by Mark Pryor
“That can't be for us,” Tristan whispered. “It can't be.”
“It's not,” I said. “But Otto's right. Everything's gone, and we'd have a hard time explaining why we're standing in the woods holding empty bags. Fifty yards from a double-murder scene.”
Tristan and Otto each carried a bag, clutching them close to their bodies as we exited the woods as if self-conscious, embarrassed by the duffels’ drooping and useless emptiness. Climbing into the backseat, Tristan threw down his bag and slammed the door a little too hard.
“Take it fuckin’ easy,” Otto snapped.
“Guys, let's stay calm.”
“Which is real easy to do,” Tristan said. “We killed two people for nothing and now someone has our money and the fucking guns that put you at the crime scene.”
“Us and not you,” Otto said, “so zip it.”
Tristan did. We all did. The only sound for several miles was Otto grinding through the gears as he took us out of the dark and into East Austin. The sense of unreality remained as the city sprang up around us, the part of town once known for hookers and blow now a hub for those who didn't loosen their ties until six, at the earliest. I looked out of the window at the brightly colored food trailers that sat cheerily on once-scrubby patches of land, at the new bars and restaurants that were too cool, and too busy, to take reservations. Two of them, I noticed, had white-shirted valets running back and forth from nearby lots, where shiny cars took refuge in the dust of the torn-down crack houses that had sat there only months before, firetraps targeted by cops and junkies to justify their existence, both replaced by valet parkers flitting about like moths in search of their flame.
As we got close to Otto's place, where we'd left my car, I spoke. “I do have one idea. It's a long shot, but since we're not overwhelmed with options, I say it's worth trying.”
We gathered around the computer at Otto's place, a clunky, black laptop that looked like it'd been around since dial-up modems. At first, Tristan was horrified by the device, but then I think he become fascinated by its antiquity. It gave him something else to focus on, a momentary distraction from the horror of losing a lot of money and possibly giving away some dangerous evidence. As we waited for the computer to boot up, I listened to their banter and wondered why I wasn't getting more blame. I was the one who'd hidden the money and the guns together, who'd failed to cover the bags well enough.
And I wondered if they were thinking about what we'd found instead of the guns and money. Tristan, it turned out, was.
“I have a question,” he said. “Who the fuck put balled-up newspaper in those bags? I mean, why?”
“Fuck knows,” Otto grunted.
“I'm with Otto,” I said. “It makes no sense at all to me. I can't…I just can't see why they'd bother. Why not just take the stuff and get the hell out?”
“Like I said, fuck knows…. And here we go,” Otto said. “Internet up and running.”
“You really think the stuff might be on Craigslist?” Tristan asked me, doubtful.
“Maybe. The camera only, though, they don't allow gun sales. But if we find the camera, we'll find who took our money.”
I gave Otto the brand and model of the camera and two fat index fingers typed the information in, far too slowly for Tristan the computer whiz.
“How can you type like that? Take lessons or something.”
Otto ignored him, maybe slowed down a little, it was hard to tell.
“There,” Otto said. We leaned over his shoulders and peered at the search results. “Why is it listing cars? Blackberries? I typed security camera, you saw me.”
“It picks up the words and gives you anything that includes them,” Tristan explained. “Just look down the list for anything close, the title description should tell us.”
“Just one that I can see,” I said.
The ad read:
Weatherproof Camo Security Camera with Night Vision—$150 (S. Austin)
“How much did you pay for it?” Otto asked.
“About two-eighty.” We leaned in closer as Otto clicked on the link. “Dude, is that it? Is that our fucking camera?”
“Sure looks like it,” I said.
Tristan looked at me and said, “So how do we handle this?”
“We do it nice and simple,” Otto said. “We make an offer, meet the guy in a deserted parking lot somewhere, and politely request our guns and money back. If he declines, we become less polite.”
“I don't think so,” I said.
Otto twisted in his seat. “Why the fuck not?”
