Yeager's Law

by Scott Bell

  “Hit me.” The left boot thumped to the floor, and he crossed his right leg to reach the next.

  “I did some checking to be sure, and I nearly peed my pants when I found out.” Victor took a deep breath. “Rosaria Santiago. Humberto Cruz is her daddy.”

  A bucket of ice water washed Yeager from head to toe. His boot remained suspended by one hand, forgotten. “You’re sure?”

  “I wish I was joking, dude. I really do.”

  “So all this is about…”

  “The wreck, yeah.”

  Somehow, Yeager wasn’t surprised. Oddly, he felt a strong sense of relief. The bill for the worst day of his life was coming due. “So this is about revenge.”

  “He laid low during the trial, y’know? When that puta lawyer was butt-fucking your insurance company? But I remember hearing somewhere Rosaria’s maiden name was Cruz, so I checked it with a guy I know in the Federales, and sure enough, she’s Humberto’s only child.”

  “One or a dozen, it doesn’t matter, not when it comes to kids. I understand why he’s pissed.”

  “So, yeah,” Victor said. “Anyway, he must’ve decided to come north and finish the job. Y’know? Ruin you then shoot your ass, cabrone.”

  Yeager ran his hand through his hair. He needed a shower. Rosaria Santiago. Yeager squeezed his eyes shut.

  A small car—a Camry—slams on its brakes when it hits the ice. Downshifting, tapping the trailer brakes, Yeager curses and yells at her not to do it, even though he knows she can’t hear him. The truck floats across the ice. Steering goes loose, brakes useless. The view pinwheels. Shuddering, the trailer breaks free, moving the entire rig sideways across the road. A pair of headlights shines through the side window.

  “You still there?” Victor asked.

  “Yeah. Just thinking.”

  “Don’ hurt yourself, hermano.”

  “This guy Cruz probably ain’t gonna give up. I’m in the middle of downtown Austin, so I can’t see him trying anything here. I’ll be in McAllen by Sunday. Let’s hook up then and maybe come up with a plan on how to deal with this guy.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Thanks, Vic. Good to know what I’m up against.”

  “What we’re up against, hombre. One for all and like that, y’know?”

  Yeager snorted a tiny laugh, said goodbye, and tossed the phone on the bed. The very thing that had been slowly suffocating him for the past few months was the—what was the word? catalyst?—of his renewed spirit.

  Crushing Rosaria Santiago and her unborn child in the tinfoil tomb of their Camry had poisoned Yeager’s life with a guilt that ate away at him. Then Cruz’s attack had brought Charlie into his life and energized him in a way he hadn’t felt since… well, since Afghanistan.

  Dealing with Cruz is a problem for tomorrow. Mission priority is to take a shower and get some sleep.

  CHAPTER 12

  Book Finders

  Austin, Texas

  Hector Castillo sat in a car on Fifth Street, across from the bookstore where he had last seen the trucker and the red-haired woman from the rest stop. After they had gone inside, Hector and Julio had maintained surveillance. No one had left all evening, nor did anyone take the truck away.

  At well after midnight, all the lights were out in the building, and traffic had dwindled to a trickle. One block over, on Sixth Street, the traffic would be heavier, even with the college kids from the University of Texas out for the summer. Sixth Street—a lineup of music clubs, bars, and shops—remained open all night.

  Hector lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out his open window. It would be much more fun to be club-hopping, dancing with long-legged, blond college girls, than sitting in a car all night, aching to take a piss. Humberto Cruz, the prick, had saddled Hector with watching the front doors and the emergency exit in case they flushed the quarry too early.

  Something wasn’t right about the new job. Cruz had said they were going to steal the guy’s truck. He promised them all a lot of money. Instead, all they’d gotten was bruises, and Cruz was still following the guy around, looking for more trouble. Targeting the trucker for death didn’t make sense. Cruz claimed it was because the guy had made them lose face, but if that was it, they should just steal his truck and be done with it. It was sitting there behind the store, waiting to be taken.

