The Devil’s Share

by Wallace Stroby

  “She says it’s moving along. But her people will need their money soon.”

  “They’ll get it. What’s that look on your face?”

  “Nothing.” He took another chair. “Just trying to figure some things out.” He dropped ice cubes into a glass, poured scotch.

  “You’re drinking more than usual. Should I be alarmed?”

  “I could ask you the same.”

  “I’ll admit to some nervousness. But I have a good feeling about this. It may be early days, but the foundation is solid. And you can build nothing in the absence of a strong foundation.”

  Hicks held the bottle toward him. Cota nodded. Hicks poured into his glass, set the bottle back down.

  “And how is our Miss Wynn doing?” Cota said. “Unless, of course, your persuasive powers have gotten her to offer up her real name.”

  “Okay, I gather, from what she said. She’ll call me when she’s settled.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like her. An unusual woman.”

  “She is that.”

  “You seem distracted.”

  “Just tired.” He drank.

  “Are you sleeping with her?”

  Hicks looked at him.

  “I wouldn’t think that a difficult question to answer,” Cota said.

  “Why would you ask?”

  “It could become a complication down the road, don’t you think? Perhaps it’s something best avoided.”

  “There won’t be any complications. I’ll make sure.”

  “I’ll remind you of that,” Cota said. “Down the road.”

  * * *

  She parked behind the pickup, got out, left the motor running. An owl hooted from the treeline.

  Chance came out the side door, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. She opened the trunk. “How’d it go?”

  “I said what I had to say. She did the same. I told her I’d call her tomorrow.”

  “Sorry.”

  He dropped the duffel in the trunk. She shut the lid.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “It’s done. Let’s go.”

  ELEVEN

  Three days later, they were at a motel in Boulder City, thirty miles from Las Vegas. It was old-style, attached cabins arranged in a U, just off a two-lane that had once been a main road.

  She and Chance had rented adjoining cabins the day before, reserved another for the two men from Boston. They’d flown in that morning. Keegan was barrel-chested, with thinning red hair swept back, sideburns, and a broken nose. McBride, the one he’d brought in, was smaller, younger, dark-haired, and barely spoke at all.

  The four of them sat around the table in Chance’s cabin. McBride was biting his cuticles. His skin was pale, and he’d yet to make eye contact with her. She wondered how long he’d been out of prison.

  “How about a beer?” Chance said. “Cut the dust.”

  “A grand idea,” Keegan said. He had a soft Irish accent.

  Chance got up, went into the kitchenette.

  To Keegan, she said, “Sladden recommended you. Bobby did, too. That’s why I asked you here.”

  He nodded.

  “But I don’t really know you,” she said. “Or your partner here. So don’t be offended if it takes a while to get things sorted out between us.”

  “Only natural,” he said. “And the two of them said some fine things about your own self. That’s why we came.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “We have other mutual acquaintances, I’m sure, back east. There’s a fellow named Smith, out of Pennsylvania, that worked with you once or twice, I believe.”

  “Smitty,” she said. “How is he?”

  “Above ground and walking free. All any of us can ask for, isn’t it? I met your Mr. Boudreaux once as well, in St. Paul many years back. We were looking at some work there, but it never came to pass.”

  “Before my time,” she said.

  “It could be. Had a patch of bad luck himself recently, I heard.”

  “He did.”

  Chance came back in carrying open bottles of beer, set them on the table.

  “Ah, Coors Light,” Keegan said. “Like sex in a canoe.”

  “How’s that?” Chance said.

  “Fucking near water.”

  McBride laughed. Chance sat, said, “Sorry, I’ll buy Guinness next time.”

  “Not on my account,” Keegan said. “Never a favorite. Sacrilege, I know.”

  He looked at her. “These two we’re waiting on, they’re army?”

  “Marines,” she said. “Used to be.”

  McBride looked at her for the first time.

  “Feckin’ soldiers,” he said. He turned to Keegan. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Used to be,” she said again. “Private now. They work for the man who’s putting this together. He’s paying them, but they answer to me.”

  “Sean’s got a thing against soldiers,” Keegan said. “British soldiers anyway. Hard to blame him. His uncle was murdered in cold blood on the Falls Road. Didn’t even have a weapon on him. SAS. Bleeding assassins.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” she said. McBride chewed a cuticle, said nothing.

  “Well, it was all a long time ago, wasn’t it?” Keegan said. “New life, new country. All the old sorrows left behind, right, Sean?”

  “That’s what they want,” McBride said. “They want you to forget.”

  “Sometimes,” she said, “that’s not a bad thing.”

  Chance raised his bottle. “Slainte.”

  “Slainte,” Keegan said. He and Chance clicked bottles. McBride lifted his and drank. She let hers sit.

  They heard an engine outside, close by the door. She went to the front window, eased the curtain aside. A big Chevy SUV with smoked windows had parked next to her rental.

  “They’re here,” she said.

  When she opened the door, Hicks came in, smiled at her, said, “Hey.” Behind him was a stocky, muscular Hispanic man in a tight V-necked T-shirt. He looked at her, then at the three men.

  “This is Sandoval,” Hicks said. “Sandy. One of my guys.”

