Oh, how Beemer loved that sound.
Beemer stood stock still as fingers were pointed at him. He did this until he could feel his heart slowing. The key here was to make sure this was somebody else’s aw, fuck moment. And not his.
“Your truck, motherfucker?” expressed the obvious leader of the crew. Beemer noticed the sneakers first. White basketballers, laces loosened. He instantly ranked the hoodlum as Motherfucker #1. He quickly shortened it to MF #1. Why? Because the more Beemer slowed his heart, the less effort he cared to expend on disposable humans.
“I asked you a fuckin’ question!” shouted MF #1.
“Yeah,” said Beemer. “My truck.”
This is when Beemer saw the pistol coming out from underneath MF #1’s bleached T-shirt. Even at the one hundred and fifteen foot difference between him and the crew boss, Beemer recognized the make and model before the muzzle was level. Glock 27, .40 caliber. Small, standard nine cartridge capacity plus one in the pipe. Easily concealed, easier to shoot.
“Well, we gots some hungry friends,” said MF #1.
“Yeah,” said MF #2. “And they all likes the red meat!”
Motherfucker #2 stood slightly taller than his number one compadre, thinner even at his elongated, alien-like neck. After laughing at his own line, he climbed back up on the bumper of the refrigerated trailer, yanking rhythmically on the locked handle as if to make a point.
“Don’t want your wheels,” said MF #1. “Just unlock an’ leave the trailer. We all do the rest.”
“Right…okay,” said Beemer. He left the bag of cigarettes and Gatorade on the blacktop, held his hands out to his sides, palms open in submission. “Lock’s in the cab. Requires a code.”
“So gimme the Goddamn code, motherfucker.”
“Thumbprint, too,” said Beemer, holding up his opposing digit in a simple thumbs-up gesture. Beemer nodded toward the cab and slowly began to walk forward as if prepared to execute anything MF #1 asked. He let his eyes flit to the other two gang members, quickly tagged MF #3 and MF #4. They were both seated on the guardrail between the blacktop strip and the weed-covered berm, beyond which was the undeveloped and graffiti-stained freeway under-strata. Presumably, this is where the gang bangers appeared from after receiving a text from the younger General Discount dock worker.
The elder was in the shade of the warehouse’s open door, uncomfortably standing with his arms hanging limply to the side, his face full of resignation and disappointment.
“Your smokes are in the bag,” said Beemer with a head feint to what he had left behind on the blacktop.
“Shut the fuck up and get with the thumb shit!” said MF #1.
Beemer nodded and continued walking toward the big rig, palms raised higher with every careful step. As he closed the gap on MF #1, he made sure to clock the man’s pupils for any kind of drug interaction. Anything narcotic was a concern. As were potential tremors that might cause an adrenalin-spiked spasm in the banger’s trigger finger. Beemer had seen enough of that. Soldiers of all stripes, jacked on everything from crack to cold medicine, their weapons innocently leveled on Iraqi prisoners. Suddenly, there would be a lone crack, a fine spray of blood in the air, followed by the knees of a prisoner buckling as he fell dead or wounded to the sand. Sure as shit it was always an accident. The soldier would practically drop his weapon in fright at what he had unforgivably accomplished. Yessir. That was an aw, fuck moment if there ever was one.
And this is about to be your aw, fuck moment, Motherfucker #1.
As Beemer glided past the Glock’s muzzle, he heard those white basketball sneakers shuffle and follow close behind. Was it going to be this easy? Beemer wondered. Was that gun stuck so close behind him that all he would have to do was a quick one-eighty, snatch the pistol from MF #1’s sweaty grip and proceed to pistol whip the banger until he wet himself? Beemer could. He possessed both the training and the skill, not to mention the experience. He gave himself a ninety-nine percent chance of success. But would it be as personally satisfying to himself as it would be memorable for MF #1? It would certainly qualify as an aw, fuck moment. But hardly “the” aw, fuck Beemer’s ego wanted to impart on the do-ragged prick holding the Glock aimed between his shoulder blades.
