by David Berens
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Michael breathed.
The shock of seeing the politician’s dead wife stuffed into a crate triggered an ill-timed but unavoidable narcoleptic episode. Michael Banks slumped over asleep just as Country climbed into the boat.
27
Cat And Mouse
Troy returned to the boat to find Country sitting in the captain’s chair chewing on a straw. The late afternoon sun shaded the crates that had been shoved into new positions under benches around the back of the boat. He saw no sign of Michael. His pulse jumped up to full tilt panic speed. Had something gone wrong?
“Michael up and bailed out on us,” Country said. “You know how to make that there lemonade he makes?”
“Bailed out?” Troy asked. “Why?”
“Don’t rightly know.” Country shrugged his shoulders. “Said something about havin’ a bad taste in his mouth about what was goin’ on here or whatever. I told him it weren’t exactly church work. I s’pose he got a bad case of the morals or something.”
Troy thought about it for a second. That sounded like Michael. Then again, he doubted the man would leave him behind.
“Dang,” Troy said, trying to play along. “Can’t believe he left us hanging like that.”
Country sniffed. “I ain’t worried about it. I got a call in to a buddy who can come help us.”
Troy did not like the sound of that. With Michael around, it was two against one. With Country’s friend around, it was still two against one, but the wrong side had the advantage. His mind raced trying to figure out a way to get off the boat and get out of here without making Country suspicious.
“You wanna skip this trip and wait until we can get more hands on deck?” Troy asked.
“Nah, we’re good.” He looked at his cell phone. “I’m bettin’ Jed will call in a minute.”
Jed. That rang a bell in Troy’s mind. Jed Manning had been the name of the officer who announced the APB on Troy. Was it the same Jed?
“Yeah, but if he doesn’t, what say we save our strength for another time?”
Country stood up and pointed a finger at Troy’s chest. “You’ll do exactly as I say or you ain’t gettin’ in on the big score.”
“Big score?”
He eased back into the captain’s chair and sniffed. “I wasn’t really gonna let you in on this just yet, but the next job is a big one. Big enough that everyone will be in on the take. After overhead expenses and such, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But if we don’t get this drop made today, I won’t be in charge of that next job and you’ll be off it too.”
A voice called over from the dock. “Hey, Country. You forgot your change. Unless you were leavin’ me a tip.”
“Ah, shit,” he said, tossing his chewed up straw aside. “Hell, you know that ain’t no tip, Gerald. It was a damn hundred. I’ll be right over. You just keep that change handy.”
He shuffled past Troy to get off the boat, then turned and put a finger on Troy’s chest. Troy suppressed the urge to snap it in half.
“You keep your ass right here, you hear? I need eyes on them crates at all times.”
Troy nodded, thinking he’d definitely keep his eyes on them. He was almost certain one of them had Prosperity’s body in it. He decided he’d have a quick look. If she was there, he was going to take this punk down, backup or not.
“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Country said, exiting the boat.
When he was sure Country was far enough away, Troy dialed Michael’s number three times on his phone to get his side of the story, but it went to voicemail every time. He flipped it shut and went back to the crates. He wasted no time pulling out the first crate. He undid the latches and found the lid was nailed shut. It was loose though, and the lid came off with barely a struggle. Inside, he saw stacks and stacks of guns laid haphazardly in the box with no protective foam or packaging at all. He closed the lid and checked the second box. Drugs. Whole bunch of drugs.
When he got the lid back on the box with the packages of white powder, he glanced up at footsteps clomping down the dock. Dangit. Country was back. Troy shuffled back away from the box, sure that the man had seen him. But he was on his cell phone and talking to someone in an agitated voice.
“I done told you,” Country was saying into his phone. “I cain’t lift nothin’ on account of my balls. Yeah. They’re still bleeding pretty good.”
Troy felt his eyebrow arch, but quickly looked away, pretending to ignore the conversation.
