Bad Penny

by John D. Brown

  He sat back and knocked his elbow. The pain shot up his arm. In fact, the pain in his arm, leg, and ribs pounded with each heart beat. “Do you have any Tylenol?” he asked Sam.

  Sam fished around in his diaper bag and came up with a bottle of pink pain killer for kids. It was three-fourths full. “This is all kiddie potency,” Sam said. “I’d just chug the whole thing.”

  Frank took the bottle from him, pressed down and screwed off the child protection lid, and drank the thick sickly-sweet medicine. “Bubble gum,” he said. “Yum.”

  Sam turned the van around and headed back toward the Gorozas.

  Frank punched up the maps app on Tony’s phone. Then he tapped and scrolled until he was looking at their current position and the lonely country roads that crisscrossed the area. “You’re going to take a right at the T.”

  “You got it, Tonto.”

  “I don’t know that I want to be Tonto. Wasn’t someone always beating the snot out of him?”

  “It’s a hard job, but you’re our man, Frank.”

  “Thor then.”

  “Thor has lots of blond wavy hair. I’d say you are a little hair challenged at the moment.”

  “Whatever,” Frank said and tried to swallow the last of the medicine. But it wasn’t going down. Sam had replaced his bottle of vitamin water. Frank pointed at it. “Do you mind?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Frank took the water and washed the medicine down. Then he put the bottle back.

  He said, “How did you find me?”

  “We saw your abduction,” Sam said. “Watched it through the field glasses. But we didn’t have a handy field for takeoff. There was no way Pinto was going to do that particular road again. Heber was still a ways out. About forty-five minutes later and a tense chat with some cops, we finally found a road. By then you were long gone. So we headed the way we’d seen you go. We picked you up again just this side of Cheyenne, but then night fell and we mixed you up with another truck. By the time we figured out our mistake, it was too dark. So we camped out. Pinto put it down at an airport nearby and then we all went to some cockroach motel. We got up this morning before dawn and went back to the point where we’d gotten confused and started looking around, Pinto and Heber up in the plane. We were just about to give up when that house exploded. Buddy, that was one heck of a beacon.”

  “Hey, I figured we were out on the plains; it was perfect for Indian smoke signals.”

  “What was that? Shawnee for ‘holy crap’?”

  “Something like that.”

  By this time Sam had turned the corner around the marsh and started heading for the spot where Frank first flew off the road. From this angle Frank realized that had been one fine piece of snowmobile flight. But it hadn’t been enough. He would have had very few options indeed if Sam hadn’t shown up.

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  “Why what?”

  “You three spent the night. I’m just some white trash ex-con that moved into your neighborhood. You don’t know me from Adam.”

  “I know enough.”

  “No, you don’t.” Frank shook his head. It was the super-trusting people like Sam, who ended up being exploited. Or maybe it was Frank that was going to be exploited. Who knew what those Mormons were really up to?

  Sam said, “I know that this is about Tony, whom I do not see in this van. Or out in the fields.”

  “Tony thinks you’re involved in some kind of racket.”

  “The bail-out-your-neighbor racket?”

  “The schmoozing ex-cons racket. Like maybe you’re trying to make contacts. Like maybe you’ve got some plan.”

  Sam still looked confused.

  “Like you’re running a con, like the cookie man business is all a front.”

  “A cookie con?” he asked. Half of his face turned up in one of those bemused oh-this-is-rich smiles.

  “Hey,” Frank said, “you’d be surprised at the originality I met in prison.”

  “A cookie con,” Sam said again. The hilarity was bubbling up in him. He scrunched up his eyes and started to shake with a dry laugh. A moment later the van filled with a full-bodied clean-cut chubby mirth.

  “It’s not that funny.”

  Sam wiped a tear from his eye. Then he started up again.

  “Watch the road.” Frank shook his head. “What did you do? OD on vitamin B?”

