by Scott Blade
Hood had fallen in love with an illegal immigrant who had a young, illegal daughter. Widow recalled the photograph Claire had. It was the same one Hood had on his Facebook page. The glow in both Lucy and Jemma Hood, a true mother and daughter. Beautiful smiles. And then there was Claire Hood, James’ incredibly brave mother. Widow could picture the guy feeling responsible for them. Being desperate to provide for them, to protect them. Then he could picture Hood not being the brightest guy in the world and easy to take advantage of.
Maybe they were desperate for money. And Lucy was sick. Very sick, according to Claire. Widow recalled she had terminal cancer. Being responsible for feeding and clothing a six-year-old girl and her mother was one thing, but being responsible for the medical bills of a cancer patient in America was something entirely different.
Widow could imagine Hood doing what any good husband and father would do. Hood sought out other methods of making money. And somehow he got involved with the wrong crew. And somebody in this outfit must have been the money man because these guys were professional. Maybe not good enough to take him out, but really, how often is it that a killing crew comes across a drifter who happens to have his experience?
Widow didn’t know the particulars, but he felt he was right in his estimation of the situation.
Now he had to find Hood and Jemma before more bad guys came along. And he guessed there would be more as soon as these two didn’t check in.
Widow checked the street again and saw no sign of oncoming cars, just lights from the highway in the distance. He walked around to the passenger door and grabbed the big guy and hauled him out of the car. Dead weight was always hard to move. Moving dead bodies wasn’t what he had planned for his day, but here he was. He dragged the guy all the way around and back to the trunk. One of his shoes fell off along the way.
Widow stopped at the trunk and made one quick glance back for headlights. When he saw none, he heaved Francis up and dumped him into the trunk on top of the body bags. He walked back along the side of the car and picked up his shoe and tossed it in.
Widow returned to the woman and pulled her out. She was much, much easier than Francis had been. He lifted her up over his shoulder and suddenly imagined a passerby coming up the highway and seeing the silhouette of a giant hitchhiker carrying a dead woman slumped over his shoulder. He smirked and then felt a little odd about it. Something he learned in the SEALs, something actually taught to him in a serious class, was about humor.
The instructors railed on the men to find humor in combat. Find humor in the face of extreme odds because that old saying about laughing in the face of danger had a ring of truth to it. He’d just killed two people, and that was never a good thing, but it was him or them. Well, technically the woman killed the man, but that was splitting hairs. They were dead because of him. It was them or Jemma as far as he was concerned.
He discarded the woman down in the trunk on top of Francis and looked at them one last time. He tossed in Francis’ wallet and locked the car up and walked away, toward the highway.
CHAPTER 12
WIDOW GOT A RIDE from an off-duty fireman, which wasn’t good because he figured the guy would be well-informed about the local news, and whenever the police popped that trunk, they’d find those bodies. Maybe there’d be a story on the news about it, and maybe the fireman would remember the night he’d picked up a hitchhiker, practically in front of the car. The firefighter would remember Widow and possibly tell the cops.
Widow wasn’t really too concerned about it because the police wouldn’t pop the trunk. Not right away. That car would probably sit there for several hours. A patrolman would drive along and check it out. The windows were tinted, which was good because the cop wouldn’t see the bloodstains on the back seat. But he would write a ticket and leave it on the window. And then several more hours would pass, and another cop would come by and see the previous ticket and slap a tow sticker on the window. Widow had seen those stickers before on abandoned cars along the highway. Usually they were bright pink or yellow. They were signals to the passing tow trucks to stop and pick up the car.
The Dodge Charger would get towed to a city impound where it would be forgotten for a while. No one would pay much attention to it until the bodies started to decompose and rot and then smell really bad. Then again, Widow hadn’t thought about the giant .44 Magnum bullet holes in the engine and the hood. So probably the car would be towed to the impound, but only after the cops investigated the interior, found the blood, popped the trunk, and found the bodies. In every scenario Widow’s mind played out, he was better off getting the hell out of there and on his way.
After the cops performed an investigation, they’d certainly find his fingerprints. They would send them back to the department to be analyzed, and then they would run them through the databases. They’d run them through the FBI database first since it was the biggest and most comprehensive. An hour or two would probably go by, and then their search would trigger a red flag in DC, which in turn would be referred to the Department of the Navy, and then the search would be rerouted to Quantico, but not because that was where the FBI trained its agents. It would be sent to Quantico because that was the closest headquarters of the NCIS. They would then see the search was marked as classified. The identity of the fingerprints would be redacted and encrypted, and eventually it would all trickle to Unit 10, which was Widow’s old unit.
Of course, they would deny information to the FBI and to the cops as a matter of national security, and that would be the end of it. But they would want answers.
Widow figured that all of this would really be a good thing because now that things had changed for him; he could use the help. Which meant that eventually, he would have to call his old boss and get some help.
