No Good Deed

by Victor Gischler

  Cavanaugh and Ernie finished their beers. Cavanaugh waved the girl over for two more.

  The beers arrived. They sipped.

  Ernie raised an eyebrow. “Now?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Look, maybe we made a mistake, huh?” Ernie said. “If we’d just disappeared the girl like we were supposed to, we wouldn’t be sitting here licking our wounds like a couple of chumps.”

  “We’re supposed to find the paper anyway,” Cavanaugh said. “We had to make her tell us. Nothing would have been any different.”

  “Maybe I’m just superstitious,” Ernie said. “I feel like if we just did the job we were paid for, none of this would have happened. I appreciate what you said about a big score, but I think we got off track.”

  “Do the job we’re paid for?” Cavanaugh asked.

  Ernie sipped beer, shrugged, nodded.

  “And how long can we do that? You got a retirement plan? You got a 401(k)?” Cavanaugh didn’t wait for a reply. He already knew the answer. “How do you feel right now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do you feel?” Cavanaugh said.

  “Like shit.”

  “Elaborate.”

  “I feel embarrassed,” Ernie said. “I feel like we should have wrapped this up by now, but fucking amateurs keep dicking us.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” Ernie said. “I said I feel like fucking shit, okay? My neck and back hurt. My face fucking hurts. I’ve been in two damn car wrecks in as many days. I am fucking tired.”

  Cavanaugh was nodding along. “What you mean is you’re old.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Take it easy,” Cavanaugh said. “I don’t mean drool-your-oatmeal old like you can’t control when you piss, okay? That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying too old for this bullshit we’re doing. You and me both. I spent prime years in stir making toilet bowl moonshine. You hear me? I mean, those years are fucking gone, right?”

  “Jesus, who are you talking to?” Ernie said. “I know. Of course I know. I lived that shit too.”

  “Then okay, you know what I’m saying,” Cavanaugh said. “Are we still going to be doing this same shit in ten years? Twenty?”

  Ernie didn’t reply. The look on his face was enough.

  “And it’s more than that,” Cavanaugh said. “Everything’s changed. Guys like us used to be something. We had respect. Now guys like Bryant sit in a comfy, air-conditioned room pushing computer buttons. We’re just monkeys doing the grunt work. We’re working for the computer. We get our hands dirty. We get the bruises.”

  “I thought working for Middleton would be easy,” Ernie said. “Lean on people. Get their minds right when needed.”

  “Exactly,” Cavanaugh agreed. “But now it’s the computer that leans on people. Intimidating people used to be a professional thing. Now it’s just like paying your electric bill online or some shit. And Ike is dead. Dead. Some fucking cubicle asshole killed him. What kind of world do we live in where a guy like that can take out a guy like Ike? Everything is upside down.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “What I said before,” Cavanaugh told him. “We get out. We say to hell with all this shit and get set up somewhere. I got my eye on Costa Rica. But that takes money, and this is our best chance right here and right now. I know we’ve hit a few bumps.”

  “‘A few bumps,’ he says.”

  “I know this hasn’t been clockwork,” Cavanaugh pressed on. “But this is our score. This is our ticket out of working for a computer and some kid billionaire. And God bless Ike, wherever he is now, but the fact is now we’d only be splitting the take two ways. We get this paper with the techno crap on it and cash out. Then we’re our own bosses again. Then we get our lives back.”

  Ernie thought about it. “Okay. What happens next?”

  “First thing is we stop chasing across flyover country like dumbasses,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m pretty sure I know where the girl is going. We’ll get ahead of them. We’ll be cutting things close, but we’ll make it work.”

  “And the girl and Berringer?” Ernie asked. “What do we do with them?”

  “We do with them what we were always going to do with them,” Cavanaugh said. “No loose ends.”

  Ernie shrugged in that way Cavanaugh knew meant it was a shame, but it is what it is. Ernie was always the pragmatic one. “Then how do we find a buyer once we get our hands on this thing?”

