The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella)

by Craig Schaefer

  “My hands aren’t mortal,” Caitlin told him.

  We ran for the loading bay. I hauled open the closest roadie case, ripped out the inner lining, and gazed down at the prize, two fat bricks of white powder wrapped in thick cellophane. I could hear the sirens now, fire trucks—and possibly cops with them—closing in fast.

  “No time to bring the car around,” I said. The band’s dusty Jumboliner sat out in the back lot. “We’re stealing the bus.”

  “I thought you said that was a bad idea,” Jennifer said.

  I waded through the corpses of Dino’s men, crouching to pat down the one who’d acted like he was in charge. Dipping into his pocket and coming up with a ring of keys.

  “It’s a terrible idea,” I told her. “And unless you get a better one in the next thirty seconds, we’re doing it anyway.”

  We stripped the crates bare and raced to the bus. I fired up the engine while Caitlin and Jennifer stashed the score—ten bricks in all, the whole mother lode—in the bus’s bathroom. No time for elaborate camouflage. If we got stopped by the cops now, driving a stolen bus and leaving a trail of dead bodies in our wake, getting caught with a quarter-million in coke would just be another shovelful of dirt on our graves.

  The bus groaned as I threw it into gear, the engine sputtering and spitting diesel fumes. I clung to the oversized steering wheel, leaning into it as the bus rumbled across the blacktop, fighting me every inch of the way. Getting it down the alley felt like wrestling a whale. We skirted the parking lot, looking out across a sea of strobing police lights, fans milling like a horde of displaced vampires while a row of fire trucks formed a wall out front.

  We hit the boulevard, made a sharp left turn—the wheel kicking against me as I struggled to pull the Jumboliner into its lane—and put the concert hall in the rearview mirror. I hopped onto the first highway on-ramp we spotted, heading anywhere. Right now, “away” was the only direction that mattered.

  22.

  We drove down a sparse night highway with the lights of Los Angeles burning in the distance. No cops on our tail, but we were a long way from safe.

  “They’ve found the bodies by now,” I said, “and it’s only a matter of time until somebody notices the tour bus is gone. One plus one equals an APB on this thing. We’ve gotta hide it.”

  Jennifer sat behind me, leaning against the headrest as she squinted at the bus window. “There,” she said, pointing at a passing billboard. U-Pik-It Cherry Farm, two miles ahead.

  “Cherries are out of season,” Jennifer said. “If we’re lucky, the farm’s buttoned up tight ’til next year. All we gotta do is get this rig outta sight, call my guy to come pick up the product, and we’re good as done.”

  A quarter mile past the off-ramp, far from the urban sprawl, a grove of cherry trees stood silent in the dark. A short access road ended in a locked gate with a sign reading, “See you next year!” The bus idled while I jumped out, running to the gate and digging out my picks. I made short work of the padlock, chains slithering to the dirt as I swung the gate wide and waved the bus through. Jennifer hopped behind the wheel.

  At the far end of the grove, a farmhouse squatted beside an old barn, gray clapboard slowly rotting away in the off-season. The house had sheets of tarp over all the windows, no lights, no caretaker to stumble upon us. I jogged to the barn, putting my back into it as I grabbed hold of the slats and hauled the mammoth door open one jolting foot at a time.

  Jennifer inched the bus inside. The engine ground to a dead stop and the headlights went cold, leaving us with the shadows and the endless trill of crickets.

  I took a quick look around. Nothing much to see: empty stalls, some old farming tools, and a clumsy stack of deadwood, branches and tree stumps piled high next to an industrial-sized wood chipper. No alarms, no cameras, nothing that could give us away. All the same, the sooner we were out of here—away from the stolen bus and anything that could connect us to the concert hall—the sooner I could breathe easy. An electric lantern with a yellow plastic shell dangled by a wire from the rafters, and I clicked it on to give us a little light.

  Caitlin and Jennifer climbed down from the bus, Jennifer already on her phone, dialing up her smuggler friend as she walked past us. I turned, taking Caitlin’s hand, and gave it a gentle kiss.

  “So,” I said, “having a fun vacation?”

