by L. J. Martin
It's about time to pick up Skip, and I hope he's straight and sober.
Chapter Fifteen
The Paso Robles Municipal Airport is not hard to find if you take Airport Road as a hint. It's east of Paso as is Castiano Winery, and just a couple of miles north of Highway 46.
I'm waiting at the curb as I know Skip, and Skip doesn't travel with checked baggage unless he's going to be gone for several months. And it's not like the boy is hard to spot in a crowd, at six-foot-five and somewhere between two-sixty and two-eighty he literally stands above the crowd. Skip's blonde, and if you looked up Viking in the dictionary you're likely to see his picture. He is bearded, but it's nicely trimmed and his hair's cut, so I hope and pray he's on a good streak—off the booze and not looking for help in a one-gram vial. Even more than Pax and me, he came out of desert storm with lots of nightmares, the worst of which was chasing a Haji into a mud hut and chucking a grenade into a back room rather than going in balls out and taking a few rounds from an AK47. The bad news was the bad guy got away out a back door, the far worse news was a one year old and three year old who were sleeping in the room didn't get away. Skip's still haunted. Anyone would be.
But he's a great guy, and one of us, and as such we'd do about anything for each other.
He opens the slider on the side of the van, throws in his carry-on size duffle, jumps into the passenger seat, then extends a ham size hand which I take reluctantly as I know he carries rock crushers on the end of each Popeye forearm.
"What's the gig?" he asks without bothering with howdy or how the hell are you.
"Some very bad boys have absconded with a lady I used to work for and another lady from down Malibu way."
He gives me a suspicious glance. "Are we recovering a lost love or is this real work?"
"Sammy Castiano, one of our employers, owes some boys from Vegas, some Albanian boys who bury those who don't pay up. They snatched Sammy's wife...his seventy year old wife...and say they'll send her back in small packages in..." I glance at my watch, "in sixty hours or so if he doesn't come through with fifteen mil." I pull away from the curb and head back to the highway.
"And he's paying us to get her back?"
"That's the rumor. And do you remember me telling you I'd worked for Tammy Houston, the country singer?"
"Yeah, and I remember that didn't work out too well for you."
"Yeah, it didn't. However she called me and wanted me to come back to work as someone was taking pot shots at her. When I showed up, she'd been snatched by these same Albanian boys. It seems the pot shots were to get her out of her guarded condo and out to the boondocks in Malibu."
"How does all this tie together?"
"It's a little weird. Castiano loaned Tammy's manager some dough and he didn't pay it back. The Albanians probably figured that Tammy, who Forbes Magazine said was knocking down five mil a month, could pay and might even loan Castiano the money to pay back the major dough he owed. The best we can figure, Castiano got way upside down on some road-building project…. He owns an engineering contracting company. Anyway, they snatched his old lady and Tammy and I guess have told the manager, a creep named Coogan, to cough up the dough. Tammy has it, but the manager can't get his hands on it. Anyway, let's spring the ladies then let them sort it all out without the women travelling home in small packages."
"How bad are these Albanians?"
"Zero inhibitions. Tons of aggression. Bad, bad, bad boys, or so Pax reports."
"So, if they go down, so be it."
"So be it."
We drive a while before I ask. "So, you doin' okay? You off the sauce and the nose candy?"
"Yeah." He says, and that's enough for me.
I head back into town so I can find a quiet spot to go over the details with Skip. So far it doesn't look to be too tough, so I don't bother to call Pax for additional backup. Pax's strong suit is the sniper rifle, and the layout is such the only really long range shots would have to be across Highway 46, which is not a particular problem, particularly at night, but the California Highway Patrol and the county sheriff's deputies patrol the highway. No reason to irritate folks unless absolutely necessary, and a .308 cutting the air overhead could be a minor irritation.
After I brief Skip we make another drive by the winery and give him a firsthand view of the layout. Then we have to kill some time as I don't plan to go into a well-guarded facility in daylight. Let's give these boys a chance to suck on a bottle and get heavy eyes.