  She shut the door behind them. Hicks nodded at the men. “Gents.”

  Keegan crossed his arms, nodded back. Chance lifted his bottle by the neck, raised his chin. McBride did nothing at all.

  “Long ride,” Sandoval said. “I need to take a leak.”

  Chance nodded down the hallway. Sandoval went past them. He was scouting, she knew, checking out the rest of the cabin.

  To Hicks, Chance said, “Couple beers left in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  Hicks went into the kitchenette. When he came back out, a bottle in each hand, she said, “Everybody’s up to speed. Mick and Sean got in today. We’ve covered the basics.”

  “Good,” Hicks said. “Same here.” They heard the toilet flush.

  “Chairs over there,” she said. “Go ahead and grab them.”

  Sandoval came back out. Hicks handed him a bottle, then dragged in two folding chairs from the other room, shook them open. He uncapped his beer, sat. Sandoval did the same.

  “Okay,” Hicks said. “What else can you tell us?”

  “Bobby,” she said, and he reached inside the jacket hanging on the back of his chair, took out the folded map. He spread it out on the table. With a grease pencil, she’d traced the stretch of highway she’d picked, marked X’s for the location of the cell tower, the largest of the boulders, the arroyo that ran parallel to the roadway.

  “Desert,” Sandoval said. “No shit. That why I’m here?”

  She looked at him.

  “Because I’m Mexican, right?” he said. “You figure I know my way around there? That’s a little racist, don’t you think?”

  “I had no idea what you were,” she said. “Until you walked in that door.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Hicks said. “He’s a smartass. You’ll get used to it.”

  Sandoval grinned, drank beer.

 
She leaned over the map and traced a finger north along the highway.

  “Hicks and I have been over this,” she said. “But the rest of you need to know the setup. Three of you”—she pointed at Keegan, McBride, and Chance—“will be in a car hidden back in these hills. We’ll have a truck stashed there, too, a clean one. We can talk about the division of labor later, but it’ll be Bobby doing most of the driving. Hicks and Sandoval and I will be here”—she pointed at where the boulder was marked—“out of sight. That’s where we’ll stop the convoy. You three will come up the rear in the car. We get the guards and drivers under control, check the truck to make sure what we came for is in there. Then Bobby turns it around, drives it back to where the other truck’s hidden, and the three of you transfer the cargo as quick as you can.”

  “Why not just bring the clean truck up in the first place?” Sandoval said. “Save some driving?”

  “We don’t want too many vehicles on the road at once,” she said. “If we’re all getting in each other’s way, it raises the chances of something going wrong. This way’s cleaner, simpler. Also, we don’t know how long it’ll take to transfer the cargo, even with forklifts. So it’s better that’s done out of sight, back up in those rocks. If we try to load up here, where we stopped them”—she touched the map—“it increases our exposure. Too many vehicles, too many people, too much time.”

  “What’s the ground like back there?” Sandoval said. “Will it handle those trucks? You don’t want them getting stuck.”

  She nodded at him. He was asking the right questions.

  “Solid rock,” she said. “I’ve already checked. Shouldn’t be a problem with the truck, or the forklifts, getting stuck. After we load the clean truck, we camouflage the old one as best we can.”

  “Only five men to be dealt with,” Keegan said. “We’re sure of that?”

  “If that changes, we’ll know in advance,” she said. “But we’ll need to contain those five as quickly as possible. No fuss, no drama. We get them out of their vehicles and zip-tied quick as we can, move them behind the boulder, out of sight of the road. That way the area’s clear if another car comes along before we’re done.”

  “We’ll have to move fast,” Hicks said. “But dealing with civilians, that can be an issue.”

  “That’ll be your job,” she said. “Keep them calm, keep them quiet, but keep them scared.”

  “That’s what you want the ordnance for,” Sandoval said.

  “Right,” she said. “I don’t want any of those five men even thinking about going cowboy. The guards will be armed, so they’ll be the first priority. Handguns only, but still, we’ll need to neutralize them as quickly as possible, get them disarmed and tied up. We get the guards under control, the civilians will follow.”

  “If we’re lucky,” Keegan said.

  “We’ll have speed on our side,” she said. “By the time they realize what happened, we’ll be out of there.”

  McBride leaned over, touched the map. “This mark here?”

  “Cell tower,” she said.

  Keegan looked at her. “Is that a problem?”

  “No,” Hicks said. “I’ll take care of that.”

  “Those people,” Chance said. “We just leave them there?”

  “When that tower goes off-line,” she said, “it’ll set off an alarm at the central office. They’ll send somebody out quick. But as remote as this is, it’ll take them at least twenty minutes, probably longer, to get there. They’ll find the men. We’ll be long gone.”

  She lifted her bottle, drank. The beer was cold and smooth, soothed her throat. She watched their faces, waiting for their response.

  “Son of a bitch,” Sandoval said, still looking at the map.

  “We still have to gather all the equipment,” she said to Hicks. “Your end.”

  “In a day or so, we’ll have a house,” he said. “Empty and out of sight, but room enough for everybody. We’ll use that as our staging area. Everyone stays there. We run through the whole thing as many times as we have to, so everybody knows what they’re doing. Come the day, we don’t want anyone fucking around out there while the clock’s ticking.”

