by Jack Soren
And here he was again, hiding with a supposedly dead body in a cheap pine box built for one. After what seemed like an eternity the driver’s door opened and closed again. A few jostling minutes later, Lew knew he’d just escaped from prison. But he wasn’t free just yet. He surmised that somewhere between here and the coroner, the van would stop. Either because the driver was in on it or because the men who wanted Miguel Colero’s dead body had forced him to stop.
Lew couldn’t see Colero’s face in the dark, but every now and then he heard a muffled grunt and knew the drug lord was trying to talk under his gag. Lew thought about it and realized that if they were ambushed before he could figure out what to do, having Colero free, talking, and on his side might buy him some time, if not save his life. And if Colero went all stir-crazy, Lew’d just rap him in the mouth with the gun and put the tape back on. A win-win scenario, Lew style.
“You got some big cojones, I’ll give you that, Katchbrow,” Colero said when his mouth was untaped. As Lew continued cutting him free, he could tell from the volume Colero was using that he was going to behave. “What’s the deal?”
“The warden sold you out,” Lew said.
“Cabron,” Colero hissed.
“Well, there’s more,” Lew said, trying to keep his bearings by feeling the turns of the van while he talked. So far, they seemed to be on course.
“Like what?”
“Like he hired me to kill you.”
“Didn’t think someone like you would have a problem with that. Maybe I read you wrong,” Colero said.
“You didn’t,” Lew said, taking neither pride nor guilt in who he was. “But the big issue now is where are we going?”
“Sí. Good question.”
“Either your enemies are going to meet us and carve you up—and I’m guessing anyone who happens to be with you—or we are headed for the coroner, and when they crack this puppy open we’re going to have some fast talking to do.”
“You can bet we ain’t goin’ to the coroner,” Colero said. “They must have moved the date up,” he said more to himself.
“They?”
“Sí, there was a reason I needed to be dead and out today.”
“I figured as much,” Lew said. Just then he felt a turn and an acceleration that wasn’t on his mental schedule.
“What is it?”
“Looks like you’re right. We just turned away from downtown. And picked up speed.”
For once, Colero was quiet.
THEY HEARD THE driver plead for his life, a gunshot answering him. Then someone pulled open the cube van’s roll-up door. Lew tried to peer out through a crack but it was the wrong angle. From the voices he’d heard before they shot the driver, he thought there were three of them. No doubt, one of them was the competition come to claim his crown from Colero. And his pound of flesh.
Somebody shouted in Spanish just before Lew heard a bolt pulled back. The bolt on an automatic weapon.
The repeating of the automatic weapon was deafening in the small space. The smell of gunpowder and ozone made it hard to breathe.
Splinters and smoke filled the air as the shooter yelled like an animal, filling the pine box with holes. When he finally stopped, he kicked the lid off the low-grade coffin. It took some time before the air finally cleared. When it did, Lew imagined the shooter’s smile disappeared.
“Impossible!” The shooter sputtered. Lew pictured the three men leaning forward and seeing that the only thing in the pine box was coroner supplies now perforated worse than peg board. Supplies that had been in two storage cupboards at the back of the van’s cargo area just two minutes earlier.
Lew and Colero, each in a separate cupboard, kicked the doors open simultaneously. They came thrusting into the cargo area before the assassins knew what was happening. Lew fired his pistol once, hitting the gunman in the middle of his face. His head snapped back and flesh and cartilage exploded up into the air, backlit by the moonlight outside the truck. Lew kept pulling the trigger, but nothing fired. He quickly realized that Quinn had fucked him too.
One of the remaining men turned and ran around the corner. Lew knew that had to be the boss, who apparently wasn’t so brave when the chips were falling. The other man reached for the gun hanging in the holster under his arm, but Lew was on him before he could unclip the leather. He hit him at a full run, the two men sailing through the air out the back of the truck and slamming down on the side of the road, Lew using the attacker’s midsection as a landing pad for his knees and all two hundred and twenty pounds of his bulk.
Colero, still wearing most of the duct tape Lew had sliced so he could move his arms, jumped out the back screaming and went after the other man, who had run up the side of the truck toward a black Escalade parked across the road. Lew didn’t care about him right now. Despite shooting bile and snot into the air on their landing, the man under Lew—who was no jockey himself—was still going for his gun. Lew grabbed the holster and fought with the man. Then he realized he still had the pistol in his other hand.
“Ah, fuck it,” Lew said. The gun might have been empty, but it was still a useful weapon. He raised his fist and slammed the barrel down straight into the attacker’s eye socket. The one-eyed man screamed and let go of the gun in his holster. “Big mistake.”
Lew snatched the gun out of the holster, stood up, and put two shots into the screaming henchman. The screaming stopped.
He turned in time to see Colero coming back around the end of the truck. Behind him, he could see a man lying in the road, lit up by the van’s headlights. From the way the body was lying he could tell its back was broken. His head also seemed to be facing the wrong way.
“Guess I wasn’t wrong about you after all, amigo,” Colero said with a smile.