  She pulled me close, the fingernails of her other hand grazing my shoulder.

  “So this is what you do for a living,” she said.

  “Yep,” I told her. “Boring and uneventful. Just another day at the office.”

  “It’s me,” Jennifer said, cradling her phone as she lingered by the barn door. “We need that pickup, like, now. Hon, we can talk about your fee on the way, okay? You know I’ll treat you right. This ain’t a good time for negotiatin’.”

  Caitlin chuckled, folding me in her embrace. “To answer your question, yes, it’s been a lovely trip. Though I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night. It’ll be nice to get back home.”

  “No argument there,” I said. “You can go on ahead if you want. I just need to get the watch from Dino, put it on Monty’s wrist, and tell Greenbriar his ghost problem is settled.”

  “You’re certain that will work?”

  “Sure. He gets his precious watch back, and the guy who stole it—and murdered him—is either ruined or dead. All accounts paid in full. Monty’s spirit won’t have any reason to stick around after that.”

  “My clever pet,” Caitlin murmured.

  “It’s a cherry farm,” Jennifer was saying. “Just head right up the access road and look for the barn. Put a little hustle in it, all right—”

  A hand lunged from the darkness, grabbed her by the hair, and slammed her head against the wall of the barn. Jennifer dropped to the dirt, her phone bouncing from her outstretched fingers. The plastic case crunched into shards of pink confetti under a steel-toed boot.

  “I am Koschei, the deathless,” said the hulking figure silhouetted in the open doorway, “and no mortal hands can harm me.”

  Jennifer groaned, stunned and cupping her hands to her head. Koschei stepped over her without a second glance, his burning glare fixed on Caitlin. A thin bruise at his throat was the only lingering trace of their last fight. His neck made soft crackling sounds as he raised his chin.

  “Unacceptable behavior from a human,” Caitlin growled, brushing past me as they stalked toward each other.

  He swung from five feet away, an arc of black smoke sizzling from his fist. Caitlin swiveled back on her hips, hair flying as the smoke sailed above her head and blasted into the barn wall, smashing a chunk of weathered gray board into splinters. She ran in, leaping, one foot flicking out in a snap kick that drew a grunt of pain from Koschei’s pursed lips. She pressed the advantage, taking a swing—and Koschei caught her wrist, spun her around, and gave her arm a sharp, brutal twist.

  The sound of Caitlin’s bones snapping hit me like a kick to the teeth. I heard the hiss of strained breath, saw her contorted face as she staggered back, her right arm dangling broken and useless. Koschei threw another punch, black smoke ripping through the air with the speed of a jet turbine, hitting Caitlin in the chest and flinging her off her feet. She landed hard on her arm, more bones crackling.

  She scrambled back on her good hand as he closed in on her, eager for the kill. My cards felt useless in my cold, sweaty grip. They couldn’t cut his skin, and I didn’t have time for a spell, didn’t have time to do anything but watch Caitlin die. Jennifer slowly pushed herself to her knees, still dazed from the hit to her head, too slow to help.

  Then, looking past Koschei, I saw my chance.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Over here!”

  He turned my way. I flicked my fingertips over my cradled deck, feeling a surge of razor-edged magic as I fired a card straight for his eye. He yelped as it hit, finding something softer than skin to cut, and he grabbed at his wounded face. I couldn’t kill him, but I could hurt him, and that
was what I wanted to do more than anything. I slowly advanced, firing off another card, then another, aiming for his eyes, his lips, one slicing across his upraised fingers. A black pit of rage simmered in my stomach and I called it all up, fueling my weapons with my hatred.

  One card went wide, arcing off to his left. Its corner struck the big black start button on the wood chipper.

  The engine chugged to life, the industrial chipper’s teeth whirring as they spun. Koschei figured out what I was up to just as Jennifer ran in, brandishing a pitchfork she’d snatched up from the tool rack. The tines punched into his chest and she kept on coming, steering him back one strained step at a time as he struggled against her. I darted for the woodpile, grabbed a broken branch, and drove one splintered end against his stomach. Together we forced him right up to the chipper’s yawning mouth. His hands flailed out, grabbing the edges of the machine, the back of his head inches from the grinding teeth.

