“I don’t know the whole story,” Rhino told Cross later. “They captured him when he was real young . . . but he never talks about it. He knew English when they took him. Then they trained him for cage-fighting. That’s where he was when we found him, remember?”
“I remember when you found him. I still don’t know why we—”
“Yeah, you do. He’s one of us. He hates them. He hates them all.”
“Princess doesn’t—”
“He does, Cross. And you know it. I figure, they had to kill his people when they took him. He never mentions it. Never heard him say any word that sounds like . . . ‘parent.’ So it probably happened right in front of him. Maybe he wouldn’t speak Spanish because it would be like admitting he was one of those . . . who took him. But you’re right. He heard it. For years and years.”
“He’s been around plenty of Latinos. He never copped an attitude, never showed any—”
“He’s a kid, Cross. A giant kid. But he’s not a moron. He knows the people who snatched him, they’re not the same as anyone who speaks Spanish, all right? Remember how he was in that cage? Always trying to get his opponent to join forces with him, make a break for it? How he’d never hit first, the other one always had to start it? He was famous for it. That’s why he dresses like that. Other people have to start it. And he wants them to.”
“Fal and Ace are real steady hands,” Cross said. “But if Princess decides to . . .”
Rhino shrugged his huge shoulders. “What do you want me to tell you? He . . . might. I’ll talk to him, do the best I can. But with Princess, there’s a lot of little tripwires in his head. And if someone stumbles over one of them . . .”
“Sure I can fly one, Boss,” Buddha said, confidently. “Planes are like cars. You can drive one, you can drive another.”
“You won’t get much practice time in,” Cross warned him. “And we’re not buying it either—just renting it.”
“What kinda crazy . . . ?”
“Think about it for a damn minute. It would cost us more than our whole budget just to buy it. They take the chance you won’t come back, but you sure as hell can’t just run away with it . . . They’re all flyboys—they’d spot it if it showed up anywhere in the world. Remember who we’d be renting it from. Besides, they have to make all those mods I told you about.”
“Sure. But if I’m gonna take out both targets I need the cannons and the bombs.”
“You can keep them. And the full rocket pod—that’s the part we got to modify, remember? But we have to lose the Sidewinders.”
“Chief, if I encounter any hostiles up there, I don’t have no air-to-air, I’m just a sitting duck.”
“The entire attack radius of that thing is less than a hundred miles, Buddha. That’s the way they’re made. You pop up, take out target one, spin around, target two, eject the pod and drop, scoop the others, and scream back across the border. They’ll never even know you were there. And the Quitasol Air Force, they don’t know anything about combat. Hell, way I got it, they don’t have one single pilot. All they do is send up one of those foreign ‘instructors’ to strafe civilians every once in a while.”
“But . . .”
“There is no fucking room for the air-to-airs, Buddha. Not if we’re gonna evac four people. We have to lose weight up front to pick up behind. No choice. No chance. In or out?”
“Boss . . .”
Cross was silent, his eyes focused somewhere past Buddha. Through me, Buddha thought. And finally said: “I’m in.”
“Why?” Cross asked Ace, the two of them sitting alone in the back room of Red 71.
“The money.”
“You make money here.”
“I do that. I earned my name. Ace. But you know what, brother? I’m the original Ghetto Blaster. You understand what I’m saying? Sure, I get paid. But I work local. Close to home. Ten large, that would be a nice price for one job. And now . . . you got plenty of those little baby gangsta wannabe motherfucking punks take someone out for nothing, just to ‘blood in,’ see? I ain’t no long-distance man like Fal. I got to be close. I’m good, no question. But you know what that means, where we come from. Good as my last one. That’s all. Here’s what I got for all these years: I got a little crib, don’t have to live in no Project again, ever. Got a nice ride. Case money, a few K deep, that’s all. A piece of”—the handsome black man waved his hand as if to encompass his surroundings—“this. I also got kids I got to feed. I don’t mean just food either. I got plans for my kids. College, the whole thing. They don’t know what I do, and they ain’t gonna know. I don’t even let them go to school in they neighborhoods. So, bottom line, I got a big nut to cover. And I do cover it, but I got to hustle. You know my business. You can’t be jumping at any job they throw your way, can’t be too eager. One slip and I’m in Stateville for fucking ever. Death Row or on the yard, don’t make no difference. I wouldn’t be coming out.”
