“Police chief. Called. They said they’d check. That was an hour ago. Haven’t called back.”
“Staties?”
“I’m a PI, Herb. I don’t have any sway there. Now maybe they just turned off their phones, and Phin is prying open that backdoor and doesn’t want to be disturbed while he’s uprooting mudflowers—”
“How did you get to be this old without someone shooting you?”
“—or maybe they’re in trouble. We can figure it out on the way.”
“On the way?”
Harry grinned. “Pack up your Lunchables, tubby. We’re road tripping to Wisconsin.”
T-NAIL
Rage.
T-Nail had been living with rage for so long, he’d turned it into fuel. Rage blazed inside him, pushing him forward, driving him to live another day just to quench it. But it was unquenchable.
The hot water had stopped, but every inch of his upper body continued to pulsate with first and second degree burns, steam billowing all around him in the cold November air. He eyed the back of his hand, staring at the blisters as he pushed his joystick forward. The wheels continued to churn mud, preventing him from moving. Because the chair didn’t have a manual override when he could power it by hand, he was stuck there until someone came over and freed him.
Injury.
Insult.
Rage.
T-Nail closed his eyes, the lids beginning to swell. He imagined nailing Del Ray to a wall, then getting up close and personal with a utility knife and a ball peen hammer. There would be screaming. And begging. And no mercy.
He was so into the fantasy that he didn’t even notice when some of his men came by and pushed him out of the trench his spinning wheels had dug. When he opened his burning eyes and realized he was moving, the rage intensified. The soldiers pushed him up to Del, who watched with an expression that might have been amusement. He had a few puffy spots on him, but for the most part didn’t look like he’d been scalded at all.
“Explain what just happened,” T-Nail said, his voice low.
Del Ray held his stare. “Any wheel can get stuck in the mud, T-Nail. Even all terrain shit. But if you’d switched the Gyro to a sitting position, you probably could have pulled out.”
T-Nail felt eyes on him. His men, staring, waiting to see who was alpha. Angry as he was that he’d gotten stuck, T-Nail let it go for the time being. Right now he had to establish dominance, after looking like a damn fool who’d been—literally—spinning his wheels.
“Your crew was sent here to scope out the place,” T-Nail said. “And now all of my men have gotten burned, because you didn’t see this coming.”
“I saw the sprinklers. I didn’t know they were for defense.”
“What were they for, then? To water the dead leaves?”
A few chuckles from the soldiers. T-Nail pressed on.
“You were supposed to watch the cop. We could have snatched her in Chicago. But instead, she came up here to some kind of goddamn fortress. Did you spook her somehow?”
“Naw. She’s just on vacation.”
“She went on vacation to a house with no windows, metal doors, and boiling water shooting out of the ground? She’s hiding. How’d she find out?”
“I don’t know.”
“You set up the surveillance. You set up the attack. You failed, Del Ray. You failed me, and you failed my homies here. You feel me?”
Del Ray didn’t answer.
“Back in the old day, we’d rum runner your ass for this colossal clusterfuck. Hold up your hand.”
T-Nail raised his palm up as an example, as if he was giving an oath. Del hesitated, and T-Nail saw fear there. But he also saw defiance.
T-Nail knew how to deal with defiance. The moment Del lifted his hand, T-Nail drew his nail gun and shot him through the palm, quick as a cobra strike. The younger man howled and doubled over, tugging the nail out and dropping it to the ground.
Alpha established.
“You have two hours to figure out a way to get into that building,” T-Nail ordered. “Now somebody get me some goddamn burn cream.”
HERB
Welcome to the Crimebago Deux,” Harry said.
He pronounced it crim-ee-baygo, playing off the name Winnebago, which is what the vehicle was. A motorhome McGlade had outfitted in ways only McGlade could, which is to say it was ostentatious, impractical, and expensive.
“It’s a portable crime lab on wheels,” McGlade boasted. “It’s also fully armored without sacrificing any luxury or drivability.”
