by Eric Beetner
I had no clue how this would all go down. I came to a drug deal with no money except for the twelve bucks in my pocket. Griffin was expecting money in exchange for the load. The dumb-ass never specified how much he expected to get, but I assumed it was north of twelve dollars. I guess his not asking for an amount was further evidence that neither one of us had any experience at buying and selling kilos of cocaine.
I checked the clock again. Still a half hour before the meet. I hadn’t been able to sleep so I drove here to wait it out and fight with the condensation. I shouldn’t have let myself get so distracted with other shit. I needed a plan and a way to get away from this clean. I had nothing.
A car pulled into the parking lot and I recognized it as Clyde’s. He must have sped here. I didn’t know if I should expect to see his wife and newborn in the back seat, but he was alone.
I tapped on the horn once and waved when he looked over. He got out and came to me, oddly wearing hospital scrubs. When he got in the passenger side he let in a gust of cold air and the equilibrium of my fog bank was thrown off.
He looked like a hangover had died on his face. Red veined eyes, pale cheeks, bits of food stuck in his teeth. As rough as the past day had been on me, Clyde looked like he’d taken the brunt of it.
“Hey, man,” I said. I figured not pointing out how bad he looked was a good move on my part.
“Hey,” he said. “Nothing yet?”
“We got time still.”
“What’s the plan?”
“You didn’t bring one?”
Clyde looked at me with a crooked face. “You have no plan?”
“I told him we’d pay him, but you know I can’t do that.”
“Well, I’m not gonna pay him.”
“So he’s not getting paid, I guess.”
Clyde turned to face forward, his heavy breathing fogging the glass again in spots as the air blew hard to fight it. “We need to get those packages back.”
“I know we do. And you can say drugs. We all know what the hell is in them.”
“If we all know it, why do we need to say it?”
I nodded my head in silence. So that’s how it was going to be. I risk my life to set things right on a deal that had nothing to do with me and he’s going to go get all bitchy with me.
Then, like he read my thoughts, Clyde apologized. “Shit, I’m sorry, Brent. I’m fucking exhausted and my wife thinks I’m a deadbeat dad already. The kid’s only been out for a day and already I’m the worst dad ever. This is just not what I needed right now.”
“I know, man. It’s cool.”
We looked at each other and smiled. No bro hugs for us, a cheesy grin would have to do. Clyde’s cell phone rang with a snippet of a Cat Stevens song, one I knew was Madeline’s favorite. Clyde didn’t even have to check the caller I.D. “Shit.”
He clicked the phone on and held up a finger to silence me. “Hey, baby?”
Her voice was so loud and shrill, I heard every word in the confines of the car.
“Where the hell are you?”
“I had to take care of something. I’ll be back real soon.”
“Clyde? Clyde?” It was like she expected him to know the rest, and I think he did. He knew how completely ridiculous it was for him to take off at a moment like that. “Clyde, our daughter.”
“I know, baby. I know. That’s what I’m taking care of. If you just give me a little bit of time, she’ll come back to us. I swear it. I promise.”
“Clyde, what the hell did you do?”
“I promise, baby. Just a little while longer. I’ll see you soon.”
He was almost in tears as he rushed her off the phone. He had to hang up on her yelling, but he avoided the questions she hurled at him.
I didn’t know what to say to him. So I just said, “I’m sure it will be okay.”
He almost lost it and broke into choking sobs, but he held it together. “They took her.”
“I know,” I said, feeling my temper rise. “Over some drugs in the ceiling of our Tahoe? What the fuck, man?”
“I need to get those drugs back.”
“I’ll say you fucking do. Clyde, I’m so sorry, man.”
“Thanks.”
One man I did not want to be right then was Sean Griffin. Knowing Clyde’s little girl was out there in the clutches of the dealers who owned the load in the Tahoe, I knew for a fact that Clyde would do anything to get the load back so he could get his daughter. Griffin did not want to mess with a live wire like Clyde.
