Hard Case Crime: Choke Hold

by Christa Faust

  “I’ve never met a girl that could go all the way down on me like that,” he said, stuffing his dick back into his pants. “That was seriously the most amazing blow job of all time.”

  “Glad you enjoyed it kid,” I replied. “Because it’s never gonna happen again.”

  “Damn,” he said. “I was just about to ask you to marry me.”

  I shook my head and walked back around to the driver’s side.

  “Look in the glovebox,” I told him as I opened the door and slid back into the driver’s seat. “See if you can find a map so we can figure out where the hell we are.”

  19.

  It turned out there was no map anywhere in the Suburban, so we picked the direction that seemed the most likely to be north-ish and headed down that road. Cody fell asleep in the passenger seat almost instantly, leaving me alone with my jangling, disjointed thoughts.

  An hour later, we simply ran out of road.

  It was impossible to tell if the road builders had just lost interest or if the desert had swallowed the road under smooth shifting sand, but for whatever reason, we had hit a dead end. The gas gauge in the Suburban was getting dangerously low. I found a two-liter Coke bottle under the driver’s seat that was half full of what turned out to be some kind of slimy, rotgut liquor, but there was no water. I was exhausted now that the manic adrenaline had drained away. Dawn was creeping around under the edge of the sky, flushing the distant mountains a feverish pink. Soon it would be very hot.

  It seemed like some kind of awful joke. I’d survived so many human killers, but now, in this modern era of GPS and smartphones, I was lost in the Mexican desert without food or water. Of all the ways I’d thought I might die, this was definitely not one of them.

  Of course, at least one of the guys who were supposed to kill and bury us was out there somewhere, still alive and presumably still pissed. Unlike us, he probably did have a phone and friends to come get him. He also knew the area way better than we did and could be driving down the road towards us right now. We might not get the chance to die of exposure after all.

  “Wake up, kid,” I said to Cody.

  Cody stirred in the passenger seat, rubbing his squinty eyes.

  “Where the hell are we?” he asked.

  “No idea,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I do know, though. We probably don’t have enough gas to make it back to the crossroads where we started.”

  “I saw a gas can in the back,” Cody said. “Bumped my head on it a few times and it didn’t feel empty.”

  “Thank fucking God,” I said.

  I tossed Cody the keys. He hopped out and went around back to open the hatch. I looked into the rear-view mirror and saw him holding up a dented red metal gas can in one hand and giving me a thumbs-up with the other. He used the can to fill the tank while I sat there and struggled to keep my eyes open.

  I got out to stretch my sore muscles and decided to ditch the rifle. We had enough potential problems facing us at the border without trying to smuggle an automatic rifle into the States. I stuck the thing nose first into the sand and left it there like some kind of corny political statement. Of course I still had my two handguns, but there was no way I was gonna get rid of those. That was a chance I’d just have to take.

  I came around the Suburban to where Cody stood with the empty gas can.

  “I have to ask you something important,” I said.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  “I’m not here to judge you or tell you what to do,” I said. “And I’m still gonna help you no matter what you say, but I need to know the truth. Did you take Lovell’s cocaine?”

  “Sure, a little,” he said, eyebrows hunched together. “Just a couple of lines when I was over at his house, but I already told you that.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I meant did you steal the missing jar from Lovell’s shipment.”

  He squinted at me. “You mean the steroids?”

  “I looked inside those jars,” I said. “They were filled with bricks of cocaine, not steroids. You’re telling me you really didn’t know that?”

  “Seriously?” he asked. “Are you sure? I mean, did you taste it?”

  “Cody, don’t fuck with me,” I said.

  “I’m not!” He looked hurt and genuinely puzzled. “I just... I mean... Fuck.”

  “So you had no idea?” I asked. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that.”

  “Jesus, Angel,” he said, eyes locked on mine. “I had no idea. Why would I lie about something like that?”

  I studied his face, knowing that if he was as good a liar as his father, I would probably never know the truth.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’m beat. You drive.”