  “I’ve been mulling that over,” Cavanaugh said. “I think the best buyer is going to be Middleton himself. He obviously doesn’t want anyone else to have this thing, and we know where he is, so we don’t have to track him down. And we sure as hell know he has the money to spend.”

  “He won’t like it.”

  Cavanaugh grinned. “The beauty is that he doesn’t have to like it. What’s he going to do? Call in his muscle? That’s us. We tell him to pony up or we take the paper to another buyer. He can call it a severance package if he wants.”

  Ernie nodded, drained his beer, and smacked his lips. He thought about it a moment. “I’m good with it.”

  “Okay, then. It’s decided. We do this.” Cavanaugh picked up a menu. “First, we get a burger, and then we do this.”

  23

  Francis had parked the Pontiac around the side of the Walmart near the Garden Center, stacks of potting soil bags and mulch and fencing and huge wooden spools of cable partially blocking them from casual observers driving by on the main road.

  Francis emerged from the Garden Center with a plastic shopping bag in each hand and found Emma waiting for him, sitting on the hood of the Pontiac, bare feet dangling. She’d put on jeans and changed into a Drive-By Truckers T-shirt.

  Francis set the bags on the hood next to her.

  She held out her hands. “Give.”

  He took a shoe box from one of the bags, gave it to her. “I thought it best to keep it simple.”

  She opened the box and took out a pair of white canvas shoes. She wiggled her pink toes into one of them, pulled at the laces to loosen them.

  “I got you socks too.”

  “I don’t want socks.” She put on the other one, tied the laces.

  “Don’t your feet get sweaty?”

  “You’re not the boss of my feet, Frankie.”

  “Francis.”

  From the other bag, he took a roll of paper towels and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He splashed some of the hydrogen peroxide on a folded paper towel and dabbed at her split lip.

  “Hey!” She flinched away. “What the hell?”

  “It’ll get infected.”

  “I can do it.” She grabbed the paper towel from him and dabbed.

  Francis held up a finger at her eye level. “Keep your head still and follow my finger with your eyes.”

  “Would you like to know what you can do with that finger?”

  “You’re not at your most charming right now,” Francis said.

  “And you’re not a medical doctor right now or ever.”

  “A doctor did this to me once when I was hit in the head with a baseball,” Francis said.

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Ha-ha.” Francis held up the finger again. “Just follow it with your eyes.”

  He moved the finger back and forth, and she followed it with her eyes as instructed.

  She said, “You should have shot him like I told you to.”

  “Just keep looking at the finger.”

  “They always come back,” she said. “Only one thing stops them.”

  “Have you ever shot anyone?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I would. Because it’s that kind of world.”

  “Don’t be so eager. It’s … not like you think it is.” Francis dropped the finger, leaned in, looked closely into her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Surprise.”

  “I guess if you fall over or pass out or puke or something, we’ll know you hav
e a concussion,” Francis said. “How do you feel?”

  “My head hurts.”

  Francis went back into the shopping bag and came out with a large bottle of generic-brand ibuprofen. He opened it, shook two out, and handed them to her.

  “Water?” she asked.

  “Better.”

  The last thing in the shopping bag was a six-pack of Coors Light. He handed her one. She cracked it open and washed down the pills.

  “Give me another one of those,” she said.

  He didn’t bother pointing out she hadn’t finished the first and handed her another can.

  She held it against the black-and-blue part of her face. She closed her eyes and sighed, some of the tension seeming to leak out of her. “How’d you get hit with a baseball?”

  “I played in high school,” Francis said.

  “I can’t picture it.”

  “Are you saying I don’t strike you as the athletic type?”

  “You do not. What position did you play?”

  “Right field.”

  “They put the people who suck in right field, don’t they?”

  “Hey, I know, let’s change the subject,” Francis said. “You said something before about ditching the car.”