“We’d—”
“That’s it, right there,” Ace said gently. “You’d come for me, that happened. Don’t say you wouldn’t, brother. Save that trick for someone who wasn’t there with you from jump. Yeah. We’ve been back-to-back since we first locked together. You’d try, right? Juice it or blast it, you’d try and spring me. Everyone would, except that little bastard Buddha. You think I don’t know that, you must think I’m stupid. Or maybe you think I’m stupid ’cause I do. I don’t care. So you know what? If you all do this, I got to do it too. ’Cause if you have to leave Chicago, the whole crew, then you’re taking my back away from me.”
“You can’t count on—”
“—what? I know what I can count on. And if I’m wrong, I pay what it costs. That’s the way the world works, right, brother? Besides, my share, we make this work, I’m done. I can walk away. No more of this life. I’ll have enough, I play it right, to last me until my kids are old enough to visit me in some nursing home.”
“You don’t have any training for this kind of thing, Ace. No experience.”
“You think a jungle’s different ’cause it be green instead of concrete? I may not know what kind of motherfucking snakes and all they got down there. But I know this. Know it for sure. Anyone can die. And I can make them dead. What else I need to know?”
“You’d be with Princess and Fal. If Princess loses it, you know what that means. Fal could fade into the brush. He’d have a chance. You can’t carjack a ride out, brother. If the wheels come off, you’re done.”
“Been that way since we first locked together. Nothing changes. We ain’t about change. We about not being changed. I’m down.”
“It’s not enough,” Cross told the chauffeur.
“Seven and a half million? In fucking gold? And that’s not enough, that’s what you’re telling me?”
Cross regarded the agent with a calmness the other man had only seen once before. In Tibet. Radiating from a man so ancient as to have defied the laws of nature with the mere fact of his continued life. But that man, he was a mystic. A man of such pure peace that he changed the warlike spirits of the conquerors. Or so it was said.
“What I’m telling you,” Cross said, “is that we’re not the fucking A-Team, okay? We have a deal. We do this job. We get paid. And part of that pay is, you go away. And you stay away. You don’t come back playing the same tune. We do this, and you leave us be. In Chicago. Together. Like we are now.”
“You expect the federal government to issue a license to—”
“I expect the federal government to do what it always does—look out for itself.”
“Which means . . . what?”
Cross wiped his forehead, the bull’s-eye tattoo clear in the dim light. “You ever wonder how come we—our crew, I mean—how come we never hooked up with any of those psycho groups? You know, the Nazis or the skinheads or the militia or the Klan or whatever else you got. There’s plenty of money there, if you know where to look.”
“Uh, for one thing, seems like you might have a few . . . ineligibl
es, right? Ace, Falcon, even Buddha—they wouldn’t pass the DNA test.”
“So you’re saying they wouldn’t want us, right?”
“Right.”
“But if I walked in there alone. Or even with Princess and Rhino—Princess without his costumes—what then?”
“Well . . . sure. Hell, thank God they don’t have anyone like—”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Cross said softly. “Trying to tell you, anyway, if you’ll just listen a little bit. If we do this, we’re going to try and do it right. Which means, come back alive and get the other half of our money. And spend it too. So, I was trying to think to myself, how can we be sure you won’t come back again someday? Maybe another little job Uncle wants done. And the same thing: We don’t do it, you bust us up, just like you’re gonna do this time. What could we do to keep you from doing that?”
“You have my—”
Cross laughed. It sounded like a heavy foot stepping on dry twigs. “I don’t want your ‘word,’ pal. It isn’t worth anything. See, I know you. You don’t know me, but I know you. I seen your kind before. You’re a patriot. You don’t give a good goddamn who’s in the White House, it’s America you serve, huh?”
