The Carrier

by Preston Lang

  Duane dialed Tony’s cell phone and got voicemail.

  “Hey, call me if you need me.”

  He decided to go to Denny’s, eat something, try Tony one more time, and then call it a night. If Tony didn’t get in touch, it was on him, wasn’t it?

  Denny’s—he could take it or leave it. But it was the first thing he’d thought to tell Inez as he was getting ready to break a man’s patella, so that was where he was eating. There was a decent crowd at this time of night; Denny’s was probably one of the only late options.

  A young man in a beard put his sandwich on his lap and took a picture of it while his girlfriend clapped. That was a good relationship, Duane thought—one of you does something stupid and the other applauds. He drank a cup of coffee, and when the waitress came back he ordered a big breakfast. She smiled like he had done something clever and considerate for her benefit.

  “That’s a real meal, my dear,” she said.

  Sometimes Duane had nothing but contempt for a middle-aged waitress with heavy makeup, but he made up his mind to leave this one a big tip. It was just after the whole meal had been spread out on his table that Inez entered the restaurant.

  “You broke a bone, I think. By the sound of it,” she said.

  “Do you know who those guys were?”

  “No, I don’t know boys like that.”

  “Is Tony coming?”

  “You want Tony? That’s who you want? Because I don’t know if there’s anywhere you can find a little toy canoe at this time of night.”

  “Do you want a pancake?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Duane forked pancakes onto the plate with his sausage, eggs, and bacon, leaving one pancake back on the original plate. He slid it across the table to Inez.

  “He’s your boss?” she asked.

  “He’s your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boss.”

  “Well, look at us—a couple of free agents with some pancakes.”

  “You have a place to stay in town?”

  “I live here.”

  “You really live in this town?”

  “What happened to your finger?” Inez fired back.

  Duane had wrapped it tight just before the meeting.

  “Someone bit me,” he said.

  “Like a dog?”

  “Like a dog, but it was a man.”

  “That’s worse than fucking him, you know?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Of course it is—he’s in your bloodstream for sure. Why’d he bite you?”

  “Disagreement.”

  “No one bites me. Never.”

  They both chewed happily for a while until Tony entered the Denny’s.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” he asked. This was the worst Tony there was—the one who put aside jokes and came on rough and stoned.

  “I don’t know,” Duane said. “It’s your meeting. Why don’t you talk?”

  Tony was carrying a gun—holstered inside the jacket—but what was he going to do, open fire in a Denny’s?

  “Where do you think you stand, Duane?”

  “Go ahead and tell me?”

  “You think you’ve got a lot of supporters? Everyone is sick of you.”

  “Is this what you needed to say?”

  Inez ate her pancake. Tony sat down and a smile appeared on his face—he was back on task. His pupils were tiny and far away, but now he had a train of thought.

  “Here’s what I’ve got to tell you. For what happened in Florida, Top is keeping your share of anything else that comes from the south until it covers what he lost in Florida.”

  Duane shook his head. Sure, just broadcast their business to the whole restaurant.

  “Is that all?” Duane said.

  “That’s the deal.”

  Duane wanted to take a bite of pancake, thought it would be the right kind of punctuation, but he had no appetite now.

  “I’ll talk to Top,” he said.

  “Do not talk to Top. He’s so mad at you, he doesn’t want to hear your voice.”

  “I’ll do it later. But this, what you’re telling me right here, doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Go ahead and call him now, then. See how it goes.”

  Duane didn’t move, just looked at Tony—flimsier than ever, eyes almost yellow. Duane felt as if he could reach across the table and rip Tony’s ragged neck apart. But you can’t do that at a Denny’s any more than you can open fire.

  “Yeah,” Tony said, “I didn’t think you were up to that. Now, I’m going to take a piss. When I get back, Inez, I hope you’re done with your pancake.”

  Inez nodded and chewed as Tony stood and left the table.

  “Can we go to your place?” Duane asked.

  “Yes, we can.”

  Duane stood and dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table. Tony had to have known this was a possibility. He was giving two people who hated him the chance to tell him that loud and clear. They took it.

  CHAPTER 12

  Willow pointed under the car.

  “Go look,” she said.

  There it was, back near the bumper. It was small and dark, but it jutted out abnormally, an ugly, little growth. Remote tracking device.

  “Who put it there?” she asked.

  “We have to get that thing off the car and then move. You want to hold a gun in my face while I do all this, that’s fine.”

  Cyril tried ripping the thing off with his bare hands, but that very clearly was not going to happen.

  “How is it stuck on?” Willow asked.

  “Magnets, glue.”

  “How hard is that to get off?”

  “Hard. I should be able to get it off with a knife. There’s one in the glove compartment.”

  “The Swiss Army knife? I’ve got that.”

