The Last Savage

by Sam Jones

  “Eesh.”

  “Looks like your hunch about them being military trained paid off though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We identified the shooter you dropped as a man by the name of Sergeant Anthony Rudolpho.”

  “Army? Navy? Air force?”

  “Marines.”

  Billy felt his curious little squirrel brain starting to pump and grind.

  “Go on…”

  “He was a ’Nam vet,” Ferris said. “Dropped off the radar a year ago. In September of ’84, Rudolpho walked away from everything: His job. His wife. His house. Everything. No trail. No witnesses. Nothing. He’s been missing ever since.”

  Billy started digging. “Do you know what unit Rudolpho served in?”

  “I’m working on getting more info from the DOD on him. Maybe something in his records will shed some light. The coroner tested his body once we took possession of it and ran a tox screen.”

  “And?”

  “Looks like Rudolpho really dug cocaine.”

  “Lame…”

  “We’re also running the tail number of the helicopter right now too, but I’m still waiting to hear back from the FAA on that end.”

  Billy exhaled. “It won’t matter by then. Sykes will have finished whatever it is he’s up to.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know that asshole better than his own mother. He’s gonna do something. And soon.”

  “Gut feeling, correct?”

  A nod. “He had this look on his face like he was in a rush. Desperate maybe. I could tell in the way he was asking me questions, the way he was looking at me. His face may have changed, but a sliver of Sykes is still in there. Somewhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Which part?”

  “When you said ‘his face may have changed.’”

  “Oh, yeah. Homeboy got a little bit of plastic surgery done. He looks different, but you can still tell that it’s Sykes when you’re up close. Swear to God, he’s still wearing that same atrocious aftershave that guy Graham gave him a few Christmases ago. Fuckin’ asshole.”

  “So he changed his looks,” Ferris said. “It’s not that surprising, especially if he’s trying to fake his own death.”

  “I get that,” Billy said. “But there’s still a lot going here on that doesn’t make sense…”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Billy looked over to see Maria, sporting a fresh pair of jeans, a denim top, and sneakers. From what he could tell, it looked like she’d had a shower, too.

  “You clean up nice,” he said.

  “Can’t say the same for you,” she said. “Your face is looking a little mushy.”

  “Blame my old man. He kind of screwed me over on the looks front.”

  Maria moved inside.

  Ferris nodded at her. “Detective.”

  Maria nodded back. “Special Agent Ferris.”

  “Sounds like you pulled Billy here out of the fire. More than once.”

  “I’m just getting a taste of what it’s like to deal with him,” Maria said. “I don’t know how you handle it on day-to-day basis.”

  “Zero downtime,” Ferris said. “Not even on the holidays.”

  “Awww,” Billy said patronizingly. “That is adorable. Seriously, you two are fucking hilarious.”

  They broke away and flanked him on either side of the bed.

  Billy looked to Maria. “Have you heard the news?”

  “Hit me,” she said.

  “One of our boys in that helicopter was a war vet who fell off the grid a few years ago. Guy named Rudolpho.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Still trying to figure that out.”

  “Anything else from the FBI?”

  “Nothing groundbreaking.”

  “Well,” Maria said. “Miami PD found something. One of our people got a hit on the tail number of the helicopter with the FAA.”

  “Really?” Billy said, pointing to himself and then Ferris. “Before our people?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Billy was impressed and Ferris a little more abashed at the slightly lackluster turnaround time of her own people.

  “What did the F.A.A. have to say?” Billy asked.

  “The helicopter,” Maria said, “was a loaner from a luxury rental service in Miami. Someone from my department, Detective Mendez, went over there earlier today and poked around a little.”

  “What’d he find?”

  “The manager was a little standoffish at first. Started talking about warrants, customer confidentiality, et cetera. Anyway, Mendez gives the guy a hard time. He’s good at that. So the guy eventually gives in and tells Mendez that he rented one of his helicopters off the books to a pair of guys the night you and I were in that house with Hector. They paid about three times the normal rate. Cash. Mendez then checked the security footage at the rental place, and gets a license plate number from the car the two men arrived in from the camera pointed at the parking lot.”