Beemer was reaching for the chrome grab handle, ready to pull himself up into the cab when he felt the Glock’s muzzle press against his spine. The L4 vertebrae, Beemer reckoned, just south of his L2 and L3, fused together thanks to a munitions misfire. The army docs had told him he was lucky his entire spine hadn’t shattered from the concussion instead of just enduring that penny-sized piece of steaming shrapnel lodged in his back, melting away half of the crucial disk.
“So what the fuck kinda lock needs a secret fuckin’ thumbprint?” asked MF #1. “What’s really in there?”
“Just meat,” said Beemer, halfway into the cab, pausing and hoping to hell he hadn’t erred in not disarming the gunman when he had the chance.
“Bullshit.”
“Ain’t the cargo, friend. It’s the truck. Some weeks it’s meat. Others it’s refrigerated industrial parts. Me? I just drive.”
The gun muzzle twisted against Beemer’s back. MF #1’s brain had just switched into indecision mode.
“What the fuck?” shouted MF #2, still hanging off the trailer’s bumper.
“Look, dude,” said Beemer, his face half-turned to the banger. “It’s all insured. And I don’t give a shit what you do with it. You want me to tell the cops I went in for smokes and a dump and came out and the trailer was empty? Fine by me. I still get paid. You and your friends get to eat steak. Everybody’s good.”
“Then what the fuck you waiting for?” said MF #1. “Do your thumb thing!”
“All right, then,” said Beemer, climbing into the cab. The seat gave a leather squeak as he settled behind the wheel. He retrieved his iPhone from the dash, waved it at MF #1, then bent at the waist to reach under the seat. “Watch this, dude. Latest technology.”
“Stop, motherfucker!”
“Whoa, whoa,” said Beemer, freezing. “I’m stopped, I’m stopped!”
“What you got there?”
“Connecter,” said Beemer, revealing a white Apple pin-out coupler and cord laced innocently in his fingers. “Just gotta plug it in.”
Beemer didn’t wait for permission. He plugged in the iPhone and quickly opened the lock/unlock application so he could show it to MF #1.
“Nifty app,” said Beemer. “You got an iPhone?”
“Samsung, motherfucker!” said MF #1, incredulous.
Beemer punched up a code on the iPhone’s touch screen. The image flashed to an icon waiting for a thumb print. Oh, how he loved this application. Wished to hell he had had such a tool in Iraq when handling demolitions details. Beemer’s biggest fear after setting the protocols for the demo—be it disposing of munitions or wiring up a car for a CIA assassination—had been the potential for tampering to the trigger mechanism. Had Beemer been supplied with an iPhone and the ten-dollar app, arming and disarming devices would have been as safe as playing a round of Angry Birds.
“There we go,” said Beemer after applying his thumb to the touch screen and the icon had flashed green. “Open ’er up.”
“SPEEDY!” barked MF #1, ostensibly revealing MF #2’s street name. “Try it!”
“NOTHIN’,” shouted back MF #2, only to have his voice drowned out by another overhead trucker applying a noisy Jake Brake.
Bbbrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaapppppppppppp!
MF #2 had given the trailer’s latch two hard pulls, kicked the door, and pulled at it yet again to no avail.
“You hear that? Shit didn’t work,” said MF #1.
“S’awright,” said Beemer, clearing the app, restarting the code sequence and reapplying his thumb when prompted. The display flashed green again. “’Kay. Try it again.”
MF #1 waved his gun toward the back of the rig. Beemer could feel the rig rocking slightly as the hood on the rear bumper continued to try the latch to
the trailer doors without success.
“Nothin’ motherfucker!” spat MF #1. He stepped up onto the running board, switched the pistol to his left hand and wrapped his right tightly around the grab handle to steady himself.
“Wait, wait,” begged Beemer. “Gotta be the connection.” He twisted over and traced the slight cord into the center console. “Wait. Think I see the problem. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Try it again.”
“Try again,” shouted MF #1.
“Again?” asked MF #2, steamed, sweaty, but still standing on the rear bumper.
“What? Like you didn’t hear me?”
“I’ll try, but I don’t think shit’s changed.”
The slender banger on the trailer’s bumper slid back along the four-inch ledge, grabbed the handle and gave it a solid yank.
“Fuckin’ nothin’!” shouted MF #2, slapping the door panel in frustration.
