by Theo Cage
“It’s a head - heart problem,” she said. “My head tells me he’s a man aiming for trouble. My heart tells me he would look so good on me. Like a great purse.”
Another half hour down the highway she pointed to a car passing them.
“That’s him,” she yelled. “The robber. Jessie.”
Rice looked down at an older model Honda Civic with ground-effect add-ons and a ludicrously large spoiler on the back trunk deck. It was passing slowly. Jesse was watching his speed.
Rice had his eye on the trunk. Based on Addie’s story, Jessie had enough cash in there to pay Rice’s way to freedom. A new identity would cost ten thousand minimum. He might be able to get across the border into Canada after all. Plus money to live on for the next few years.
And it was drug money. Cash that would just be used to buy more pot for fuzzy headed College students.
“What do you want me to do? Don't the police have his make and model?” Addie looked at Rice, picked up a fry and chewed on it slowly, saying nothing. “The police didn't talk to you?” Rice asked.
I'm not very good with car names. I told them he was driving a Camaro.”
Rice looked back at the Civic, which had pulled in front of them. “And why is he not a hundred miles ahead of us? Making his escape.”
“I think he's looking for me.” That made sense in a strange way. Jesse had lucked into thousands of dollars of drug money, which wasn’t reported stolen. And his accomplice at the truck stop intentionally misled the police so he could make a clean getaway. The only people after him would be the drug dealers.
Then Rice watched a bright yellow Hummer shoot up beside them, cut hard into the right lane in front of Jessie and hit the brakes. The Civic tried to pass, but every time he moved over, the Hummer would cut him off. Rice had no choice but to gear down.
“Is that your ex-boss?” Rice asked.
Addie was sitting up in her seat, her hands on the dash. “Frank will kill him. He has anger management issues.”
“I'm betting Jessie does too. Look.”
Frank had his window down and was giving Jessie the finger, which Jessie responded to by gunning his engine and accelerating within inches of the Hummer’s rear bumper. Rice was watching road rage drama in full bloom. If Frank knew Jessie was the robber, he was playing a clever game with him - challenging and dueling and threatening the young man. He increased his speed to stay on their tail.
“I don't think your robber friend knows that's Frank. He believes he's just some asshole on the highway giving him a rough time.”
The Hummer and Civic had slowed to the point that we were slowing down traffic. Rice moved the Kenny over to straddle the centerline, trying to discourage any drivers from passing and getting involved in the game of chicken being played out in front of them. They could hear shouted swearing and taunts over the screaming engines. Frank had tightened Jessie’s strings to the point of breaking. Rice could see a rest stop ahead off to the right - a parking lot, some trees and washrooms. Frank turned into the lot. Jessie followed, spinning his tires and driving like a wild man.
Rice braked at the side of the road and watched them both jump out of their vehicles, now nose to nose, their faces red.
“I stop those two from killing each other and we split the proceeds?” said Rice.
“Proceeds? There you go sounding like a cop again.”
“Deal?”
“Hey. It’s biker money. I don’t care. But how are you going to get it away from those two hotheads?” Just as she said this, he saw Frank pull a sawed-off shotgun from his SUV and push it into Jessie’s face. Jessie seemed unmoved.
“I’m going to distract them,” said Rice.
“With what?”
“Forty tons of semi-trailer.”
CHAPTER 22
Interstate 90, Washington State
AS RICE PULLED OFF THE HIGHWAY onto the feeder lane, he popped the truck’s gearshift into neutral and revved the engine hard. As the engine roared and then cycled back, the twin exhaust stacks blew out a long low rumbling trumpet call that cut through the silence and caused the two men to look up. The older man, Addie's former boss, was on the verge of apoplectic, the younger man leaning forward and waving his fist. Jessie seemed undaunted by the shotgun being jabbed into his face.
As the Kenworth barreled toward them, Frank's face turned from rage to surprise. He stepped back just in time as Rice rolled past him, plowing the semi into the back of Jessie's Honda, which spun and collided with the Hummer. Both drivers jumped back to avoid the vehicles careening past them.
