Resurrection Express

by Stephen Romano

  I failed you, son.

  I see him when I am twenty-eight years old, and he’s telling me he’s proud of what I’ve become, that we are a family at last, but none of it is normal and none of it ever will be, no matter how much denial we choose to live in. I steal things and Dad kills people and we bank millions of dollars, but we don’t live like kings because that brings the IRS and the FBI running. We live in tiny one-story houses on the edge of Austin. I live with my wife and he lives alone. But we never really live, do we? We are always working. Always moving. All over the world. No rest for the wicked—not now, not ever. And his face is full of defeat.

  I failed you, son . . .

  His face never changes through any of these memories. He sees the rage that lives in me and is terrified of it. The rage that must be quelled by a life of always working. The only life we know how to live.

  I failed you, son . . .

  I pull away from it one last time. I realize I’m not screaming anymore. Bennett’s voice comes again, telling me to just calm down.

  • • •

  It takes a few minutes, but I manage to get my shit together. I get to my knees and look her in the eye. Try to make my voice as strong as possible.

  “Sorry about that,” I tell her.

  “You scared the hell out of me. I thought you’d lost it for sure.”

  “I . . . I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Me too.”

  She moves her shoulder slightly and winces. The field dressing she threw together in the vault is soaked through with blood.

  I let out a sharp breath, and almost smell roses again. “How bad is it?”

  “I think the bullet scraped the muscle. Missed the brachial and axillary arteries. That’s why I haven’t bled more.”

  “We’ll get you a doctor.”

  “How? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I have it covered. The cavalry is on the way. Try to relax.”

  As the words leave my mouth, the absurdity of a dog giving a cat advice hits me like a sledge to the face. I expect her to roll her eyes and say something all smartass about the man screaming for his daddy telling the wounded soldier to calm down, but she doesn’t say anything. Just shivers there, on her knees, looking real scared.

  “I didn’t sign up for this,” she says. “I was supposed to make a million bucks and retire to goddamn Florida. What the hell am I doing here?”

  “They were gonna kill us both.”

  “And whose fault is that, Elroy? I told you to shut it down and run. If you had listened to me—”

  “If I’d listened to you, we’d be just as dead. They planned on killing us right from the start.”

  “That don’t make any sense!” Her face contorts, the bad shoulder twitching. “Fuck . . .”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I ain’t okay. Somebody fuckin’ shot me. And filling my head with bogeymen don’t help, either.”

  “Didn’t you hear what that asshole said back there? There weren’t enough seats for us on the express, remember?”

  “That could have meant anything, Elroy.”

  “Look, just think a minute. We went in there for a suitcase full of hard drives. Whatever we were really stealing, they were lying through their teeth about it. And they didn’t need us to recover any encrypted data, either—they just wanted me to bust the lock on it. We were all expendable as soon as that vault door opened.”

  The pain hits her again, and she hangs her head, sucking back hard air. “Maybe you’re right, Elroy. Maybe. But you still should have listened to me.”

  “That guy was going to kill you. He would have put that big knife in your eye and bragged about it over beers.”

  “So I’m supposed to say thank you? You got me into this goddamn mess, Elroy—it’s your fault!”

  “Then just try to remember, I’m the only guy who can get you out of it.”

  “Fuck you! Just fuck you, Elroy!”

  I back off and calm myself another degree. “I’ll get you to a doctor. I’ll even get you to Florida with some cash in your pocket. But we have to stick together. I’m sorry and it sucks, but we’re runners now. And those people who hired us—they’re dangerous and well funded. Jayne Jenison will come after us, she’ll find us, and she will kill us. Do you read me?”

  Her face is red and wet, the pain stabbing through her body. She sits there next to me for a few seconds, letting the silence speak volumes.

  Then she sighs again. “Who do you think she really is?”

  “She’s no private citizen, that’s for sure. Private citizens don’t kill their techies after they do the job. That’s more like third-world black ops.”

  “You think she’s CIA or something?”