The leader of the gang—aka Motherfucker #1—was quickly elevating from annoyed to flat out cap-banging mad. He was considering popping the cracker truck driver right then and there out of nothing more than ghetto spite.
“I know that look,” said Beemer in an audible whisper.
The gang banger with the pistol had erred, allowing himself to become distracted by his number two. And in that nanosecond of time when he was considering unloading the Glock’s clip into Beemer’s body, he had gone from control to…
“Aw, fuck,” said the gang banger without a synapse of thought.
“Exactly,” returned Beemer, pushing the fat barrel of a sawed off shotgun closer to MF #1’s face. A modified Benelli M4 with a pistol grip. The very same weapon he had hauled up and down every street and back alley of Fallujah.
Beemer was prepared to explain the simple yet clarifying beauty of the aw, fuck moment. That somehow in those rare, adrenalized snippets of time, true human character is tested and formed. But that was before Beemer heard it. The Jake Brake. Another trucker, throwing open the valves of his massive, diesel engine, thus temporarily choking the engine of fuel in order to slow the load and save his conventional brakes. The blast of noise through that loading strip was like an ocean wave, building toward a peak before being sucked back into the deep. It was a snap decision by Beemer, and not particularly well thought out. More opportunity-driven than anything else.
An impulse.
The braking sound climaxed at near 132 decibels.
Bbbrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaapppppppppppp!
Nobody heard the shotgun fire. The din was so loud, such a stress on the auditory nerves, the action played out like a movie gone silent. A puff of smoke. A twitch in MF #1’s neck. The basic G forces as his muscles gave way. The heavy sack-like way his body folded on to the pavement. The red mist that hung in the air until it was whisked away on a gust of hot wind.
When the sound of the passing big rig dissolved, Beemer swung from the cab, jacking another shell into the chamber before his feet landed next to MF #1’s body. The rest was pretty expected. The gang bangers scattered back behind the trailer, tripping over the guardrail and scratching their way up and over the berm like rats under a million-watt Klieg light. Both the younger and elder remained frozen in the shade of the loading dock, seemingly stuck somewhere between their flight or fight responses. At least, that could be said for the younger.
“I know where you work which means I know where you live, your family lives, and your friends,” said Beemer, already regretting his poor decision. Then he turned the shotgun on the elder. “Same goes for you, ol’ man. Only I’m gonna figure you’re not dumb enough to have had any skin in this bullshit.”
The elder nodded. Was it approval or mere understanding? Beemer didn’t stick around to find out. He pocketed the empty shotgun casing, returned to the cab of his tractor rig, revved the engine, geared the beast into first gear, and rolled. Cool. Like Steve McQueen. At least that was the picture he was able to project.
Underneath Beemer’s skin he was fist-pounding the steering wheel, screaming out loud and cursing himself with curdled invectives. In the snap of a finger, he’d turned the gangbanger’s aw, fuck moment into his own self-loathing revelation. Once again, his impulses had gotten the better of him. The Idiot inside of him—the bastard with whom he’d wrestled his entire life—had found a way out of his psyche’s cell.
My Idiot, said Beemer to himself, attempting to take ownership of the personal demon. He wheeled the big rig up the freeway on-ramp, carefully checking his mirrors for law enforcement or revenge-minded gang members coordinating their bloody reprisal. All the while, he could feel his idiot friend looking for a place to relax within his core. He’d spent a lifetime learning to put a lid on the naughty bastard. Years of his prepubescent youth had been dedicated to understanding the urge to unleash the chaos. He’d even once told a therapist that his biggest nightmare was having his parents lock him in a room with nothing but a single red button that, if triggered, would launch an array of nuclear missiles that would arc into the atmosphere before an eventual descent to destroy the earth. The temptation to press the red button would eventually become so overwhelming for the boy that he’d have no choice but to choose to end the world.
It was the Marines that gave Beemer the eventual discipline to put a muzzle on his impulses. The structure and regimen of military life placed a positive spin on the young man’s future. And with every ounce of confidence that grew within him, The Idiot’s voice turned fainter and fainter. For a while, it was so buried that Beemer had forgotten he’d ever had an issue.