  Twice, patrol cars passed his position, though none of the cops gave him a second glance. But how long would that last? Soon, some prick of a cop would notice him sitting in a car, doing nothing, and would have to harass him for being Mexican. He needed to find a new spot, so they didn’t keep seeing him in the same place. Fifth was a one-way street, so he could pull forward and use the mirrors to watch, or he could make the block and find a place farther back. Cruz was taking a long time. He should have been there by now.

  His walkie-talkie squawked on the seat beside him. Hector picked it up and keyed the button. “Si?”

  “Humberto said to tell you to stay put. They are going in.” Julio was watching the alley behind the store.

  “Humberto’s there?”

  “Sí. They just drove past me in the van.”

  “Bueno.” Hector tossed the radio on the seat.

  It wouldn’t be long. After the bookstore had closed and all the workers had filtered out, Julio had gone down the alley and cut the phone lines. Then he and Hector had set up cell jammers around the building, cutting communication. Cruz and the rest of the guys would go in, find the people, and kill them all. Then they would take the truck and whatever else they could find and get the hell out of Texas for a while.

  Goddamned state. Texas recently executed a Mexican citizen, ignoring protests from the Mexican government. The Tejano pendejos were insane, and Hector wanted to be long gone when the bodies in the bookstore were found.

  He shifted in his seat. Soon he would need to use the empty coffee cup. But if the shooting started and the trucker and his bitch ran out the front door, he didn’t want to have his dick in his hand, half-standing in his seat trying to piss in a cup.

  No, he could wait a few more minutes. It should be over soon, and then he could take a leak in peace. He lit another cigarette and grimaced, adjusting again.

  Soon. It’d better be soon.

  After the call from Victor, Yeager had gone to bed restless and edgy. When the door opened, he snapped awake. For a fuzzy moment, he thought it was a continuation of his erotic dream of Charlie crawling into bed with him.

  She stood, framed by the dim light of the hall. A big nickel-plated handgun gleamed in her hand. “Abel, wake up,” Charlie hissed. “Trouble.”

  “Talk to me.” He swung his legs out and grabbed his jeans off the chair back. In one motion, hopefully before she got an eyeful, he whipped the jeans up and fastened the button.

  Next, he shoved his hand under the pillow for his Springfield .45. He kept it cocked and locked, so there was no need to cycle the action or check the chamber. He knew the condition of every weapon he owned, and those he carried, he kept ready for action.

  “A van came up the alley,” Charlie whispered. “No headlights. Five guys got out, carrying guns, and headed for the warehouse door. I tried to call 9-1-1, but there’s no dial tone.”

  “Cruz. How did he find us so fast?” He shook his head. The how didn’t matter right then. “Okay, what about your cell?”

  “No signal.” She frowned. “And that’s weird because I always get signal here.”

  Yeager checked his cell—no signal. “Jammer.”

  “What? Are these guys spies?” Charlie took a step into the room. Her nightshirt wasn’t sheer, and the meager hallway light cast her in a shapely silhouette.

  He blinked and rubbed his eyes. “You can get cell jammers on the Internet these days.” He brushed past her and moved into the hallway. “Where’s David?”

  “I sent Maria to his room. She took a frying pan and locked the door. She’s armed and dangerous.” Charlie tried for gallows humor, but the tremor in her voice gave her true
fear away.

  Yeager used the internal staircase to the top floor, taking the steps two at time. Charlie followed on his heels.

  “There any way out of here I don’t know about?” Yeager asked. “Fire escapes? Stairs? Elevators?”

  “There’s another set of fire stairs”—she pointed down the hall toward the bedrooms—“that comes out at the street in front.”

  “Okay,” he said, pausing at the apartment door. “They probably have somebody watchin’ that door, but I don’t think they’ll come up that way. You see who it was?”

  Charlie shook her head. “I couldn’t tell.”

  She was trembling, but so slightly Yeager almost couldn’t tell. She held the big revolver down by her leg. Her bare leg, Yeager noted. The nightshirt barely covered her upper thighs. A half-naked woman holding a gun. Victor will never believe me.