“That’s right.”
Good. So here’s what I want you to tell your . . . people, or whatever you call them. We take this job, and we get back . . . or some of us get back, whatever . . . and you come to us again with this same squeeze, you know what happens?”
“What?” the agent asked, his tone just this side of a challenge.
“We’re gonna kick it off,” Cross said, his voice bloodless. “Race war. We’ve got stuff stashed all over the country. And we know how to do it. And you know we know. We’re not a bunch of handjob geeks reading little red books. We’re professionals. And we got black covered as well as white. We start it off, it’s gonna make Oklahoma City look like a cherry bomb in a mailbox. And we know the right notes to leave; the right calls to make to the media; the right idiots to step up and make noise. They always had the scenario, but they never had the skills. They don’t have the technology, and they don’t have the brains to use it if they could get it. They give interviews. You fuck with us again, we’re all going to be little play-Nazis for a couple of weeks. And when we’re done, it’s gonna take Uncle years to put out the flames.”
“You’re . . . insane.”
“Sure. A stone psychopath. Check my records.”
“You’d burn down a whole country just to—?”
“Survive? Be left the fuck alone? Oh yes. I fucking promise you. It’s not our country. Never was. We’re better off in wartime anyway, you don’t let us live in peace. So go tell your pals that. Tell them the truth. Get your shrinks to do one of their little ‘profiles,’ ask them if they may think we’ll do it.
“That’s what I want. Besides the money. Never to see you or anyone like you ever again in life. Fair enough?”
“We were never going to . . .”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
The black van was unremarkable except for the heavy grates of steel mesh covering every window. A closer look might have revealed other indications that the van was meant to hold captives, but the deserted two-lane blacktop wasn’t likely to draw observers. The van proceeded at just over the speed limit, negotiating the gently curving road with grace, yielding whenever a vehicle behind it indicated a desire to pass.
The van rolled along, covering ground. Inside, two beefy men in gray prison-guard uniforms sat in the front seat. They spoke little.
After another hour had passed, the passenger said to the driver, “Seems like a waste of all that meat.”
“We got our orders.”
“Sure. But it ain’t what the orders said, it’s what they didn’t say; you with me on that?”
“No, Homer. I’m not with you on that. In fact, I don’t understand a word that comes out of your mouth.”
Yeah? Okay, maybe you can follow this, all right? That bitch we got in back—when’s the last time you saw a piece of ass that fine?”
“What difference does that make?”
“To me? Don’t make any, I guess. I was just thinking. You know, about this job. I mean, we got nothing but little lines on a map. We drive until we find where they connect up, then we walk her over there and just drive away. And we’re supposed to leave her cuffed too. Right where we drop her.”
“So?”
“So that’s supposed to mean she’s still locked up, get it? So it’s legal and all. She was never out of federal custody, understand what I’m saying?”
“So?”
“Fuck, is that the only word you know? Do the math, stupid. Whatever this is, it ain’t kosher.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, you’re a wise motherfucker, aren’t you? I’m trying to draw you a picture here, but you ain’t looking. This broad, whatever’s gonna happen once we drop her off, she sure ain’t gonna say anything about us, you follow what I’m saying?”
“No.”
“All right, you stupid bastard. I’m done playing around with you. The way I figured it, we could have some fun once we drop her off. You been driving like a robot, got our ETA programmed right in,” he said, nodding his head at the dash-mounted GSP system, which displayed a grid with a blinking green cursor showing their actual whereabouts and a red star showing their destination. “You speed it up a little bit, we get there sooner, see what I mean? That gives us a little extra time. With that hunk of stuff back there. Handcuffed. You think we’d ever have a better chance?”
“You’re a sick bastard,” the driver said quietly.
