by Cole, Bobby
“What took you so long?” she yelled as she continued to dance.
“Long lines,” he responded.
Levi eyed Jake, who stood straight while everyone around him was dancing or swaying to the music, but he was clearly having a good time.
After about twenty minutes, Levi checked the current radar on his iPhone and saw a band of rain covering Tupelo. Anticipating the end of the concert, he bent down to his date, and in an attempt to sell an early exit he said, “Let’s beat the crowd. It’s raining now, and it’ll be crazy.”
“Okay,” she replied, following him toward the stairs.
When they got there, Levi allowed her to lead. As they approached the row Jake Crosby was on, he paused, letting his date to turn down the tunnel and disappear. Jake and his wife were facing away from him, watching the stage. Levi pulled out the folded napkin and grabbed the shoulder of the man on the end of the row.
“Excuse me, would you pass this note to my buddy down there?” he hollered as he pointed at Jake. The guy took it and nodded his understanding. Levi patted him on the back, hopped down two steps, and disappeared. His date was standing there waiting, hands on hips. He put his arm around her and apologized, saying that he had seen an old friend.
Jake Crosby jumped when his shoulder was tapped. He turned and took the note from a stranger’s outstretched hand, trying to understand what was going on.
“Your friend said to give this to you,” the man yelled and then walked off.
Confused, Jake yelled, “Thanks,” as he slowly unfolded the napkin. It read, “Your wife looks good tonight. But she looks so much better through the bathroom window.”
Jake quickly wheeled around and frantically grabbed the stranger. “Who gave you this?”
“I don’t know. He said he was your buddy,” the guy responded and pointed down the tunnel. “He went down there.”
“Jake? Jake? What is it?” Morgan asked as she watched her husband looking worriedly into a sea of unfamiliar faces.
CHAPTER 54
THE OLD GUYS sat inside Walter’s recently rented minivan, the windshield wipers keeping rhythm with a Neil Diamond song playing on the radio. No one had said anything for several minutes. The tension was thick. They all stared at the dark front of the Gold Mine. During the chorus of “Sweet Caroline,” Bernard leaned to one side and farted loudly.
“Dammit, Bernard!” Walter said as he rolled his window down.
“Sorry. Dinner made me gassy.”
“We don’t wanna hear about it…or smell it,” Sebastian chimed in.
Walter rubbed his nose in disgust. “Sebastian, whatever you do, do not lick your lips…or smile. It’ll stain your teeth!” He laughed as he dropped the minivan into drive and pulled out of the parking lot with all the windows down. After a moment, Walter said, “Okay, guys, back to business. Wadda y’all think?”
“Tonight’s the night. We’re ready. We’ll be in and out in seven and a half minutes,” Sebastian explained. “That’s the maximum exposure we can afford.”
“He’s right. Tonight’s the night. Plus, the storm and the football game being televised on ESPN makes it even better,” Bernard added.
Walter pulled into an all-night convenience store, and the three guys filed out to pee and get coffee. Nobody said a word. Walter paid cash for everything. When he saw Bernard eyeing a pickled egg in a giant jar, he emphatically said, “No way in hell are you eatin’ one of those!”
Everyone laughed, including the store clerk. The levity seemed to ease everybody’s tension as they exited the store, chuckling to themselves.
Before they got back inside the van, Walter looked around at each of the guys and exhaled. “Okay. Let’s do this. Bernard, you’re driving.” Bernard clapped his hands and briskly rubbed them together. Sebastian smiled.
Bernard drove past their target. Nothing appeared to have changed. After a second pass, he pulled directly behind the store and cut the engine.
“Radio us if something happens.”
“No problem.”
“Bernard.”
“Yeah?”
“Please pay attention.”
“I will.”
Walter looked at his watch and said, “Someone call it.”
“I’ve got nine forty-five” Sebastian said.
“Okay, boys, synchronize. Let’s do this,” Walter said as he exited the vehicle.
Sebastian and Walter eased their doors shut and walked quickly to the rear entrance. Sebastian slid the new key into the stainless door handle, and they grinned at each other as the lock accepted it and turned.
“One down,” Walter whispered as they opened the door and rushed inside.
Walter used a small flashlight to illuminate the room. Sebastian used a clip-on light attached to the bill of his ball cap. After shutting the door, Walter went straight for the keypad. It was right where Bailey’s diagram had indicated. He stood in front of it, and it glowed red, indicating it was still armed and the magnet had kept the connection complete. Walter looked at Sebastian, and both men laughed as Sebastian patted Walter on the back.
“Two down,” Sebastian said just above a whisper as he looked at a ceiling-mounted camera pointing into the room. He knew it was too dark for the camera to reveal more than their outlines.
When Walter turned toward the office door, his light illuminated the full-body lion mount, causing him to jump back from shock. “Holy shit!”
Sebastian almost knocked Walter down when he saw the mount. “Dammit…I’m guessing Bailey didn’t tell you about that,” he nearly yelled.
“Not a word.”
Walter shined the light toward the office door. Sebastian’s gloved hand grabbed the knob. He tried to twist it, and it didn’t budge.
“Locked,” Sebastian said excitedly.