  She paused just a moment and then handed it to him. But the tracker was still stubborn, and in the dark, holding the knife at a tricky angle, Cyril was having trouble getting at it. Out of frustration, he gave the thing a few violent stabs.

  “Careful. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Do you want to give it a try?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  After about two more minutes work, he seemed to have a corner free, but then he hit a solid glob that wasn’t budging.

  “It’s not coming off,” he said. “Can you go back to the room and get some soapy water?”

  “Soapy water? Are you kidding me? I’m not getting you any soapy water. We use my car. Everything is exactly the same, but we’re in my car.”

  Cyril looked up at Willow.

  “I just leave my car here?”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to leave it?” she asked.

  “Because it’s my car.”

  “And not because you’ve got the money hidden in it?”

  “Fine, let’s take your car, then.”

  Things had gotten very bad, very quickly. Cyril’s instinct was to bolt, take off down the street. She probably wouldn’t shoot him, but she did have his cell phone, wallet, and keys. He would have no car, and whoever else was tracking him might be ready to pounce, too. He’d be on his own, barefoot in the cold. No, he was best off staying with her. He might still save the whole ballgame. Get the money, shake Willow and whoever was tracking them, then get lost with the loot.

  “They say you can sense when you’re being watched,” Willow said. “They’ve done science on this.”

  “Well, I can’t tell. Can you?”

  Willow looked out to the road and then back to the motel.

  “No,” she said.

  “Where are you parked?”

  “Back near the bar.” Willow looked straight up at the moon. “They can’t be far away, right?”

  “They’re probably not up there.”

  “Your car has been parked here since—what—eight o’clock? They’ve got to be in town by now.”

  “You think they’re in the motel? Lying up on the
roof? Where are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let me get my stuff and then we go to your car.”

  ***

  She followed him back to the room. As soon as they were inside, she wanted him again. And she was pretty sure he wanted it too. Too bad there was no time and too many obstacles. Still, there was a better than even chance that she’d go to bed with this guy again. She had a good sense for that sort of thing. He got his things together quickly.

  “We got to move fast,” he said.

  Wait—his panic seemed fake, overdone. The tracker was a normal part of his job; he was just trying to shake her. Cyril finished packing, but Willow stood between him and the door.

  “You really are just a drone,” she said. “Not any kind of real hard guy, right?”

  “I don’t like trouble, haven’t been in a fight since eighth grade. Can we go now?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who else could be tracking you, other than your own people?”

  “Anyone. All those girls buzzing around Tony? Some dealer who’s pissed at Top.”

  He was a liar, and he wanted to get rid of her, but it was possible he was telling the truth about the tracker.

  “Who’d you fight in the eighth grade?” she asked.

  “This lacrosse kid got me in a headlock, just started wailing on me because I told his girlfriend some jokes.”

  “Racy ones?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Did he get in trouble?”

  “No. But my brother put him in the hospital.”

  “So your brother’s the tough guy?”

  “My brother once broke a guy’s hand for being too excited about Batman.”

  “I think it would be interesting to meet your family.”

  “Maybe. Can we go to your car?”

  Willow thought about it.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to ask you two questions carefully, and you are going to answer honestly. Would you ditch me if you could?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you really think someone is following you?”

  “Yes.”

  She stared him right in the eyes: he was telling the truth.

  CHAPTER 13

  Danny Chin pointed out the window.

  “Look, it’s Huck and Jim on a raft,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That’s the Mississippi River.”

  It was dark and the bridge they crossed was nondescript; it looked like all the other smaller spans they used earlier, but it kept going out over the thick vein of America. A barge slid underneath, heading downriver, and Marcus and Danny were in Iowa. The car they tracked was only about ten miles behind them now.

  “How much farther, do you think?” Marcus asked.

  “Could be any time now, so we’re going to let him take the lead.”

  They slowed, and when the gray Toyota slid past them about an hour later, Marcus had the instinct to wave.

  “I almost honked,” Danny said. “You get a good look at him?”

  “Not great. He’s a white guy, not old. That’s about all I could tell.”

  “But it’s just him—one guy. You saw that, right? Not too scary, right?”

  “No.”

  When the Toyota pulled off the highway and stopped, Danny had them take their time winding back to the location. Unsurprisingly, it was a motel. The sign at the Firstway Inn was missing a T, but that didn’t make it spell anything entertaining. Marcus and Danny parked close to the entrance. There were three other cars in the lot. One was the Toyota with New York plates—their man. It was sitting exactly where the receiver said it would be.

  The young woman at reception was staring at a little handheld screen.

  “What are you reading there?” Danny asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Does it have vampires, zombies?”

  “No,” she said, putting down the device. “How can I help you?”

  “Ghosts? Anything supernatural?”

  The girl relented, slightly embarrassed.

