Yeager's Law

by Scott Bell

  “It’s locked,” Juan said and raised his Mossberg pump shotgun, holding the muzzle an inch from the dangling padlock on the right-hand riser.

  “No!” Fidel screamed.

  Juan frowned at him. “What?”

  “You will kill us both, stupid.”

  “Don’t call me stupid.”

  “I will call you stupid if you shoot that gun in here.”

  Juan looked around and apparently reconsidered the idea of firing a shotgun inside a closet-sized room full of concrete and steel. “Okay, genius, how do we get the lock off?”

  “With this.” Fidel slung his assault rifle and inserted the tip of his pry bar inside the one of the chain’s links and started to twist.

  The door swung shut behind them, and Fidel cursed until Juan dug out his flashlight and pointed it at the chain. Inside the enclosed space, they were sweating and panting within seconds.

  “Did you hear that?” Juan asked.

  “What?”

  “It sounded like gunfire.”

  Fidel shrugged. “Probably Humberto, bravely killing more stairs.”

  After a few minutes of grunting effort, Fidel snapped the links on both chains. Seconds later, the sprinkler riser valves were closed.

  “Come on.” Fidel mopped his face with the tail of his snap-buttoned shirt. “Let’s tell Humberto so we can get this over with. This job has been a fucking nightmare.”

  “No shit.” Juan twisted the handle and shouldered open the door.

  CHAPTER 16

  Book Finders

  Austin, Texas

  Yeager glided around the front of his truck and headed toward the warehouse steps. A door to the left, less than twenty feet away, swung open, and a Hispanic male emerged, wearing tight jeans, boots, and a Western shirt. The man held a pry bar in his right hand and carried an assault rifle slung over one shoulder. The guy froze, a Looney Tunes expression of surprise on his face. Yeager followed the man’s thoughts as though reading from a book: Rifle slung, pry bar in one hand, man with pistol. What do I do? Go for it or run like hell?

  The guy tried to do both at once, and Yeager shot him, a double tap to the chest. The pry bar clattered to the floor. The man in the Western shirt slammed back into the wall, bounced off, and slumped to the floor. Yeager tracked him with the muzzle of the .45.

  The steel door banged open a second time. A bulky man in black jeans and a Tecate T-shirt rushed out, fire blooming from the muzzle of a pump shotgun. Driven by instinct, Yeager leaped to the side. Pellets zipped past his face, slashing the air.

  Yeager fell hard, scraping a bare shoulder on the greasy asphalt and jarring his gun hand to numbness. His head bounced off the concrete. Stunned, all he could do was roll, trying to stay out of the spread of pellets as Mr. Tecate fired again, and then again, shotgun muzzle tracking left, following Yeager’s tumble.

  Yeager rose on one knee, snapped a shot at a blurry target and missed. He blinked, acquired the target, and fired again, slide locking back. The last round zipped downrange and hit high and to the right of the Tecate emblem.

  The shotgun discharged into the air. Mr. Tecate spun away, grunting. Yeager leaped up and slammed the empty pistol into the side of Tecate’s head. The skull cracked with a dull dropped-melon sound.

  The Latino man collapsed, eyes rolled back into his head. Dead or not, Yeager couldn’t tell.

  Sucking wind as if he’d run a marathon, Yeager retrieved his partially spent clip from his hip pocket and hot swapped with the empty one in his .45. Dropping the slide release, he chambered a round and checked his perimeter. Still clear.

  Sergeant Masterson’s voice echoed in his head. “Too much time sitting on your fat ass behind the wheel and not enough PT, Private Yeager.”

  “No shit, Sergeant,” Yeager gasped, flicking sweat off his forehead with the back of one hand. “I’ll get right on that.”

  The dock area became quiet in the aftermath of the shooting. No more bad guys spilled from the sprinkler riser room. Yeager checked and made sure it was empty. The moths carried on, whirling and dancing around the overhead light, but the cicadas had stopped. Or at least he thought they had. It was hard to tell over the ringing in his ears. The warehouse door creaked a tiny bit in the puff of wind that stirred through the dust and trash of the alley. The invitation was implicit. Come on in and finish the party, said the open door.

