Throwdown

by Doug Sutherland

  “They headed for the highway?” he asked, remembering his bus ride into town.

  “That’s the other way.”

  Kenny drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes darted to the rearview mirror.

  “Fuck this,” he said.

  Before Elway could say anything the Camaro was rolling through the red light, Kenny’s head swiveling for any sign of the cops. Stupid, Elway thought, Guns in the car and he’s doing this. Kenny must have decided they were clear because he ran the Camaro up through the gears, the snarling V-8 a heads-up to any cop within a mile. The BMW had made the light up ahead but it didn’t look like they’d made a deliberate effort to time it that way. They took the left hand fork and were already on their way up and around the hill. They’d be out of sight in a few seconds. Kenny hit the gas, made it through the intersection at the tail end of the yellow. It was too much, too fast, a crap shoot whether they’d get lit up by a cop.

  “Slow the fuck down!” Elway snapped.

  Langdon either ignored him or didn’t hear. He blipped the throttle, downshifted, didn’t get it right. They were already

  into the curve, and the Camaro’s rear end yawed sideways before he caught it and then backed off on the gas. They got to the top of the hill and started down the other side, a steep incline that ended in a long straightaway. Elway could see the BMW just levelling out at the bottom. Kenny muttered something and punched the gas again, the Camaro closing the gap fast. Elway had given up talking to Langdon, convinced by now that he’d lost his fucking mind.

  The BMW’s driver didn’t believe in rear view mirrors, showed no sign at all that he’d seen them. A moment later his brake lights flashed and he made a leisurely right turn into the parking lot of a B-movie Mom and Pop motel. There were maybe a dozen units set well back from the road, the gravel parking lot deserted. The Beemer was just turning into a parking spot near the darkened office.

  Kenny came in way too hot, the Camaro slewing wildly when it hit the slush and gravel of the parking lot. He caught the slide and headed straight for the Beemer. For an instant Elway thought he meant to ram them – he could see shock on the faces of the car’s occupants as they actually braced for it. Maybe they’d finally realized that somebody had been following them for, like, the last three fucking miles.

  The Camaro slid to a stop only a few feet away from the Beemer’s passenger side door and then Kenny was up and out of the Camaro. He held the Sig canted sideways like some asshole actor in a movie, motioned for them to get out of the car.

  Amateur night, Elway thought, no plan, nothing. Kenny had just flat lost it and now Elway was right in the middle of whatever the hell was going to happen next. He got out of the Camaro and realized the smartest thing he could do was just walk away, but Kenny had given him money and he’d taken it and he couldn’t do that.

  Elway brought up the Glock, covered the car. He was close enough now to see that Hendricks had been driving, Nason riding shotgun. That probably explained why they hadn’t picked up the tail. Elway had only seen them a couple of times but it hadn’t taken long for him to clock Nason as the more dangerous of the two, and it crossed his mind that they were a mirror image of Kenny and himself.

  Suddenly Kenny walked right in front of him, the Sig in his left hand now, yanked open the passenger side door. That blocked out Elway and he stepped sideways fast, kept his sightline on Hendricks. Hendricks stayed cool, displayed open hands and moved them slowly and deliberately to the top of the steering wheel. Elway caught sudden movement off to his left as Kenny pulled Nason out of the car, more stupidity, the big man momentarily close enough that he would have tried for the gun if Elway hadn’t been there.

  The moment passed. Elway motioned Hendricks out of the car. It looked like both Hendricks and Nason had done the dance before. Hendricks kept his movements slow, made sure his hands were spread wide and high where Elway could see them. He tried to get away with staying on the driver’s side of the car but Elway didn’t want him there.

  “Come around the car,” Elway said, “nice and slow.”

  Hendricks shrugged, did what he was told. If one of them was going to make a move now was the time, and Elway had already decided that if Kenny blundered into the way he was going to shoot right through him. Elway backed off a couple of steps to give himself some space, flicked a glance at Nason to show he was watching. The open door on the passenger side stopped Hendricks from going any farther.

