The Coldest Mile

by Tom Piccirilli

  “Maybe you just—”

  “Shut up.”

  He stared at Kel Clarke and thought that it only would've been a matter of time before Ellie Raymond had taken him out of the game. She had a knack for finding young stupid guys, and Chase could tell this kid hadn't been in the bent life for too long. He was dumb as hell and paranoid on top of it. He overreacted. No cool, no calm.

  “So how did you find me?” Chase asked.

  “I've been asking around.”

  “Yeah, but nobody knows I'm here.”

  Clarke's eyes started to shift. He wanted to come up with a story quickly but didn't have the imagination for it. No wonder he needed to partner up with people smarter than he was.

  Chase smacked him in the nose and got a little blood flowing again. “Don't lie, just tell me.”

  “I tracked the old man.”

  “What?” No way did this idiot catch on to Jonah. “You? Impossible.”

  “His girlfriend used to run with some people I know. I followed the story after Newark, started asking around, found out who she crewed up with, what scores she pulled, where her family lived.”

  “And you found him?”

  “No,” Clark admitted. “But it got me down here to Sarasota.”

  “Be glad you didn't get any closer on his trail. If you had, you'd be dead.”

  Chase glanced back at the Taurus again and something snatched at his attention but didn't hold. He couldn't figure out what it might be. Lila shouted something in his head so loud that it resounded painfully and made him frown. He turned as if she was standing beside him, shot her a look and wanted to say, What is it, honey?

  He tried to piece it all together. “You've been following me since when? Since I checked out the Dash place?” Chase thought of the cleanly sliced police tape. Someone had tried to break into the house after the family had been murdered. Could this mook have been parked up the street, just waiting for Chase or Jonah to come traipsing by? “You've been onto me that long?”

  Smiling, Clarke said, “You're sloppy. Or crazy. You act like you want somebody to come after you. You don't take precautions. You're a suicide waiting to happen.”

  “So why didn't you make your move sooner?”

  “I was worried about the old man.”

  “You should be.”

  “I wanted to get you both. But I can't find him. And neither can you. So I figured I'd take you on today.”

  “That was your big plan? Drive me off the road? You insulting prick.” Chase kicked him hard in the chest again. “Take my advice. Don't run with any more hot dogs like Earl. Don't rile the old man. And stay the fuck away from me.”

  He got back into the Goat beside Hildy and drove on.

  She said, “You're letting him go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well that was stupid. I always thought you guys, the pros, you wouldn't ever let someone who crossed you just up and leave.”

  “Where'd you hear that from?” he asked.

  “From everybody. It just makes sense.” She frowned and gave him the look again. “You sure you know what the hell you're doing? When he comes back to waste you I hope I'm nowhere nearby.”

  “You won't be.” He handed her the Kel-Tec. “Here, this suits you better.”

  “It looks like a knife.”

  “That's the idea.”

  “You should keep it. Like I said, Russ, he's a little jittery sometimes, depending on how much speed he's taken and how much he's slept in the past few days. Tiny gun like this, he'd miss it. Dex won't, but Russ will.”

  She spun the P32 around in her hand, looked in his face. “So what is it now?”

  “What?”

  “Something's on your mind. You were nice and cool before, even while you were kicking that guy around, but now your eyes are burning.”

  The girl beside him, radiating heat and intent, muttering her wiseass humor like his wife used to do. That firm resolve always a solid weight pressing against him, like her warm hands as they rode, wherever, whenever they rode. He stared at the girl and kept flashing on Lila, straining to make sense of what she'd shouted at him back at the scene. If only she hadn't yelled, but the Lila in his head had been anxious in a way his wife had never been during her life. He sat there hoping she'd repeat herself. He kept asking, demanding, thinking, What? What, damn it. Honey? You there?

  “I don't know,” he said.

  You sure you don't want me to come with you?” Hildy asked. She put a hand to his wrist. Not sexing him up this time, just going in for contact, being real and human and kind.

  “No, you've done enough. I don't want you around in case anything goes wrong. I appreciate you getting me this far. Thanks for your help.”