  “Where the fuck are the cops?” he muttered. “What do you have to do around here to get some attention, set off a bomb? The second invasion of Texas by Mexico is going on here, and nobody gives a shit.”

  The road rash on his right shoulder woke up and started to sting, the blood getting tacky in the cool breeze playing through the alley. A crumpled paper bag, lifted on magical currents, spun in circles then skittered away.

  Thunder rumbled, and the damp chill of the wind raised goose bumps on his bare skin. He realized he’d been staring at the warehouse door for several seconds, putting off the inevitable.

  “Well, Humberto, you got any guys left, or is it down to you and me?” He started forward in a crouch. “Let’s find out.”

  Charlie stayed at the window long enough to see Yeager head for the corner. The concussion of the big Magnum rang in her head as if someone had clapped cymbals over her ears, and the flash had left a ghost image on her vision. Wind gusted through the shattered window, stirring the curtains and breaking her loose from her trance.

  She ran for her bedroom. One thought kept popping up from the back of her mind as she shucked into yesterday’s jeans: I just shot at someone. A real, live person, not a paper target.

  She slipped on a pair of flats, ran to David’s room, and pounded on the door. “Maria, it’s me. Open up.”

  The lock clicked, and Maria eyes appeared in the gap, followed by the rest of her as she flung the door open. Maria swept her into a bear hug, the cast iron skillet in her hand thumping Charlie in the back. “Ai, mi hermosa, what happened?” Maria cried, holding Charlie at arm’s length to inspect for damages. “We heard chooting!”

  David stood by his bed, a baseball bat held at the ready, his eyes serious and concerned but not frightened.

  Pride in her son blossomed in her chest, and she smiled and held out a hand. “Come on, you two. We have to get out of here while the coast is clear.”

  What is taking those jackasses so long? Humberto Cruz held a Molotov cocktail he’d retrieved from the van, prepared originally to eliminate the evidence once they shot the trucker and his whore in their bed. He snapped the lid of a Zippo lighter open and shut, pacing from the door to a mountain of books piled on the floor and back again.

  He heard something that sounded like shots. Two, no, three shots. Then nothing. Cruz cocked his head, trying to determine the source. Pocketing the Zippo, he unclipped the radio on his belt and keyed the mike. “Hector. Check in.”

  Nothing.

  “Julio?”

  Again nothing, but another shot sounded—closer, he thought. The trucker must have flanked them somehow. He paced in a small circle, tapping his head with the hand holding the radio, trying to jar loose a thought, a decision, a plan. He was getting old and soft. First, he had backed down at the rest stop, then he let others take the lead up the stairs, and he was just standing there, not knowing which way to jump when guns were being fired.

  Cruz sighed. It is time to retire, hey? “But not until I kill this pendejo truck driver,” he muttered.

  Cruz retrieved his Zippo and snapped open the top. He flicked the wheel, and a healthy tongue of flame ignited, glowing in the dark warehouse. He dangled the gas-soaked rag over the yellow flame.

  He jerked, surprised, when gunfire boomed outside the door. A scattering of shots sounded and then silence. Cruz closed the lighter and returned it to his pocket. He strode to the warehouse door.

  Charlie paused at the fire door, which still screamed in alarm, and pushed it open enough to reconnoiter the street. Seeing nothing but a passing car, quickly gone, she shoved the door open t
he rest of the way and dragged Maria and David outside.

  A scattering of shots from around back made her heart clench, but she resisted the impulse to go see what had happened. Instead, she concentrated on getting her son and friend to safety. The Downtown Austin Marriott Courtyard was the closest place she could think of that would be open at such a late hour, and it was only a block and a half away on Fourth Street.

  As she walked, she kept her head on a swivel, ignoring David’s questions and Maria’s prayers. Hustling as fast as Maria could go, they crossed the street and slid to the left, rounding the corner of Trinity and Fifth, headed south. As they made the corner, she thought she heard another gunshot.

  Muttering a prayer of her own, Charlie jostled David and Maria in front of her and kept them moving toward the Courtyard, all the while glancing back over her shoulder.