  “The dead phones are enemy action. They’ve cut us off. No alarms, no police unless we get lucky and somebody calls in the ruckus.” He thumbed his .45’s safety off. “Here’s the deal. They’ll come up the fire stairs either to the second floor and up these stairs, or all the way to three and in your front door here. Get down behind that sofa, where you can keep everything in sight. Point that cannon downrange and shoot anything that ain’t me.”

  “Or a cop.”

  “Yeah, or a cop. Any get past me, you’re the last line of defense between David and the bad guys, so don’t hesitate. Shoot ’em until they don’t move anymore.”

  “I know,” she flung back over her shoulder, already headed for her post. “Be careful.”

  Yeager smiled, watching her backside. Damned if she wasn’t one hell of a woman. Smart, brave, and her legs… “Holy shit,” he muttered. Time to get to work.

  He slammed through the apartment door fast and hard, sweeping the .45 from left to right. The vestibule was empty, the freight elevator silent. The neon fixture seemed as bright as a summer afternoon after the dark apartment.

  He headed for the fire stairs. With a little luck, maybe he could get down to the warehouse while the enemy was still trying to get in. It would be one on five in an enclosed space, but he’d put his experience up against a gangster’s any day.

  Big River Wholesale

  St. Louis, Missouri

  The specialist wiped his hands on a shop towel and looked at his boss. “That is all he will say. We can get nothing more from him.” The specialist spoke Spanish with a heavy Nahuatl accent.

  “Is he telling the truth?” Enrique DaSilva asked.

  The specialist, thick and strong through the middle, was dressed in working man’s clothes and looked more like a janitor than a torturer. He pursed his heavy lips in thought. “Yes, I believe it to be so. Some men paid him to give the manager a drug that would cause a heart attack. That day, he diverted the shipment.”

  “But he has not said who these men are?”

  “No. Either he is very tough, or he doesn’t know.”

  DaSilva, touches of gray at his temples, wore a suit that cost more than some cars, so he stayed well back from the man slumped in the chair. The object of the specialist’s attention had long since voided his bowels, and that stench, combined with the rank odor of blood and the reek of fear-sweat, assaulted DaSilva’s nostrils. He found such things distasteful since he had achieved high rank within his organization. However, the loss of sixty million dollars required the personal attention of someone with his authority.

  DaSilva turned to the other specialist in the room, a chubby and soft computer-forensics technician young enough to be still in school. “Well?”

  The computer tech pushed his glasses up on this nose. “Th-th-there’s a record of a shipment of six pallets to an address in Austin, on the same day as our shipment.”

  DaSilva brightened for the first time since he’d learned of the empty shipping truck with its dead driver. “The address?”

  “Austin,” the computer nerd said. “It’s in Texas.”

  “Yes, thank you. I know. Print the address for me.” He turned to the heavier man, who had indeed become a janitor. “When you are done, come to Austin and meet me there. I may have need of your services again. Soon.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Book Finders

  Austin, Texas

  “Quietly,” Humberto Cruz ordered as Fidel inserted the straight end of a pry bar into the doorframe of the bookstore warehouse.

  His men huddled in the darkness, confronting the metal door to the right of the roll-up door, blocked by the trucker’s rig. The only illumination came from Gallo’s flashlight. All five were armed with either assault rifles or tactical shotguns and a variety of handguns.

  Fidel nodded and put his weight on the pry bar. The door squealed, and the metal buckled slightly. He took another grip, adjusted the tool, and shoved. An inch at a time, the door crunched away from the frame, revealing a frame brace across the jamb. The crosspiece functioned like the bar on a fortress, securing the door to the frame.

  Fidel huffed. “This will take a few minutes, boss. The door has a—”

  “I see it,” Cruz growled. “Continue.”

  With a grunt from Fidel and another screech of metal, the door jerked partway out of the frame. Chupa tapped him on the shoulder, and Fidel traded off the pry bar. The door would give up the fight any minute. And about time.

  Cruz glanced around, a mouse of anxiety nibbling at him as he stood by the back door of this warehouse, in the dark with guns, in a race to get in and get the job done before the cops noticed them. “Julio, check in,” he muttered into the radio.

