by Layla Wolfe
Riker must’ve had a crisis because suddenly he stopped mouthing my chest. It was interesting how detached I’d already become to what was going on around me. I only looked aside mildly when he got up and punched some numbers on his cell. He had that “penitentiary shuffle” that men who’ve been in the joint get. I knew he’d been on Riker’s Island and liked to imagine he’d been in Alcatraz, so who knew how many years or decades he’d spent behind bars.
“Yeah, hey, Wang Ho, it’s Alcatraz. Wang Ho, Soon Hung, whatever your name is. You know who I am. Listen, I’ve got the other girl, the one we had in Tucson. The one whose boyfriend tried to kill us all. Yeah, well, I went to all the effort to snatch her, so I want to make a deal with you guys. What?”
There was a pause long enough to let me know something serious had gone down. Riker just made a bunch of “Uh-huh…yeah…I see…right…” noises for a while. What had happened?
I was getting the distinct feeling I was not getting traded to the Bamboo Boys. Whether this was good or bad, though, I didn’t know.
“Okay,” Riker finally said. “Talk to you later.”
He punched the END button and stared at me thoughtfully. Tell me, tell me, tell me, I mentally chanted. Riker did my bidding. “Seems like your boyfriend or brother or whatever you call that fucktard went up to Page and wasted the entire trick house where your friend Shannon was being held.”
Eyes so wide they nearly cracked, I lifted my entire torso off the disgusting couch. I whimpered like a leashed dog, slamming my feet onto the floor. Of course he couldn’t hear me say behind my gag, “Where is Shannon? Is she all right? Where’d she go?”
Sighing, Riker took a cigarette from a pack and lit it. He removed a putrid scarf from around his neck and lifted some kind of Band-Aid or patch. Eerie. When he exhaled, the smoke came out a hole in his neck. He seemed to be standing in the beam of sunlight particularly to enhance this creepy effect, blowing used smoke out from both his mouth full of gnarled teeth, and that weird blowhole in his throat.
“We’re going to have to do something else with you,” he decided. “I can’t afford to keep you and you’re a fucking liability.” He was silent some more, smoking out of two holes in his head. Then he almost snapped his fingers. “I know. Your daddy, he’s the Bare Bones lawyer, isn’t he? Nod or shake your head.”
What the hell? I had no choice but to nod.
“I knew it! That’s what they told me. I never met that fucker but I hate him just the same ’cause of what he’s done with my old brotherhood. I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
Riker began pacing. He even chain smoked another cigarette so he could pace longer on the wooden floorboards. That’s when he went to the kitchen and made me a 7-up which he let me drink through a straw, with my gag still in place. I knew it tasted funny. But I was parched beyond belief. I knew that people died faster of dehydration than or starvation. And being dehydrated would do nothing to help my situation.
Shortly thereafter, I passed out and didn’t wake until the following morning when my fate had been decided for me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ROMAN
“All right, you motherfucker! Where did he fucking take her?”
Roman got a couple more punches in to Reg Eastwood’s formerly handsome face, just for the satisfaction of it all. He’d already beaten the information from the gutless wonder that it had, indeed, been Riker who had taken Gudrun. Eastwood’s kitchen was so splattered with blood it resembled a Jackson Pollock exhibit.
Wolf Glaser half-assedly held the guy from behind to keep him still, but he didn’t really need to. Reg Eastwood was apparently so fed up with Riker, he freely seemed to give any information he had. He held his hands in the air and nearly sobbed. “I told you! I don’t fucking know! I didn’t care about that part!”
The idea of Eastwood not caring about Roman’s sister, or girlfriend, or whoever he thought Gudrun was, that renewed Roman’s anger, and now he punched him in the stomach. Eastwood instantly doubled over like a taco shell, giving Roman ample opportunity to knee him in the jaw.
He had to step away. He could beat this guy within an inch of his life—or even bury him, the way things had been going lately—and he doubted he’d get any more information out of the loser. Eastwood did seem like the sort not to know where Riker had taken Gudrun. He had only done it for the money—and because he seemed to have some weird twisted crush on Gudrun, or Roman, or both of them, some lust that had been pushed over the edge when he’d witnessed Roman making out with Gudrun.
