by Ace Atkins
“How can you be sure?”
“Your friend,” he said. “The guy they call Hawk? We spotted him out there with Bliss. He’s a well-known figure at the Boston office. He’s the one putting this all in motion. Right?”
I didn’t answer this time. I waited.
“They know who he is,” Nguyen said. “And why he’s here.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Nguyen said. “A gun dealer in Roxbury, guy named Sarge, is in direct contact with Bliss. You need to get his ass the hell out of Rockdale County. He’s not going to last long.”
55
What do we do now?” Tedy said.
It was night and raining down in Rockdale, Georgia. He’d just run into the sanctuary of Greater Faith to find Hawk with no luck. We’d tried calling and texting. I’d worked out a type of SOS code with him before he joined the ranks of Brother Bliss that didn’t seem to be working. On the interstate, the big white cross blazed tall with white light. A living Nativity scene was in full swing on the megachurch lawn. Three obese wise men stood at the ready with their frankincense and myrrh.
“What exactly is that stuff?” I said.
“Exotic herbs,” Tedy said. “They smell nice.”
“Ah.”
“Maybe we should ride out to their compound,” Tedy said. “I can tell them their prayers are answered. A big tough gay dude to join their ranks.”
“I hate to tell you this, Tedy,” I said. “But the hair is a dead giveaway.”
“What exactly did this Nguyen guy say?” Tedy said.
“He says they know who Hawk is,” I said. “And will probably try and kill him.”
“Try being the operative word,” he said. “Hawk is fine. He’s just fine.”
I nodded. We drove away from the mammoth white church and into downtown Conyers and beyond. The windshield wipers slapping away the rain, the colorful holiday lights a blur through the wet windows. Bright lights and storefront displays. Tedy turned the radio to an all-Christmas station to get our mind off Hawk. Nat King Cole, “Little Drummer Boy.”
“I’m good,” Tedy said. “Let’s head straight in.”
“They have at least a dozen men.”
“We’ve dealt with more.”
“True.”
“But these are better than those guys in Potshot?”
“Much better.”
“Let’s call it a challenge,” Tedy said.
“Are you always so damn positive?”
“The attitude goes with the hair,” Tedy said. “We can’t count on anyone else to help us.”
“Nope.”
The EDGE compound was about ten miles outside Conyers, a good mile of the property line marked with a long chain-link fence and lots of No Trespassing signs. The main entrance didn’t have a gate or a guard, just a wide opening that I had spotted the other night heading down a long drive. The cold rain had picked up and made it difficult to see as we turned down the gravel road. There were no lights and little to see beyond the five feet of headlights. The Christmas hits kept on coming. Now it was “A Holly Jolly Christmas.”
“I always identified with Hermey the elf,” Tedy said. He had his .45 Colt auto in his lap. He was loading a second and third magazine like a monkey playing with a peanut.
“The dentist?” I said.
“He wasn’t talking about fixing teeth.”
I kept on driving down the road, the ruts and potholes in the road kicking us up and down. I saw some light at the far end of the road, a bright white blur where they’d taken me the other night. I felt a sickness in my stomach and another unpleasant sensation of wanting to see Bliss again.
“And who were you in Rudolph?”
“Yukon Cornelius.”
“Of course,” Tedy said. “Perfect.”
He placed two of the magazines in his jacket pocket and pulled down the bill on his ball cap. The cold and rain were a holiday blessing. We could get up near the trailers and bunk houses without being spotted. Whoever the crew had left behind, we could snatch up and reason with them. I wanted to find Hawk fast and get out just as fast.
“How far do we take this?” Tedy said.
“Far as it takes.”
“Works for me.”
“You sure?”
“Are you trying to insult me?” Tedy said. “You ride with a man and you stick with him. Or you’re no better than some kind of animal.”
“We’re in a rental car,” I said. “Not on a palomino.”
“Does it matter?”
A truck veered into the road behind us, shining its headlights high and bright into the rear window. I drove a little faster, car bucking up over more holes, windshield wipers on double time. I reached down to turn down the volume of Burl Ives.
“If you can U-turn fast,” Tedy said, “I can shoot out their tires. Or I can shoot the driver.”
“Can you see in this mess?”
“Well enough.”
“We need to catch them alive.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The bright light in the distance grew until we hit a stretch of telephone poles with lamps attached and the double-wide trailer where Bliss tried, and failed, to teach me a lesson. I yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, spinning out the back wheels into gravel and racing us forward toward the other vehicle. Tedy had the window down now, Colt extended and firing off shots as I drove fast. He knocked out one of the headlights and looked to have hit the windshield of the SUV running toward us. If they drove like the guys in Boston, they’d be headed straight for us and look to knock us into a ditch. Instead, the SUV slammed on its brakes and stopped hard and fast. The gravel road was narrow, with brush and timber lining each side. There was no place to pass and I had to slow the car. No one returned fire.
The hazard lights flicked on the SUV, orange lights pulsing in the dark and rain.
A car opened and a large figure appeared. Hands up and walking toward us.
In the headlights, I spotted the familiar smooth black head. Hawk.