“How the hell did you . . .” Lew looked at the small-statured man and realized there was far more to him than a couple of colorful names. Then he saw that Colero was holding a gun similar to Lew’s, each pointed at the other man.
Maybe I didn’t think this all the way through.
Time stretched out. Steam rose in the cool night air from their sweaty faces, the corpses littering the street, and the still running engines of the two vehicles. They were on some back road in southern Mississippi. Lew knew if you died there, the only ones that would find you would be the gators and the survivalists.
“What now, compadre?” Colero asked, his gun leveled.
“The way I see it there’s only one question,” Lew said, eyeing Colero. He figured if the drug king had wanted him dead he would have been in the ditch by now. And it never hurt to have friends in low places.
“And that is?”
Lew dropped his weapon to his side. “I don’t suppose you’d let me take the Escalade?”
Colero smiled and dropped his gun as well.
“I like you, Katchbrow. You don’t say too much. You can obviously take care of yourself too.”
“Seems to me all I’ve been doing lately is taking care of you,” Lew said before he closed the van’s back door. He picked up the first man he’d shot under the arms. Colero did the same with the other man. Together they dragged them off the side of the road into the brush.
“That’s my point,” Colero said. “I could use a man like you.”
“Sorry, I like the girls,” Lew said.
“I’m serious, cabron. Money like you’ve never seen,” Colero said. They headed up to drag the other body off the road.
“I’ve seen a lot,” Lew said. He had the shoulders and Colero had the feet of the strangely folded wannabe drug lord. They swung him several times and then let go, watching him sail into the tall grass. The shape of that man reminded Lew not to push this little guy too far.
“I could change your life, Katchbrow. Come with me.”
“I can’t,” Lew said, wiping sweat off his forehead with
his shoulder.
“Ah, I know that look. Unfinished business. In that case—” Colero pulled a pen and paper out of his pocket and wrote something down before tearing off a sheet of paper and holding it out to Lew. “Here. For when you’re done.”
Lew looked at the paper and saw it was a phone number.
“Good luck,” Colero said, holding out his hand. Lew shook it. He couldn’t think of any situation where he’d need to call a drug dealer, but he stuffed the number in his pocket anyway and drove off into the night.
12
Tallahassee, Florida
8:00 A.M. Local Time
JONATHAN STUMBLED DOWN the stairs, wiping sleep from his eyes as the pounding on his front door continued. It was almost as loud as the pounding in his head. After he’d spent most of the night chasing The Monarch story across the channels, a tiny, paranoid voice in the back of his head now whispered:
Have they come for me?
He shook the nonsense away, fighting it by redoubling his irritation at the intruder. He stomped to the door and yanked it open.
“What is it? Don’t you know what time—” The words fell out of Jonathan’s brain but missed his mouth. “Seven A.M., but I’m still on Central Time,” Lew said.
A smile slowly crept across Jonathan’s shocked face before he threw his arms around his old friend.
“Jeez. I know you’re single, but you still like girls, right?” Then a quiet came over Lew and he put his arms around Jonathan and squeezed. “I missed you, man.”
After a minute, they got hold of themselves and separated, both of them trying to hide their moist eyes and clearing their throats. Jonathan slapped Lew on the shoulder a few times, wearing a grin so big it threatened to be continued on the next face.
“You going to invite me in before the neighborhood watch registers us at Macy’s?” If possible, Jonathan smiled bigger. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed that sense of humor. Then he saw Lew’s ride sitting in the driveway, full of holes and spewing steam out from under the hood. He read the writing on the side.
“Yazoo City Coroner? Where the hell is Yazoo City? Iraq?”
“It’s a long stor—”
“Uncle Lew!” They both turned and saw Natalie bounding down the stairs in a flash of brown hair and SpongeBob. She left the ground and landed in Lew’s arms.
“Oof!” Lew teetered back until Jonathan grabbed his shoulder and steadied him. “Hey, squirt. What do you weigh now, like eight hundred pounds?”
“Where’ve you been? Are you staying? Is that your truck? Can I have a ride? How much—”
“Okay, okay, honey. Let Uncle Lew get in the door before you turn on the lights and get out the rubber hose.”
“How about I make you Uncle Lew’s special cinnamon and chocolate chip waffles?” Lew asked as he walked in carrying Natalie.
Her scream of delight almost shattered the neighbor’s windows.
Jonathan, who had been nervous about his pantry stock, was relieved when he had enough ingredients and, more importantly, syrup for the morning feast. They ate and laughed until they could hardly move, most of the conversation and attention on Natalie.
The phone rang and it turned out to be Kayla Swenson, one of Natalie’s friends. She and her family were going to Kayla’s brother’s basketball tournament over in Quincy and she wanted to know if Natalie could go. Kayla’s dad was a cop, and the girls had become good friends, so Jonathan said yes. Natalie would only go if Uncle Lew promised to still be there when she got back. He promised and she ran upstairs to get ready.
“Kinda late notice, isn’t it?” Lew asked, meaning the invite timing.
“Ha! This is more notice than I usually get. Most of the time they show up in the driveway and Natalie asks in front of them,” Jonathan said, still at the sink washing the breakfast dishes.