Skip suggests a few beers to kill some time and I don’t know if he’s kidding or not…he knows I never drink when going into an op. He laughs it off, and I’m glad he does.
Since he hasn’t seen the place, we re-sign the van with Pacific Plumbing signs and I hide out in the back—where there’s a cot, sink, and small 12-volt refrigerator—and take a nap while he does a tour with the promise he won’t partake more than a sip at the tasting bar. It’s a little crowded in back of the van with the Harley taking up more than its share, but I manage.
Skip catches the last tour of the day—making note of the same things I saw—then we head back into town, and, with nothing else to do, catch a movie at the local multiplex. We’re out at nine and then go to supper at a local buffet. He eats like a horse, as usual, and I snack as my stomach is always full of worms before an op, and tonight is no different.
Finally, at midnight, we strip the signs off the van, again becoming vanilla plain, and suit up in Kevlar vests, black pants, and long sleeve black pullovers. Skip wears night vision goggles on a Kevlar helmet, just in case we need that advantage. I slip on a black knit cap. We go light with the arms, each of us with a 40 mm Glock and a backup ankle pistol—mine a lightweight 5 shot Ruger .38 and Skip with a small Ruger .380 semi-automatic—a belt loop with a can of mace, and a sap. We don’t go with the full battle rattle belt as I hope silence is the answer to this op, but I do clip a pair of flash grenades onto my web belt. We both have Motorola radios with ear buds, set on channel 07 for luck. Skip is entrusted with a small pair of bolt cutters, not enough to handle a hardened lock but enough to snip the chain on normal cuffs. We also each have several cable ties, which will serve as restraints should we need them.
I work my way back to the rear of the property only this time don’t leave the van in the copse of oak trees, but rather kill the lights and drive right down between the vineyards to the edge of the apple orchard. I get the van reversed and headed out in case we have to make a quick getaway. If we’re able to spring the ladies—if they’re actually there—then I can’t imagine hustling them through a half mile of vineyards back to the van. No telling what kind of condition they’re in. As it is we’re only a couple of hundred yards from the pump building that is supposed to house the vertical culvert that’s a secret access to the room at the back of the aging cave.
We work our way through the apples and this time I have my lock pick kit at hand. It’s a decent hardened lock—too much for the bolt cutters—and takes me almost fifteen minutes to pick.
I’m wondering if the guard is still posted outside overlooking the parking lot and tasting area, but there’s no real reason to move to the slope and take a look. Why risk being seen?
Then I find it’s not necessary to take a look, as just as I get the lock to spring, Skip taps me on the shoulder and whispers. “Guard, looks like he’s on patrol.”
I spot him and he’s walking on top the slope, a path that will take him only a few feet from where we crouch behind the pump building. Skip eyes him via the night goggles and reports, “Combat shotgun, side arm.” The question is, will he check the door.
If it were an access to where I had the goods hidden, I would check the door.
We’ll see.
Just as he gets within twenty feet of us, the sky opens up and the storm that the clouds promised arrives. I smile as he spins on a heel and begins to jog back the way he came, the rain beating down on him and already forming puddles. It’s a deluge.
The weather gods
are with us.
We slip into the building and in a corner is a three-foot diameter vertical culvert just as Enrico described, and a ladder inside disappears into the darkness. With the ladder taking up six inches, it’s a tight fit for Skip, so I suggest he hang back and make sure the guard doesn’t stumble in and catch us in the hole. We’d be a hard target to miss stuffed into a three-foot pipe.
I descend over twenty feet before I hit bottom, and my pen light shows a door, not fancy, just cut out of the side of the culvert with hinges welded on so it will swing aside. There is a quarter-inch gap around the door and I realize there’s just a smidgen of light coming from whatever is beyond.
Then I hear voices. “Change the fucking channel, Vito. I’m tired of this shit.”