  “Or something.”

  “Goddammit, Elroy . . .”

  “There’s only one way to know for sure. I have to find out what they had us going after. Hack the discs. Figure out what she really wanted from Hartman.”

  “And I get to bleed to death.”

  “I said I was gonna take care of you. Just try to stay calm.”

  Now she rolls her eyes. “You should take your own advice.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about that, but I’m okay now. I’m thinking clearly. You’ll have to trust me.”

  She pauses again.

  I read the pain clear and terrible as it slashes across her bloodshot eyes.

  “I’ve heard about people like you,” she says. “Ragers. That’s what it’s called, right? One minute you’re okay, the next minute you see red and everything goes to hell.”

  “What can I tell you? It’s gotten me in some pretty hot water.”

  “Why should I trust someone like that?”

  “Because you don’t have any choice.”

  She shakes her head and gets to her feet, muttering something nasty. I watch her head back to the chopper and re-dress her shoulder from the field pack. She’s a tough one all right—tougher than I would have thought. For a second I think about offering to help her, and then I think again. Lady hates my guts right now—best to leave her alone.

  She’s right about it all, of course.

  I blew it back there and it cost my father his life. It’s the terrible thing that will haunt me now until the end of my days—which might be right now. Is she right about my rage? Am I a time bomb waiting to go off?

  Not if I keep it under control.

  Not if I use it to fuel me and focus me.

  The rage came with my ability to see equations and logic—the power to bust any lock with my mind and break any bone with my bare hands. I have to use it to get us out of this. I owe Bennett. I owe my father.

  I owe Toni.

  If she’s still alive.

  If Jenison was telling me the truth about her.

  It could have been a lie to get me in there—to get what they wanted from me. They fixed us all really goddamn good, didn’t they?

  Bennett screams out loud as the new bandage goes on.

  • • •

  I go into the abandoned factory building and sit on the dusty floor. Bennett follows and sits next to me. She starts venting—mumbling nervously, painfully. Like she’s talking to herself. She invokes the name of Axl Gange a few times. She sounds like a crazy person, her voice echoing off the walls of the destroyed chamber. This place is full of smashed glass and debris from whatever used to go on in here—which was years and years ago. Nothing left now but ghosts and scraps. Garbage and shreds of plastic. And the nervous rattle of a woman I nearly got killed.

  I close my eyes and take myself out of there. Allow my adrenaline to crash and burn, so I can calm down. I realize how tired I am. How much I’ve been relying on broken sleep. Just four hours yesterday morning.

  I try to lower my body rhythms, to find some sort of peace, to allow myself a moment of rest . . . but I keep bouncing back, and my adrenaline jolts me again.

  Where is Toni? How can I find her now?

  What the hell am I doing?


  What really happened back there?

  The leads start to become visible just as I hear a car horn and rap music driving velvet pistons into the earth from a subwoofer in the trunk of a muscle car.

  • • •

  We walk outside to see a sexy red Ferrari 458 Spider pull onto the landing strip. It is sleek and full of hard angles, like a sultry anime robot from outer space. A shiny new Pontiac right behind it, the robot’s not-quite-as-dazzling trophy wife. Beautiful rides, all this year’s models. Everything in the latest style, always with Kim. And always, she’s right on time.

  She steps out of the Spider in sequins and glitter, fake boobs bobbing in the breeze, big muscles throbbing on her arms and hips like one of those female weightlifters. The tattoo across her exposed belly shouts in fancy wedding invitation script: The Hammer Will Fall. A pink cartoon cat winking with evil lust under the letters, like she just swallowed the mouse and knows you know. There’s a thin young Puerto Rican boy in a blue halter top on her arm and he has a tattoo just like hers, but the cartoon is a mouse with eyes bugged out, like she knows she’s about to be eaten, and the fancy words are in Spanish. Two big black dudes step out of the Pontiac and one of them puts the keys in her hands. She smiles and turns to me.