He got to my window and tapped on the glass.
“License and registration,” he said.
“Who’s with you?”
“The boy you met at the rest stop,” he said. “Miller. He got no love for Bliss. And knows what’s going down.”
“They’re on to you,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“You heard wrong,” Hawk said. “Brother Bliss just gave me a promotion. 401(k), benefits, all that shit. Calls me his second-in-command.”
“Sarge turned you in,” I said. “They’re gonna kill you.”
“No, sir,” Hawk said. “Sarge is a cutthroat motherfucker, but he doesn’t want no truck with me. He turned in one of Bliss’s other people. A man he knew to be working for the ATF.”
“Shit.”
“Reason I got the promotion.”
“They killed a federal informant?”
“That and then some, babe,” Hawk said. “When we gonna go ahead and start this gun and ammo hoopty-doo?”
“ATF doesn’t want any part.”
The rain beaded off his head and sluiced down his face. Another man sat at the wheel of the SUV, watching us behind the spiderwebbed glass.
“New developments might change their opinion,” he said. “If it do, this is the where and when.”
Hawk rolled out a plan of where they expected the guns to be delivered and how they wanted them to arrive.
“I don’t like it.”
“Never do.”
“Why now?”
“Reverend Josiah’s ass and Bliss ready to settle up and mosey on down the road,” Hawk said. “Lots of cash on the barrelhead for one big deal. And then they gonna disappear.”
“I’ll talk to my contact,” I said.
“Yeah,
” Hawk said. “You do that. Fast. Or you ain’t never gonna see these boys again.”
56
On the night before Christmas Eve, I sat on a bench inside Lenox Square Mall, waiting for Bobby Nguyen to show. Tedy Sapp waited with me, drinking our second cup of coffee of the night and watching the shoppers in line to see Santa Claus. We didn’t talk. I watched the women pass. Tedy watched some of the men. We had checked out of the motel and slept part of the day in the rental car outside the mall where Hawk had arranged the meet.
We didn’t know the time until an hour ago. The mall was very festive. Shiny baubles, bright lights, a big tree.
Nguyen wasn’t thankful or pleased. But he didn’t say no.
He showed up thirty minutes late, dressed down from the government suit. He had on a black windbreaker and a black ball cap without a logo. I wondered if the taxpayers bought his underwear, too.
“I didn’t know the man they killed,” Nguyen said. “But the folks in the local office are upset.”
“As they should be.”
“They don’t like your plan,” Nguyen said. “But if it happens, they don’t want you anywhere fucking near us.”
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
“If I so much as see you walk within five hundred feet of my people, I’ll have your asses arrested.”
“And a happy New Year,” Tedy said.
I introduced Nguyen to Tedy. Nguyen nodded and shook his hand without interest.
“Hawk wants Tedy with him,” I said. “Tedy was a cop. And was a decorated soldier in the Eighty-second Airborne.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s Audie fucking Murphy,” Nguyen said. “He’s a civilian. We have everything covered.”
“Hawk can’t go in alone,” Tedy said.
“He has one guy who’s flipped on Bliss,” I said. “But I’m not sure he can be trusted. He can trust Tedy.”
“No way.”
“Then there’s no way to ensure Hawk’s safety,” I said.
“I ensure his safety,” Nguyen said. “We have eight agents here. And four officers from Atlanta PD.”
“Where are the guns?” I said.
“They’re here.”
“All of them?” I said. “Because they’ll walk if we’re short.”
“You said forty guns,” Nguyen said. “We got you twenty-five M4s and fifteen AR-15s. They’ll love them. Some of them have grenade launchers, scopes, and lights. Don’t worry. They’ll be impressed. They’ll be dazzled.”
Tedy looked bemused. His muscular arms crossed over his chest. “But they don’t work.”
“What do you mean they don’t work?” Nguyen said.
“After that clusterfuck a few years ago in Arizona,” Tedy said. “When you guys let all those guns walk and they ended up with the cartel in Mexico. The ATF doesn’t set a trap with working bait anymore.”
Nguyen gave Tedy a nasty look. He pulled at the brim of his hat like a pitcher and bent at the waist. His hands clasped before him. “They won’t know,” he said.
“Bullshit,” Tedy said.
“You think these guys are going to whip out an M4 and dismantle it right in the mall parking lot?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We do. This guy Bliss isn’t some yokel. He’s a card-carrying gun freak.”
“It’s a moot point,” Nguyen said. “You needed guns as bait. I have guns. You needed agents to make an arrest and here we are. I don’t have time to quibble about my business.”
“I need to be there,” Tedy said.
“No way.”
“Then it’s off,” I said. “We’ve delivered you a nicely wrapped package. All you have to do is scoop up these guys, get the glory and the news at eleven, and we can all fly back home.”
“And what if it goes badly?” Nguyen said. “What if your man shoots and kills someone? Or worse, he gets killed himself.”
“Hawk won’t go if he’s not there.”
“Are you still with law enforcement?” Nguyen said.
“Does former head of security of the Bath House Bar and Grill count?”
