Black Water Transit

by Carsten Stroud

  Nicky was hit by a cloud of scent—something spicy, and an overlay of stale marijuana smoke. He put out a hand to take hers.

  She stumbled into him and he caught her. She reeked of beer and brandy. Her gray hair was like straw and it scratched at his cheek as she fell against him. He caught her shoulders and pushed her upright—her bones were like wires—and she gave him an awful leer, heavy with ruined sexual promise.

  “Sorry, Nicky … my God, he’s gorgeous … Nicky … you’re gorgeous … isn’t he, Casey …”

  Nicky smiled at her and glanced over at Casey. Casey’s eyes were shining. She looked scalded. Nicky waited for an introduction that didn’t seem to be coming.

  “Casey …?”

  When she finally spoke, her voice was dry and low.

  “Nicky. I’d like you to meet Elena Spandau.”

  Nicky looked back down at the older woman, and then he saw the bones, the slightly Oriental eyes.

  “Miss Spandau, pleased to meet you.”

  “And I you,” she said, wavering like a flame in a breeze. She tried for a curtsey and wobbled. “But it’s Mrs. Spandau.…”

  Casey cut in.

  “Nicky, this is my mother.”

  FRIDAY, JUNE 23

  FEDERAL COURT PART FIVE

  ALBANY COURT BUILDINGS

  1750 HOURS

  Jack’s arraignment was held under a press ban, all reporters barred from the hearing, in a broom-closet courtroom down a dead-end hallway on the third-floor annex of the old federal courthouse. It went just the way Flannery said it would. Jack stood upright and steady in his shackles, wearing the same clothes he’d been arrested in that morning, blue jeans and cowboy boots and a white T-shirt under a blue blazer, his face set and hard, listening while Valeriana Greco read a list of RICO charges in a voice ringing with outraged virtue and a sleepy-eyed judge in a mud-brown business suit held his sagging face up with one liver-spotted hand, watching Jack through his half-closed lids, his spindly fingers drumming a little paradiddle on the desktop pad.

  Flannery had Jack plead not guilty to each charge as it was read off, and then asked the judge for a release on own recognizance. Greco popped up like a duck in a shooting gallery and quacked on feverishly about Risk of Flight and Security Concerns and Ongoing Investigations—Jack got a master-class lesson in the fine art of speaking in capitals—while Flannery humphed and brooded and the sleepy-eyed judge nodded away at Greco as if his neck had been presnapped especially for the occasion. Which was true. The fix was already in. She reached her aria, peaked on a high note about the Majesty of the Law, and in the pounding silence that followed, Jack found his ears were ringing. The judge blinked twice, sat up straight, reached for the gavel, raised it high, paused as if he were waiting for a suicidal cockroach to scuttle into position, and brought it down hard, a practiced snapping crack that sounded like a pistol shot.

  Bang.

  Bail denied.

  Bang.

  Prisoner to be transported this day.

  Bang.

  It’s Miller time.

  Bang bang.

  Greco made meaningful eye contact with Jack and offered him a vicious victory leer that made Jack think of a poxed-up nun in fishnet stockings singing a Weimar drinking song in a basement bar in Munich. Flannery gripped Jack’s shoulder hard as the guards led him away, narrowed his eyes to signify his rock-ribbed resolve to fight them on the beaches and fight them in the streets, and barked fiery promises at his back, until the big steel door slammed shut between them.

  Jack was taken back to the same interview room and rebolted to the wooden chair. The steel door slammed shut with a dull boom that shook the floorboards. He heard their boots in the hall, and a muffled joke, and some low rolling laughter. Then he was alone.

  Time floated in the still air of the tiny windowless room, stirred by nothing but Jack’s slow and steady breathing. The chair back prodded his ribs and kidneys as if it had a personal grudge. His legs went to sleep after thirty minutes and he followed soon afterward.

