“What do you want?”
“Well, hell now. That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, ain’t it?”
Click.
• • •
I ditch everything. Smash the laptop, the cell, throw it all in the lake. Franklin also tosses his phone. Any chance they can track us where we’re going, we can’t take it. I just pray to God they didn’t get to the Fixer. If Hartman got to Remo through the Fixer, I’m completely hosed. They wouldn’t play nice with a guy like that, either. They’ll have made him talk about everything. I remember the key to my safe deposit box, still in my pocket, maybe useless by now, maybe not.
We change rides at the magic hour in a used-car lot five miles up the road, covered by the dull copper twilight. Nobody sees us—the place is closed for the night. I get us a shiny almost-new Impala that won’t be reported stolen for at least ten hours.
I let Franklin drive.
• • •
The safe house isn’t even in Austin.
It’s near Houston, two hundred and fifty miles.
He gets us there in just under three hours.
No cops anywhere. No choppers looking for us. We’re just some other stolen car on the back roads to nowhere. A little damp outside. Fall and winter are never really cold in Texas, not like in other states. Just a ghostly chill to remind you, mostly at night. Franklin does a lot of weird turns down highway stretches I’ve never even seen, until we finally emerge on 59 North, and I can finally see a few familiar landmarks. He’s taking us into Splendora. It’s a pissant little settlement a few miles off the edge of Houston—not like a real city or town, just houses hidden by trees. There’s a lot of rural communities like this sitting at the outskirts of H-Town, and they’re all godforsaken as hell.
A stretch of gravel snakes into a fenced area in the woods. It’s hidden real well. A hardened redneck shotgun party with a squad of bloodhounds couldn’t find this place. Two guys on the gate, wearing city clothes and combat boots.
A short driveway cuts through a thick cluster of evergreens and opens into a compound. It has a few buildings that look like they belong on a farm, lots of open space, target ranges. More hired hands around, big muscle guys. I can see two of them carrying machine guns near a concrete slab about fifty feet wide with yellow markings like a basketball court. There’s an innocent little two-story house nestled near the rear of the compound, also dotted with big guys, four of them, surrounding the perimeter.
When we pull up to the farmhouse, I can tell by the bulges in their cheap sports jackets that they’re all carrying backup weapons in shoulder holsters. The one who opens the door and asks me to please step this way has a modded Ruger SR9 Centerfire pistol visible just under his armpit—high-end hitman gear, very reliable. Nine-millimeter stopping power, with a stainless steel slide and a black glass-nylon alloy frame. You see ex-marines selling those things at gun shows. The guy has a face like the surface of the planet Mars, looks about thirty. All these guys look young, except Franklin. I see the wrinkles on his face for the first time. Why didn’t I notice them before?
I follow Mars-Face up the creaky wooden stairs to the porch, where another guy with black hair and a white T-shirt pats me down, looking apologetic. He’s strapped with an SR9 also. These guys must shop at the same gun show.
Franklin is right behind me. “We’ve got a code thirteen, Larry. I gotta get the boss on a secure line now.”
Mars-Face squeezes his lips together and shakes his head. “The boss is already here. Get the kid inside.”
The house has an old-fashioned screen door that sounds like a mouse getting pissed-off about something when Franklin opens it for me. My father stands up from the couch just inside the living room. He looks like he hasn’t slept in two days, since I last saw him. The TV in here is tuned to MSNBC and an image of the toy store I used to work at fills the screen on shaky video with urgent red letters rolling across the bottom:
Attack On Texas Capital
“Son . . . what the hell just happened?”
I shrug at him and say the first thing that pops into my mind:
“You got any beer in this place?”
• • •
I drink two Lone Star tallboys and it’s like water floating in my guts. I don’t even get a half a buzz. Dad tells me they have some whiskey but that’s never a good idea. The hard stuff makes me fuzzy and stupid. So do cigarettes. He’s still asking me questions and I still don’t know exactly what to tell him. I’ve screwed up here, but how much of this is really my fault? What the hell did Hartman mean? People I care about are going to die. Everywhere I go, he can find me. The sky is falling.
That maniac.
He never did anything this crazy before.
Not in broad daylight.
The TV says ten are dead that they know about, including a mother and her child who were gunned down inside the store while I was running for my life. Identities being withheld until notification of the victims’ families. I’m impressed with how fast the word got out. It’s been just over four hours since we ran like hell. I shouldn’t be surprised. They had the World Trade Center on every goddamn channel before any of us in Texas even knew what was happening. That gives me the wet, slimy feeling again.
I cut off the feeling.
Have to focus on the here and now.
I keep the kit bag on my shoulder this whole time. It still has twenty grand in it, the money the Fixer got me. My getaway insurance. It might be the last money I ever earn, if the key in my pocket is worthless.
Shitfire, Elroy. What the hell do you do now?
