The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17

by Lisa Scottoline

  With a sharp click, Lester jerked the big padlock open. “All right!” he said triumphantly. Throwing the latch, he rolled open the overhang door and a light came on inside.

  The eyes of all three turned to look.

  Two dust-covered gray canvas sacks lay there, padlocked at one end, with one of them slit partly open to reveal bundles of bank-banded currency.

  A million two.

  Hardesty watched from the end of the Section D drive.

  He had barely made it through the closing gate, the weight of which had impacted his right elbow, causing, he was certain, a minor fracture. It hurt like hell. But he was not about to let it bother him. Switching the gun to his left hand, he had taken off at a trot in the direction Cory’s car had turned.

  When he reached Section D and looked down the drive of identical garage doors, he saw Cory’s car parked partway down, in front of a square of light shining out from what appeared to be an open garage door.

  Bingo, he thought.

  A million two.

  Holding his right elbow tucked close to his side to try to relieve the throbbing pain of the fracture, he began walking at a brisk pace toward the square of light, perspiration once again wetting his forehead and his palms. When he was almost there, he paused, knelt down, placed his pistol on the ground, and briskly rubbed the palm of his left hand on his trouser leg to get it completely dry. Having to hold the gun in his left hand, he did not want it slippery as well. Having come this far, everything had to be perfect now, no slip-ups.

  Pleased with himself for being so careful, Hardesty stood back up, gun in hand, and cautiously resumed his approach. But after a few steps he froze and flattened himself in the foot-deep inset of one of the garage doors.

  Someone had emerged from the lighted open garage door.

  Cory, ordered by Lester, came out of the garage, reached into the Buick, and pressed the button to pop open the trunk. Seeing Cory’s duffel and Billie’s overnight bag, Lester threw Billie a suspicious look.

  “Planning a little trip with this screw, sugar?” he asked tightly. “Gonna leave poor Lester behind, maybe?”

  To Cory he snapped, “Get that junk out of there—quick!” Cory removed the two pieces of luggage and set them inside the garage. “Now put the two bank sacks in the trunk and get back inside,” Lester directed.

  Peering from his concealment at what was going on, Hardesty saw the money sacks put into Cory’s trunk and the two men move back into the garage.

  Now or never, he decided.

  Moving quickly, he reached the open garage door and confronted the three people inside.

  “Freeze!” he shouted, leveling his gun. “FBI!” To Lester he ordered, “Drop that weapon, Dragg!”

  Lester stopped cold, the gun at his side, but he did not drop it.

  Hardesty stepped over to Billie Sue and jerked her next to him, pointing his gun at her head. “Drop that weapon, Dragg, or I’ll kill your woman!”

  Lester laughed and raised his gun. “Go ahead, kill her. I don’t need the lying bitch no more.” Aiming at Hardesty, he squeezed the trigger.

  The automatic’s hammer came down on an empty chamber.

  Looking aghast at the gun, Lester rapidly worked the trigger three more times before realizing in horror that the gun was not loaded.

  Then it was Hardesty who laughed. “You brainless, lowlife moron,” he said, pushing Billie Sue aside. “You’re too stupid to go on living.”

  Hardesty shot Lester twice, dead center in the chest, exploding his heart, slamming his body back eight feet, dropping him like a man hit by a truck. Then he turned his gun on Cory, who was reaching for his Ruger. But before Hardesty could fire, his head was hit at close range as Billie Sue shot him in the temple with her Guardian 25.

  Cory had his Ruger out now, and he and Billie Sue faced each other with guns leveled. They stood like that for a long, taut moment. Then Billie Sue spoke.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Let’s,” said Cory.

  The sliding gate opened automatically from the inside for vehicles wanting to exit. Cory eased the Buick out, their own luggage back in the trunk with the million two, the bodies of Lester and Hardesty securely locked behind them in Unit 276, the rental on which, Billie Sue pointed out, was paid up three months in advance.

  We’re free and clear now, Cory thought. Billie was snuggled up beside him. There was nothing else to worry about. All the pieces were now in place.

  All the pieces—

  Except for Duffy.

  The first bullet hit the Buick’s windshield, shattering glass in Billie’s face. She screamed.

  The second shot was low, smashing into the car’s radiator. Cory swerved and slammed sideways into the back of a van parked in front of a warehouse. When the Buick came to a jolting halt, steam gushing from under the hood, a third bullet burst the driver’s-side window and grazed the back of Cory’s neck before plowing into a seatback.

  Cory saw Duffy now, stumbling toward the car like a drunken madman, brandishing a pistol and shouting.

  “You don’t put anything over on me!” he yelled. “No, sir!”

  Kicking open the driver’s-side door, Cory rolled out, firing his own weapon. The two men exchanged shots, one of Duffy’s rounds striking Cory in the right side, an in-and-out hit that spun him but did not bring him down, while four of Cory’s bullets laced Duffy’s chest, sending him flailing back like a rag doll.

  As Cory struggled over to the car, his sense of smell was hit with the acrid fumes of gasoline. One of Duffy’s shots had hit the gas tank.

