"I don't care how big he is, he can't fight off a full clip from an AR-15," Wilson said softly.
"Well, I'd advise you not to miss. That boy look like he could fight the Hulk to a draw," Bundy wheezed.
"I got it," Wilson said.
"You better," Boochie said. "The whole thing only works if the feds find that truck in his barn. We don't need them piecing together any story but the one we leave for them that ends with Carver dead in front of an empty burning armored car. You feel me? I knew that you could."
Wilson nodded.
Carver held the phone against his cheek as he watched waves of heat dance across the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. Beads of sweat began to dance across his forehead.
"Yeah, everything is cool. I mean he knows his shit. Yeah, I got that feeling. I'm gonna talk to them. Okay. Love you too, Unc," he said before ending the call. Carver walked back to the room. Wilson, Bundy, and Boochie glanced at him. Carver wiped the sweat from his head and crossed his arms.
"Any of y'all know of a place round here to get a drink?" he said.
Boochie raised an eyebrow. "We need to run through the plan a few more times," he said.
Wilson snorted. "I could go for a drink. I've been driving for two days to get here," he said.
Bundy laughed. "Man, I wouldn't mind something to wet my goddamn whistle. It's hotter than a whore's ass out there."
"Okay. Majority fucking rules, I guess. I might have a few drinks," Boochie said as he folded up the crude diagram and stood.
Carver nodded.
"I'll get the first round."
By the fifth round, Boochie was shitty, filthy, pie-eyed drunk. Wilson was not far behind him. Bundy was teetering like an Oompa Loompa. Carver sat at the end of the bar with his crew, sipping on a beer. He had been sipping on the same beer all night.
"We...gotta go back to the room," Boochie said. His voice was slurred and he dragged out the word 'room' until it was about to break. Wilson slid off the stool and stood on legs that looked as sturdy as pool noodles. Bundy stood and threw back the last swallow of his rum and coke.
"I'll drive," Bundy said. He burped so hard, Carver wondered if he had cracked his sternum.
"Please motherfucker, you couldn't drive a nail now," Wilson said. His voice was not as slurred as Boochie's, but his eyes looked wilder, more animalistic than they had in the room.
Carver knew it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. If that happened, they would be cleaning blood from under their fingernails. "I'll drive. Give me your keys Bundy," Carver said.
The heavyset man didn't protest. He tossed Carver the keys. The big man caught them deftly in his left hand and grabbed Boochie in his right. The smaller man had begun to fall off his stool.
The four men made their way to the parking lot of Carl's Place. They walked toward Bundy's Ford Explorer. Boochie leaned on Carver like a rag doll with whiskey breath.
Carver eased Boochie in to the back seat. Wilson fell in next to Boochie, and Bundy collapsed into the passenger seat. Carver got into the driver's side and pulled out of the parking lot.
As they headed back to the room, Carver glanced in the rearview mirror. Boochie had passed out. Wilson was barely holding on to consciousness. They pulled into the motel parking lot. Carver hopped out and grabbed Boochie. He half-walked, half-carried Boochie to his motel room. Wilson and Bundy stumbled behind him. Carver lay Boochie down on the bed and turned to see Wilson and Bundy leaning in the door frame.
"Well, he is drunker than a fiddler's bitch," Bundy wheezed.
Wilson snorted. "You ain't far behind him."
Bundy turned and squinted at Wilson. "You sir, can kiss the entire circumference of my ass," Bundy said.
Wilson laughed.
"I got something I wanna run by the two of you. You think you can make it to my room?" Carver said.
Wilson turned his head like a weasel and stared at Carver. "About what?" he said warily.
"Just come over to the room," Carver said.
Two weeks later, Carver was sitting in a beat up old LTD in the parking lot of O'Connor's Super Value Hardware store. He was wearing a light gray set of coveralls. He had a Heckler & Koch 9mm in his pocket. It was a man-stopper. He had loaded the clip with highly illegal hollow-point Teflon-coated bullets. They could get through a vest, if necessary. He could have gone with a bigger piece, but he didn't want to sacrifice the control the Heckler gave him.