  Her voice is like Pam Grier dropped three octaves:

  “Hey, hey, gorgeous boy. Still trying to be black, I see.”

  She means my ninja clothes. I shrug because it doesn’t matter.

  “We’re all black deep down, you know that, Kimmy.”

  “And some of us got soul we can’t control, baby.” She laughs and slides me a tentative hug by leaning in with two arms around my neck, the kind of hug girls always give out when they don’t want you to get the wrong idea. “Good to see you, my boy Elroy.”

  “I didn’t think you’d come out personally.”

  “Let’s say I was in the neighborhood. Or maybe I couldn’t resist seeing your sexy face.”

  “Bullshit. You just wanted to look me in the eye when this deal went down.”

  She winks and purses her lips, bigger than life.

  Yeah, it’s not a typical morning when a fella who once made you six million bucks in six minutes calls up four years later with a machine like this on the cheap.

  She hands me an oversized manila envelope, stuffed. “This is my undying love, hon. Have some.”

  I weigh the envelope in my hands. No way this is two hundred large.

  “Sure it’s all here?”

  “Of course it ain’t, baby. Gotta test drive this sweet ride of yours first. If it’s the King of Pop, like you said, I’ll send the rest with my man.”

  “And the doctor?”

  “Eight o’clock in the P.M., downtown. The Sheraton. Room number’s in the envelope.”

  I look at my watch. Just past seven thirty in the A.M. That’s more than twelve hours until Bennett sees the doc. Half a day for the demons to catch up with us.

  “How’s your security on the place? I’ve got really bad people looking for me.”

  “Of course you do. And look at me, baby. I’m still standing after a hundred and fifty fucking years of dealing with really bad people.”

  “In a few hours, you could be taking a risk by shaking my hand.”

  “I love it when you try to scare me. But don’t worry, it’s taken care of. Eight o’clock and we’re gold.”

  “My lady friend needs a doctor now.”

  “Baby, I’ve got a business to run.”

  “I’ve seen how you do business.”

  “You’re my special boy, Elroy. Would I lie to you?”

  “Sure you would. But you’d kiss me first.”

  “Best I can do. Take it or leave it.”

  I think about it for two seconds, then roll the dice. If we move fast underground and Bennett’s gunshot wound isn’t as bad as I know it probably is, this can happen. Kim’s one of the biggest players in town. If she can’t protect us for a few hours in a hotel room, nobody can. And it’s a better deal than no deal.

  I give her the nod and shove the package under my arm.

  She looks at Bennett, her arm all slinged up, dried blood on her face. “What’s your story, morning glory?”

  She shrugs with her good shoulder. “Cut myself shaving.”

  “We’ll get you fixed up real pretty again.”

  She laughs. Licks her finger and sizzles the air with it. Starts to make some more silly small talk but knows I’m in a hurry. Hands me the keys to the Pontiac. Kisses me in the air on both sides of my face, like a real diva.

  “You smell like a man on fire, baby.”

  “I am.”

  “Something else on your mind?”

  “Toni. Have you heard anything about her? Anything at all?”

  “Not since forever. You chasin’ after ghosts now?”

  “Always.”

  “That’s why I like you, Elroy. You’re such a hopeless romantic. But I ain’t heard nothing. I’m sorry.”

  She says it like she really means it.

  I don’t know if I believe her.

  Don’t know if it matters.

  “Well,” she says. “Gotta fly. You crazy kids stay outta trouble.”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “The doctor will be in.”

  “Better be.”

  “Oh, gorgeous, don’t you worry.”

  She waves her hand and gets back in the Spider, yelling at someone on a cell phone. A couple of dinged-up trucks approach us, and some guys get out, start looking over the chopper. Kim leans out the window, tells them to hurry their asses. I don’t even want to think about who she plans on selling that thing to.

  Me and Bennett get our gear out of the chopper, load it in the trunk of the car. The Gold’s Gym bag never leaves my sight. Kim blows me a kiss as I slam the trunk shut.

