“Nervous Nellie.” Zerbe laughed. “Just like Mexico. How’d you ever make it through a tour in Iraq?”
Cummins ignored him and continued to lean out of the car, occasionally spitting to remove as much of the acidic taste from his mouth as he could.
“Can I help it if I’ve got a medical condition?” he said between expectorations. “An acute medical condition.”
“Do you now?”
“Yeah. A sensitive stomach. And I told you, I’ve got to go to the bathroom, too.”
“The bathroom?” This made Zerbe laugh even harder.
Shit, Cummins thought. How did I get myself into this?
And more importantly, how would he get himself out?
Just then Zerbe’s cell phone chirped and he glanced at the screen and smiled. After pressing the button he said, “Ah, Luan, hoe gaan dit?” He paused and then said, “Yeah, it pays very well, and it’s right up your alley, maat.”
The Lion Man, Cummins thought. I hope he’s as good as Zerbe says he is.
He spat one more time, but the sour taste still was present.
“Hold on,” Zerbe said and turned to Cummins. “You might as well go inside and take your piss. Just make sure you don’t step in any of the vomit. We still need this car.”
Cummins wiped his mouth and shot him a dirty look.
Zerbe ignored him and went back to his conversation on the cellphone.
“We’ll need your team. How soon can you get here?” Zerbe listened, then smiled. “Outstanding. Come on over right away and I’ll reimburse you for your airfare when you get here.”
Cummins did his best to lower himself from the running board so as not to step in the puke but that wasn’t easy for a guy his size, and he realized he’d have a harder time getting back in once he returned.
Just like this damn assignment: it seemed easy at first, and then got more and more problematic all the time. And now he was going to have to deal with more players. A team of them, and foreigners to boot. Zerbe had mentioned that these guys were mercenaries. At least he would have some protection against Wolf, and if this guy was bringing a team, it should be enough.
But then again, didn’t Eagan have a team with him down in Mexico?
Chapter Seven
Near Happy Howard’s Toyota
Phoenix, Arizona
Wolf listened to McNamara review the first file on the drive over. Lonnie B. Coats, a forty-three-year-old black man, had an outstanding bond-forfeiture warrant for missing his last two court dates. He’d been arrested for driving under the influence, his third offense, and faced some jail time, which may have been the reason he skipped out and was hoping to fly unnoticed under the radar. The guy was married with two younger teenage kids and despite a drinking problem had somehow managed to hold on to his job as a salesman at Happy Howard’s Toyota. The dealership was in an auto mall housing several car dealerships in a large semi-circular formation. The Toyota lot was full of shiny new cars, gleaming in the noon-day sun.
“Should be an easy one,” McNamara said. “And put much-needed money in our pockets.”
Your pockets, Wolf thought. But that was okay.
To Wolf’s way of figuring it, Coats had all the earmarks of a functional alcoholic, dragging his feet and his family through the downward spiral. Not that different than Wolf’s own father, who’d gone off to war and come back a broken man who found refuge from his demons inside a bottle. Wolf had seen way too many men like that in the army as well. They were able to do their jobs during their shifts, sweating it out between nurturing sessions with the booze. Interestingly, they had seemed to be able to function in the desert once they’d sweated the stuff out of their systems and knew they’d have to do without while they were on Muslim-owned sand.
Guests of the nation, he thought. Just like he’d been once.
But it was just like Joe Louis once said: you could run, but you couldn’t hide, especially from yourself.
Maybe Mr. Coats would make that same realization once he was ensconced in jail for a time. But then again, maybe not.
“Pull up over there,” McNamara said, cradling his cell phone on his big shoulder as he paged through the sheaf of papers in the first file. He pointed to an open space in front of a car dealership. “I got to call base.”
By “base,” Wolf knew it meant calling Kasey again which was something he wasn’t eager for Mac to do at the moment.
“That might not be such a good idea,” he said.
McNamara waved him off, pressed the button on the phone, and waited.
McNamara glanced at him. “What’s the matter with you?”
Wolf raised his eyebrows. “You sure you’re ready for round two?”
“Aw, hell, she’s had enough time to cool off by now.” McNamara’s attention suddenly shifted to the cell. “Kase, it’s me.”
Wolf heard the indistinct sound of her voice again coming from the phone. It wasn’t overly loud or shrill sounding this time, but it was still a bit elevated. Mac listened, mumbled a few monosyllabic replies, and then said, “Yeah, I know, honey, I will. Now do a quick check on guy named Myron D. Kites.” He spelled out the name and gave her an address and phone number, then his brow furrowed as he paused and listened. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay in the damn car. I promise. I’ll call you back.” He ended the call and grinned. “Man, it feels good to be getting back into it.”
“Just remember to stay in the damn car,” Wolf said.
“I will,” McNamara said. “Until it’s time for me to get out.” He slipped the cell phone into his vest pocket and jammed the file up behind the visor. “Let’s go see Mr. Coats.”
Wolf started to get out of the car, but McNamara grabbed his arm.
“Remember,” McNamara said. “If the shit hits the fan, I ain’t got my Glock, but I’ve got my sword-cane.”