When the Kenny came to rest, Jessie and Frank were now standing alongside the trailer, both of their vehicles tossed thirty feet down the length of the parking lot.
Almost before the rig came to a stop, Rice was out of the cab and circling back around the trailer. He was determined to end the standoff without gunfire.
When he trotted around the back, the two men were still staring in shock at their crumpled vehicles. Rice stepped up behind Frank and brought his right elbow down hard at the point where his neck poked out of his golf shirt. Both of Frank's arms seemed to lose guidance control and shoot out, the shotgun spinning out of his grip and landing on the pavement.
As Frank slumped to his knees, his head down, Rice scooped up the shotgun and turned to Jessie. The young man was smiling like a baboon. Rice wanted to slap the grin right off his face. He was running for his life, and this spoiled wannabe criminal thought this was all fun and games.
“I should just shoot you now. Do us all a favor,” said Rice, the gun at his side.
Jessie lost his smile and raised his hands. “Hey. I thought you were saving me from that maniac?” he said, pointing at the man on the ground. “What did I do?”
Addie stepped up behind Rice. “You don't remember a little thing called armed robbery?”
“Hey,” brightened Jessie, “I knew we'd meet again.” He looked at Rice. “This your old man?” Rice raised the gun and took two steps toward Jessie, who kept looking back and forth between him and the girl.
“Do you know whose money you took?” asked Rice. Jessie just stared.
Addie pointed at Frank, his forehead almost touching the pavement, his legs twitching. He hadn't made a sound since the blow to his spinal column. “He was my boss. Until he fired me. He was hiding in the kitchen when you walked in the door. But the money you took from the safe wasn't his.”
Jessie looked over at Frank who appeared to be trying to pick himself up off the pavement. So far with no success.
“The money I took? You filled the backpack, not me. Whose money is it?” asked Jessie, pointing at Rice.
“That money belongs to a biker gang,” said Rice.
“The Satan's Raiders,” groaned Frank.
“What did you say?” asked Rice.
Frank was sitting on his ass now, both hands on his head, his legs still quivering. “Satan's Raiders! Those assholes make the Hell's Angels look like Shriners. What did you do to me anyway?”
“Yeah. What did you do to that dude?” asked Jessie. “That was like the Vulcan neck pinch. Can you teach it to me?”
Rice was still digesting the comment about the Satan’s Raiders. He’s heard about them from Wilson. They weren’t just another biker gang. “I chopped his spinal notch.” Frank just shook his head slowly.
“When they find us,” added Frank. “They'll kill us all. Very slowly.”
“Where's the money?” asked Rice.
Jessie shrugged. “I hid it.” Rice looked to Addie, who rolled her eyes.
“I watched him put it in his trunk,” she said. Then she turned and walked to the crumpled Honda - the trunk lid popped open where the eighteen-wheeler had crushed the back end. She reached in and pulled out a blue Dakine backpack, and headed back to Rice.
Both Frank and Jessie said at the same time. “That's mine!”
“Those bikers aren't far off,” said Rice. “We saw one in Yakima checking us out. You should both leave
. Those bikers will pour high test over you and turn you into Roman candles. Frank? It's time to change careers.”
“I think you blew the front end on my truck,” said Frank, looking east. His shiny yellow truck was turned around, the driver’s side caved in and the front wheels bent. “I don't think I'm going anywhere.”
“Maybe Jessie will give you a ride,” said Addie. But Jessie was already gone. He had run down the lot and leapt into his Honda. The engine was already blowing out a cloud of smoke.
Rice turned to Addie. “We should go. If you're still coming with me.”
“You thought I'd go with Jessie?” asked Addie, laughing. “When he walked into the diner, I knew right away that he could help me get even with Frank, the world's worst boss. But other than that, he's like those guys in the poem.”
“Poem?”
