The Double Cross

by Michael P. King

  * * *

  Three hours later, Bobby followed the blue Dodge Charger and the Monte Carlo into the Econo Inn parking lot at the freeway interchange outside Indian Grove. The Charger parked between a red Ford truck and a white Sentra and the Monte Carlo drove to the end of the lot and parked facing the motel. Three guys got out of the Charger and went into room 107 on the ground floor. Bobby made a U-turn and drove to the Mobil station on the access road to use the pay phone. “Jimmy? It’s Bobby.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Indian Grove. The hijackers are in the Econo Inn at the freeway. Room 107.”

  “Good work. You stick with them. We’re on the way.”

  * * *

  Smiley came in the back door of the surveillance house and walked through to the living room, where two detectives assigned to the drug taskforce, a man and a woman, were watching the Jackson Street house. He peeked through the curtain. Two cars were in the driveway and another was at the curb.

  “It’s been crazy busy over there since about five-fifteen,” the woman said.

  “Like this?” Smiley asked.

  “We’ve counted three different cars and six players,” the man said.

  Smiley went into the kitchen and called Benson at home. “Clark? Sorry to bother you. Jimmy is rounding up his people. Something’s up.”

  “Today’s collection day, isn’t it? Do you see any of the mopes who were following Jimmy’s guys?”

  “I warned off the one crew. You think the other one actually knocked over Jimmy’s van?”

  “See what you can find out.”

  * * *

  Jimmy Shane sat at a folding table in the back storeroom of the Light Fantastic Gentlemen’s Club talking with two lieutenants: Juan, a squat Latino with a tiny goatee, and Bruce, a tall black man who wore his hair in cornrows. The bass beat of some stripper’s favorite song pounded through the closed door from the main stage. “Bobby called. We know where the hijackers are.”

  “How you want to handle this?” Bruce asked.

  “We’re going to kill these assholes so dead that no one will ever try this again.” He turned to Juan. “Did you break out the heavy gear?”

  “Already in the cars,” Juan said.

  “And both your crews are ready to go?”

  They nodded.

  “Either of you seen Darius?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Anybody call Melody?”

  “I had Shirley call,” Bruce said, “but nobody answered the phone.”

  “Send Pat to check on her.”

  * * *

  Roy and Carol sat in the Monte Carlo watching the door to the motel room. The rain stopped just after nightfall, but the heavy cloud cover hid the moon and the stars. A silver Lincoln Town Car pulled up. Three black women, their breasts and asses bulging out of dresses that could only be called gift wrap, got out, knocked on the door to 107, and went inside.

  “Working girls,” Roy said. “They’re settling in.”

  “So how do we get the money?” Carol asked.

  “They usually leave the loot in one of the cars so that their company can’t steal it.”

  “So that would be the Charger. What are we waiting for?”

  “Want to make sure they’ve got everything they need. Did they order delivery food? More liquor? Drugs?”

  Carol sat back in her seat. “I don’t like waiting.”

  “We need something to eat. Go get us some coffee and sandwiches. I’ll keep watch.” He climbed out of the driver’s seat. Carol slid over. He walked along the parked cars until he reached the breezeway, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. The .44 Sheriff’s Special was holstered at his hip. Thus far, everything was going according to plan. A little patience and they would have the money and be long gone before the guys knew it was missing. They might even blame the hookers. He kept his eyes on the door.

  A few minutes later, a China Delight delivery car pulled up, and a teenager got out with two large sacks. Roy stepped back around the corner of the building. There was a dumpster behind him and an open field. When he looked back down the breezeway the delivery car was gone.

  Carol came back and parked where they were before. Roy climbed in the passenger’s side. “Anything?” Carol asked.

  “Chinese delivery. What did you get?”

  “Tuna and an egg salad. Which do you want?”

  “I’ll take the tuna.”

  She passed him a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper and a large cup of coffee. “Thanks,” he said.

  While they were eating, Pooch came out, barefoot and shirt unbuttoned, went into his truck for a moment, and then went back into the motel room. “They’re a restless bunch,” Roy said.

  “The girls have been in there over an hour,” Carol said.

  “They usually don’t keep them all night.”

  They sipped their coffee and waited. Finally, Roy said, “I’m going to take a leak around the back of the building. Then I’m going to have a look in the Charger’s trunk. Why don’t you get the .38 out of your handbag?”

  He went back around the side of the building to the dumpster, peed, and then walked nonchalantly down the breezeway toward the Charger. The curtains were tightly closed on the room. He peered into the Charger. It was empty except for the usual fast-food trash. He went around the back and used one of his shanked car keys to open the trunk. Nothing. Just as he was shutting the trunk lid, the motel room door opened. Roy crouched, grabbed the bumper, and slid under the car. He could hear the prostitutes talking as they came through the door. The door closed. He saw their high-heeled shoes as they walked by the Charger.