“I got somewhat of a plan,” he said. Clyde held out a rectangle of plastic. An I.D. I read it and holy shit—an FBI badge. The name said Stu Trumble. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“I borrowed it.”
And the list of felonies grew longer. “What are you gonna do with it?”
“Get the drugs back. Then get my daughter.”
I hoped like hell he was right and I loved the plan. Mostly because I saw a very familiar Tahoe pull into the parking lot right then.
41
SEAN
“Is that who we’re supposed to meet?” I didn’t answer. “Sean. Is that who we are supposed to meet?”
“I don’t know, Linda. Probably. Just shut up a second.”
Two guys sat in the front of an Infiniti. It looked like one was a doctor. I hoped they had cash, because all of a sudden I just wanted to get this over with. I was sweating everywhere. Even my balls were wet. “Stay here,” I said.
I climbed out of the car and looked around. I’d chosen the parking lot at the Benjamin Franklin hotel. It was busy and I knew from a slight indiscretion a few years back when Linda and I had a bad fight, that it rented rooms by the hour. No one would think anything of a couple of cars parked for a short time. At least I hoped not.
I covered half the distance to the Infiniti and waited. The guy in green doctor’s wear leaned over and said something to the driver. I hadn’t brought a gun. What an idiot. I hadn’t brought a gun. Everyone knows you take a gun to a drug deal. Sweat puddled in my flip flops. Second thoughts pinged around in my head. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. I wiped the sweat from my eyes and waited.
The men in the Infiniti quit talking. Slowly, the passenger door opened. The doctor climbed out. He looked like a microwaved turd. Two black eyes and a bruised nose. What the fuck? The other guy, the little shit from the car place climbed out next. They both shambled toward me.
“You got it?” the doctor asked.
“Yeah. He’s got it. Where the fuck is our money?” I jerked at the words. Linda had left the safety of the Tahoe and stood beside me.
“Linda, what the fuck?”
“I said where’s our money?” Linda said again.
I moved to grab her arm, but she yanked it away.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Calm down, ma’am.” Linda stopped and stared at him. He cleared his throat again. “I’m going to have to ask you to accompany my friend here to headquarters. I’ll be taking over your vehicle.”
My heart hammered in my chest. He held out his identification. FBI. It screamed at me from its little laminated cover. Holy fuck. Probably an undercover narc or some shit. I’d done it now. My stomach gurgled and for a horrifying minute I thought I was literally going to shit my pants. I didn’t even know that was possible. Turns out, it is. People can actually be scared enough to shit their pants. I clenched and the feeling passed.
Linda stood beside me, her mouth hanging open. Her breath rasped in and out in a wheeze. At least if we were in prison I wouldn’t have to listen to her breathing, or talking, or walking, or anything anymore.
“Fine,” I said, holding out my wrists for cuffs. “I don’t give a fuck anymore. Take me away. Get me away from her.”
She rocked back like I’d slapped her. “Sean,” she said. She said it real quiet too, like she was surprised I’d dare to hate her. Tough shit. I did. I hated her.
I stared at the cop in scrubs. “So what’s with the disguise?”
The driver shuffled his feet and looked nervous. “We’ve been up all night, pal. No more talking. You’ve caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people. Get in the car. Now.”
I jerked my head toward the Tahoe. “Keys are in it.”
There was a sound like a car backfiring and bit of the parking lot puffed up in front of me. The sound came again and Linda fell to the ground.
Everything after that blurred. The FBI guy and his driver ran back to the Infiniti and jumped inside. Why hadn’t they drawn their weapons and fired back?
Linda lay on the ground, moaning. “Get up,” I said. “Get up!” Blood leaked from a spot on her side. Shit. I leaned down as more asphalt kicked up around us. “Linda. Get up. Move your ass. I don’t want to die.”
She grunted and pushed herself to her knees. “Fuck. You.” she said, pushing my hands away as I tried to help her up. We limped to the Tahoe and climbed inside. A bullet pinged off the hood.