  They came to the turnoff where Frank had banked the inside of the corner, but instead of turning to go to the Goroza’s marshmallow roast, they’d keep going straight.

  Sam pitched his voice low. “We’re taking over the sprinkles trade. Gonna clean house. You in or not, Homie?”

  “Laugh it up. You’ve got to admit it’s odd.”

  “Helping a friend isn’t odd.”

  “I’m not a friend. I’m an acquaintance. And it is odd. Especially when considering my former status.”

  Sam let the last bit of mirth run its course, then got control of himself. “Dude, you called me. I didn’t call you.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “Frank, you keep forgetting I’m a fraud dog. I talk to a lot of people. I hear a lot of truth. I hear a lot of lies. I don’t have a badge that says Special Agent Cartwright, but I’m getting pretty good at sniffing out the BS.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And my manure meter says you’re like a three on a scale of ten. A little bit of a mess, but an honest one.”

  “So says the cookie man.”

  “Many people fear the cookie man.”

  Frank looked him up and down. Mr. chubby good-luck charm. “Right.”

  “It’s true,” he shrugged. “I’m like the Dirty Harry of accounting. And now you’re going to tell me what’s going on. And you’re not going to feed me some line like you did your sister.”

  “Oh?”

  “Do not anger the cookie man,” Sam said.

  Sam had saved his frying bacon twice now. And there really wasn’t any reason not to brief him, so Frank told him everything that had happened from the time he ran across the field to the truck stop to the moment Pinto buzzed by in the plane. By this time the Goroza’s house was a couple miles behind them. The blaze had been joined by the flashing lights of two cop cars. About a mile out, a fire truck was also making its way to the house.

  When Frank finished, Sam shook his head. “You’ve gotten yourself involved with some real pieces of work.”

  “I might use different adjectives.”

  “That little girl is nine years old?”

  “Best guess. She might be younger. Trauma like she’s going through tends to age you.”

  “Nine years old,” Sam repeated and narrowed his eyes. “My oldest daughter is nine years old.” His face turned hard. It appeared the Cookie Man was now officially in the Dirty Harry mode.

  They followed the road into a dale, the tires rumbling over the gravel. Then the blue light on Sam’s phone blinked, indicating he had a call. Sam said. “You find them?”

  A beat passed.

  “Roger that,” he said and turned to Frank. “We’re going to turn up here. The girls are hiding behind some shed at the corner of a field.”

  Frank looked at Sam. He said, “Thanks for coming after me. I owe you.”

  Sam took on a fake mafia Godfather accent. “One a deez a days, and that day may a never come, we’re gonna aska you to do a service. Until then, accept this as a gift.” Then his face turned hard again.

  “Ha,” Frank said. “I knew it was a racket.”

  Sam did not smile.

  Frank thought, indebted to the Mormon mafia. It could be worse. What favor could they possibly ask?

  * * *

  Sam drove them down a long road between two fields of sugar beets. A shed stood in one field a little distance from the dirt road.

  Frank said, “Don’t let them see us just yet.”

  Sam slowed the van and stopped before they came alongside the shed. He said, “We’re not taking these kids anywhere.�
�

  “No.”

  “You’re not trying to capture the woman?”

  “We’re just going to talk,” Frank said. “Right now I’m operating on low information. I might as well have none, and that is no way to conduct an operation. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

  Sam nodded then the two of them got out and walked forward of the van. The leaves of sugar beets in the field and surrounding the shed were probably knee-high; the late morning wind had picked up and was blowing through the greens, rippling the whole field. Frank and Sam came parallel with the shed in the field and looked down its side.

  In its shade, squatting among the beet leaves so their heads looked like so many cabbages, were the children.

  They saw Frank, saw Sam. Their eyes were alert and full of apprehension. Frank waved at them. They did not wave back. They didn’t move. He looked around for Carmen and didn’t see her.

