Bad Penny

by John D. Brown

  It would also probably get you infested with roaches. Maybe give you a flesh-eating skin disease. Ed looked fine on the exterior. He was all smiles and clean teeth and had gone to prison for nothing bigger than a small drug rap, but that small-time criminal bit was a facade.

  Spend three minutes with him and you’d know something was a little off. Five minutes and a faint warning would start sounding in the back of your mind. Spend two years sleeping above him, listening to his jabber, smelling his excrement, and there wouldn’t be any doubt. Frank had lifted the lid on Ed’s soul and found a wriggling tangle of two-headed snakes roiling in a filthy backwater. Frank was all for rehabilitation, but there were some folks who’d gone rotten to the core. Some folks who couldn’t be fixed, at least not in this life. There were some folks who simply needed to be culled from the herd.

  Frank said, “Here’s the deal, Ed. You’re going to leave right now, and I’m not going to break your neck.”

  Ed grinned. “I don’t think so.”

  The person in the kitchen began to walk toward the front room. Each step knocked clearly on the old brown octagonal-patterned linoleum like maybe he was wearing cowboy boots or dress shoes. Something with a hard heel. He stepped into view behind Ed and stopped.

  “Jockstrap,” Ed said, all pleased with himself, “say hello to Jesus.”

  Jesus was Hispanic. He was taller than Ed. He was north of two hundred pounds, and most likely pronounced his name as “Hey-SOOS,” not “GEE-zus” as Ed did. His face was pock-marked and rippled, like something knobby was growing there. There were tattoos on his arms, a sleeve of them around his neck. The blue gothic script on his neck tagged him as Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, which meant Frank had not only a felon but also a member of one of the nation’s finest upstanding drug gangs in his house. Excellent. The neighbors were bound to love that.

  The tattoo on his upper arm and shoulder marked him as a follower of Santa Muerte, Saint Death, the cult saint of the narcos and poor. Frank had seen these tattoos in prison. Some were of a grim reaper. Others were of a dead woman’s face, stitched lips, black eyes rimmed with the petals of flowers, a spiderweb on her forehead. This was the classical version, a play on the image of Saint Guadalupe—a skeleton in the robe of a holy order belted with a rope, hands pressed together in prayer. About her was a cloak of stars. Rays of light like sharp yucca leaves ringed her, shining out to indicate her holiness. The original Saint Guadalupe stood in flowers. This one stood in a vine of roses mixed with the skulls of the dead.

  Nice. But it wasn’t the tattoos that told Frank this situation had gone from orange to red. It was Jesus’s eyes. They were flat and lifeless. The spark of remorse and sympathy had been sucked out of them. There was no smile to those eyes. There was nothing human there at all. Jesus was nothing more than a shell of bones and flesh. Frank had plenty of experience with a collection of such shells during his years in the fine Pleasant Valley state prison in Coalinga, California.

  “Tony,” Frank said, “why don’t you go out and mow the lawn.”

  Tony had read the situation as well. His face showed a bit of alarm, but that quickly started to turn into something else.

  “Go on,” Frank said. “We’re just going to talk.”

  “Ooh,” Ed said as if impressed, “he’s got himself a Tony. I didn’t think you swung that way, Frank. But I will hand it to you—he’s young and sweet. Sweet enough to tempt even me to take a dip from that honey pot.”

  Frank nodded at door with his chin. “Go,” he said to Tony.

  Tony went. He glanced up at Frank on the way out. His jaw was set; there were small sparks of anger in his eyes. The kid’s mind was whirring; Frank could see that. Tony did not like jerk morons. He did not like being pushed around.

  “Just mow the lawn,” Frank warned. “Okay?”

  “Sure,” Tony said and pushed out the door.

  A few more years and bit more muscle, and Tony would be exactly the kind of operator you’d want with you behind enemy lines. But not just yet. Not here. Not now. Not with these two.

  With Tony outside, Frank turned back to Ed and Jesus. “Who gave you my address?” Frank demanded.

  “A little bird,” Ed said. “Just making sure I keep tabs on my friends.”

