The Jook

by Gary Phillips

  "It's on," I said.

  Like one, we slipped on our ski masks. We already had on our gloves. "Don't forget your goggles," I told him.

  I started counting down from ninety as we'd planned. I signaled Danny to put the car in gear on 25 and he did. Once in drive, wouldn't you know it but the engine smoothed out and the Cordoba ran like a top. We came down and around the hill as the Shindar garbage truck passed by on the main road. The thing was chugging uphill like we knew it would. Nap was coming from the other direction at the top of the rise. The roadway was narrow as hell on these twists and turns.

  "Easy, easy," I said. Danny was excited and giving the pedal too much.

  "I'm on it." The Cordoba didn't back off enough from the rear of the garbage truck.

  Nap got closer, then he brought the bobtail sideways across the double yellow lines. The garbage truck slammed into the side of the thing. We came up lurching behind, too close, but I was already moving.

  "Back this short up," I screamed, tumbling out of the ride. The garbage truck was moving backward, but I had forward motion. I blew out the truck's passenger window with some buckshot and tossed a flash grenade.

  "Shit," I yelled as the grenade bounced off the metal frame of the window. The grenade went off in midair, but I had on my goggles, which protected my eyes. I jumped on the truck's running board as it crunched into the grill of the Cordoba.

  "Back it the fuck up," I hollered again to Danny. The driver of the truck was squinting, so I figured the grenade probably reflected off the windshield. The dude on the passenger side where I was hanging on must have closed his eyes when he saw me throw the grenade, or maybe he'd just been scared shitless and couldn't stand to see it coming.

  Whatever, he blasted off a round at me, the bullet going right past my cheek as I batted his arm away.

  "You're dead, bastard." He capped off another one, but I spoiled his aim by grabbing his arm. The sound made my ears ring and the right one seemed to go out on me. I yanked on the dude hard, lifting him halfway out the window. I was hanging onto his clothes to keep myself from falling to the ground.

  The truck was still going backwards. Danny had finally gotten out of the car, having moved it off to one side. The boy was supposed to have done that sooner so he could shoot out the truck's tires. That's why I'd had him get Teflon loads for his piece. But I had other worries at the moment.

  The gun was coming up at me and I bit down on the fool's arm like it was Christmas turkey.

  "Fuck." I hadn't noticed before, but he had an accent like Stadanko. Figured.

  I headbutted the chump, but he had a hard skull and didn't seem to feel it much. He hit me solid with his other hand, stunning me. The truck jerked sideways, skidding. Where the fuck was Nap?

  The driver's vision was clearing and he was pulling out a piece too while he slammed on the brakes. Me and the other cat were still wrasslin'. There were some pops, then the truck fishtailed and went backwards real fast into the side of the mountain. I grabbed the strap holding the shotgun slung over my back and quickly brought the piece up over my head with one hand. It looked like Danny had finally done what we had practiced and blown out the truck's tires, but of course he'd done it too late. I got knocked loose, my back scraping against the mountainside as I flew off.

  Operating on pure instinct, like I had so many times before, I let loose with the shotgun in midair before I hit the ground. I caught homeboy in the passenger seat as he was clipping off a couple rounds at me with his piece. The blast took his arm off from the elbow to his gun hand. He was screaming something fiendish as I tried to stand up and run to get around the truck on the front end. But I went right down again on one knee, my hip on fire.

  The dude whose arm I'd just blown away was climbing out of the truck, blood spurting from his stump like he was a zombie in a Wes Craven movie. He was trying to pull another gun from inside his jacket, but what with it being on the same side as his good hand, he was having serious trouble. I couldn't get up, my hip was locked. I put the shotgun on him as he lurched forward and cursed at me in that goddamn language of theirs.

  Fuck me if a bullet from somewhere else didn't drill itself into my chest. If not for the Kevlar body armor I was wearing underneath my overalls, I woulda been toast. On that show I'd done for a hot minute, the dude that did the explosions and firearms always had this kinda shit around. I'd got the vest from him together with the flash grenades. Now I was damn glad he'd mentioned that if I was gonna do something heavy, I'd better be protected.