“Yes. I did have two helpers, but one is … well, he ain’t available to help no more. Let’s say he got cold feet.”
That didn’t exactly sound like Michael, but Troy had no way of really knowing what had happened.
“Uh huh. Three boxes of…” He glanced at Troy then turned his back to him. “Contraband. Uh huh. Exactly. Nah. Just out to the sandbar again. I cain’t reach Jed, but I’m bettin’ he’ll be good to go tomorrow at the latest.”
The half of the conversation that he could hear almost had Troy convinced that this was indeed just a drug and gun drop. He began to think that maybe his imagination was running away from him. Maybe Prosperity was locked up somewhere, and Country was actually just recruiting muscle to make his deliveries. But if that was the case, where was she?
Country clicked his phone off and tossed it onto the boat’s dashboard.
“Well, dude,” he said. “Looks like you got yer wish. Ain’t no way we can deliver today. With only you and me, we ain’t got the manpower to offload them boxes. Tomorrow’s as soon as we can get it done. You available?”
“Reckon I could be. What time?”
“I’m thinkin’ after lunch. If I ain’t heard from Jed by then, I’ll grab somebody else.”
“Cool.” He glanced over at the Black Dog Tavern. “I reckon I’m gonna have a beer or two while I’m here. You in?”
“Nah,” Country said, shaking his head. “I gotta check in on somethin’ tonight.”
Alarm bells went off in Troy’s head. He was going to check on Prosperity, he was sure of it. He had her trapped somewhere and had to take her water, or food, or maybe neither. Maybe he was going to kill her and get her body stuffed into a crate for tomorrow. He made up his mind to follow Country and save the girl.
“Alright then,” he said. “Catch you later.”
He walked into the bar and watched from the window as Country went to his truck and tore out of the parking lot. Troy jogged to Michael’s cruiser and hopped in to follow the man.
And in a dark room in the bottom of Country’s boat, a man who looked like Santa Claus snored soundly away to the rocking waves.
“Shit, Jed,” Country hollered into his cell phone. “Where the hell are you? You’re gonna cost me this job. Now, call me back when you get this.”
He slammed his phone down into the passenger’s seat and stomped on the pickup truck’s sluggish accelerator. Piece a junk, he thought. When all this is through, I’m buyin’ a damn Maserati.
Jed Manning listened to the rabid hillbilly yelling into his voicemail inbox and couldn’t help but shake his head. He deleted the message and dialed another number. He put the phone to his ear and caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror. He jerked it toward his face and admired his perfectly shaped, exquisitely waxed, thick as Tom Selleck’s mustache. He’d been working on it for years, and truly, it couldn’t be beat by any of the road cops at the MVPD.
He’d started it five years ago when he’d been busted down from detective for getting mixed up in that stupid lawsuit with the underage stripper out at the Tail Spinner club. How the hell was he supposed to know she was only fifteen? Chick had the biggest boobs he’d ever seen on a girl that age.
Lucky for him though, Boonesborough had used his legal connections to get him the best lawyer in the country for such cases. They let him off with a reprimand, but it had forced the department to bust him back down to a street beat. In return for Boonesborough’s generosity in
providing the lawyer, Jed had agreed to run a smoke screen operation for the deals the McCorker campaign was running just off shore. Any time a call came in, Jed could request the case and make it disappear. Sometimes, he’d come back with a miniscule amount of heroin or cocaine or maybe a rifle or two and the department would celebrate his big bust. No one ever suspected they had started the biggest cartel East of the Mississippi—the Sharks.
McCorker also promised that if he was elected, he would pull all the necessary strings to get him promoted back to detective or find him a suitable cabinet post. Either way, he was keeping the mustache. All the dancers at the club liked to rub their bodies all over it. He was going to have to cut down on that though. He’d picked up something in his nether regions in the past week. He felt the tingle turn into fire and he couldn’t help but scratch.
A familiar voice picked up on the fourth ring. “Go ahead, Jed.”