  “It’s just romance,” she said.

  “Don’t ever be ashamed of romance,” Danny said.

  “We need a room, ma’am,” Marcus said.

  “Just one room?”

  “Yes. And can we have a room that faces west?” Danny asked. “We won’t get the sun in our face tomorrow morning.”

  “Let me see. Okay. Which way is north?”

  Danny pointed due north.

  “I always know where north is,” he said. “It’s the Eagle Scout in me.”

  Marcus wondered how smart it was for Danny to be showboating like this. Was it for the benefit of the chubby desk girl?

  “Okay, so, like, west would be facing out to the parking lot?” she said.

  “You got it.”

  Marcus tried to look at the login book, but he didn’t get a perfect view. He thought the last guest to check in had a first name that started with C.

  “A lot of open rooms—12, 15, 16.”

  “We’ll take 15,” Danny said. “That’s the age I learned to whistle.”

  The girl giggled; she was into it now. She walked them up to their room. Danny, of course, had started to whistle—Crazy in Love.

  “What was that about?” Marcus asked when they were inside.

  “What?”

  “The eagle scout? The whistling?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  “Be a little less memorable, maybe.”

  “So you want it to be two shady-looking guys come in, don’t say a word, throw down cash and slink off to their room?”

  “No.”

  “Because that’s some Al-Qaeda shit right there.”

  “No one is going to think we’re Al-Qaeda.”

  “I’m just saying you have to give a little chatter, otherwise you look like you’re up to no good.”

  “How about we just say—Hi, I can have a room? Thank you for the room. Goodnight.”

  “She didn’t seem to mind.”

  For the first time Marcus considered the drawbacks to working with a sex criminal. He also saw just one double bed in the room.

  “She put us in a couple’s room? Just without any question that’s what she thought we wanted?”

  “We might not stay the night. If we do—I’ll sleep in the chair. No funny stuff.”

  Marcus sat and watched the parking lot. It was the most boring lot he’d ever seen. Danny sat on the bed and gave it a few exploratory bounces.

  “Who does that—just gives two dudes a room with a single bed?” Marcus asked.

  “The most important part about this room is it looks out onto the parking lot, and it’s right next door to his.”

  “You’re sure it’s his?”

  “Pretty sure. He might be in there now, for all we know. I’m going to get a soda.”

  Marcus turned on the TV and watched a show about piranhas. They cut from a feeding frenzy in the Amazon to a suburban family, happily caring for pet piranhas in their living room. The mom let the youngest child dangle meat into the tank. Sure, bring a piranha into your home. Why not? Marcus turned off the TV. Where was Danny? He’d been gone twenty minutes now, probably chatting up the girl at the desk. Marcus was about to call when Danny appeared, carrying two big bottles of Coca-Cola.

  “What took you so long?”

  “His name is Cyril, Cyril Smrekar.”

  “Who?”

  “The man we’re looking for. He’s in his twenties, brown hair, about average height.”

  “She told you all that?”

  “She told me some of that. Some of it I read off the login book. He’s in 14. I was right about that. He went out a little before we showed up.”

  “When is he coming back?”

  “That she didn’t know. But do you see how it pays to be a little charming?”

  “You think he used his real name?”

  “I think he did. I bet
he uses real ID, real credit card, everything above board. I looked him up. There was a minor Czechoslovakian dissident named Cyril Smrekar, but he died in 1974. There’s also a Cyril Smrekar who does web design for a small marketing firm. No picture, but he graduated college five years ago.”

  “Can’t be the same guy.”

  “Why not? He’s actually a real person with a real job, just does this on the side to buy jet skis and champagne. He’s not dangerous at all. But I think he might be handsome.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I got a little jealous. Then Leona tried to make it up to me, and I ended up with the key to 14.”

  Danny tossed the wooden block with the silver key up into the air.

  “She gave you that?”

  “I have it,” Danny said as he walked out the door. “Be on lookout.”

  ***

  Danny knocked twice on 14 and then entered. The room seemed unoccupied other than one nearly empty backpack. There was nothing stashed away under the bed or in the bathtub. He sat on the mattress and bounced it a few times for comparison. This one was a little squeakier.

  He went back to room 15.

  “Anything?” Marcus asked.

  “No. He hasn’t made the pickup yet.”

  “Could he be doing it now?”

  “Probably not. But if he is, we’re in the best possible place to grab it.”

  “So we just wait?”

  “I said there would be boring parts.”

  They sat in silence for a minute. It was when Marcus sat still thinking that he looked most brainless. His mouth hung slightly open and his head drooped forward.

  “You’re sure he doesn’t have the money in his car?” Marcus asked finally.

  “You want to break into his car?”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “I get it. You just want to be doing something, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve had him on the tracker the whole time. He didn’t have a chance to make a pickup.”