Whatever the fucking case, Roman wasn’t here to psychoanalyze. As much as he wanted to end this worthless toolbag, people would definitely start questioning a missing Corps of Engineers engineer. They’d start snooping around and there’d be no end of trouble for The Bare Bones, who lived under the radar. Roman didn’t want to be one of those morons who went and took out, for example, a 7-11 clerk in broad daylight in front of surveillance cameras. Or a rival MC Prez at a busy intersection, also in front of surveillance cameras. Or, for the sake of variety, and for the hell of it, shoot at a patrol car parked on the side of the road handing out a ticket. Patrol cars were also equipped with cameras.
These were all things Riker had done in recent years. That foot soldier was just a loose cannon. He seemed to have gotten worse since the years when he assisted his Prez Cropper in molesting Madison Shellmound, Ford’s future old lady. He just seemed to be randomly shooting at people regardless of their stature or position, a sign that meth was eating away at his brain. Roman was about to call Tobiah Weingarten to check on the progress of tracking Riker when his phone lit up with an incoming call. Slushy.
“Roman, listen. I just got the most unsettling phone call from our buddy Riker. What the fuck is going on there? Is Gudrun with you?”
Roman sighed and stepped out onto the back patio. It was strange looking at his own house from this vantage point. This was where the fucktard always stood, watering these giant saguaros. He had to pinch the bridge of his nose, wishing he could blot out reality. “No. Riker took her. I was just extracting intel from that U.S. Army engineer who arranged her fucking abduction. That’s why I haven’t told anyone yet. He admits Riker took her, but I believe that he doesn’t know where. What did Riker say to you?”
“He wants money, son. I think he was going to trade her to the Bamboo Boys, but they’re functionally extinct for the time being. Now he’s saying in addition to money, he wants us to get the Presencións off his back. He wants them to stop harassing him for what he did to their driver and stealing that truck of cheese heroin. I think he wants safe passage to flee.”
“How much money?”
Slushy snorted. “Well, I’m sure he’d prefer ten million, but I managed to talk reasonably with him. At least, as reasonable as Riker can be. We agreed to a sum. I doubt Abel Presención could care less whether Riker kills Gudrun or not, but I’m sure I can appeal to him, to his status as a father and a husband, to get him to agree to back off.”
“Wait. You’re going to pay the ransom?”
“Sure. I mean, preferably we shoot the mother fucker with ten Uzis and riddle him like Swiss cheese, but I’ve got to at least get the cash together so we have something to work with.”
“Let me help. I’ve got money from my music days.”
“Look, son, let’s not quibble. I’ve got cash from my money laundering days. Let’s just say, they don’t call me Slushy ‘the cook’ for nothing. Now we’ve just got to get him to tell us where the drop will be.”
“Knoxie and Tuzigoot are still up in Jerome. Let’s get up there pronto, Slushy. You get that cash—I’ll reimburse you my share later—and in the meantime I’ll alert Tobiah. Obviously you got Riker’s current burner number when he just called you.”
“Right. You’re the first and only one I’ve told, son. But obviously we need to tell Ford, at least. And I’ll have to explain to Duji why I’m not taking that rock climbing class with him today.”
They had to get a move on. When he called Tobiah and let him know what was going on, Tobiah told him he’d definitely tracked Riker to the cell tower closest to Jerome, but that was as close as he could get. Roman barely had time to go back into the kitchen and literally kick Reg Eastwood in the ribs, just in case he hadn’t spilled everything he knew.
“Gah…” gurgled Eastwood, lying on his black and white tiled kitchen floor. “He wanted to trade her to the Chinese…to turn her into a white slave hooker…a maid, serving her master…”
Roman kicked Eastwood again just for repeating such fucking crap.
Wolf Glaser shook his head with pity. “That’s all he keeps saying, over and over. I think we broke him.”
