Saint Heist

by W H Lock

  Quinn and Oscar walked into the Fox River High School wearing off the rack polyester blend suits. They didn't take off their sunglasses as they stepped into the school office. A pimply faced teen sat behind the desk. She was pale, gaunt, and had dark circles under her eyes. She stared at them listlessly.

  Quinn held out a flip wallet that held a badge and an ID that claimed he was from Oregon Child Protective Services. The girl leaned forward and inspected the wallet.

  "Hang on," she said after a moment. She slid off the stool and walked back a few steps to lean into an office. "Hey, someone from CPS is here, Ms. Maybel."

  In short order, a small woman came out of the office. She was too pale and had dark circles under her eyes. "What can I help you with?"

  Quinn held up his badge again, and said, "We're here to see Fred McLaren. We'd like to interview him about some trouble at home."

  The older woman shook her head in confusion. She said, "I don't recognize the name, but we have so many students here." She laughed nervously. She turned to the kid standing near here and said, "Can you look that name up for me, dear?"

  The teen typed for a bit on a computer. After a moment she looked back up and shook her head. Ms. Maybel frowned and pushed the kid out of the way. She typed for a few moments and then looked back at Quinn and Oscar.

  "Uh, maybe you're at the wrong school? We don't have a Fred, Freddy, or a Fredrick with that last name enrolled."

  Quinn and Oscar looked at each other. Oscar shrugged.

  Quinn turned back to the woman and said, "That's alright. What about Lucian?" He sounded the name out slowly. "Lucian Dahrk?"

  When Quinn said that name both of the women sighed. These weren't the sighs of exasperation or relief, but cliche sighs of deep infatuation.

  "Lucian," they said in a uniform dream-like quality. "He's so dreamy."

  "That's him," Quinn and Oscar said in unison.

  Quinn said,"We need to interview him to see if we need to get him out of that house."

  "To keep him safe?" The young girls face looked both hopeful and wistful all at once. "Will he need a loving foster home? A place that he'll feel safe and comfortable? A place that he can learn to trust himself and feel again? A place where he can finally find the love that he deserves?"

  "Something like that," Oscar said. "What room is he in?"

  Without having to look Ms. Maybel said, "He's up on the second floor by the library. I'll take you up there."

  The plump older woman led the two men up to the second floor. It took longer than necessary as every few steps she would stop to tell them another story about how amazing Lucian was, what a good student he was, and how he was an inspiration to just everyone in the whole school.

  "Even the teachers and staff," she said.

  "You don't say," Oscar said.

  She shook head and said, "I've been at this school for twenty years. And I've never met a student so..."

  "Amazing?" Quinn finished for her.

  She nodded and led the two men around the corner. She opened the doors to the library. The school had been built with the idea of the library being the center of everything. It occupied both floors, with a large portion of the center open to the floor below. The architect had intended for the library to be filled with natural light. The central section of the roof was a glass dome.

  Except that it has been covered over with black paint years ago. The place was filled with flickering fluorescent lights set along the floors, casting ghostly light back up at the ceiling. Holes had shown up in the black painted windows, causing tight shafts of light to spear through the darkness. The bookcases in the center had been shoved out of the way and tables pushed together. Surrounding the tables was a group of stringy haired Goth teens. They were all young, chubby, and had that same listless stare the front office staff had.

  At the center of the sea of black cotton and under light was Freddy McLaren A.K.A Lucian Dharque. He was a man in his late Thirties, curly hair, and a thick mustache. He wore sunglasses, a sweatband around his head that he probably hadn't changed since the Seventies, his naturally tightly curled hair combed over it. The calf length socks with stripes that matched the blue shoes. He completed the whole look with a silver jacket with Chevy Corvette logo embroidered on the back.

  Ms. Maybel cleared her throat and said, "Um, Lucian. Dear. There are two men from CPS to talk to you about something going on at home?"

  All of the Goth girls turned and looked at Freddy. He looked at Quinn and Oscar and sighed.

  "What the Hell do you two want?"

  "I got something on the line, Freddy," Quinn said.

