Stealing Sturgis

by Matthew Iden

  Before Baby Boy could rush him across the street, a surge of fear and hope went through him when he saw two Hawgs wave at him and cross the street. They both fit right in, just two guys in full biker gear, strolling the streets of Sturgis. Chico, a patent attorney, was bald with a salt-and-pepper mustache and glasses. Grant was clean-shaven but had stark white hair.

  “Jason, man, where’ve you been?” Chico said. He had on a leather jacket with a patch over the heart. The patch was a stylized pig’s head with enlarged tusks and flames shooting around the head and ears. It wore a World War II pilot’s cap and the words Hell’s Hawgs were written underneath the pig’s head.

  “Hey, Chico. Hey, Grant,” Jason said. He was clutching the bag to his chest and his eyes were wide.

  “I thought we had a ride planned for this morning,” Grant said. “We even talked about driving to the house to kick you out of bed. You were toasted last night.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Jason said. “I was pretty hungover, you know.”

  “We could guess,” Chico said, then glanced at Baby Boy. “Hey, who’s this?”

  “My bodyguard,” Jason said, “Ru—”

  “Baby Boy,” Baby Boy finished, sticking out his hand.

  “Rabie Boy?” Chico said, confused. “Well, that’s Hollywood, I guess. You all have some weird names.”

  “Anyway, good seeing you guys,” Jason said, eyes wide again.

  “Wait a sec, are we—” Grant said, his words trailing off as Baby Boy rushed the two of them across the street.

  The two Hawgs watched as Baby Boy threw Jason into the backseat of a truck full of people. The driver of the truck looked over at them with an expression that struck Grant as a combination of pissed off and scared.

  Without turning around, Chico said, “Since when did Jason rate a bodyguard?”

  “Never had one before,” Grant said.

  “That guy cuts him off, tosses him in the truck like a meal sack, and takes off.”

  “Does that seem strange to you?”

  “Yes it does,” Chico said as the two of them stood there and watched the truck pull away.

  “He what?” Randy asked, incredulous.

  “He don’t have a dime,” Baby Boy said, disgusted. “Jason Fucking Ford had a total of twenty thousand dollars in the bank. We took it all, but for crying out loud, I make that in two weeks back home.”

  “It was a mistake,” Jason said, panic in his voice. “I get paid a stipend from the studio every month and it just hasn’t been deposited yet. And most of my assets are in money market accounts…”

  “So are hers,” Randy said, pointing to Becky, “but she still put her hands on three hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I can, too. I just need to call my broker,” Jason said, babbling. “Just don’t shoot me, okay?”

  “Oh, for…” Baby Boy said. “Don’t start crying or I’ll push you out of the truck right now.” He turned to Lee. “Take us back to the house.”

  “Now what?” Randy asked.

  “We’ll give this dipshit one chance to come up with the money, call his broker or whatever he needs to do to make it happen. I don’t like it, but we’ve got the rest of the week. We can still pull it off. Assuming he’s got the money.”

  They headed back to the rental house. Lee pulled off Route 90 and headed up the hillside, taking his time to avoid attracting attention, and so he could keep thinking. It was stuck in his head that, as long as he was driving, everyone was safe. But eventually they came to the house and he had to shut off the truck. Baby Boy climbed out, pulled his SIG Sauer from under his coat, and covered all of them before marching them into the house.

  “Should we tie ’em up?” Randy asked.

  “Nah, I’m tired of watching them. Here,” Baby Boy said, tossing Randy a set of house keys. “I checked the basement earlier. There’s a wine cellar, can you believe it? Lock the two of them in there while Ford calls his broker.”

  “Two of them?” Lee said, looking from Randy to Baby Boy. “What the hell?”

  “Sorry, bud,” Randy said, pulling his Glock from his waistband. “Your almost brother-in-law and I talked it over and we think you’ve been a little reluctant, might be an unwilling member of the team. In fact, not too sure whose team you’re on. ’Fraid you’re going into the same stew pot as these here two actors.”

