Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle

by Jerry Langton

  He changed lanes. They changed with him. He sped up to about ninety. They followed suit. Semyon, drinking out of his familiar Evian bottle, didn’t notice anything. Sopho was still looking out the windows at the huge trucks and the passing countryside. Ned brought the car onto an off-ramp that led into the Ironbound neighborhood on the other side of Newark. Semyon looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Gas,” Ned assured him. “And food for the package. God knows when she last ate.”

  Semyon giggled awkwardly. It was clear he was happy that Ned was going along with the task ahead of them, but he, too, had his misgivings.

  Ned looked in the mirror. The bikers had also taken the off-ramp, and had actually closed ground on them. Ned looked back at Semyon. “You go in the store and get some food and drinks—stuff kids like,” he said. “And I’ll get the gas.”

  Semyon nodded, and said something to Sopho in Russian. She just looked at him in a fearful silence, then started talking nervously in her own language. He chuckled and told Ned that he was just checking to see if she was faking about knowing any Russian. “What I told her was fucking hilarious,” he said. “If she understood even just a few words of Russian, she’d be laughing so hard she’d fall out of her seat.”

  They pulled into a Hess station and Ned went to the pump farthest from the convenience store. Without another word, Semyon got out of the car and started trudging toward the store. Ned opened his door and Sopho started talking excitedly, as though she was scared to be alone again. Ned put one leg on the ground, and looked behind him. He saw the two bikers getting off their Harleys. A second later, they were approaching him.

  Ned pulled his leg back into the car and slammed his door shut. He restarted the Lexus and laid rubber out of the gas station. Sopho started screaming. She undid her seatbelt and jumped between the two front seats. She was hitting Ned, not trying to hurt him, just to get his attention, as though he had forgotten about Semyon. She was crying and pointing back at the convenience store until she ran out of breath. Then she slumped back into her seat, silently. Ned scanned the rearview mirror and was relieved that the bikers were not coming after him.

  He hurried to get back on I-95. Just before the on-ramp, he stopped and got out of the car. Sopho started screaming. He opened up her door, and she stopped screaming and started chattering in a nervous way that made Ned think she was asking questions. He fastened her seatbelt, closed the door and got back in the driver’s seat. He looked at Sopho and smiled. She didn’t smile back, but seemed to calm down a little.

  Ned took 95 south, toward Delaware. About forty-five minutes of silent driving in which Ned ran ideas through his head stressfully and Sopho looked out the window sadly, Ned turned off into a pleasant enough little blue-collar town called Burlington. He parked behind a chrome-trimmed diner on High Street and gestured for Sopho to follow him inside.

  They took a booth with a window through which Ned could see their car and sat down. He ordered bacon and eggs with coffee for himself and a cheeseburger with fries and a Coke for her. The older, heavy-set waitress spoke to Sopho, who did not answer back. The waitress then shot a questioning look at Ned. “She’s deaf,” he said. The waitress apologized.

  When the food arrived, Ned was too stressed to eat his. Sopho ate hers quickly but politely. She started to talk in her own language again, perhaps to thank Ned for the meal. Ned noticed the waitress and a man she had been talking with stop and stare suspiciously at them. Ned put his fingers to his lips in an effort to silence Sopho. She got the picture. He then got up and escorted her to the washroom, realizing she probably wouldn’t know how to get there herself and wouldn’t have the ability to ask. He waited nervously outside, hoping she wouldn’t climb out the window to escape and watched the waitress and her friend talk about the pair of them. After a few minutes, Sopho re-emerged and Ned took her back to the booth. The waitress walked quickly and forcefully to their table, and put down the bill with a thud. Ned looked up, she was glaring at him. “Well, I hope you and your daughter enjoyed your meal,” she said sternly.

  “Thank you,” Ned said angrily. “We did.”

  “I know it’s not my place to say anything,” she continued. “But she don’t sound like no deaf person I ever heard—sounds foreign—and she don’t do the sign language either.”

