Black Rust

by Bobby Adair

  The Regulators were looking at one another, and their lips were moving. They were conferring in hushed voices.

  Run out the back?

  No. I was a gambler. I already had chips on the table, and I knew what some of the cards were.

  Without a doubt, Lutz had told them I lived in the apartment over the garage, at the far end of the mansion. The guy with my black case in his hand, no doubt was thinking he had something valuable. He wouldn’t risk coming into the house after me. He had his payday already. The Bully Boys? They were wild cards.

  Two of the Regulators started toward the house with their Bully Boys on their heels.

  Chapter 17

  Alone now with one Regulator, Lutz figured it was time to push back. “Let me see the warrant.”

  The Regulator looked at the black case, hefting it, jostling the contents. “What’s in it?”

  “None of your business,” Lutz snapped, knowing from the weight of the case it had to be filled with every dollar Christian had ever earned. “Let me see the warrant.”

  Holding his gun on Lutz, the Regulator bent at the knees and laid the case on the curb in front of Lutz. He straightened up and took a step back. “Open the case.”

  Lutz looked down at the worn black box. “It’s locked.”

  “You have a key for the lock,” the guy insisted.

  “No. I don’t.”

  The guy looked up and scanned the sky. “No drones.” He looked back down at Lutz with a mean smile and said, “None on the way. Don’t need drone evidence to haul in criminals.”

  Lutz understood the threat. No drone overhead meant no proof. The guy could tell the police anything. Or, he could dump Lutz’s body in the river and not spend another worry on it. Lutz nudged the case with his foot, and he looked at the lock. It wouldn’t be hard to open. But it wasn’t the lock that worried him, it was Christian’s wrath. Lutz looked up and scanned the sky. “You can’t always hear them, you know. They don’t always have those little lights on them.”

  The Regulator glanced up.

  Lutz decided he’d rather take the chance with the Regulator than with Christian. He kicked the case off the curb. It landed in the road at the Regulator’s feet. “I’m not opening it. If you open it, then you’re a thief. If you take it, same thing.”

  The Regulator knelt down again and lifted the handle, checking the case’s weight. “Why’d you come here for this?”

  “Where’s your warrant?”

  The guy ran his hand across the case. “Doesn’t look very sturdy.” He rapped on the side with his knuckle. “It’s made of wood, I think.” He stood back up. “Where’s Black?”

  “I told you I haven’t seen him in days.”

  “You tell me where he is, and I’ll cut you in.” The Regulator tried to make it sound sincere.

  “There are already three of you. What do I get, a quarter share? No thanks.”

  “All you have to do is tell me where he is. We do all the work. A quarter share is fair.”

  Lutz thought it over. It was tempting, but when he looked at the other Regulators, he saw men just like himself, and he knew a man like him would never give up a quarter share of a bounty plus whatever was in the case. The best he could hope for would be a thank you and a fuck off.

  “I see how it’s going to be,” said the guy, losing patience and standing back up. He lifted a booted foot and stomped on the side of Christian’s case. “I’ll see for myself what’s inside.”

  Lutz shook his head. “I’m not threatening you right now, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Sounds like you are threatening me.” The guy stomped down harder.

  “You know anything about Christian Black?”

  The guy chuckled and looked at the house. “I know where he lives. I know he’s your partner.”

  Lutz laughed. “You don’t know where he came from?”

  “We’ve picked up our share of bad boys. It makes no difference to me where your buddy came from.”

  The guy stomped the case again. Wood cracked. Old vinyl wrapped over the top tore.

  “It’ll make a difference when you do find out.”

  Encouraged by his success, the guy stomped a few more times before the case broke open. Still keeping his weapon pointed at Lutz, he knelt down and pulled away a piece of broken wood to look inside. “What’s this?”