  “I really hope you know what you're doing.”

  “We'll see.”

  Chase dropped her off at Boze's place and then drove over to the bar to meet Dex's contact man, Russ.

  Russ was a fidgety bastard all right. Looked like he hadn't slept in three or four days, pepped on uppers. Pretty much nondescript otherwise. Muddy eyes pressed into a muddy face. Greasy- dishwater blond hair. His left arm was so suntanned it was almost black. They called it trucker's arm. It came from all the miles of hanging it out the driver's window.

  They got a booth in the back and made small talk for a while. Chase didn't spot any other players in the bar. Mostly barflies and some early- duty whores waiting for happy hour. Russ commented on most of the ladies, intimately familiar with them.

  Chase could sense the need to drive within the guy, the compulsion that would take over some wheelmen he knew when he was a kid. It wasn't about the getaway or the money or the action or the juice, it was about living behind the wheel. Some of those guys used to try to outrun roadblocks. They wouldn't hole up even after a big job. They'd get on the road and just break out on a highway and get nabbed crossing state lines doing triple digits. He figured Russ had tried to be a wheelman but nobody trusted him enough to include him on their scores.

  The guy talked incessantly, saying nothing but rambling on, unable to sit in his seat without bouncing his knee or rat-a-tat-tatting his knuckles on the tabletop, all lit fuse and burning flare.

  They drank beer and did a few shots. The plan would be to keep Chase drinking to loosen him up so he made a mistake. He drank the watery beer but sprinkled out the shots under the table into the inch-deep grime on the floor.

  Russ was so hyped he didn't notice anything. The speed ruled him but he wasn't entirely gone yet. He kept asking questions, most of them meaningless but with a few sharp ones tossed in to dig deep for real info. Chase answered them all truthfully. It was his honesty that would keep him alive, at least until he was inside Dex's door.

  Two hours passed. After another four shots of Wild Turkey, Russ became a lot more mellow. Chase didn't try to act drunk. Nobody ever did a good job at it. They always overplayed and everyone saw through it anyway. Chase excused himself and went to the bathroom. Either Russ would attack him in the john or he'd use the time to phone Dex and tell him to get ready.

  Russ didn't make a play. Chase returned to the table and said, “How about it?”

  Smiling and nodding, Russ hopped to his feet and nearly fell over. He wasn't just mellow, the speed was wearing off and the liquor and lack of sleep were taking their toll. Chase watched the guy steadying himself against one of the ladies, who made a crack and got the whole bar laughing.

  Russ was so fucked up he couldn't drive. Chase got the guy situated in the GTO and asked how to get to Dex's place. Russ couldn't seem to remember. He soon passed out and looked very peaceful in the passenger seat, snoring lightly. Chase reached over and found Russ's cell, hit the redial.

  A voice went, “Yeah?”

  Chase said, “Your man's asleep. I need directions.”

  He got the address, left Russ asleep in the Goat, and found the right apartment. He knocked and the door snapped open. He looked around at four guys eating salami sandwiches and playing poker. Maybe
Dex's string, maybe just a few others like Russ and Hildy, on the outskirts of the crew, put to use from time to time. Chase was hoping Dex might have pulled in someone else that he knew but they were all strangers.

  The place was a one- bedroom shit hole, rented on a weekly basis. It was just a meeting ground, nobody stayed here. Chase figured they'd already packed up and had a new shithole ready to call home base until the big circus heist went down.

  Quick introductions were made. All the names would be phony. Dex wouldn't be here, he'd be off somewhere safe waiting to get a report. They'd continue to size Chase up and try to wheedle bits of information from him. They needed to know if he was a cop. They'd keep feeding him liquor and wait for him to drop his guard.

  One guy had already set up station near the front door to keep Chase from making a run for it. Someone went to the window, saw Russ with his head against the passenger window, and said, “It's the Wild Turkey that gets to him. He can stay hopped on reds for a week straight, but the minute you give him a shot of cheap whiskey it hits him like an ax handle.”

