by Bradley West
“You feel that strongly?” Travis asked, though he already knew the answer. Those green eyes blazed fury.
“I do.”
“This is an emotional time and we face exceptional circumstances,” Sal said. “Let me suggest we offer three shots to the Garcia family on the condition they come with us. We can’t take the patrol car since it will have a tracker, so we squeeze them into the hospital RV. Mrs. Garcia doesn’t return to town and tell everyone that there’s a blue RV handing out Covid cures. In a week when we’re certain her family’s okay, we let them go. Agreed?”
“Let me explain it to her and see what she says,” Carla said. She headed back to the widow.
Travis stayed behind and helped Kyle wrap the tarp around Officer Garcia, lift him out of the motorhome’s doorway and lay him by the road out of the widow’s sightline.
Jaime ran up. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but we have at least one dark vehicle approaching on our six. What do we do?”
“Fire over their heads and turn them around. If they keep coming, take them out. We’ve been here too long and the vultures are circling.” Travis speed-limped back to the gathered throng at the cop car. “Everyone! Listen up! We have unknown cars coming from Winnemucca. We’re moving out right away. Jaime’s team will fire over their heads to start. Let’s hurry up.” He started walking for the Silverado, not daring to join the conversation he’d interrupted.
“We’ll come with you,” Rosa Garcia said to Carla. “Otherwise, Juan died for nothing.”
The SAW opened fire in long bursts. It was Yonten’s first time on the weapon, and he was all over the place. The lack of tracers made it impossible to know where the rounds struck. Whatever they were doing didn’t have a deterrent effect. The distance closed to under two hundred and fifty meters as two vehicles ran side by side.
“I got this,” Melvin said. “Grab another ammo box and prep it.” The vehicles were seconds away and inbound rounds snapped past their heads, some of them striking the Telluride. Using his uninjured left arm, Melvin took a deep breath and summoned his 101st Airborne Screaming Eagle pedigree. His first five shots killed the driver of the Hummer on the left, which skidded and rolled over. Melvin’s next rounds shot out both front tires of the pickup on the right. The truck struck the guardrail and spewed a shower of sparks as it ground to a halt.
Behind them, Jaime started the Telluride. “Let’s go!” he shouted.
Melvin was all business, pacifist inclinations suppressed. “Changing out!” he cried as Yonten loaded a new ammo box.
“No need for that, gents,” Johnny said as he walked up and. He fired a single grenade that landed beside the wrecked pickup. Bodies and parts flew through the faint moonlight. Next up, he dropped a golden egg on top of the Humvee farther up the road. The grenade touched off two secondary explosions, the last one powerful enough to send the vehicle airborne and turn the wreck into a bonfire.
“If you’re done fucking around, can we leave?” Jaime asked.
As Melvin and Yonten packed up, Johnny theatrically blew the smoke off the mouth of the M320 grenade launcher. “The man is back in town. Don’t you mess around.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Catch as Catch Can
Saturday, July 18, 2020: Kingsbury, Nevada, Route 95, and Las Vegas, Nevada, early morning
Bora Bora’s lobby was bedlam, jammed with non–socially distanced people surrounded by piles of luggage and plastic-wrapped hazmat gear. People moaned at the realization that they couldn’t afford to stay—or that someone tested positive, resulting in their swift eviction. The three Fergusons joined this miserable lot when they aborted their check-in after declining the hotel pawnbroker’s offer of fifty-five hundred dollars for Stephanie’s fifteen-thousand-dollar engagement ring. Spending the rest of the night in the Sierra in the garage was the fallback option, but would the in-house doctor honor an appointment made by non-hotel guests? If so, where would they convene? Stephanie fretted and Greg stewed as Tyson lay unmoving, his sunken chest heaving.
A handsome, well-dressed man in his early thirties walked up. “You folks look like you could use some help,” he offered.
Steph looked at Greg and he shrugged. “Sure. Do you want to buy a diamond ring?”
“No, but I can send you to someone nearby who’ll pay more than what these sharks offer. I’m a problem-solver and you two look to have a few. Maybe I can assist in another area?”
