The woman frowned. “But my friend was just here, he told me he got a very good deal.”
“I have made no deals today, I am sorry. Perhaps you mean Flaco’s place? His place is a little further down,” he said with a smile. “Besides, for a deal such as that, there is much paperwork. And I do not even have the forms. I sell cars, I do not buy them.”
The blond woman said, “What I am looking for is an exchange.”
“What you are suggesting sounds like it would be very illegal,” said Perrucho, having fun with it. “I do not think I could do something like that. Señora, my nerves, they are not so good.”
The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out her FBI ID and badge. “Then how about if I place you under arrest?”
Perrucho laughed and leaned forward in his chair. He leaned across the desk and presented his hands. “Please, put me in the cuffs. Because I ask myself. If you are here to arrest me, then why do you not have backup?”
The woman said nothing.
“I think you are in more trouble than I am. If someone is looking for that fancy car, then, señorita, you need me more than I need you.”
The blond woman had no response to this. She stood there blinking back tears. Perrucho thought they were tears of weakness and frustration. Exhaustion at the end of a long and difficult road. Leverage.
“I do have an offer for you. If you can buy one of my cars for the bargain price of twenty thousand dollars, then I will take the Maserati and dispose of it quietly. How does that sound to you?”
“I don’t…”
“I know, I know,” said Perrucho, holding up a hand. “You don’t have the money. And there are many, many excuses for this. Believe me, I have heard them all. And I sympathize. I am not a man without a heart. So I tell you what I will do. I will give you a five-thousand-dollar discount if you let me see those breasts of yours.”
The blonde grew red in the face. She started to speak, but he cut her off again.
“But wait, for you, a special price, ten thousand dollars to solve all of your problems if you strip naked in this office, right now. And I want you to know, that is a better deal than I gave your friend. Of course, you are free to reject my deal. But then I am afraid that, law-abiding citizen that I am, I would have to call the police and report such strange behavior.”
SIX
When she was done, Wellsley flipped the Closed sign, locked the door, and went through Perrucho’s pockets. Even though that filthy, patriarchal prick had deserved it, she avoided looking at the work she had done. The hole in his face was small, but the soft, expanding bullet had torn the back of his head almost completely off. She repositioned a poster on the wall to cover the splatter and bits of hair.
In his pockets she found a Mercedes key fob and a wallet. There were $200 in cash and no family pictures. Yeah, she thought, this one she could probably get away with. Even if somebody called it in, police departments waited seventy-two hours before they would classify someone as a missing person. And how long would it be before somebody missed this greasy prick?
A week on the outside? But she was sure she wouldn’t need that. She’d get the money and be gone. South, over the border from Texas somewhere. The north of Mexico wouldn’t be a good place to hang out, but Cabo San Lucas would be fine for a blond American girl. And from there Panama, where a second passport was easy to get. Especially if you were willing to buy property.
She knew how and where money was laundered. And she knew to broker small deals and not take any chances. Hiding her identity and cleaning the money would be a full-time job for a while, but it would pay well. She might have already been done with it if she had gotten the money the first time. And having a hurricane to cover her tracks, that would have been perfect.
As she drove away in Perrucho’s battered old Mercedes—with what was left of Perrucho in the trunk—she told herself that it would be fine. It would all be fine, if she took it slow and got it right this time. She’d get away, and nobody would ever have her under their thumb again.
She checked the GPS tracker on her phone. Hobbs was still at the motor court. Now all she had to do was wait.
She got a room at the motor court, number twelve, across the horseshoe from where Hobbs was. She set an alarm for three thirty in the morning and tried to get some sleep. But she was too jittery to get to sleep. She thought about kicking the old man’s door in, pistol-whipping him, and forcing him to take her to the money. Better to let him lead her unthinkingly. That way he couldn’t lie.
When three thirty rolled around, the blue truck was still there. She watched for a little over two hours. Then she fell asleep in the chair. When she woke up the truck was gone. Her heart raced, and she cursed her weakness. But the tracker still had him. Three miles south on 319.
She caught up with him in Medart. The truck was parked at a dive center, and a young kid was helping him load gear into the back of the truck. She saw him moving slowly as she drove by, and turned her head away as she passed. She didn’t think she’d have any problem taking care of this one old man. He looked dog tired and it wasn’t even ten in the morning. She felt like a lioness, stalking the weakest member of the herd.
He headed west, following the right angle of US Route 319. The afternoon sun was blinding through the windshield, and the air conditioner in the Mercedes strained. If this took too much longer, she thought, Perrucho was going to start to smell.
When Hobbs pulled off, she missed it. She couldn’t see anything with that sun. It wasn’t until she had gotten up onto the long bridge that she realized he must have taken the small dirt turnout before. As the monotonous length of the bridge shrank before her, she checked the GPS. Three pings in a row showed the car stopped back at the foot of the bridge. This must be it.
She doubled back, then back again. She parked the Mercedes over half a mile before the turnout and continued on foot. She told the trunk, “Wait here,” and chuckled to herself at her gallows humor. Why shouldn’t she be happy, she tried to convince herself, she was about to be rich.
