Friend of the Devil

by James D F Hannah

  Knowing this, knowing the pain and hurt this kid was in, I did the only right thing I could do, and I lied to him again.

  “He’s okay,” I said. “He’ll be fine.”

  A passing sense of relief crossed his face. He knew what the inevitable was in this, and whatever answers laid there on the other side, he didn’t want another man’s life weighing on his conscience.

  He choked and gasped and said, “What . . . what about the people? Are they okay?”

  Woody leaned in behind me. “What people?”

  “The ones in the 18-wheeler. They were in there behind the shoes. A bunch of spics.”

  I tightened my hold on his hand. “There were Mexicans in the trailer?”

  “Yeah. They . . . A few of them . . . a few were hurt when the truck flipped.”

  Merchandise. That was the merchandise the Yakovna tough guys were talking about. The Highway Saints, it seemed, had moved out of running guns and into human trafficking.

  “How many were on the truck?” I said.

  “I don’t know. All of them got . . . got stuffed up at the front. Hidden. A fake panel.” He looked down at his hand clutching his stomach. With every strangled breath he took, more blood pulsed through his fingers. His eyes turned toward me. “Can . . . can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure thing, kid.”

  “Tell ’em . . . tell ’em I want my club name in the obit, okay? Teddy, he told me I wasn’t ready, but I . . . I don’t wanna go out being Stanley. I want Teddy to be proud of me. Don’t tell him I talked, okay?”

  Sure, kid. I’ll make sure your biker sibling I shot remembers you kindly. “I’ll do that,” I said. “Where are the rest of the Saints? Where’d they take the Mexicans?”

  He huffed out a small breath. “My . . . my club name is Ricky.” Another breath. “Ricky Florida. That’s . . . that’s what I want ’em to call me in the obit.”

  The sirens grew louder. Woody said, “We need to not be here when everyone shows up.”

  I nodded. To the kid, I said, “Tell us where the Saints are, Ricky.”

  His grasp slackened on my hand then fell loose, and his head rolled back and to the side, his eyes still open, focused on something on a horizon he would never see.

  Woody tapped me on the shoulder. “He’s gone. Let’s go.”

  We ran across the lot and left the gate open. We were in the Aztek, driving away, as the ambulances and police cruisers pulled up.

  31

  Woody called Sheila and put the call on speaker as we drove through Raineyville, working to leave the trail of sirens behind us.

  “Woody, I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “I’m talking about the Saints hijacking 18-wheelers,” he said. “Somehow it’s connected with the Chicago mob and now they’ve got themselves a bunch of Mexicans.”

  There was a long pause on the phone. I guessed Sheila needed a moment to process that last statement. To be fair, it was a fuck-ton to process.

  “What the hell does that have to do with Dave?” she said.

  “It sounds like the Saints connected with some Russians in Chicago, and that got them into ripping off semis,” I said.

  “You are still not explaining how this connects to my goddamn husband,” she said.

  “The Saints got in over their head somehow, so the Russians killed Jimmy as a warning and used Dave as the fall guy,” Woody said. “That explains why they came for Henry. Someone saw us with the Saints, assumed we were part of everything, and pushed on Henry.”

  “So that gets them a truckload of Mexicans?” she said. A pause. “Goddammit, all I want is my husband home.”

  “We wanna get him home to you,” Woody said. “The Saints cleared out of the tow yard, and they left a probie there to die. They’re hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch right now, so they’re going to hide somewhere and wait to make delivery. Do you have any idea where they might be? It’s got to be somewhere big, with space for their rides and some kind of moving truck.”

  “Why a moving truck?” she said.

  “Because they need something to move the Mexicans in,” I said.

  Another pause. “Jimmy told me they were doing repo work for a ‘buy here, pay here’ car lot. One of those places where, if you’re a day late, they strap your shitty ride to the tow truck and haul it off. They stored the cars out at an impound over in McCammon. Place is up a crooked little dirt road that sucks to get to, but it’s away from damn near everything, and no one knows they own it. That’s as good as anywhere to look first.”