“This is Greg and I’m Steph. Our baby has a head injury. The Children’s Hospital is closed, and we booked a room here to see the house doctor. We’re hoping he can recommend a specialist.”
“Dr. Bickford’s a wonderful fellow so long as you’re not suffering from more than a hangover and don’t mind being treated by a morphine addict. He schedules his clients based on who pays more. Last I checked, it was two grand for fifteen minutes if you were in a hurry. I’ll introduce you to the concierge, Lonix, who will bump you up to the top of the list. Just know that the good doctor has nothing that cures Covid, despite what he might say.”
“We’re covered on that front,” Greg blurted out to Steph’s dismay.
“That’s something I never hear,” the man said. He handed Greg a simple business card that read Matteo Tofanelli, Founder, Fix-It Systems with a phone number and email. “My parents were from Italy by way of Santiago, Chile, but I was born in Jersey and everyone calls me Meatball Matt. My clients are high-end gamblers or rich tourists who have money, sex or legal problems. Right now, business is slow.”
“Slow? This must be the best time in history to be a fixer. Everyone has problems,” Steph said with a hint of scorn.
“Dead people don’t pay their bills. Let me get this straight. Your baby has a head injury and you want to see a specialist?”
“Precisely,” Stephanie said.
“I have a deep network and aim for customer satisfaction. An old friend is a pediatric neurologist. We’re out of touch, but if she’s alive and in town, I’ll get you an appointment.”
“That sounds encouraging,” Steph said, her opinion of the newcomer improving. “But what do you charge?”
“We don’t have a lot of cash and I’m guessing you don’t accept plastic,” Greg added.
“That’s right. I’m like the hotel—cash, crypto or valuables. I’ll cover all expenses out of my fee, which is payable half at the outset and half on delivery. I’m not promising a cure, just the right person to look at your baby. What do you have that’s worth fifteen grand?”
“Come to the garage and look at our pickup truck, a late model GMC,” Greg said. “But first, we need a pound of ice cubes to keep our baby’s food cold.”
* * * * *
The Mountain House turned out to be more pitstop than sanctuary. Two dying men in the living room queered the vibe and put Norris into an even fouler temper. The only bright spot was finding Dirty Pete and Bailey leaning against the toolshed in the back, drinking warm beer and chain-smoking cowboy killers. The two groups updated one another on recent events as they washed down the Souls’ food pyramid of beef sticks, salted canned peanuts and Pringles with Bud Heavy. Fraser missed out on the feast but didn’t feel like eating anyway given Norris’s hostility. The Brit was eager to get back on the road before the quarry escaped for good. To ease his pain, he snuck two Percocets from his rucksack. His face throbbed less as he sipped a tepid Yank beer through a straw.
Norris worked himself into a rage as he pondered the Souls’ end. He was certain Katerina was within earshot, but she’d edged out of the lantern’s circle of illumination. “Stupid bitch!” he ranted. “If you hadn’t fucked up the first batch, we’d have injections for my men and all of us would be fine!” He punctuated his oration with a coughing fit that caused everyone to retreat.
Quick as a feline, Katerina popped into the light with claws out. “That’s rich coming from the man who stashed a kidnapped cop in the basement of my lab. What the fuck were you thinking? That’s what brought the Army down on
us, and why we’re freezing on this shitty hillside in the middle of nowhere.”
Dirty Pete cuffed her on the ear with an open hand, knocking her to the ground. “He was keeping me out of jail. You need to keep your piehole shut!”
Muller had little sympathy for any of these junkyard dogs, but this was a good time to show loyalty to the evil bitch. Short of pulling his Walther and reenacting the O.K. Corral, there had to be a way. Muller stepped forward and helped Katerina up. The formerly unmarked cheek would feel Dirty for the next few days. “We need her in one piece,” was the best he could come up with. Norris and Pete let the matter drop. He leaned over and whispered, “Shut up,” into her good ear.
Her left ear rang, her right cheek began to swell, and she marked that greasy ape for death, but she held her acid tongue in check.