  The prison transport came for Jack an hour later, at eight-thirty that evening, a steel-plated white van with squared-off angles, two windows in either side made of thick green glass. It emptied itself of two U.S. marshals, who boomed into the holding room, woke Jack up with the slamming of the door, and then he was blinking up at a man and a woman, the male black, in his early thirties, with a double row of burned-in tribal scars across both cheeks. His eyes were as black as an oil slick and shiny with contempt. The woman was a frowzy trailer-park blonde, a face marked up by bad genes and beer, with wide-spaced brown eyes and a round ruddy face. Both of them were short, beefy, and packed with muscle, both wearing suit pants and white shirts under Kevlar flak jackets, heavy combat boots, thick black equipment belts hung with cuff cases, radios, pepper spray, and matte-gray Glock pistols.

  The woman showed Jack her ID, introduced herself as Deputy United States Marshal Sharon Callahan. Her voice was husky, and she smelled of a very recent cigarette. Her air was official and bored, but the first thing she did was take the ankle chains off Jack and undo the chain that held him to the wooden chair. When Jack stood up, he almost collapsed, but Callahan held him up, her fingers on his upper arm as solid as angle iron, with a grip he felt right to his bone.

  “Sweet Jesus, cowboy. How long have these assholes had you trussed up like this?”

  Jack straightened up, hiding the sharp pain in his lower back.

  “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  “They took your watch, hah? Was it a nice one, cowboy?”

  “My name is Jack Vermillion. It was a Rolex.”

  “Too bad. Guards around here are worse than gypsies. You sure you aren’t a cowboy? Got that big white longhorn mustache. Pair of Dan Post boots there. Wear your hair all combed back. Got the look in your eyes. You look just like Heck Thomas. You know who Heck Thomas was?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Famous lawman. A life-taker. I own his Winchester carbine. Paid eleven thousand dollars for it. Bought it at a gun show in Cheyenne. Damn, look at this. It’s twenty minutes to nine. Buster and I gotta get you on the truck. We got a long run ahead of us.”

  “I was supposed to be seeing a friend. Before I left. I’ve been waiting for …” He did the math and realized he’d fallen asleep in the interview room and the bastards had just left him there, chained to a ring in the floor. “I’ve been here for hours. His name is Raleigh Johnson.”

  “Hours. Hear that, Buster?”

  Buster’s face in no way registered anything more complicated than a broadband low-level threat that came off him like the hissing heat off a steam-pipe radiator. He reminded Jack of a buffalo bull calf, a bad one. Jack held Buster’s eyes for much longer than he had to and saw Buster’s eyes begin to flicker. It was like blowing on hot coals. Face him directly in any way, he’d go off like a Roman candle. Callahan saw the silent exchange of mutual dislike and laughed.

  “Now now. Play nice, fellas. Jack, they feed you?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Damn. Sadistic little shits, aren’t they? We’ll get you something once we’re clear of the city. Can you walk?”

  “Raleigh Johnson. Can you get in touch with him?”

  “If you’re talking about a big old blond buck who looks like he used to play football, he’s sitting on a bench out in the hallway for as long as we been here, anyway. You supposed to talk to him?”

  Jack managed to keep his tone civil, but he felt like drop-kicking the woman through the open doorway behind her.

  “Yes. I am. He’s my business partner.”

  “You been arraigned, right?”

  “Yeah. I have been well and truly arraigned.”

  “We’ll see what we can do. Come on now.”

  They rearranged his shackles, left the leg irons on the floor behind him, Jack now cuffed only at the wrists to a steel chain that ran around his waist. They went down the long hallway toward the steel-barred exit gate. Beyond
it, in the portcullis area, Jack could see a white van parked under a blue-white yard light, no markings of any kind on it. It was big and blocky and looked like an armored car.

  Callahan tapped Buster on the shoulder, nodded toward the door marked Visitors, and walked Jack down the hallway to the gate. There was a bench there, beside a Coke machine and some guard lockers. A turnkey inside a glass booth was leaning back in a big stuffed chair and watching a black-and-white television. Law & Order, as it turned out, one of Jack’s favorite shows up until recently. Being dragged up a flight of concrete stairs by a couple of bad-tempered prison guards jerking on your wrist shackles tends to fog up your clarity about concepts like law and order. Callahan sat him down on the bench and stepped back, studying him, her arms folded across her flak jacket, her hip cocked.