“What!”
“It’s locked!” Sebastian snapped as he turned to look Walter in the eyes.
“You’re blinding me!”
“Sorry,” he said as he clicked off the light.
“She also never said anything about this door bein’ locked!” Walter almost screamed in frustration.
“Well, it is, and we gotta deal with it.”
Walter tried the knob himself, and when it held tight, he exhaled. “Shit fire. Should we call her?”
Sebastian dropped to his knees and clicked on his flashlight. “No. Give me a minute.”
“Can you pick it?”
“Maybe,” Sebastian said as he studied how the lock’s mechanism pushed into the doorframe.
Walter stood still and held the light on the lock as Sebastian studied it. He couldn’t believe it was locked. From inside his jacket pocket, Bernard’s voice cracked over the radio, “Hey, guys!”
“Go ahead.”
“A black-and-white just went by.”
“The police? Shit. Did they stop?”
“No. They just drove by kinda slow, but they didn’t stop. Y’all hurry up.”
“We’re trying. We’ve encountered a slight problem.”
“What problem?” Bernard asked.
“Hang on,” Walter said. He was beginning to feel the pressure of the mission.
With a surgeon’s steady hand, Sebastian carefully slid his AARP card between the door and the jamb. When the card didn’t release the lock, he pulled out a thin-bladed pocketknife and inserted the blade in the same fashion.
“Is that gonna work?” Walter asked anxiously as he looked around the room.
“Just hush so I can concentrate!” Sebastian fired back. “You’re makin’ me nervous.”
The radio cracked again. “Fellas? What’s the problem?”
“Shut up, Bernard! We are workin’ on it,” Walter said and instantly regretted his tone. He knew Bernard was just trying to help. Everybody was wound too tightly at the moment.
“Damn! I almost had it,” Sebastian exclaimed. He took in a deep breath and continued working. His knife bit into the latch bolt, between the face place and the strike plate, and ju
st as it was about to move, he released it suddenly and leaned back as if he had been shocked. He stared straight ahead at the knob and said, “Walter! What if this door is wired to the alarm? We didn’t plan for this.”
Walter cussed under his breath and then said, “I don’t know…you’re right. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Sebastian stood and calmly ran his fingers over the top of the door frame. “Nothing. You’d think he’d have some tight security,” he said.
“Sebastian, we’re just two old men who have never burglarized anything before in our lives, and we got inside this place with a magnet from a drugstore.”
“So, what are you sayin’?”
“This ain’t Fort Knox.”
“You may be right.”
“Just open the damn door. If the alarm goes off, we’ll just run like hell.”
Sebastian exhaled and leaned forward. “Promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Before you start runnin’, you gotta help me stand up.”
CHAPTER 55
TAM’S DRIVERS WERE totally freaked out. Nothing like this had ever happened, and they didn’t have a contingency in place, let alone a succession plan. His guys did only what they were told, which was not much. Tam didn’t employ freethinkers. He made all the decisions, and those decisions were final.
As discreetly as possible, the driver of the truck slowly exited the hotel parking lot. His partner tried to call Alexa, but it went straight to voice mail. At the first major gas station south of town, they pulled over to refuel and make a plan. After several minutes of discussion, they decided to alert the crew back home with a quick call to sit tight, wait for further instructions, and, most importantly, not breathe a word about the situation to anyone outside the organization. They broke the connection and then called Moon Pie, whom they had met on past drops, to give him a heads-up.
Moon Pie was deep in cold beer when his cell phone rang. He assumed it was Levi, but when he saw the area code, he knew it was Tam.
“Yeah, man,” he answered, hitting the mute button on the remote.
“Moon Pie?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you talk?”
“Yeah, sure. Who the hell is this?”
“Mike. I work for our mutual friend…we’ve met a few times.”
“I remember you. What’s up, man?”
“We got a big problem.”
“Talk to me.”
“He got busted tonight.”
“You’re shittin’ me. Where ’bouts?”
“Tupelo.”
“This ain’t good.” Moon Pie was more concerned about the deal at the moment than about Tam’s arrest.
“Yeah, they got him and his girlfriend.”
“Why did they get her?”
“She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“No, we split with the product and headed south. We just pulled over to call you.”
“Sounds like y’all were lucky. What are you driving?”
“A black pickup with a camper shell.”
“Okay, let me think.” Moon Pie’s mind raced, trying to devise a way to benefit from this. After a long silence, he asked, “Where y’all at?”
“’Bout fifteen or twenty miles south of Tupelo.”
“Okay, here’s what you do for right now. Remember coming through West Point?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. There’s a new hotel right in front of that big Mossy Oak store. Get a room and let me do some more thinkin’, and I’ll get back to you in the mornin’ or sooner. You’re only about thirty minutes away from there now. I gotta relative that’s a lawyer up in Tupelo, and he might can find out what’s going on and at least get Tam’s girlfriend out, and y’all will be close enough to go get her.”
“That makes sense.”
“We also gotta make the trade tomorrow or I’m dead.”
“We’re still good to go. Call us if you learn somethin’ from that lawyer.”
“Don’t worry. I’m on it,” Moon Pie said and hit the end button.