As Muller still held the floor, he changed topics. “Don’t underestimate the people we’re tracking. They killed two of my men, both of them combat veterans. If you take them lightly, they will beat you.”
Katerina could counter that overblown nonsense by describing Muller’s team’s incompetence at McClatchy High School, but what was the point? Muller was back to being an ally, and it was his call if he wanted to play up the family clown show’s threat.
Norris concluded the evening’s speeches. “Winnemucca is two hundred miles and change. A little sister lives there who we can ask if a big RV one passed by. If so, they took Route 95 due north or maybe Highway 80 east to Salt Lake. It’s a three-hour trip and we’ll drive it straight up. I’ll leave directions to Bad Bett’s behind in case there are Souls behind us.”
Bails siphoned fuel from Zax’s hog to Worm’s tricked out Harley XR-759 for his new ride, while Dirty Pete topped up his Cruiser with the last of the spare gas. Looking in again on their stricken brothers on the sofas, Norris piled a half-dozen beers and bottles of water next to each man’s head and said his goodbyes. All the other Mountain House supplies ended up in the XLT. Katerina didn’t much favor getting into the back with a sick, violent Norris, so she hopped in the front, leaving a livid Burns to take the open rear seat.
* * * * *
Jaime kept the Telluride on the convoy’s six o’clock, fearing more danger from behind than in front. They crossed the Oregon border without incident, taking side roads in a repeat of what they’d attempted in Gardnerville. There were hand-painted Border Closed! signs on display but nothing more ominous.
Back on Highway 95, the group made a beeline across southeast Oregon, the driving uneventful through the one hundred and twenty-five miles of desert to the Idaho border. In the early hours of Monday morning, that crossing was deserted other than for coyotes and overfed feral dogs. Sal drew a breath of relief and figured it would be plain sailing all the way to Spice Land. He resolved to sleep for a few hours.
* * * * *
Meatball Matt had liberated a plastic bag of ice cubes from the hotel lobby. “Cashed in on a favor,” he said. “No charge.” The fixer pretended he wasn’t watching while Greg unsealed the cooler containing the Dark Cure doses, emptied the meltwater and refilled it with ice. Greg reapplied the duct tape around the lid and gently placed the small container back on the Sierra’s floor. Armed men in hazmat suits looked like dayglo theme park employees as they patrolled Level 2.
Tyson was awake and Meatball Matt saw a scrawny baby with unfocused eyes and a misshapen head—the parents weren’t scamming him about the kid’s condition. Meanwhile, Greg and Steph were nonchalant to the point of indifference regarding Matt’s potential to infect them with the virus, accepting his offer to crash in a spare bedroom. People didn’t do sleepovers these days, at least no one who wanted to live. Meatball Matt took a flyer. “If you cut me in for half of whatever’s in the box, I’ll help your baby in return for just the ring, and you keep the truck.”
Steph’s head snapped up from Tyson. “The truck is what’s on offer.”
“If you give me the pickup, how will you get around?” he asked.
“Let us worry about that. Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said and got into the cab.
Meatball Matt climbed into the back seat, rearranged crutches and spotted the pistol covered by a towel. The husband was packing, and maybe the wife didn’t know. Hmmm. As Greg paid the attendant and the Sierra pulled out into the predawn streets, Matt was desperate to know what was in that damned Coleman.
* * * * *
Though the Twisted Souls called their affiliated old ladies “little sisters,” there was nothing little or sisterly about Betts. The rawboned forty-year-old had shoulders a dockworker would envy, and was big everywhere else too. It had taken Dirty Pete and Bails a solid forty-five minutes of running up and down misremembered streets, a couple of “Nobody by that name here’s” and a handful of “Fuck off my porch’s!” before Black Betty threw open the door and waved them inside.
Bails chugged off to find the Ford and wake up the sleeping occupants. Two trucks passed him at high speed, lights on and driving like they were on their way to a fire.