“It’s red,” Herb said.
The entire recreational vehicle was painted candy apple red.
“I’m getting older, and sometimes I forget where I park. This makes it easier to find.”
Herb eyed its length, which was at least six meters. “Yeah. I imagine you lose this all the time.”
“Want to see the engine?”
“Not really.”
“It’s a hybrid. The Crimebago Uno got a quarter mile to the gallon, so I had to fill up every twenty minutes. But this one gets almost half a mile, while also powering the home entertainment center, the dishwasher, and the vibrating massage chair. Don’t sit in the vibrating massage chair, Lardzilla. It isn’t rated past three hundred pounds.”
Herb was going to tell McGlade where he could stick his vibrating massage chair when someone yelled, “HOMEBOY!”
Herb squinted into the recesses of the Crimebago, and saw a rubber chicken in a cage.
But it wasn’t a rubber chicken. It was moving.
“That’s my new pet,” Harry said. “His name is Homeboy.”
“HOMEBOY!” the thing squawked.
What Herb had thought was a rubber chicken was actually a parrot. At least, it looked like a parrot from the neck up. Its head boasted a traditional curved black beak covered with poofy green, yellow, and blue feathers. But the rest of its body—chest, back, legs, wings—was plucked bare. It looked like a pink, dimpled, underfed roasting turkey wearing a parrot mask.
“Handsome bird,” Herb said.
“Homeboy was a rescue. He was confiscated in a drug bust. His former owners cooked meth, and I think he got hooked on it. So now he pulls out his own feathers. Some sort of nervous disorder.”
“Couldn’t you buy him a little sweater or something?” Herb said, eyeing the naked animal.
“I did. He didn’t like it. He prefers au naturale. I got him because I thought it would be fun to have a pet that could talk.”
“HOMEBOY!” yelled Homeboy.
“Does he say anything else?”
“METH!” said Homeboy.
“Just that,” Harry said, shrugging. “I think the meth broke his little bird brain.”
“METH! METH! METH! HOMEBOY! METH!”
“He’s nice,” Herb said.
Homeboy screamed, so loud it made the hair on Herb’s toes stand up.
“He also screams,” said Harry.
“METH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG! METH!”
“I don’t have any meth, little fella.” Herb reached a finger up to the cage, but McGlade pushed his hand away.
“He bites,” McGlade said, showing black stitches on three of his fingers. “He doesn’t like being touched. Or quick movements. Also, try to avoid direct eye contact.”
“AAAAAAAAAARG! HOMEBOY! AAAAAAAAAAAAARG!”
“It’s important to have pets,” McGlade said. “They enrich our lives.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!”
“He’s certainly enriching mine right now,” said Herb.
“If you want to, you can feed him peanuts. Just keep your fingers outside the cage.”
McGlade fished a nut out of a plastic bag on the table and held it up to the bars. Homeboy bent down for it, then fell off his perch and hit the bottom of the cage with a big THUD.
“Did you save the receipt?” Herb asked.
“I tried that. They won’t take him back. He bit off part of the ear of the guy who was fostering him.”
“METH! METH! METH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!”
“How long do parrots live for?” Herb asked.
“Fifty to sixty years.”
“How old is Homeboy?”
“Three.”
“HOMEBOY! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG! HOMEBOY!”
“This makes me very happy,” Herb said.
Homeboy righted himself, then climbed the inside of his cage using his beak and claws. He took McGlade’s peanut and began to nibble on it, holding it in one foot.
“Well, that’s sorta cute,” Herb admitted
Homeboy lifted up his tail and squirted about half a liter of poop out of his ass. It plopped onto the newspaper lining his cage, and some splashed on Herb.
“You should wash that off,” McGlade said. “Parrots are teeming with bacteria.”
Herb found his way to the bathroom, and used liquid soap to get the guano off his shirt. Then he washed his hand thoroughly, following it with a healthy spritz of sanitizer gel.
“You try the bidet?” McGlade said when Herb came out.