Wilson was sitting next to him. He was wearing an identical pair of coveralls, an AR-15 across his lap. At the other end of the parking lot, Bundy and Boochie were sitting in a late-model Catalina wearing the same exact outfit. Carver checked his watch. The truck was never late, so Boochie said.
Wilson checked his gas mask again. Carver had checked his five times. He wasn't looking at it again. It was what it was. It was either going to work or it wasn't. That pretty much summed up his thoughts on this entire deal. It was either going to work or it wasn't.
A loud chirping filled the car. Wilson grabbed the submachine gun reflexively. Carver picked up a cell phone off the car seat. It was a pre-paid throwaway piece of shit, but it did have text messaging. He held the phone up for Wilson to see and shook it slightly. Wilson put the AR-15 back in his lap. Carver looked at the screen.
Mama is almost home. Go open the door for her.
It was from a Boochie. Carver glanced toward the Burke's armored car that was pulling into the eastern end of the parking lot. It was more like a tank. Covered in inch-thick armor plate and riding on wide self-sealing puncture-resistant tires, the thing was virtually unstoppable once it got rolling.
Throw in bulletproof glass and small gun ports manned by two drivers, and it was obvious why their contemporaries preferred banks. Carver erased the message and put the phone back on the seat.
"Let's get ready," he said. Wilson slid on his gas mask. Carver did the same. The air inside the gas mask was sweltering. It had been the bad luck of the draw that Carver had boosted a car without any air conditioning. Carver hit the gas as the armored car pulled to a stop in front of O'Connor's, a few feet from the main entrance.
No one but guys in the life probably ever noticed the small metal door without any windows right next to the main entrance. It was an obtuse blank slate overshadowed by the gleaming glass of the main entrance. But that door was just as important as the main entrance. Maybe even more so.
It was the door to the money room.
The armored car drivers would pull up to the door. One of the guards would hop out and unlock that door, then go inside a small room with a slot in the far wall. On the other side of the wall, one of the workers from the hardware store would hand the guard the cash and checks in a heavy leather bag with a zipper and a padlock. The guard and the cash office worker were never in the same room at the same time.
That was the beauty of Boochie's plan, as he had explained it for the umpteenth time last night at the hotel near the hardware store. They had been sitting in the room Boochie was sharing with Wilson. Bundy and Carver were in a room on the second floor.
"See, the one guard isolates his own damn self. We put that door brace down, and now his boy is all by his lonesome in the truck," Boochie said between sips of a monster-size energy drink.
Carver came screaming around the corner and aimed the LTD straight at the front grill of the armored car. Just before he slammed into the big bulky truck, he noticed the driver. He was a young kid who didn't look a day over eighteen. He was texting on his phone as Carver approached from the front and Bundy came barreling in from the back. He never knew what hit him.
Carver braced himself as the big blue Ford slammed into the truck. He jammed the brake pedal down with his left foot while keeping his right pressed on the gas. Wilson hopped out with the AR-15 held in a death grip. Bundy was doing the same two-step with the Catalina at the rear of the truck.
Boochie hopped out wearing his gas mask and lugging a discount store backpack on his spindly frame. He ran to the door
and locked the brace into position. Then, quick as a hiccup, he climbed the hood of the Catalina, then pulled himself up onto the roof of the truck.
Nearly impenetrable but for only a few weaknesses, armored cars are rolling fortresses. If the driver opens the gun port on the door, a quick and bold bagman could push his own gun into the tiny hole and pop the driver or the rider. The other chink in the armor was on the roof—a tiny air vent. Armored car windows don't roll down for obvious reasons, so other than AC, the only source of air for the beleaguered drivers was the tiny vent.
Boochie pulled a battery-operated reciprocating saw from his backpack and went to work on the vent. The saw was a cheap model that he had purchased from a yard sale. It cut through the stainless steel vent in a matter of seconds.
Carver looked at his watch. Three minutes. That was all the time Boochie had figured they would have to pull this thing off.
Boochie pulled a metal canister out of his backpack. It was an old cylindrical cookie tin about the size of a tennis ball canister. The lid had been sealed with an adhesive epoxy. Several holes had been drilled in the top. It looked like a giant salt shaker. Boochie slammed the canister against the roof of the truck. Immediately, a thick white smoke began to seep out of the drilled holes. Boochie dropped the canister down the vent.
