Quick Sands: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 1)

by Edward J. McFadden III

  His trees would be kindling in three weeks, and they lost value every day they weren’t at market. He could still salvage things if he acted fast. Save himself from his own stupidity. He was riding a hunch and risking getting himself in serious trouble, but he couldn’t let the punks get away with it. He might be neutered, but he wasn’t dead, and justice was justice.

  The Ford trembled as Ramage pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

  Chapter Four

  As it turned out Ramage found no signs of Burt and Ernie at the first rest stop, or the second. Nobody recalled seeing the truck or either of the men riding in it. Apparently, Chiclet and his handler were smarter than he’d given them credit for. Either that, or he’d been wrong, and they were running in a different direction.

  His bruised body ached, but he could breathe OK, though his chest stung when he breathed deep. He had probably cracked a rib… or three, but there was nothing to be done even if he had. His muscles hurt due to injury and overload, and his head throbbed.

  Ramage got cash, wrapped his stomach and chest in sports bandages, downed a bottle of aspirin, and bought a burner phone with prepaid minutes. He contacted his cellular provider to inform them that his phone had been stolen and asked them to lock the device, which was easily done once he proved who he was by providing his credit card number and the answers to two security questions.

  Then he called Rex. He didn’t know the man’s real name, only that he worked for the government and he was Ramage’s case manager, a fancy term for babysitter. He had to be careful what he told Rex, but he didn’t know anyone else who had access to the information he needed and cared about his plight.

  Rex picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, Rex, its Ramage.”

  “What’s wrong? You’re not due for a check-in until Friday,” Rex said. He sounded like he’d just woken up, and it occurred to Ramage that he had no idea where Rex was. It could be the middle of the night where he was because Rex’s calls were filtered through a call center in Washington and dispersed into the field. He could be anywhere.

  “I wanted to let you know I’ve been robbed. My truck was taken, I was assaulted, and my phone and all my personals were stolen. Then they beat me pretty good and dumped me with the trash,” Ramage said.

  “Shit. Your phone secured?”

  “Yup.”

  “What are you going to do? I assume you went to the local police?”

  “I did.”

  “And? Any problems?”

  “None that I know of. The deputy sheriff who came out to interview me had his head up his ass.”

  “Are you alright?” Rex asked.

  That was the man’s fifth question since learning the bad news, so Ramage said nothing.

  “You need me to send a car out for you? You need to settle down,” Rex said.

  “No, but I need you to check something out.”

  “Ruh oh.”

  “Naw, nothing crazy. Can you run a check through your magic box for the nicknames Chiclet and Piranha?”

  “Who are they?”

  “The dirtbags that robbed me.”

  “No. No. No.” Rex said. He sounded fully awake now, like his brain had realized a potential problem was on the horizon. “You can’t go after these guys on your own. You need to keep a low profile or the bigwigs—”

  “Easy. I just want to give the cops a head start. That’s all. You know how these local boys can be.”

  Rex said nothing.

  “My truck is all I’ve got left. You know that, man. Come on. I won’t follow them. I just want to get the cops off their asses and give them something to go on.”

  Rex sighed. “That’s ten kinds of bullshit and you know I know it. Show me some respect.”

  “Really, I—”

  “How long do I know you? Since the incident? Right? And you expect me to believe you’re going to let two guys who attacked you, took your stuff, and left you laying with the garbage, just walk away free? Come on, man. I thought we had a better relationship than that.”

  “We do, so I’m respecting you by providing plausible deniability.”

  Rex laughed. “Yeah. Hold on you pain in my ass.”

  Ramage heard typing in the background. Rex knew what he’d been through. All the gory details, and the man had a streak of compassion not common in people in his line of work.

  “Where are you?” Rex said.

  “Rest stop outside Wichita.”

  “You’re going to love this. Your boy Piranha came right up on the federal organized crime database.”