  Caitlin jumped between me and Jennifer, put her good palm against Koschei’s neck, and shoved.

  “I am Koschei, the deathless,” he wheezed, his glistening scalp dripping with sweat as his face twisted in animal panic. “No…no mortal hands—”

  “Sure they can,” I told him, giving the branch one last push as Jennifer threw her back into the pitchfork, thrusting it like a spear. “Watch.”

  He shrieked as the metal teeth bit into the back of his skull, chewing flesh and powdering bone. His hands spasmed, losing their grip, and Caitlin grabbed one of his legs. Yanking him off-balance, lifting him up and over, and feeding him to the machine.

  The wood chipper screamed, steel rattling in time to the frantic thrashing of Koschei’s legs as the other end blasted wet crimson and chunks of bone across the back wall of the barn. Torn fabric and torn skin, bits of glistening flesh and entrails, the hulking killer reduced to a wet pile of carnage one squirming inch at a time. We fed the last of him into the machine, one boot kicking free and tumbling to the dirt as his foot went into the steel teeth, and then it was over.

  Jennifer leaned on her pitchfork, letting it prop her up like a walking stick as she took a deep breath. “Come back from that, asshole,” she muttered.

  Caitlin bit her bottom lip hard enough to turn it fish-belly white, cradling her shattered arm. I was at her side in an instant, feeling helpless, glad she was alive but hating to see her hurting. She shook her head at me.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Pain is only pain. I can mend this.”

  She sat with her back against the bus’s wheel, gently massaging her arm, deep in concentration, while Jennifer and I stood sentry at the barn door.

  “How’s your head?” I asked her.

  She touched her scalp and winced. “Gonna have a beauty of a goose egg. Can’t complain too much, all things considered.”

  Two hours later, distant headlights strobed along the access road. We braced ourselves for trouble, watching for police lights; then Jennifer let out a sigh as the car loomed into sight.

  “It’s my guy, sugar. Everything’s good now.”

  Her guy was an Asian kid, no older than nineteen, driving a dusty mud-brown Dodge Caravan. A stick-figure family played soccer on the minivan’s back window. He was all smiles and quiet professionalism until we led him into the barn. He stopped in his tracks and stared wide-eyed at the bloody mess.

  “Whoa,” he said, “what happened here?”

  Jennifer put her hand on his shoulder, smiling like an angel.

  “Darlin’,” she said, “as soon as I’m payin’ you to ask questions, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  The Caravan was a smuggler’s special, outfitted with removable sidewalls, concealed panels, and hollowed-out seats with lead-lined cases inside. He stashed the ten kilos of coke in ten different hiding spots and turned them all invisible.

  Then he gave us a ride back to Los Angeles. Leaving the farm, the stolen bus, and the remains of a deathless man far behind.

  23.

  We picked up the Camaro from a side street near the concert hall, keeping a watchful eye out for the cops. The hall itself was buried behind a spiderweb of yellow police tape, and construction cones blocked the empty parking lot, but our car had spent the night as just another piece of random street clutter. Under the radar, just like us.

  I drove us to LAX. Jennifer and Caitlin had an early flight. Caitlin’s arm had almost entirely mended, just sore and splotchy with big purple bruises now, and I gave her a careful hug as I saw her off at the security checkpoint.

  “I’m right behind you,” I told them. “Just have to take care of loose ends. Dinner tonight?”

  “Robuchon’s,” Jennifer said. “You’re buying. You promised.”

  “I’ll give you a call as soon as I land.”

  I was strolling through the parking garage, on my way back to the car, when my phone buzzed. A call from Dino.

  “Cowrie and Jet Talent Management,” I said cheerfully, “Peter Greyson speaking.”

  “Peter, hey, Peter,” he stammered. “Uhh, it’s Dino Costa.”

  “Hey there,” I said, “we’re looking forward to our meeting this afternoon. We’re still on, right?”

  “N-no, listen, I gotta reschedule. We’ll talk about that later. Listen, that, uh, advance money I paid you. Is there any chance I could get that back?”

