The outskirts of resort towns were the favored exchange spots for Lucia’s crew. Dealers and mules could come in and out, do business openly, and not garner any attention. The towns were accustomed to large numbers of visitors traveling, staying for only days or even hours before heading back home. It was easy to blend in.
It was even easier, as Lucia quickly discovered, to buy inexpensive condos on resort properties and utilize them as work bases and show places for prospective clients. Brokers especially were warm to investors who closed deals with cash. Lucia Carney owned seven such condos, all purchased in someone else’s name, each located at a five-star resort situated within a long drive or a short flight to a central drug distribution city. In such places a mule and her team could blend in with soccer moms, golf-crazed dads, and scrambling toddlers, and just as easily disappear from view.
It was, without question, a perfect setup.
Mrs. Columbo’s heels chipped against the corners of the tiny pebbles beneath her feet, kicking up small pockets of dust. She stared up at the van and could see the packets of cocaine, stacked high in the rear, all nearly glowing in the reflected glare of the Cadillac’s lights. She walked slowly, hemmed in on one side by a short, gray-haired man holding a revolver, and on the other by a sour woman who had met her at the Portland airport, identifying herself only as Angela.
They had made the drive from Portland to the outskirts of Camden in less than an hour, riding in silence, Mrs. Columbo alone in the backseat of a Mercedes 450SL, occasionally looking down at the doll in her arms that luckily no one had yet asked to see.
She and Boomer had made it through LaGuardia with the help of two friends, former cops now working for the FBI, who waited for them by the checkpoint, flashed their shields, unfolded a few sheets of doctored documents, and ushered them through separately, bypassing the X-ray detectors, which would have been sure to spot the cargo in Mrs. Columbo’s arms and the guns in Boomer’s satchel.
She and Boomer sat three rows apart on the small plane and avoided eye contact throughout the flight. The passenger seated to her right, a square-shouldered woman dressed in head-to-toe L. L. Bean, had asked to peek at her sleeping baby.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Mrs. Columbo told her, the harsh tone of her voice and the cold snap to her eyes backing the woman away. “She’s a light sleeper.”
Mrs. Columbo spent the rest of the flight with her head back and her eyes closed, running through all that had happened over the past few weeks. She had done a zero to sixty, going from an ex-cop with a sour disposition to a key member of an illegal unit bent on the takedown of a cocaine queen. In the process, Mrs. Columbo found herself on the verge of a messy divorce, marked as a target by an on-the-pad cop, and now jammed inside a too-tight seat holding a prop baby stuffed with eight sticks of dynamite timed to kick in less than three hours.
It was exactly where she felt she belonged.
• • •
BOOMER WAS FIRST off the plane, rushing past the handful of people waiting at the arrival gate, their eager faces searching for friends and relatives. He stopped briefly in front of Mrs. Columbo’s grim-looking party, brushing against the short man’s tan leather jacket, eyes connecting for the briefest of moments before he made his way to the car rental booth.
“Your plane was late,” Angela said in tones as sharp as the cut of her skirt.
“If you’ve got a beef,” Mrs. Columbo said, shielding the baby from Angela’s line of vision, “the pilot should be coming out in a couple of minutes. Give his ear a bend.”
Angela’s lips curled into what for her could have passed as either a smile or a sneer. As she whirled away, it was clear that she expected Mrs. Columbo and the silent man in the tan leather to follow close on her floppy heels, which they did.
“She a real bitch or just acting the part?” Mrs. Columbo asked her escort.
“Believe me, my wife is for real,” the quiet little man said in a voice befitting his size. “It would be foolish for anyone to think otherwise.”
“I guess you’d be the one to know,” Mrs. Columbo said, and she shook her head as the man now walked at a faster pace, trying to catch up to Angela.
• • •
GERONIMO AND PINS were a quarter of a mile up from the black van, hidden by clumps of trees and a circle of large rocks. Pins had his back to the movement down below, legs folded under him, headphones on, picking up the conversation coming to him from the wire he had run down the prop baby’s back. Geronimo put down his small binoculars and checked his watch.
“They smell anything yet?” he asked Pins.