  Beyond the children in the distance, the smoke from the burning house still rose in a black pillar into the sky. Down around the house, the lights of the emergency vehicles flashed.

  “Slaves,” Sam said and shook his head. “This is unreal. Who does this?”

  Frank climbed over the low barbed-wire fence, found a row, and limp-walked along it into the thick field of beets. He leg ached the whole way.

  Sam came behind. “It’s okay,” he called out. “We’re going to help.”

  When they were about twenty-five yards out, the oldest girl whispered something to the others, and they rose like they were going to bolt. The snow machine Carmen had been driving wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “We’re going to get you out of here,” Frank called to them.

  “We’ve got our own people.”

  Frank turned. Carmen stood just inside the fence. Where had she come from?

  “You should leave,” she said.

  “We’re not leaving you here,” Frank said.

  Carmen shouted something in Spanish at the girls, and they began to move out into the field away from Frank.

  “We don’t need your help,” Carmen said.

  “I need yours,” he said. “They took Tony.”

  She stopped. He saw her run the calculations in her mind. Saw her come to the wrong conclusion.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want you as a bargaining chip.”

  “Corre!” she shouted. Run!

  “Stop!” Frank said, but Carmen was already high-tailing it back to the road. The girls ran into the field, away from him and Sam.

  Frank took off after Carmen through the beets in a lame lope, the leaves dragging on his boots, his gimpy leg hurting with every stride, his ribs burning.

  “The woman or the children?” Sam asked.

  “The woman,” Frank said.

  Sam began to run after him.

  Carmen was fast. She flew back down the little bit of row, climbed over the fence, then ran up onto the road.

  Frank hustled down the row next to the one she’d been on. He finally reached the fence, climbed over, and took off after her. He poured on as much speed as he could, his feet crunching the grit on the road, but it wasn’t going to be enough. She turned, saw him, and put on some of her own speed and pulled ahead. “Holy smokes, woman,” he called. “I just need to talk.”

  She lengthened her stride.

  Behind him, Sam was only just now climbing over the fence. Gimp and the Cookie Man were not going to get this job done.

  Frank gritted his teeth at the pain, took in deep breaths, and tried for more speed, but he wasn’t going to catch her. This was going to be a long game, and his leg put him at a distinct disadvantage. He hoped she was a sprinter who’d been laying off the exercise for a couple of years and would start blowing hard after another twenty yards. He hoped she didn’t run marathons.

  Carmen crossed over to the other side of the road. She was running in the opposite direction from the children. Leading him away. Showing no sign of slacking.

  Back where they’d entered the field, the van started. Frank kept loping along, watching Carmen’s fine braid bounce with each stride of her athletic-looking backside, watching her pull away.

  A few moments later Sam pulled up alongside, the van’s wheels crunching on the road. The driver’s window was down. “Hey, Tonto,” Sam said, “you want a ride?”

  Sam had opened the sliding side door. Frank veered over and jumped in. Sam accelerated, and Frank moved over to the passenger side.

  Up ahead, Carmen looked back. Sam sped up and almost caught her. But she abandoned the road, ran down the shoulder to the field on the other side.

  Sam slammed on the brakes. Frank rolled open the door on the passenger’s side and sprang out. Carmen climbed over the fence and ran into another vast field of sugar beets.

  Frank scrambled down the slope, grabbed a post and did and awkward one-legged hop over the barbed-wire. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. She wasn’t too far ahead. Furthermore, the beet greens were bigger in proportion to her frame. They slowed her down more than they did Frank. There were also some rough chunks of dirt down these rows. She had smaller feet that would be tripped up by gouged ground. He had big boots to simply mash over it. He put on a burst of speed. She tried to juke him, but he swatted at her shoulder. “Carmen,” he said.

  She twisted away from his grasp. He lunged, tripped, caught her pant leg on the way down, and the two of them fell into the crop.

  She struggled away.

  Frank shoved himself up. “Carmen,” he said.