  Chapter 18

  I suppressed a laugh as I snuck down a short hall past what had been the original owner’s home office and walked into the master bedroom. The case I’d had Lutz fetch—my decoy case—was packed full of old money, legal US tender from before Brisbane turned the world economy on its head. All of that old cash was worthless now except as tinder or toilet paper. I’d used food coloring to dye it all red so that it might, at the quickest of glances, look like real money. The outside bills on each bundle were real, though. Again, at a quick glance, it looked like a lot of money.

  The front door of my house opened, and I heard the sound of a voice whispering orders, but the voice was too far away for me to make out what was being said. At least one of the Regulators was coming inside with his Bully Boy.

  I took care as I crossed the floor in the master bedroom. The roof on this end of the house leaked terribly and there was plenty of rot through the floor and walls. I went into the master bath—a spa really—with marble and glass enough to make a decadent Roman proud. The faux gold fixtures, though, were all flaking as the metal beneath corroded. Funky mauve wallpaper was peeling off in sheets.

  At the far end of the bathroom, I slipped into a cluttered closet that was bigger than my room at the other end of the house, including its bathroom and kitchenette. And the closet was just one of two, a his and a hers. All that space for clothes. How could anybody have time to wear so many different garments?

  I quietly worked my way around a boxy island containing shelves that stood in the center of the closet. It had been a home for shoes, hundreds of pairs, many sitting right where the former owner had left them, collecting dust. Some were now homes for mice. Others had been shredded into nesting material. Silverfish and roaches were ingesting anything their simple little systems could turn into turds or egg cases for their young.

  Did I mention everything about my house was big?

  Not big enough to keep me hidden from four searchers for very long, but big enough to buy me the time I needed.

  They’d start their search by working their way down to my quarters at the other end, slowly and carefully, checking rooms as they went. At least that’s how I’d do it.

  That could eat up several valuable minutes.

  Clumsy feet clomped quietly on old wood. A Bully Boy was on the stairs, giving away the presence of his Regulator.

  Bully Boys had their uses, I guess. Stealth surely wasn’t one of them.

  I shoved aside a smelly old chair piled high with clothing that hadn’t been worn in two decades to reveal a large gun safe bolted to the floor. Inside, I kept some weapons, but mostly the safe protected my savings. The only question I needed to decide as I spun the combination was whether to take all the cash now or just enough to pay Ricardo and a cushion for unexpected expenses.

  Both choices were full of risks.

  Now that I was a fugitive, even though temporarily, Regulators and police would be coming to my house to find me. They’d search. One of them might find the safe. It was a rusty relic that looked like it had been in the house since before humanity tripped on Brisbane and stumbled down the stairs. The only thing new about the safe was the locking mechanism. I’d paid a good bit of cash to have the lock refurbished on the inside—people capable of that kind of work were hard to find these days. On the rest of the safe, I left the patina. I wanted it to look like it hadn’t been touched by anything but rust over the past twenty years. I wanted it to say to anyone who saw it that going to the great trouble to crack it open would lead them to find nothing valuable enough to make the effort worth it. And it would take a great effort. Nob
ody carried with them the kind of tools they’d need to break into my safe.

  Back to the question of the cash, then.

  I swung the door open on well-lubricated hinges.

  Take it all? Big risk. That much cash on me would be a death sentence if I were captured by Regulators or the police. It was enough to tempt anyone to knock me off and dispose of my body. Of course, the hundred thousand I was going to carry out with me to pay Ricardo was probably enough to get me killed, too.

  So, I had a risk that could only be avoided by not getting caught.

  Still, the idea of taking it all with me at once seemed bad. I took a conveniently sized canvas bag, stuffed in a hundred thousand, and then took another fifty just in case. I silently closed the door and locked the safe. I scooted the clothing-laden chair back in place.

  I tiptoed to the closet door, through the master bathroom, and took a peek into the bedroom as I listened for noises down at the other end of the house.