CHAPTER 13
WIDOW SLEPT in a cheap motel off the highway, the kind that took cash and didn’t ask questions about its occupants. Otherwise, it would have no occupants.
The room was filthy, and the neighbors were loud. The place was occupied by meth addicts and prostitutes. Widow had slept in worse places, but not in America. He had stayed in some less than reputable establishments in the US, but not like this one. This was like a bad episode of a cop show. Still, he had been exhausted and slept as well as a man could sleep on a mattress that was made with more spring than cushion. The noises hadn’t bothered him because he could tune them out as easily as anything. He had slept on the cold, metal floor of many Air Force cargo planes. He had had to sleep flying over the Atlantic to Germany more times than he could remember, and that didn’t count all of the times he flew in the same circumstances, only over the Pacific. Not to mention he’d had to sleep in situations of heavy gunfire in the past.
A seedy motel in Texas wasn’t a cakewalk, but it was the Hilton compared to some of the places he’d slept in.
He woke up at first light and decided it was best to hit the road. He needed a change of clothes. His slacks still had dried blood on them from Francis’ calf muscle. But first things first. He needed to shower.
He had to admit that even though the motel was far from stellar, the shower was pretty good. Hot water the way he liked it and tremendous water pressure. All good things.
He showered and toweled off with a thin white towel and dried his hair with a smaller one. Then he slipped his clothes back on and left the shady motel, never to think of it again.
He walked a quarter of a mile, toward the busier and more modern areas of the city. He found his way past a McDonald’s and a Target, which wasn’t open yet. He walked on, looking for a twenty-four-hour store or a department store that opened early. He found a small surf shop that was going out of business. He knew that because it had a sign out front that said “Going Out of Business Sale.”
An attractive bleached blonde was sitting on a lawn chair out front with some racks of jeans displayed. She wore sunglasses and cut-off jean shorts.
She said in a fantastic Texas accent, “Hey, how ya doin’? Up early today?�
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Widow said, “Going out of business. Why?”
“This little store just didn’t make it.”
“Bad location?”
“Yeah. I mean there’s a bunch of box retails around here. There’s a Target down the street. We just couldn’t compete.”
“You going to be all right?”
“Sure. This is my first store, but I got two others. Tough times is all.”
Widow nodded.
“So you need some clothes?”
He nodded and stood behind the rack so she couldn’t see the dried blood on his pants.
She said, “Okay. Well, today everything is half off.”
“You got a big-and-tall section?”
“We don’t got any dress clothes for a guy your size. But there’s plenty to pick from in the T-shirts. Most of what we got is extra large.”
“What about pants?”
“Try the jeans. They’re in the back of the store. Right side.”
“Can I try them on?”
“Sure, honey. Fitting room is in the back, past the counter.”
Widow nodded and asked, “Aren’t you worried about me stealing?”
“Nah, honey. I’m aiming to sell all this stuff by the end of business. There ain’t no room for it at my other stores. If you don’t buy it, then it all gets donated. Besides, you look trustworthy enough.”
He didn’t respond. He shimmied through the racks of girls’ pants and accessories and into the store. First, he grabbed a black T-shirt, just because it was the first XL he saw, and then he hurried over to the jeans and studied them for his size and grabbed a dark blue pair.
He took them back to the fitting room and undressed and then dressed again in the new clothes. Everything fit well.
Normally, he would’ve thrown away his old clothes at the store, but with the bloodstains, he figured it was best to take them with him and throw them into a dumpster.
He came out of the store and held out the tags from the jeans and the shirt. He handed her two twenties from Francis’ cash. He said, “This should cover the price, with the discount. Keep the change.”
The bleach blonde store owner opened her hand and took the cash. She stayed seated and said, “Sure thing. You want anything else?”
“No,” he said and then stopped and asked, “Which way to the bus station?”
“Greyhound is about three miles down that road. Just head straight and turn right near the Waffle House. It’s across from the police station.”
Great, he thought and repeated the words police station in his head.
EVERYONE GETS a little intimidated from time to time. When you’re guilty of murder, you get a little more so than the average person. Especially when you’re waiting for a bus and sitting right across from the police station.
Widow had walked from the clothing shop that was going out of business and passed by a closed restaurant. He dumped his old clothes in a dumpster there, as well as the Colt Anaconda, after wiping it down. Tossing it made him a little sad because it was such a beautiful weapon. But he didn’t see the practicality in taking it with him. It was huge and bulky and not a weapon he could conceal in just jeans and a T-shirt. He kept the Sig Sauer, which was much more practical. The only thing about it was that the woman hadn’t brought extra rounds. So he had to settle for having only five left.
Tossing the Colt Anaconda wasn’t the end of his sadness because he still had the bullets to deal with. He had unloaded the remaining bullets and the brass, and then he had the extra ones from Francis’ pocket. He didn’t want to toss them into the dumpster with the gun, so he walked over two blocks and found a sewage drain and dumped them down the grate.