  “You know where it is?” I said.

  “Yeah. Jimmy and I, we met there a few times. It wasn’t a place where anyone would find us.” Her tone didn’t invoke pride over that life choice.

  Sheila gave us directions to the lot, and Woody hung up the phone.

  “Hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch?” I said.

  Woody stared at the road. “Yeah. So what?”

  “Makes no sense.”

  “What would you have said?”

  “Hotter than Satan’s taint.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’ll remember that for next time.”

  Sheila’s directions led us about an hour outside of town, into the nothing chunk of land named McCammon. There wasn’t anything around, or much reason to be there but some folks, rugged iconoclasts or damned fools—you can’t tell the difference sometimes—they’d chosen to persevere. Why? Because people are morons.

  The impound lot was up a stretch of dirt road. We parked the Aztek at the mouth of the road and took to foot, hiking through the woods that rested on either side of the cut path. It was rocky and uneven, and I huffed for breath after a few minutes. My knee throbbed, and we had a ways to go, so I opted against bitching because nothing would change, and Woody wouldn’t care.

  We had a few pistols each and a shattering lack of a plan. Woody and I had a well-documented history of going into situations both well-armed and totally clueless. I suggested on the drive over we call the state police and let them deal with whatever we were walking into, an idea Woody shot down like it was Henry Blake over the Sea of Japan. By the time the state police had rallied together forces—this was if we somehow convinced them we weren’t full of shit and that the Saints were working with the Russian mob in a human trafficking deal—the people in the truck would be long gone.

  So instead we figured the two of us tromp out to the impound lot and handle shit ourselves. Because that’s worked out so well for us in the past.

  We’ve learned from our mistakes, Woody told me.

  Easy for him to say. He’s still got all his fingers.

  The land did one final roll upward, a gentle slope that rose to a crest and then dropped off to an even patch of territory where the impound lot laid out before us. The lot was about the same as the Saints’ towing lot in town, with a wire mesh fence wrapped around the area, and razor wire across the top. A single gate at the end of the dirt road let you in or out. A big box truck about twenty-five-feet long—like one you’d move entire houses in—sat next to a small building with open windows. They’d parked their Harleys around the building like circling wagons, and MC members we recognized from the fight at the bar talked and smoked and laughed and carried automatic weapons.

  “How many you think in there?” Woody said.

  “Too many,” I said. “Two outside. two guarding the gate, and more inside that building. I’ll bet Mickey Nevada and the rest of the assholes from the garage where you thought you could take ’em all on by yourself.”

  “Wasn’t by myself. Had you with me.”

  “Like I said, by yourself.”

  “Nice to know you’ve got my six, Henry.”

  “Always and forever, old man. What about the Mexicans? You suppose they’re still in the truck?”

  “Nowhere else for them to be.”

  “And it’s hot as fuck, too. They’re dying in there.”

  “They’re a bottom line to the Saints, I suspect.
There’s a certain amount of spoilage expected in every shipment.”

  “What if the kid’s wrong? He’d been gut-shot, losing blood. Might have been delusional.”

  “You saying you don’t believe there’s a truckload of human beings in there?”

  “I’m saying I don’t want to go down there and raise hell and find out I’m risking my health and well being to save tennis shoes.”

  “You’re more than welcome to turn around and wait and I’ll do this by myself.”

  That was a sucker punch to the gut, and Woody knew it. The end of the day, he was a way more heroic motherfucker than me; he lived to knock down windmills whereas I wanted to stay alive. But I was being motivated by my desire for a rampage of vengeance, and I wasn’t confident in how much I worried about a truckload of human beings ready to be sold like cattle to Chicago mobsters.

  Goddamn, but sometimes, when you lay the facts of the matter down like that, you can’t help but hate yourself at least a little.

  I sighed. “All right, what the hell is the plan?”

  Woody smiled. “What makes you think I have a plan?”

  “Because you always have a plan.”