  Furniture scooted around and doors were being opened and closed noisily down by my room. I heard soft, sneaky sounds, too, coming from elsewhere in the house. One or both of the Regulators were quietly searching for me under the noise of the Bully Boys.

  Smooth, but not smooth enough to force me to kill them.

  I passed through the expansive bathroom and slipped into the master bedroom. A pair of French doors opened off the master bedroom to a private, second-floor deck over a walled garden on the side of the house. I knew the deck’s planks were rotted, and the garden beneath it was so overgrown with vines I’d risk getting tangled if I tried to make my escape that way.

  I’d have to leave the way I came.

  I snuck out of the master, down the short hall, past the study, and stopped before crossing the loft.

  Bully Boys were still ransacking my room. Clearly they were meant to be a distraction. I scanned the darkness across the loft and listened. I didn’t like not knowing exactly where the sneaky, quiet Regulators were.

  Thinking the floor might be sturdier along the wall, I worked my way around the edge of the loft, testing the boards with my toes before I put all my weight into a new step.

  Leaves crunched from somewhere below.

  I froze.

  They crunched a second time.

  One of the Regulators was in the room below, far down at the other end where it opened up to the kitchen.

  I didn’t hear a sound from the second guy.

  Moving quietly, tracking the Regulator downstairs by the sounds he made, I reached the tree trunk I’d used to climb to the second floor. I stepped onto it as I craned my neck to scan what I could see of the sky for a drone. I didn’t hear one. I didn’t want one to spot me making my break, but that was not my primary concern. Not thirty feet away from me, on the floor below, was a man with a gun who wouldn’t have any qualms about shooting me.

  I took several quick steps down the tree trunk, reached the house’s back wall, and leaned out for a look.

  Shit!

  One of the Regulators wasn’t fifteen feet away, at the edge of the covered patio, weapon at the ready, staring over his shoulder at my snapping turtle pond. His Bully Boy was at the edge of the swimming pool, leaning over, concentrating on something in the water.

  I gulped and pulled back inside the house, holding my breath.

  I waited for a breath, a second breath.

  No reaction from the guy outside that I could hear.

  He hadn’t realized I’d peeked out at him.

  The sound of a foot squishing into something rotten and damp told me the guy downstairs was getting close. Momentarily, he’d be able to look up through the gaps in the broken ceiling above and see me standing on the fallen trunk.

  I couldn’t go out through the back of the house without taking a big risk on somebody getting shot, which is to say, I wasn’t going to take that risk. If I went out the back, I’d have to shoot that guy. Then I’d have to shoot them all.

  Have to?

  I guess.

  The all-or-nothing logic was stuck in my brain, and I was too short on time to come up with a shooting solution that didn’t end up with all of them dead.

  Alternatives?

  Only one.

  I turned and walked up the trunk angled through the house, squeezing my way around branches, trying not to make noise on the old bark, and trying to move as fast as I could.

  The guy below sensed or heard something because he started to run across the floor.

  A few seconds later I heard his feet hit the stairs.

  Through the noise of stomping boots on the steps, I gave up all efforts at silence. I pranced up the trunk, dodging branches, long and broken.

  From behind me, outside the house, I heard a rustle. Twigs snapped. The second Regulator was coming.

  One of them called out.

  Through the gap in the second-floor wall torn by the tree, I saw the ground below and it looked much too far for a jump.

  Being out of options, I spied a bare branch angling down. It looked thick enough to hold my weight.

  I leapt.

  I hit with my chest and wrapped my arms over the branch as bark crumbled off the wood and I slipped, scrambling to keep a grip until I came to a stop, grasping bare wood, feet dangling.

  Looking down at flat ground between trees, I saw that I wasn’t that high and I dropped to the dirt.

  A thick mat of pine needles cushioned my fall and muffled the sound.

  I jumped up and ran through the trees to get away from the house.

  Twenty minutes later, I was back in Lutz’s passenger seat.