“Yeah,” Tristan said, “I'm with him. We don't have time to pussyfoot around. We take a day or two to come up with a clever plan, he'll have sold the camera, spent the cash, and ditched the guns. We need to move on this, and now.”
“Diving in headfirst didn't turn out so well last time,” I said. “You know, guns blazing and all that. Why do you think we're in this mess?”
“Fine, we'll wear masks,” said Tristan.
“Masks.”
“Yes. Like ski masks.” Tristan nodded like it was actually a good idea. “They won't see our faces; we'll be in and out in a minute.”
Otto stood. “I'm taking a piss. You two are the smart ones, figure it out and let me know.”
We watched Otto walk out of the room, and I turned to Tristan, trying to conceal my disdain. “So, then. Masks.”
“Yes. Fucking masks.”
“How does that work exactly? We roll up and find some dude with a camera for sale. ‘Hang on,’ we say, ‘just need to put on some masks, please don't look until we're ready.’”
“Very funny. We put them on before.”
“Right, because three idiots driving along in Austin wearing ski masks, that won't attract attention. Or maybe we wait until we pull into the parking lot where we're going to meet this guy. Who, by the way, we're hoping is a criminal, which means he'll be keeping a beady eye out. So we're driving toward him, pulling on ski masks. That sounds like a successful approach method to you?”
“I suppose you have a better idea.”
“I do, as it happens.”
Otto appeared in the doorway. “You do what?”
“He has a scheme to get the camera back,” Tristan said.
“Oh?” Otto looked at me. “What about the money? And guns.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But we'll have to be patient, and we may have to put a bit of a scare into the dude. Think you chaps can manage both of those things?”
“I think we've shown that we can. The scare, anyway,” Otto said grimly.
“Just a scare Otto, nothing more than that. And even that may not be necessary.”
“Yeah, no worries.”
Tristan nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Then one of you guys call him and arrange the meeting. And the sooner the better.”
“Why does one of us have to call him?” Tristan asked.
“We're trying to remain anonymous,” I explained. “Having the English guy make the phone call would undermine that plan a little, don't you think?”
“Fine,” Tristan said, pulling out his phone. “I'll do it, I was just asking.”
“Where's your burner phone?” I asked.
“At our place. Otto?”
Otto went into his bedroom and handed Tristan his prepaid phone, and we watched as Tristan dialed. “Yeah, hello? I'm calling about the security camera…. You still have it?” He looked at me and smiled. “Awesome, I'd like to buy it. As soon as possible.”
The next morning, Otto drove over to our apartment, arriving just after seven. We went over the plan one more time, and when we were all agreed, we headed for the door. On the way out, I grabbed the original box the camera had come in, for the serial number stenciled on the back.
“Three fuckin’ amigos, here we go again,” Otto muttered as we started down the hallway.
“Let's not hurt anyone this time, okay?” Tristan said. He seemed genuinely worried.
“Every time we hurt someone, we'r
e committing a new crime and creating witnesses and evidence,” I told him. “It's not in our interests to do that. Right, Otto?”
“Hey, I'm with you. We'll do it the way you said, nice and safe.”
The plan called for me to follow in my car, so I tucked in behind Otto's piece of crap, glad for the peace and quiet. Just like before the theft (fine, let's call it the double murder, but that's not what it was when we set out), I could feel them getting tense in the apartment. Empaths fidget and get snippy with each other, I'd learned—and whoever said, “Just stay calm” the most, was the least calm.
Even though I was fine, I understood why they weren't: we were pretty sure this was our camera. The guy on the phone had told Tristan it wasn't in its original packaging, that someone had given it to him as a barter, and he seemed as eager to sell it at the crack of dawn as we did to buy it at that hour. Plus, he didn't know a damn thing about its specifications.