  “You the one they popped for the gunfight over at Red Hook?”

  “No.”

  “No? They told me you were all over that!”

  “They told you wrong.”

  “You look the part. A gunfighter. Ever been in a gunfight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah? Where?”

  “Vietnam.”

  “In that, were you? What was it like? The gunfight.”

  “Unpleasant. I don’t recommend them.”

  “Maybe. I guess you’d know. We’ll have to see. I joined the marshals because I always wanted to be a famous gunfighter, and they got me stuck in prisoner transport. Been at it for eleven years. Never fired a shot in anger. Hate my job. Hate my partner too. Buster has no bounce at all. He’s from Nigeria, used to be in the police there. His real name is In-gwu-mee something. I can’t pronounce it, so I call him Buster. He has a bad eye. Mean. You seen it too, I know you did. God only knows what evil things he’s done back there in Nigeria. But now he’s a U.S. marshal, because we seem to need more black U.S. marshals. I don’t know why. You need to pee, Mr. Vermillion?”

  Jack did, but he was damned if he was going to let her help him. Or some Nigerian psycho named Buster. She read his expression.

  “Oh hell, don’t you worry. I got no mandate to assist you in pecker deployment, Mr. Vermillion. And Buster would take it as a personal insult, we ask him. Like to slice it right off and eat it raw. There’s a washroom right in there. You go on in. Have a good long one. There’s no way out but back this way.”

  Jack stood up, let her undo his wrist shackles, and was about to go into the washroom when he heard a shout from down the hall. He turned and saw Creek Johnson striding down the hallway, his face white as bone, his eyes fixed, Buster following hard. He reached Jack and pulled him into an embrace, but Callahan and Buster stepped in and jerked him back.

  “You got ten minutes, Mr. Vermillion,” said Callahan. “You, sir, we said no physical contact. We search all our prisoners before we put them in the van, remember. Thoroughly.”

  Creek stood rigid, waiting for the guards to back away. Jack saw that Creek’s eyes were wet and his face looked haggard.

  “Jack, what the hell they doing to you?”

  “You talk to Flannery?”

  Creek waved that away. “That son of a bitch! I think he thinks you’re guilty. He’s sniffing around a goddamn plea bargain!”

  “There’ll be no plea bargain. I haven’t done a damn thing.”

  “Jack, they’re taking over Black Water. The whole package. Including the accounts. Going to try, anyway. What should I do?”

  “You get down to the offices right after you leave here. You got the keys? Computer codes? The entry cards, all of it?”

  “Yeah. Greco hasn’t got her order yet. I still have it all.”

  “Then you get up there and you take over Black Water.”

  “Take it over?”

  “That’s right. You’re my partner. You and I started this thing. You have a legal right. You haven’t been charged with anything?”

  “No. Not a thing. They’re laying this all on you.”

  “Fine. Then you get in there and you run the damn thing. Business as usual. You call Dave Fontenot, you call all of our clients one by bloody one, you tell them whatever they need to hear, answer every question, then you go down to the loading docks, you call everybody together, tell them we are by God still in business and nothing changes. Get the trucks out, get the boats moving, get the day going. Just like always.”

  Creek was staring at him, his face going through changes. When Jack finished, his face was harder, his eyes dry.

  “What do I say about … all this shit?”

  “Tell them we’ve been set up, that I’ll beat the charges. Tell them the truth. Be short but be straight. Don’t let them think we’re worried. Take the high ground all the way.”

  “Yes. Damn. The high ground. You’re right. What happens to you? Where they taking you?”

  Jack filled him in, the “protective custody” stunt, the night run to Allenwood Prison in central Pennsylvania.

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “Somewhere near Harrisburg. They call it Club Fed.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there the first of the week.”

  “No. No, you can’t leave the Black Water offices. You bunk there, in my office. The whole weekend. There’s a bathroom, and a daybed in the closet. You live there. If you’re physically on the site, if you’re acting as CEO, then I don’t think they can seize the whole operation out from under you. Not unless they indict you too, and they haven’t, right?”

  “Not yet. What about Martin Glazer, those people at Galitzine Sheng and Munro? The pension fund?”

