Nobody Move

by Philip Elliott

  Then Sawyer pulled the trigger.

  The pop of the rifle made Eddie flinch.

  Diego swung the boat to the left, noticing them now, unharmed.

  “Shit,” Sawyer said and aimed at him again. Diego swung right, then left again, careening the boat in zigzags up the river. In a matter of seconds he would pass under the bridge.

  “We’re gonna lose him,” Eddie said.

  “No we won’t.” Sawyer closed an eye and looked down the barrel.

  “Get down!” Eddie grabbed Sawyer’s shoulder and pulled as Diego raised his gun in one hand. They fell onto the road, almost getting flattened by a garbage truck that had to swerve to avoid them. Bullets thumped against the side of the bridge. The boat buzzed beneath the bridge as they got to their feet.

  Sawyer darted across the road without even looking at the oncoming vehicles, almost causing a collision. Eddie waited for an opening and went after him. Standing upright, Sawyer aimed the rifle at Diego’s back. The boat was still careening side to side. It would be a hard shot to make, and in a few seconds would become impossible.

  Sawyer followed the movements of the boat with the gun, waiting for the right shot. But he was waiting too long.

  “Sawyer—”

  “Shh.”

  Sawyer continued following Diego’s movements, one eye shut and the other staring down the sights.

  He squeezed.

  Diego’s body jerked, then slumped backwards, his hand still on the motor. The boat swerved violently to the right and Eddie had a horrible image of the bags of cash sliding into the river. But the boat stayed upright, speeding now toward the electrical generators on the bank.

  The narrow, flat boat shot up the slope of the bank and into the sky like an arrowhead, heading for the generators. It plowed through the metal cages and into the generators in an explosion of white electricity and disappeared behind them.

  “Christ,” Eddie said. “If the bullet didn’t kill him, that sure as shit did.”

  Sawyer blew the tip of the rifle as if he was a gunslinger and it his six-shooter. “Told you I’d hit him.”

  “Nice shot. The cops are gonna be here any minute, we gotta hurry.”

  They jogged down the dirt path and found to their amusement that the boat had come to a stop beside the S.U.V. Diego lay sprawled on his back at the rear, one of his arms bent at an unnatural angle. One of the bags of cash was still on the boat, the other lay in the dirt a few yards away. Eddie glanced at Sawyer. Two problems were out of the way in Floyd and Diego, but Sawyer was a third. Maybe if Eddie “checked” to see if Diego was dead, he could swipe the uzi and turn it on Sawyer before Sawyer could shoot him first. But what if it was empty?

  Eddie stepped toward Diego and stood over him, gazing at his mangled body. His arm was definitely broken, maybe one of his legs, his body sliced all over and smeared in blood.

  Diego opened his eyes with a gasp and Eddie nearly had a stroke.

  “Jesus, he’s alive,” Eddie said.

  “What?” Sawyer hurried over. “Goddamn.”

  Diego stretched out a bloody arm and grasped Sawyer’s jeans weakly, gasping, his eyes searching for something. Sawyer stepped out of the man’s reach. He crouched onto his hunkers and gazed down into Diego’s face.

  “Why did you kill Floyd and take the money?” he said.

  Diego appeared confused by the question, probably hallucinating, maybe seeing another dimension of the universe.

  Sawyer said, “Diego, listen to me: You are going to die. That’s for sure. But you’re in a lot of pain right now, and your death may take some time. And if the cops get here, they won’t make it any easier for you. If you answer my question, I’ll put a bullet clean into your head. There won’t be no pain, and you’ll die the death you’ve earned as a man of the gun.”

  Diego focused on Sawyer’s face and seemed to nod almost imperceptibly.

  “Now get ready, Diego, ’cause here it comes: Did Saul tell you to kill Floyd along with Eddie, and take the money?”

  Diego narrowed his eyes slightly and let out a moan. They clouded over as he writhed in agony.

  Sirens screamed in the distance.

  “Sawyer, I hear the cops.”

  Sawyer grabbed Diego’s face in both hands. “Diego, listen to me. Did Saul want you to kill Floyd and take the money?”

  Diego nodded, his eyes half-shut.