  “Now I’m getting excited.”

  “Car turned out to be a rental from Fort Lauderdale. Mendez hits them up, checks their security footage, and finds out that the same two guys were dropped off there about an hour before in a truck. Couldn’t pull the plates off the truck though.”

  “What kind of truck?” Billy asked.

  “A ‘beat-up red one,’ according to the manager.”

  Something was striking a cord with Billy…

  Don’t I know that truck?

  “Look,” Maria said, “those guys were sent to monitor us on behalf of Kruger. And then kill us if he gave the order. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I figure they got stupid with their planning and decided to pull a McQueen and use the helicopter for nothing more than the overkill.”

  “I buy it.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah.” Billy pointed to Ferris. “Because our people found out that the shooter was really into booger sugar. I’ve seen stupider shit happen under the influence, believe me.” He thought some more about Rudolpho. “What did the manager at the car rental have to say about the guys who came in? What did they look like?”

  Maria recalled what Mendez had relayed to her over the phone and said, “Both of them were a little over six foot. About two hundred pounds. Military haircuts. The manager told Mendez there was nothing really off about them. They paid with cash, they gave him legit ID’s, they were cordial, so on and so forth.”

  Billy shifted his weight, still thinking. “Anything stand out for the owner about them? Anything at all?”

  Maria took a quick moment to recall what Mendez had relayed to her. “Not really,” she said. “Well, he said one them was polishing off a Pepsi Free when he walked in, but I don’t think that’s going to help much.”

  It did for Billy.

  Something about the mention of the beat-up red truck and the canned beverage clicked for him immediately.

  His eyes started darting, his brain working overtime in that never-ceasing, classic Billy Reese kind of way.

  Calculation.

  Calculation…

  Ferris could pick up on his funky little brain running on its hamster wheel. “What?” she asked.

  “Pepsi Free,” Billy said. “You know who owns a beat-up red truck and drinks that piss in a can religiously?”

  Ferris shrugged—Who?

  “Larry Yurek,” Billy said, already shifting and getting ready to move off the bed. “He’s a pilot. Smuggler. He’s one of my ears on the street out in Miami. Last I checked he was running dope loads for Pablo every once in a blue moon.”

  “Escobar?” Ferris said.

  “Yeah. I even talked to the guy on the phone a couple of days ago. Yurek, not Pablo. I’m not that good.”

  “He’s right,” Maria chimed in. “I know Yurek, too. He ran a load for me while I was undercover. He’s good. Very slick.”

  “And he’s based in Miami,” Billy said. “And
he owns a beat-up red truck. And every time I’ve seen him, every time, he always offers me a Pepsi Free. Has a big old fridge full of them. Guy loves the stuff. Used it to kick a booze addiction; don’t ask me how…”

  Ferris nearly rolled her eyes. “So,” she said, “your new lead is based on the likelihood that a dope smuggler offered one of our guys one of the most popular beverages on the market.”

  “I get how it sounds.”

  “It’s a bit of leap, Billy—”

  “I’m telling you,” he insisted. “Yurek’s a decent guy. Just let me talk to him. Even if he didn’t cross paths with these guys, he probably knows someone who has. No harm, no foul. We need to follow through with these other leads in Miami anyway—the rental places, all of it.”

  “This is Dizzy all over again. You’re chasing hunches instead of clues.”

  “It’s a pretty solid hunch. I mean, what are the odds that these two bozos just happened to get a Pepsi Free? Specifically?”

  “Pretty decent, I would think.”

  “Please. Let me talk to Yurek. Nothing bad can come of it.”

  “Don’t try to make that guarantee, Billy. You of all people…”

  The last bit stung him a little.