  As it was, the impact drove me back, knocking the wind out of me. The driver had me cold with his rod, then his head disappeared in a cloud of red. He dropped away and I could see Nap running forward, the Glock in his hand. But the one-and-a-half-armed motherfuckahwhat did this boy eat for breakfast?leaped on me, beating at me with his good hand. He lodged his stump under my neck and damned if he didn't clamp his mouth around my Adam's apple.

  ''Shit," I screamed, falling on my back. I hit this vampire as hard as I could in the side of his head with the shotgun's butt. His eyes got real wide, then rolled up in his head. Nap and Danny got him off me and helped me to my feet. We all listened for what seemed like forever, but could hear no cop cars or anything else on the lonely stretch of the mountainside.

  "We're paid, man," Danny said in a quiet voice.

  We all still had on our goggles, making us look like Outer Limits rejects. Me and Nap glanced at each other, and I knew he was grinning underneath his mask like I was. The three of us made our way to the rear of the truck. Nap carried the gas masks we'd need to use to dive into the garbage.

  "Let's get the back open and then see what's what," Nap said. Using the straps of the gas masks, he put them on one of his big arms. Then he started undoing the latch so we could open one side of the large rear double doors.

  "Man, that's rank," Danny cried. The smell was enough to knock you to your knees.

  "For once we agree," I said, putting a hand over my nose and mouth.

  "You girls can snivel if you want," Nap joked, "but I smell fortune."

  Suddenly the other door got shoved open from the inside. Gunfire sputtered and Nap tumbled back into the road. The gas masks flew off his arm as he was shot.

  "More marks," Danny yelled, gesturing at the three gunmen who'd been laying in wait for us inside the truck's garbage container. They were dressed in rubber suits with built-in gas masks to hide inside the garbage. Stadanko, or more likely his clever-ass cousin Chekka, had planned for an emergency.

  I tossed two more flash grenades and went low as one of the stiffs let loose with his chatter gun. The whiteness spurted up around us like thick fog rolling in on the beach.

  "What in hell," one of them yelled.

  The shotgun's buckshot caught this cat in his stomach. Parts of his suit and body splattered everywhere as he slammed back into the truck.

  I went over the edge of the roadway, using my arm to vault the low rail. The brightness of the grenades was fading. Bullets tore into the rail and the air around me as I dropped down on the side of the rise onto something sticking out from the hill. Danny had pulled Nap behind the Cordoba. One of the shooters was burying bullets in the car from where he crouched beside the truck.

  I stuffed more shells into the Remington from the extras I had tucked away beneath my flak jacket and pumped off a couple at him. Where was number three? I went back down before the shooter turned my way and buzzed off some rounds toward me. He couldn't get us, but we couldn't get him either.

  "Hey, how is he?" I yelled at Danny

  "He's breathing." More gunfire popped off.

  I was crouched on a large sewer pipe buried in the hillside. There was a grate over the front of the thing. My hip had eased some, and I crawled up the hill on my elbows. The truck was sitting near the top of the roadway. It was starting to get dark. I looked around. Across from where I was on the other side of the valley I saw some kind of power plant. There were large tubes running from the plant into the hi
llside. I looked back toward the road again.

  I had a bad feeling the third gun was trying to sneak up on us, but I couldn't see how. There was no way to get to where I was except by coming over the rail. Maybe he was climbing on top of the truck to give himself a better shot. That way he could draw down on Danny too.

  "Hey," I hollered again, but stopped. I could hear the truck going into gear and looked through the gap between the railing and the road to see it being turned straight again. The gunman who'd been shooting at us dived into the back, which was still open. The truck smashed into the Cordoba, crunching in the front part. Then the driver shoved the clutch into first and got it churning uphill again. The fool was going to try to get past the bobtail on one side. I went over the rail, holding onto the shotgun.

  The driver went to the left of the bobtail where there was some space. He slowed down, then revved up, hitting the bobtail smack on the corner. He was gonna do it like a bank shot on an eight ball. The bobtail's rear end swung toward the mountain, then stopped. The damn thing was too heavy to ram like that. Me and Nap had put sandbags in the cargo part to give it extra weight. I let loose with a round from the shotgun, only hitting the side of the truck.

