Sandbagged: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 2)

by Edward J. McFadden III

  “How much money are we talking here?” Ramage said.

  Maverix hiked his shoulders. She don’t tell us, but I know we got $10,000 for Ralph and Alice, but they cost us $8,000. The snow leopard is the current prize. Marie wants $100,000 for her.”

  “What did you pay?” Ramage said.

  Both men hiked their shoulders, but said nothing.

  “How do you buy these things? Find people on other continents to capture and ship the animals?” Ramage asked.

  Maverix held up his cellphone. “Internet. There are entire subcultures and a series of websites that cater to all kinds of exotic pet adoptions. That’s what they call them, and the sites are worded very carefully, and it takes an experienced eye to catch what these sites are really selling.”

  “And you’d be surprised what you can ship via the U.S. mail without many questions being asked, though that’s not how most of the animals arrive,” Spencer said. “The large ports on the west coast receive thousands of shipments and most of the containers aren’t fully checked by customs. Marie had an elephant brought in from Africa once. For a traveling circus that didn’t have the cash to do it the legal way.”

  “She shipped an elephant?” Ramage said. With each word spoken by the boys Ramage slipped further into a daze. Nothing was ever simple.

  The men nodded.

  “So, do you do anything legal here?” he asked.

  Both men bobbed their heads, and Maverix said, “Many of the animals here are actual rescues. We use some of the money we make to support them.”

  Ramage thought of the ranch in Africa that housed rhinos, how the preserve was funded by taking the beasts’ ivory horns. Not a perfect idea, but the rhinos got to live, and nobody wanted to hunt them with the spike of money removed from their heads. Seemed like a fair price to pay in the unfortunate world where such decisions must be made.

  “Alright,” Ramage said. “Time’s wasting.”

  “What are you going to do? Turn her in?” Spencer said.

  “You to worry about getting out of here with Ralph and Alice and don’t look back. I’ll take care of the Zoo.”

  “What about Noah?” Spencer said.

  “No worries. I’m not going to hurt anyone, unless they try and hurt me first.”

  Ramage flung his backpack over a shoulder. “Best we’re not seen together anymore. When we get back to the house, fade away and find the chimps.”

  Nodding heads.

  “Good luck boys. I hope I never see you again,” Ramage said as he pushed through the barn door into the cold. He paused, ready to bring up the gun or dive for cover, but he saw no signs of ambush.

  The kitchen curtains flicked closed, a face disappearing so fast Ramage couldn’t tell who it had been. Probably Noah. He was low man on the totem pole in the house at the moment. Ramage headed toward the house, the barn door slapping against its frame as Maverix and Spencer followed him across the hardpan as he threaded around tufts of devil grass.

  Two camels moseyed toward Ramage, but there was a fence preventing them from getting close. One of the beasts spit at him, but missed. Vile creatures. Who the hell in their right mind would want a camel as a pet? The beasts were covered in fur, and Ramage figured spring sheering would bring a few bucks, but it didn’t seem worth it.

  Ramage found Marie in the kitchen, sipping tea and petting her snake, which wrapped around her shoulders and stared at Ramage with its glassy black eyes like he was a mouse the beast wanted to suck down. Butch stood next to her, a glass of whiskey before him on the table. Noah was nowhere to be seen.

  Maverix and Spencer went around Ramage and headed for the living room and the staircase.

  “Where you two going?” Marie said.

  Ramage sighed and waited.

  “Nowhere,” Spencer stammered.

  “Did you give him what he wanted?” Marie asked.

  Before the boys could answer Butch stepped forward.

  Ramage took two fast steps, a blur, his chest bumping Butch’s. “Y’all better start worrying about me,” he said.

  Marie’s eyes shifted to Ramage. “Yeah? Do tell.”

  In his peripheral vision Ramage saw Maverix and Spencer leave the room. Smart boys, they’d picked up on his diversion.

  Ramage produced the laptop. “Like Spencer told you. They stole this. Thought there might be money in it. I persuaded them that wasn’t the case. If they hadn’t given it back there’d be Feds crawling all over this place.”

  “You said that already,” Butch said.

