Quick Sands: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 1)

by Edward J. McFadden III

  “Are you hungry? You’ve been slinking around in the dark all night,” Piranha said. He was being polite enough, but Anna wasn’t a fool. The second she resisted his mood would shift like the wind.

  Thing was, she was hungry. Starving. Maybe eating would buy her time. Time for what she didn’t know. The feds wouldn’t be coming anytime soon, and Ramage was… She couldn’t think of it. She hadn’t heard gunshots and didn’t know if she would. Plus, she’d seen Ramage do some amazing things. He might escape, and there was always Gypsy and Cecil. She’d wait it out and eat. They wouldn’t poison her. “I am hungry, actually. What do you have?”

  “The shift foreman usually brings in donuts and bagels and there’s coffee and water in the break room,” he said.

  “Coffee and a bagel with a bit of butter would be great,” she said.

  They reached a closed door. Piranha opened it and held out an arm to usher her in.

  Anna stepped inside.

  “Be right back,” he said. He closed the door and Anna heard him say, “Donny. Keep an eye on this door. She comes out help her back in. Savvy?” No response.

  The room was dark, and Anna flicked a switch by the door and two fluorescent lights buzzed to life. On the far wall a desk stacked with papers sat before a huge aerial photo of the compound. There was a small conference table to her right, which had four chairs around it. Bookshelves and an antique dictionary on a fancy wood stand were to her left. She sat in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk.

  There were in descript pictures on the walls—no photos of family, vacations, or hunting and golfing trips with friends. A large brass ashtray overflowing with ashes sat atop of mound of papers, and the garbage pail was full of candy wrappers and fast food cartons. Nothing about the office said personal space.

  The door opened, and Carl Jr. slipped through and closed it behind him. “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re family. That’s what makes this all so disturbing.” He handed her a paper plate with an everything bagel on it and a paper cup filled with coffee. “Eat up.”

  Anna received the food and nodded her thanks. The family comment had thrown her.

  He slinked behind the desk and dropped into his high-backed leather chair. “This is Dad’s office. He’s a pig, don’t you think?”

  She nodded as she ate.

  “So, what are we going to do here, Anna?”

  She said nothing.

  “Because, I’m wondering what your father would say if he knew you broke in here with a guy he doesn’t know.”

  Anna said, “He knows him.” She sounded defensive and stupid and she knew it.

  “Your family has been here since the beginning, Anna. Why would you side with an outsider?”

  “Because you stole from me. That’s why.” When it came to her land, she found her moxie. The ranch was all she had, was all she’d ever have, and she’d be damned if she’d let some rich asshole destroy it to make another buck.

  Piranha threw-up his hands. “Anna, what’re you talking about?”

  She sighed. “What’s your plan, here? I know you steal sand from me, so why play games? My father and several others know Ramage and I are here, plus the feds and cops. I disappear, and you’ll go down.”

  “Disappear? What kind of man do you think I am?”

  “One whose father just took my friend out back to kill him.”

  “Friend? You’re telling me he’s more important than Prairie Home? Than your father’s ranch, the living you have here?”

  Pain shot up Anna’s back. Veiled threats. Always veiled. “You beat him and took his truck, which is parked below. What’d you expect him to do? Walk away?”

  “Yeah,” Carl Jr. said. “Because that’s what I told him to do.”

  Anna sighed.

  “Am I boring you?” said Piranha.

  “A little.” Anna put her hand to her mouth.

  “Where’s Sheriff Kingston?” Carl Jr. asked.

  Anna hiked her shoulders. “How the hell should I know? You check Dudley’s.”

  Piranha said nothing. The faint crack of gunshots brought a smile to the fat man’s face. “Guess that’s that,” he said. He stared at Anna, his gray eyes burning a hole through her.

  Anna fought to hold back her tears. Ramage was gone. Just like that. As fast as he’d come into her life, he’d been removed, like she had no business being happy. She hardly knew the guy, but the sense of loss was so great she felt like curling up on the office floor.