“Nice. No pressure,” Lew said, leaning back in a chair at the breakfast table. He was watching the news on the television perched up on top of the refrigerator.
“I don’t mind. The Swensons are a nice, normal family. And it works both ways. Most weekends Kayla either sleeps over here or Talie sleeps over there. Guarantee she’ll ask for a sleepover when they get back. You watch.”
“I love it,” Lew said with a big smile.
“What?”
“You and your domesticity. I didn’t think you had it in you, but that’s no secret,” Lew said. “Especially after Sam died.”
“Neither did I,” Jonathan said, feeling guilty. He hadn’t talked to Natalie about her dreams yet. He wasn’t even sure if he ever would, but right now it sat heavy on his shoulders like a yoke laden with buckets of water.
“Tell me something, buddy,” Jonathan said, needing to get out of his own head.
“Anything,” Lew said, licking syrup off his palm.
“There wouldn’t happen to be a prison in Yazoo, would there?”
Lew closed his eyes and exhaled. Apparently he’d wanted to avoid this, or at least avoid it as long as possible. Jonathan knew the feeling.
“How’d you know?” Lew asked.
“All through breakfast you’ve been protecting your food like someone’s going to take it away. I mean, you were never Emily Post, but you broke some sort of land speed record scarfing down those waffles,” Jonathan said, trying to lighten the mood.
Lew lifted his coffee mug to his mouth but stopped before putting it to his lips, and set it back down on the table.
“You got anything stronger than coffee?”
It was a little early for Jonathan under normal circumstances, but he thought a little hair of the dog sounded good. They waited until the Swensons had picked Natalie up, even so. The Swensons would have her back by two or three in the afternoon.
With a steaming mug of spiked coffee firmly in hand, Lew told Jonathan everything. If nothing else—and there was a lot else—they were the only people on the planet the other was completely honest with. As they talked, they avoided The Monarch killings completely.
“So I guess we should get that van out of the driveway pretty damn soon,” Jonathan said. The only reason Kayla’s father hadn’t asked about it was because they’d covered it with a tarp. Jonathan could only imagine what a painful explanation that would have been.
“That would be a yes,” Lew said.
“Okay, I think I know where to dump it,” Jonathan said.
“Then we can talk about going to New York,” Lew said.
“Uh, going to New York?” Jonathan said. He hadn’t even admitted to himself yet that the idea was swirling around in the back of his head. Mostly because it was simply impossible. And probably not that smart.
“Well, yeah. I know we’ve been tiptoeing around it like it’s a big elephant in the corner, but why do you think I’m here? We have to go stop those murders. Both of us.” Lew said it so matter-of-factly that it sounded like he was saying you had to open the door before you walked through it.
“We do.”
“Natch.”
“But where exactly is Natalie in this grand plan of yours? Waiting in the car? What makes you even think we could find the killer? The FBI and the NYPD seem to be having a few difficulties in that department.”
“We’re smarter than they are,” Lew said with a wink as he downed the rest of his drink.
“Well that’s debatable, but I’m thinking having hundreds of agents and millions of dollars in computers and technology might be a bit of an advantage. Come on, Lew. Are you serious? ’Cause if you are, I think you might be using some of your friend’s product.”
“He’s not my friend. I just used him to get out of prison so I could come here. Obviously that was a mistake,” Lew said. The monotone voice and the way he kept his teeth clenched while he said it told Jonathan he was pushing too hard. If he wasn’t careful Lew would go off to New York on his own.
Which was about the only idea worse than them going together.
“Let’s just calm down for a second,” Jonathan said. “First things first. We’ll get rid of that blinking I-just-escaped-from-jail sign you call a van. Okay? We can talk on the way.”
“Fine,” Lew said, reaching for the scotch to reload his glass. Jonathan snatched it away from him. “Hey!”
“I’m thinking maybe you don’t get a DUI on your first day out of prison,” Jonathan said.
“Whatever, Mom.”
13
New York City
8:30 A.M. Local Time
THE STOREFRONT SIGN said “Pioneer Electronics—Since 1982,” but the sign in the window said “Closed.” Emily rapped on it lightly with her knuckles anyway. After a moment, a perturbed Asian face appeared in the window. When he saw Emily, he smiled.
“Come in, come in,” he said, waving at the air after he opened the door. Emily stepped into the dim computer repair shop and he shut the door behind her. His name, as far as she knew, was Raiden Pioneer, though he’d admitted long ago that he’d taken Pioneer from the sign that was on the shop when he bought it.
“I’m sorry for calling so late last night and for the short notice, Raiden,” Emily said, putting her bag on the counter. Bits and pieces of computers lying here or hanging there filled the small shop, but ironically the cash register that sat on the counter was the old nonelectronic type. Emily thought it fit in perfectly with Raiden. What you saw was definitely not what you got.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, walking behind the counter. “It was a wonderful surprise to get your phone call last night. I’ve often thought about you over the past two years. You always brought me such challenges, and then poof, you disappeared. I’m happy you are well.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Emily said. Raiden had been vital to gathering information for The Monarch’s Reign. She felt guilty about not staying in touch after the book was finished.