  In the car, Cory found Billie sobbing, hands covering her face, blood trickling down between her fingers. “Come on, baby,” Cory said, taking one of her arms and dragging her across the seat.

  Then another shot cracked through the silence and hit the car. Duffy, not quite dead, had managed to fire one final round, and it hit the Buick’s already punctured gas tank. The rear of the car exploded in a burst of growling flame.

  “Come on, baby!” Cory said again, desperately urgent now. As he got Billie almost out, another, smaller eruption of flame licked out and caught both of them, searing the sides of their faces, singeing their hair.

  Limping, half dragging Billie, Cory managed to get them just far enough away not to be blown up when the rest of the Buick exploded.

  Along with the million two in its trunk.

  Sirens began piercing the humid air as police cruisers, fire engines, and ambulances converged on the cul-de-sac from all directions. On a narrow side street a block away, Cory managed to walk Billie along a row of older frame houses, where porch lights were being turned on and people were coming out to see what was going on.

  At the end of the block, where the houses stopped and only the dark night remained, Cory paused where an old man in a wheelchair sat looking toward the fiery sky above the cul-de-sac.

  “Say, mister,” Cory asked, “does this street lead out of town?”

  “This street?” the old man replied, peering curiously at their injured faces. “This street don’t lead nowheres. This street ends at the cemetery.”

  Cory grunted quietly, said, “Thanks, mister,” and laboriously moved on.

  As he and Billie went on their way, the old man saw blood on the sidewalk and started wheeling toward a police cruiser that pulled up to block the other end of the street.

  They rested on the grassy ground next to the large headstone of a grave about twenty yards inside the cemetery. There was enough light from a full moon for them to see each other.

  Billie’s face was shredded on both sides from the windshield glass and burned on one side from the gasoline fire, and most of her hair was burned off one side of her head.

  Cory’s face and hair were seriously charred on one side, his neck wound painfully seared by the fire, and his stomach gunshot wound bubbling air-blood past the hand he held pressed tightly over it in a futile attempt to stop the flow. He had looked at his bloody hand und
er a streetlight just before they entered the cemetery and seen that the blood was streaked with black. The bullet had nicked his liver.

  As they sat with their backs against the cold surface of the headstone, two police cruisers pulled up at the cemetery entrance and four officers got out and moved cautiously onto the grounds.

  “I don’t want to go on, Cory,” Billie managed to choke out.

  “Neither do I, baby,” Cory replied.

  They both drew their guns.

  ANDRE KOCSIS

  Crossing

  FROM The New Orphic Review

  I’d been watching the bear from across the valley for almost fifteen minutes. I first saw him just above the last of the stunted jack pines, galloping along a snowy bench and heading for the steeps. The slope above him was corrugated by a series of narrow couloirs, and I kept the binoculars on him, wondering what he would do. He hesitated not a moment, choosing a steep, tight channel in the dark rock. The increase in incline did not perturb him; he continued motoring up at a good clip. That couloir was steep—at least forty degrees. I knew. I had skied it a few weeks before.

  Where was he going? There was no food up there. And why was he not holed up in a cave, anyhow? It was March—too early for him to come out.

  Sometimes bears wake up, go out to explore for a while, and then go back to sleep, but this guy looked like he was on a mission.

  An eagle circled far above, soaring on thermals, king of the blue sky.

  When I looked back, the bear had reached the top of the couloir, and then he disappeared over the ridge. For a moment I considered putting on my skis and trying to pick up his trail, just to see what he was up to. It would have been a lot easier if I had had a dog. Well, not easier. The bear’s tracks would be easy enough to follow. But a man needs a companion to go adventuring.

  Someday.

  Right now it was too complicated to take care of a dog. I was up at the cabin less than half the time, and Nelson wasn’t fit for humans, let alone a dog. The town was totally overrun by fat, pale tourists.

  When I first moved there, in 1975, it was still a funky little place, but a third of a century has elapsed since, and a lot of things change in that much time.

  On the other hand, some things don’t change. The U.S. is at war again. It took just one generation to forget the lessons of Vietnam.

  Ironic, that Pinto had done me a favor by ratting me out to the cops for selling him that dope. He was trying to save his own hide, but in California I still have a warrant for my arrest. I suppose I would have left anyway, when I got my draft notice.

  The only thing I regret now is that I couldn’t go back to see my dad before he died last year. He was eighty-one, and he had not visited me since before Mom died, six years ago.

  I put the glasses down on the rock where I’d been sitting and went into the cabin, crouching to avoid hitting my head on the low doorframe. Calling it a cabin was generous. It was no more than a shack. I had dragged every log a couple of kilometers up from the tree line.

  I still wonder whether the effort had been worthwhile. The cabin is on Crown land. I had camouflaged the roof to avoid detection from the air, but if any rangers wandered up into the alpine, they’d burn the unauthorized structure.

  I was going to turn fifty-six soon. It was time I had a place of my own, but I could not imagine living anywhere except in the alpine. I wanted to buy some land, but my savings were not enough. Guiding was not exactly making me rich, and spending so much time chilling at the cabin pushed millionaire status further out of reach.