Moon Pie had the money, and he knew where the drugs were going to be parked. This was a unique situation that might prove particularly lucrative. He just didn’t want the Tennessee Mexicans and the Gulf Coast Vietnamese hunting him down like a dog. He punched in the speed-dial number for Levi as he walked to the refrigerator for another beer.
CHAPTER 56
JAKE WAS IN the Tupelo police station pacing back and forth after explaining his situation to the desk sergeant, who was now on the phone with the West Point Police Department. Listening to one side of the conversation and trying to gauge what was being said on the other end was driving him crazy. Through the glass front doors, he could see Morgan talking on her cell phone. Katy and her friend had their heads lowered, texting, he assumed. Even if you’re as innocent as Job, police stations make me uncomfortable, Jake thought.
The desk sergeant wrapped up his call and leaned back in his desk chair, looking down at the menacing words on the napkin. Jake turned to face him.
“Well, you’ve got a pretty interestin’ past, Mr. Crosby.”
“I’m more concerned about the future. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“I understand completely.”
“So, are there cameras in the arena that we could use to try to find him?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“What about askin’ some of the folks that were sittin’ around us to see if they saw him?”
“It’ll take us days to determine who was sitting where and actually contact them. And most people watch the band. I just don’t think we’ll find out much.”
Jake sighed and looked around the office, his mind racing, trying to think of some way to get the upper hand, but he wasn’t coming up with anything, “So what can we do?”
“I don’t think there is anything we can do tonight, to be honest. You should take your family and go home.”
“There’s gotta be something. I just can’t believe he was that close to me and I didn’t see him,” Jake said, starting to pace again.
“Look, we all know who Moon Pie Daniels is. We’ve arrested that punk several times over the years. Last time I saw him, he had gotten the shit beat out of him by some guys from the air force base. He said somethin’ very unpatriotic ’bout someone’s mama, and they didn’t appreciate it. Kinda tells you either how dumb he is…or how much he likes pokin’ hornets’ nests. I know you’re worried, and you got good reason to be…he’s obviously trouble. He’s big trouble ’cause he’ll do anything and he’s fearless, and that makes him that much more dangerous.”
“Believe me, I’ve heard.”
“Do you have a self-defense weapon?”
“Yeah. A pistol.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Oh yeah, that’s one thing I know I can do.”
“Good,” he said, acting sympathetic as an awkward silence fell across the room.
“Mr. Crosby, we are gonna have a unit follow you to the county line, and a state trooper will pick you up there and escort you all the way to West Point. Once you’re there, the West Point PD will follow y’all home and then check out your house.”
“You think that’s necessary?”
“Probably not, but we’re gonna do it anyway. Just to be safe.”
“Thanks” was the only thing Jake could think to say.
“Look, tomorrow I’ll work some of our contacts and see what I can find out about old Moon Pie,” the desk sergeant said, holding up the napkin by a corner. “We haven’t seen or heard of him in a while, but since he’s around, we can put some pressure on him and see what happens.”
The desk sergeant looked out at Morgan talking on her cell phone and said, “I suppose your wife’s freaked out about all this?”
“That would be an understatement.”
The sergeant rose from behind his desk and walked around to Jake. He
gently grabbed Jake by the elbow, guiding him toward the door. “Well, let’s get you and your family home safely. You’ll all feel better then.”
CHAPTER 57
IT HAD BEEN a while since Tam Nguyen had been behind bars, and he was livid. Incarceration was something he couldn’t handle. He never could appreciate that he would eventually get out. From the moment he was arrested, he started looking for an opportunity to escape. He physically submitted to the overwhelming show of authority, but not mentally. Tam, a caged animal, was preparing to attack, waiting for any opportunity.
The task force officers knew Tam’s reputation and had seen what he was capable of doing. They locked him down as quickly as possible. The Tupelo police had all heard the stories about Tam, but as they peered through protective glass and heavy bars at the small man, they wondered if he was as capable and cruel a criminal as they had been led to believe. In his striped jumpsuit, he looked like a small, tanned shrimper from the Gulf Coast—no different from what they had seen on family vacations. He didn’t fit their idea of the stereotypical drug kingpin.
Alexa had not been the primary target. She was more or less an unknowing victim of the sting. Her love of the band had led her and Tam straight into the trap. They would have let her walk except for her temper. When she saw Tam being arrested, she bitch-slapped the female undercover officer who had initially tried to restrain her. An hour later, the handprint was still visible on the face of the police chief’s only daughter. As Alexa was introduced to the most heinous outfit of her life, she recognized clearly that her lavish lifestyle was in jeopardy.
Tam was arrested on current and outstanding warrants relating to several drug charges and other crimes, including the deaths of three rival dealers found buried up to their heads on the beach after the tide had receded. The officers vigilantly and thoroughly processed his booking paperwork and fingerprinting. He was then placed in an initial holding cell with four others—two black guys, one of whom had robbed a convenience store and one who had stolen a new car off the dealer’s lot; a skinny white meth head who had stolen his father’s hunting rifles to buy prescription cough syrup; and another Asian, about Tam’s same height and build, who had been caught stealing copper from a construction site.