  “Close the door,” Elway told him.

  Hendricks reached out, pushed it closed.

  “Both of you turn around, hands on the car, assume the fucking position, right now.”

  Hendricks obeyed, but Nason smirked and tried to stare Elway down.

  “I said turn the fuck around and put your hands on the car,” Elway said.

  The big man shrugged and turned around, put his hands on the roof. As soon as he did Kenny started back toward the car.

  “Stay back,” Elway barked, but Kenny ignored him, started to inexpertly frisk Hendricks.

  Kenny’s movements were jerky, manic, and Elway swore under his breath. Kenny was still in the way, and if Hendricks made some kind of move on Kenny Elway didn’t have a clear shot. Nason saw it too, glanced quickly back at Elway.

  “Forget it,” Elway told him.

  Nason turned back around, stared out over the roof of the car. Kenny finally reached around Hendricks’ midsection, pulled some kind of no-name automatic out of a belly holster and tossed it behind him on the ground.

  Guns went off that way, especially the cheap ones, and when Elway heard a hollow POP that’s what he thought had happened. He looked up in time to see Hendricks’ outstretched arms give way and his legs collapse. He slumped face first into the BMW, Langdon just standing there with the Sig pointed at empty space.

  Elway swore, got to Nason fast and pinned him hard against the car, screwed the muzzle of the Glock into his right ear.

  “Don’t fucking move!”

  Elway fumbled around the man’s belly looking for a gun, but the bastard was strong, probably outweighed Elway by forty pounds, and he twisted suddenly to the right. Elway’s fingers scrabbled for the gun butt but he couldn’t reach it in time, the edge of Nason’s right hand sweeping around in a wild roundhouse that came up underneath Elway’s jaw and knocked him on his ass. By the time he hit the ground Nason had barreled straight into Langdon, wrapping him up in a bear hug that took them both to the ground with Kenny on the bottom. The impact knocked the Sig from Kenny’s hand.

  Elway had never been hit that hard in his life, and he’d only made it up to one knee when he heard the muffled cough of gunshots, saw the big man’s body convulse with the impact.

  Elway brought the Glock up and trained it on Nason’s back, came up on him slowly. Langdon had been lucky, somehow yanked the big man’s gun out of its belly holster, gotten off a couple of shots in spite of the bulk pressing down on him. Nason wasn’t moving, all of his weight on Langdon, and Langdon was struggling to get out from under him.

  Elway could have reached out and hauled Nason off but he didn’t trust Langdon to control the gun. He waited for Langdon to push the body away, then went over very fast and took the weapon out of his hand. Langdon didn’t protest, just let him do it, and Elway had to fight off the impulse to just kill the stupid bastard and leave him there in the parking lot with the other two. This was a clusterfuck, and it was all Kenny’s. Trouble was the law didn’t care who’d pulled the trigger and now they were both screwed.

  Elway didn’t waste any more time thinking about how fucking stupid it all was. He hadn’t stayed alive this long by reflecting on the consequences of past events. The two bodies were real and the fuckup was real and he just had to deal with it. Kenny had gotten to his feet and was slouched uselessly against the BMW, his eyes vacant and shocky. It was down to Elway to clean up the mess.

  It was a Hail Mary but if he set it up right the cops might figure these guys were just a couple of greaseballs
who’d gotten into an argument and shot it out in the parking lot. It all hinged on Kenny’s gun. Kenny had made a big deal about the guns when they were sitting in the car outside Saunders’ place, how both the Sig and the Glock were untraceable, clean. In Elway’s world that was standard operating procedure and he hadn’t paid much attention, dismissed it as Kenny’s usual master criminal bullshit.

  He hoped now that it wasn’t. If the Sig was clean he could use it like a throwdown, plant it on Nason. From the look of them Hendricks and Nason had been around, had spent time in the environment. Their guns would be just as clean. He had options.