And then a female voice, slightly slurred, “Yeah, asshole, change the fucking channel.”
The voice sounds like Margo Castiano, her sweet gentle own self.
A second male voice, I presume Vito, snarls, “Shut the fuck up you dried up old bitch. I hope your old man don’t pay up so I can cut your sloppy tits off and feed them to the hogs.”
“Eat shit, asshole,” Margo replies, her voice again slurred. She may have floppy tits, but she’s got big balls.
So, there’s more than one of them.
But how many? And I was hoping I’d catch them asleep. The weather gods were with us, but the sleep gods seem to be working against us.
Chapter Sixteen
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
I don’t plan to stay in this hole—did I mention I’m a little claustrophobic?—for any longer than I absolutely have to, so there’s no waiting for the TV watchers to nod off. As I don’t know where the women might be, I don’t want lead flying around the room—Sammy might be a little upset if I brought Margo back full of holes. I palm the mace can and flip the little protective cover off. Then I whisper into the radio. “I’m going balls out.”
“10-4,” comes back.
I free one of the flash grenades from my web belt, give the door a shove, but only four inches, and it squeaks like a ruptured duck, pull the pin and count three as I hear a voice, “What the hell?” and roll the grenade into the room. I turn away and cover my ears and feel the shock of the explosion as I fill my right hand with the Glock and ready the mace in my left. I try and shove the door open enough to pass through, but it sticks and I have to put my back to the wall and kick the hell out of it, and only then charge through.
Two guys had been playing cards, drinking cans of beer, and watching the tube. Both are stumbling around, one on his knees, and filling their hands with semi-autos from their belts.
I charge ten feet into the room and go to work with the mace—luckily they’re still stunned from the grenade—hitting the standing guy, who’s about Skip’s size, full in the face and he roars and covers his eyes with both hands, one still holding his semi-auto pistol. He’s gasping like a guppy in stagnant water.
The other guy is on his knees, taking deep racking breaths like an asthmatic and shaking his head back and forth trying to focus his vision and stop the reverberation of his eardrums. The flash grenade has done its work. I gas him full in the face, step up and swing a boot into the side of his head and the pistol flies across the room, skittering on the concrete floor. He goes down to his side, crying like a scalded cat and rubbing at his eyes.
The first guy can’t see or breathe, but he’s panning the semi-auto around the room like he might have a target. I use my own Glock as a club and bring the butt of the grip down on his wrist. His pistol goes to the floor and I kick it away to join the other one.
It’s time to make this end so I holster my Glock, palm my sap, and crack him on the side of the head. He’s an animal, and only goes to his knees, so I crack him even harder and this time he hits the floor like a sack of rocks, unmoving.
They’re both out cold, but I want a little insurance so I do their wrists behind their backs with the cable ties and drag one close enough to the other that I can cable tie them together. They’re still gasping and coughing, and tears pour from their eyes.
Only then do I survey the room. It’s lit only by a desk lamp on a card table, now covered with loose playing cards, and the TV that’s showing a rerun of some old movie.
There are two cyclone fence cages against the back wall—they remind me of prefab dog kennels. In one Margo Castiano is sitting on her butt on the cold concrete, trying to rub the flash out of her eyes. The other one is standing with door open, and vacant.
Where the hell is Tammy Houston?
I hustle to Margo’s door, also cyclone fence, and find it locked and chained but this time it’s a simple Master lock. I could probably pic it about as quickly, but instead hustle back to the culvert access and radio up to Skip to throw down the bolt cutters.
And get no answer.
So I call out just in case the radio has failed. “Skip! Where the hell are you?”
Nothing.
Where the fuck is Skip?
So I hustle back and pick the lock. I help Margo to her feet then notice a half-empty quart bottle of hooch on the floor next to where she was sitting.
“Margo, we’ve got to go,” I say.
“Go where?” she stammers, and I realize she’s hoot owl drunk.
“Out of here. You like that cage?”