  With no legitimate right to hold him, the Regulators had to let Lutz go.

  Lutz glanced over his shoulder at the broken case full of useless bills in the backseat. “You hoard worthless old money like a d-gen. You know you’re not going to fool Ricardo with that, right? That Regulator saw through your charade, even in the dark.”

  “That’s okay.” I looked behind us at a car I spotted far down the road. “Don’t go directly to Ricardo’s. Just in case. Take the long way.”

  “We can’t go there at all. You can’t give him that.”

  “It’s okay.” I reached into my bag and took out a stack of hundred dollar notes—new currency, the good stuff. I showed it to Lutz. “I’ve got Ricardo’s payment. All of it.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “I have a stash.”

  Lutz ground his teeth and snorted as he bit on angry words he wanted to speak.

  “Spit it out,” I told him.

  “You sent me in as a decoy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I could have been killed by those assholes.”

  I shook my head. “You weren’t.” I didn’t elaborate. I knew the situation had been risky for Lutz, being my diversion, but I also knew he wouldn’t have stepped up to take the risk on his own, even with his freedom on the line.

  He’d taken ownership of the idea that going on the lam was an easy out. That made him afraid to take any responsibility for fixing the shit we were in.

  Chapter 19

  Lutz stewed most of the way back to Ricardo’s.

  I used the quiet miles to think through a question I probably should have asked much earlier in the night: Was everything what it appeared to be?

  I had ten bundles of a hundred one hundred-dollar bills—a hundred thousand dollars in my bag to give to Ricardo, and the money was fanning my suspicions.

  Could the dirty kill have been a setup? Was Lutz smart enough to conspire with Ricardo to scam me out of my savings? I didn’t think Lutz was that clever but I knew his sense of morality could be bent far enough that he wouldn’t be bothered by taking every penny I had.

  Maybe Lutz had run a similar game on his last partner and that’s why he’d wound up dead. That was three dead partners for him in as many years.

  Enough to worry anybody.

  By the time Lutz pulled the black Mercedes through Ricardo’s loading dock door, I was feeling
a little bit paranoid and was entertaining fantasies of jumping out of the car with pistols drawn, ready to lay down some red mayhem.

  Lutz parked, and we got out of the car.

  My pistols stayed holstered.

  Drones raced through the cavernous space, buzzing around the obstacles hanging from the ceiling, but no one had come to the big empty floor to meet us. I took a glance at the cars parked near ours. All the ones from earlier were present, as were two more—one of those a four-wheel-drive pickup, the other a Jeep. Both were rugged and dented, exactly the kind of trucks a Regulator might drive.

  I nudged Lutz on the arm and nodded toward the two trucks.

  He looked at them and looked back at me like there might be something wrong with me. “What?”

  “Those two weren’t here before.”

  “So?” Lutz took a few steps toward the stairs that led up to Ricardo’s office.

  “They don’t worry you?” I asked, striding to catch up as I scanned for dangers.

  “I’m not afraid of ugly cars.”

  Sometimes I wanted to punch Lutz. I grabbed his arm, stopped him, and turned him around to face me. “Those don’t look like Regulators’ cars to you?” Maybe I was indulging my paranoia a bit too much.

  Lutz heaved a pained sigh as he looked the Jeep and the truck over again. “Could belong to the governor for all I know.”

  “Dammit, Lutz, don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.”

  Lutz yanked his arm out of my hand and started walking away from me. “Could be.”

  “Why are they here?” I asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t worry you?”

  “I don’t have a bounty on my head.”

  Lutz was right about that. But what went on in his brain that he couldn’t see his turn was coming?

  “We’re not the only Regulators Ricardo does business with,” said Lutz. “Houston is a big town.”

  “Before we go up there, let me ask you a question.”

  Lutz stopped and turned to look at me. “What?”

  “Why were we sent out on that job tonight?”

  “I’m too tired to play a game. Ask me what you want to ask me.”