  “Is that a yes, Diego? I need to be sure. Say it. Say yes.”

  “Si,” Diego said, nodding clearly now, his teeth gritting through the pain.

  “Thank you. Rest in peace.” Sawyer pointed the gun at Diego’s face and the man seemed to smile, looking content, as if this was how he’d always dreamed his death. Sawyer shot him in the forehead and, at last, Diego was dead.

  They stared at the corpse as the sirens wailed nearby.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Sawyer said.

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “You’re thinking what’s to stop me from killing you and taking that money for myself.”

  “You’re right, that is what I’m thinking.”

  “I don’t wanna kill you, man. I never did. All I wanted was … me and Floyd, we were gonna …”

  Sawyer looked at Eddie and Eddie was surprised to see a tear sliding down the man’s cheek. “Saul’s gonna pay for this. I’ll help you get that girl out of there, and together we’ll kill Saul.”

  Eddie couldn’t believe it. “You’re saying …”

  “I’m saying I’ll help you rescue your girl if you help me kill that piece of shit. Then we split the cash and go our separate ways.”

  Eddie nodded, his head spinning as a surge of hope swelled inside him.

  “How do we do it?” he said.

  “Saul got no idea that I’m here right now, unless Diego told him when he saw me pretending to be you, but I’m betting he didn’t. Saul’s gonna call me in any minute now once he realizes his money ain’t coming. I’ll show up and play dumb. You call him once you get the cash somewhere safe and tell him you got his money and want to arrange a meet to trade it for the girl. With Floyd missing, he’ll want me there at that meet, and when it goes down, I’ll turn on him and whoever else he got with him, and together we grab the cash and get the fuck outta this place forever.”

  Eddie nodded. They could pull this off.

  “You don’t mind me keeping the money?” he said. “How you know I won’t bail?”

  “You would have bailed long before now if you were gonna bail. And besides, you’re a decent person. You ain’t like the rest of us.”

  Eddie remembered Dakota’s sister screaming beneath the duct tape, and wasn’t so sure.

  17 | A Tale of Two Southerners

  The blond showed up at the restaurant right as Rufus had decided he’d waited long enough. So he decided to wait twenty more minutes. If no one else arrived, and if the blond did not come out of the restaurant by then, he’d pay them all a visit.

  But whatever meeting the blond had in there was a quick one: he left the restaurant ten minutes after going inside. Rufus had a dilemma: follow the blond, or wait for Eddie—if Eddie was going to show at all. But he was tired of waiting, and the blond could tell him what he wanted to know. And it would be nice to punish the man for interrupting his fun with the nigger.

  Rufus turned the keys and woke the engine of his Impala. By now the sun had passed its peak and was drifting northwest across the clear blue sky, and the stifling heat had mellowed slightly. The blond got in the S.U.V. he’d arrived in and took off down the street. Rufus gave it ten seconds, then hit the accelerator and cruised after him.

  He hit play on the car’s tape player and Johnny Cash picked the intro to “Solitary Man.” Rufus tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat, enjoying the sense of impending destiny flowing through him. Soon he would sit down with Mr. Blond and peer inside the man.

  The blond drove thirty minutes to a small apartment block in Boyle Heights. He parked on the curb and
went inside. Rufus parked across the street and followed him. There was no lock on the doors, or anything else stopping a non-resident from strolling in. The blond disappeared up the stairs and Rufus went up after him. He caught sight of the blond again going down a hallway on the second floor, and reached the hallway as a door twenty feet ahead on the right side closed.

  Rufus stood outside the door now, letting some seconds pass. He tried the handle: the door was unlocked. He pushed it open slowly and looked around. The place was a dump, dirty plates and pizza boxes and bottles of beer discarded everywhere. It stank worse than it looked.

  Rufus stepped inside the apartment, one hand fingering the knife in the left holster. Even walking softly his boots were loud on the hardwood floor, but the blond hadn’t noticed: a tap turned on in the kitchen, just ahead on the right. Three more steps and Rufus saw him. The blond was facing the sink, his back to Rufus, filling a glass with water. He raised the glass to his lips and tipped his head back.