  “I never have a plan.”

  “Then you’ve got something from a Central American Banana Republic revolution that will be relatable.”

  “Now that you mention it—”

  Woody didn’t get to finish what was surely a fascinating anecdote. That was because my phone chose that moment to ring. You could argue it had more to do with the person calling than the phone itself, and maybe I should have put the goddamn thing on silent, but right then didn’t seem the time to split hairs or point fingers.

  The surrounding silence amplified everything else. The sound carried toward the impound lot, and the bikers on guard perked to attention and raised their rifles and swung them in our direction.

  Woody smacked me as I reached to my back pocket for the phone. It was the same telephone number that had been hitting me up for days, and that I had ignored every time. My thumb tapped the cancel button to send the call to voice mail as Woody rolled onto his back and pulled a pistol.

  A few feet away was the sound of a gun hammer being cocked. That’s one of those sounds that always sounds louder than it is because of what the next sound might be, and your brain floods with anticipation, and your gut tightens into a dozen tiny knots, and you wait to be shot in the woods near an illegal impound lot up a dirt road in West Virginia.

  A voice said, “Drop the guns and put your hands up.” It was an inhuman voice, and it contrasted with the words. Both factors pushed ice water down my spine.

  “Goddammit,” Woody said as Frog and Toad stepped toward us. Frog had a double-barrel shotgun pointed in our direction, and Toad carried a snub-nosed revolver. They both wore their shirts from the HVAC place. Frog shook his head at us and smiled.

  “They said you boys might show up,” he said. He motioned with the shotgun. “Gonna need you to give us your guns, or we’ll just shoot you right here.”

  “Do what he said,” Toad said. “Otherwise—”

  My body tensed into an involuntary cringe. “For the love of Christ, please stop,” I said and motioned toward Toad. “You sound like you’re gonna tell me how you can’t shut the pod bay doors.”

  Toad pouted his bottom lip out and looked like someone had taken his lunch money. “You don’t have to be an asshole. I’ve got feelings.”

  “Your feelings are pointing a gun at me, so I’m not too heartbroken about the matter.”

  Woody said, “Do you think his feelings are his hands? Because that’s dumb as shit.”

  “I was trying to be clever. You weren’t piping in with anything witty.”

  “Might be on account these two assholes are holding guns on us, and I didn’t feel it was appropriate. There’s a time and place for everything.”

  “You saying this isn’t the time or place—”

  “Will you fuck-holes shut the fuck up?” Frog said it like it was a suggestion, but no one suggests shit when they’ve got a gun aimed at you. “We ain’t got time for this. The Saints wanna talk to you.”

  “But we didn’t read the book club selection for the month,” I said.

  “Still not the time or the place, Henry,” Woody said.

  “You wouldn’t believe how many times I hear that during sex.”

  Frog and Toad laughed at that. I think Toad laughed. He might have short-circuited something. It was hard to tell.

  Woody didn’t laugh. Not surprising, based on the circumstances. “I hope like fuck that phone call was important,” he said as we walked.

  32

  Frog and Toad marched us down into the impound lot, leading us through the gate where we got the shit eye from the two bikers holding guard. I think they felt since we’d gotten so close to the lot and then got caught by the fat guy and the dude with a tracheotomy, it was a judgment on their guarding ability. It probably was.

  Mickey Nevada walked out of the building, wiping grease off his hands with a rag that didn’t look clean to begin with, so at best he was compounding the problem. He had a smile on his face that would have terrified those less stout of heart than Woody and me. He smiled the way hunters smile when they see an animal caught in a trap with no way to get out. Mickey Nevada was a man who enjoyed the weakness of others. I mean, he was a prick for a thousand other reasons, I’m sure, but this was what I was feeling at the moment.

  Frog and Toad kept their guns trained at our backs as we approached the building. A faint pounding came from inside the rear of the box truck, and one biker responded by knocking his fist against the side.