“What the hell is that?”
“Best gay bar in all of Lamarr, Georgia.”
“Christ, Spenser,” Nguyen said. “I mean, really.”
“Only two men as good as Tedy,” I said. “And that’s me and Hawk.”
Nguyen didn’t look up from the ground. I drank a little coffee and enjoyed the holidays on parade. The line to see Santa ran from Macy’s all the way down to Bloomingdale’s.
“Will Wells be there?” he said.
“Don’t know,” I said. “But that’s why it has to be Tedy. Wells and Bliss know me.”
“You stay out of it,” he said.
I put down the coffee and showed him the palms of my hands. I gave him a solid, friendly smile and picked up the coffee again. We sat close enough to the exit doors by Macy’s that every so often a hard wind would blow into the mall and rattle the fake snow by Santa’s wonderland.
“You know there are about six ways from Sunday this could all go to hell.”
“And a better chance it will work,” Tedy said. “How many officers are here?”
“Like I said,” Nguyen said. “Twelve. Eight of our agents. Four local cops.”
“And me,” Tedy said. “Now, that just doesn’t even seem fair.”
“But we don’t know who will show,” Nguyen said. “Bliss is a walking freak show. Not to mention these creeps you say will accompany him.”
“How far did you say to stay away?”
“Five hundred feet,” Nguyen said. “Or how about make that yards.”
I nodded. “I’ll wait right here in Santa’s lap.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Nguyen said. “You’re sticking with my agents while Blondie over here rides shotgun with Hawk. I’m not letting you walk until it’s done.”
“Trust,” I said. “Such a slippery slope.”
“Blondie?” Tedy said, touching his stiff blond hair. “I like it.”
57
Susan would’ve liked the chosen location for the exchange. The meet with Bliss and his people was called for the top floor of a parking deck outside Neiman Marcus. I felt relaxed and assured in the front seat with Nguyen and Cardillo. Meeting up with some mercenaries was only slightly more dangerous than Susan and her AmEx card.
At the appropriate time, Hawk and Tedy would roll up in a pickup truck loaded down with the wares supplied by the ATF. Bliss and his people would arrive a short time later. There was a chosen word to be spoken into a mic at the appropriate time and the bad guys would be scooped up before you could say Jackie Robinson.
“What if they don’t show?” I said.
“Then we pack up and wait,” Nguyen said.
“Waiting is the tough part.”
“Will you go home?” Nguyen said.
“Nope.”
“You mean you’ll stick around until this thing is done?”
“I’m a bit obsessive,” I said. “I like to see things through.”
“Nothing ends neatly,” Nguyen said. “You’ve been around long enough to know that. Bad guys get off. Money disappears. New shit happens every day.”
“Job security,” I said.
Nguyen smiled. The agent in back leaned forward between the sedan’s front seats and said, “Here we go.”
Nguyen turned up the radio in his lap. From where we’d parked, I spotted a large maroon pickup truck wind its way out from the ramp. The truck had dark tinted windows and a locking hatch cover over the bed.
“Nice ride,” I said.
“Our agents took it off some cartel boys a few months ago,” Nguyen said. “Local guys figured it might come in handy.”
The truck pulled into an empty space at the far end of the lot. No one got out of the truck. I he
ard a voice over the radio let us know two cars were headed up the ramp. The entire parking lot was packed, the hoods and cabs of cars gleaming under parking lot lamps. Shoppers coming and going from the lot. Traffic, action. A good place to pull out and get lost with forty assault rifles. And an awful place to start shooting.
Twenty minutes late, a black SUV wheeled off the ramp and headed right for the pickup truck.
“That’s them,” Nguyen said.
“How do you know?”
“We tailed them out of Rockdale County,” Nguyen said. “Like I said, I’ve done this a few times before.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“Bliss?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “Stay tuned. We’re about to find out.”
The car pulled directly behind the truck, blocking its exit. Hawk got out from behind the wheel and Tedy from the passenger side. Two men in dark clothing and ball caps emerged from the SUV. One of them opened the back door and out crawled Reverend Josiah Ridgeway.
“Shit,” I said.
“No Bliss.”
“No Wells.”
“Shit,” Nguyen said.
I started to say something, but Cardillo turned up the radio. I could hear Hawk’s voice and some small talk between him and the good reverend. For a moment, they moved out of view. I assumed to check out the Christmas packages lining the truck bed.
“Maybe it’s good Bliss isn’t here,” I said. “He might’ve spotted the fakes.”
“Should have known he’d be too smart to show.”
“No one could say that about the reverend,” I said. “He must have wanted to pray over the bounty.”
“As long as he brought payment.”
“What’s the magic word?”
Nguyen smiled. “Snow.”
“Clever.”
“What can I say,” Nguyen said. “I’ve been watching these assholes for a long while. All they do is lie.”
Something caught my eye two rows across from where we’d parked. A man slammed the door of a car and walked with a lot of purpose to the entrance of Neiman Marcus. It was tough to see until he stepped directly below the lamps. A man with stylishly cut dark hair and a long gray overcoat. It was Wells.