  Ned stared at her. He was trying to formulate a story when he realized that he had bigger fish to fry than to rationalize his situation to some fat, suburban New Jersey egg-slinger. He sighed, looked her in the eye and said, “You’re absolutely right. It’s not your place.” Then he pulled out a twenty, put it on the table, got up and gestured for Sopho to come with him.

  After a moment of stunned silence, the waitress yelled after him. “I know you’re up to something, mister. Something no good,” she shouted. “And Dan here, his brother’s a trooper, so you just watch out.”

  Ned and Sopho got back into the car. He looked at her and wondered what people would think when they saw the two of them together. She didn’t look too out of place in New Jersey if she kept her mouth shut. Her clothes were not as flashy or covered in logos as most of the kids in the area (and a little threadbare), but she could probably pass as an ordinary, if perhaps poor, kid. She was actually too old to be his daughter in any realistic scenario—and she didn’t look anything like him anyway. And when she opened her mouth it was clear she was from some place far away.

  His phone rang. It was Semyon or someone using Semyon’s phone. Just as likely, one of the bikers had taken it and was calling him with it. Either way, answering it was not a great idea. When it stopped ringing, Ned called Dave. No answer. So he called Nina. She answered on the second ring. “Nina,” Ned said. “It’s me. I really, really need your help.”

  There was a pause. Ned figured that since their phone conversations had been light and their entire relationship was based on their shared, tacit decision not to talk about the darker sides of their professions or their friends that she wasn’t excited about the idea of having a serious talk. “Really?” she finally asked, sounding suspicious. “What’s the problem?”

  “I have a delivery to make—for Roman.”

  “So, deliver it,” she sounded angry. “No more problem.”

  “No, Nina, you don’t understand,” Ned pleaded. “The package is a little girl.”

  He heard Nina groan. “So deliver the package.”

  “What? Are you nuts?” Ned yelled. “She’s just a kid! Not even ready for junior high!”

  “Calm down,” she sounded stern. “If you are trying to prove to me that you are a good guy, stop. This is not a Hollywood movie and you are not a hero. You have a job to do.”

  “But she’s just a kid . . .”

  “I’m sure she is, but you have a job to do and if you don’t, you will die,” her voice softened, but still sounded cynical. “Besides, if he loses this one, he’ll just go get another. Do your job, Macnair, save yourself.”

  He hung up.

  He looked back at Sopho. He smiled and made a funny face at her. She gave a sort of half smile to acknowledge his effort.

  Something caught Ned’s eye. The waitress and her friend had come outside and were now writing down his license plate number. Ned realized that they were going to call the trooper. At least, he thought to himself, he had less than an hour left in New Jersey until he got into Pennsylvania.

  He started the car again and rejoined I-95 south. After a few miles, he took the Chichester exit to Marcus Hook. He drove down the divided lanes of Market Street to Dave’s office. For the first time in his memory, he really wanted to be there. Dave may have given him a hard time, but the FBI had saved his life once before, and he was in a much tougher predicament this time.

  Parked outside, he took Sopho out of the car and walked up to the outside door. It was always unlocked during business hours. They walked upstairs, Ned in front, and came to Dave’s office door. Ned was surprised to see it ajar. “Hello,” he called out. “Dave, are you here?”

  No answ
er. Ned turned and looked at Sopho. She looked very afraid. He gestured for her to stay exactly where she was. A wave of desperate fear washed over her face, and she pleaded “Ara, ara.” Ned had no idea what she meant, but knew she didn’t want to stay put. He put on his sternest face and made it clear she had to. She finally nodded.

  He turned and went into Dave’s office. Dave was at his desk with his back to Ned. “Hey, Dave,” Ned said cautiously. “Everything okay?”

  No answer. Ned tenuously approached Dave. As he got closer, he could see that his file was open on Dave’s computer. Ned smelled blood. He looked down and could see that the carpet was stained reddish brown. He got closer to Dave, turned him around and saw that his throat had been slit ear to ear, his white-collared blue shirt drenched with blood. Ned looked at Dave’s PC—his complete file was up on the monitor. It included his address, the make, model and license plate of his car, his employer, everything. He was an open book. He was as good as dead whether he delivered the girl or not.