“Not anything that I can pick up,” Pins said. “But these guys make their moves with looks, not words.”
“Boomer and Dead-Eye should be here in about three minutes,” Geronimo said.
“And how long before that doll blows?” Pins asked.
“Six minutes,” Geronimo said, lifting two bolt-action rifles and recoil pads from a large black case by his sneakers. He handed one of the rifles to Pins. “Worry about the ones by the van,” he said. “I’ll take the team in the car. That leaves Boomer with the two around Mrs. Columbo.”
“That car looks parked too close to the van,” Pins said. “What if the dyno blows them both?”
“It shouldn’t,” Geronimo said. “Not if Mrs. Columbo centers the doll under the van the way I showed her. Besides, on top of that, I left thirty seconds for Rev. Jim to move the car away.”
“Next time don’t be so generous,” Pins said, checking the nightscope at the center of his rifle. “You’ll only spoil him.”
Geronimo looked up at Pins and nodded. “Thought I’d throw him a break,” he said. “Just this once.”
“Kindness is weakness,” Pins said, resting the front of the rifle between branches of a tree, an open box of .375 H&H Magnum shells by his feet, headphones resting low on his neck.
“So’s missing your target,” Geronimo said, lifting the rifle and taking aim from behind the large shadow of a boulder.
• • •
“I STILL DON’T like our end of the plan,” Dead-Eye said, sitting on the edge of a rock, four locked and loaded semiautomatic handguns spread out around him.
“If we go down to shoot it out, one of us is sure to buy it,” Boomer said, pacing around the dirt, rocks, and twigs. “Pins and Geronimo can clip only so many off the back ridge. Rev. Jim’s gotta get to the car and Mrs. Columbo’s got enough to worry about with a fuckin’ bomb in her arms.”
“I don’t think Pins has ever pulled the trigger on a rifle,” Dead-Eye said. “Which makes the odds very good that if he clips anybody, it’s gonna be me.”
Boomer leaned against the rock and stared at Dead-Eye. They were a thirty-second run from the black van. They could see Mrs. Columbo and the heavy guns surrounding her, and they could feel the others hiding, their guns prepped, ready to take aim and clean out the Apache team.
“How many more than we can see do you think are out there?” Boomer asked, chewing on a thin twig.
“Hard to tell,” Dead-Eye said. “But if they came looking for a total wipeout, I’d say about six more guns. Six more very good guns.”
“They’re gonna expect us to shoot,” Boomer said. “They’re gonna be lookin’ for us to come down with full loads.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Dead-Eye said.
Boomer nodded and then smiled over at Dead-Eye. “We got a minute thirty, then,” Boomer said, “to go down and do what they would never expect.”
“Which is what?” Dead-Eye asked, sliding off the rock and reaching for his guns.
“Ask them to surrender,” Boomer said.
• • •
THE MAN IN the sunglasses walked slowly toward Mrs. Columbo, carving knife in his right hand. She had both hands wrapped around the prop baby, one of them hidden beneath the sheets of a thin cover blanket, fingers holding a .38 Special.
“I need the kid,” the man said in a slow-motion delivery. “I’ll cut hi
m in the backseat and make the transfer. Then we can all get the hell out of here.”
When Mrs. Columbo didn’t move, he walked closer and held out his left hand. “I need the baby now,” he said.
Angela and the man in the tan leather jacket both turned and looked at Mrs. Columbo, their eyes filled with a mixture of anger and suspicion.
“What’s your problem?” Angela asked. “Get on with it. Give the baby over to Carl.”
“I was expecting to get paid before making the handoff.” Mrs. Columbo was surprised at how calm she was able to sound.
“And you can expect to be killed if you don’t make it now,” the man in the tan leather said.
Mrs. Columbo looked down at the prop baby in her arms. “Good-bye, sweet thing,” she said in soothing tones, a warm smile stretched across her face. She looked up at the man in the shades and then over at Angela and her husband. “You get attached,” she said to them. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a mom thing.”