  She mouths the words Good luck, baby.

  • • •

  The envelope has the cash for the chopper—fifteen grand down payment—plus the car papers and Google directions to the Sheraton downtown, half visible on a sheet of paper run through a printer with a low inkjet. That’s where her doctor will see us. Eight o’clock, off the radar. Mob docs trade lab-grade pharmaceuticals in bulk and emergency-room favors for protection—most of them are degenerate gamblers, underage pussy chasers, you name it. I can imagine what Kim has over her guy. The cash will be delivered, too, for the machine. Room 1006A, on the tenth floor, her place. Everything first class with Kim, all in the latest style. Once I get Bennett to a doctor, it’s out of my hands. She saved my life, I got her out of there—we’re even.

  I have twenty grand taped to my leg, another fifteen from Kim, plus the car. The rest of my money in twelve hours, if she doesn’t screw me. My split should be enough to make a few moves. But right now, we need a stack of pay-as-you-go cell phones and some new clothes, maybe some food. And a quick room where we can hole up and figure out what the hell our assets are. Plus lots of Diet Coke. I need to stay awake.

  I’m so tired.

  Damn.

  • • •

  We find a half-dead Motel Six just inside the Houston city limits. It’s on I-35, next to the 59 Diner and a bunch of restaurants. A Goodwill right down the road. A Walmart, too. Perfect.

  I park the car around the side of the motel building where you can’t see us from the freeway—the manager’s office is nice and out of view, too—and I check us in. It takes ten seconds.

  This room sucks. No Internet connection.

  I don’t dare use the cell uplink in my rig, either. The people hunting us are watching every satellite in the air right now. Has to be a sneaky back door over a common land wire, and there’s no wire here. These are dives, these little thirty-dollar-a-nighters. The bigger places, the chain hotels, they’re just as easy to break into, but higher profile. Sneaking in the back of the Sheraton downtown tonight will be risky enough. The World Wide Web can wait.

  We’re good for a few hours, then we have to run again.

  Jus
t enough time to do some shopping.

  • • •

  I visit the Goodwill and the Walmart. I get the burner phones and the clothes and some food. We change into our new threads and Bennett cleans the field dressing again, throws on a fresh bandage. The old one is not as bloody as the first time she changed it out. If there’s no internal bleeding, she should be okay, like she said.

  But always prepare for the worst.

  I’ve slept just four hours out of almost forty-eight now. I’m exhausted and the demons are screaming at me. But I can’t sleep—there’s no time for that. I gulp Diet Coke and sit in the center of the room and ride the rush, focusing on the plot. It’s garbled in white noise.

  I’ll think of something.

  • • •

  “Okay,” Bennett says a few minutes later, leaning against the moldy headboard as I decompose in a blue long-sleeve sweatshirt that smells like mothballs and old people. “We’ve got the hard drives, the computer rig, ten of these disposable cells, a quarter pound of C-4, wireless detonators, one shotgun with twenty rounds, a pile of these time-release handcuffs, two Ruger SR9 pistols and a Colt Python I plan on holding on to.”

  “You won’t be able to shoot again with your shoulder all messed up like that, even with your good arm. The recoil from that Python will tear open the clots—and forget about the shotgun.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not as bad as it looks. Bullet went right through the meat, straight in and out.” She indicates the fresh bandage. Picks at the take-out food on the bed next to her. Hushpuppies and chicken fingers from a grungy little greasy spoon next to the motel called Willie’s Waffle House.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “You’re still not a hundred percent.”

  “Look, don’t tell me I don’t know the difference between a hole that bleeds a lot and being really hurt.”

  “Just take it easy.”

  She looks pissed. Probably knows I’m right about her shoulder. Maybe I’m wrong. Hope I am. She munches on a hushpuppy, and shrugs at me with her mouth full. “What the hell time is it anyway?”

  “Just past three P.M. We gotta book again.”

  “Keep moving, huh?” She laughs bitterly.