“Yeah. We are the straw men. We are the hollow men. You know that poem?” They watched Jessie speed out of the lot and merge onto I90.
Shotgun at his side, walking back to the rig, Rice helped Addie with the heavy backpack. He stopped before getting into the truck; considered throwing the shotgun into the tall grass at the side of the ditch. He really believed he was done with guns for good. He had thought about it a lot up on the ridge. He couldn’t see himself going back to his old life.
Addie continued. “It's simple. I think there are two kinds of people in the world. You're either hollow or you’re not,” said Addie.
“Yeah? Which one am I?” asked Rice.
“Too early to know. I guess time will tell.”
Hearing that, Rice threw the shotgun into the weeds and climbed up into the driver’s seat.
CHAPTER 23
Interstate 90, Idaho
BRENT RAZER HAD TAKEN FULL ADVANTAGE of the speed limit embargo by tearing down Interstate 90 at speeds in excess of one hundred and twenty miles an hour. That meant he was burning up the distance between himself and Rice at the rate of about forty miles every hour. Assuming a lead of about one hundred miles, he wasn't surprised when just outside of Post Falls, he roared up behind a deep blue Kenworth W900 hauling a white trailer with no markings or logos.
Brent took his foot off the gas and speed dialed his brother, who should be on his way back to D.C.
“Can you run a plate for me?”
“You think it's him?”
“He's in the right place. It's a fairly new Kenny, lots of shiny chrome. I'm going to pass him now. Hold on.”
Brent swung over into the passing lane. The semi was maintaining a very steady double nickel, no doubt trying to stay out of trouble. Brent crept up past the driver's door, looking up with a glance. The guy driving had hair down to his collar and a wild bushy beard, his eyes staying on the road.
Brent was slightly surprised. He expected Rice would be checking out every car on the highway. Then he saw the ex-agents lips move as he rolled past. Was he talking on a phone? Brent would love to know who he was chatting with.
Out in front of the rig and clear, Brent slid back into the right lane. When he looked in the rear view mirror he smiled.
“He's got a girl in the truck,” said Brent.
“You sure it's him?”
“Looks like him. Long hair and a beard.”
“Where would he find time to hook up with a chick?”
Brent slowed slightly to get a better look, careful not to catch the agent’s notice by getting too close.
“She's blond, early twenties. He works fast.”
“You've got a guy who needs a haircut driving an eighteen-wheeler, the make matching a calendar you saw in a garage. I'd keep looking.”
Brent was as puzzled as his brother. They knew Rice had lived by himself for years in a one-room cabin. But maybe he had a girlfriend. Someone from the resort he would visit on weekends, a housekeeper or a guest. What didn't make sense was charging back into a heated and potentially deadly battle with extra baggage. If Kreegar had given shoot-to-kill orders, Rice would already be dead. All Brent had to do was slow down, make another pass, and place a tight little grouping of hollow-points right about center of the driver's window. The girl did complicate things though.
“It's him. Check the plates.” He gave his brother the numbers and sped up, the Kenworth shrinking behind him.
Ten minutes later Trent barked into the phone. “The truck is registered to a Ray Martin in Orlando, Florida. I called one of Kreegar’s guys there and he said the address is an empty lot next to an orange grove. There was no other info in the file. A bogus SIN number and two credit cards that had never been used.
“What did you expect? The address of the Pentagon?” asked Brent.
“I was hoping the name might match one of the bogus ID's.”
“That would be too easy.”
“If we bet on the wrong horse here, we'll be blowing a huge bonus.”
“If this isn’t our guy, then Rice took the wrong turn on Highway 12 and is halfway to Seattle by now. Call the Seattle Police and put out an alert on a Kenworth driven by a forty-year-old with long hair and a beard.”
“Somehow I have a feeling there might be hundreds of those on the road.”
“Exactly. So I'm sticking with my hunch. It's within a circular error of probability. Unless you have a better idea.”
