth something," the general continued. "I think I'd like to see another million in that little briefcase of yours next time, Striker. I figure your take on this must be somewhere around ten million. I think you can afford more than what you're giving me--"
"I'm not going to change the terms of the deal," Striker said in disgust. "You know that."
Striker put his case on the bed and popped it open as if nothing had happened. The sight of all that money was enough to draw the general's complaints to a close. He was glad Striker hadn't bargained with him. It would have meant Striker was planning to double-cross him. He knew Striker didn't renegotiate anything.
The general went to the other side of the bed and pulled his metallic case from the floor. He kept its replacement in the back of his Jeep. He put the case on the bed next to money, and carefully turned the tumblers until it clicked open. Striker lifted the pit from its resting place and held it up for the girl to see. She took off her glasses, and the general sucked some of the stuffy air in through his teeth. Her eyes were like blue ice.
"Very good," Striker said, replacing the pit and shutting the case. "As always, 1 will await your call to my office. Next time you will say your name is Ken Frost. My secretary will take a message. Leave your number but add one to the first six digits and subtract one from the last four. When I get your call, I will call that number--a pay phone, remember--exactly twenty-four hours from when you made it. I will then give you the place and time. You will meet Lucy and make the final delivery. She will give you two millions dollars in cash.
"1 am going through these little details, general," Striker explained, "because this is not your line of work, despite your years in the army. I'm reminding you because it is always when an operation is within minutes of completion that even the best and smartest people seem to lapse into a false sense of security. There can be no mistakes, general. We both know the consequences."
The general didn't like receiving instructions. He was too used to giving them. He took the case of money off the bed and picked his duffel bag up off the floor as if he hadn't been paying all that much attention.
"Striker," he said, "you're a legend in your own mind."
Striker smiled.
"Thank you," he said.
Jenny and Striker sat in their car and watched the general pull out onto the highway.
Unable to contain herself any longer, Jenny said, "That guy's a creep," then looked over at Striker for his response.
Striker looked at her in a sad, fatherly sort of way, the way he sometimes did when he took on the role as her instructor.
"I'm glad you feel that way," he said.
"Why are you glad?"
"Because it will help you feel more comfortable with the idea that we're going to kill him."
Jenny laughed. Striker would say things sometimes just to get her to react.
"Okay, fine," she said.
Striker started the car and pulled out onto the highway, heading in the opposite direction. They sat for a while in silence. Jenny could handle silence. It seemed the men in her life had always been silent. She wondered if that was her choosing, or just fate. The big difference between Striker and Cody was that from time to time a torrent of emotion would burst like a dam from Striker, while Cody would let it out in nothing more than a trickle, only enough run-off to keep the pressure from bursting through.
Jenny didn't want to think about Cody and Striker though. She didn't like uncertainty, and her love life was nothing but uncertain. She liked the way Striker lived. She liked him. And he was rich. She could see that.
The problem with Striker was that for all his gallantry, for all his tender caresses, he had yet to talk about a future together. When it did come up, Striker made vague suggestions about what they would do and the things they would see, but
as to any concrete plans, he was evasive. Jenny felt Striker couldn't be trusted. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, but something told her Striker was never completely candid. She suspected that was so because of the kind of business he was involved in. Not that it mattered; she was ready to leave Cody. But Striker made it clear that even though she was growing to despise the very sight of her husband, it was important for this operation that she stay with him. When the plan was complete, whatever happened with Striker, Jenny made it clear that she was leaving. Striker had promised her a lot of money if everything went smoothly and she did her part. With a half million dollars, she could start over again almost anywhere. She'd go with Striker if he asked her, but she hadn't said as much to him. She knew better than to put all her cards out on the table for him to see. Foi a!! their intimacy, she and Striker were like two knife fighters, circling each o. Hcr carefully, testing each other's strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies,mixing dodges and feints with real thrusts and parries. If she ended up with Striker, it would be because he asked her, not because she had manipulated him into taking her.