Roman’s mouth was a contemptuous thin line. He had no one else at hand to take his anger out on. “He’s a worthless dirtbag. I’d better call Ford.”
Once he’d explained everything to Ford, the Prez clarified things for him. “When I first met Slushy in the Sonoran desert, I didn’t trust him, of course. I didn’t know him from Adam. He’d just done six months on a RICO charge where he allegedly didn’t rat, but I didn’t know him. So I took every last paltry thing he had on his person, which turned out to be a photo of his daughter, and a safe deposit box key.”
“That was it?”
“That was it. The Ochoas dumped him off without a single dollar in his pocket. He thought he was going to manage a Cinnabon in Léon, Mexico. He had one of those thin nylon cheap-ass wallets and I took it from his pocket. I always wondered about the daughter and the safe deposit key. Well, it didn’t take long to figure out the daughter part, although he didn’t really like talking about her. But now I know what the key was for, because Slushy called me just now. He’s going to use five hundred large of his safe deposit money to get Gudrun back. The Ochoas could never find that money. That’s how good of a money manager he is.”
Now, as Roman tossed a few necessaries into a duffel bag and prepared to ride to Jerome, he had to be impressed with his stepfather. He wasn’t taking any chances on any commando raids when it came to his daughter. So far, their plan was the usual idiotic TV plan—that they’d stake out the drop spot and follow whoever picked up the money. This was better than no plan at all, and it was all Roman had to cling to now. There had been lots of jobs lately, each one requiring a higher skill set from Roman, who was basically just learning as he went along, just faking it from one job to the next.
The last thing he tossed into the bag was the patch Madison had had made up. It read PROPERTY OF. If there was ever a time to give the patch to Gudrun, it would be when he freed her from that perverted scumbag. And I’m going to free her. She’s never going to feel threatened by anyone ever again. She’ll be free at last.
GUDRUN
I woke up on that same damned couch as sore as if I hadn’t changed position in days. I was so groggy I felt like I was in another reincarnation entirely, as though a guy in a top hat was about to start playing the piano. The Victorian feel of the room didn’t help matters, and it seriously took me several minutes to orient myself. I sat up slowly, the head rush threatening to blow my head off. When I realized where I was—when the circumstances of my abduction sank in again—I started crying. Snot quickly clogged my nose, and when I lifted my hand to wipe, I noticed was that my hands were no longer bound behind me. That was one giant aching load off my back. They were bound in front of me now, giving me a lot more leeway, more ability to do things.
Like go to the bathroom. I actually had to shake my head to clear it of the fog so I had enough clarity to get to my feet. I staggered like someone under general anesthesia trying to make a break from the operating room. As I moved, my groggy brain tried to take in various strange sights. On the other side of the front room across from my couch was what looked like an oversized crib—a crib for adults. I took this all in stride because stranger and odder things had been happening the past several weeks. Why the hell not a giant crib?
The bathroom was so predictably filthy I don’t even dare describe it. Let’s just say I checked the window with its rotting sash, the paint long peeled away during some decade when things were nicer, cleaner, happier. The window also hadn’t been opened in decades. No way. I looked briefly through the medicine cabinet for anything I could possibly use as a weapon—didn’t they used to keep straight razors in the olden days?—but of course anything resembling a drug had long been ingested, and almost the only item was a shaving brush. Or that’s what I thought it was.
Stumbling back into the hallway, I saw that Riker was now sitting on my couch. He leaned forward over the filth-littered coffee table snorting something off a mirror.
I think the second I realized he was using a silver—or metal—straw to snort with, the wheels in my brain started turning. Who knows how the brain works, really? Sometimes I come up with the most brilliant things without forethought or planning. Sometimes instinct and reflexes drive the most perfectly-executed plans.
And sometimes my reflexes are sluggish, zoned, retarded, as though I’d just woken from a week-long drugged sleep.
I think it was a combination of both of those things as I brought my bound, clenched hands down on the crown of Riker’s flea-riddled head. Bam! It sounded like I’d hit a baseball with a wooden bat! He was jammed face-first onto the surface of the coffee table, his drugs a cloud of ashes around his head, like a pissed-off cartoon comment.