Mrs. Columbo kept her smile as she twirled around Angela and tossed the prop baby under the center of the black van, turned, and pointed her gun right in the woman’s face. “All of you,” Mrs. Columbo yelled without moving her head, her eyes focused on Angela’s stunned gaze, “listen to me! You got about a minute before that van blows and kills us all. We can shoot it out or we can get out. I’m gonna let the lady here make the call.”
Angela moved her eyes away from Mrs. Columbo and the muzzle of her gun long enough to see Boomer and Dead-Eye coming down the side of a sloping hill, guns at their sides. Rev. Jim had slipped out from behind a bush and was already near the Cadillac, a .38 Special cocked and pointed her way.
“You were ready to kill a few seconds ago,” Mrs. Columbo said to her in a low voice. “Now are you ready to die?”
“What do you want?” Angela asked, the words lacking the edge they once carried.
“Let the van blow,” Mrs. Columbo said. “And let us leave with the car and the money that’s in the trunk. You and your people can scatter.”
“And if we don’t?” her husband asked.
“Then what the bomb won’t kill,” Mrs. Columbo said, “the guns behind you and above you will. And you still lose the drugs and the cash. But I’m sure Lucia will appreciate the effort.”
“Forty-five seconds!” Boomer shouted from behind them, his gun pointed at no one in particular. “This ain’t somethin’ that needs a lot of thought.”
“You will die too,” the man in the leather jacket shouted back at Boomer. “Along with all of us.”
“There’s one big difference,” Boomer said to him. “I don’t give a shit.”
Angela looked over at Mrs. Columbo one final time. “What about you?” Angela asked her. “Do you give a shit?”
Mrs. Columbo smiled and edged the barrel of the gun closer to Angela’s cheek. “What do you think?” she said.
Angela lifted her arms slowly above her head. It was all the men around her needed to drop their weapons and run from the van.
“Let’s get in that car,” Boomer yelled, following Dead-Eye to the Cadillac, Rev. Jim already behind the wheel.
“She will find you,” Angela shouted out after Mrs. Columbo, watching as she removed the gun from her face and ran to join the others. “She will find all of you.”
“That’s what we’re counting on,” Mrs. Columbo shouted back.
• • •
SHE WAS IN the backseat of the Lincoln, her window rolled down, Dead-Eye next to her, Boomer and Rev. Jim in the front, dust from the back tires kicking up white puffs of sand clouds all around them. Angela and the rest of Lucia’s crew were scattered up hills and down side paths, leaving an array of guns in their wake.
Geronimo and Pins stared down at it all, nestled safely on a rock on the ridge above.
“Now,” Geronimo whispered to himself.
He didn’t flinch as the loud explosion split the black van and rocketed it skyward, sending dust, metal, debris, and cocaine filtering through the air. Red, orange, and yellow flames were reflected in Geronimo’s eyes, the heat of the blast and the strength of the strong steam air washing over him in one swooping wave of destruction. He smiled down at the site in complete admiration. Respectful of its force.
• • •
LUCIA CARNEY STOOD in the bedroom of her Sedona condo, staring out at the fourteenth hole putting green, the light of a full moon filtering in through the shuttered glass. The thick white lace drapes were drawn to the edge of the porch windows and the blinds were slanted up. She wore a silk bathrobe slit down the sides, open in the front, and smoked a cigarette. She was deep in thought and didn’t hear her husband, Gerald, walk into the room. He crept up behind her, drunk from an evening out with investment cronies, and wrapped his right arm around her waist, softly rubbing her naked flesh.
“Miss me?” he muttered into her ear.
“No,” Lucia said, her eyes still on the putting green, her mind several thousand miles away, picturing a lost shipment of cocaine and cash.
It wasn’t enough for those bastard Apaches to blow six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of her untapped coke to the wind. They had to heap on an additional insult by driving off in one of her new cars, which was holding two hundred and fifty thousand in hundreds in the trunk. A sum that, she had discovered only hours earlier, had been donated in her name to child abuse centers in three states.
Gerald began to nuzzle the side of her neck, his hands lifting and groping the bathrobe in the clumsy manner of a man who should have stopped three drinks into the night.
“Go to bed, Gerry,” Lucia said, unmoved by her husband’s actions.