“Hello, Buff,” he said. “Hey, Country is calling me to help him with this drop thing. I think he’s done the thing with the girl and maybe has her stuffed into a crate.”
“Uh huh.”
“So, do you want me to help or stay clear?”
“Actually, I do want you to help,” Buff said. “The girl is still alive, but he has someone else. Someone whose disappearance we absolutely cannot be connected with, or the whole damn thing will implode.”
“Oh?”
“Can I trust you with this, Jed?”
“One hundred percent, sir.”
Jed liked to imagine that Buff was his general in this fight for the Governor’s mansion. He actually enjoyed taking orders from the man.
“Good. Now listen, because I’m not going to repeat any of this.”
It was a secure, burner phone, but the more vague their communications were, the less likely a leak could happen.
“Go on, sir.”
“Flo is the body he has in the box. She had a terrible swimming accident.”
Jed felt his throat tighten. This was a shock, but he kept his composure.
“Understood.”
“And Country is getting out of control. He’s a loose cannon, and we’ve got to take care of it before it brings us all down.”
“What’s the plan, sir?”
“Get on the boat with him.”
Buff paused and Jed wondered if that was all he was going to get, but then the man who called himself Frank McCorker continued.
“Help him deliver his crates, then sink it. He has to go down with it, but he needs to be alive, so they will both show signs of drowning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll play it as an affair and a tragic accident.”
“And I’ll be the hero to find them and bring them in?”
“Naturally.”
“Sir?”
“What is it, Jed?”
“How do I get back to shore when I sink the boat?”
“You can swim, can’t you?”
Jed almost balked, but he figured he could make it with a life jacket, as long as there weren’t any sharks in the water.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man. Get it done. Fast.”
Jed hung up the phone and called Country back.
“Where’n the hell you been, dude?” Country yelled.
“Shut up, stupid,” Jed said. “You need my help making that drop?”
“Yeah,” Country whined. “Still cain’t lift nothin’. I think my groin is infected.”
Jed felt his crotch start itching at the suggestion.
“I don’t want to hear that,” he said. “I’ll be out at the dock after dark.”
He hung up before Country could reply and turned his car toward the Conroy Apothecary up on Pennacook, they’d have a cream or something for his rash.
28
Take The Money And Run
Jed reached the dock and found a spot next to Country’s heap of a brown pickup truck. At least he thought it was brown, but it might just be that the rust had taken over every square inch of it. The idiot was sitting out on the deck of the boat, shirt off, drinking from a rum bottle with his radio blaring. Way to keep a low profile, jackass, Jed thought. At least it was starting to get dark. Country was leaning back, his chin jutted skyward. His chest was covered with budget tattoos, some of which reminded Jed of the ones he’d seen prisoners giving each other with a ballpoint pen and a needle.
He crept onto the boat, careful not to make any noise or rock it significantly. He tiptoed next to Country and pulled his gun from its holster. He aimed it high in the air, but close to the man’s ear. He squeezed the trigger and screamed at the same time. The blast sent Country flying over the chair backward, whooping and hollering all the way. He jumped up, the bottle of booze sloshing all over, and stumbled backward three steps. His heel caught on the edge of the threshold leading out to the front of the boat and he flew back onto his butt. The bottle of rum flew up into the air and before Country could react, it slammed down hard onto his lap.
He screamed and crab walked backward away from it as if he had caught a hornet’s nest. His back thumped against the bow of the boat and he clutched his groin, yelping like a dog in heat. Jed bent over, his hands on his own knees, laughing so hard he thought he would cry. He was right. Soon, tears poured out of the corner of his eyes and he fought to catch his breath.
“Shut the hell up,” Country screamed. “What in Jesus’ name did you do that for? Holy shit, ya scared the fuck out of me. Oh my God. My balls.”
This sent Jed into a fit of laughter that made him kneel down and slap the deck of the boat. Country slowly pulled himself up to a crouch position and Jed was stunned to see a river of blood running down the man’s leg.