  “You’re just going to listen to him?” Lee asked. “What about our goddamned deal?”

  “No offense, Lee, but you ain’t cut out to be a crook. You been dragging me down the whole trip. This way, you and Miss Winters can spend some quality time together and Baby Boy and I can split things fifty-fifty. Math’s a lot easier. Sorry ’bout that. Move it.”

  He motioned to Lee and Becky to move towards the basement door and down the steps. The lower floor had been outfitted as a rec room with a pool table, a wet bar, and a plasma TV. Randy looked around, covering them the whole time with the Glock, then spotted a small door behind the wet bar. He herded Becky and Lee to the back of the room, then turned on the one small light. The room was no larger than a walk-in closet. Shelves lined the walls, with most of the diamond-shaped pigeonholes housing a wine bottle. There was even a small refrigerated section with a temperature control. Next to it was a small counter, a tasting bar with a butcher-block top.

  Randy looked around, taking it all in. “Not bad. A little chilly, maybe, but I like what they’ve done with it.” He turned to go.

  “Randy,” Lee said. Randy stopped, looked at him. “You don’t have to do this, bud.”

  “Yeah?” Randy said. “Do what?”

  “You got no intention of letting us walk, do you? I can finger both of you back to your great-grandpappy, so you got to shoot me and the others, too.”

  “You always was smarter than you looked, Lee.”

  “Triple homicide is life or the chair, am I right? But right now, you haven’t done anything you can’t beat, nothing that can’t be put on Baby Boy.”

  “Really?” Randy said. “Let’s see…three counts of kidnapping? B and E? Whatever they’re going to call what we did at the bank? Sorry, bud, that’s enough to put us away for life right there. But only if they catch us.”

  “What about Baby Boy?” Lee said, trying one last tactic. “You think he’s going to walk away with half? He already muscled in on your deal. Why’s he going to let you take all that cash away from all this?”

  Randy smiled, his teeth showing. “He ain’t. We’ll just have to see who’s quicker on the draw, that’s all.” He walked out and started to close the door, then opened it a fraction. “Don’t worry your little head about it, Lee. It don’t concern you no more.”

  And he shut the door.

  “All right, Ford. Time to call your broker. Which number is it?” Baby Boy had Jason’s cell phone and was looking through his address list.

  Jason thought furiously for a second, then blurted, “Mel. Mel LaPorte. His name’s in there.”

  The actor watched as Baby Boy looked down his nose at the phone, clicking the down arrow until he found the entry. He punched the Call button and handed it to Jason. “No secret messages, no cries for help, right?”

  Jason took the phone, nodding as he put it to his ear. “Right.”

  Randy came up from the basement and closed the door behind him. “He get ahold of his money yet?” he asked. Baby Boy put a finger to his lips and pointed to Jason. Randy opened his mouth, pantomiming an “ah” sound and sat on the couch across from Jason, the Glock hanging between his knees.

  The phone rang three times before Mel picked up and answered with his breathy voice.

  “Mel? Mel! It’s Jason.”

  “Jason,” Mel said. His voice was frosty.

  “Mel, I need you to do me a favor,” Jason said, leaning forward in his seat.

  “A favor? Really?” Mel said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “That’s all I’ve been doing for you, champ.”

  “I know and I really appreciate it, Mel,” Jason said and g
lanced at Randy, which was a mistake. The guy was looking at him with an intensity that made him stutter. “But I need one more big one—no, a huge one—and I know I’ll owe you, but you gotta do this for me.”

  “God, you don’t know when to quit, do you?” Mel said in disgust. “I’ve been covering your ass here while investors and agents breathe down my neck, wanting to know every little detail and you’ve got the gall to call me from nowhere, South Dakota, while you’re on vacation, for Christ’s sake—”

  “Mel. Mel, shut up for a second,” Jason shouted into the phone. “I’m a jerk, I understand that”—Baby Boy was frowning and Jason could read his mind: this is how you talk to your broker?—“but you’re going to have to get that money into my account, pronto, or you and I are through. Understand?”