  Elway knew it could work, or at least work for a while, and it was all he had anyway. He looked back at the motel. The place looked empty, no other vehicles in the parking lot, not even in front of the office. The office itself showed no lights and the curtains were drawn, no sign of life. If somebody was in there he was either a hell of a sound sleeper or hunkered down and calling 911.

  Elway looked over at Kenny, jerked his head toward the office.

  “See if anybody’s in there.”

  “I know the owner – it’s empty,” Kenny told him, “he closes the office at night.”

  “What?”

  “There’s nobody in there. He closes the office at night and goes home.”

  Elway leaned in, grabbed a handful of Langdon’s jacket, pulled him in close.

  “Snap the fuck out of it, Kenny! Take a look!”

  He shoved Kenny in the direction of the office, then went over and rummaged in the back of the Camaro, found an old rag under the passenger seat. On the way back he glanced over, saw Kenny trying to see past the drapes in the office window. He got over there just as Langdon gave up on the window and reached for the door knob. He pushed him roughly out of the way, used the rag to try the door. It was locked, which meant everything or nothing, and he went to the window himself, tried to see inside. No chance – a heavy curtain covered the window and he couldn’t see fuck all in the narrow gap that ran up along the side. He turned to Kenny.

  “There a back way out of this place?”

  Kenny just shrugged. Elway thought of breaking in, making sure, knew that would screw everything up. He didn’t know if Kenny had touched the door handle or the window, didn’t trust him for a straight answer. He forced himself to take his time, methodically wiped down any surfaces he or Kenny could have touched. Then he grabbed Kenny by the arm.

  “Okay, you tell me the truth or we’re both fucked. Your gun, the Sig – is that absolutely clean? No connection to you at all?”

  Langdon was still in a fog, didn’t get it. Elway tried again, furious that he had to explain this.

  “I’m going to leave it here, Kenny. If it’s clean it doesn’t matter, but I can’t leave it here if they can trace it back to you.”

  “It’s clean.”

  “You’re sure? Don’t fuck me around, Kenny. We have to be sure or this won’t work.”

  “I told you. It’s clean.”

  “It fucking well better be,” Elway snarled, shoved Kenny toward the car.

  He had one chance to get it right. He still had the rag, used it to wipe down the Sig and put it in Nason’s hand. Then he picked up Nason’s gun, wiped it down and dropped it close to Hendricks. Elway wrapped the rag around his hand and fumbled through both men’s pockets. Nason was the only one who carried an extra clip and Elway took it, keeping the rag on his hand, and stuck it in Kendrick’s jacket pocket. The wallets were awkward as hell but the rag was large enough for him to cover his hands, move his fingers enough to crack the wallets and take a look. Both men had been carrying a lot of cash and Elway took most of it, made sure to leave enough that it wouldn’t look like a robbery, put the wallets back in their coats. Using the rag to do all that took too much time but if things went all to hell – like they hadn’t already – Elway would need the money to run. He left their credit cards and IDs in their wallets, didn’t have the time or inclination to verify who they were. It didn’t matter anyway. They were dead.

  Elway picked up the two remaining guns and jammed them in his pockets, then remembered the brass. There’d only been three shots total and the ejected shells hadn’t gone far. The two from the bullets that killed Nason had been blocked by his body, weren’t far away from him. Elway picked them up with the rag, dropped them at a believable angle from Hendricks. Elway remembered the shell casing from the Sig spinning toward him when Kenny fired, knew where to look. It was dark and it took longer than he wanted, but he finally found the damn thing and dropped it near Nason.

  Kenny was still standing dumbly by the Camaro. Elway practically threw him into the passenger seat and went around to the driver’s side. He looked over at the office one last time, measured the angles. The BMW was parked straight in a couple of rooms away from the office itself and the Camaro had come in pointed straight at the Beemer’s passenger side door. If anyone was inside they’d probably seen too fucking much, but at least there was no way to get a plate number from the office, not if he stuck close to the motel and drove straight out the far end of the parking lot.