Widow walked to the bus station and bought a ticket. Then he spent the next forty-five minutes waiting for his bus to Laredo. He waited on the bench farthest from the police station’s line of sight. He knew there was no real chance of anyone pinning him as a suspect for shooting two people only the night before, but still, he was going to feel a lot more comfortable when he was far from the city.
He had the bus ticket in his back pocket. It was flattened out in his latest paperback book. He felt a little restless and a little hungry. He was ready to get on the road. He decided to get up and walk around the station for a few minutes and stretch his legs. He walked around to the other side of the station’s hutch and stopped by a water fountain. He took a swig and then looked above the fountain at a map of the roads of southern Texas. He studied it and recalled in his head the conversation with Leon.
She had said that to reach Romanth, he would need something with four-wheel drive.
Widow had an idea. He looked down the street and saw one of those old mechanic shops that had been open for decades—a dying breed. He forgot about taking the bus and walked across the street to the mechanic. The sign out front said Torrocel’s. Widow walked in, and a bell above the door chimed his arrival.
He waited in front of a counter for someone to come out of the back. Behind the counter was a bookshelf with used auto books. He could see pages torn and folded and spines creased. A long moment passed, and he thought about calling out, but then a little old man came from out of the shadows. He wore a green collared shirt and a pair of gray slacks. He was wiping his hands, which were greased up from working on a car, Widow figured. The guy must’ve been a pretty good mechanic because his clothes were clean. Then again, maybe he was just the front desk guy or the owner, and someone else lower down the food chain was the one who did the actual labor.
The guy reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and slipped them on. He said, “Yes? Can I help you?”
Widow said, “How are you today?”
“Fine. Doing fine.”
“That’s good. I need to inquire about your lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw around the back that you got a lot of cars back there.”
The guy said, “Yeah. What of it?”
“Are they all customers’ cars?”
“Not all. Two of them are employees. What’s this about, son?”
“See, I’m in desperate need of wheels.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m wondering if you got any old trucks lying around that you wouldn’t mind parting with?”
The guy cocked his head up and stared at Widow’s face. He said, “This isn’t a car dealership.”
“I realize that, sir. But I was figuring that a bunch of those junkier rides were yours.”
The guy continued to stare into Widow’s face.
Widow said, “I figure you use them for spare parts.”
The guy said, “Well, if I use them for spare parts, don’t you think that none of them would work right?”
“Isn’t there something back there that runs?”
“So let me get this straight. You want to buy one of my old junk vehicles?”
“That’s right. I need a truck. With four-wheel drive. Nothing fancy. Just reliable.”
The guy paused a long moment, and then he said, “You don’t care about any luxuries?” Widow stayed quiet, and the guy came back with, “What I mean is, it don’t need A/C?”
Widow said, “I don’t care if it has doors on it.”
The guy nodded and said, “Wait right here.” And he removed his glasses, turned, and walked back through a door into the shadows.
Widow stood near the counter and waited. He looked at the clock on the wall and recalled the map from the bus station in his head. He had about a two-hour drive down to Laredo and then another hour or so northwest.
The guy returned without his glasses and had an employee following behind him. The employee wore a red hat with a political slogan on it, which made Widow think about the election again. He wore mechanic’s overalls and was covered in grease—a real mechanic.
The guy said, “Yes, sir. You looking to buy something with four-wheel drive?”
Widow nodded.
“You got cash?”
“I got a debit card.”
The guy thought for a moment, and he turned to the old man who must’ve been the owner, Torrecel, and whispered something to him. They spoke in low voices, and then he turned back and said, “Good enough. Come on back.”
Widow followed the two of them through the shadows and out a door. They walked into a small three-slot garage. All three slots were occupied with cars up on the lifts. There was another guy there, all greased up and working underneath one of the cars.
Widow followed the mechanic past the work area and out through one of the open garages. They walked into a small parking lot that was jam-packed with cars. They walked beyond what Widow assumed were customers’ cars waiting to be worked on and then through some cars that looked more like scrap metal and then over to a wooded area where three vehicles were parked.
The guy walked up to a 1990s Jeep Wrangler. It was lifted with big tires, painted Army green. It might as well have had an Army star slapped on the side door. It had no top on it, and no visible top anywhere. There were half doors and a wench on the front and a spare tire on the back. It was well-kept, but there wasn’t much to say about the exterior. It looked like the bones of a daily driver, like a work in progress.
The guy said, “I got this Jeep. I need to sell it. It runs good. The wife is having our second, and I need to get rid of it.”
Widow looked it over and asked, “Any engine problems?”
“What you think?”
Widow stayed quiet.
“I work in a garage. I keep it running good. Solid engine.”
“The four-wheel drive works?”
“You know it does. That’s the whole reason to have one. Take it for a drive if you want and try it out.”
Widow said, “Nah. No need. I trust you. How much you want for it?”
The guy said, “How much you want to pay?”
Widow asked, “What’s the value?”
“The book value on these things is around six thousand.”