Carver saw it fall into the driver's lap. The kid's face went from slightly red to bright crimson. He began coughing violently.
Boochie had showed Carver the contents of the canister last night. "One glass test tube of ammonia. Another one filled with bleach. Add a dash of muriatic acid in the can. Voila—instant homemade tear gas," Boochie had said with his wide grin.
Carver looked at his watch. One minute gone. Two left.
Boochie held his position on the roof. Carver looked in his rearview mirror and saw customers and workers alike cowering behind vehicles or laying flat on the ground. Good. He wanted them to be afraid and stay out of his way.
Suddenly Carver heard a loud bang. He heard it over the roar of the multiple engines. All three vehicles sounded like dying dinosaurs. He looked at Wilson who shrugged his shoulders. He heard it again. Three loud bangs in a row.
Shit. He's trying to shoot his way out the money room, Carver thought. As if he read his mind, Wilson walked around Bundy's stolen Catalina and aimed the AR at the metal door. He let off a volley of shots that made Carver's ears ring.
The door to the armored car popped open and the kid fell to the ground. Vomit poured out of his mouth like a fountain. Wilson whirled to his left and sprayed the kid as he was bent over on all fours, spewing his breakfast onto the hot asphalt. The kid's body jumped and twitched like a plastic bag caught in the wind. Carver saw Boochie waving his hands like an umpire, but it was too late. The kid was bleeding from dozens of holes.
Boochie swung his thin frame off the roof and into the driver's seat in one smooth movement. He tossed the saw and the backpack to the ground. Wilson ran back to the LTD and jumped in. The AR was still smoking from the barrel. Carver slammed the car in reverse and hit the gas. Without letting up on the throttle, he jammed the car into drive and peeled out of the parking lot. The armored car followed him, and Bundy followed the armored car.
The little caravan turned right and headed for the barn.
Carver parked the LTD on the right side of the barn and hopped out. He unlocked the doors and threw them open so hard this time, the one on the left did break free of the bottom hinge. He hated this place. A deep sense of revulsion filled him every time he set foot in this barn. He felt like a man who was afraid of snakes watching an anaconda slither across his living room.
Boochie drove right into the barn and came to a screeching halt. Clouds of dust flew up from the dirt floor. Boochie jumped out of the truck and ripped off his gas mask just as Wilson was coming into the barn. He was still holding the AR.
"Jesus jumped up on a bald-headed Clydesdale, what the fuck was that Wilson? Forget an itchy trigger finger. You got eczema on yours!" Boochie screamed.
Wilson just stood there looking at Boochie with his empty eyes. "Reflex, man," he said simply.
Boochie clenched and unclenched his fist. "The plan was no guards get killed unless absolutely fucking necessary! If we get caught, add five years for every shell casing you left at the fucking scene—if we don't get the fucking chair!"
Carver noticed his accent had nearly disappeared.
"Well, I guess we better not get caught." Wilson said softly. He turned toward Carver. The AR was hanging loosely by his side.
Carver turned and looked at Wilson. They locked eyes for just a brief moment.
Boochie saw the exchange. "Shit!" He fumbled for the pistol he had in the pocket of his coveralls.
Carver moved faster than his bulk would have led someone to believe possible. He closed the distance between him and Boochie in a matter of seconds. He put the Heckler to his head.
"Take the hand out of your pants and hand me that gun. Two fingers. Slow," Carver said.
Boochie coughed and pulled his pistol, a .38, out of his pocket and dangled it in front of Carver. The big man grabbed it and put it in his pocket. He hit Boochie in the throat with the butt of his gun.
Boochie crumpled to the floor like an old sheet falling off a clothesline.
Wilson had wanted to pop Boochie as soon as they got back to the barn, but Carver had told him to hold off. Had said something about delivering a message to the fucker before they put him under. Wilson thought it was stupid, but Carver was footing the bill for his services now, so he could play it any way he wanted.