  The driver souped the truck again and shot forward. This time he clipped the bobtail just right with a lot of force. The gunman in the back lost his balance, though, and dropped out on the roadway, landing on his side. As he got to his feet, Danny caught him square in the lower leg and he went down again.

  The bobtail had been knocked straight enough to allow the garbage truck almost enough room to pass. Now the truck was chugging steadily upward, scraping the side of the bobtail as it tried to get past. Goddammit, stupid-ass Danny must not have shot out any of the tires. The garbage truck turned to the left again, tearing up railing like it was tin foil. Smart motherfuckah.

  The dude in the roadway tried to get up and run for cover but his wound was too bad. He fell back down, holding onto his gun. I stood up and he drew down on me, but Danny clipped him from the side where he was hiding next to the Cordoba. The cat went over like he was a piece of cardboard in a strong wind.

  I took another shot at the truck. But a return blast came from the driver and I went flat in the road, rolling to my right. Good thing he was busy trying to get the garbage truck away He went back at it, the truck half climbing over the rail as it ground the thin metal under its weight. The tires smoked and the gears made loud whining sounds.

  The bobtail shook and rattled as the garbage truck bumped against it. I took off the flak jacket, dropped the shotgun, and started booking. They were weighing me down, and I was gonna need all the speed I could stoke. As I started to run up the hill, the driver steered the truck out toward the edge of the roadway Then right when it looked like it would go over the edge, he swung it back and cleared the bobtail.

  My hip was absolute Jell-O, a hot shiver going up and down my leg. But I had no choice, I had to catch that truck. There was way too much to lose. Much more than I already had lost. The fibula and all that shit in my hip started to grind, but I couldn't take the time to care. Five, maybe six million dollars was gonna disappear around the top of the rise, and that damn sure couldn't happen. My future was in that garbage truck.

  The thing was making its way up the hill, garbage spilling out the back. The truck would soon be at the top. I didn't know if Wilma was coming up from below. She must have heard the gunplay, but that was expected. We'd decided not to use cell phones ourselves just in case there was any monitoring going on by the DOJ or whoever. Maintaining radio silence that's what they called it on old episodes of Combat. I sure could use Sergeant Saunders' cool machine gun right about now to drop out of the sky and into my hands.

  The truck's clutch wound up and I knew he'd slipped past second and popped it into third, hoping for more speed. A shot ripped out from the driver's side, striking the ground near me. He had to be using one hand to fire his semi-auto, keeping the other one on the truck's wheel. Good thing too since it had thrown his shooting off.

  The truck was gaining speed and I wasn't. Come on, Zelmont, this is it and there ain't no more. No more chicks throwing their twat in my face, no more fine vines and bad rides, no more house in the hills. Yeah, no more house in the hills. I put to it, knowing my hip was gonna explode any second. The truck stayed in low gear 'cause he needed the torque to get the elephant of a machine up the hill.

  Let's do it, Zelmont. No time left in the quarter and only one chance. I had the endurance but the hip was weak. No matter, I had to catch this fool. The truck was almost at the top and that would be my last chance. He'd have to slow up 'cause there was a turn and it was too sharp to make it like he was going.

  Do it, Zelmont, do it.

  I pumped and just as I was closing the gap I got wise. Rather than run up alongside where the driver was and get ganked, I'd go to his blind side and try that action. Keep going, Zelmont, keep going. I got to the truck just as he was doing the turn. Sure enough, he let loose with gunfire, knowing I was closing in on his trifling self. But I was already latching onto the unlocked rear door. The truck bolted forward, whipping around the curve and down the hill. Below us the lights were on and the city looked so peaceful, like there would be tomorrows forever.

  I hung onto the door for life as it kept flapping, praying for my hip to keep functioning. If I slowed down I knew it would lock up again. I got going, climbing up the door along its edge. Twice I almost slipped down under the wheels of the rig, but somehow I got to the top of the truck. I went flat to rest and plan my next move. Below me I felt a lump, and I knew what to do.