  He understood it, though.

  “I can’t think of any other way to pivot on this,” he said. “I can either talk to Yurek, or you can make me go home.”

  Ferris took another moment.

  She looked at Billy.

  Then she looked at Maria.

  Then back at Billy.

  “Brogan says you’re done,” she said. “He says that Sykes being alive changes everything. Other people are taking over the operation from here. ‘The game plan has changed,’ he said.”

  “What other people are taking over?” Billy asked.

  “Other people,” Ferris said, not wanting to say any more.

  Billy closed his eyes and laid his head back.

  What should I expect? This whole situation has gone completely off the rails.

  “And what do you think?” he asked, lifting his head off of the pillows. “You know me. You know I got a knack for sniffing out a fire. Just let me talk to Yurek. Let me take one last stab.”

  Ferris thought about it.

  And thought about it.

  And thought about it…

  “You’re coming in,” she said.

  Billy lowered his head and looked away.

  “However,” Ferris continued, “I did tell Brogan it would take a day or two to get you back…”

  Billy showcased a smirk.

  Hot diggity.

  “How did you pull that off?”

  “Well,” Ferris said, “I may have played up your injuries to be worse than they really were…”

  Billy saw opportunity. “How many days?” he asked.

  Ferris held up three fingers. “That’s all you get.”

  She then moved over to the chair with the plastic bag, picked it up, and passed it like a basketball over to Billy. “Had someone stop by your place in LA. Grabbed you jeans, T-shirt, Nikes…and a cardigan.”

  Billy was already rifling through the contents before she finished listing them off. He lit up when he found the cardigan—it was the exact same style and exact same coloring as his original.

  “Dude!” he exclaimed. “I thought I lost this to the abyss.”

  Ferris said, “I picked up two when I gave you the original last year.”

  Billy, gleaming, shrugged his shoulders in a deliberate, childlike fashion. “World’s Best Boss,” he said as he looked at Maria. “No question about it.”

  Ferris moved toward the door.

  “Is that it?” Billy asked.

  Ferris stopped, her grip still on the door handle. “You’ve got a hell of compass, Billy,” she said. “You tend to poke your nose in all the wrong places and somehow find all the right people. I don’t know how, but…Do whatever it is you do. Find Sykes. But when you do, you call me. You understand?”

  “I’m assuming I’ll be in deep shit if I don’t, right?”

  She turned around. Looked at him. “No, you’re already in deep shit. But hopefully catching Sykes will take off some of the stink.”

  Billy saw something in Ferris’s eye. He knew the lady. Knew her damn well. Their relationship had grown to the point where silent exchanges and mere glints of the eye could relay everything without a word being spoken.

  She nodded.

  He nodded.

  She left.

  Maria kept silent as Billy began removing his gown, wondering how far down the rabbit hole they were going to fall before they crashed at the bottom. “So,” she said. “What now?”

  “You’re still good with this?” Billy asked.

  “Naturally…”

  Billy produced his Eagle Rock High Phys. Ed T-shirt and held it out proudly, the stencil-style letters reminding him of great times in his charming little SoCal slice of paradise.

  Hometown.

  Get it.

  “Let’s give good old Yurek a buzz,” he said. “See what kind of trouble we can kick up.”

  Moments later Billy rang him up.

  And it turned out that Yurek was in big trouble.

  35

  BILLY WAS USING the phone at the nurse’s station down the hall from his room, doing his best over the past minute to calm Yurek down as he pumped his hand like a break pad. “Easy,” he said. “Where are you now?”

  “Miles from my place,” Yurek said. “I’m getting ready to hop a plane out of here. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for an hour. Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m in Chicago. I’ve been working.”

  “Look, I’m in deep, Billy,” Yurek said. “I can’t stay here. I think…I think I’ve got a tail.”

  “Okay. Listen to me. I’m going to give you the address for my safe house. You’re going to go there and stay there. I’m headed back to Miami right now to get you. I’ll call you the second I land.”