“What bidet?”
“I got one of those Japanese toilets, with all the functions. It shoots water up your butt. It’s practically a religious experience.”
“What church do you go to?”
“I’m serious. You’ll never feel cleaner in your life.”
“I’ll check it out,” Herb said, making himself a promise that he’d never check it out.
“You should. You know how you buy a jar of peanut butter, and when you get to the very bottom the only way to get that last little bit out is to use your finger? Well the bidet is even better than a finger. Shoots up there and completely clears you out. My colon is so clean you could eat out of it.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!”
“I’m going to call in,” Herb said. “Check with the gang unit, see if anything is happening.”
“Sure. I’ll give you the rest of the Crimebago tour when you’re done. But note the defibrillator on the back wall. I just bought it, because I knew you were coming along.”
Harry held out another peanut to Homeboy, who reached for it and fell onto his head. Herb whipped out his cell and walked to the back of the RV. He was on hold for five minutes before being put through to Detective Alanzo in gang enforcement. Alanzo was third generation cop, the kind who busted his ass to make dad and granddad proud.
“Got all kinds of Folk movement,” he told Herb. “Spotters saw two buses leaving the city.”
“How many?”
“Close to a hundred. Word on the street is war, but no one knows who against. People Nation is rallying, but emissaries say it’s an out of town gig.”
Herb felt his stomach twist. A hundred? Could that be right?
“If you hear about the target, call me.”
“No prob, boss.”
“Thanks, Detective.” Herb tried Jack again, got voicemail. Then he turned to Harry, who was wiping bird shit off his pants using his bare hand. “Are you sure your place is safe?”
“It’s completely incognito. My name isn’t even attached to it. No way anyone could find it.”
“Good.”
“Unless they followed Jack there,” Harry added.
Not good. Not good at all.
“But it’s safe?”
“It’s a safe house, kemo-slobby. I spared no expense. It could weather a siege against fifty guys.”
“How about a hundred guys?”
McGlade blinked. “You serious?”
Herb nodded. Harry looked thoughtful, which was an unique look for him.
“Maybe,” Harry eventually said. “Depends what kind of firepower they had. I mean, nothing is truly impenetrable. Ask the Alamo survivors.”
Good point. “Well, let’s get going then.”
“We will. But we got some stops to make first.”
“What kind of stops?”
Harry winked. “You think I’m going into battle with just you on my side, Puff Fatty? We’re picking up reinforcements. But first, we need to hit my storage locker.”
“What for?” Herb asked.
“Crowd control.” McGlade grinned so wide it looked like his face would split. “I got an idea on how to even the odds.”
PHIN
He pulled over alongside the road on the crest of a hill, a few hundred meters from the dirt road that led to Harry’s cabin. After reigning in the panic he’d experienced at the Walmart, Phin had regained the capacity to reason and forced himself to come up with a plan. It involved some 140x binoculars liberated from the sporting goods section, as much Scorpion ammo as he could gather up, various hats and bandanas, extra Kevlar vests, and a Dodge pick-up truck courtesy of a dead gangbanger.
Phin raised the binocs to his face and peered at the parked vehicles below, a pimped out Toyota Supra and a beater Ford Mustang parked along the left-hand side. Four men stood next to the cars. They wore gang colors, and machine guns hung at their sides.
Spotters. They’d be waiting for their posse from Walmart to return. They were in front of the dirt road turnoff that took them to Harry’s place. The sky beyond them was so overcast it almost looked like smoke.
Phin took out the dead banger’s cell phone and texted HE’S DEAD, wondering what they’d do when they got it. Maybe leave their post.
The text failed to send. Either the gang had jammers, or they’d taken out the nearest cell tower. Maybe both. Phin had tried several landlines in the Walmart, and had been unable to get through to the police. 911 had him on hold for three minutes before he gave up.
Phin wondered how big this gang operation actually was.