  Piranha said, “Sorry about your boy. I’ll be gentle.” He got up, walked around the desk, and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Piss on you,” Anna said.

  “Whoa, you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Carl Jr. said. He knew damn well Anna’s mother had passed many moons ago. He leered. “I’m not into that kind of thing, but I’ll try anything once, sweetie.”

  Anna heard the pop of a plastic lid releasing from a bottle. Piranha had taken a bottle of Ride from his pocket. He held out his hand to her, palm up, a tiny red pill resting between his line of life and plain of Mars.

  Anna laughed. “Dream on.”

  Piranha casually backhanded her across the face. “Sorry,” he said. “I want you pretty, not all bruised up.” He put his hand over Anna’s mouth and forced the pill down her throat, holding her jaw closed until she swallowed.

  The metallic taste of blood filled Anna’s mouth, but she felt no pain. She struggled to get up, but Piranha held her in place. He smiled, and the clock on the wall ticked louder. She relaxed, her tension and fear ebbing away. She tossed her head side-to-side and cracked her neck. Her mind clouded, the edges of her vision blurred, and her contented high shifted to a deep, unbridled paranoia. Piranha was a snake she wanted to step on.

  “How you feeling?” he said. Piranha put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him, smiling. Everything was good. No worries. She felt herself drifting, thoughts of the past filling her mind like a movie of her life.

  Carl Jr. sat in the chair next to Anna and put a hand on her knee. “You done eating?”

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  “Good.” He looked at his watch. “Time for us to go.”

  “Where?” Anna said.

  “A special place, just for you,” said Piranha.

  Anna smiled, because at that moment she didn’t have a care in the world.

  The door opened, and Anna looked over her shoulder. A man she didn’t recognize entered. “Boss, I think we got a problem,” the guy said.

  Carl Jr. glanced at his Rolex. “Dad should be back by now.” Worry lines creased the thug’s face.

  The newcomer nodded agreement.

  Anna smiled. Ramage.

  “Let’s go find him,” Piranha said.

  Anna’s head spun, and she wanted to laugh. To tell Piranha what an ass he was, but the drug dulled her mind and made her want to go to sleep. Carl Jr. led her from the office, her heart pounding in her chest.

  Sand scoured Anna’s face, and she squinted as she fought through the rising wind that pushed the sand around like snowflakes. Piranha walked at her side, gun in hand, two of his men trailing after them.

  A shrill cry rose above the wind, seconds flew by, then an engine sparked to life. The party came over a rise and found Jabba’s body, his brain still oozing from his split skull.

  Piranha transformed from a bumbling dog into a sleek cat. He got low, panning his gun in a wide arc as he searched the plain, but there was nothing but sagebrush and scrub pine.

  Piranha followed two sets of footprints and the arroyo opened before them. He paused and peered down the slope. Both sets of footprints were confused and smudged, as if the people who made them had been running and had fallen. “Dad! Dad!” No answer. Nothing but the whisper of the wind and the screaming of each grain of sand.

  Piranha started down the slope into the arroyo with Anna and his men in tow, foll
owing the footprints. The marks in the sand showed there’d been a scuffle. Piranha brought up his Heckler & Koch P30L and panned it around. Nothing but sand and more sand.

  The walls of the arroyo grew steep and the wind sang through the cut in the land. “Shit!” Piranha screamed at the sight of Chiclet’s face watching him from within his tomb of sand. “Thought I did a better job of burying you than that. We’ve got to fix that.”

  Something glinted to their right and Carl Jr. swung his gun around, slipping in sand and almost falling. There was something shiny on the ground and he went to it. It was Carl Sr.’s Walther PPK. He slipped it in a pocket.

  Anna smiled. Now Piranha looked worried.

  She heard the farting of a vehicle’s engine as it revved, and Piranha picked up his pace. Ahead the steep wall of the arroyo had collapsed, and a mountain of sand created a gentle slope that spanned from the ground to the top of the cut. The air reeked of sulfur and gun smoke.