I slammed the car into reverse and whipped it around. I hit the gas as a bullet shattered the rear window.
I pulled out into traffic and sped way, wondering what the fuck we would do now.
42
SKEETER
Goddammit. I’m gonna get an earful for this. Don’t shoot when you’re high, Skeeter. You got no aim when you’re high, Skeeter. Fuck.
It was a good goddamn plan, if I could have hit ’em. I got one, I know that. The woman. Same fatty who clocked me with the tray. Felt damn good to put a slug in her.
I watched them all get out of their cars and stand there in the open like a dumb-ass bridge game in the middle of a parking lot. Suburban fat-asses and those car rental jerk weeds. Sometimes I just fuckin’ hate humanity.
I got to what I thought was a good vantage point. Kinda hard to find a good spot in this place. Not a lot of trees or other stuff to hide behind. Not where I could keep an eye on things at least. So maybe I was a little too far away. You know how you can get beer goggles and think a girl is fuckable even when in the cold light of day she’s a greasy troll? Well, maybe I got meth goggles on and thought I could hit four targets from a distance that perhaps I was not quite the marksman for. And maybe my hand was a little shaky.
Either way, Corgan was gonna be pissed. And by the time I got back to my car, the bastards had scattered and I didn’t see where they went. Shit. At least I got the woman.
43
BRENT
No way in hell I was going to lose that Tahoe from my sight. Clyde wasn’t buckled in, and I don’t think he even had is door closed yet when I punched it.
“Who the fuck was shooting?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Clyde was watching the SUV burn rubber out of the parking lot, knowing that if we lost them and this whole deal went south, his daughter was in jeopardy. I know he wanted to tell me to speed up, to go after them, but he could see I was doing whatever I could to catch up.
We banged over a curb and landed in the street, trying to cut them off, but the Tahoe made almost a complete U-turn and tore out of the lot on the opposite side.
“Brent!” Clyde couldn’t give detailed instructions, he was too panicked. His daughter might as well have been in the backseat screaming, “Daddy, Daddy. Don’t let them take me.”
I shot the Infiniti over the curb and back into the parking lot. I started to worry about the shocks, but I had no choice. We took out a bed of flowers and dented the front bumper pretty damn well as I crashed back down to pavement level off the strip of landscaping between the street and the lot. I was thankful for the nearly vacant early morning parking lot as I gunned it to follow the SUV.
“It must have been one of Corgan’s men,” Clyde said, still trying to figure the shooting. “Why the hell would he break it up right as we were about to get the thing back?”
“We didn’t have any money,” I said. “And that bitch didn’t seem like she was going to leave without any.”
“Oh, Jesus, I don’t care. Just catch them. Don’t let them get away.”
I wasn’t going to. The Tahoe’s engine was big, sure, but ours was wasn’t hauling around such a heavy load. We growled like a Lamborghini as we barreled after them.
“He was about to give up,” Clyde cried out before punching the dash.
We hit the street on the far end of the lot and I could see the Tahoe veer around a corner a block away. Griffin drove like a drunk and the car fishtailed out before he wrestled control back. Let them roll the damn thing. We didn’t need the vehicle—the actual SUV still belonged to us—all we needed was in that ceiling.
Down the straightaway I gave it all I had. I waited until I felt uncomfortable before I braked to make it around the corner I’d seen the SUV turn. The car gripped nicely on the pavement, a few early morning drivers swerving to get out of my way. Griffin was up ahead, moving fast. We were out of the beach-side business area already, the trees around us filling in and the buildings becoming more spaced out. I chanced a look down and we were doing eighty-two.
Clyde worried his lip with his bottom teeth as he watched the wide-screen of the windshield like it was the most exciting and tense movie he’d ever seen.
I had to veer around one car between us and Griffin, but after that it was a straight shot right up his ass. Griffin didn’t bother to turn or try to lose us in the maze of side streets. As criminals go, this guy was worse than we were.