  He smiled.

  “Sure, baby,” he said. “Bend over.”

  I rolled my eyes and got into the passenger seat. I took a lightweight hoodie out of my go-bag, put it on and pulled the hood down over my eyes. I was out before Cody got back into the car.

  It took the better part of the day to find our way back to the border, but thanks to Cody’s broad pantomime and shameless pidgin Spanglish, he was able to charm fairly accurate directions out of a group of amused prostitutes outside a shabby little roadhouse that got us pointed in the right direction. No sign of Lovell’s guys. At one point, I tried halfheartedly to convince Cody that we should head in the other direction. Not return to the U.S. at all. It made way more sense, what with all the various people who wanted one or both of us dead, but Cody was having none of it. Nothing mattered to the kid besides being in Vegas at 8 am Sunday morning for his big television debut on All American Fighter. It was dark by the time we made the border.

  The extremely tan, extremely fit blonde woman at the border took my brand-new passport, held it up to the light and stared at it for way too long. Her eye bounced from my face to the photo and back again over and over and when she called one of her fellow guards to come look at it, too, I was sure the gig was up.

  She let me sweat for nearly a minute. Cody was getting antsy and short-tempered. I was afraid he was going to start complaining and making a scene. He had no idea my passport was fake. No idea how close we were to fucked.

  Then she handed the passport back to me and motioned for us to drive through.

  “What the hell was that about?” Cody asked after a while.

  “No idea,” I said. Then: “Look, we need to get rid of this car.”

  “Fine,” Cody said. “But first I need to stop at my place.”

  “Absolutely not.” I shook my head. “No. No way. That’s a terrible idea.”

  I didn’t mention that I wanted to go back to Hank’s, to make sure that he was okay. I knew that was a terrible idea too but it didn’t stop me from wanting to do it.

  “I’m sorry,” Cody said. “I can drop you somewhere first if you want me to, but I have to check on my mom. She gets... I just need to check on her.”

  After all this, there was no way I was gonna let the kid out of my sight. I’d promised Vic, and while I wasn’t planning on being Cody’s pistol-packing fairy godmother for the rest of my life, I’d gotten it into my head that if I just got him to Vegas, got him on that damn show, I’d be off the hook. No one would kill him while he was on camera, and the way he’d described it, the cameras were rolling 24/7. I could walk away feeling that I’d fulfilled Vic’s dying request. But at the moment, Vegas seemed so far away.

  Cody’s house was in a rough, seedy neighborhood full of trailers, pit bull breeders and meth labs. It was a scabby little L-shaped house with heavy bars on all the windows, distinguished from its neighbors only by the fact that it didn’t have multiple broken-down cars parked around it. The one car in the driveway was a small, sad import with a smashed headlight. The yard was mostly bare rocky dirt and a few brown, dying cacti. I marveled at what a bad gardener you had to be to kill cacti.

  I made Cody drive by twice to make sure there was nobody lying in wait for us. It looked clear but I still took the Warthog
out of my bag and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie. Cody parked and got out. I followed but stayed wary, hackles up and trying to grow eyes in the back of my head. Nothing. Nothing that I could see, anyway. It was dark, just after 9 PM.

  Cody unlocked the front door and motioned for me to enter. Inside, there was a weird unclean, spoiled milk smell beneath a cover of cloying fake flower air freshener. The dark blue carpet was worn thin but recently vacuumed. The furniture was mostly cheap and tacky except for a ridiculously expensive black leather recliner, the kind with drink holders and built in shiatsu and more control buttons than the space shuttle. There was also a brand new Xbox and a huge flat screen television, on with the sound turned down. Lovell’s money no doubt. I suddenly wanted to ask Cody again if he’d taken Lovell’s coke and probably would have if I hadn’t noticed Hank sitting in the leather recliner, holding his revolver in his lap.

  “Hank!” Cody cried, flinging himself at him and throwing his arms around his chest. “God I’m glad to see you!”