There was a pause filled with static and the distant sound of a helicopter engine and humming rotors. “Shit! I'm out of ideas, Brent. I'll issue the BOLO for Seattle. You stick close to your suspect. I'll call you when I have an ETA for Spokane.”
Brent took another look in his side mirror. The Kenny was still there, back about a quarter of a mile, the heat off the pavement making the image warp and squirm in Brent’s rear view mirror. Then he noticed something new. Two barely-visible dark blobs were bobbing back and forth in front of the massive slab of chrome that wrapped around the front of the truck cab. Brent squinted. Motorcycles. Side by side in front of the truck. And two more rolling alongside. And what looked like several more stacking up in the rear. Brent waited another minute to test the theory. He was right. They weren't passing. Rice had some kind of biker escort service happening.
“Trent? Do you remember anything in the file about Rice and a biker gang?”
“Like what? Belonging to one? That would be a firing offense for any of the fed agencies. Or worse.”
“Affiliation? Favors done?”
“What are you asking?”
“Something's going on. Rice has company. Looks like about a dozen bikers. They've surrounded him.
“So much for him staying invisible on the Interstate. Do you want me to call Highway Patrol?”
“Not yet. Let's see how this plays out. I thought we had this contract exclusively!”
“You think Kreegar has hired a biker gang to extract Rice?”
“If he has, I'll kill him myself with my bare hands. Free of charge.”
CHAPTER 24
Clark Fork turnoff, Washington,
FRANK FAST WAS NOT AN IMAGINATIVE MAN. He had carved out a sporadic and unremarkable living by buying drugs from dangerous people like Slugger and selling them to spoiled and stoned university students. The students, most of them from pretty good middle-class or better backgrounds, used drugs on a regular basis, never understanding or caring to know where they came from or who was profiting from the transaction. An Economics grad would call the tortuous route from Colombian farmer to drug lord to bribed customs officials to organized crime - the supply chain. But this was a chain built on violence and corruption. And kids today were used to the idea of separating a cause from an effect; after all, you could go to a fast food joint and eat a hamburger every day of your life without once slicing the jugular vein of a beef cow.
But all that Frank cared about was making a buck - anyway that he could. He never finished high school; that seemed too much like work and hardly worth the effort. He was already making decent bread in Grade 10 selling dope to his buddies and the jocks on the football team. He smoked up most of the profits and gave away a
lot to the cheerleading squad who smiled and laughed and winked at him. But that's as far as it ever went. Frank was an awkward guy, sort of chunky, and his pants always looked like they were hitched up too high. And he sweated a lot. So a girl on the cheerleader squad, who might consider going to second base for a baggie of primo weed, would just smile at Frank and wave - and avoid those yucky sweat stains under his armpits that seemed ever present.
Frank was looking like that now, standing off-kilter, the sweat pouring off his forehead, his cheeks red. He was surrounded by several of Sluggers lieutenants, tough guys with IQ's only about five or so points ahead of the standard chaff that hung around the bikers club house playing bad snooker and drinking free beer.
Frank knew where Slugger got his nickname. That was a legend in the drug trade around Washington State of biblical proportions. He had heard the stories and he had seen the results - a soldier of the Satan's Raiders who couldn't drive his Harley anymore because he lost an eye to Slugger's baseball bat, his forehead looking like a smashed fender after a nasty rear-ender. Or customers who just disappeared forever.
So Frank was not in any way feeling brave. He didn't have to envision what tonight might hold for him. Fear had emptied his brain case and filled it with white noise. He had a vacant look on his face like he had lost his way - not a look that would have endeared him to a guy like Slugger.
“Frank,” whispered Slugger, “Where's my money?”
Frank swallowed with some difficulty, bobbing his squarish head up and down. “The girl took it. Addie. And a trucker.”
Slugger glared at him, an oily smile all that Frank could see when the sun came out from behind the clouds and turned the biker into a horrible silhouette.
“Are you telling me that's my responsibility now? I need to track down your staff for you?”