  Now my smile was real, fed by the panic in his voice. That twelve grand was a measly drop in the bucket compared to how much he owed the cartel for his missing coke; when the bill to pay up came due, it wouldn’t save one inch of his skin.

  No, I realized, it’s not to pay them back. He knows he’s a walking dead man. He’s getting ready to run.

  “Give it back?” I said, pretending to be confused. “You know I need that money—”

  “I’ll double it. Triple it! I just…I have a line on an investment. A sure thing. But I’ve got to act today. If you can bring me that cash, I’ll triple your money by next week. Guaranteed.”

  “All right,” I said. “I guess that sounds promising. I’m gonna need details, though. Should I come by your office?”

  “No!” he yelped. “No, uh, my office…it’s not good. Where’s yours? I’ll come see you.”

  “I’m out on the road,” I told him. “Hold on, I’ll call you right back.”

  I looked up an interstate map, fast, and dialed him up again. He picked up in a flash.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m on I-5, northbound, about an hour and a half from the city,” I told him. “My GPS says there’s a rest stop up ahead. Lebec Service Road. Meet me there as soon as you can, okay?”

  As soon as he hung up, gushing his gratitude, I checked the numbers I’d pulled from his phone the night we broke into his house. I dialed the Red Bee Supermarket. It rang about twenty times before someone finally deigned to pick up.

  “Listen up,” I said, “Dino Costa bought ten kilos of cocaine from you, on credit. And now he’s running. You’re never going to get a dime out of him.”

  Silence, for so long I thought he might have hung up. Then a voice growled, “Who the fuck is this? You a cop?”

  “If I was a cop, you and your buddies would all be in cuffs right now. You watch the news? Hear anything about a slaughter backstage at a concert last night?”

  “Yeah,” the voice said grudgingly. “Maybe. What about it?”

  “Check who manages the band. You know how Dino moves product. His guys got hit last night. The coke is gone.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was one of his guys,” I said. “This crew of meth-head cowboys came in and lit the place up. Between them and the cops, I barely got out alive. I called Dino, and he told me it was my problem, and he was gonna run for Canada without me. I’m laying low right now, can’t do a damn thing to him, but you can. That’s why I’m telling you this. Look into it yourself, everything I said will check out. He’s meeting a guy out at the Lebec Service Road rest stop on I-5, somebody who can smuggle him across the border and ge
t him a new identity. Dino’s about to disappear, and he’s gonna make you guys look like punks.”

  Another long silence. Then a faint click as the line went dead.

  I drove north, making good time, weaving through traffic in the warm California sunshine. Dino was already at the rest stop by the time I got there, standing outside his black Lexus with the MUSKMAN vanity plates and looking anxious. I kept my head down, circling the tan brick building and grabbing a parking space on the far end of the lot. Five minutes later, he called me.

  “I’m here,” he said, “where are you? I thought you’d be here already.”

  “Close,” I told him. “I had to find a bank and get the cash out, figured you didn’t want a personal check. Just hold tight. I’ll be there any minute now.”

  He filled the time making calls, pacing back and forth in front of his car. From the twitch in his body language, they weren’t going well. The rest stop was dead, the occasional tourist coming through for a quick bathroom break or a five-minute leg stretch, but otherwise we had the place to ourselves.

  I watched the road.

  Dino was on another call, engrossed in an argument, when a white van came trundling up the access road. Harsh sunlight glinted off the dirty windshield, shrouding the driver in shadow. The van turned into the parking lot, slowing to a crawl as it rolled up on Dino and his car.

  Dino turned just as the side door rattled open and a kid with a blue and black bandanna tied over his face leaned out, raising a MAC-10. The machine pistol spat fire, the first three-round burst tearing into Dino’s chest, the second throwing him to the pavement in a bloody heap. The kid swung back in, the door slammed shut, and the van took off, squealing back onto the access road and gunning the engine. Message delivered.

  I got out of the Camaro and took a casual walk over. Dino looked up at me, flat on his back, his pale blue dress shirt soaked in a river of blood. His jaw trembled, trying to form words, and he raised one shaking hand as if begging for help.