Heavy boots clock hard outside on the porch, and I hear the screen door squeak again. A big thick fella with a hard, sculpted face stands in front of me now, brown and mean-looking like an Italian, out of breath. He’s decked head to toe in military olive, like a drill sergeant with no decorations. Looks like a crazy man.
He points at me. “Is this the guy?”
He’s a good old boy, every syllable dripping with redneck fury.
Franklin stands up from the couch next to me as my father confirms my identity. The good old boy shakes his head at me.
“Mister, you’ve got a lotta explaining to do.”
4
00000-4
FULL DISCLOSURE
We leave the farmhouse—me, my father and the guy who looks like a drill sergeant—and cross the open compound to one of the other buildings, near the concrete slab. It looks like a barn. On the inside, too. Even has horses in the stalls and smells like rotten hay. It strikes me as a little odd that I grew up in Texas and I’ve never been in a barn once or even seen a farm animal this close up. I once saw a movie where Sean Penn played a guy on death row in New Orleans, and for his last meal he had shrimp, and when they brought it to him, he told Susan Sarandon he’d never eaten shrimp before. You never stop to smell the roses when you live the lives we live. But I was never on death row. And I never killed anyone.
Sure as hell tried today, though.
The gun felt cold and unforgiving in my hand when I aimed it—like the revenge I’ve lusted after for years.
But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
The man would have shot me dead.
And I just stood there.
A wooden stairwell in a dark corner that smells raw and unfinished drops below the floor, taking us into a short basement corridor with miners’ lights strung along the ceiling and another guy with a Ruger on the next door. He salutes the good old boy in olive green, turns a key in the lock, punches in a code. The security is a joke, I can tell just by glancing. The digital keypad has a SERIO-SYSTEMS trademark on the outer plastic. You blow past those things easy, just by pressing in a row of sixes and holding down the pound key for six seconds.
Through the door, a conference room with a long table and a flat-screen monitor taking up one entire wall. Two flunkies in the room wearing guns in shoulder holsters. Three men and two women sitting at the table, most of them in army green.
&nb
sp; At the head of the table, the concerned citizen.
Just some rich lady who spent a million bucks to get me out of jail.
• • •
She doesn’t look happy, doesn’t look upset, doesn’t look like anything. She’s dressed in black, with a dark jacket and matching blouse. I notice for the first time that she’s very thin, her face suspended in mystery by those deep green eyes. She’s got a laptop open next to a stack of papers and photos, a pen in her hand. The army guys stand and salute our guide when we walk in.
“As you were,” he tells them, and they sit down again. Getting a better look at them, they seem like mercenaries. I’ve seen their type before, seen a few get killed.
One of them is a young woman, probably twenty.
She’s pretty but not gorgeous, has freckles and long red hair in a ponytail. Not muscular, like the others. Her uniform is dark olive, no camouflage patterns, eyes full of smarts, decorations on her shoulder. Gotta be an air force hacker.
She sizes me up, and I see her eyes shift from mode to mode.
Our guide plants his feet on the ground right next to me, and I notice for the first time that he has a mean serrated army knife clipped to his waist—it’s long enough to be a sword, the kind you see in movies starring Sylvester Stallone. Wasn’t sure those things really existed.
The lady in the dark suit motions to the empty chairs across from her. “Have a seat, gentlemen. We have a lot to discuss in a very short time.”
“No shit,” our guide tells her, sounding pissed. He doesn’t sit when we do. Stands almost at attention near the table, his hands clasped professionally behind his back.
The lady clicks her pen shut. “Mister Coffin, I’d like to introduce Sergeant Maxwell Rainone, U.S. Army, retired.”
I raise my hand, like I’m in school asking for my turn to talk. “Excuse me, which one of us were you talking to?”
“What?”
“You said ‘Mister Coffin.’ That’s both of us.”
I point at Dad and then at myself.
The Sarge lets out a huff. “Can you believe this little fuck? Doesn’t even have any idea what kind of fuckin’ deep shit he’s in.”
“Please don’t be crude,” says the lady. “We’re here to sort things out, not make more problems.” She looks right at me. “It was a valid enough question, Mister Coffin, and so I suggest in the interest of cutting through the confusion that we refer to the two of you by your first names from now on, yes?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m not trying to make trouble. It was a little joke.”
“The men in this room are trained specialists and weapons experts,” she says. “I would expect a man like you to know the difference between trigger-happy morons and real professionals. So let’s act professional. Elroy.”
So much for stalling these guys with my quick wit.
She takes a breath, and:
“Your actions have caused a major breach in the security of our operation. This meeting was scheduled to take place tomorrow.”
“I don’t know what happened. They came out of nowhere while I was walking out of the store.”
“Who?”
“David Hartman’s people.”
“That’s not good. Does he know about your involvement with myself or this operation?”
“Man, I don’t even know your name. And what operation? You guys just cut me loose without a word and told me to go work in a toy store. Next thing I know, people are shooting the place up.”
“I told you what you were being hired for,” she says sharply. “My daughter has been kidnapped. This is serious business, Mister Coffin.”