“A disgrace to the uniform?” The passenger laughed. “Man, you think the real cops look at us as anything but dog shit? Prison guard . . . that’s lower than convict in their eyes. This ain’t no military operation, Sarge,” he sneered, hitting the last word with heavy sarcasm.
“Maybe not to you, punk,” the driver said. “We’ve got orders. We follow orders. That’s the way it’s done.”
“Yeah? Well, you do what you want. Me, I’m gonna go back there and see if that bitch wants to use that big mouth of hers for anything but complaining.”
The driver kept staring straight ahead through the windshield; his hands gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter perhaps, but otherwise unchanged.
The passenger detached his shoulder belt, slipped out of his bucket seat, and walked down the aisle to the back of the van, where a woman sat in the last seat, anchored by ankle chains, hands cuffed to a belt around her waist.
“It’s a long ride we got to go yet,” the guard said.
The woman did not respond.
“You, uh, want a cigarette or something?”
The woman stared out the window.
“I’m talking to you, bitch!” the guard snarled, grabbing a fistful of the woman’s thick hair and yanking it hard in his direction.
Her eyes were a strange shade, he thought, a kind of yellow-gray. He didn’t like looking at them anyway, he thought, dropping his gaze to her breasts as they strained against the once-white sweatshirt she wore.
“No reason why you and me can’t be . . . friends,” he said softly. “You know the deal—I figure they must have told you. We drop you off, leave you chained to a tree. Now, maybe somebody’s coming. Maybe not. But I guess you figure they are, or you wouldn’t be so relaxed.” He reached out with one hand and cupped her breast, bouncing it gently. “You grow these yourself, or did you buy them?” he asked.
The woman looked somewhere else, her mouth flat and grim.
“We got plenty of time,” the guard said. “All I want is a few minutes. You give me that, I give you a real nice ride, you understand?”
The woman didn’t reply.
The guard slapped her viciously. A dot of blood bubbled in the corner of her mouth. The guard leaned close to her ear. “I can do that. Or a lot more. Anytime I want. Nobody’s gonna hear you scream. Or maybe I could . . . give you that cigare
tte you turned down before. Lit. Right on top of one of those big boobs of yours. You like that idea, cunt?”
“Did Riselle like it?” the woman asked, her voice as calm as a person asking directions.
The guard punched her just under one breast. Smiled when her face instantly lost color. “The next one, maybe you’re gonna puke all over yourself. You fucking bitches think you can tease a man all day long, flash some tit, get my nose open, and nothing happens? Let me tell you something, cunt. All of those sluts, they wanted it. Or they traded for it. Women are all whores anyway. It’s just a question of the price. You want a lot of pain, just keep it up. I got all the time in the world. Now, what’s it’s gonna be, whore?” he asked, his tongue touching the woman’s ear. She whipped her face around so quickly into a head butt that the guard was aware of nothing but a sickening crunch against his temple. He staggered backward, dazed. Held his feet for a second or two, then collapsed in the aisle.
The guard got to one knee, shook his head to clear it. “This is gonna be fun,” he said, reaching for his canister of mace.
The van pulled off the two-lane blacktop onto a gravel road. Followed it for 2.87 miles and turned left into a dirt path. The driver watched the digital odometer and the satellite tracking system carefully, nodding to himself as he spotted a clearing just ahead as the cursor and destination icons merged. He brought the van to a stop. “I’ll take her out,” he said to the passenger, who lay half slumped in his seat, face bloody, uniform pants stained.
The driver went to the back. The woman’s face was battered, one eye fully closed. The once-white sweatshirt had been cut off her body with a knife. It lay in shreds around her waist. “Jesus Christ!” the driver said, kneeling to unlock the ankle chains. “I got a medical kit in front. Just wait till I—”
“Going now,” Tiger mumbled to him.
“Sure, okay. Can you walk?”
“Yes,” the woman grunted.
“Lean on me,” the driver said, slowly moving toward the rear of the van. He threw a series of switches. The doors hissed open and a set of steps automatically descended. “You want me to lift—?”
Everybody Pays Page 27