  “Money?” Mel stopped in the middle of his tirade, confused. “What money?”

  “A million dollars, buddy,” Jason said, babbling. Anything to keep the charade going. It felt like this was the scene of his life, an Academy Award–winning performance. “Not a penny less. I told you I was going to need it before this trip and I can’t believe you didn’t get it into my account. Now I’m broke and I’ve got to give that check to the Boys Club tonight and I don’t want them walking away disappointed.”

  A long pause, then, “Jason, are you dropping acid? You aren’t making any sense. What Boys Club? For Christ’s sake, what are you talking about?”

  Jason leaned forward even further, almost doubled over, and spoke into the phone quietly, intently, trying to connect with Mel telepathically across the phone line two thousand miles away. “Mel, I need a million dollars in my account, ASAP. Everything is riding on this, okay? Everything.”

  “Everything,” Mel said. “You don’t have two nickels to rub together and you want a million dollars in your account.”

  “By two o’clock.”

  “Two o’clock!” Mel shouted. “Why two o’clock? Why am I even talking to you? Are you insane?”

  “No, Mel, I just really gotta have that money,” Jason said. Baby Boy was walking over to him.

  “Jason, you’ve had your run. This is it for us, you got it? I don’t need this kind of crazy act—”

  “Sorry, Mel,” Jason said, interrupting. Baby Boy was towering over him. “That’s the way it is. Get that money in my account, okay? Talk to you soon.” And he hung up.

  He stared at the phone in his hand, wondering what Mel was thinking. Probably making guesses about his recreational drug use. Hopefully he’d at least gotten the message that this was serious and Jason needed the money for whatever reason and needed it now. Mel had it, he was sure. He’d been representing Jason for thirty years and was notoriously stingy. But would he trust Jason enough to just deposit it in his account?

  “That was your broker?” Randy asked.

  Jason nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “You sure do speak funny to each other. When I go to the bank I just tell them how much I want, sign my name, and leave.”

  Baby Boy stared at Jason for a while, then stretched to his full height. “I think someone’s playing games with us. Thinks we’re just a couple of dumb country hicks.”

  Jason wagged his head back and forth. “No. No way.”

  Baby Boy sighed and looked at Randy. “He’s been working us. He might be a big movie star, but I’d bet anything he don’t have more money than what I got in this bag. Ain’t that right, Mr. Ford?”

  “No, man, I told you, the studio owes me money—”

  “Bull. You don’t have a dime,” Baby Boy said. He turned to Randy and said, “Get the other two.”

  “We gonna do her?” Randy asked, his voice eager.

  “Yep,” Baby Boy said. “No sense in doing tomorrow what you should’ve done today.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The second the door closed on the wine cellar, Becky started looking around the little room for anything that might help them to either escape or use as a weapon. The most obvious things were the wine bottles, but they were held in their pigeonholes by metal racks that prevented the bottle from coming out more than a few inches. And the racks were secured at the bottom of the shelves by simple padlocks.

  “Not much in here, is there?” Becky asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Don’t give up yet,” Lee said. He lifted the leg of his jeans and slid a long knife from his boot. It was the butcher knife he’d used the first night to cut the lamp cords. He turned it over in his hands then looked at her with a wan smile. “Ain’t much against two pistols and a shotgun, huh?”

  “You hid that the first night?” Becky asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, thumbing the point. He shook his head and slipped it into a back pocket, untucking his shirt to cover the butt of the knife handle.

  “No offense, Lee, but I’m going to keep looking,” Becky said. “Maybe this is a combination wine and gun lockup.” Lee couldn’t bring himself to smile at the weak attempt at humor but started checking the other racks.

  “I kept holding my breath, thinking you were going to drive off the road back on the highway,” she said after a moment, tugging on the padlocks to see if they were really locked.

  “I thought about it,” Lee admitted. “But car wrecks at sixty-five aren’t a sure thing. I might’ve put you and me through the windshield and Baby Boy could’ve walked away.”

  “Is it worse than what’s going to happen?”