“God,” Country said, touching the slick flow of dark red liquid. “What the hell did you do?”
“Damn, Country. Didn’t you get that stitched up?”
“Frickin’ thing keeps bustin’ loose. Cain’t keep it closed.”
“Jesus, man. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Help me. Get me a towel and some ice from down below.” Country grabbed his shirt off the side rail of the boat and smashed it onto his groin. “Gotta keep the pressure on it. Get it to stop bleedin’.”
He let the pressure go for a second and a fresh flood of blood came down both legs.
“Oh, shit,” Jed said, moving toward the ladder down into the boat. “Hang tight, Country. I’ll get you something to make a tourniquet.”
He skipped down the steps into the boat and grabbed a dish towel from the sink. Then he thought better of it and looked for the bathroom to find a larger towel. He found two beach towels and flung them over his shoulder. He jerked the refrigerator open to find a half a bag of ice stuffed in the back. He pulled the bag out and a stack of money fell forward. Two more just like it were stuck under the ice trays. Thirty thousand dollars total. Well, I’ll be damned, Jed thought. Country is on the take.
As he reached for the cash, he heard a muffled voice cry out.
At first he thought it was Country, but then he realized it was coming from the bedroom door. He walked down the hall, his ear toward the door listening. The closer he got, the clearer the voice sounded.
“Hey, who’s there?” the voice called.
Jed froze in his tracks. He recognized the voice immediately.
“Banksy?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Who’s there?”
Shit, shit, shit, Jed thought. Country’s kidnapped a damn cop. The voice behind the door was his old captain, Michael Banks. He was stunned for a minute, unsure of what he should do next. Kidnapping and making a regular person disappear was one thing, but a cop? That was felony territory and juries liked to send those who committed that one to the chair. He remained quiet, trying desperately to work out a plan.
“Jed?” Country’s voice echoed down into the room. “What the hell’s takin’ so long?”
“Jed?” Michael asked through the door. “Jed Manning? Is that you? Jed, you go
tta get me out of here.”
Dammit, Country. He backed away from the door as quietly as he could. Things had changed now. A cop had put him at the scene of the crime. And he sure as shit wasn’t going to be a cop killer. It was time to blow this popsicle stand. He tossed the towels aside and dropped the ice. He went to the fridge and grabbed the money, shoving it into his waistband. He climbed the ladder to find Country lying on his back on the deck, hands still holding his shirt—now fully soaked through with blood—tightly to his crotch.
“Jed,” he said in a weak voice. “You gotta help me. I dunno if it’s the rum or if I’m losin’ too much blood, but we gotta get this drop done and then get to the hospital.”
“Screw you.” Jed raised his middle finger at him. “I’m gone.”
He took two steps toward the side of the boat by the dock.
“But the drop,” Country cried. “Gotta get the guns and blow out to the drop zone. Then we gotta get rid of Mrs. Summerton—”
“Jesus, Country,” Jed hissed. “Shut the hell up. Everybody and God can hear you out here.”
Jed took mental stock of the situation. The boat he was standing on was loaded with a bunch of guns stolen from various evidence rooms around the state, a pile of blow big enough to make a South American drug lord jealous, a murdered politician’s wife, a kidnapped retired police officer, and a hillbilly stooge lying on the floor bleeding to death. Yeah, this is not where I need to be, Jed thought. He stepped onto the dock and looked around to be sure no one saw him.
“Jed, please…” Country was propped up on one elbow, his eyes sunken in and his skin turning pale and gray.
He’ll be dead in minutes, Jed thought. He walked away briskly without looking back. He got into his car and pulled out of the lot. He turned north on Water Street, pulling his uniform shirt off as he went. He removed all the visible police paraphernalia from his body and was left wearing a pair of khaki pants and a white t-shirt. He parked the car, leaving everything behind except for his wallet, and bought a ticket on the next ferry out.