  More like tabs on those he thought owed him, folks he could exploit. Ed was always talking about keeping score. He probably had a book like a businessman for collections. Problem was, there was no way Ed could have known this address, not unless he had someone inside the California justice system who could have gotten into the records and read it to him. Frank had tried to cut all ties, to break away from old acquaintances and haunts, to change the patterns that would work to suck him back into his old life. Frank had come to Wyoming to start fresh. And here Ed was, like a chigger wanting to dig in.

  Ed moved into the front room and motioned nonchalantly with his gun at the couch and chairs. “Sit down; let’s talk.”

  Frank didn’t move. “No time to chat. You’re on your way out.”

  “Frank,” Ed said, “you’re talking to me, your cellie.”

  Ed stood about three strides away. Not too far if Frank was fast. It had been almost seven years now, but the old skills had been burned into him. No way he’d be as fast or as exact in his moves as he’d once been, but he’d been trained to disarm men like Ed.

  Then what? Jesus would be carrying. He’d pull. Or not. Who knew? Maybe Ed was carrying another piece. Or maybe he wasn’t. There was a good chance Frank would walk the two of them out at gun point. But there was also a good chance he’d have to put one or both down. That was the truth written in Jesus’s lifeless brown eyes.

  Officer Lee and his pals would not look kindly upon a dead body and a few pints of blood in the living room. Not kindly at all. Even if it was the result of Frank ridding the world of a bit of filth. “What do you want, Ed?”

  Outside, the garage door rattled up. Moments later the mower kicked to life and droned.

  “Here’s the thing, Frank. Jesus and I have had a big day, getting some old-time religion out west; we talked to some of them Mormon missionaries, picked up an extra wife.” He grinned at his own joke. “We’re bushed. We just need a place to crash. Maybe a new set of wheels. I saw that junkyard you drove up in. We’ve got a nice Nissan out back. Let us borrow it.”

  “You drove hours just to switch me cars? Is that it, Ed?”

  “You were on the way. Why not stop in? Besides, we’ve been going since early yesterday morning. Driving sleepy is as bad as driving drunk. We’re trying to be responsible citizens and keep the roads safe. We just need a bed.”

  “Get a room at a motel.”

  Ed sighed and dropped the old buddy routine. “Frank, you owe me. You yourself said you owed me. Now it’s time to pay up. I’m not asking anything unreasonable.”

  “You’re not staying here. I’m not putting anything on the line. Not for you and especially not Señor Zombie there.”

  “Okay,” Ed said, “but I do need your car. You’re going to give me your car.”

  Jesus had his hand behind his back, up under his untucked shirt. So that’s where he carried his piece. Or maybe that’s where he carried a knife. Maybe he’d used that knife to saw the heads off of a couple of victims south of the border.

  Jesus was giving him the eye.

  Frank gave him the eye back. “What? You want this?”

  Jesus cocked his head, his expression begging Frank to say one more word, to just give him an excuse to pull his hand out of the back of his pants.

  Frank cocked his head and invited Jesus right back. Señor Zombie was big, but not as big as Frank. And there was a bit of a gut on him. He’d looked like one of those brawlers that could take a punch, and from the looks of his nose he’d taken a few. But Frank hadn’t been trained to dink around giving punches. He hadn’t been trained to brawl. If Jesus wanted to throw down, it would be the last time he did.

  The tension ratcheted up, and then Señor Zombie’s eyes sli
d to the side. He shook his head and looked over at Ed. “It’s time to blow,” he said.

  “Give us the keys,” Ed said in a hard flat tone. “Jesus is going to move some bags. And we’ll be out of your hair.”

  Frank had heard that tone of voice before. He knew Ed meant business.

  Frank didn’t have any good options. Their car was dirty, no doubt about that. It was stolen, or they’d been tagged in it, or they were being followed. Or it was something else. It didn’t matter—the car was a liability every minute it was around. Which meant Frank was going to have to get rid of it.

  But that wouldn’t solve his problem because if Ed had Frank’s car and something happened, if they pawned the Nova off to someone else who got into trouble, the VIN would go into some cop’s computer and a moment later point directly back to him. It would reach across state lines, and the next thing he knew, here’d come Sergeant Lee with his sunny cop pals.