  I picked up the little plastic baggie holding my dope and papers. It felt light. Moving back to the door, I held it up to the shaft of light and noted that the contents had definitely diminished since arriving a couple of weeks before.

  Time to get a new supply. Time to go back to Nelson. Maybe even get some work.

  Owen was an Englishman in his late thirties who ran a “collectibles” store on one of the side streets of Nelson. He sold comic books, hockey cards, vinyl records—anything he could buy for pennies and sell for big bucks. It was unclear whether selling dope supplemented the huge profits he made on the collectibles or whether the collectibles just served as a front.

  “Hey, Sierra, you’re just in time,” he said as I entered the dusty, poorly lit store.

  “Hi, Owen. Just in time for what?”

  “A couple of blokes came in this morning. They’re looking for a guide.”

  My clientele used to consist mainly of backcountry skiers, hunters, or fishers who wanted to spend a week in the wilderness, but in the last few years Owen had opened up a whole new market for me. The border to the U.S. is quite mountainous in this area, making it ideal for undetected transport of B.C. bud into Montana. Dope runners paid better than skiers, even after the hefty commission that Owen took. (I always suspected that he also took a percentage from the clients.)

  “How do I get in touch?”

  “They’re coming back tomorrow. I was going to use Calvin, because I never know how to find you.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “So you are, buddy, so you are.” He smiled at me, revealing the narrow gap between his two front teeth. Owen had dark, curly hair and a broad, friendly face that stood him well with the ladies. He had come to Nelson to get away from his third wife. She was still in England, working the divorce courts to squeeze more money out of Owen.

  “What’s been happening?”

  “Same old, same old. Bush is threatening Iran to get people’s minds off the fact that he ruined the U.S. economy. Hey, there is a meeting tonight to plan a demonstration. Are you coming?”

  “I’m busy,” I lied.

  “You’re constantly ceasing to amaze me, Sierra. This country gives you asylum from those warmongers and then you just turn your back on the people that saved your ass.”

  “Save it for someone who cares. I haven’t had a toke in twenty-four hours, and I’m ready to go postal. Can you front me a baggie? I’ll pay you as soon as your clients show up.”

  Owen went into the back for a couple of minutes. The store had a relaxing gloom, and I surveyed the racks of comics and cards, all encased in plastic. Junk. But people were willing to pay for it.

  Owen came back and laid a fat baggie on the counter. I immediately rolled a joint, and we passed it back and forth.

  “Tell me, Sierra, have you ever done anything to fight the imperialism of your country?”

  “It’s not my country, and not my business.”

  “Okay, have it your way, but have you ever done anything?”

  “Yeah, actually, I was part of a major conspiracy to stop the Vietnam War.”

  Owen perked up at this. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. There was a group of us in Berkeley. We were dangerous radicals. One time we got a bunch of identical shoeboxes, like about fifty of them. Then we took a banana, put it in a box, and sent it by first-class mail to Lyndon Johnson.”

  “When did you live in Berkeley?”

  “After high school.”

  “You told me you were climbing in Yosemite after high school.”

  “Sometimes I’d stay in Berkeley for a couple of months.”

  “Oh.” Owen looked at me skeptically. “So you sent a banana to the president of the United States. And that was supposed to stop the war?”

  “No, no, there was more to it. The next day we took another identical box and put a banana in it and sent that to LBJ, also by first-class mail.”

  Owen took a deep drag on my joint and handed back to me a much-diminished version.

  “We did this for over a month,” I continued.

  “Wow! That’s perseverance.”

  “You don’t get it. After doing this every day, we suddenly just stopped.”

  “So?”

  I took a drag on what was left of the joint, extinguished it, and put the roach into the baggie.

  “That just drove them crazy,” I explained.

  “Sierra, you deluded, lo
ng-haired midget, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Well, the U.S. eventually pulled out of Vietnam, didn’t it?”

  When I showed up at Owen’s store the next day, he started in on me again.

  “Some people mentioned you last night. They’re wondering if you support the war in Iraq.”

  “War is a delusion.”

  “What? The U.S. killing people in Iraq is no delusion.”

  “I’m saying that anyone who truly believes that a problem can be solved by war is deluding himself.”

  Owen stared at me for a second. “I don’t know about that. I mean, sometimes you have to go to war. What if we hadn’t stopped Hitler? Were we deluded about that?”

  “The delusion started with Hitler. He thought that by eliminating the Jews he’d solve Germany’s problems.”

  “He didn’t believe that at all. The Jews were a convenient scapegoat.”

  “Maybe for cynical leaders war is not a delusion. They may have a personal agenda that’s served by war, but for the common man, the one who has to put his life on the line, it’s a delusion. The average American soldier had more in common with the average German soldier than either of them had in common with their commanders and national leaders. They just wanted to live their lives, have enough to eat, keep their families safe. Only the leaders had ideological agendas that they valued more than the lives of their country’s citizens. That’s the tragedy of the twentieth century—ideologies that were so important that no sacrifice was too great. It would have been different if the leaders had been asked to be on the frontlines.”

  “Sure, but you have to take a stand against evil...”

  “Any individual who sacrifices himself for a cause is deluded.”

  Owen shook his head. “So you’re a pacifist?”