  Lee was quiet for a second. “Maybe not. I was scared this morning. Too scared. I should’ve just jumped out of the truck and started running. But all I could think about was Randy putting his sights on me and popping me right there in the street.”

  “Me, too,” she said in a small voice.

  “And I thought, well, how’s that different than what they’ve got planned for you?”

  “And?”

  “The difference is you,” he said, turning to look at her. He took a breath. “If they shoot me on the side of the road, I don’t have a chance to do anything about what they’re going to do to you. This way, they might blow me away, but if I fight, occupy them, it might give you and Jason a chance. It’s lame, I know, but it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  Becky walked over and put her hand on his cheek. He looked down at her. There were dark circles under her eyes and her face looked drawn. Her pulse flickered in her throat. But her green eyes reflected his and back again. He felt himself falling into them and it seemed the only thing in the world to do was to lean over and kiss her. He cupped the back of her head with his right hand and held the kiss until they ran out of breath.

  They separated and he looked at her. “Do you hate me?”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I want to hate you—I should hate you—but Randy was right. You’re no crook, Lee. I bet even if you had stolen those bikes, you would’ve turned around halfway to Virginia and given them back.”

  “Becky, I—” Lee began, but shouting from upstairs interrupted them and they froze, staring at the ceiling as if they could see through the floor. “Something’s happening.”

  They broke apart and scurried around the small space, looking for anything that could pass for a weapon. Becky went to the back of the cellar to look at the refrigerator and the tasting bar while Lee continued to test the racks, praying that someone had forgotten to lock just one of them. But there was nothing. The cellar might as well have been a vault.

  They stopped and looked at each other, not wanting to say the obvious. Lee grabbed Becky by the arms, running his hands up and down them, feeling goose bumps on her skin. “I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but I’ve got to try and do Baby Boy first. He’s more dangerous. Be ready to move. When I go for it, you’ve got to take off running—through the front door, off the deck, whatever. With his limp, Randy will barely be able to follow you. You run fast enough, he’ll never be able to catch you.”

  “What about you? What about Jason?”

  “Don’t worry about me. If I
’m lucky, I’ll get Baby Boy’s gun. Then Randy and I’ll be even,” Lee said, not sounding convincing even to himself. “You can’t worry about Jason. Once you get away, they’ll know the con is over and will probably just get the hell out of here. Why shoot Jason if you’re already on the way to the cops?”

  “God,” Becky said, closing her eyes. “Why is this happening?”

  Lee brought her close and wrapped her in his long arms. She ran her hands around his back and squeezed. They stood like that, not moving, not hearing anything but each other’s breathing and heartbeat until the key turned in the lock of the wine cellar door.

  “Lee,” they heard Randy call from the other side. “Open the door slowly. I’m about fifteen feet away, not on the other side of the door, buddy, so don’t come charging me with a wine bottle. I don’t want to have to shoot you prematurely.”

  Lee looked down and kissed Becky again. She pressed back against him, then they parted. Lee walked out and slowly opened the door to the wine cellar. Randy was on the far side of the bar, pointing the Glock at the two of them.

  “Hands where I can see them,” he said. “Now turn around. Okay, good. Glad to see you’ve got some sense, after all. It’d be a shame to bust all of those fine bottles of horse piss.”

  “They’re locked,” Lee said.

  Randy tsked. “Too bad. Alrighty, climb the stairs, if you please.”

  They passed back through the rec room and up the stairs, crossed the kitchen and into the living room. Jason sat on a couch, looking white as a sheet. He kept looking from Baby Boy to Randy and back. Baby Boy walked over and grabbed Lee around the upper arm. His hand felt like an enormous clamp. Lee’s heart gave a lurch—they were ready to do it.

  “Miss Winters, you sit over there, next to Mr. Ford,” Baby Boy said. He stopped and grinned. “Just like the movies, ain’t it? ’Cept I’m your director this time. And Lee, you step right over here by the door—”

  Randy, who had been walking towards the door as well, stopped. “You hear that?”