He looked at the four men again, not liking his odds. With two guys, he could maybe snipe them from a distance. Or shoot one and run the other over. With three, he maybe even had a chance of sneaking up and plugging them. Or perhaps he could start the truck on fire, send it down the hill, and pick them off when they came to investigate.
But with four guys, someone would get a shot off. Phin had already been on the receiving end of machine gun fire earlier that day, and his entire body throbbed. He didn’t care to repeat the experience.
He tried to look past them, but the woods were thick. There was a chance he could go around, perhaps make his way through the forest without getting lost in the trees, but that would take time. Time Jack might not have. Phin needed to get to his wife, fast.
The question was how to do that without getting killed.
Phineas Troutt hadn’t served in the armed forces, so any tactics applicable to this situation were unknown to him. He wasn’t a particularly good shot—Jack was the marksperson in the family. Jack was also the martial artist, with her taekwondo black belt. Phin could brawl if forced to, but his greatest skill was the ability to withstand a punch, and while that came in handy sometimes, being able to take a beating didn’t win fights.
But he did have some street sense, and that made him recognize what needed to be done in this situation.
Phin had four extra bulletproof vests he’d taken from the men he’d killed at the Walmart. He wedged one between his left side and the door. Another, he hung on his headrest so it draped across his seat behind him. He opened the window and positioned the third one over it, with space to poke his Scorpion barrel through. The fourth, he put on the dashboard, covering most of the window, the arm hole allowing him to see the road. In the seat next to him, he had another loaded Scorpion, five full mags, and the SIG. Then he pulled back onto the road, picking up speed as he coasted down the hill.
Phin wasn’t a military strategist, and he hadn’t read the Art of War. But he doubted Sun Tzu ever wrote about how to conduct a successful drive-by shooting.
The gangbangers took notice of Phin’s vehicle as soon as he came into view. But they didn’t raise their weapons. No doubt they recognized the vehicle, and thought one of their own was returning.
By the time they noticed the Kevlar stacked in places it wouldn’t normally be, Phin had already begun firing. He hit the
first guy in the legs, tapped the brakes to slow down, and plugged the next man in the head as he ducked for cover. The other two got behind the Mustang and returned fire as Phin cruised past. The back windshield exploded, and Phin felt bullets punch into the back of his seat, protected by the vest.
Rather than turn the car around, Phin came to a stop and then hit reverse, flooring it. He switched his empty Scorpion with a loaded one, then jerked the wheel left and hit the brakes, stopped alongside the Mustang, where the other two were crouching.
They unloaded, and the bulletproof vest Phin had wedged against the window fell inward. Phin ducked beneath it, covering his head, and the rounds drilling into the Kevlar felt like hiding under a blanket while someone pounded the shit out of you.
Then the shooting stopped. That was the problem with machine guns; they emptied really fast.
As the gangbangers reloaded, Phin pushed away the vest and took careful aim. Being only a few feet away, he stitched one guy across the neck, and emptied the rest of the mag into the other guy’s pelvis. Then Phin grabbed the SIG and crawled out the passenger door, squatting behind the front tire.
He counted to ten, waiting for someone to make a move.
Then he counted to ten again.
Peeking under the truck, Phin saw the two men he’d just shot lying on the ground, not moving. He kept low, moving to the front of the truck, and saw the third dead man—the head shot.
The fourth was gone.
Phin ran in a crouch up to the Toyota and saw the blood trail on the asphalt. Walking in a wide arc, aiming the SIG, Phin saw the fourth gangbanger crawling on his elbows, dragging his bleeding legs behind him, heading for the tree line.
Phin took a quick look around, didn’t see any other threats, and approached the man slowly. When he got to him, Phin stepped on the guy’s ankle. He cried out and flipped around, and Phin jammed the SIG into his neck.
“Be still,” Phin said. “I’m very, very nervous right now.”
Phin patted the kid down. And he was, indeed, a kid. No more than eighteen. Phin found a switchblade, a wallet, and a wooden dugout.
“How many at the house?” Phin asked.
Rum Runner - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 9) Page 11