Tristan had drawn the short straw. Literally. He was the most innocuous looking, didn't have a foreign accent, and didn't have a hot temper. And while I was unarmed this time, I wasn't so sure about Otto. I didn't ask because I didn't expect him to admit it if he was. So it made sense all around for Tristan to make the buy. And as the guy holding the two straws, I made sure that's what happened.
I drove with the windows down, the hot morning air a reminder of something real and a cure for the sense of detachment that had settled over me. Ten seconds of crazy had gotten us here, a simple plan for theft cascading into murder and desperate, amateur trickery. The weekend traffic on Loop 360 was going the other way, heading toward the parks and breakfast joints in Austin, two lines of cars shuffling up to the traffic lights to await permission to proceed to the next set of lights. I saw a few cars twitch their noses and nip into the other lane, maybe a couple of seconds gained, but probably not. Half the people I passed were looking at their phones, a few of the women were applying makeup. All of them were anonymous nobodies to me, a procession of ants on their way to the nest, ready to fuck, feed, or die for their queen. All of them living the bland and repetitive life I'd struggled to hold on to and was now fighting to regain.
We pulled over just before entering the parking lot of Barton Creek Mall, our eyes searching the acres of asphalt that in a few hours would bake in the summer sun. The place was empty, just a sprinkle of cars near the main entrance to the south side of the mall. Cleaners, security guards, and a few early-rising store keepers, I assumed. The meet was on the north side, so I called Otto's burner to let them know I was staying put per the plan and was ready for them to go.
Tristan answered. “Okay dude, we'll see you in a couple minutes.”
“Right. And remember,” I told him, “just do the deal, don't talk or answer any questions. If it's our camera, he won't be asking any.”
“Suddenly you're such an expert,” he said.
“I've read a thousand offense reports and victim statements. So I've been an expert at this for a while.”
“Yeah,” he said, “in theory.”
As long as you're the one risking your neck, it'll stay theory. I decided to keep that less-than-motivational thought to myself. Sometimes my charm and humor didn't go over the way I intended. Especially in stressful situations, I'd noticed.
I watched Otto's car disappear around the side of the mall, heading for the north parking lot where the buy would take place. Otto was with Tristan and not with me because, as I'd pointed out, it'd be good for our seller to see that Tristan had company, just in case he tried some funny stuff.
My job, of course, was the funny stuff.
I waited calmly, my left elbow out the window, my eyes scanning for unusual movement. My burner phone rang after four minutes.
“White truck, one guy only,” Otto said. “Mexican dude with a mustache.”
“As opposed to all the other white trucks leaving the mall at seven in the morning.”
“Fuck off.”
“I'm just about to. The serial numbers?”
Otto read them off. Just as he finished, the white truck appeared on the road that ringed the mall, heading toward me and the exit. “That's a match. I've got it from here.”
“You sure?” Otto was uncertain. He had been from the start of the plan. I was to follow the guy and talk to him whenever I felt it safe to do so. I'd wear my DA jacket, let my ID swing loosely around my neck, and terrorize him with my badge. I was to tell him he wasn't under investigation, but the guys he'd sold the camera to were suspects in a theft ring. If he had anything stolen, more cameras, money, or guns, he was to hand them over or find the FBI crawling over his ass, and then find a few meaty inmates crawling up his ass. As for any cash, which he'd be the slowest to give up, I planned to tell him he'd actually get it back unless we could source the owner, assuring him that would be unlikely if it was small denominations. Which, of course, it was.
Not a great plan. A million miles from foolproof. But if I thought he was lying, we had a backup plan ready to go: a nighttime visit with guns and masks and instruments that would make a grown man beg to tell the truth. Tristan had suggested there was no way in hell that we, decent people, could carry out plan B. Otto had grunted, which I took to be a sign that he was in agreement with Tristan. I remained confident we wouldn't have to.