She giggles. Jesus, I’m dealing with a drunken woman, my partner is missing, and I’ve got a twenty-foot ladder to climb. Fuck.
“Margo. These guys were going to cut you into kabobs and send you back to your old man in little packages…after they feed your boobs to the pigs. I’d suggest you sober up so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Les’ go. I remember you. You wouldn’t take a Jacuzzi with me.”
“Move it.” I shove her to the culvert door and inside. She has on flip-flops, which are not exactly ladder-climbing gear. “Kick off the go-aheads and start climbing.”
“I can’t climb that fuckin’ ladder,” she stammers.
“Well, I can, and I’m leaving your drunken ass here if you don’t get with it. You wanna go back to your Jacuzzi, right?”
“Okay, okay…here I go.”
If you’ve never tried to climb a ladder in a narrow space with your shoulder in an older lady’s crotch, while she’s missing every other rung and falling back on you, you just haven’t lived. It takes us a full ten minutes, and I have no idea what I’m going to find at the top…but we get there and she flops on her butt on the cold concrete floor of the pump house, and giggles. I am busy panning my Glock wondering where the hell my partner is, and finding no one.
I go to the doorway and study the dark landscape outside. It’s still raining, but not a deluge as before. Nothing. Skip has disappeared.
I drag Margo through the dark, working our way through the apples, ducking and dodging while she bitches and moans. My first business is to save the woman, so I haul ass out of there. As we hit the highway, I aim the van toward Paso and my first call is to Sammy.
“I got your lady.”
“Thank God. She okay?”
“She’s been nursing her woes with a bottle, but she seems fine. Come get her.”
“We’ll pick her up…where? The Paso airport?”
“I’ve got to go back to the winery. I’m missing a buddy and haven’t found Tammy. I’m not taking Margo to the airport as they may look for us there. There’s a Hampton Inn in town. I’ll call you with a room number when I check her in.”
“I don’t want you to leave her.”
“I got no choice, Sammy. I got other business. My buddy may be in bad trouble.”
“She’d better be there.”
“Just get your ass up here and get her.”
I ring off and immediately call Pax, who I awaken.
“Where do I bail you out this time?” he answers without bothering with hello. He’s obviously not so sleepy he can’t read caller ID.
“Skip is missing. Get your ass over here. I’ve only got one
flash left, so stock up but make it quick. This may be balls out so bring what you think we need.” I don’t want to go into detail over a cell phone, and don’t have to as Pax will come ready for a small war.
“I’ll charter and call you when I touch down.”
I get Margo checked in using one of my phony driver’s licenses, then call Sammy with the room number.
If these Albanian a-holes have hurt my buddy Skip, I plan to bring their whole world down on them.
Chapter Seventeen
I think it’s time to make a move on the main house, as it’s the obvious place for him to be if they got the drop on him…but I remember barking dogs when I formerly got close. And dogs are difficult to deal with. I like dogs, and hate the thought of putting a couple down that are only doing their jobs. I’m sure that’s where they’ll have Tammy stowed as well, as they’ve lost one woman and don’t want to lose another without getting paid what’s owed.
Going straight to an all-night minimarket, I hope I find the solution to the mutts.
I buy two bottles of hydrogen peroxide, a half-dozen meat burritos, and some sandwich bags. I fill the bags about a third with peroxide and tie them tight, making a small balloon of liquid peroxide, then carefully place one in the center of each burrito. Now if I can get close enough to the hounds without being eaten, maybe I can coax them into partaking of a little doctored Mexican chow. Upchucking dogs are usually interested in little else while they’re emptying their stomachs, then shortly the other end, on the lawn.
Torn between going straight to the Castiano main house or waiting for Skip, I decide to actually use my head and get some backup before I storm the castle ramparts. It’s a long two and a half hour wait until I get a call on the cell, and the phone spits out Ring of Fire and I know it’s Pax.
“Ten minutes out,” he says.