  He slid out the side between the Charger and the Sentra and crouched between the cars, counted to ten, and then peeked at the front of the motel room. Everything was quiet. The guys had gone straight into the motel room when they arrived. They hadn’t stopped anywhere. The money had to be with them. Still, Roy had to check. He looked through the Sentra’s windows. Nothing. He popped the trunk. There was a suitcase of clothes and a canvas bag that contained lock picks, shanked keys, a slim jim, and other burglary tools. He took the bag. The truck cab was empty. He walked down the breezeway and along the parked cars until he was back at the Monte Carlo. He tossed the burglary tools into the back seat and got in the front.

  “What you got?” Carol asked.

  “Just burglary tools.”

  “So the money is in there with them?”

  “Seems so.”

  “So we’re screwed.”

  “If they divide the money up before they leave here, yeah. Then we’d have to track them individually. But if they go somewhere else first, we could still be in business.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Wait.”

  “I’m taking a nap.” She got into the back seat and lay down. Roy slid in behind the wheel.

  * * *

  Bobby sat in his old Ford Pinto at the other end of the parking lot, sipping a Pepsi and watching the motel room door. What was up with that couple in the Monte Carlo? Why did the guy search those vehicles? Did he know about the money, or was he just breaking into promising cars? Bobby put his hand on the butt of his shotgun. If they got in the way, he could deal with those two on his own. He could probably get the money back on his own, for that matter. There were only three of them. They were drunk and overconfident by now. He had the element of surprise. But Jimmy had said to wait. So that was what he was going to do, unless everything suddenly went crazy.

  * * *

  The interior door between rooms 107 and 108 was open. In room 108, both beds had been used, and damp towels lay strewn on the carpet. In room 107, the bed closest to the bathroom had been used, and open Chinese delivery boxes, beer cans, and an empty whiskey bottle littered the table and the dresser top. Jacob and Stevie sat in their underwear at the table, beers in front of them, while Pooch sat on the unused bed.

  “How many of those girls did you screw?” Stevie asked.

&n
bsp; “I fucked the tall one and Charese,” Jacob said. “That was plenty for me.”

  “Charese the dark one?” Stevie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “She was good.”

  “You got that right.”

  “I screwed all three of them,” Pooch said.

  “You’re lying,” Stevie said. “You were just laying there. They were fucking you.”

  They all laughed.

  “Easy money,” Pooch said.

  “None easier,” Jacob replied.

  “I wish the kid had showed,” Stevie said. “I would have loved to mess him up.”

  “He still could,” Jacob said. “He knows how we work. He could have followed us. That’s why the money’s not in the car.”

  Pooch patted the mattress he was sitting on.

  “Either the kid shows up, and we kill him and the girl, or we leave here tomorrow, and we never see him again. Either way works for me,” Jacob said.

  Stevie snorted. “I still want him dead.”

  9

  The Getaway

  A Ford Explorer followed by a Subaru wagon swung into the Econo Inn parking lot, moving fast. The Explorer flashed its lights at Bobby’s Pinto as it flew by. The cars screeched to a stop in front of the motel room. Eight men wearing Kevlar vests and armed with shotguns and assault rifles jumped out of the cars, ran up to the room, and blasted through the doors and windows. Bobby ran across the parking lot to join in.

  “Just in time, bro,” Bruce said.

  Jimmy kicked in the broken door. The men swarmed into the room, firing as they came.

  “All clear,” someone yelled.

  “All clear,” came the reply.

  All three of the hijackers were dead, lying in their own blood, shot multiple times before they could even grab their weapons.

  “Where’s the money?” Jimmy yelled.

  They searched through the rooms, checked the dressers and the bathrooms, and upended the mattresses. “Found it,” Juan said. He pulled the gym bag from a cavity inside the box spring of the unused bed.

  Jimmy poked around in the gym bag. “It’s about ten thousand light.”

  They broke into the three cars parked in front of the room. Nothing. Bobby looked for the Monte Carlo. It was gone.

  * * *

  Just as Jimmy’s crew squealed to a stop in front of the motel room, Roy started the Monte Carlo, but he didn’t turn on the headlights. “Carol. Seat belt.”

  Carol climbed back into the front seat. She saw the Kevlared men rush out of their cars and open fire. Light flashed from the muzzles of the guns in the dark like a scene from a war movie. The noise was deafening. “Jesus.”

  “Hold on.” Roy pushed the Monte Carlo into reverse, bumped over the curb, and backed across the grass until he was clear of the other parked cars. Then he spun ninety degrees, pushed the car into Drive, and stomped on the gas. The car tore across the lawn to the access road and bounced down the curb. Roy turned on the headlights and sped for the freeway interchange. He looked in the rearview mirror. There was no one behind them.

  “Those guys must be dead,” Carol said.

  “They were assholes. What did you think we were going to do to them after we stole their score?”

  “I didn’t think about it.”

  Roy made a right turn onto the freeway ramp. “You don’t really care what happened to them, do you?”

  “No, I just don’t want to end up dead.” She glanced back toward the motel one last time. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to Roosevelt Heights. We need to pick up our stuff and get out of town.”

  “So we’re all done.”

  “Yeah. Nothing left here but pain and suffering. I know I promised you more, but that’s the way it goes.”

