by L. J. Martin
And we're heading for the bodega to find out who "she" is.
There's an auto parts place kitty-corner from the bodega and I cut the lights on the Vette, coast up, and drop Pax off with the .223 and the Model 70 and night vision scope near its garbage enclosure. I hang onto the Mossberg, as close work may be the order of the day. He slips behind a six foot high concrete block wall, climbs up on a dumpster, and situates himself so he has a clear shot at the front and side of the bodega. Only then do I head over and park cross ways in front of the doors so I can step out of the Vette, keeping it between myself and the glass door. The same little chica with the spider web tats is behind the counter. She seems to recognize me as I stand behind the Vette, fifteen feet from her front door, eyeing the place. She walks around the counter and to the door, opens it, and gives me a grin, flashing the one half carat and gold tooth.
"Hey, mon, I got a message for you. You that Reardon guy?"
I nod. She returns to the counter, grabs something off its top, and comes out and drops it into the passenger side of the Vette. She starts back, then hesitates and turns. "Hey, Reardon, you do what Corrado says, maybe he don't kill you."
"Sure, chica, you bet I will."
She laughs and heads back inside.
I peel out without looking at the paper in the passenger seat, head over to the garbage area and pick Pax up. He loads up, picking the paper up off the seat as he does so. As he's unfolding it, he remarks, "I had her in my sights, amigo. Good thing, too, as she looks dangerous."
"She doesn't look quite so good close up, amigo."
"Ain't that most often the case," he says, in a low tone, as he unfolds what proves to be a map. No writing included other than a concise "NO COPS" and only a circle on a spot a few miles north and a little west of I 15.
He looks over. "You ever been to beautiful downtown Moapa?"
"Not on purpose," I answer.
"Well, you're on your way to close by."
"Whatever. How far?"
Pax is madly working his iPad. "Fifty miles. Then we gotta find Warm Springs Ranch, a burned out hot springs recreational area. I was there years ago at a Mormon wedding, but since then they'd had a hell of a fire, which burned the place all to hell. We're being led into the boondocks where you could have a war and no one would notice, or hear a half dozen hand grenades." He keeps talking, "If memory serves me the ranch once belonged to Howard Hughes, like half of Vegas did. His people had a cattle operation there, but sold it to the Mormon Church after he croaked. It's got a couple of big swimming holes and lots of hot springs, all surrounded by natural palms. A century and a half ago it was an oasis for wagon trains coming in through the Virgin River Canyon…now the route for I 15. There are, or were, a half dozen buildings and a few RV spaces, and a parking lot or two that must hold over a hundred cars. I got a good aerial here on Google Earth and can give you a layout when we stop."
I kick it in the ass, smoking the highway, keeping one eye on the rear view mirror, and in forty minutes we're making a turn Northwest onto Hidden Valley Road, which will take us to Road 168 and on to Warm Springs Ranch. Pax has been filling me in on the little town of Moapa as we go, referring to his iPad. Moapa is only about one thousand strong, situated just outside the north end of the Moapa Indian Reservation and the other side of I 15 from Warm Springs Ranch.
The moon isn't up yet and the only light is from a clear starlit night. Unless these boys are tuned into night vision we'll have a hell of an advantage. Of course there'll be a dozen of them, if my guess is right, and we'll have to keep from killing our buddy Skip or Wally. And keep them from getting killed by the bad guys.
I would imagine that'll be no easy task. However, it's a beautiful warm desert night. As the Indians would say, a good day to die.
I have no idea what kind of condition either of the hostages may be in, but the amount of blood in Wally's apartment was slight, so who knows?
Kimball Road is just off Road 168 and the place is easy to spot, even in the dark with the outlines of huge palms, many of them totally denuded of fronds. It's a stark and dismal sight, even in starlight.
I turn off the Vette's headlights a half mile from the place and slow it down to a crawl for another quarter mile. There's a dirt road to my left and I take it, dropping down into a shallow arroyo that will keep the car out of sight of the complex, and we dismount. As usual, I slip the keys under the driver's seat. The rest of the way will be shank's mare.