  Yeager started for the warehouse door, holding the .45 in a two-handed grip, finger alongside the trigger guard. His foot had barely touched the bottom step leading to the back door when it banged open. Humberto Cruz filled the doorway. Yeager recognized the dapper little man from the first time he’d seen him at the rest stop in Judsonia, Arkansas.

  Cruz looked much the same. He wore dark slacks, a white Guayabera shirt, polished loafers, and an aura of meanness. The only difference was that he looked… Yeager wasn’t certain. Defeated? Resigned?

  “Humberto,” Yeager growled.

  The Mexican crook stiffened, and his eyes widened. “You know my name?”

  “Everybody knows who you are, Humberto. Cops in two states and the Feds are all looking for you. Best for you if you give up. The thing with your daughter… I’m sorry, but it was an accident. She hit her brakes too hard.”

  Cruz smiled almost sadly. “No, Señor Truck Driver, I don’ think so.” He stepped forward, and the mangled door closed behind him with a squeal. He was holding a bottle with a rag dangling from the neck. It took Yeager a few seconds to realize it was a Molotov cocktail.

  Cruz fished his free hand in his pocket, and Yeager tensed.

  Cruz paused, seeming lost in thought. “I remember my daughter. Full of life. I miss her every day.” He shook his head. “All my men are dead, yes? Sí, muerte. And you have a gun in hand, and I do not. I have no chance to kill you. It would seem that you win.” He hung his head and brought his hand out of his pocket. He was holding something shiny. A lighter.

  “Stop!” Yeager yelled.

  Cruz’s hand kept moving. Yeager shot him once in the chest. Cruz stumbled but didn’t go down or drop the lighter. Yeager shot him again, center mass. Cruz bounced off the steel door but still didn’t fall. Drunkenly, stumbling, he lit the Zippo with one flick and held it to the gas-soaked rag.

  Yeager shot him again, but Cruz was driven by a will beyond mere flesh and blood. Sometimes Yeager had bad dreams where he fired again and again into an enemy with no effect, but that had never happened in real life. Cruz raised the Molotov cocktail, aiming it not at the building but directly at Yeager.

  Yeager shifted aim and fired one shot at the whisky bottle full of gasoline. The bottle shattered, drenching Cruz in sheets of flaming gas.

  Cruz shrieked and stumbled down the steps, and Yeager leaped backward. The flaming man staggered a couple of steps then collapsed onto the concrete parking apron, shrieking an inhuman cry of pain.

  Yeager clenched his teeth and took a couple of breaths to settle his aim. He carefully put one bullet through Cruz’s head. The scream cut off as if he’d hit the power button on a CD player. All that was left was the crackling of the fire and the smell of burning meat.

  And, finally, the sound of sirens wailing in the distance.

  CHAPTER 17

  Austin, Texas

  Steven Buchanan knocked on apartment 404 of the Windswept complex after midnight. He kept one hand in his pocket, toying with the thumb drive containing his bank account information. In the other, he carried a bottle of wine.

  The place was a few blocks from the UT campus. Rock music thrummed from a nearby unit, and a bunch of twenty-somethings sat on tailgates and lawn chairs in the parking lot, drinking Bud Light and laughing. They all wore knee-length shorts and baseball caps turned backward, with either flip-flops or running shoes and no socks.

  The door opened, and Nita Lutz said, “Hey there.”

  “Sorry I’m late.” He slid past her, catching a scent of some fiery perfume as he brushed against her tits, which poked out from her satin robe like warhead-tipped missiles. “Had more stuff to clean up than I expected.”

  “That’s all right.” She closed the door and swished into the kitchen behind him.

  As he set the wine bottle down on the counter, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed against his back, molding her body to his. She laid her head against his back. “I just got home myself. There was a cash discrepancy in the till, and I had to stay late to fix it. You know how Charlie is when the books don’t match.”

  “Hah! Do I ever.”

  He turned in her arms and tilted her chin for a kiss, which turned into a Nita Special: a warm, soft mouth and an acre of tongue, a kiss that involved her entire body. One thing about Nita, she puts everything she has into it.