  In two large strides Rufus grabbed the blond’s hair and tugged it hard. The man cried out, both hands grasping at Rufus’s fist as the glass smashed onto the floor. Rufus raised his other fist and swung it toward the blond’s face like a hammer. It crashed into his nose with a crunch. The blond screamed, his hands rushing to his face. Rufus released the blond’s hair and the man hit the floor, writhing like a serpent, blood sliding down his neck and pooling behind it.

  “That’s a nasty wound you got there,” Rufus said. “We’d better clean it up. Don’t want it to get infected.” He threw open a couple cupboards and found what he was looking for: a bottle of hard liquor—tequila in this case. He twisted off the cap and took a swig. “Mexican piss,” he muttered, and turned the bottle upside down above the blond’s head.

  The man wailed and shielded his eyes. He tried to roll onto his side. Rufus kicked him in the stomach.

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, boy.”

  The blond clutched at his belly, gasping silently.

  Rufus said, “You got a smoke? I could use one.” He searched the man’s pockets. He took the blond’s wallet out of his front pocket and slipped it into his own, and found a box of cigarettes in the man’s back pocket. He withdrew a smoke and closed his lips around it. The gas burners on the stove would do for a lighter (since he’d lost his, which he was still pissed about). He got one burning and bent forward and set the cigarette on fire.

  “Now that,” he said, exhaling silky smoke, “feels good.” He fished the man’s wallet out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Sawyer Harris. This a Texas driver’s license, Sawyer. And that’s one mighty fine Southern name you got. This address here … Austin. Well, would you look at that. I’m from San Antonio. We’re practically neighbors.”

  Rufus sucked deeply on the cigarette and enjoyed the rush of seven thousand chemicals whirling through his veins. “This changes things, Sawyer. I don’t want to hurt a fellow Texan more’n I have to. Answer my questions and we might even have a good time here, what d’ya say?” He stepped toward Sawyer. “Come on, get up.” He grabbed the man’s shirt in one hand and pulled him to his feet.

  Sawyer reflexively bent forward, still sucking at the air.

  “Stand up straight, fella, you’re closin’ your lungs like that,” Rufus said. He straightened Sawyer’s spine for him and held him there, fixing the man’s shirt collar with his free hand.

  “Here,” Rufus said, grabbing a dish towel from a hanger in the wall and handing it to Sawyer. “Hold it against your nose.”

  Sawyer did as he was told.

  Rufus pulled a chair out from the table. “Sit.”

  Sawyer collapsed into the chair.

  Rufus stood by the doorway and observed him.

  “Sawyer, I need to know a few things and you’re gonna tell me. You saw what I did to your nigger friend, so I don’t need to tell you what happens when folks don’t answer my questions. You hearing me, boy?”

  Sawyer nodded, the towel against his face.

  “For this to work, you’re gonna have to speak at some point.”

  “When you gonna quote scripture at me?” Sawyer said, his voice muffled behind the cloth.

  Rufus almost smiled. “You a Christian?”

  “No, sir, I most certainly ain’t.”

  “Why’d you come to Los Angeles? The center of the universe.”

  “I went A.W.O.L. from the military. That ruled out pretty much any career worth having ’cept one. L.A.’s as good a city as any to be after that. Better than most, even.”

  “I can’t argue with that. There’s always been too many spics ’n’ niggers here for me. But I guess you don’t care about that, do you, boy?”

  Sawyer held the cloth away from his face and looked at it. The bleeding had slowed now, the man’s chin caked with dried blood.

  “Really I came to L.A. to be away from men like you,” Sawyer said.

  Rufus nodded. “And we’re glad to see men like you leave. Well, Sawyer, to respond to your question, I only quote scripture to men I’m ’bout to kill.”

  “I’m sure God appreciates that.”

  “I don’t give two shits ’bout what God appreciates or don’t. I’ll let you in on a li’l secret. But first I need another one them smokes.”

  Rufus took the box out of his pocket and tossed a smoke between his lips. He headed for the stove to light it. As soon as he passed Sawyer the man made a run for it. But Rufus had expected it. Already inside his jacket, his quick fingers flung a knife at the fleeing man. The blade penetrated Sawyer’s Achilles tendon and Sawyer hit the floor screaming, one hand stretched out in front of him fingering the threshold of the doorway.