  Ed was taking a risk coming here. He was into something. Something that might require leaving no witnesses. Suddenly Frank didn’t think it was such a good idea to be in this house with the two of them. It was a lot easier to kill someone behind four walls than outside where some nosey neighbor might see.

  Frank said, “Sure, I’ll give you the keys. Outside.” Then he backed up a step, and before they could say anything, he opened the front door and walked out to the porch.

  Ed and Jesus shared a moment of silent communication, and then Ed shrugged. He slipped his gun in his vest and said, “I knew you’d see it my way, buddy.” Then he walked out and joined Frank on the porch. Jesus followed.

  Ed smelled of cigarettes. Señor Zombie had some kind of rancid medicine breath, the kind that reached out three or four feet to shake your hand. He walked past Frank down the steps and around to the side of the house where the RV pad lay, dragging his bad breath with him.

  Ed stayed on the porch, took in a big breath of air. “We’re going to use your garage,” he said. “Jesus will bring the car around. It will be easier to switch the bags in there.”

  Frank glanced back into the house and noticed his blood money jar stood on the counter. It was empty.

  “You took money out of the jar in my kitchen.”

  “Jar?” Ed said all innocent. “What are you talking about?”

  He should pound Ed right here. One-on-one. Take his gun and deal with Jesus. But Tony was out there.

  Ed smiled and moved down the steps and out onto the lawn. “Thinking can get you killed,” he said.

  “When are you going to bring my car back?”

  “Oh, we’ll get it back to you tomorrow at the latest.”

  Right, and there were gold bricks in Frank’s basement. “You’d better have it back. And the money better be on the seat. That car and I are on a journey, Ed. Don’t mess with my journey.”

  Some kids a street over squealed with delight. In the distance someone honked a car’s horn. Then Frank noticed the lawn mower wasn’t running. It hadn’t been running for four or five minutes.

  Frank looked for Tony, and then Señor Zombie cursed from around the corner of the house and shouted for Ed.

  Ed looked at Frank with one of those “what did you do?” looks and then ran toward the corner of the house, his black vest all shiny in the sun. Frank followed. The concrete RV pad on that side of the house ran along a wooden fence between his yard and the next door neighbor’s all the way to another fence at the back. Tall junipers grew along that back fence, shading a two-toned silver and gray Nissan that sat below them.

  Frank and Tony had driven up from the other direction; they’d pulled into the driveway on the other side of the house, and, therefore, had missed seeing the Nissan. The car was chopped low and had windows dark as cola. Jesus stood at the back end, the trunk high and open, showing nothing inside. “Gone,” he said.

  “What do you mean gone?” Ed asked.

  Jesus pulled back his top lip tight with anger. “Gone,” he said.

  Ed’s eyes narrowed, then his face took on a feral look. “I don’t hear a lawn mower, Frank. I thought Tony was supposed to be mowing the lawn.” He reached into his vest and pulled out his gun.

  At that moment, on the other side of the house, the Nova rumbled to life.

  Both Ed and Jesus looked at each other and then turned and ran toward the sound. Jesus raced through the backyard; Ed took the front.

  But they were too slow. The Nova shot out of the driveway. It bounced out onto the street with a scrape and turned in front of the house with a squeal of rubber. Tony sat in the driver’s seat, both hands at the wheel. In the passenger’s seat was a woman in her early twenties. She had dark hair. She looked Hispanic. She held her hands up in front of her like she was praying, except her wrists were bound together with a long white zip tie.

  Tony floored it. The Nova’s engine roared, and the front of the car lifted a bit as the vehicle accelerated. Tony glanced over, saw Frank, and then he was gone, hurtling past the neighbor’s lot and down the road.

  Not bad acceleration for an old piece of junk. Frank just wished Tony had decided to race in more friendly circumstances.

  Ed shouted over the roof for Jesus to get back to the Nissan, then he came at Frank, gun in hand, murder in his eyes. He stopped maybe four feet away and pointed the barrel right at Frank’s face.

  The hackles raised on the back of Frank’s neck. “Put it down,” he said.

  “You call that boy back here!”

  “My phone’s inside,” Frank lied. “Half the time I don’t carry it with me.”