  All he could do was hope Kenny was right, that no one was in there that time of night. The only way to make sure was to break into the office and see for himself, but that would add a factor he couldn’t afford, something that could wreck what he’d just tried to set up. Elway decided he’d done everything he could. Everything short of killing Kenny Langdon’s ass, but that wouldn’t work either, would just lead back to him.

  Elway got in behind the wheel, started the Camaro and backed up slowly, careful not to spin the wheels. Then he got out again and looked at the tire tracks. Kenny had come in fast, slammed on the brakes, and Elway could see the furrows the tires had dug in the muddy snow and gravel of the parking lot. It was a fucking diagram of what had really happened. It had to go.

  He felt the cold snow on his face and knew it would help. He also knew that by itself it wouldn’t be enough. He looked up at the road. He couldn’t remember hearing any cars go by and he saw no sign of any now. To do it right he’d need a shovel and more time than he had.

  He started scuffing his feet along the tire tracks, wearing away the ridges on each one until he came up on the small mounds of crap the Camaro’s tires had pushed up when it had finally stopped. He did one, then the other, forced himself not to hurry too much. He expected to hear a car full of witnesses go by at any moment. It would all be luck.

  His luck held. He finished, looked down at what he’d done, knew he was out of time. He got back in the Camaro, didn’t even bother looking at Langdon. He eased the Camaro out slowly, careful not to spin the wheels. He didn’t breathe until they got up on the road.

  39

  Jed Hopkins was freezing his ass off. He was still hunkered down in the trees, maybe fifty or sixty yards away from the back of the motel.

  He’d been done for the night, sitting in the back room watching television and having a beer and a hooter when he thought he heard a car pull in. He was starting for the door to the outer office when he heard the roar of another car coming in behind it and slamming its brakes on.

  The lights in the office were already out and he took advantage of the darkness to go to the front window, peer out from the edge of the curtain. He had to lean around a little to get a view of what was happening. For a moment he thought one car had actually rammed the other, but then he realized it was just the angle. The second car – it looked like an old Camaro – had stopped just off to his right, side-on to the motel, its nose only a few feet away from the passenger door of the BMW.

  The driver was already out of the Camaro, his movements fast and crazy, some kind of handgun already out and pointing at the Beemer. It was dark out there and the driver was facing the BMW so Jed couldn’t see much. Jed could hear him shouting at the guys in the Beemer but the words were muffled by the window glass. The guy seemed hyperactive, almost hysterical, but then some big bastard got out of the Camaro’s passenger side and he was just s
cary, all smoke and ice.

  Jed knew right then it was time to get lost. He ducked down away from the window, reached across to the door and made sure the deadbolt was turned. He shook off the urge to look out the window again, instead crab-walked back behind the front desk. The only light in the back room was coming from the television and he kept low, slid in one side of the curtained doorway that divided the room from the front office. He reached behind him, took a chance on slowly drawing the curtain closed, then found the remote control and turned off the television. He figured if he stayed low and quiet in the dark it would be enough, but then he heard something that had to be a gunshot and he gave up any idea he had of calling 911. The back room was small, maybe ten by twelve, but it had a window. He stopped fucking around and got to it as fast as he could, slid it open and went through headfirst. He landed pretty much on his face, nearly knocking himself out with the impact. He lay there dazed until sheer terror made him force himself upright. In the last instant he remembered to reach back and slide the window closed.

  He didn’t know what happened after that. He just started running through the field at the back of the motel and his breathing was so loud in his ears a bomb could have gone off back there and he wouldn’t have heard it. He was clumsy, nearly fell a couple of times, but he stayed upright long enough to get to the cover of the tree line at the back end of the field. Then he collapsed into a sprawl, waited for his heart to pound its way back down into the center of his chest where it was supposed to be.

  He thought he heard a big V-8 start up and waited just in case they drove around the back looking for him. Instead he saw headlight beams on the right side of the motel, the side away from town, heard the sound of the engine coming to him as the driver finally accelerated.