  Ramage punched him, a glancing blow intended to shut him up, not knock him out. Butch groaned and glared at Ramage, but made no move.

  “Why’d they hide it from me?” Marie said. “Where are they?” She looked over her shoulder.

  “I don’t give a shit!” Ramage yelled. “Call a family meeting when I’m gone. Go to counseling. Maybe open your eyes?”

  Marie said nothing.

  “So, I’ve decided what you’re going to do,” Ramage said. “You’ll stop importing illegal animals of all types, but I’m a fair man. Finish whatever open business you have, and transition fully to the shelter model, or I’ll rat you out. If you move, I’ll find you… with little effort.” He stared at Butch, then shifted his gaze back to Marie. “You know the Feds can take a picture of your cleavage from space, right?”

  Marie looked down self-consciously, but said nothing.

  “You going to loan me the Honda so I can go back to Price and get my truck. I’ll leave it at the Red Rock and you can retrieve it. You will make no attempts at revenge,” he said as he casually slapped Butch on the cheek as one might a child.

  Butch’s face went red, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  Ramage pulled the snubby and twirled it on his finger. “I’ll be checking on your progress from afar, and if I have to come back this way…” Ramage shook his head, pursing his lips. “I’m not going to be happy, and believe it or not, you want me to be happy.”

  “That it?” Marie said.

  “No,” Ramage said. “You let Spenser and Maverix keep the chimps. Chalk the loss up to unforeseen circumstances. You know, like an act of God.”

  Marie sighed. “They told you all about our business?”

  “I’m very persuasive,” Ramage said.

  The room went still, the sounds of animals squawking, sand scraping over sand, and the faint click of a door closing filling the room.

  He wanted to give the boys a little more time, so Ramage said, “Do we understand each other?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “I’m going to need you to tell me what you’re going to do, Marie. I need to hear you say it.”

  The snake around Marie’s neck hissed, and the woman’s lips became a thin red line, her eyes narrowing.

  Ramage pointed the .38 at her head.

  Butch drew down, and Ramage was impressed with how fast the goon managed to get the weapon from an inner pocket. Thing was, many things impressed Ramage, and him being impressed had little to do with the probability of success.

  Ramage’s forearm connected with Butch’s head as he brought up the pistol, and the guy’s head snapped back, blood spraying the table, Marie, and the cabinets behind her.

  “For shit’s sake,” she yelled.

  Ramage snatched the gun from Butch and dropped it in his jacket. These days he was collecting guns like a redneck.

  “I ask again,” Ramage said. “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

  This time Marie regurgitated Ramage’s instructions and agreed to stop her exotic animal business. Ramage didn’t believe her, but he had no cards left to play, and it was time to hit the road.

  “Where’s Noah?” Ramage asked.

  “Resting,” Marie said. “What about your car?”

  “Maverix and Spencer will take care of it. And the key to the Honda?”

  Marie’s eyes went wide as her face filled with suspicion, and she looked over her shoulder toward the hallway again. “Why not j
ust take your own ride?” she said.

  “None of your business. Keys?”

  She looked at Butch, who fished a key from a pocket. “In that cabinet there.” He tossed the key to Ramage, but the throw came up way short and fell to the floor.

  Ramage hit Butch again, a vicious right cross that launched two Chiclets™ from his mouth, and with blood still clouding the air, he snatched up the key. “I’m gonna miss you, Butch.” He retrieved the Honda’s key, dropped Butch’s key on the floor, and strode from the kitchen, the screen door slapping its frame behind him.

  He turned, walking sideways and backward, facing the rear of the house incase egos took control and convinced brains they had a chance of success, and revenge.

  Nobody came out after Ramage, and he locked the barn door behind him as he went inside.

  The scent of shit, hay, and dirt filled his nostrils, and made him think of Pennsylvania, and the woods he’d trapsed through as a boy. He unlocked the Honda, tossed his bag onto the passenger seat, and was about to drop into the Matchbox™, when one of the gators mewed at him.