  I was a little embarrassed by how glad I was to see Hank too, but something didn’t feel right about this so I hung back and held my tongue.

  After Cody let him go, Hank just sat there silent for a minute, looking down at the gun. Then, he spoke.

  “Y’all had better sit down,” he said.

  Cody dropped down on the sofa, face creased with concern. I sat beside him, liking this even less.

  “Is everything okay?” Cody asked. He bounced back up to his feet, panic in his voice. “Is it Mom? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Hank said. “Would you just sit down for a second?”

  “Sorry,” Cody said. He sat again. “What is it?”

  “It’s like this,” Hank said and then trailed off.

  He paused for a long time as if he were considering how to say what needed to be said. When he finally spoke up again, I understood why.

  “Cody,” he said. “Lovell sent me here to kill you.”

  20.

  I put my hand in my pocket, wrapping my fingers around the stubby grip of the Warthog, holding my breath without even realizing I was doing it. Cody laughed, forced and too loud, then fell silent.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he asked.

  Hank shook his head ruefully.

  “I wish I was,” Hank said.

  “Yeah, but...” Cody frowned. “I mean...you’re not really gonna do it. Are you?”

  Hank didn’t answer right away. I could feel the cold, speedy adrenaline flooding though my exhausted body, but I wasn’t sure if I could keep it up anymore.

  “Been sitting here thinking on it for some time now,” Hank said, looking back down at the gun. “And I came to the conclusion that I ain’t. I can’t. It’s that simple. Reckon he’s gonna kill me if I don’t. But the way I see it, it’s a fair trade.”

  “What?” Cody said. “What are you talking about? That’s crazy!”

  “You got your whole career ahead of you.” Hank said. “I got nothing.”

  “Jesus,” Cody said. “Hank, don’t talk like that. You have us, right? Me and Angel.” He turned, including me with a desperate gesture. “Besides, I need you in my corner if I’m gonna make it in the AAFC. I can’t do it without you!”

  “Sure you can,” Hank said. “You’ll have Matt Kenner. He’s twice the fighter I ever was and he don’t get mixed up and forget things half the time the way I do.”

  “Bullshit!” Cody said. “No, this is bullshit, I’m not buying this. There has to be another way.”

  “You’d best get on the road,” Hank said. “I done talked to Mrs. Dean next door about looking in on your momma. You got nothing to worry about now except getting to Vegas.” Hank turned to me, something unreadable in his expression. “I’m sorry to put this on you, Angel, but I reckon it’s up to you to keep an eye on the kid from here on out.” He smiled and all it did was make his hard, ugly face seem even more resigned. “I know he’s in good hands.”

  I had just about had it with doomed men asking me to take care of Cody.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this, Hank,” I said. “Come with us. We can stay ahead of Lovell but we need you. I can’t do this alone.”

  “I don’t think...” Hank began, but Cody cut him off.

  “You have to come, Hank,” Cody said. “It’s like Angel says, we can’t make it without you. You have to help us!”

  “I don’t know,” he said, but I could see he was losing his resolve.

  Cody stood, grabbed Hank by the wrist and pulled him to his feet.

  “Look, it’s decided. You’re coming.”

  “You ain’t gonna let this go are you?” Hank asked.

  “Nope,” Cody replied, grinning like he’d already won.

  “Cody?” a thin, quavering and ancient-sounding voice called out from the other side of the room.

  When I turned, I was expecting a little old lady. What I saw was Cody’s mother. Skye West. Or, should I say, a person that used to be Skye West.

  If I had not known it was her, I never would have recognized her. Back in the day she was willowy and sweet-faced, a freckled little hippie nymph with wavy, naturally blond hair, big green eyes and a perpetually stoned smile. Now she was not so much overweight as swollen, her face puffy and pale and her formerly lithe body doughy and shapeless as a stuffed laundry bag. Her colorless hair was cut short and thinning and she wore faded sweatpants and a stained t-shirt. She moved towards Cody with a slow, medicated shuffle.