  Something sparkled in the sunlight. Piranha moved closer, and saw a hand sticking from the sand pile, its middle finger curled up. Anna knew immediately whose hand it was by the silver pinky-ring with the small diamond.

  Piranha screamed and lashed out with his gun, catching Anna on the cheek, and sending her sprawling to the ground.

  “I will kill him. Rip his heart out and eat it for dinner.” Piranha bent and put his gun to her head, his hand shaking. “Where would he go?”

  Anna said nothing as a dripple of pee wet her panties.

  “Answer me!” Piranha went to hit her again, thought better of it, and instead punched one of his men.

  “I will find him. For my father.” Piranha was breathing heavy like he was having a heart attack. “I’m gonna take my time, take him apart piece by piece.” He grabbed her chin. “And you’re gonna watch.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ramage leaned against the diner’s rear wall as he stared out across the open plain. Scrub pine and mesquite dotted the terrain, and the air reeked of garbage. A dumpster sat to the right of the back door, and two cars, an old Nissan and a Chevy Malibu were parked next to the dumpster. Ramage held Gypsy’s cellphone to his ear. It rang and rang, and Ramage worried Rex wouldn’t pickup because he didn’t recognize the incoming number. So he hung up and dialed again. The flat beep echoed in his head, the failed break in and Anna’s abduction like a nail in his forehead.

  The beeping stopped. “Rex.”

  “Ramage, here,” he said.

  Nothing but the tapping of keys, then, “Right on time. What was Joan’s birthday?”

  “January 12th, 1974.”

  “Whose phone are you on?”

  “Gypsy Tollever’s.”

  “You’re new friend?”

  “Yes… but no. About that. I…”

  “Now I am worried. You, tongue-tied?”

  “She’s just a friend. My phone is… out of commission at the moment.”

  “Do tell.”

  So he did. Ramage told Rex all of it, filling in the pieces he’d left out prior and bringing Rex current with the last forty-eight hours events.

  “I told you. God damn it. Now we’ve got a civvie in danger. What did I tell you? What? Shit, now we’ve got a real problem.”

  The Sandman’s death had closed the circle for Ramage. He’d settled his score, and then some, and now it was time to get Big Blue and leave, but every time that thought wormed its way into his head Anna’s face filled his mind.

  “This is on me now. I never should have let you dig into this. Never.”

  Ramage said nothing. In his experience, it was best to let Rex blow off steam. Any attempt to interject would be met with severe admonishment.

  “OK. Sit tight. I’ll get on the horn to Dallas and I’ll be there in… Three hours. Three-and-a-half tops.”

  “I’m not sitting anywhere. This is my—”

  “You will wait, or you will go to jail. Savvy? Remember you’re being extended a courtesy. Don’t test me, Ramage.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s my fault she’s in there. I have to try and help her.”

  “First, it’s not your fault. The guy was stealing her sand. Doing all kinds of crazy shit.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I—”

  “You what? Huh, Ramage? You’re gonna go in there like Rambo? Get yourself and this woman killed because you can’t sit one out? Why you doing this? I thought we were making progress dealing with your past.”

  “You my shrink now? And I’m not going in like Rambo. I don’t think an assault and rescue is practical.”

  “What then?”

  “I’m going to surrender. See if they’ll swap Anna for me.”

  “How the hell do you plan to do that? You don’t even know where they’re holding her.”

  Ramage walked past the dumpster and peaked around the corner of the diner. His white Ford Taurus rental was parked out by the street where it couldn’t be missed. “I figure I’ll hear from them soon.”

  “There’s no way they’re going to give her up.”

  “Maybe not, but at least I can be on the inside when you get there.”

  “That’s nuts. Truly. Why won’t they kill you and her the second you surrender? Piranha sounds crazy, and probably blames you for the death of his father.”