She dogtrotted down the side of the road. No cars passed in either direction. A good sign. When she got to the turnout, the road sloped down and turned left sharply. The road was hemmed in by the low vegetation of the brackish marsh. As she drew her weapon, she felt as if she were entering a tunnel.
She thought of the words Freeze, FBI, shouted, cheesy, like in the movies. She considered how false those words had become for her—she having crossed way, way over to the wrong side of the law—but she would yell them, if she thought they would do any good. She was done taking chances. Her whole life the guys—the bad guys, were there any other kind?—had been winning, and she was sick of it. Now she was going to get hers.
She realized, with disappointment, that she couldn’t shoot to kill. She needed him alive, just in case this wasn’t where the money was.
She saw that the truck was backed up next to the concrete edge of the bridge footing. Hobbs was nowhere in sight. She advanced cautiously. She heard a sound and froze until she could identify it. Bubbles. It was bubbles.
At the water’s edge was a steady stream of bubbles coming up from a scuba rig. They made the long, brilliant sunlight of the afternoon dance on the surface of the water. He must be down there, right now. All she had to do was wait until he came up. Verify that the money was down there, then shoot him and take the scuba gear for herself. All she needed now was a little patience.
She relaxed and held the pistol by her side. Wellsley hadn’t realized how tightly she had been gripping it. A rookie mistake. She passed the gun to her left hand and flexed her fingers. It felt good and bad all at the same time. Then…
SEVEN
Hobbs slept like a dead man and woke with a powerful hunger. He pissed for what felt like twenty minutes, pain shooting through his bladder. He felt ossified by old age and abuse. He ate breakfast in the diner next to the hotel. The eggs were good, the coffee was terrible.
The heat was off enough that he
could take it slow. The Escalade was the most stolen car in the United States. He had paid $30,000 to get rid of it. The guy would either chop it for parts, or put it on a boat and sell it overseas. He doubted anybody would ever find it. Which made that rattly old pickup truck safe as houses. Sure, there was a chance the guy would report it as stolen to get the insurance money, but it wouldn’t be worth the hassle or the heat. Car dealers defrauding insurance companies was an old racket, and even filing an honest claim brought suspicion.
As long as that pickup truck kept running, he was home free. He smiled and thought about returning to Grace. About sleeping for a whole day in their bed with the feather pillows and the green comforter with the leaf pattern that he had hated so much at first. Then napping the following day—all day—in the hammock. And never taking a job again.
He caught himself smiling and shook it off. He touched the wound in his side to remind himself. This was a job. Maybe the end of a job, but a job all the same. Get careless, get dead. There had been enough mistakes for one job.
He saw Alan’s face for an instant. Bright and cocky. Then he saw the image of the kid’s corpse jumping in the rain as the bullet went through his head. And Hurlocker, that rough old bastard. A shame that he was dead, but not a tragedy. Not the same as the kid. That kid had had his whole life before him.
He walked back to the motor court and watched very carefully for a while. He didn’t see anything, but that didn’t calm his nerves any. He put the key into the truck’s ignition and was grateful when it started. He headed south.
He thought of Grace. He closed his eyes and he could see her face, with sunlight on it. Not the glaring tropical burn of the Florida sun, but the clean, cool sun of late summer filtered through the leaves of tall green trees.
He made Wellsley at the dive shop, as the kid was loading up the tanks. Wide eyes and a flash of short blond hair in a silver Mercedes that drove by just a little too slowly. Never look directly at someone you are following. Sometimes they feel the eyes, even when they aren’t looking for them.
He remembered that Mercedes from Perrucho’s car lot. Parked right out in front. Perrucho had been proud of it. How had she tracked him? Could Hobbs have done the same if the roles had been reversed? What had happened to Perrucho?
He didn’t care. He closed his eyes and could see her, standing under the tungsten light as the ocean roared and the rain came down. Her short hair plastered to her skull, fear and greed gleaming in her wild eyes.
Stupid girl. She had done it the wrong way. She had to be new. As corrupt as the FBI was, she could have found people to go in on it with her. Heist the heister. The second-oldest scam in the book. The easiest way was to underreport the money recovered. Hell, the FBI could even drop the serial numbers of marked bills from its database. It had been in on scams like this since Dillinger. Long before the civil asset forfeiture racket. Hell, when you got right down to it, that’s how the whole thing started. Wasn’t the American Revolution a heist?
An honest criminal couldn’t make a living anymore. But crooked cops sure were a growth industry.
He thought of three ways to lose her and all the reasons he should. He was tired. He was slow. He was old.
Alan bleeding to death on the sand.
He wanted this to be over. More than he could remember ever wanting a job to be over. He wanted to walk away. But instead added an extra three tanks. And a speargun.
“Don’t let them game wardens find you using that in fresh-water. You’ll be in a mess of trouble then,” said the guy at the dive shop.
He continued to the bridge. That crooked FBI agent hung way back, but the afternoon sunlight glinted off the silver car as if it were a signaling mirror every time it came into view. Jesus Christ, she was green. He felt even worse about having let her get the better of him.