  “Mom,” Cody said. “Mom, is everything okay?”

  “I heard talking,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “That was just me and Hank,” Cody said, taking her hands. “Mom, why won’t you wear any of the nice new dresses I bought you?”

  “Who’s that?” she asked, tipping her chin towards me, eyes gone narrow and fearful. She didn’t seem to recognize me.

  “That’s my friend Angel,” Cody said and I immediately wished he hadn’t.

  Skye looked me over, studying me like there was gonna be a test. I waited for the fireworks, but amazingly, they never came.

  “Hank is here,” she told Cody.

  “I know, Mom,” Cody said. “I see him.”

  “He said you’re leaving me,” she said, suddenly petulant as a child.

  “I just have to go to Vegas for a little while,” Cody said. “But Shelley Dean is gonna come by every day to check on you and make sure you eat and don’t forget to take your meds. I’ll call whenever I can and by the time I come back I’ll have so much money I’ll be able to buy you a new house and a new car. What kind of car do you want? A Porsche?”

  “You are leaving!” she wailed. “I knew it!”

  “Okay, Mom, don’t cry.” He put his arm around her and then stage whispered over his shoulder to me and Hank. “Just give me a minute.”

  He led his mother out of the room, speaking softly to her as they went. I stood with Hank, waiting. Hank didn’t speak, he just held his gun at his side and looked at his feet. I was hit again with how glad I was to see him, and that he’d agreed to come with us. I had no clue what was wrong with me, or how I’d managed to get so crushed out on a guy who might as well have bad idea tattooed on his forehead. But after my ill-advised quickie with Cody, it seemed like I was on a roll in the bad idea department.

  I looked over at the television, hoping for distraction. An ad for something I didn’t need. Then local news. The first thing up, a photo of Duncan’s Diner, followed by a sketch some police artist had done of me. With the sound off, I had no idea what they were saying about me, but I didn’t really need to know. The fact that my face was on television for any reason was the worst possible development. I had to assume the Croatians who were after me had seen this too. If they weren’t here already, they were definitely on the way. As if there weren’t already enough reasons to get the hell out of Yuma.

  Thankfully, Cody picked that moment to come back. Over one shoulder he had a black and red duffle bag printed with a logo s
o spiky that I couldn’t read it.

  “She gonna be okay?” Hank asked Cody.

  “I hope so,” Cody said. He looked back over his shoulder at the closed door like he wasn’t so sure. “You know how I worry about her, Hank, but I can’t stay here and take care of her forever. I have to live my own life. Right?”

  “ ’Course you do,” Hank said. “Now let’s get out of here before I go and change my mind.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Cody said.

  Cody walked over to the front door and opened it. Standing on the other side of the doorway was the horny toad in the cowboy hat and his large Native American friend. Behind them, black hat pulled down low over his eyes, was Mr. Lovell.

  21.

  The horny toad had a pistol in his hand and jammed the muzzle into Cody’s belly, backing him up into the house. The big guy stepped aside to let Lovell enter, then came inside himself, closing the door and standing in front of it like a bouncer.

  “I’m not surprised by your actions, Hank,” Lovell said. “Just deeply disappointed.”

  “Well, I’d be glad to tell you what you can do with your disappointment, Vernon,” Hank said. “But I won’t on account of there being a lady present.”

  “Guns,” the horny toad said. “Let’s have ’em.”

  Hank tossed his revolver on the carpet at the horny toad’s feet. I did the same with the Warthog, but figured I’d keep my go-bag on my shoulder until they specifically asked me to do otherwise. The Sig was in an inner pocket, and I could feel its weight against the small of my back, but I didn’t have any idea how to reach it without attracting attention.

  The toad scooped up the guns and pocketed them both.

  “Kill the woman first,” Lovell said.

  I was about to make that grab for the Sig and to hell with the consequences, but I saw over the toad’s shoulder that Cody’s mom had drifted back into the room.