  The truck was whipping down the hill, the wind finally popping the ear that had stuffed up. The driver shot rounds into the top of the cab's roof, trying to nail me. But I'd laid back, waiting for him to do that. As we sped along I went forward again. I pulled the tab on the last flash grenade, then leaned over the passenger side of the cab and threw it through the busted-out window. It went off, blinding the driver. The truck swerved, the brakes screeching like crazy. Any second we were gonna tip over and I'd be thrown off the truck and the mountain. I held onto the frame of the passenger window, the little pieces of glass still left cutting into my hand. The truck's rear froze and the damned thing went sideways, tearing up the railing. The thing tipped over like I knew it would, the driver's side falling down on the roadway I held onto a metal ridge, my hands going numb. I couldn't lose, I just couldn't.

  Part of the truck now hung over the side of the hill. The engine was still running. I pried my bloody hands off the ridge, my triceps tight like I'd just done a hundred reps. I waited, listening, but couldn't tell if the dude inside was moving around or not. I didn't have a gun or any more grenades. I looked back down the road but couldn't see Danny.

  All right, do something. I leaped off the truck, landing where the underside was facing out. Suddenly gunfire tore from somewhere and I could hear the windshield explode into a million pieces. I dove flat, covering my head, almost peeing in my pants.

  "Come on, hero," he teased me, "are you man enough or not?" He shot the assault weapon again, but he wasn't moving around. He was popping from inside the truck. I smiled. He must still be blinded from the grenade. I got up, my right leg almost unable to bend. But I couldn't worry about that right now. Whatever I'd done to it, I could use some of my millions to get it fixed.

  I latched onto the axle to hoist myself up. My shoulder brushed against the oil pan, and it burned like hell. "Shit," I screamed.

  The blind boy in the truck laughed. ''Hurt yourself, honey?" Motherfuckah.

  I eased around to the front. Then the damn truck moved and my heart shot into my throat. The fucking thing was rocking on the edge. But there were no other plays I could run. The shooter's vision would be clearing up any second and I had to be in motion before that. I peeked around the corner of the front of the truck to look through the windshield. The chump was lodged in there, the steering wheel pressed up on him. He was holding the gun, swinging it
this way and that.

  "Hey," Danny called from below, at least having enough sense not to use my name. "She's monitored the police calls. Somebody called the sheriff, man."

  The gun went off again. He was shooting around, hoping to hit me. Obviously he still wasn't seeing good. I moved as fast as I could. The dude was blinking, trying to hear which way I was coming. His gun swung up, left, right, then dead on me. His eyes were looking better. Blood was running from his nose. My hip was oatmeal. I sprinted at him, crying silently in pain, and all but fell into the truck through the busted-out windshield. I grabbed the barrel of the gun, then landed an elbow on his face.

  "Black bastard," he yelled, beating at me with his fist and trying to pull my mask off.

  I guess my weight did it 'cause the truck went over the roadway, sliding down the hill. I held on, my arms pulled so tight I was afraid I'd dislocate my shoulders. It was only a few seconds but it seemed a lot longer. The truck stopped, wedged against some rocks and shit poking out of the hill. How long it would stay there I had no idea.

  The breath was knocked out of me. I was laying all up in the cab, my arms barely able to move. But I had to keep pushing myself, I had to win. There would be no rematch after today.

  The shooter was wailing in pain. The steering wheel and dash had collapsed on him. Using my feet I couldn't make a fist and my arms couldn't swing I knocked the shit out of the fool with whatever I had left. Suddenly dust clouds came up around us. The truck was starting to slide again.

  "Zelmont," Wilma said from up on the road.

  I was so goddamn worn out I was gonna collapse.

  "Zelmont," she screamed.

  "Get your ass down here and help me. This rig is about to slide down the mountain with our money." The fool pinned under the wheel groaned and I slapped him upside the head. I'd already thrown his piece out the window.

  "Nap's hurt," she said. "Danny is bringing him over."

  I stuck my head out the window as the truck wobbled some more. "Wilma, didn't you hear me? You gotta get down this hill now."