  She rose, knife in hand.

  “Carmen, it’s not what you think.”

  “You’re not going to trade me in for Tony. You’re not going to trade those children.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  She backed away, stepped into the row behind her. “You’re all the same.”

  Frank held his hands out wide. “I am not going to trade you.”

  “He’s your blood. Of course, you’ll trade me.” She took another step back, knife ready, looking like she just might know how to handle that thing. You had to be really good to kill someone with one knife stroke. You didn’t have to be quite as good to stab. Or slash. And that knife’s blade was razor sharp.

  But a gun would be better. She’d been holding Jesus’s spare gun back at the house. Why didn’t she pull that instead?

  Sam jogged into the field.

  Carmen said, “I will kill whoever touches me.”

  Frank motioned for Sam to keep back. “Let’s not crowd her.”

  “I will not be traded.”

  “Carmen, I am not going to rely on the word of men who rape little girls. Ed and the Gorozas are not going to make any kind of trade. I killed Jesus. They must retaliate. An eye for an eye. Nothing but my death with satisfy them. So even if I bring you and the children and a suitcase filled with five million dollars, they’re still not going to trade. They’ll take you and the children and the suitcase, and then they’ll kill Tony. They’ll slaughter him right in front of me. And then they’ll kill me. So there is not going to be a trade.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want Tony.”

  “I can’t give him to you.”

  “Right now they hold all the cards. The only way out is to get ourselves a card. A big card. I need to leverage their leverage.”

  She shook her head, took a step back.

  Frank took a step forward.

  “I’m not your leverage.”

  Sam crossed over a few rows to head her off.

  “All I need from you is information,” Frank said. “You’ve obviously had some dealings with the Gorozas. Give me a leg up, and I’m out of your hair.”

  “Step back,” she said.

  “You gave that gun to those kids, didn’t you?” Frank asked.

  She took another step back.

  Frank did not follow. She was protecting the children. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “None of your concern.”

  “Who runs the organizati
on? If I’m going to track Tony, I need a name.”

  Carmen took another step back. “Flor,” she said.

  “Flor who?”

  “Goroza.”

  “A woman runs this thing?”

  “She’s the mother of the Jesus you killed.”

  They were definitely going to want payback. Which made it even more critical that Frank get information now. Every minute counted.

  “There’s a high chance Tony is not going to live through the night. I could have left you in that house. Tony could have left you in the trunk of that car. I helped you. Now help me.”

  “You were saving your own skin, and we happened to be in the neighborhood.”

  Frank could disarm her. He could tie her up and force her to speak. Maybe. If he caught her again. He said, “You’re not a cop.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. If you were a cop, you would have continued to the nearest house and made a call. You would not have stashed those kids in a bunch of beet leaves. And you’re not from a rival organization either, because if you were, you would not have given those kids your gun. You’d want the gun to keep control of the kids because you’d be planning on selling those kids up-river or bringing them back as a prize. You’d want to show off how you’d outwitted those Goroza morons. And yet there’s a bounty on your head.”

  “Ha,” she said. “And now you show yourself.”

  Frank shook his head. “I only learned about the bounty after we escaped that house, and Ed took Tony and told me he wanted you and the girls in exchange.”

  Her hand gripped the knife harder.

  “Carmen,” he said. “I told you there is not going to be an exchange. I’m not that kind of a guy. But even if I were, it does me no good.”

  “You want the bounty for yourself then.”

  “I don’t even know what the bounty is. I want my nephew back. He’s the one that wrote to me while I was in prison. He’s the one that drew dinosaur pictures that I put on my wall. He’s the one who had faith I could beat my own dumb decisions. I will not let him down now, which is why I’m going to go into the lion’s den and pull him out. But if that’s going to be more than a suicide job, I need some data.”

  Carmen looked from Sam back to Frank again.

  “I know what you are,” Frank said. “We can help each other out.”