  “Damn it, Billy—”

  “Look, Yurek, you want my help? This is me helping. Go to my place in Layton. Stay there. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

  Silence.

  Yurek finally caved. “Okay. Give me the address. I’ll head there now.”

  Billy gave him the address to the safe house, did a quick refresher of the plan with Yurek, and then handed the phone back to the sweet redheaded nurse assisting him.

  Maria stepped in. Tugged him on the elbow. “What’s going on with Yurek?”

  “He thinks someone is following him,” Billy said.

  “Are they?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve got him hiding out in the safe house back in Layton.”

  “Looks like we’re headed back to my home turf then.”

  “Looks like it. I’ll make a call and get us some seats on the next flight over. We’ll probably get back there in about four hours and some change. When we get there, I’ll deal with Yurek. You talk to your people over in Miami PD and see what’s news.”

  “Got it. Let’s move.”

  “We can’t,” Billy said in a dire tone as he moved away from Maria. “Not yet at least.”

  “Why?” Maria asked. “What’s going on?”

  Billy’s eyes were watering.

  Something was up.

  “I’ve had to urinate for like twenty minutes,” he said, already undoing his belt as he moved backward toward the restroom, “and it’s starting to turn into a situation. Give me two seconds.”

  He rushed off, Maria throwing her hands up and trying to think of something clever to retort.

  She gave up after two seconds.

  It wasn’t worth the oxygen.

  36

  FOUR HOURS AND some change later.

  Three thirty in the p.m.

  The jukebox in the corner of the bar had just finished off the Allman Brothers’ “Ramblin’ Man.” The needle lifted, the record changed, and “Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot took over, taking the man with
the ZZ Top beard in the corner back in time, where he revisited that girl he’d lost so many years ago; he flushed it all back down with a good long swig of his watered-down beer to try and bury it.

  The front door opened. Billy Reese walked inside, the bright white light behind him burning the eyes of the only two patrons in the bar.

  The bartender looked up from wiping down the counters, connected gazes with Billy, and said, “Come on in, man.”

  Billy looked around as he slipped inside. ZZ Top was to his right in the corner under a neon sign for a lager beer. Sitting at the bar to Billy’s left was a hefty man in jeans and a flannel T-shirt, his huge frame spilling over his tiny seat. A bear on a bar stool.

  Larry Yurek.

  God knows how long he had been waiting for Billy. After he had touched down in Miami, he phoned Yurek at the safe house and told him to meet him at a bar a few blocks away. Yurek was already out the door before Billy hung up the phone.

  Billy walked over and took the seat next to Yurek, his legs weary from travel and body still sore from the hell it had been put through back in the windy city. Yurek did a quick scan of Billy when he sat down and caught a brief glimpse of his bloodshot left eye. He then turned his eyes to his whiskey glass in front of him, hypnotized like it was withholding a fortune telling.

  “How’s things, Billy?” he asked.

  “Mezzo. Been pulling a few all-nighters.”

  “Bet the pay isn’t compensatin’ for it.”

  “Nope,” Billy said. “It is not.”

  Billy motioned to the bartender and ordered a beer. He looked at the double whiskey in front of Yurek: untouched, Yurek’s beefy and weathered hands folded neatly in front of it as he circled his thumbs around each other.

  “Haven’t fallen off the wagon just yet,” Billy said.

  Yurek looked at the glass, hypnotized by the caramel-colored liquid winking at him. “Not yet.”

  Billy sighed as the bartender put down a bottle of beer in front of him. “Heard anything from Dizzy lately?”

  Yurek looked away. “I’m pretty sure he skipped town after the last time you called about him. Hell, he might even be dead. I don’t know. Haven’t heard from him in a couple of days.”

  “He got rousted by the FBI. I think he’s dropped off the radar for a spell.”

  Yurek said nothing else on the subject of Dizzy.