  "His name is Lucian!" one of the girls said. She moved closer to Freddy and put her head on his thigh.

  Quinn quirked an eyebrow at the girl and stared at her for a moment. He turned back to Freddy and said, "Lucian. I got something. A big something."

  "I'm retired, Quinn."

  "Retired? That's not even possible for you, Fred. Weren't you the one who would tell me about this sweet little setup you had back in Juno? About how it was dark for half the year so you would run around like a maniac? But then you got tired of it?"

  Freddy shook his head. "Don't talk to me about Juno, okay? That wasn't what that movie billed it as being, okay? Alaska isn't nearly as interesting as you'd think. There's only so many Northern Lights you can see before it becomes old hat. Now unless you know a werewolf I can start a Team thing with, you need to piss off."

  "Team Edward or Team Jake? That's what you're doing here? Which one are you the dog or the pedophile?"

  Freddy took off his sunglasses and leaned forward. "Look, Quinn, the last birthday I had was the night I got turned which was in 1976. I was forty-two. Everyone is a kid to me. Piss off, Quinn. I got a good thing going on. I can spend the next couple of decades here quite comfortably."

  "Yeah!" one of the boys sitting nearby. "Why don't you just leave? No one wants you here!" He looked at Freddy for approval. Freddy gave him a slight nod. The boy leaned back, preening in the approval of his master.

  "Look, Fred, you need to get out. You’re going stir-crazy. How long have you been here? A couple of years now?" Quinn asked.

  Fred shrugged and played with the hair of one of the girls that had moved closer to him.

  Quinn looked around the group of kids. They were all too pale from being near a vampire, never going outside, and wearing too much black. Finally, he said, "Look, Fred."

  "Lucian!" the small crowd shouted back at him.

  He held up his hands and said, "Look, Lucian, if you don't get your shit together and come with me, I'll call a bomb threat to this school every week. I'll make sure you get sent to the Boy's Ranch, and not the nice one in the suburbs. The crappy one."

  "Fine," Freddy said. He stood up and put on his sunglasses. "This was getting old anyway. The high school vampire thing isn't as popular as it used to be." He turned to look at the suddenly forlorn teens gathered around him. "Look, kids, you know I love you."

  They collectively sighed.

  "But you really need to get some outside time. I want you all to stop it with this Goth nonsense. Go become cheerleaders, nerds, or whatever it is that kids do now."

  They all groaned. A few started to weep.

  "Knock it off," Fred said.

  They all stopped moaning and crying immediately. They sniffled a bit and wiped their eyes.

  "I have to go for a bit, but I'll be back. Don't worry. Go be happy. Don't sit around waiting for something to happen, go make things happen, okay?" Fred put on his Corvette jacket and nodded at Quinn and Oscar. "So, what are we doing? Oh, I have to stop by my locker first."

  Chapter Eight

  Phoenix, Arizona

  University of Phoenix Stadium

  Oscar and Quinn got out of the matte black SUV. Quinn hadn't been to Phoenix, but he was pretty sure he'd like it if they had time to stick around. The two men wore black windbreaker jackets with ATF emblazoned across the back in large white letters. They
walked through the crowds slowly pushing their way into the stadium. Most of the people in the crowd wore the school of colors of the University of Phoenix. Gate guards stopped everyone as they came to the wrought iron fence portal to the interior of the stadium. The two security guards looked at each other warily as Quinn and Oscar came through the crowd.

  Oscar held up a flip wallet. It held the same badge that he'd used in Portland, but now the paper on the other side claimed he was Agent Johnson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

  "We're looking for an Eno Johnson. Have you seen him?"

  One of the guards said, "He's on Gate C." They nodded the two men in through the gate.

  Quinn and Oscar pushed through the rest of the crowd and made their way to Gate C. One guy stood slightly above the crowd. He was skinnier than normal. He had bulgy eyes and a hawk nose. His prominent Adam's apple and stooping posture gave someone looking at him the impression that he'd been folded the wrong way too many times and couldn't stand straight anymore. But if there was a word that an observer would use to describe the odd man was goofy.