Then came Fallujah.
9
The new Lennox station—redubbed the Los Angeles County Sheriff's South Station since it moved two blocks from Lennox Boulevard to Imperial Highway—served the county’s southeast side from the edge of Los Angeles International Airport, north through Inglewood, sweeping in an arc across Hawthorne into Compton. Despite its change of location and Southwestern style of stucco and tile roof—not altogether different in architecture from half the territory’s strip malls—it was still notorious Lennox, populated and operated by a collection of high crime cowboys.
Aka, The Lennox Lawmen.
Like most LAPD cops, Gonzo had heard plenty about Lennox. It was considered a “fast” station, a high-test culture of crime, caffeination, and skull-cracking. According to LAPD mythology, Lennox and its sister stations, Century and Compton, engaged in equal parts street justice and equal parts modern urban police work the general public expected from its law officers.
The last fifteen minutes of the ride had been shared in silence, but for the blue streak of cursing Lucky had unleashed when he’d slowed to turn into the entrance to the old Lennox station. There, he had discovered ten-foot-high chain-link circling the shuttered little workhorse of a building. Two minutes later, they were winding around behind the “new” station. Lucky had barely backed into a handicapped space nearest the tinted automatic doors at the rear of the building when he’d set the parking brake and exited the vehicle. The engine was left on, Gonzo figured, to keep her comfortable and air-conditioned. Was it a subtle effort by Lucky to keep Gonzo in the car? Or could it have been the unconscious act of a gentleman wanting to keep his passenger comfortable?
Gonzo didn’t hang on the question for too long, taking more interest in the three sheriffs who had met Lucky practically the instant he’d slipped from the car. Lucky was greeted with hugs, handshakes, and consoling back-slaps by the trio, each garbed in detectives’ street clothes, weapons and sheriffs’ badges fixed to their belts. The display was informative to Gonzo. This Kern County cop was more than buddies with the Lennox deputies. The body language, the direct eye contact, the hushed speaking style, plus the quick and conspiratorial proximity to each other spoke volumes to Gonzo. The four-man gathering that formed in the ten square yards of shade on the other side of the gas pumps was the kind of man-huddle reserved for cops who have shared more than coffee. These were the kind of cops who’d shared each other’s lives and secrets. Cops who had spilled blood with each
other and for each other.
“Holy shit,” said Gonzo to herself as if wisdom was being imparted from her soul. “Lucky’s from Lennox.”
This is when Gonzo crawled out from her air-conditioned cocoon, shut the door loud enough to get a glance of attention, and began the twenty-step trek to the shade near the gas pumps. Her boots clicked against the concrete in a gait that sounded more womanly than kick-ass cop.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” said Lucky, holding up a stalling palm.
“You’re not Kern, are you?” said Gonzo, seeking confirmation. “You’re Goddamn local.”
“Who’s that?” asked Detective Lopes, the runt of the litter. Lopes had short curly brown hair, thick eyebrows, and a cop mustachio circa 1982.
“Her?” Gonzo overheard Lucky say to the three sheriff’s detectives gathered on the other side of the station’s gas pumps. “She’s supposed to be some LAPD detective.”
“Why the fuck?” asked the hulking man, later to be introduced to Gonzo as Sergeant “Flip” Bledsoe.
“Dunno,” said Lucky. “Babysitter. Tour guide. Thinks I’m some shit-kicker from Kern.”
None of the slurs surprised Gonzo. She’d heard plenty in her career. “So which is it?” asked Gonzo, unfazed, arms akimbo.
“We’re in the middle of somethin’,” said Lucky. “You mind?”
“Don’t pull this shit,” said Gonzo. “You think this is the first time I’ve gotten the ‘deputy two-step?’”
“Lady? You’re in Lennox,” reminded Bledsoe. “This is County property. And we’d greatly appreciate it if you’d get back in Lucky’s car.”
“You some kinda club? Or are you cops?” suggested Gonzo, giving up no ground whatsoever.
All pupils narrowed on Lucky. As if the inference was that the next move was clearly his to make.
“I didn’t tell her,” said Lucky. He shook his head and looked at the ground. “She don’t know.”
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 6