  “They’ve seen it,” she said. “It’s a big candy-apple-red flag.” She guzzled the rest of the beer, then popped open the can she’d been holding against her face.

  “I guess we can park it some out-of-the-way place,” Francis said. “But then we’re stuck for transportation.”

  Emma took a big gulp, burped. “I have an idea about that.”

  * * *

  Gunn sat at his temporary desk in the NSA’s San Francisco offices, sipping a Styrofoam cup of bitter, black coffee. When the local agents had heard Gunn and his team were coming, they’d cleared them some space. Gunn and his people had set up shop and gotten to work. He was still steamed about underestimating the girl, and all the agents buzzed about their tasks like angry hornets to make up for it. Gunn was in a whip-cracking mood.

  An abrupt knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Gunn said.

  One of his agents entered, one of the new men, and Gunn realized he’d forgotten the man’s name or, more likely, had never learned it. They were all nearly interchangeable anyway, dark suits, muted red ties, gleaming wing tips. This one had sandy-brown hair cut short and neat, pale, bland features, eyes an unmemorable brown.

  “What’s your name again?” Gunn’s tone made it sound like it was the agent’s fault Gunn didn’t know his name.

  “Terry Boston. I was added to your detail just before we came west.”

  “What options did you find for us, Boston?”

  “The security around the entire vineyard is pretty tight,” Boston said. “And even more so in the environs around Middleton’s new house. If I knew what sort of operation we were considering, I might be able to focus our efforts better.”

  “You need to be ready for multiple contingencies, and you need to be ready to move fast,” Gunn told him. “But I don’t foresee assaulting the place or anything like that. For now, we simply want to watch. As soon as possible, I want eyes and ears on that main gate.”

  “We’ve been doing drone flybys,” Boston reported. “At a high enough altitude that I doubt we’re being noticed. The resolution on the high-definition pics is more than adequate.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Gunn said. “I don’t want to miss something in between the drone’s back and forth. I want to know everyone who goes in and out of the gate. What’s across the street?”

  “Nothing,” Boston said. “We thought if there’d been a parking area or something we’d have a food truck standing by.”

  “A food truck?”

  “Mediterranean,” Boston said. “Gyros and lamb kebabs and so on. One agent serves while the men in the back of the truck monitor the video and audio feeds.”

  “One supposes such a food truck would be suspicious if parked somewhere that there were no customers,” Gunn said.

  “One supposes,” Boston agreed.

  Gunn cocked an eyebrow at Boston, suspecting the man was being cheeky, but let it go. “Pull up the county utility records, then come back with ideas.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Boston left the office.

  Gunn sipped coffee. It had gone cold. He set it aside.

  He pondered his mission parameters. On paper, he was meant to observe and conduct himself strictly within the confines of the law. But Gunn worked for the NSA. That meant something a little different. He wasn’t some local cop. He wasn’t even one of those squares over at the FBI. It wasn’t Gunn’s lot to sit around and wait for bad guys to do something so he could arrest them. If something needed doing, then Gunn needed to do it, law be damned.

  Gunn was responsible for nothing less than the security of the nation itself. If he had to step over a few lines—and on a few toes—so every American could sleep safely at night, then so be it. He was playing a long game. In the end, he’d win.

  America would win.

  And the more rules Gunn broke, the more he felt proud he was defending the American way. Somebody had to get their hands dirty for the nation. Gunn was the man. And if it all blew up in his face, Gunn would take the fall. He was good with that, had always understood it was part of the job.

  Boston knocked, then entered again. “Phone lines run along the road that passes in front of the main gate to Middleton’s property.”

  “Is there a space to set up without blocking traffic?”

  “There is,” Boston said.

  “See to it,” Gunn ordered. “And alert the appropriate person at the phone company. When we’re up and running, I want a feed to a monitor right here on the desk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you retrieved the girl’s personal effects from…” Gunn checked the file on his desk. He’d forgotten the name of the facility. “Whispering Meadow?”