Around a curve he gave the rattly old pickup all it was worth to stretch the distance between them. He skidded into the turnoff before she came into sight. He jumped out of the truck, his knee buckling painfully, and limped up to the road. He stepped into the brush and listened to her car roar past and onto the bridge. No turnaround in the middle of that long span. That should give him the time he needed.
He pulled the truck up to the foot of the bridge and worked quickly. Hobbs hauled a tank from the back of the truck and dragged it to the edge of the river. Then he opened the valve until he heard the first rush of air. With all the strength he could muster, he heaved it out into the river. It sank like a stone, sending up a quiet trail of bubbles.
Then he grabbed the speargun out of the bed of the truck and grunted as he pulled the three-ply surgical tubing to the catch. He laid one of the three-pointed, barbed spears into the track. It was a grisly weapon. A gun would be cleaner and more professional. But he did not have a gun. And even though it was unprofessional, he didn’t want this to be clean.
He test-fired at the concrete bridge abutment ten feet away. The spear dropped hard, but it hit with such force the fiberglass shaft broke into two pieces. Good enough.
He reloaded the spear gun, then threw the pieces of the broken spear into the river. Then he stepped into the underbrush, lined up on the bubbles, and lay down. Not long after he settled, he heard footsteps coming down the dirt road. Slow and careful, but they were there.
He willed himself not to turn his head and look. He was lying on his belly, and his field of fire was set. The only way this would work would be if she came into his kill zone. The fiberglass fragments from the shattered spear caused his hand to itch. He did not scratch it.
He heard her moving by the truck. Then he heard nothing. From the left of his field of vision, she edged into view. He allowed just his eyes to move so he could see her better. It was only a slight improvement, as his nose now blocked the view from his right eye. He closed his eye.
She was holding her gun in the classic Weaver stance all law enforcement was taught. It was a stupid way to hold a gun when you were working on your own. Too easy to get tunnel vision. And what if they were behind you? It took too long to turn. Worst of all, it was a physical advertisement, as subtle as a giant neon sign flashing, “I have a gun! I have a gun!”
She edged up to the water and looked at the bubbles. Now she was directly in his line of fire. He saw her shoulders relax. She switched the gun to her left hand. Hobbs fired.
The spear seemed to fly slowly, comically slowly, toward Wellsley. Hobbs knew it was just the weirdness of adrenaline. When the barbed spear hit, it slid right through her suit jacket, under her rib and out her belly. She gasped and fell forward on her knees.
Hobbs was up and moving, forcing himself to move fast, but not to rush with excitement. Before Wellsley could turn, he hit her with the handle of the spear gun and she went out.
EIGHT
When Wellsley woke she was lying on her side. She tried to roll and the spear levered against the ground, wrenching into her guts. She cried out and opened her eyes.
“Oh God!” she said, as she reached for the spear protruding from her belly.
“I wouldn’t,” said Hobbs.
She turned her head and was able to see Hobbs, lashing three air tanks together. She kicked at him, feebly, and winced as the pain radiated outward from her stomach. “I’m a goddamned FBI agent. And backup is coming,” she said.
“Goddamned,” said Hobbs, agreeing. He squinted against the sunset and looked up and down the river. Empty. A car roared past on the bridge above. It was a lonely sound. Hobbs bent to pick up a line and made it fast to the tanks.
“What are you going to do to me?” asked Wellsley.
“I’m going to show you where the money is,” said Hobbs. And he kicked the tanks into the water. The rope snapped tight and Wellsley felt herself being dragged backward by her ankle. She clawed at the grass and the earth, trying to arrest her progress, but the weight of the tanks dragged against her. The barbs caught in her flesh and the spear wrenched her organs. She gasped in pain, ripping at the grasses and small trees growin
g by the side of the road. A small shrub held.
Hobbs stepped around her and leaned up against the pickup truck to watch.
“Fuck you. Fuck you,” said Wellsley. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“You’re not going to beg for your life?”
“Fucking kill you,” said Wellsley.
“Not going to beg me to kill you?”
“Fuck you.”
“OK,” said Hobbs, pulling her pistol from his belt. He popped the clip and looked at it. He showed it to her. “Full,” he said, laying the weapon on the ground six feet in front of her. Just at the edge of her own shadow, cast by the setting sun.
Hobbs said, “I’m going to go get the Mercedes and drive it back here. If you get to the pistol, you can try to shoot me.”
Then Hobbs walked away without looking back. He heard scrabbling in the dirt, Wellsley grunting in pain. He didn’t like this kind of thing, but felt, somehow, that he owed it to the kid.
He walked the half mile back to the Mercedes. By the time he got there, the sun was down and the light of day had faded to a redness in the west. He sat in the car and did not start it until well after the first stars had come out.
He drove the Mercedes back to the bridge slowly, almost missing the turnoff in the dark. In the headlights he saw the handgun still lying in the road. He got out and picked it up.
In the sand he could see her blood and read her struggle. She had clawed forward, maybe a foot. Who knew how many times she had gone back and forth. He saw shredded fingernails on the concrete footing of the bridge. He threw the pistol in after her.
He rolled all the windows down in the Mercedes. Then he rolled it into the river and watched it sink.
The Soak Page 18