  When they broke apart, Steven took a moment to admire her gray eyes, thick black hair, and full, slightly puffy lips. Of all the women he’d screwed before, during, and after marriage, he kept coming back to her. The things Nita did with her tongue made sex with other women like screwing a rubber doll. She had the libido of a succubus, and if she had a limit, he had yet to find it.

  “I did what you asked.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Now are you going to tell me why?”

  He raised one eyebrow. “You did?”

  “Yeah, even better than you wanted. Instead of keeping Charlie out of the book skids, I got the truck to stay there overnight. Charlie has the hots for the driver.”

  “A truck driver?” A momentary stab of jealousy caught him by surprise. Charlie was the only woman who could run a close second to Nita in bed. Plus, Charlie could have a conversation about more than celebrity weddings and divorces, too. He pushed past her and sifted through her utensil drawer for the wine opener. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  Her hands slid into his pockets from behind and cupped his equipment. He tensed when her fingers brushed the flash drive. “Ooh, look who’s jumpy,” she cooed. “Don’t worry, baby. She doesn’t know about us, so if you want to go back and save her from her blue-collar slumming, you still can.”

  “Amazing she never found out.” Steven located the opener and extricated himself from her grip. He brushed the outline of the thumb drive in his pants with a casual swipe of his free hand. “About us, I mean. That time you gave me a blow job in the office…”

  She giggled. “I know, right? She walked in, what, two minutes after you zipped up?” Her eyes sparkled. “And she never suspected a thing. What a loser, that girl.”

  “Hey, I was married to her,” he said, only half teasing. “Have some respect.”

  He poured two glasses of red wine, and they carried them to the living room sofa. She laid her head in his lap and stroked his leg while he sipped the wine and flipped channels on the remote.

  “You seem a little distracted tonight, baby,” Nita murmured against his thigh. “And you never answered my question. What’s in the pallets that you want so bad?”

  “Mmmm.” He set the wine glass down on the end table so he could fondle her ample bottom.

  She moaned appreciatively. Maybe he should take a piece of tail with him when he ran for it. If he took anybody, it would be Nita, but he knew himself too well. Six months—a year, tops—of nonstop Nita on a small boat and he’d want to chuck her overboard in shark-infested waters.

  “Ooh, baby doll.” Her cheek rubbed his stiffening cock through his slacks. “I love how you’re playing with my ass. I’ve got some new lube, so why don’t we head to the bedroom and see what else you can do with it?”

  On the other hand, how
bad could it be?

  Nita Lutz’s jaw dropped when Charlie called Saturday morning and told her what had happened. She sat up in bed and checked the clock: 9:34 a.m. “A shootout? At the store?”

  “Yes, at our store. The entire place is a crime scene.”

  Incredible. Did this have something to do with Steven’s pallets?

  “I’m dropping David off at Maria’s brother’s now,” Charlie continued. “Then I’m going to the courthouse to see about getting Abel out of jail.”

  “Abel?”

  “The truck driver. He’s the one who shot it out with the gang. We think he’s the one they were after, too.”

  Steven made a noise in his sleep and rolled over. Nita carefully rolled out of bed, took the cordless phone into the living room, and closed the door behind her. Nude, she curled up on the sofa and crossed an arm under her breasts. Gooseflesh pimpled her skin, and she shivered.

  “So I think it’s best,” Charlie was saying, “if we close the store today and give everybody a paid day off.”

  “So how many people were killed?”

  “Five or six. I’m not sure.”

  Nita realized her nipples were hard and her crotch slightly damp. “Is there much blood?”

  “Nita, I don’t know. It’s not like I went down to look. Listen, speaking of that, when the cops release the crime scene, I’m going to need someone to do cleanup. I’ve called Tomas, and he’s ready to come in, but I don’t know how long this thing at the jail’s going to take. I hate to ask this, but can you—”

  “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I’ll get the online orders ready to ship, too.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No, don’t worry. It’s fine.”

  They talked for a few more minutes, but Nita barely paid attention. When she hung up, she tossed the phone on the sofa and padded back to the bedroom. Steven’s clothes were crumpled on the floor, and a metallic glint caught her eye. A small thumb drive had fallen from his pocket. She picked it up and set it on the bedside table.