  “We’re working on it,” Boston said. “We’re getting the usual patient privacy resistance, but it’s perfunctory. We should have those materials soon.”

  “Tell the forensics team to finish with them as fast as they can, and then bring the items to me,” Gunn said. “I want to eyeball them personally.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you the junior agent on this detail, Boston?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gunn took a money clip from his pants pocket, peeled off two twenties, and shoved them across the desk to Boston. “Get doughnuts for the team. And coffee that doesn’t taste like battery acid.”

  * * *

  Eli Corning loved that show American Pickers, where the two guys found old junk in people’s attics or wherever and fixed it up and resold it to yuppies who wanted retro stuff in their houses. Eli liked the idea of salvage and making a buck on what other people thought was trash. That’s why there was an old Indian motorcycle in his barn. It didn’t run, but there were some good parts there. There were also some Amoco and Sunoco signs he’d taken off some gas stations that had gone out of business. He’d learned from the show that heavy iron stuff was usually a winner and had a couple of old water pumps and weather vanes. Eli was in his early thirties and had just started collecting. Figured he’d eventually retire on the stuff, and he always kept an eye out for a deal.

  Which was why he was looking at the beat-up Pontiac GTO and thinking about the trade the girl and the guy were offering and wondering what the catch was. It was some kind of unwritten rule that things too good to be true usually were, right? Anyway, that’s what Eli’s dad had always told him.

  The girl and the guy had pulled up next to the barn about twenty minutes ago while he was outside fussing with the riding lawn mower, trying to get the thing to turn over. They’d come right to the point, and Eli had liked the Pontiac right away.

  Too bad about the damage. He circled the car, hands on hips, sucking his teeth, and giving the vehicle another good look. The back end was fine, really. Jus
t needed to replace the bumper. The side was different. He could likely buff out the scratches along the rear fender and fix that himself, but the door was crunched pretty good. That would need to be replaced too. And that meant time spent stomping around in junkyards or paying top dollar for one online.

  Still, the rest of the car was total cherry.

  “Let me get this straight.” He talked to the girl. Pretty clear she was in charge. “You want to trade me straight up. Your GTO for that truck.”

  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the blue 1984 Chevy Silverado. Or at least it had been blue at one time. Now it was sort of bluish with rust and a faded white driver’s-side door from when he’d replaced it about five years ago. It was covered with the dings and scratches of three decades of farmwork.

  But it ran like a top. He could hand-to-God certify that. He kept the oil changed and did all the maintenance himself.

  “You fix the door and replace the bumper and that’s a thirty thousand–dollar car at auction,” the girl said. “What’s the Silverado worth?”

  Not so much, Eli thought. Which is why he was wondering what the catch was.

  He leaned into the driver’s-side window of the GTO and took a look at the interior. Pristine. Damn, this car was giving him a boner. He glanced into the back seat, saw the shotgun on the floor.

  Huh.

  Eli cleared his throat and asked, “Does anyone happen to be looking for this car?”

  She looked him straight in the eye and said, “Not if I’m not in it.”

  Well. Okay, then.

  It would need to be painted anyway, so he’d change the color. Maybe some crazy lime green or something. He could totally pimp the fucker out.

  “You got the pink?”

  She took it out of her back pocket and showed it to him. “Already signed.”

  He looked at it, nodding. So if somebody did come looking, he could show them the pink slip, claim he didn’t know anything was … untoward. Everything square and legal as far as Eli Corning was concerned.

  “I got the pink for the Chevy in the house,” Eli said. “Wait here.”

  * * *

  Francis tossed the big canvas bag—which he now understood contained a tent—next to the footlocker in the back of the pickup truck, then slammed the tailgate closed. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Eli closing the barn door. He’d driven the Pontiac in there to keep it safe from the elements, Francis supposed.