  “What the hell,” he said out loud, though there was nobody there to hear him, except the beasts. Ramage moved through the barn like the Grinch, flicking open cage hasps, opening gate latches. Before he was back in the Honda, safe behind the wheel, four gators and six snakes of various sizes and a large animal Ramage didn’t recognize were already wandering and slithering around the barn, biting and pawing at feed bags and sniffing hay.

  Ramage inched the Honda forward, and got out and opened the large bay door. A gust of cold wind pushed into the barn, and the loose animals all looked in his direction. He quickly pulled the car out and closed the bay door. If the animals in the barn got out, he didn’t know how long they could live in the cold. He knew they wouldn’t die instantly, but that’s all he knew for sure.

  He followed the dust trail that hung above the driveway, the blue Civic tearing through the broken gate. The sun had started its fall to the horizon, and soon another night would come to eastern Utah. He made a left, and within minutes he was buzzing down the highway, on through Emery and heading for Price.

  It was nice having four functioning windows. Ramage pulled off his gloves and turned on the heat. He had half a tank of gas, which was more than enough. There weren’t many cars on the road, and he saw no sign of the Charger. If the boys were smart, they’d headed south to I-70, but that would probably be the way Butch would go, and there were more options if they headed north to Price. He checked his cellphone and saw there were messages from Anna and Rex. Now that he had his laptop back, he needed to take a better look at the blood data.

  After he took care of Rolly.

  Ramage decided to head back to Big Blue, though he’d have to be cautious with the dumbasses from Prairie Home lurking around. He opened the Honda’s windows a crack and turned on the radio. His mood soured as he thought of Rolly, having to find the turd. Should be easy. Light the flame, and the moth would come.

  As if the last forty-eight hours hadn’t been enough proof that if Ramage didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all, flashing lights bloomed behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ramage ran fingers through his hair, pain running down his back as he stared in the rearview, his calf wound singing as he pressed down on the gas pedal. The horizon in the west was bruised purple-black, the last rays of the setting sun falling across UT-10, the police car’s spinning lights sending blue and white daggers across the still landscape. Underbrush and scrub pine filled the sides of the road, dusk creeping through the vegetation like giant spiders. The Honda chugged along at a steady sixty-four miles per hour, the slight shake in the wheel most likely due to the front end being out of alignment.

  Ramage did a mental inventory as he slowed the Honda and did a quick scan of the car. He’d abandoned the rifle, but he still had the snubby, and the Ruger he’d taken off Butch. If the cop searched the car, he was screwed.

  He considered running, but knew that would just complicate things. He had his valid driver’s license, the car hadn’t been reported stolen—or had it? Marie, that bitch… he breathed the way Anna had taught him. Tricks she picked-up from her yoga instructor who also fixed tractors. No sense creating problems that weren’t there yet. All the facts added up, even if Rex checked.

  He rocked back in his seat as he searched for a break in the underbrush along the road so he could pull over.

  When facing overwhelming odds Ramage wasn’t averse to retreating, even fleeing if necessary. When those options weren’t possible, or too risky, one had to decide how to fight, go on offense, or play defense.

  Normally Ramage would go all James Bond confident on the cop, but he was in Utah, in a borrowed car—at best—and he was wearing sweatpants, was almost out of cash, and probably still smelled a bit like monkey urine. By now his description might have been passed around, and Queensbury still wanted to have a word. Ramage was sure of that. What he wasn’t sure of, was what leverage he had against the small-town cop in his rearview who was used to being treated like a god?

  The answer came from the back of his mind, one of those memories Ramage didn’t even know was there until it pushed its way forward.

  “You’ve got a wand,” Mad-eye Moody said. Anna had made Ramage watch the Harry Potter movies, and he’d enjoyed them way more than he’d expected. He pulled his wand, his phone, and it lit up—Lumos. In a pinch he could call Rex. The FBI man knew Big Blue was down. He was driving a borrowed car, he hoped, had a valid license. Ramage buzzed his window down, his confidence growing.

  The Honda crunched to a stop and Ramage waited. Anyone who’s ever been pulled over by a police officer knows the feeling; the twisted gut, burning throat, galloping heart. Despite Ramage’s leverage and experience, his heart raced, sweat dripping down his back, despite the chill breeze pushing through the open window.