Pax shows me the aerial on Google Earth, and I do a quick brain burn with the layout.
"Nothing left but stub walls after the fire?" I ask.
"Doesn't look that way. The pools are empty and would be a good place to put hostages. Most of a garage is still standing." He points to a building forty yards to the west of the main complex. "So maybe that is a place where a few of them are hidden out, waiting to blow you into dog food chunks."
I ignore him. Trying to think of all that could screw us up, I suggest, "Turn your phone to vibrate. We've got service here, if we need to talk."
"We got a plan?" he asks.
"You take the .308, as you're best with it. I'll take the Mossberg and the .223. I want us to find a spot where you have a clear range of fire, then I'm going in to have a chat with the boys."
"Yeah, yeah, but let's get that clear range of fire first. Maybe you won't have to go in."
"We'll take it as it comes."
To my surprise as I dig my iPhone out to turn off the ring, it rings. And I see it's from Skip.
"Where are you?" I answer.
"Where the fuck are you?" comes the reply, and it's not my buddy Skip.
"Who's this?" I ask.
"You left my crib an hour ago. You should be here by now."
"I took a wrong turn. I'm in Moapa," I lie.
"You dumb fuck, you can't read no map?"
"I'll be there in a half hour," I say.
"You'll be here in fifteen minutes or I'll cut a tit off the bitch and the balls off your buddy and choke him to death with them. And no cops, or they both die gut-shot."
"Fifteen, no cops," I say, and he hangs up.
"Let's go find a spot," I say, and we head away from the road deeper into the desert, which is spotted with little vegetation, only the occasional greasewood. Both of us have on dress jeans, Pax with, thankfully, dark blue dress shirt and a navy sport coat. I've got on jeans and a light black leather jacket, and neither of us has footwear fit for desert hiking. The good news is, we're in dark duds and don't stand out.
"Yeah, this is our last easy day," Pax says, quoting a Navy Seal expression.
"No shit," I reply with a whisper, "now let's button it," and we jog away to see if we can find a clean clear spot to set him up.
20
God is smiling down on us this beautiful spring night. There's a cut, a ravine, and the side away from the palms is over a dozen feet higher than the near one. We get Pax set up.
He scans the place with the night scope, which he's fitted onto the rifle, then hands it to me. I can make about a half dozen guys, leaning against a couple of palms, some of them down on their haunches.
Pax gives me a nervous laugh, then comments, "They're just sitting around shooting the bull, waiting for the sucker to arrive…that would be you."
"That may be, but it'll cost them."
"How about you doing a circle of the place and see if you can spot Skip and the lady. Maybe we don't have to send you into the slaughterhouse to chit chat with the devil."
"Good plan. I got to hurry, as fifteen minutes is two minutes ago."
"Call the asshole back and tell him we took a wrong turn."
I dial as I head out. The 'asshole' answers, and is not happy. I keep a hundred yards between me and the palms, and circle until I think I'm even with the largest of the pools, then do the creep until I'm among the palms, which now stand like Grecian columns as the fronds are all burned away. I get the strange sensation I'm invading Olympia or a similar Greek ruin. I move silently fr
om palm to palm until I hear the sound of voices…voices speaking Spanish. I can just make them out and they are standing in the bottom of the empty pool, which is white concrete. There are two prone bodies a few feet from where three guys stand, smoking, in the deep end.
I back away and call Pax. He answers with a whisper and I give him my plan. "I've made Skip and Wally, but have no idea if they're alive. They are in the deep end of this first pool. I'm gonna take out the three guys guarding them, then you start picking off anything that moves…except me, of course."
"Semper fi," he says. I hang up, and immediately the phone vibrates.
"Hey, fuckhead. I'm heading over to kill the bitch and the big blonde fuck."
"Hey, amigo, how come you're so grouchy? Is it 'cause you're so fucking ugly, Corrado?"