  “If there’s any fecking around,” McBride said, “it won’t be on our part. Know that.”

  Hicks looked at him. “Another country heard from.”

  “Rest assured,” Keegan said. “That won’t be an issue.”

  “Nothing personal,” Hicks said. “I’m just saying.”

  “As am I,” Keegan said.

  “What about the money?” she said.

  “He’s working on that,” Hicks said. “He’ll have something for you soon. Next day or so.”

  “Sooner the better,” Chance said. “We’re running out of time.”

  Hicks looked at him. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that, slick.”

  “I’m not worried, slick,” Chance said. “Like the Irishman says, you just keep up your part of the deal.”

  “I’ll make sure everyone gets their money,” she said. It was time to stop this before it went further. “Like I said, my responsibility.”

  Hicks drank beer, looked at Chance. He didn’t look away.

  “Let’s wrap this up,” she said. To Hicks, she said, “You have my new cell. Call me when the wire transfers go through.”

  “I will.”

  She looked around the table. “Anybody have any other questions need to be answered this minute?”

  Keegan shook his head. McBride chewed a thumb.

  “I’ll be in touch tomorrow,” Hicks said. He stood, put his half-empty bottle on the table. Sandoval did the same. As Hicks moved behind her, he brushed fingertips across her shoulder. She stiffened. Chance looked at her.

  “Hang on,” she said, and got to her feet. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Outside in the sunlight, she said, “Hold up a minute.”

  Hicks unlocked the SUV with the remote, turned to her. “What is it?”

  Sandoval looked at them, then opened the passenger door, climbed up into the seat, left the door open.

  She kept her voice low. “Don’t be playing any games here.”

  “What games?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. I need you to be professional, with me and with them.” She nodded at the cabin door.

  “You think I haven’t been?”

  “Like I said on the phone, what happened between us is one thing. This, what’s going on right here, is something else.”

  “You done?”

  She took a step away, watched him. “Yeah, I’m done.”

  “Feel better?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Whatever,” he said, and started for the SUV again.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said to his back, “and fuck this up.”

  He turned back to her.

  “Honey,” he said. “I’m not the one we need to worry about.”

  TWELVE

  The furnished house was twenty miles from Vegas, in a development of modest homes and cul-de-sacs. It was a bedroom community, all the houses built in the last ten years, but there were vacant lots on the block. Other houses were finished but unoccupied, manufacturer’s stickers still on the windows.

  She and Chance had their own rooms upstairs. Keegan and McBride shared one down the hall. Hicks and Sandoval slept on the ground floor, Hicks in a side bedroom, Sandoval on the couch.

  The house gave them more room, more privacy, than a motel could offer. It had an oversized garage, and a big backyard with an in-ground pool, empty now, and a high wooden fence. At night, the city was a bright glow in the distance.

  On the second day, Hicks called them into the dining room, set two heavy black tactical bags on the table.

  “We should go over all this now,” he said. “So you all know what you’re dealing with when the time comes.”

  He unzipped the bags, began to lay weapons out on the table. Four short-barreled automatic rifles, thr
ee handguns, a silver and black riot shotgun. It was the first time she’d seen them. She was used to being in on every step of the planning, the financing, the equipment. But they were in Hicks’s realm of expertise now. It was better for the job, better for the team, if she let him take the reins on what he knew best.

  Sandoval looked at the guns, gave a low whistle. He wore a white strap T-shirt, a gold cross on a chain. On the back of his right shoulder was the same tattoo she’d seen on Hicks that night at the motel, a grinning skull, fangs.

  The rifles were flat black, with curved magazines. She picked one up. It was lighter than she’d expected, with an adjustable stock and a knurled grip beneath the barrel that made it easier to handle.

  “Sweet, isn’t it?” Hicks said. “Heckler and Koch 416. It’s what the SEAL teams use.”

  Guns meant little to her. They were just tools. “It’s small.”

  “Yeah, it’s a carbine model,” he said. “Another miracle of German engineering. Like the Volvo.”

  “Volvos are Swedish,” she said.

  “Whatever. That switch right there is the safety. And the one on the side here is the magazine release. Twenty-round mag, five-five-six ammo. Round hits like a freight train, even with a suppressor cutting muzzle velocity.”

  McBride picked up another of the rifles, ejected the magazine. It was empty. He fit it back into the receiver, slapped it home, worked the bolt left-handed.

  “Know how to handle one of those?” Hicks said.

  “I’ve dabbled, now and then,” McBride said. “At the range, you know.”

  “Paper targets don’t shoot back.”

  “Neither do people,” McBride said. “If you shoot them first.”

  Chance looked at Hicks, said, “You don’t think we’re going to need all these, do you?”

  “No,” Hicks said. “But I want you all to get familiar with them. When we’re out there, everyone should look like they know what they’re doing. Might be the difference between someone behaving, doing what they’re told, and trying to rush you, thinking they can take your weapon away.”

  She stepped back from the table, lifted the rifle to her shoulder, tucked the butt in tight. Keegan looked amused.