My heart stood still. He’s going to fucking kill me now. I didn’t even try to run.
He raised his torso in slow motion. He cranked his head around like a man possessed by a demon, and his eyes were just as demonic. The silver straw was jammed so deeply into his sinus cavity only a tiny glint of it showed, like shiny snot. His upper lip was lifted to reveal twisted, gnarled teeth. Maybe he’s going to bite me in the neck.
Then some idiot yelled down in the street.
I think Riker’s heart stopped then, too. The doofis was yelling up at the front window covered with a blanket. It took several long seconds for what he was saying to sink into my brain.
“Alcatraz!” Yes, that’s what he was shouting. “It’s done! Do you want me to come up?”
Riker raced to the window and threw aside the filthy blanket. The silver straw gleamed in the sunlight, and a trail of blood ran down over his disgusting lip. “Dumbass! Do you want the whole fucking neighborhood to hear you? Come to the back fucking door!”
I was so close behind him when he tripped over that weird wooden crib. Was that for a dog? The mattress was plastic, decorated with baby things like balloons and cats, all in pastel colors. Riker fell, all tangled up in the drop gate, his limbs flailing, a total wreck of a man. Leaping over him with agility I didn’t know I had, I kept going toward the back door.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ROMAN
They had every corner of the drop area covered.
The instructions were to leave the money under a tree in one of those blue dog poo bags. Nobody would want to touch that, unlike the other options they’d discussed, like a laptop, a cardboard six-pack of beer, or a milk carton. Slushy was given the honor of placing the money under the tree. It was his money, after all. Roman watched from the window of an antique store, while Slushy went inside a mineral shop and watched from the opposite window.
Tuzigoot and Knoxie were already too well-known in Jerome so they couldn’t be used for this surveillance. Wolf Glaser lurked on another dusty street corner, smoking a cigarette even though he didn’t smoke. He thought it would make him look more like a local if he fired one up. Roman snorted angrily at the way Wolf exhaled smoke through his nostrils and coughed. It was so obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that Wolf was part of a sting operation. Of course they weren’t wearing their cuts, but it made Wolf look even stupider wearing a sleeveless jean jacket he’d pulled out of some closet. His skin was white and pale. He thought he was going “undercover,” but he may as well have been wearing aviator sunglasses for all the fucking good it did.
Ro
man realized his anger was misplaced. He was just focusing his anger on Wolf because he seriously needed to take out Riker. He was stuck with a cartel attorney and a moronic Prospect, and he was basing this entire operation on them. Roman wasn’t even sure if Slushy knew how to shoot a piece, although they’d given him a little .22 caliber revolver just to enhance his confidence. Roman had to admit, Slushy knew how to step up to the plate when life called for it. This was his daughter he was fighting for. As much as Slushy liked to pretend that he lived under the radar going to farmer’s markets and installing hardwood floors in his house, this time he really went to bat for his family.
Roman’s phone buzzed. Jesus Criminy. Wolf Glaser. What a peckerhead. Roman could see the turkey on his street corner, throwing down his lit cigarette and taking into his phone behind his hand. Way to go undercover.
“There’s a guy heading here who looks like the perfect suspect.”
Roman could barely contain his rage. “What makes you say that?”
“He’s a dweeb. He’s got a blond mullet and he’s wearing a jean jacket.”
Aside from the blond mullet, Wolf Glaser had just described himself. “Okay. Wait a few seconds after he picks it up, then you follow first. Slushy will go next, and I’ll go last.” They had agreed that Slushy looked the least suspicious, even though for this occasion he’d decided to wear a loud Hawaiian shirt.
“Ten four. He’s bending down and picking up the dog poo.”
Roman punched the END button on his phone before Wolf was done talking. He could see the mullet-headed guy picking up the money. Riker sure knew how to choose them. He must have paid the guy a hundred dollars to make the pickup, from the looks of his hairdo and his pirate’s earring. It would be easy to follow him, with his idea of “business in the front, party in the back.” Roman slipped out of the store.