"Go fuck yourself. They're dead." He hangs up and I move toward the pool. Just as I get near enough to the edge to see the guards, someone approaching the pool shouts in Spanish from the far side. I got to believe it's Corrado, coming as promised to kill Skip and Wally. That's the bad news. The good is it means they're still alive.
I guess it's time to get to work.
I drop to a prone position, switch the stock to slide position, get a bead on the center of the three guards, only seventy-five feet across the pool, and pull off. I give the three of them the full clip, and as I'm popping it and turning it over to seat its taped partner. I hear a shot from afar and know that it means Pax has gone to work. I don't know if they're all hit or not, but I do know it was all assholes and elbows in the pool as arms and legs flew askew. And I can't wait to find out…it's charge forward time.
But there's an Oops. Almost as quickly from a couple of dozen paces beyond the far end of the pool, I see the muzzle flash of an automatic, and ka ka hits the fan all around me. My own muzzle flashes have given away my position. Gravel splatters my face as I scramble back to the cover of the palm and flatten myself. Then I hang around the edge and touch the trigger, aiming in the direction the shots came from
One trigger touch with the .223 and the Slide Fire stock gives you three rounds, and I pan the other side of the pool—three rounds, three rounds, three rounds. I can feel the rounds pouring into the far side of the palm I'm behind, which I'm happy to say is three feet in diameter and shields me nicely.
Everything goes dark, and I wonder if I've been center punched, then realize my eyes are filling with blood. I grab a hanky from my back pocket, mop the blood away, and drop the .223 long enough to tie a doo rag around my head. Something is burning bad, but at least I can see. I grab up the rifle and roll to the next palm. I hear three more distant shots, the systematic fire of a shooter who's picking targets and taking his time, and then I hear the chatter of more automatic pistols or rifles.
But the systematic fire continues.
From across the pool I hear shouting, and if my Mexican is worth a damn, he's saying there's a whole Army out there. It must be the policia. Then I hear vamos pronto.
Footsteps, and they are disappearing. Can it be we've sent the rats scurrying to their nests? In moments I hear cars screeching tires and leaving.
Then I hear the murmuring sound of someone who is talking, moaning, talking, but muffled. I'm not eager to jump into the pool and make myself as easy a target as the three guards were. So I move forward to the nearest palm to the pool, then do a belly crawl to the edge.
Now there are five bodies prone on the pool bottom—two off to the side the deepest part, and the three at whom I was shooting. One of them is still flopping around like a fish out of water—more like a beached whale as he's a big dude—but the other two are still as death, and I hope my metaphor is true. Throwing caution to the wind, I drop into the pool, and scramble on threes with a hand down to keep low across to the three guards. I'm happy to note that, yes, two of them are still as mackerel on ice. The one flopping around is holding his prodigious belly with both hands, and it sounds like he's making his last confession and hoping for absolution.
The fat boy is spurting blood from at least three holes, two in his large hard-to-miss belly and one in the chest. He doesn't have long. I eye him a little closer and realize it's the guy who was guarding the back door of the bodega, the one with muscles in his neck like cypress roots.
I kick two old Iver Johnson Enforcer's—converted WWII M1 .30 cal carbines—across the pool, and pick up a third weapon that looks in the darkness like a Heckler & Koch, a hell of a fine piece. So I hang onto it, using it's sling to hang it on my back. With that and my Smith & Wesson in hand, I head down to the other two and can't help but smile when I realize it is Wally and Skip, with eyes wide.
Skip, being the gentleman he is, has positioned himself across Wally in protection mode, and both of them are taped up with enough duck tape to recover the seats in my Vette. I pop my folding knife and cut Skip free first. I hand him the .223 as soon as his hands are available. "We may not be through here," I suggest, and he immediately goes into Recon Marine mode while I free Wally.
As soon as she's free, she busts into tears, throwing her arms around me. I immediately loosen her from my neck.
"Let's not celebrate quite so soon."
The sporadic firing from Pax's distant position has finished, and I pray it's not because he is. I hope just because he's out of targets.