  “Sí.”

  “Status? Police?”

  “Nothing, jefe.” The radio crackled with static. “All clear.”

  The night remained quiet but for the screech and scrape of Chupa gnawing on the door. Time dribbled through their fingers. The cross-frame lock bar had been an unpleasant surprise and had already caused too much delay. Cruz’s stomach acid flared up, and he swallowed to make the heartburn go down. Using his shirt sleeve, he wiped sweat from his forehead.

  Chupa heaved on the pry bar one final time. The door sprang open. From inside, the whine of the security panel signaled the start of its countdown. But the alarm would go nowhere if Hector and Julio had done their job properly.

  “Go, Chupa,” Cruz ordered, patting the man on his broad back.

  Chupa grabbed his shotgun from beside the door and shoved in first, followed closely by Fidel, Juan, and Gallo.

  Cruz entered last, pulling the door shut as far as it would go, given that it was mangled out of shape. “Fan out. Not you, Juan. Stay here, watch for the policia.”

  Juan frowned but complied in silence. Their flashlights pierced the gloom inside the warehouse, slicing and dancing through the darkness and reflecting off floor-to-ceiling racks and workstations with postage meters and shipping supplies. A forklift hulked in the gloom. To the left, a twenty-four-foot-square open area for unloading trucks had been swept clean and bare. Beyond that were the shelving units, three rows aligned so workers could look down their length. To the right, a set of swinging double doors with small Plexiglas windows led to the store’s sales floor.

  Cruz checked on the double doors, which joined imperfectly in the middle, and found them locked from the store side. The clerks must have secured the warehouse first then exited via the front of the store. Without more pry-bar work or maybe a shotgun blast, the sales floor remained inaccessible. Cruz decided to leave that as a last resort, in case they found—

  “Here!” one of his men called from a dark aisle between two bookshelves. The man waved a flashlight, and Cruz saw Gallo on the far right aisle against the interior wall.

  Cruz hurried down that aisle and, in the unsteady beam of his flashlight, found a door secured with a keypunch lock. “Chupa! Get the pry bar.”

  Chupa came at a jog, shotgun in one hand, bar in the other. He slammed the metal tip into the doorframe and heaved. With no locking bar across the frame, Chupa made short work of the door. It s
prang open with a metallic crunch and revealed a staircase dimly lit by emergency lighting. The stairs were contained in a concrete-walled space that went all the way to the ceiling. They doubled back, turning at a small landing at the halfway point between the first and second floors.

  Cruz edged in and looked up. He twisted and turned every way he could, trying to see if anyone had noticed their arrival, but the stairs were built so the landing on each floor blocked his view beyond the halfway point.

  Nothing moved, and the only sound was the insistent scream of the alarm panel begging for attention back in the warehouse. Nevertheless, as he moved closer to the first step, the hairs on the back of his neck stood. Without looking back, he motioned for the men behind him to go first. Gallo surged ahead, forcing his way to the front.

  The young think they will live forever. Well, let’s see if that’s true. “Gallo,” he whispered to the wiry little hombre. “Check it out. Find if they have rooms upstairs, or what.” Turning to the next in line, he said, “Chupa, go right behind him. Fidel, stay here and guard our backs.”

  Gallo moved up the stairs, an HK assault rifle held in front of him like a TV cop. “Come on, Chupa. Follow me.”

  Cruz held back a pace, allowing the two men to go ahead. Chupa stopped on the first landing while Gallo advanced. When the smaller man made it to the second floor landing, Chupa started up. The scuff of the men’s shoes and their panting sounded loud even over the distant squeal of the alarm panel.

  Cruz jumped at the loud bang of a pistol shot. Chupa yelled and hopped back to the landing, blind-firing two quick rounds from his shotgun. Gallo tumbled down the stairs like a marionette with its strings cut. He was dead before he landed at Chupa’s feet.

  Chupa, standing on the first landing, fired upward again and again, cranking the pump action in a blur. Cruz’s ears rang from the repeated blasts, and he hugged the wall.