“That’s the plan,” he said, his head resting on the edge of her shoulder. “You and me.”
Lucia pulled away from her husband and her view of the putting green, jamming the end of her cigarette into an ashtray on top of a marble end table. Gerald stripped off his blue jacket and undid his matching tie, smiling at his wife, his body juiced by the sight of her bare skin visible under the sheer robe.
He blocked her path as she tried to move past him, his right hand caressing her breasts. “Whatever you want,” he said to her, a broad smile on his face, fingers pulling at her nipples. “That’s what we’ll do.”
Lucia stared at Gerald, wondering why she had stayed with him as long as she had. By now she already had more money than he did and had learned as much about investing as he was ever going to be able to teach. On top of which, she had all his contacts and could just as easily go directly to them to further expand her portfolio.
“Get naked,” she finally said to him. “And turn down the lights. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Lucia walked away, closing the bathroom door behind her, leaving Gerald waiting. He undressed quickly, twice stumbling over his pants, and eagerly slid back the satin sheets of the king-sized bed that dominated the room. He propped up two pillows and laid his head down, the ceiling above doing a slow spin, his body feeling light from all the booze. He turned his head and smiled when he saw Lucia come out of the shadows of the bathroom light, naked, clutching her robe in one hand.
She moved like a serpent up and down the contours of his body, working him with her tongue and hands, listening to him moan with pleasure, neither one uttering words. She knew when to stop and switch, spreading her legs on top of him, straddling him, her long hair draped in folds around her face and back. She slowly inserted him inside her, rocking her body in gentle, rhythmic motions, running her hands up and down her own body. Gerald continued to moan, his eyes closed, biting down hard on his lower lip.
Lucia leaned her body back, her hair touching the mattress, rocking harder now, one hand gripping Gerald’s leg, the other reaching under her crumpled bathrobe, searching for the .357 Magnum hidden beneath its folds.
She lifted the gun and held it out with both hands, her body moving at a furious pace, hungry to bring Gerald to climax.
“I’m coming, Lucia,” Gerald muttered, eyes still closed. “I�
��m going to come.”
“And I have to go,” Lucia said, bringing a halt to her motion and aiming the gun straight at Gerald’s head.
The loud shot from the Magnum brought two of her bodyguards storming through the bedroom door. They stopped, guns drawn, when they saw Lucia, still on top of her husband, half her body wet with his blood, bone chips, and brain matter.
She turned to look at them, blood dripping down the sides of her face, the hot gun in her right hand. She slid off the bed and walked toward the two speechless men, handing one the gun.
“I’m going to take a shower and get dressed,” Lucia said in even tones. “Have someone get rid of Gerald and then get us a private jet to New York.”
“How soon?” the one with the gun managed to ask.
“Within the hour,” Lucia said, turning to take one final look at her husband.
“Never get boring,” she said, walking into the bathroom, ready to turn on the shower head and wash off the signs of her latest kill.
18
PINS SAT ACROSS the bar from Nunzio, nursing a sweating glass of tap beer. It was early on a Saturday afternoon, two days after the Camden raid, and the place was quiet except for Ella Fitzgerald coming over the jukebox riffing her way through “My Last Affair.”
“Freshen that for you?” Nunzio asked, polishing his side of the bar with a white cloth.
“No, thanks. It’s still a little early. I’ll stick to the one.”
Nunzio stared over at Pins and spotted a look on his face that shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t so much fear or even concern that was etched across his strong features. It was more the weight of regret, the look of someone who found himself in the middle of a battle he had no business being in. Nunzio always thought Pins was the least comfortable member of the Apache team. The others were harder, tougher, more at ease with the action. Pins, Nunzio knew, was different. He still had too much heart.
In his specialty, Pins hadn’t seen as many bodies as the others, was less aware of the ugly side of the street. He liked the team and enjoyed their company, coming to life when they were all gathered around a table, swapping war tales and stupid jokes. He went along with their plans and could be counted on to carry out his role, but, unlike the others, Pins wasn’t driven by a need for revenge. He was the only cop, Nunzio felt, who, if given the choice, would take back his commitment and retreat to the quiet sanctity of his bowling alley.
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