  He rushed out of the office and put his arm around Sopho, nearly carrying her as he ran down the stairs. Ned almost threw her into the back seat of the Lexus. He jumped into the driver’s seat and headed toward the Interstate. He had to get rid of the Lexus. But he also knew he had to get to Manhattan. If, he decided, he could get to the heroin-filled coils, he could prove that the Russians were smuggling drugs into the country. Otherwise, he’d have to explain why his FBI caseworker was dead and what he was doing with an undocumented little girl. Without the drugs, it was just his word against the Russians’, and his past as a snitch would do him more harm than good. Instead of heading to the Interstate, he took Highway 13 south to Wilmington. The bikers or Russians would be looking for him on the Interstate, and if that stupid waitress had actually called the troopers, they’d be there too.

  He stopped at a Suzuki dealer in Edgemoor, just across the state line, and bought two full-face motorcycle helmets—one for himself and the other for Sopho. He also got her a jacket. Then he took the Lexus up to Hawkridge and parked in back of the warehouse. He got out of the Lexus as quietly as he could, and gestured for Sopho to do the same.

  The old Indian he’d sold to Katie’s boyfriend, Matt, was parked at the back of the lot. As Ned had both feared and predicted, Matt had already customized it. What had been a painstaking attempt to match the original red and brown two-tone color scheme had been painted over. The gas tank now a featured a portrait of a Viking warrior so drenched in lacquer that the paint job looked to be about an inch thick.

  Ned handed Sopho her helmet and instructed her to get on the back seat of the Indian. She shook her head. She was clearly scared to ride on the big bike. Ned gave her a stern look. She made a timid step toward the bike, but stopped and started crying. Frustrated, Ned sighed and picked the girl up. He was surprised at how little she weighed and how violently she was shivering. He told her as soothingly as possible that everything was going to be all right. He put her helmet on her, adjusted the strap, then climbed on the bike and put his own on. He noticed that she instinctively put her tiny arms around him and held on. She still held onto her little bag as well.

  Ned still had a spare key to the Indian on his key ring. He hadn’t kept it from Matt intentionally; he had just never gotten around to giving it to him. He turned it. He knew that the sound of the kick start would immediately get the attention of anyone within earshot—Matt could even catch him and beat the shit out of him or hold him until the police came—so Ned was determined to get it on the first try. With his left foot on the peg, he stood up and put all his weight on the starter. The old motor gave out a disappointing blub-blub-blub.

  “C’mon, baby,” Ned whispered. He pushed Sopho back and tried again. This time it just began to take and then noisily crapped out. One of the Mexican guys Ned remembered from the warehouse stepped out of the loading dock doors to take a look. As soon as he saw Ned and Sopho on the big old bike he ran inside. Ned knew he was fetching Matt. With one last desperate kick, the dynamo ignited and the Indian roared to life. Ned pulled back on the accelerator and popped the clutch. Sopho flew backwards, nearly off the bike, but was saved by the ridiculous sissy bar Matt had since installed. She bounced back into Ned and held on as tightly as she could. Ned could neither see nor hear Matt and his friends running out of the loading dock and shouting at him to come back.

  Ned went as fast as he could to Highway 13. He laughed a bit to himself when he thought of the picture they made: a man and a child in full-face neon-colored racer helmets riding on an incredibly loud vintage bike with a shiny Viking on each side of the gas tank—hardly the least conspicuous way to get to New York City. But he also knew he had no choice.

  He eventually merged onto I-95 in Philadelphia. When traffic became too clogged, he split the lanes, driving between the anxious, waiting cars. It was illegal but it also allowed him to get into New Jersey in about half the time it would have taken if he had followed traffic laws. Sure that the Russians would expect him to visit Nina, he avoided Staten Island and the other quick routes into Brooklyn. Instead, he headed up the Palisades Parkway to the George Washington Bridge. Racing back down the West Side Highway, he took the 50th Street exit and parked the bike as legally as he could on 48th Street in front of a rental-car franchise.