  He sniffed the air and pointed to one of the passer-bys in the crowd. Two uniformed security guards cut through the crowd to pull the target out. They ushered him into cleared out space and immediately demanded to see the inside of his cooler. They confiscated several unmarked bottles from the man.

  "Hey, Eno," Quinn said quietly while they were still some distance away.

  The goofy looking fellow turned looked directly at Quinn. Quinn tapped the side of his nose. Eno nodded and said something to one of the men near him. That fellow nodded and took Eno's spot as Eno stepped down.

  Quinn and Oscar turned around and pushed their way back through the crowd, moving upstream. Eno met them as they pushed their way free of the incoming crowd. Without a word, Eno pulled off his security shirt and cap. He tossed them in the nearest garbage. Quinn and Oscar stripped off their ATF jackets and tossed them in the garbage after Eno's.

  Quinn opened the back door. Freddy pushed himself against the far side to avoid even the reflection of sunlight.

  Eno stopped and said, "I thought I smelled rotten meat."

  "Get your dog on a leash, Quinn! I don't work with pets!" Freddy shouted from the back of the SUV.

  “Alright, kids. Don’t touch each other and make sure you went potty, because we’ve got a long drive ahead of us,” Quinn said.

  Eno got in. Quinn hopped in the driver seat, and Oscar followed Eno to sit in the back.

  Chapter Nine

  Tupelo, Mississippi

  Ned's Garage

  Quinn liked Tupelo for two reasons. The first was that the city was the birthplace of Elvis Presley. It was Quinn's opinion that it a pretty rare song that hadn't been made better by Elvis singing it. The second reason was the Tupelo Automobile Museum. It had one of the best collections of rare and antique cars.

  "I can't believe you dragged me to either of those places," Oscar said.

  "You had fun, and you know it," Quinn said as they pulled into Ned's Garage.

  Ned's was a country gas station, repair shop, and junkyard on the outskirts of Tupelo. When Ned Jr. had inherited the place from his dad, Ned Sr, it had been an hour outside of Tupelo. Now it was only a few minutes from the urban sprawl. Ned ran a thriving business that prided itself on quick turn around on repairing most cars.

  He also ran an exceptional chop shop that processed hundreds of stolen cars every year. He used the stolen cars as a cheap source of parts for his suburban customers to help keep his prices low.

  As Quinn and Oscar walked through the car yard, a young man with light brown hair popped out from behind the raised hood of a late-model Chevy.

  Quinn nodded and asked, "Ned around about?"

  The kid nodded back at the old gas station part of the large garage. He was a mixed kid with chocolate brown skin, light green eyes and tightly curled hair that was more blond than brown. He wiped his hands clean with a rag that wasn’t clean, put aside one socket and wrench to pick up a rubber mallet. Without any further regard to Oscar or Quinn, the young man set to hammering at a part.

  The original small building was a simple cinder block construction with a large awning that had covered the station's gas pumps. Today it was the front right corner of an extensive repair center. The front plate glass window still had the Union 76 logo painted on it in orange and blue letters.

  Quinn nodded at the young man. He and Oscar

  "You here, Ned?" Quinn shouted out as the two men pushed their way into the office. It still had the original linoleum on the floor, although it had long since turned yellow with age. Like any repair garage office, it was stuffed with paperwork, a dirty old computer, and faded pictures of what the building had looked like when it was new.

  "Well, damn, I knew today was going to be a bad day," a voice said from a back room. "Quinn, is that you?" An older man, his hair had long since turned gray, carefully wheeled himself into the front office. His left leg was firmly held in place by a white cast. Metal rods stuck out a few inches and ran up the length of the cast on two sides.

  Quinn didn't try to cover his surprise at the sight of his friend in a wheelchair and a broken leg. "What happened here," he asked as they shook hands.

  Ned looked at his leg like it had only just now shown up. He said, "Oh, that. Well, we were running on a figure eight dirt track a few weeks back, you know, like you do. And you remember that bastard that was in here the last time you were here and I said he can't drive worth a damn?"