  * * *

  Tom Smiley stood in the phone booth at the Chevron station across the divided highway from the Econo Inn. People were out of their cars, watching the gunfight. “Yeah, Clark, Indian Grove. Need the local swat team if they’ve got one. Jimmy’s crew is shooting up the Econo Inn. Hold on.”

  He took the phone away from his ear. He could hear sirens: one, two, three cars.

  “Cops are almost here. What do you want me to do?”

  “What a mess,” Benson said. “There’s no reason for anyone to know you’re there. Come on back. We’ll make contact with the local police tomorrow, offer to share information. If Jimmy doesn’t get arrested, maybe we can still get video of him handling the drug money.”

  “See you in a few hours.”

  Smiley got into his car. He had plenty of gas. He drove back toward the freeway. A patrol car, lights flashing and siren screaming, sped by on the other side of the divided highway. Smiley shook his head. Jimmy was radioactive now. There was no way he could help him anymore. Not with a murder rap hanging over him. Those mopes who’d robbed him had sure screwed up. But what about the couple he’d warned off. Were they still hanging around Roosevelt Heights? Did they know what was going on and would they try to take advantage? He might be able to make a few dollars there.

  * * *

  Two police cruisers, lights flashing, screeched to a stop in the Econo Inn parking lot just beyond the Explorer and the Subaru. Jimmy and his crew ran back into the rooms just as the officers got out with their shotguns.

  “Grab the mattresses,” Bruce said.

  Jimmy’s men dragged the mattresses up against the bullet-riddled front wall and hunkered down behind them. Jimmy went back into the bathroom, Juan and two other guys following in his wake. There was a window in the wall above the toilet.

  “Break it out,” Jimmy said.

  Juan stood on the toilet and broke out the glass with the butt of his rifle. There was an open field behind the motel. “All clear, boss.”

  Jimmy set down his rifle and took off his Kevlar vest. “Everybody scatter. We’ll meet back at the club.”

  He climbed out the window with the gym bag over his shoulder and started jogging down to the end of the building. He could hear the police loudspeaker, but he couldn’t make out what it was saying.

  * * *

  Roy and Carol drove in silence for a while. Fog rose from the wet fields along the freeway, making it difficult to see in the distance. After they passed a road sign indicating Roosevelt Heights was thirty miles away, Roy glanced at Carol. “What’s your plan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You want me to drop you back in Fredericksburg or are you going to stay with me? I’m guessing we’ve still got about eight hundred dollars apiece.”

  “I promised Terry I’d help him.”

  “You sure you going back to him?”

  She studied his face in the dim from the dashboard. “I don’t know.”

  “You think you can train him to change up his game?”

  “No. That’s what has me worried. Next time it could be me going to jail.”

  “I want you to stay with me. You’re smart. You’ve got the magic. But I’ve got no use for Terry. And Terry’s got no use for me.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve got feelings for you, and I think you have feelings for me. So I want you to make a good decision. A decision you won’t regret. Do you know how Terry got busted?”

  “Bad luck. The mark fought back.”

  “No. I called the cops.”

  “What? You called the cops?”

  “Yes.”

  “You motherfucker!”

  “I wanted to see what you could do, and I wanted you to see what you could do. But Terry wouldn’t cooperate, so I had to take him out of the picture.”

  “How can you expect me to trust you?”

  “Because I’m telling you the truth—even though I don’t have to.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t lie to a partner.”

  She looked out her window into the dark. He’d ratted out Terry, got him busted, made him suffer. Even if she didn’t love him anymore, that was wrong. And Roy had mani
pulated her into becoming his partner. He’d been sitting in that diner with his story all ready. But from the moment she’d agreed to help him, he’d always done everything that he said he would. And now she had the skills to take care of herself. Or was that just his game? His way of manipulating her to get her to choose him over Terry. Terry was a puppy dog. Her puppy dog. But he had sharp teeth. She could get him to do anything, as long as he thought it was his idea, and as long as he thought he was in control of her. If she went back to him, it would just be more of the same. She glanced at Roy. Terry’d be angry right now if she’d yelled at him like she’d just yelled at Roy. He’d pull over, yell at her—maybe slap her. But Roy? He never raised his voice or hit her. Why had he really told her about what he did to Terry? Had he just assumed that she would eventually find out or had he been telling the truth? That there couldn’t be a lie between them?

  They didn’t speak anymore on the way back to Roosevelt Heights. Roy took the exit ramp onto Greene Boulevard and the access road to the Budget 8 Inn. The parking lot was half empty, and there was no one hanging about. Roy pulled into the spot in front of their room. “So what’s it going to be?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still mad at you.”

  They went into the room to get their suitcases. Carol looked at the bed they’d made love in the night before. Even though she was still angry, she knew she was going to forgive him—had to forgive him. She felt completely safe with him. Knew that he wanted her to be just who she was, that with him she wouldn’t have to pretend. She sighed. The last few days started cascading through her mind—the parked cars, following the guys, the Jackson Street house, and the Cape Cod. She turned to Roy.