  Silence and key tapping on the other end of the line. Ramage waited, the dried brown grass covering the endless grazing fields rushing by on both sides of the interstate. Traffic was light, and with the Taurus on cruise control there wasn’t much to do except keep the car between the two white lines. Compared to Big Blue, he barely felt like he was driving.

  Rex said, “Piranha is none other than Joseph Piranhio, son of Carl Piranhio, AKA the Sandman, a second-tier organized crime boss headquartered outside Odessa, Texas.”

  “Why the Sandman?”

  “No idea. There aren’t many notes in his file. Apparently, Mr. Piranhio senior keeps a real low profile. No arrests. No tax liens. By all accounts he’s a model citizen, but the state cops and the FBI know the guy is into something, otherwise he wouldn’t be in the database. That usually means his name has come up in other investigations, but in his case, nothing has been found so far.”

  “Anything on Chiclet?”

  “Nada.”

  “OK, I’ll let the cops know.”

  “Bullshit, but OK. What are you going to do?”

  “Wait around until the cops find my truck.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “You’ll have to help me get a new one.”

  “Those days are over. Your next stop is a permanent one. You know that.”

  Ramage said nothing.

  “I want to hear from you tomorrow,” Rex said.

  “10-4.”

  “You’re going after them. I know you are. Be careful and don’t get into trouble. Savvy? Let the police deal with it. If you get caught up in this and arrested there’s nothing—”

  “I know, I know. I’m on my own.”

  “I shouldn’t have given you the information. Shit. How do you get me to do these things for you?”

  “Now it’s my turn to call bullshit. Talk soon.” Ramage broke the connection and slipped his burner phone in a pocket. He was certain Rex had traced his number and current location, but that was OK.

  Ramage’s thoughts turned to weapons, as in how he was going to get some. He had no ID, and there was no way he could legally buy any type of gun without it, so that meant theft, or an illegal purchase, which he couldn’t use the credit card for. He’d need a large amount of cash, and that would take days to get from cash machines which limited him to three hundred dollars a day. He couldn’t bring the credit card to a bank, because of that pesky ID thing again. So theft it was.

  He went around Wichita, passed through Oklahoma City, and headed for Dallas. Ramage noticed the first Christmas tree when he stopped at a rest area outside Gainesville. Two of his trees leaned against rigs parked in the overnight area. He knew they were his because they were blue spruces wrapped in plastic mesh with the Pennsylvania Tree Farmers Association logo stamped on it.

  Ramage spoke with both drivers and in each case a man named Chic had sold the trees for the discounted price of fifty bucks each, and both men were bringing “the fancy blue trees” home to their families. It was easy to make money when you didn’t have to pay for the product.

  He saw a third tree on the shoulder of I-35, but it was the fourth tree that really pissed Ramage off.

  Traffic knotted-up the interstate in the middle of nowhere, the flat brown expanse of the plains of Oklahoma stretching on forever. The traffic slowed to a crawl, and then a full stop. Ramage sat with the Ford’s motor idling, nerves jumping. Each second that
ticked by his prey got further away and there was nothing he could do about it. Riding the shoulder was asking for trouble, since clearly there was an accident ahead. What else could stop traffic in the middle of a wasteland?

  A Christmas tree in the middle of the highway, that’s what.

  In the distance blue and red lights turned atop a patrol car Ramage couldn’t see. Heat rolled off the cars and trucks as they sat in line like dutiful children waiting for ice cream, exhaust fumes filling the air. The drivers around Ramage got antsy; pounding steering wheels, playing with phones and lighting cigarettes. Inch by painful inch he got closer to the patrol car.

  Then the flashing lights disappeared, and the traffic started to thin out and break up. He passed the torn-up Christmas tree on the side of the road. Ramage said, “Morons.” Chic and Piranha must’ve loosened the tiedowns to get the two trees they’d sold at the rest stop and did a half-ass job retightening the straps.