He grabbed his cane before opening the door.
Wolf smirked. “I thought it was a knife?”
“It is, but it’s a big one.”
“Hopefully, we won’t need it.”
The car dealership building was tan stucco and had expansive windows. They walked over to the side door and Wolf looked through the glass. The show room had several cars parked inside, all brand-new models. For a brief moment he wondered if he was ever going to get to a state of financial security where he could afford to buy a new car. He was still relegated to using his bicycle when he couldn’t borrow Mac’s Escalade. And that was like a teenage boy asking his father for the keys to the family car on a school night. He’d never dared to ask Kasey if she’d loan him her car.
“You go in and ask for him,” McNamara said. “Get him to step outside and we’ll grab him.”
“How about I grab him? You were supposed to stay in the car, remember?”
McNamara clucked and his head twitched. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“If something untoward happens, Kasey’s gonna—”
“Untoward? What the hell kind of a word is that?”
“I learned it in that lit class you insisted I take.”
“Must be a good one then. Let’s do it. I know this ain’t your first rodeo.”
Wolf chuckled and began walking toward the building. McNamara angled off toward the service department, which was adjacent to the big showroom.
Wolf pulled open the door and felt the coolness of the air-conditioning envelope him. A white guy looked up from behind a desk in an open cubicle, smiled, and asked if he could help him.
“I’m looking for Lonnie Coats,” Wolf said.
The white guy nodded and pointed to his left. “Third space down.”
Wolf strolled past three angled cars parked on the tile floor, each with the smell of brand-new vehicles. When he looked at the stickers on the windows Wolf knew that he’d be riding the bicycle for a long time to come.
He stopped and looked at the man sitting behind the desk in the third cubicle. The guy didn’t look quite as disheveled as the booking photo in the file Manny had giv
en them, and the guy’s face stretched into a salesman’s smile. But the sagging jowls and droopy eyes of a perennial drunk told Wolf that the man was strung out and just that one drink shy of marginal comfort.
“Hi, I’m Lon Coats,” the man said standing and offering his hand, the smile still frozen in place. “What can I help you with?”
Wolf shook Coats’s hand not so much out of courtesy but to test the guy’s grip strength. He could smell alcohol on the man and not just his breath. It was oozing out of every pore giving off the kind of sour, boozy smell of someone who lives in the neck of the bottle. He didn’t expect this would be too difficult but he remembered what Mac had said about using finesse instead of force.
“I’d like to speak to you outside, sir,” Wolf said.
The man’s mouth twitched a little. “What kind of car you interested in? We can look everything up on the computer here and stay in the air-conditioning.” The lips twitched again. “I mean, it’s too damn hot outside, right?”
Wolf considered his surroundings. He was in his opponent’s lair and there were probably plenty of people who could jump in and assist Coats if he yelled for help. Wolf didn’t doubt that he could probably fight his way out, dragging Coats along with one hand, but that would be the hard way. He smiled back at the car salesman.
“We both know this isn’t about a car, Lon.”
Coats’ smile faded completely. “You a cop?”
Wolf shook his head. From the look on Coats’s face, Wolf might have said, “Your worst nightmare” instead of “Bail enforcement officer.”
The sad eyes drooped even more. His voice was a whisper. “Look, man, you got to give me a chance here. I’ll lose my damn job if you take me out now.”
Wolf actually felt a twang of pity for the man but he’d been there before. Empathy was the enemy of a professional. So he ducked behind that same emotional wall that had served him so well in combat. “What you tell your boss is up to you, but right now you and I are going to walk outside. The bottom line is if you try to fight me or run, it won’t be pretty.”
Coats’s face pinched into a frown. “Man, don’t do me like this.”
Wolf stared at him, then said, “Let’s go.”
Coats licked his lips, “How ’bouts we tell the boss we going for a little test drive, okay?”
“Tell him whatever you want,” Wolf said. “Just remember the bottom line.”
Coats compressed his thick lips, made a motion toward his back pocket, then stopped when Wolf grabbed the man’s arm. “Hold it. Whatever you’re thinking about reaching for better be a sandwich, ’cause you’re going to have to eat it.” He patted Coats’s hip and removed a thin, curved hipflask. Still holding Coats’s arm, Wolf did a quick pat-down. When he was satisfied that Coats didn’t have any weapons, he released him.
The look in Coats’s eyes told Wolf that the man wasn’t expecting the speed of the grab or the strength of the grip. The walk outside should go smoothly but it was too soon to relax. He’d learned that the hard way the day before with his buddy Luth.
Wolf let Coats go first, and stayed behind him as the man stopped and said to the white guy, “Hey Fred, we going for a little test drive. Be back soon.”
“Whatever, Lon,” Fred said, not bothering to look up.
Coats smiled and nodded at Wolf, like they’d shared some sort of conspiratorial victory. Wolf kept his expression neutral.
Outside, McNamara was waiting and fell into step with them. He held a pair of handcuffs in his beefy left fist and his cane in his right.