  They poured Chase three fingers of bourbon. He bought three hundred in chips and they dealt him in. They'd be cool another twenty minutes, and then the anxiety would stretch and widen until they cracked him in the head, threw him across the table, and frisked him.

  Twenty minutes max to make his move.

  If only he could figure out what it should be.

  Two of the guys were cheating and making a game out of it, trying to one- up each other. In some circles, you pulled something like that, it would leave at least a couple of people dead, but this bunch was playful, showing one another their tricks. Chase lost four pots in a row and then they fed him a big one back to keep him in good spirits, prove to him that they weren't out to cheat him. It was a smart thing to do but they shouldn't have pushed four pots. They didn't know him well enough. He could've been an edgy type who didn't dig their merry ways. But then, they would know that much about him.

  Nobody mentioned Dex's name or talked about any scores or jobs they'd pulled. He might be wired. If he asked any questions, they'd think he was a cop or a snitch, so he let them lead the conversation and once again answered everything honestly. Where he was from, where he'd been, who he knew, some of the old scores he'd been involved with. All the info he relayed was ten years old.

  He kept an eye on his watch. He figured someone would stand up to get a beer, walk behind his chair, and throw an elbow into the back of his head. It was all right, he could take an asskicking. The idea of four guys yanking his pants off to make sure he didn't have a wire under his nuts was a little more bothersome, but he could handle that too. He just hoped he wouldn't have to try to stare down his grandfather with his crank hanging out.

  They fed him good hands trying to get him to bet large, then at the last second pulled out flushes and full houses to beat him. It was all a matter of trying to get him a little riled. Chase started cheating too, and won back what he lost but no more than that. They didn't know what to make of somebody who worked the pots to stay perfectly even.

  One of them asked, “You want another beer?”

  “Sure,” Chase said, thinking, Here it comes, here it is.

  The guy passed behind his chair. He didn't throw an elbow. He pulled a blackjack. Chase decided that was excessive. You miss the sweet spot and you can shatter a man's skull. He turned in time to take the blow on his good shoulder. It still hurt and the guy came in for another pass, brushing Chase's ear with the leather- covered lead weight.

  Four on one and they had to try to sap him? Going with the flow was one thing, but rolling over to die like a dog?

  No guns on show yet. Chase wanted to drop and let them frisk him, but everybody's cool was gone. It didn't really matter anymore because now Chase was pissed. Like he hadn't taken enough shit down here.

  He picked up a beer bottle, spun, clocked the guy with the sap, and watched him go down. It was a nice move, he had to admit, and he hadn't even given the mook a concussion. Somebody threw a jab into Chase's face and his field of vision blazed red and black. He fell back to the wall and the three guys still standing moved in. That was fine. Nobody knew how to fight as a team, they all just waded in and got in each other's way.

  Taking a deep breath, he fired off a couple solid jabs, slugging ribs and chins, holding back a fair amount but too angry to completely give in. A little nonconducive to what he was trying to accomplish here, but to hell with it. Let them work for it now.

  Chase danced around the table, trying not to laugh as the three came around together, nobody thinking to head him off on the other side. That's what happened when you had no chain of command, just a group of thugs who all listened to one guy. Without Dex to give orders, they barreled ahead. Still no guns, which was a touch surprising. Chase held his ground, threw a few jabs, a few uppercuts, watching the blood squirt. He chopped at a throat and the guy gagged and went to his knees.

  Someone else picked up the fallen sap and swung wildly. Chase backed off and found himself cornered, stuck beside a ratty couch and an unplugged refrigerator that smelled like a lot of shit had died in there. He got his arms up and pulled his elbows in, ducked his face, and took a lot of hammering before he went down.

  The fourth guy finally got to his feet again and stumbled around some. Then he jumped into the fray too. They started to work Chase over pretty good, everyone joining in. He rolled onto his belly, balled up, and tried to ride it out. He'd let them get their shots in. He'd taken worse.