  His hands shook as he tried to calm himself. He opened the driver’s side window and a cool breeze pushed through the car. He breathed in and out, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders. He was on edge and would be until he had his stuff back and administered some justice, old school style.

  The road changed from blacktop to concrete slabs and the tap and pop as the car rolled over expansion joints was like the drumbeat of a death march. He was going eighty-miles-per-hour, yet he felt like he was standing still, alone in one of the brown fields along the highway, wandering, lost.

  He stopped at the next rest area to eat, get gas, and make plans for Dallas. He had an idea on how to get a gun and ammo, and he wanted to execute his plan at night, so with two hundred miles to go and it being only 4PM, he had a bit of time.

  He ordered a BLT and coffee, and when he was done he left a ten dollar tip and waited for the waitress to come collect it.

  Unlike Dolores, Kimmy was an old broken bird who looked like she’d been hauling fries and coffee since before Ramage was out of diapers. Her voice cracked and wheezed from years of smoking, and her hair was in a ball atop her head held together by a huge white butterfly clip.

  “Why, thank you,” Kimmy said. She slipped the ten-dollar bill into the pocket of her stained apron. “Hope you don’t expect any special service for that much money.” She winked at Ramage and his lower back hurt.

  Ramage did his we’ve been friends for years laugh, and said, “Well, you saw right through me.”

  Kimmy’s eyes went wide, and she smiled. “What happened to you, sweetie? You get hit by a bus?”

  Ramage chuckled. “Slipped on a potato chip bag.”

  “You need a bag of ice, honey?”

  He spared her the fake laugh. “Were there two guys, non-regulars, in here recently? One of the guys was named Chic? With his boss who looks a little like a young ugly Joe Pesci?”

  Kimmy’s face scrunched up like she’d smelled rotten eggs. “They friends of yours?”

  “Not at all. I’m looking for them. They stole my truck.”

  “Not surprised. The one with the dark hair was nasty, and they left a fifty-cent tip.”

  “Yikes. How long ago were they here?”

  “Oh, about two or three hours. Can I get you anything else?” She winked again.

  “No thanks, Kimmy.” He threw another five on the table and left the diner.

  Back on the interstate, Ramage laid out his plans for the evening, body thrumming with pain, mind drifting to the past as it always did when he got bored. Staying busy had kept him sane the last few years. Driving, finding things to transport and sell. Running his small business. It all occupied his time and made him feel normal and forget that while he might feel free, there was always a leash on him, his babysitters never far away. It would be that way for the rest of his life, or until he disappeared for good.

  The sun started its descent to the horizon in the west, and white trails from jets leaving Dallas crisscrossed the blue sky. All those people going someplace, with things to do and see, friends and family sharing special time together.

  Office buildings, restaurants, gas stations and hotels appeared along the interstate’s service road as he approached Dallas. When he was done with his business there he’d head to Odessa and reintroduce himself to Bert and Ernie.

  Chapter Five

  Most cities have two distinct faces, the darkness and the light, but Dallas has three. In addition to its good and bad, there’s an abandoned face. Ninety-eight percent of the people that worked in Dallas left to go to their rural homes at night, unlike many major cities where the majority of the workers lived in or on the outskirts of the city in which they worked. So when Ramage rolled off I-635 onto Riverside Drive he wasn’t surprised it was almost deserted.

  Garbage blew like tumbleweeds, and he thought of his favorite book, Earth Abides, about a guy who thinks he’s the last person alive on Earth. Dallas had an apocalyptic feel at night. All the streets were lit, but most of the storefronts were dark, and few cars moved around on the deserted roads.

  Ramage had changed his clothes along the way, which made it easier to blend in, and that’s what he had to do. He needed to find a person willing to give him some information, and in Ramage’s experience cab drivers and bartenders were the best source of information in any city, but catching a cab at random at 8:20PM on a Wednesday night was going to be hard.