  Mickey Nevada kept that smile on his face as he approached us. Once he was close enough, he punched Woody. It was a clean right cross that snapped Woody’s head to the side, and Woody brought his head back around and wiped away a dribble of blood from the corner of his mouth with his knuckle.

  Mickey nodded toward me. “What about you? Where you want it? Face or gut?”

  Woody said, “Why’s he get a choice?”

  Mickey shrugged. “He ain’t as tough as you. You could take it no matter what. Him, he’s a delicate flower and shit, but that don’t mean I ain’t gonna wind him up a little.”

  “Is this taking away from your volunteer time at the senior center?” I said.

  Mickey said, “Gut it is,” and drove his fist so deep into me, my stomach lining touched my spinal cord. I retched and pushed back dry heaves, and my knees—one real, one fake—considered abandoning me, but they stayed strong and I kept upright.

  The rest of the Saints gathered around to share in the amusement of us getting taken to town. I couldn’t blame them. Who doesn’t like watching a couple of doofuses get smacked around? We were a Curly away from the Three Stooges.

  I glanced up at the truck. Mumbled, hushed voices came from inside. They sounded weak, tired. Occasionally there would be a fresh tapping or knocking on the side panels. I didn’t speak Spanish that wasn’t from a restaurant menu, but you didn’t need much to understand that whatever they were saying was out of desperation.

  I huffed out a huge breath. “Those people in there will die if you don’t pop those doors open and let some air in. It’s got to be close to a hundred degrees in there.”

  Mickey folded his hands together and placed them behind his head. His arms formed wings, and he twisted and turned like he was loosening up for a race. “They’re fine in there, don’t you worry. We gave ’em all water, and they got food. We can’t let them get loose, go running around. Not like they’re chickens or nothing.”

  “They’re not cattle either, asshole.”

  “What they are, is money, so stick your bleeding heart somewhere else. I’m not in the mood for it.”

  Woody cranked his head around, letting the vertebra crack. “How long you boys been into human trafficking?”

  “Long enough to know it’s good money, you work with the right partners.”

  “The Yakovn
as are the right partners, huh? That must be why you guys let one of your own boys die alone in your garage.”

  Mickey’s face soured into a tense pucker. “I’m sorry about Ricky buying out the way he did, but he was a kid, cocky as fuck, and he took too goddamn big of a chance.” Mickey shook his head. “Only reason he got in was because of Teddy, and that got him the pawnshop gig. He saw the best guns that came in, gave us an inside track so that old bastard wasn’t trying to scam us. Lost count the number of times he sent us up on a run with a load of shitty weapons. ‘Don’t worry nothing about it, those niggers don’t know no better,’ he’d tell us. Those niggers, they’re all watching YouTube videos. They fucking know about guns and that we were selling ’em crap. Ricky, though, he’d tell us about the good ones, and he’d sneak them off the books, so when we’d take up the colonel’s shit, we’d have a few of our own, make a few extra bucks.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Still doesn’t change you left him alone in that garage. Doesn’t change you’re all nothing but a bunch of fucking cowards who let a stupid kid die by himself for something that means nothing.”

  Mickey walked close and pushed his face close to mine. There was the smell of wintergreen mints on his breath, trying to mask the whiskey underneath it. “Ricky was my brother. As much my brother as he was his own blood’s. I didn’t want him in the MC, but it wasn’t my call. But don’t change my connection to him. Don’t say this means nothing. We’ve all given our lives to this MC, and we’ll keep on doing that until the end.”

  “If you’re trafficking for the Yakovnas, why hijack that truck? You plan on holding these people hostage, that the Yakovnas are gonna pay you to get them back?”

  A smile flickered across Mickey’s lips. “You are as dumb as the day is long, buddy. The Yakovnas, they’ve got the corner on running spics up north through this territory. These spics come over the border and they need jobs and the Yakovnas set ’em up and transport ’em. But these rednecks down in Memphis have been trying to weasel into the business, and the Yakovnas wanted to make sure they understood this was the Yakovnas’ pipeline and no one else’s.”