  Hope washed over him when a woman hauled herself from the patrol car. She was sturdy, had short brown hair pulled back. She made a show of hitching her gun belt—did they teach that in police training? She put on her hat in a practiced motion, and then put her hand on the butt of her gun as she approached.

  As Ramage peered in the sideview mirror his hope fled.

  The officer’s face was twisted like she’d just taken a sip of cold coffee someone had put a cigarette out in. She wore the standard mirrored sunglasses, even though dusk crept over the ponderosa, and she’d perfected the John Wayne shamble that so many in blue thought made them look tough. Ramage thought it made the cop look like she needed to take a shit.

  “Evening Officer,” Ramage said. “Was I—”

  “License, registration and insurance,” the cop said. Her plastic nameplate read Fessar.

  No please, but that was O.K. Being a police officer was a difficult, often thankless job, so he pushed down his anger. “Why have I been pulled over?”

  She sighed and shifted on her feet and her gun belt squeaked. “You were going a little fast.”

  “Fair enough,” Ramage said. He was processing the good news that she wasn’t looking for a stolen blue Honda Civic. He dug out his license and handed it over.

  “Insurance and registration?”

  Ramage decided opening the glove compartment was a risk. He’d put his guns in his knapsack, but he hadn’t checked the glovebox and he had no idea what Butch might have stashed there; drugs, pet tranquilizers. He kicked himself for not checking, then said, “It’s a friend’s car. Marie and her crew down in Emery.”

  Officer Fessar pulled her ticket pad from its sleeve on her belt like she was at the O.K. Corral and Billy Clanton was about to eat some paper.

  “Look, don’t do that, O.K.?” Ramage said. “I’m working with the Feds on a case down here.”

  The cop walked around the front of the Honda and started copying numbers off the registration. Ramage was about to launch into his alpha male speech, when he heard Anna’s voice screaming in his head. “She just wants to writ
e a ticket! Let her.”

  “Sorry,” Ramage said. “You’re right. I should have the insurance card. My bad.”

  Officer Fessar said nothing as she sauntered back to her patrol car. Ramage tapped the steering wheel as he waited.

  Eighteen minutes later Fessar poured from her car, and when she arrived at the Honda’s window she handed Ramage his license and a paper ticket. She said, “Mail in an innocent plea with proof the car was insured on this date and they’ll lower the fine. Have a good day, sir.”

  Ramage eased back in his seat as relief flooded through him. The traffic stop was a microcosm of his life; get angry, overreact, then feel like a fool. He tossed his head side-to-side and cracked his neck. Before he kicked the shit out of himself, the lizard portion of his brain reminded him he’d been shot at more than the average person and had experienced his share of bad luck and sorrow. Did that make him any different than most folks? Maybe not, but as a karmic shit magnet he knew he always needed to be on guard for negativity, and Anna was very good at reminding him.

  The cop killed her flashing lights and pulled away, disappearing in the growing darkness.

  Ramage put the Honda in gear and eased back up onto UT-10.

  Since he had his phone out, Ramage tapped Anna’s name and she answered after the first ring.

  “Hey, babe. Calling early tonight? What’s up?” she said.

  “Nothing, just wanted to hear your voice is all,” he said. “Things O.K. there?”

  A long pause, then, “We’ll talk when you get home Sunday. You are still coming home Sunday?”

  “Didn’t hear from Manny yet, but I assume we’re a go for tomorrow noonish.”

  “Ass out of you and me,” she said.

  “You can’t push these boys up here.”

  “I know,” she said.

  They talked for a few more minutes, Anna telling him about an additional sand theft, Ramage’s blood pressure rising. When they clicked off, he was more determined than ever to settle things with Rolly and get back to Prairie Home.

  He circled around the Red Rock Truck Stop at 8:12PM, and things were mostly quiet. The diner had a few patrons, Big Blue still sat exactly where he’d left it, and there were only two other rigs parked in long term parking. Manny’s was locked up and dark, so Ramage couldn’t retrieve his truck key. He pulled the Honda into a space directly in front of the diner, grabbed a burger to go, and struck out across the parking lot for Big Blue.