  He drove down to the river wharf where there were several clubs, restaurants, and bars. He parked in the public lot and went into the nearest bar, a place called Grimley’s Pub and Grub. It was all dark wood and oak furniture, like the place was a historical landmark. The air was stale and crusty, the joint dimly lit. Ramage could make out several patrons in the shadows, quietly drinking by themselves or with others. Nobody paid him any attention.

  A young woman stood behind the bar, her dark hair falling over one eye, a large cross earing hanging from her right earlobe. Green garland ran along the edge of the bar and a Happy Holiday’s sign blinked next to a fancy iced decanter of Jägermeister. A man and a woman sat at the end of the bar, and Ramage watched the room in the reflection of a mirror mounted behind tiers of bottles, and still nobody paid him any attention.

  “Can I get you something?” said the bartender.

  Ramage climbed onto a stool. “Yeah. Martini, straight up.”

  “Com’in right up.”

  She returned moments later with a frosty glass of vodka and dry vermouth. He took a long sip, and the alcohol felt good sliding down his throat and warming his stomach. “Can you help me out?” he said.

  The bartender lifted and eyebrow.

  “I’d like to stop and see my uncle, he’s a cop.”

  The bartender stared at Ramage, her mouth hanging open a crack.

  “He’s off duty. He goes to this cop bar, I can’t remember the name of it.”

  “Tito’s?”

  “Yes! That’s it. Where is it again?”

  “Over on Singleton.”

  “Thanks. Can we settle-up?” he said.

  “Sure thing.” The bartender took his twenty and brought him eleven dollars change.

  He downed his drink, pushed the single across the bar, and put the ten in his pocket.

  Forty minutes later Ramage sat in the Taurus, parked in the shadows across the street from Tito’s.

  Cops tended to be drinkers, especially the older ones. It was a high stress job that often took its toll. Seeing the worst of people and the death and mayhem they cause gets harder to deal with as the idealism baked into cops at the academy fades. Many Ramage had known found peace drinking at home, but others stopped after their shift at their local joint to see friends and have a few before they had to answer to family.

  Most of the patrons Ramage saw enter Tito’s were men, some in uniform, some not. The parking lot was well lit, with people constantly coming and going, so breaking into a vehicle was going to be a challenge.

  Two cars pulled in, a new white sedan, maybe an unmarked, and an old red pickup truck. When the drive
rs had made their way inside, Ramage scanned the interiors of both vehicles with a penlight he’d purchased at a gas station, but saw no gun belts.

  Officers were required to secure their weapons when not on duty, preferably at their residence in a lockbox, or in a car trunk at a minimum, but Ramage knew how it was. He’d been married to a cop of a kind. They’d be at least one cop who would leave their gun belt on the front or back seat of their car while they go have a pop.

  A loud metallic screech made Ramage jump, and he looked around in panic, but saw nobody. There was another sound, this time of grinding metal. A compressor for an AC unit or a cold box in the area needed its bearings repacked.

  Ramage repeated his search process eight times over the course of two hours, and found nothing, but his ninth search turned up a possibility. It was a new Ford 150 in the land of pickups. It was dirty and dented, but Ramage could tell it was new by the registration. A gun belt sat on the front seat, but the doors were locked, and the flashing red light of a car alarm lit the interior of the car like Christmas lights.

  The compressor screeched and barked.

  A blue Jeep Liberty swung into the lot and an older overweight officer in uniform got out and headed for the bar, his gun belt on. Ramage sighed. This one had looked good, and then as if some god somewhere decided he needed a break, the cop turned and headed back to his truck. He opened the passenger door, slipped off his gun belt and dropped it on the front seat.

  Jackpot. He waited as the old cop lumbered across the parking lot and into Tito’s. Then he waited some more, just to ensure the guy hadn’t forgotten his wallet, or been stood up.

  Ramage got out of the Ford and worked his way around the lot, staying in the shadows out of the floodlights. When he got close to the Jeep he broke from the darkness and walked right toward his target. Not fast, or rushed, not slow and lazy, but at a normal speed, confident, like he belonged there.