  “Call Glazer. See what he says. My call is, you won’t get through. But try. That shows due diligence. If you do get through, then it’s business as usual. But I doubt you will. It’s hard to make big moves when the CEO’s in prison.”

  “Man, they’re really fucking with us, aren’t they? The pension fund is a promise to our own people. This could bring the Teamsters back at us. They’re killing us.”

  “Well, let them try. We’ll beat this. Something else. I need you to talk to our good friend.”

  Creek’s eyes widened and then he recovered.

  “I hear you. The whole thing?”

  “Yes. Somebody’s fucking with us, and I don’t think Flannery has the balls to find out who. Tell him the whole story.”

  “Okay. I can talk to Carmine.… Jack, I …”

  Creek’s eyes looked empty. Jack had never seen him like this.

  “Hey, Creek, don’t go all touchy-feely on me, okay?”

  “It’s not that. Jack, there’s some things that went on.…”

  “What things?”

  Creek hesitated, looked away.

  “Creek, did you have anything to do with getting a Cobra? Is that it? I know you’re into cars. You can tell me.”

  Creek’s face went white, then red.

  “What the fuck are you saying? Jesus, I never—”

  Callahan heard Creek’s angry tone, stepped up.

  “That’s it, Mr. Johnson. Time to leave.”

  Creek sent her a sideways glare, looked back at Jack.

  “Look, if they get their seizure order, you’re gonna be out of cash. I can help you. I got some put aside. Separate. I can back you.”

  “Creek, this could get very expensive.”

  “We’re … partners. I can fix this.… I can help.”

  Silence came down again. Callahan took Jack’s arm and Buster stepped in close, separating Creek, edging him back.

  “Time to go, cowboy,” she said, locking on his chains.

  The portcullis gate was heavy and when it opened it made a sound like an anchor chain running crazily over a huge steel bow and dropping away into cold deep water. Jack never looked back, but he felt Creek’s eyes on him all the way to the van sitting white and cold under the hard blue light. He reached the van, his shadow before him, and saw the black outline of a big man with chains hanging from him, and the hard blue light made the bright stainless-steel chains glitter. When they slammed the door shut on him
, the van rocked and the portcullis walls echoed with the force of it.

  Callahan was behind the wheel as the box van cruised up the ramp and out through the portcullis gate. The federal yard was lit by cold blue street lamps and cut into hard black shadows. The street was empty as they pulled out of the yard. Buster lit himself a Kool, made it a ceremony, leaned down to hunt for a radio station, and didn’t notice the big white Lincoln, windows tinted black, that was idling in a cross lane, waiting for them. Pike gave them a full city block before he moved out into the street and followed them south toward the highway. He was tired now, and hungry, but there was no time for rest. Payback first.

  He’d broken off from the city cops after Peekskill and headed north when he heard that they were arraigning Jack the same day. He knew they’d be taking him to a federal pen, and he needed to be there when they left. He put on a Duke Ellington CD and settled into the soft black leather, shifted his body to ease the old familiar pain of the five round scars across his belly.

  A Robert Frost line ran through his head. For I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. He said it to himself a few times as he trailed the big white van, until it seemed to blend in with the lazy grace of Duke Ellington’s big brass section. Once they reached the interstate, he dropped back. They were going south and west. That probably meant Allenwood Prison. If they reached it.

  TEMPLE COURT APARTMENTS

  PROSPECT PARK

  1930 HOURS

  Nicky was lying on Casey’s bed in her apartment at Temple Court, trying not to listen to the shouting and screaming going on out in the living room. Casey had a desktop PC on her dresser table. Nicky found the CD-ROM that Pete LeTourneau had given him, the one with the combat weapons data file. He pushed it into the CD slot and hit enter. The screen flickered and flashed and showed him a search slot. Nicky typed in M82A1, hit search. In a few seconds he got the words, and he got the picture.

  The weapon was huge, brutal, and undeniably heavy. The M82A1 was a .50-caliber military sniper rifle. A big, blocky, and brutal-looking killing machine. There was a body of text along with the picture of a massive bolt-action rifle. It read like a rave review.