"Let's get the hell out of here," I suggest. "Skip, take the six. Let's keep her between us."
"What about that fat guy?" she asks.
"Fuck him, let him bleed out," Skip says and I'm a little surprised. Then he eyes me. "You're gonna need some stitches."
"And you might need to get that nose set."
"It's been busted before," he says, and snarls at me, "you need that stitched up."
I ignore him and step back to the formerly flopping fat man. On closer inspection, he's no longer begging for last rights, nor breathing.
"He did…did mess with me," Wally says, eyes downcast.
I shrug, thinking of Carol Janson, and say, "Agreed, fuck him." Then I walk over and look even closer. Great big guy with scars on his face crosses my memory, and yes, this boy is nicely scarred. A puckered line crosses his eye from forehead to whiskered chin. I'd have jumped up and down on his chest wound with both feet if I'd realized he is probably one of the guys who was in on the beheading of beautiful Carol Janson. Enrico Alverez, if memory serves, and when it comes to revenge, my memory usually serves me well.
We exit the way I came in, through the palms, and even with my doo rag in place, I have to mop the blood out of my eyes.
I give a whippoorwill whistle when I get within earshot of Pax's last position, and sigh deeply when it's returned. Then I give a one word shout, "Six." When it's returned with a "hoora," I know we're all headed for the Vette, and for the first time wonder just how the hell we're going to get out of there with four people in a two seater.
You can't think of everything.
When we get back to the Vette, I finally ask. "Are you two okay?"
Skip looks a little sheepish. "We called for a pizza. Pricks ran the pizza guy off and some little dipshit Mesican, about one twenty soaking wet—I thought he was a teenage pizza delivery guy—gave me a shot of mace when I answered the door. Who'd a thunk a little pissant like that could take a puissant guy like me down?"
I laugh. Then suggest, "You've had your nose in the dictionary again." And he shrugs and grins. "Where'd the blood in Wally's kitchen come from?" I ask. Then I realize Skip's nose is broken. His tone is a bit nasal and his honker is bluing about the bridge.
"Then after the mace gave me a stun gun to the chest, then they hooked me up with cable ties both wrists and ankles and a big fat fucker kicked me in the face about a dozen times. The good news, he is one of the guards in the pool and he went down like a tub of lard…I only wish it was me who put him away."
I sigh deeply, still mopping the blood out from a graze that, had it been three eights of an inch closer, would have sent me to heaven or hell…probably the latter.
"One of us has to hang out until we get a ride," I say to Pax.
"Bullshit," Pax says. "I drive since you can't see shit with the blood filling your eyes, Wally sits on Skip's lap, you hang onto the luggage rack like the ugly load you are. At least for the dozen miles over to Moapa where there's a bar and grill and we can get a well deserved drink."
"Give me your belt," I say to Pax.
"Your pants falling off?"
"No, but I want to belt myself to the luggage rack. I've ridden with your dumb ass before."
He laughs and pulls the belt off. Luckily, there probably hasn't been a cop on Road 168 in ten years. We get a couple of strange looks from passersby when we roll into Moapa, but at that point, who gives a rat's ass?
I don't think I've ever tasted a better Jack Daniels than the one I'm sipping, with Wally across the table, as Skip drives Pax back to Wally's place to pick up his Jag. Luckily, it has a back seat.
And I plan to sleep in it on the way back to Vegas, and then hit a doc-in-the-box or an emergency room for some stitches.
Then we can lay a plan to finish this dung heap of a bunch of cartel neck-choppers, that is, after we get rid of the .308 and the .223. It breaks my heart, as I love both weapons, but I have a new Heckler & Koch to replace my Smith & Wesson…not a bad trade. This time we didn't have the law on our ass during the commission of revenge, so it's time to get rid of the evidence—probably better than pressing my luck with the good Detective Bollinger. I did leave some blood on the scene, but there's so much scattered over Warm Springs Ranch I'd be surprised if they get DNA for all of it. Besides, as far as I know, my DNA is not in the system.