  “You call him now!” Ed said through clenched teeth.

  In the backyard, the higher-pitched Nissan motor raced. Then Jesus and the Nissan came barreling out in reverse, the motor whining. He slammed on the brakes.

  “You have no idea!” Ed said. “You stupid pile. That boy just bought himself a plot.” Then he ran over to the Nissan, skirted around the back, and slid into the passenger’s side.

  Jesus was cranked around, looking out the back window. He floored it before Ed could shut his door. The Nissan hit the road with a loud scrape, swung around and stopped. Then Jesus threw it into drive and squealed out after Tony and the Nova, Ed’s door still hanging open.

  Frank’s mind reeled. What in the Sam Hill?

  A girl in the trunk?

  That Nissan wasn’t dirty. And they weren’t transporting drugs. It was a ransom. Or a hit. Except if you want to kill someone in Wyoming, there were miles and miles of lonely roads to do it on. No reason to give someone a bus ride in the trunk. Just do it and be done and leave her in the dirt. The vultures and skunks would be on her within twenty-four hours.

  Frank pulled out his phone, fumbled for Tony’s number.

  At the end of the street, the Nova squealed round the corner. It accelerated then squealed again. Tony was coming back along the street behind the house.

  There was no use using a phone when a face-to-face would do. So Frank stuffed the phone into his pants pocket and then sprinted into his backyard. He leapt onto a pile of old firewood that had been stacked against the fence and grabbed the top of the wooden slats. The junipers here were too thick to let him hop the fence, but he sprang up anyway, got a toe on the top of the fence and pushed his way through the prickly branches and fell into the neighbor’s backyard. He landed sideways and scrambled up.

  The neighbors had one of those little annoying white dogs with curly hair and weeping eyes that stained the fur on its face. It came yapping out from its spot in front of the sliding glass door. Frank ignored it. He ran past a kiddie pool, a ball, and some plastic toys that had been left out on the lawn. The neighbor kids were sitting at their kitchen table in swimming suits, watching him through the glass. Frank ran for the front gate, unlatched it, and slammed it behind him, right in front of the yap-dog, which was snarling like the devil himself had just run by. Lucky for Frank he’d had a head start. One more step and the thing might have launched a full-out attack on his ankles.

  Frank ra
n down the driveway and out into the street. The Nova was at the far end of the street, barreling in his direction.

  3

  Sam

  FRANK WAVED, TRYING to get Tony’s attention, worrying about some kid riding out into the street or running after a ball because there wouldn’t be any stopping. But Tony didn’t see Frank and turned at the street half a block down.

  Farther back, the Nissan squealed round the corner.

  Frank looked around for a projectile. There was nothing but fences and lawns and curb. Never a good-sized stone when you needed one. Nothing but the annoying mutt from the yap patrol that sounded like it was working on an aneurysm. Too bad it didn’t have more heft. He would have happily used it to smash Ed’s windshield. Then he spotted a row of white bricks across the street. They were standing up at a diagonal, acting as a border between a lawn and flower bed full of puffy orange marigolds. He raced over to the yard, yanked two bricks out, and charged down the street at Ed and Jesus in their Nissan.

  He was about half a house away when they reached the corner Tony had taken. Frank hurled the first brick as hard as he could, followed with the second. The bricks arched high. Ed and Jesus squealed around the corner. The first brick sailed completely over the car. The second struck the Nissan in the panel over the rear tire, made a huge clunk, and fell to the ground.

  Jesus put on the gas, and the Nissan bolted forward, racing after Tony.

  So much for bringing bricks to a car fight.

  Frank ran out into the middle of the road and watched the Nissan speed down the street. Tony was heading south, probably trying to lose them in the residential streets on the east of the cemetery and then get out to the belt route. But he wasn’t going to outrun them, not in that Nova. And where would he go once he got out of the neighborhood?

  Tony! What had he been thinking!

  Probably exactly what any man with a speck of humanity and courage would when finding a woman locked in a trunk. Especially when she was locked in by two fine pieces of work like Ed Meese and his friend Jesus.

  Frank could call the cops, but how long would it take to get his report, call it out, and then get someone to respond? And that’s if they even could respond.