  They started kicking him, which he also thought was excessive. Sons of bitches, was he going to have to get back up and fight some more? No, he tightened up further. Not too much damage going on until someone caught him in the groin. The rotten pricks.

  Finally, huffing and weaving, they lifted him up, threw him down on the couch, got his clothes off, and gave him a solid frisking. You couldn't tell nowadays with microtransmitters and bugs. They looked between his ass cheeks. They looked under his nuts. They combed through his hair with their fingers.

  Someone eventually went away and got Dex.

  Middle- aged but honed, everything about him lean and tight and sharp, Dex was another hard- ass with too much strength and not enough mercy.

  You only had to take one look at him to know he'd left a lot of blood in his wake. Good references, Georgie had said. Been around a while, does good work. The man's eyes were dark and they glistened with judgment and deliberation. Chase figured Dex always made off with the score no matter who he had to leave behind. Chase wondered why he'd never heard of him before.

  He must've been up river for a while. Or maybe he really did heists so seldom that he never got known wide on the circuit. At least not when Chase was a kid.

  Dex spoke to his man at the door, his lips hardly moving, puffing his words under his breath the way a lot of ex- cons did. Dex had a .32 in his back left pocket. He stepped over, tossed Chase his clothes, and said, “Get dressed.”

  Chase wasn't even bleeding badly, a couple threads from his nose and his mouth. His nuts still hurt though, and he hissed through his teeth as he got back into his clothes. Dex wet a hand towel in the sink and threw it to him. Chase wiped the blood off, sat back, and waited. Everyone else did too.

  “Who are you, kid?”

  Chase gave his real name.

  “So what the hell's your problem?”

  “Me? I don't have one.”

  “You didn't get my number from Lamberson.”

  “No,” Chase said.

  “And you're not here for any job.”

  Chase could barely say it with a straight face. “The circus score? No.”

  “So what's it all about?”

  Ready to double- tap him if he didn't immediately follow up with the truth.

  So here it was. “I want to see Jonah.”

  Five minutes later the door opened, and there was his grandfather.

  Jonah, the murderer of his own woman, the murderer of children, perhaps even th
e murderer of Chase's own mother. Cold, abiding, impenetrable, looking down at him, lips tilted into the thinnest smile in the history of the world, a grin barely there but as much as a man of stone could muster.

  That's all it took.

  The rage ignited inside Chase. Lila said, Don't be foolish, love. You've come this far.

  Jonah in his head said, You're dead.

  Chase started to reach out and snatch the old man's .22, except Jonah didn't have it in his hand. That startled Chase enough to make him hesitate for an instant—where was the lethal .22 that Jonah always had cupped against his leg so he could jab it against a man's temple when the guy least expected it?—and then he went for the .32 Dex had in his back pocket.

  His hands, as fast as ever. Chase snaked his fingers out, grabbed the gun butt, and yanked it free before Dex realized anything was going on.

  The gun, like holding on to ice.

  Chase aimed the pistol at his grandfather's face.

  He knew exactly why Jonah had entered the room. It wasn't because anybody suspected Chase was his grandson. It wasn't because Jonah was in charge of the circus score and had come around to check out last- minute details. It wasn't because he was about to play cards and have a few beers with these mooks. It was because Dex was using the old man too, keeping him on hand in case it turned out there was a snitch or a cop in their midst. Jonah was there to remove the problem.

  But there was something different about the old man.

  Chase frowned, even while all the hardware came out around the room, pointed at his head. Nobody saying a word. He realized with sudden clarity that he'd been planning it this way from the beginning. Take out the old man and suicide right alongside him. What a stupid move. After all this, who would be left to save Kylie? She'd wind up in the system, nearly as fucked up as if she'd been raised by Jonah. He should've listened to Lila. He should always listen to Lila.

  So what was it about the old man now?

  At sixty- five Jonah remained hard and powerful. The two bullets in the back hadn't slowed him at the Newark motel, and even now didn't hitch up the man's step at all. His back straight, arms corded, every ridge and muscle cut to perfect definition. Same steely eyes.