I pulled up beside him, close enough to see him arguing with the woman who’d been shot. His wife. Quite different from the cuckolded nag I’d met in the rental office. I don’t know when she’d grown a pair of balls, but I wish she hadn’t.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Ram him.”
“Maybe you should flash him your badge. Tell him to stop.”
“Run him off the road, goddammit.”
Clyde reached for the wheel and tried to steer me into the SUV. We clipped the back panel, right behind his rear tire. The Tahoe was so much bigger than our car it barely flinched at the smack on the ass, but Griffin was such a panty-waste driver that he jerked the wheel and sent his car into a snake slither pattern across the yellow lines. I braked a little to back away from his wild side-to-side and got ready in case he righted the ship and I had to ram him again. I didn’t have to.
The Tahoe squealed right and the front tire bit the soft shoulder. That did him in. Brake lights flared on and he slid off the road and into a ditch. I glided to a halt behind him and Clyde was out the door before my wheels stopped rolling.
44
CLYDE
I jumped from the car and strode to where the Tahoe had come to rest, nose down, in the ditch. Griffin was rubbing his neck as if he’d wrenched it when he went off the road. I opened his door and pulled him out by the ear. If there’s one thing I learned from my fifth grade English teacher, it’s that you can make a guy do anything if you get him by the ear.
Mr. Sean Griffin climbed out of the car without protest, whimpering the whole way. I twisted the ear for good measure and he grabbed my wrist as he started to sink to his knees. I shook him off and clocked him in the nose. Then I spun him around and slammed his face against the back seat window of the car so he could have a good look at his wife. She was writhing in the back seat, crying and bleeding all over the upholstery. She reached up and laid her palm on the window. It left a bloody streak when she pulled it away. Her mouth was working and her face was red. I noticed Griffin had turned the car off and it had to have been getting hot in there. It looked like Mrs. Griffin was yelling. At least we had that in common . . . we both had pissed off wives. I pushed his face into the glass. “Is this what you wanted, you fat fuck? Is this how you thought it would go down?”
“No. Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I pulled the badge from my pocket and waved it in his face. “Speeding,” I said, punching him in the back.
“We were getting shot at.”
“Fleeing the scene of a shooting.” I punched him again. “Not cooperating with an investigation.”
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br /> “I’m cooperating. Oh God, I’m cooperating. My wife’s been shot.”
I punched him in the kidney and he crumpled to the ground. “Please don’t hurt us. Oh God, please don’t hurt us.” I kicked him for good measure.
Brent was standing in the ditch looking at something in the distance. He looked like hell. He looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Seeing him helped bring me back to where I needed to be, right here, thinking of my daughter. Griffin had his hand wrapped around my foot.
“Where are the keys?” I asked.
He just laid there, blubbering. I kicked him again with my free foot. “Where are the fucking keys?”
“In the ignition,” he wheezed.
I moved around him and opened the back door, pulling the bleeding Mrs. Griffin out and letting her fall on top of her husband. I moved to get in the driver’s seat.
“What do you want to do with these guys?” Brent asked, his voice quiet. He didn’t get pissed very often, but when he did, his voice got quiet like that.
We needed to get off the road. We’d been parked here for a few minutes now. It would suck if a good Samaritan stopped by or, God forbid, a real cop. I blew out a breath. “Shit. Let them walk. She’s not hurt so bad. Probably just a flesh wound.”
“Probably,” Brent said real quiet.
“Look,” I said. “We’re not killers. I don’t care what you do with them. Don’t hurt them any worse than they already are.”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Griffin asked. “You’re a cop.”
God help me, I wanted to kick her too. “If you can get back to Richmond and check on the shop, I’d appreciate it. I don’t even know if it is still standing. Let me take care of this last bit of business and then we’ll talk, okay?”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me.
I climbed in the Tahoe and tossed it into 4WD to get out of the ditch.