  “I’m counting on that. You see, guys like Piranha like to talk. Show you how and why you’ve been defeated. Kind of like a master teaching a student. You will know who beat you and how ego bullshit. He’ll want to talk to me first. Bank on it.”

  “So? Then what?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “That all you got?”

  “How about, and then the cavalry arrives.”

  “Ramage. Do you hear yourself? After everything you’ve been through. This is a suicide mission. I order you to stand down.”

  “Sorry, Rex, you know I can’t do that. Life for truth and all that.”

  Rex sighed. “It’s my job to protect you. Keep you on the straight and narrow. You and everyone in your sphere is my responsibility.”

  “You’ll take a bullet for me?” Ramage said. A tumbleweed rolled by, bounced off the dumpster, rolled over the Nissan’s roof, and headed out across the plain, picking up speed in the breeze.

  “I didn’t say that, but it’s my job to protect you, and you running off to certain death won’t look good for me. I vouched for you. Said you could handle being on the outside free. Be a productive citizen and all that shit.”

  “You ever lose an asset before?”

  Rex said nothing.

  “You there?”

  “Is there anything I can do or say to stop you from doing this?”

  “No.”

  Rex sighed hard and loud, putting on a show. “Ok, then. I am officially ordering you to stand down. If you do not you will be in direct violation of your probationary agreement with the federal government of the United States of America and you will be arrested and charged for insubordination, desertion, and failure to comply with agreed upon restrictions. All privileges are revoked effective immediately. You have the right—”

  “Rex?”

  Rex stopped reciting his legal and said, “What?”

  “You’ve got a picture of me, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “As soon as I know where they’re holding Anna, I’ll let you know. Try not to shoot me when you get here,” Ramage said, and killed the connection.

  He slipped Gypsy’s phone in a back pocket and ran fingers through his hair. Sand pushed over the plain, tiny knives biting into his face. Ramage reminded himself that he’d never be going to the beach again. He cracked his neck and pulled open the diner’s rear door. The kitchen smelled of bacon and coffee, and Vic labored behind his grill as Ramage went by. “Morning.”

  Vic nodded but didn’t look up from his work. He was a close friend of Gypsy’s.

  The diner was packed with morning rush. Both sides of the restaurant busy, and Janice and Ginger bustled about filling mugs and delivering foo
d. Ginger didn’t look happy, but when she saw Ramage her face brightened.

  Ramage took a seat in a booth next to Cecil and Gypsy. Cecil’s arm was in a sling made from a dirty towel, but the wound was fine. The bullet had passed through without hitting bone, and the hole was already healing. Gypsy’s hair was a tangled mess, and her clothes were covered in dirt, but her eyes sparkled with anger.

  “What’d your man say?” Gypsy asked.

  “Ordered me to stay put or he’d arrest me.”

  Cecil whistled. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Go in anyway. I’ve got no choice.”

  Gypsy said, “You know they’re not going to let her go.”

  “I know.”

  Gypsy nodded and lifted her coffee to her lips.

  “Did you tell her father?” Cecil asked.

  Ramage let out a long stream of air. “No. I think he might kill me.”

  “Might?”

  Ramage rolled his eyes.

  Gypsy said, “Best to wait until we have something to say or he might run off half-cocked and get himself killed.”

  “Kind-of like what Ramage is gonna do,” Cecil said.

  The three conspirators sat in silence for a time, the murmur of the diner’s patrons filling the silence. Just like Rex, his new friends had a point. What would sacrificing himself achieve? It didn’t matter. This wasn’t a rational decision based on facts and probabilities of success. He’d gotten a woman he… what? Did he love her? Could he? There was only one way to live with himself and find out.

  Cecil snapped his fingers. “You still with us?”

  Ramage nodded but said nothing.

  “How do you plan to fi—” Gypsy stopped talking as she gazed out the front window. Sheriff Kingston’s patrol car bumped up off First Avenue and parked next to Ramage’s Taurus.

  “Here we go. Sit over there,” Ramage said.