“None of that business has anything to do with stocking action figures.”
The Sarge growls at me. “Don’t try to put this off on us. We involved you double-blind because we knew how hot you were gonna be. But there’s no way Hartman’s people could have moved on you so fast without inside information. No fuckin’ way.”
“Then you guys don’t know David Hartman very well.”
The lady shifts her weight, doing that thing where you settle back in your chair with a long dramatic pause to own the room during a meeting. I already called her on the trick of using your name a lot on a business deal—executives in big companies are trained to do that. Makes you feel important while they’re calling the shots. Yes, Mister Coffin, we understand your problems. No, Mister Coffin, you don’t get to choose the color of the big rubber dick we’ll be bending you over with.
I see it in her eyes when she speaks again:
“Actually, we know Hartman quite well. We have our own inside information, and we’re using it to correct the problem. It may be expensive, but we can deal with it. What we really need to know is what Hartman knows. If he’s figured out why you were released from prison.”
“It didn’t seem that way.”
“Are you saying you talked to him?”
“He had my cell phone tagged.”
“You’re not supposed to own a cell phone.”
“Call me cautious.”
“I’d call you a fuckin’ dumbass.” The Sarge’s voice is like crazy dragon breath on the back of my neck. I don’t pay attention to it.
The air force redhead keeps her eyes focused on mine.
Still sizing me up.
“I apologize for the cloak-and-dagger routine,” says the lady in black, ignoring the girl. “You were released into the care of the state because that was part of the deal I made. There had to be a real body answering questions in front of the parole people for a week before we pulled you out of the halfway house. I got it down to three days after serious negotiations. Everything was arranged. You should have trusted us to take care of you. When did you contact Hartman?”
“I didn’t. He contacted me. I made a call from the toy store yesterday. Had to get some personal business worked out, get my gear. That’s probably how they knew where I was working. The guy who squealed was an old hacker buddy.”
The lady rubs her eyes. “They could know anything by now.”
“I didn’t talk about anything. I don’t know anything.”
“It could have been enough for Hartman to start digging. We should abort the operation.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” the Sarge says. “We accelerate the operation. Hit him two weeks sooner. Within three days, max. He won’t have enough time to figure out exactly what we’re after, and by then it’ll be too late. My boys are ready to go.” He throws a mean glance at my father. “Ringo, you think you can get this dumbass little man of yours up to speed in a few days?”
“Right after you stop calling my son a dumbass.”
“I’ll think it over.” The crazy guy actually backs off a little. He must know my dad’s reputation. Wonder if he knows about mine?
The air force redhead’s expression never changes through all this.
“I’m not convinced acceleration is the right answer,” says the lady in black. “I need to contact my people in the police department again, see how this whole business at the toy store shakes out. Need to put some feelers on the street. This compound is secure. What I need to know now, Elroy, is exactly what you said to this hacker friend of yours, when it was said, and what Hartman said to you.”
Gotta tell her everything.
Don’t have anything to lose now.
My life is in the hands of these people, one way or another.
• • •
When I finish my story, the Sarge looks impressed, but he doesn’t say anything. Must’ve been the part about dancing over a moving car doing fifty down a narrow alley.
The redhead in olive drab takes a deep breath, folds her arms. Keeps quiet.
“Hartman told you that people would die,” says the lady in black. “That means we may have even less time than I thought. If he killed all those people just to send a message . . . then we’re dealing with a psychopath.”
Wow. So you figured that out all by yourself, huh?
“He was alway
s a psychopath,” I say. “I told you that before. He’s an ape who thinks he’s a gangster.”
“That much is obvious now.”
“It should have been obvious to you from the very start.”
“So this is our fault somehow?”
“I didn’t say that. But Hartman is a redneck. Not some master scoundrel with a grand design. He’s got one philosophy that sits on top of everything and that’s do unto others and make it permanent.”
The lady sighs, leaning back. “Hartman is also a businessman. He stands to lose too much if he starts shooting random people on a crowded corner in broad daylight. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“He’s insulated himself,” I tell her. “That kind of power makes a crude man less than humble.”
“We both know that’s true.”
“If you wanna know about gangsters, I can tell you plenty. Me and my dad, we’ve worked for all shapes and sizes, and most of them have the same problem. They all eventually go crazy listening to their own voices.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “And what does that mean exactly?”
“It means I’ve never been in the living room of a gangbanger that didn’t have the poster for Scarface hanging on the wall.”
“I see.”
“You know what poster David Hartman had tacked up in his office?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Anna Nicole Smith.”
She almost laughs. Catches herself, putting a hand casually over her mouth.
“This is turning into a clusterfuck,” the Sarge says suddenly, starting to pace around. “I still say acceleration is the only way to go. The guy’s a mad dog. We’ve gotta hit him before he snaps his leash. Even if he doesn’t get to us first, he could make a lot of noise, draw a lot of attention if he fucks up too bad. Another massacre like the one today might totally compromise our objective.”
Resurrection Express Page 5