  He walked the rest of the way to the Javits Center down 11th Avenue past the dozens of luxury car dealerships that line the way. He was pulling Sopho by the hand and could tell that she was overwhelmed.

  When they entered the huge glass rectangle that is the Javits, it was full of thousands of men and women—most of them in suits, but some in more casual clothes—milling around signs advertising the presence of the Annual Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Professionals’ Conference. Ned bypassed the line and went right to the exhibition floor’s entrance. He was stopped by a security guard. The guard was tall and fat, with a small mouth that hung open all the time. Although he was only twenty-five or so, he was already mostly bald and already attempting to remedy the situation with a poor comb-over. “Can’t let you in without a badge, sir,” he said officiously.

  “But this is an emergency,” Ned told him, hoping his look of desperation would help convince the guy give him a break. “I need to get in there, to talk with an exhibitor.”

  “The only way in is with a badge,” the young man actually appeared to be enjoying Ned’s desperation.

  “Fine,” Ned said, exasperated. Other people in line behind him were getting angry at the hold up, and letting him know. “How do I get a badge?”

  “Well, you should have signed up a month ago, then it only would have been $295,” the guard said dully. “But now, you’re gonna have to go over to the line’way over there, register, show some ID and pay.”

  His superior, a plump black woman in her forties cut him off. “What’s the problem here, Laderoute?” she demanded, looking back and forth at the security guard and Ned.

  “This guy’s got no badge,” Laderoute said sheepishly. “And he wants to get in.”

  Betting that the older security guard was not only smarter, but also kinder than her charge, Ned appealed directly to her. “I’m not here for the show,” he told her in measured tones. “I just have to talk with Thor Andersson of Hawkridge. It’s an emergency.”

  “Mr. Andersson? I know him,” the woman smiled. “What’s the emergency? Maybe I can pass him a message.”

  “Some of the items he has may be potentially dangerous if they are mounted the wrong way,” Ned stammered, thinking while he was talking. “Only someone familiar with the technology can help him . . . It could be a matter of life and death.”

  The older security guard looked at Ned and then at Sopho. Then she turned to Laderoute. “Do you think this man would bring his child along to see a ventilation trade show and make up a story about dangerous parts just to get out of paying the entry fee?” She turned back to Ned and told him to “go ahead” and admonished him to be back within fifteen minutes or he’d have to pay
full price for a badge.

  Ned let out an enormous sigh of relief and walked in, towing Sopho behind him. Inside was a huge set of rows of displays from various heating, ventilation and air-conditioning suppliers and related companies. Some were just wooden desks, while others looked like the sets of some elaborate game show in which all the prizes were air conditioners. There were hundreds of them. Finding Hawkridge shouldn’t be too hard, he thought to himself, because it was one of the biggest such companies around, but with so many others there and with the Swede’s desire to avoid anything ostentatious, it could take a long time.

  Ned decided to be methodical. He started at one corner and walked straight down the long aisle. Sopho was still holding his hand and chattering quietly to herself in her language. He looked at her and marveled at how calm she looked. He wondered if her crossing had been so frightening that she just didn’t have the emotional reserves left over to be scared now or that she was still young enough to believe that all adults had her best interest at heart. He wished for a moment that she spoke English. Before continuing their search for Hawkridge’s booth, he went back to the snack bar near the entrance. He bought a hot dog and a couple of slices of pizza. There was no place to sit in the crowded eating area, so he leaned against the wall while Sopho sat at his feet. She ate both slices of pizza and really seemed to enjoy her large orange soda. Ned relaxed for just a second and smiled at her. As he looked up, something familiar caught his eye. He couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure it was Vasilly, but the man who walked past had on the same type of suit, was about the same size and had the same haircut. And his purposeful stride caused Ned’s own spine to shiver. He did his best to hide behind some guys in suits who were talking loudly about “green technology.”