  Rufus lit the cigarette and sat in the chair Sawyer had vacated. Sometimes it’s just too goddamn easy.

  “What was I saying?” he said. “Oh yeah, a li’l secret I’m gonna make you privy to: I ain’t a Christian. It’s not that I don’t believe in God. I do believe; I have heard His voice on the wind and witnessed His hand skimming a field of corn. It’s that I know I’m goin’ straight to hell. I don’t care. Heaven’s too dull for a man like me. I quote scripture because I enjoy reminding that dictator up there that I’m in charge of my destiny down here. Maybe He can punish me when I’m dead, but while I’m alive, I’m calling the shots.”

  Rufus rose from the seat and stood over Sawyer as the man crawled slowly toward the doorway. “While I’m alive on this planet, I’m the one taking lives and punishing those who defy me. I got a picture of Jesus behind my bed, not so I have to look at Him, but so He has to look at me. While I’m alive, I am God.”

  Sawyer moaned as he slithered toward the doorway. Rufus tugged the knife out of his leg and Sawyer screamed, the man’s body spasming.

  “You gonna do something or just lie there and bleed?” Rufus said. “No, I didn’t think so. Now listen to me, boy—there’s a lot more places I can put this knife. You’re gonna answer my questions with nothing but truth, and you’re gonna do it without my having to ask twice.”

  Rufus ran the blade gently along Sawyer’s unharmed leg and felt him shudder.

  “Where is Eddie?”

  His leg hurt less now that he’d bandaged it up, swallowed a handful of painkillers, and washed them down with vodka, but Eddie felt nervous now that he was alone. What was to stop Sawyer from bailing? (Except the prospect of losing a million bucks, of course, which was admittedly a pretty big one.) And even if Sawyer showed, could they pull it off or would they get themselves and Dakota killed? And with the police on the search for Kaya’s killers, it was only a matter of time until the cops came sniffing for him … Shit, all this because a rich asshole charged him and his finger slipped on the trigger. All this from one bullet, just like the bullet that started the Great War; he remembered that from history class, amazed back then by how so many people had lost their lives because one dumbass had moved his finger an inch.

  Eddie took a cab to LAX and told the driver to wait, he’d only be a few minutes. He carried both of the bags
of cash inside despite only needing one for this task, not trusting the cab driver with the other. The hair on his arms stood on end as he passed the airport police and sniffer dogs near the entrance. For all he knew the cops had connected him to the murders already and plastered his face all over the news. These airport cops were trained to spot the guilty; he’d have to be fast and keep his cool.

  He headed straight for the lockers, then thought better of it. It would look less suspicious if he pretended to check his flight time first. He stood before the screens and gazed up at them, half-wishing he was on one of those myriad planes out of here, zooming toward freedom. A cute woman in a short polka dot dress smiled at him, gazing up at the screens herself.

  “Where are you headed to?” he asked her in an attempt at appearing normal, glancing at the cop near the entrance.

  “Prague. To see my family,” she said in a sexy European accent. “Long time since.”

  “What a coincidence—so am I. I’ll see you on the plane.” He winked and made for the lockers.

  Eddie reached the lockers and bit his tongue. Shit. Of course—they accepted only credit cards. The police could be tracking his card, and even if they weren’t they could be soon. Then they’d simply wait for him to collect the cash later and grab him (he saw it in a movie once—shit, probably more than once—but it seemed likely). He’d have to swipe someone else’s. He looked at the European, standing there all pretty in that dress. She looked like she could use a drink …

  Eddie strolled over to her. “Hey, listen, we still have a while before the flight. You wanna grab a drink? I’m buying.” He flashed his most charming smile, a million bucks over each shoulder.

  She didn’t seem at all surprised. Girl like her probably scratches her head when she doesn’t get asked if she’d like a drink

  “Sure, I like to drink,” she said.

  “We have that in common then. This bar right here will do just fine.” Eddie led her to a couple stools at the bar—one of those sleek but charmless three-hundred-and-sixty-degree airport bars that serve overpriced, underpoured cocktails and spirits. He stacked the bags on top of each other at his feet, making sure to keep his leg against them.