I tucked in behind the truck, turned left onto 360 toward Austin, and followed him all the way to a taco stand on the east side. I put two cars between us at all times and parked four spaces away. We opened our car doors at the same time. He was Hispanic and looked like a gaucho cowboy with his big, brown eyes and a drooping mustache. He wore battered boots, a checked shirt, and jeans so faded they were almost white. He walked with a kind of tired swagger, and I caught up with him ten yards from the taco stand, where three young men in business casual were putting in their order and nervously eying the BMW they'd arrived in, ready to dash back to their Saturday workaholic office and brag about the hole-in-the-wall they'd discovered.
“Good morning,” I said to him. “Never got tacos from here. They good?”
I called Tristan on his burner phone from the taco stand. “He doesn't know anything. He's not the guy.”
“How do you know?”
“He said he found it in the parking lot of his apartment complex, lying on the ground next to his truck.”
“And you believed him?”
“I did. Honestly. He was terrified by the badge and all that stuff. He'd have given up his own mother to get me to go away, and when I mentioned the feds, he about dropped his taco. By the way, I went with INS instead of the FBI.”
“And you really believed him?”
“It was written all over his face, the idea that he was going to get deported for finding a camera on the ground. He started telling me about his wife and three daughters, just trying to make a living.”
“So you felt bad for him.”
“Of course.” With all that empathy I have.
“I dunno, man.”
“He showed me paperwork for his apartment. He's nowhere near that mobile-home park.”
“Maybe he has friends there.”
“Maybe he does. If so, he'd be grilling out and drinking beer with them, not strolling around the woods. Also, his place is halfway between there and Austin, right off 290.”
“So?”
“So, it's a perfect place to dump stolen goods. Pull off the road, drop it out the window as you pass some dolt's truck…”
“But why take it if you're just going to dump it?”
“I don't know, Tristan. Maybe he didn't know what it was or changed his mind about keeping or trying to sell it. I'm telling you, raiding this guy's apartment and scaring his family won't do anything for us. It's a dead end. And maybe that's a good thing.”
“How so?”
“If the police somehow track him down, he's not spilling his guts because he's got no guts to spill.”
“So we just let it go?” Tristan asked.
“Yeah, I think it's the only th
ing we can do. Loose end tied off.”
“I've been thinking about that other thing that's weird.”
“Which one?”
“The scrunched-up newspaper in the bags. I just don't get it.”
“Me neither, matey. It's weird, for sure.”
“Yeah. So what now?” Tristan asked.
“I'll dump the camera, for good this time.”
“Okay. Oh shit.”
“What?”
“There's someone at the door, hang on.” I heard movement in the background, Tristan's breathing as he went to the door. His voice was quiet when he next spoke, like he'd looked through the peephole and didn't want the visitor to hear him. “Dom?”
“Yeah, I'm still here. Who is it?”
“Should I let her in? It's your new girlfriend.”
I lied. I wasn't at the taco stand when I called Tristan. I was at her house. More accurately, in my car half a block away from her house, watching it, waiting for her to appear. Not that she was expecting me; I wanted her to be surprised for a change. So much for that. She'd been easy to find. I knew she lived with her brother, and his information, including his address, was in the juvenile system. Easy peasy.
Her house was like so many in this part of town, small and ramshackle, circled by a broken fence. Since she wasn't home, when I hung up with Tristan I got out and walked along the cracked sidewalk. Her front yard was only slightly bigger than a large dining table, just not as neat. Hip-high clumps of grass and weeds grew up around, and swallowed, an old hand-cart and a rusted bicycle that had no wheels. At some point, the homeowners on the street had painted their houses red, blue, yellow, and green, as if color could make up for poverty. But those colors had long since faded and the whole street looked old and tired, like it had given up hope of being cared for or was waiting for the clean cut of the bulldozer to end things. Her house was a sun-bleached yellow, with the gutters poking away from the roof like strands of wild hair.
I paused when I saw movement in a window. A moment later, the door opened and her little brother came out, baggy jeans, a hoodie, and wary eyes. He had pale skin, like he was sick, but his eyes were dark brown and clear.