  Quinn nodded as he leaned against the counter.

  "Turns out I was right. He still couldn't drive worth a damn. He plowed right into me." Ned said with a grin. He turned in his chair and gave Oscar a significant look.

  "Ned, this is a friend of ours by the name of Oscar. He and I go way back," Quinn said as he nodded at Oscar.

  Ned relaxed with the phrase friend of ours. Oscar had done a fair job of disappearing in Quinn's shadow. He stepped out and shook hands with Ned. The two men nodded at each other.

  "Quinn, you find yourself a girl and settle down yet?"

  "Working on it, Ned. But you know how it is."

  "I do. And don't bother. Nothing but pain and misery down that path. Stay single. You'll be happier," the older man said with a laugh.

  "Well, Ned, I had a mind to ask if you wanted in on a job. But looking at your leg, I'm thinking that you're not in any condition to run transportation in Los Angeles."

  Ned shook his head. "Nah, can't be doing none of that. At least ways, not for a while. What's the job like?"

  "I need to separate a thing from a guy," Quinn said with a shrug. "I need someone to run up some cars, keep things in order, and so on. You got anyone in mind?"

  "Is that your kind of someone or my kind of someone?"

  "My kind," Quinn said with a smile.

  Ned nodded and picked up a microphone. He pressed the large dirty button down at the base and said, "Boy! Get your ass in here." He set the microphone down and turned back to Quinn. "Are you going to stay for dinner? The Missus would be glad to see you."

  "I hadn't planned on it, but if she's putting out a spread, I think I can be convinced to stick around. She still making them biscuits?"

  Ned patted his belly, which had started pushing its way well past his belt line. The young man they'd passed on the way into the office pushed his way into the office. He nodded at Quinn and Oscar.

  "Boy," Ned said to the young man. "You know that nonsense you been reading in all them books about magic, vampires and such?"

  The younger man nodded.

  "It's all true. These boys here," Ned pointed at Quinn and Oscar. "They're magicians."

  Quinn stepped forward with his hand out and said, "I'm a sorcerer, the ugly pug behind me is the magician."

  The younger man looked at Quinn and Oscar with some suspicion.

  "Go on, boy, shaking his hand ain't going to cause nothing. Me and your Pa have worked with him before. He's the goo
d sort."

  The boy nodded and shook hands with Quinn. He nodded at Oscar, who nodded back. "Names Ruben. Y'all can call me Rube," he said.

  "I'm Quinn and that's Oscar," Quinn said.

  "These boys have a job out in LA, you up for running some trucks and such for them?"

  "What's the pay," Rube asked.

  Quinn outlined what the pay would be and the possible bonus at the end. The younger man grunted and thought about it for a bit.

  "Can I get the time off?" He turned and looked at Ned. "I'd like to have something to come back to."

  "Hell, boy, I'll even give you a few day’s vacation if you want," Ned said.

  Rube thought about it for a few more minutes then said, "Sure, why not. I've always wanted to see Hollywood."

  "Welcome aboard," Quinn said and clapped Rube on the back. "Now, I heard something about some home cooking?"

  Chapter Ten

  Kalispell, Montana

  Flathead Valley Community College

  Quinn pushed the door open to Room 136 of Blake Hall. It was a small classroom that was empty of students. A Korean woman sat at the table at the front of the room with her feet propped up on top. She drank from a flask while looking at a horse track race form. There was a stack of papers she was aggressively ignoring.

  "Hey, Karen," Quinn said as he walked into the room.

  The woman at the front looked out from behind the race form. She smiled when she saw Quinn. "Quinn! Tell me you have something for me."

  "I do! Want in? It's in LA."

  "Hell yes, I want in," she said with a great deal of relief. Karen stood up and pushed the papers into a trash can at the other end of her desk. With a snap of her fingers, she summoned a piece of Fire and dropped it in after the papers. The paper burned in a fierce smokeless blaze. She took a long hard pull at the flask before shoving it in a bag. She grabbed Quinn by the arm and dragged him out of the room.