“Let me introduce to my friends,” McNamara said as he drew Coats’s arms behind him and ratcheted the cuffs over his wrists. “Iron bracelets.”
“Please, man,” Coats said. “Don’t do me like this. I’ll lose my job if they see me being taken out of here in cuffs.”
“You should’ve thought about that when you missed your court date,” McNamara said.
“Oh, man,” Coats said.
“Quit your whining,” McNamara said. “You know, my buddy here might need a deal on a car relatively soon. Tell you what. Once we get to the car, we’ll let you call your boss and make some stupid excuse about where you are and nobody’ll be the wiser.”
“Yeah, right,” Coats said.
He was a man defeated.
“Best we can do right now,” McNamara said. “But since you cooperated, we’ll put in a good word to Manny about you. Maybe he’ll post bond for you again.”
Coats’s mouth drew downward and he nodded. When they got to the Hummer, they secured Coats’s feet to the floor shackles and then re-cuffed him in front to the large metal ring fastened the bar.
McNamara slammed the door and smiled.
“See,” he said. “Smooth as silk. Let’s go get the next one.”
Once they were rolling again, McNamara punched the second address into the GPS, opened the second file, and took out his cellphone.
“You gonna let me make that call to my boss,” Coats said from the backseat.
McNamara ignored him and pressed the call button.
“Think we ought to drop him off at detention first?” Wolf asked.
“Nah,” McNamara said. “We’re on a roll. Besides, I want to take full advantage of the war wagon here while we still got it.”
Wolf felt this was a bit of a risk considering that Mac was still recuperating from the gunshot wound and the subsequent peritonitis but knew better than to mention it with them being one step ahead of the bill collector. Mac was one of the toughest men he’d ever known and taking Coats to the County Jail and waiting around for a booking slip could mean a loss of both time and momentum.
But Wolf worried anyway, especially when he saw McNamara calling Kasey again.
“Hey, man,” Coats said again. “You promised you’d let me make that phone call.”
“Shaddup,” McNamara said, then into the phone: “Hey, Kase, do me a favor—”
He stopped and listened.
Wolf couldn’t hear Kasey’s voice this time, so he took that to mean he wasn’t yelling.
“Yes, I’m all right,” McNamara said. “Of course I waited in the car. I let Steve handle the whole thing.” He shifted in the seat to shoot a winking gesture at Wolf.
“No,” he said. “We got one more, so did you do that check on Myron D. Kites?” He frowned, spelled out the name, and gave her an address and phone number. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay in the car. Promise. Now whaddaya got?” He listened intently, then said, “Okay, put me on hold and call both places. Try his apartment first. Just use the usual.”
Using the usual meant that if the phone was answered, Kasey would pretend to be a telemarketer or use some other such ruse to fix the subject’s location. She also had a special app that allowed her to enter in any number she wanted as the calling number. It would register on the person’s Caller ID as anything from the IRS to the person’s grandmother, if they had one. Manny required a ton of information before agreeing to post bond but that was available in the file, which she didn’t have. Wolf knew that Mac was reticent to be revealing too many trade secrets in front of Coats at the moment, however.
McNamara perked up and started talking into the phone again. “Okay, honey. That’s great. Thanks.” He stopped talking and was about to hang up when he stopped and listened again.
“Yeah, yeah, I promise. Don’t worry. Like I said, Steve’s very capable of handling things without me.”
She apparently said something more, and McNamara smirked before terminating the call. He turned to Wolf and shook his head.
“What she say?” Wolf said.
They were getting close to the destination that McNamara had punched into the GPS.
“Never mind that.” McNamara patted the dashboard and the GPS map display. “She confirmed that he’s at work, just like I predicted.”
“Is that how you done me?” Coats said, shaking his head. “Mmm, mmm, mmm, that’s cold blooded.”
McNamara heaved a sigh and said, “A
ll right, Lonnie. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll square things with your boss for you.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“What’s his name and number?” McNamara said.
Coats recited the information, and then asked, “What should I tell him?”
“You ain’t gonna tell him squat,” McNamara said. “Let me do the talking.”
“But—”
McNamara held up his hand. Coats fell silent.
After a few rings, someone answered and McNamara spoke in a loud voice infused with authority.
“Mr. Robert Goldsborough?” Pause. “This is Sergeant McGuffy of the Phoenix Police Department. I’m calling on behalf of one of your employees, a mister …” He drew out the pronunciation of the word, then said, “Lonnie B. Coats.”
Goldsborough apparently said something, and McNamara continued.
“No, no, Mr. Coats didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Several months ago Mr. Coats came upon an armed robbery in progress. The perpetrator, a well-known gang member, was armed with a handgun and was about to shoot numerous innocent civilians when Mr. Coats managed to disarm the man and hold him for the police.” He stopped and listened to whatever it was that Goldsborough was saying, then continued. “And I’m not surprised that you didn’t hear anything about it, sir. Because of the notorious and dangerous reputation of this gang, as well as the robber being under the age of eighteen, the matter was kept out of the local media.” He paused and listened again, occasionally chuckling and offering a few mumbles.
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