Norris was too ill to get out of the pickup. He’d also declined offers beyond water and pain pills. Floating on his own dull haze, Burns had watched Katerina pass meds across to the boss biker, an unexpected gesture. Muller, Burns and Katerina crammed into Bett’s small house. She was sitting with Pete at a tiny table with masks off and a bottle of bourbon between them. Pete summed it up for the new arrivals: “No motorhomes through town to Betts’ knowledge. Plague done killed almost everyone or chased them away. Her old man Dangerous Dan kicked it two weeks ago, and she’s living off a basement full of canned goods and rotgut.” He finished his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Put your fucking mask on,” Katerina said.
Pete gave her a look and rose halfway out of his seat.
Muller stepped between them, hand on his pistol butt. “No reason not to unless you want to die.”
In a voice that was equal parts whiskey, cigarettes and gravel, Black Betty spoke: “What Dirty Pete left out is that I don’t give a shit. If the future is eating cold chili out of the can and crapping in a dry toilet, I don’t want any of it, starting with masks.”
Outside, they heard tires lock up and a crash followed by slammed doors and raised voices. Muller watched Pete pour two more doubles and make eye contact with Betts: Those two had something going on. Bails rummaged in the kitchen sink for a semi-clean glass of his own.
“Let me look outside, but we break chocks in five minutes,” Muller said. He walked out to check on the commotion. Katerina followed the former CIA mercenary out of self-preservation.
A Jeep had rear-ended a van just down the road, and the two drivers apportioned blame in loud voices toe to toe. As Muller approached, the disputants ignored him.
“Goddamnit, Jesse, let’s sort this out later,” the bigger man said. “We have to get out to the battle site. There’s a hunnert spent casings of 5.56 on 95 North and two rigs shot to hell and blown up. John Garcia’s car is abandoned out there, and it could be his body covered by the road. I got all that off the scanner.”
“I heard, I heard,” Jesse said. “That’s where I was headed when you ran into me, you shit-bird.”
“Let’s take my Wrangler,” the big man said. “The front bumper ain’t hardly dented.”
Muller and Katerina turned around and walked back to the Ford XLT as Bails and Pete said their farewells. “There’s been a shootout on Route 95 North outside town,” Muller said. “Let’s check it out. Maybe someone out there saw the RV.”
Parked emergency and civilian vehicles lined a two-hundred-and-fifty-meter stretch of Highway 95, from the burned-out inverted Humvee to the pickup with two wheels up on the guardrail to the trooper’s car angled off the road ahead. Muller parked and exited to speak with the NHP lieutenant in charge. Bails and Dirty Pete cut him off on their bikes, and Dirty Pete reported in: “Rolfie, whoever shot up those trucks used a machinegun and grenades. The frag holes and craters look like Iraq. This was
military shit.”
Muller cast his baleful eyes on Norris’ dimwits. “If you’d paid attention earlier, I told you the convoy was full of ex-soldiers with high-grade weapons. If the Army had done this, they’d still be at the scene. Shine your lights back up and down here ahead of the trooper’s car. See the wide tire marks? Those are fresh. The cop forced an RV to pull over. They shot him dead and then took out the two vehicles back there. The convoy’s just a few hours ahead of us, up 95.”
“You want us to ride ahead while you talk to the top cop?” Bails asked.
“I have all I need. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
Many miles ahead, the convoy pulled off Highway 95 for a refueling and bathroom break. Jaime left Yonten and Melvin on sentry duty and walked up to join the main group. He saw Tina help a stranger down the steps and offer her a water bottle. The newcomer had a face mask on, but he could tell she was Hispanic. They exchanged introductions and Tina explained that Rosa was ill, but had just received a shot of the convalescent plasma.
Jaime had to admit that the thought of a young Latina made the prospect of a long BC winter more tolerable. Barb marched up and ended his reverie by asking how many more people had he had just killed. Jaime answered that he hadn’t harmed a soul; he was only the driver. Then it was his turn for a question: “Why were Jeanie and Kyle offered full membership and the three Hispanics get shots and a week’s travel before getting dumped in the wilderness?”
Barb was happy to explain. “Can’t you see that Kyle and Jeanie added value by helping with the Dark Cure batching? That woman and her children did nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why do they get to join?”