"I asked around about you," Carver said. "You never have been caught for a job. Cuz you always leave a body behind to take the fall. No one on the West Coast will work with you anymore. So you come east. Everything about you is a work. Even your accent. Lies man. Lies and more lies. Well this barn is used to lies. And blood. It's seen a lot of both," Carver said.
Wilson walked up and stood next to Carver.
"As soon as you said you need to use the barn, I knew what was up. I wasn't surprised, though. That's your style right? My uncle Cutter said you wouldn't be able to resist. The barn would be the perfect place to leave the truck for the Feds to find," Carver said.
"Wait man, just fucking wait. I'll give up my share—man, I'll give up my fucking share just let me walk," Boochie said. He spit a wad of phlegm and blood on the floor of the barn.
"Can't do it Boochie." Carver looked up at the rafters for a minute. He took a deep breath, smelling the dust, the rot, the jasmine and the honeysuckle. "Y'know, my grandpa would take me out here and beat the shit out of me on a regular basis."
Carver could almost hear him, screaming on about his black bitch of a grandmother. How she ruined his life. How his wife left him and he lost his job. Carver guessed his grandfather never thought about how none of that would have happened if he had kept his dick in his pants. Not slept with a fifteen-year-old girl who went on to birth his mother and his uncle before returning to Ghana, where Carver imagined she wound up stoned to death or something.
His uncle—well, he did alright. His mother, his twin, could never stay clean. She dropped him off at his grandpa's, crawled inside a needle and dropped off the face of the earth.
He went on. "Every week—sometimes two times a week—he would drag me out here and beat me. Until one day I took an ax and buried it in his head." Carver realized he was shaking like a puppy. "My uncle found me in juvie. Took me in. Gave me a job. Told me his dad, my grandpa, got what he deserved. He taught me the difference between having a good plan and having a great vision.
"See, that truck is full of counterfeit money. Those Russians—they don't own the vape shop. My uncle do. And the bar, and the gas company, and the mattress place, and the rest of the stops on that truck's route. All of them except the hardware store. See, them Russians, they paid my uncle in funny money for some powder. Now he out more money than you have ever pulled in your entire life. What does he do? He don't come up with a plan. H
e comes up with a vision. Drop the money in the businesses he owns down here. Rob the truck. Get rid of the funny money. Pocket the insurance money. And do a favor for a friend on the West Coast whose nephew got shot in the head after one of your jobs."
Boochie looked at all three men in rapid succession as Carver's words sunk in.
"Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak," Carver continued. "Actually, three birds. Cuz I'm gonna burn that truck and this fucking barn to the ground. Then in a year or two when those Russians think all has been forgiven, we gonna drag them into the embalming room and make somebody they love cut their dicks off," Carver said.
He didn't know why it was so important to tell Boochie all of this. Part of it was letting him know he wasn't the smartest guy in the room. Part of it was delivering a message for his uncle's friend, Sal Pineada. Part of it was…cathartic. He hadn't spoken about his grandpa in what? Maybe ten years?
"You hearing this shit, Wilson? He gonna turn on you as soon as you blink. Shoot him man! Shoot this motherfucker!" Boochie screamed.
"Change of plans Booch," Wilson said.
Bundy came into the barn carrying a five-gallon gas can. He set it down and pulled out a nickel-plated Beretta. Wilson raised the AR.
Carver raised his gun.
"WAIT!" Boochie screamed.
"That's the same thing my grandpa said after I hit him with that ax," Carver said quietly.
Wilson, Bundy, and Carver unloaded into Boochie. The smell of cordite filled the barn. Carver's ears rang as the bullets tore into the prone man. Carver tossed the Heckler between Boochie's feet.
"As soon as we get back to Richmond your uncle will get us straight like you said right?" Wilson asked as he looked at Boochie's body. His face had been flayed open by the AR and the Heckler. The Beretta had done its damage to his chest.
Carver didn't say anything. He pulled the pistol out of his pocket—Boochie's pistol. Wilson started to turn as Carver shot him behind the left ear. Bundy whirled as fast as fifty-year-old fat asthmatic could whirl.
THUGLIT Issue Fourteen Page 6