“She’s my partner,” Stephanie said. “We split it all down the middle, fifty-fifty.”
“Give me a for instance,” the man behind the wheel said.
“All you need to do is name it—from Mama’s meat loaf to the mortgage, we slice it up and share,” Stephanie said, looking from the heavyset man to Buttercup and nodding at the dog as she circled toward the passenger side of the Caddy, which was still idling. “In point of fact, there’s nothing that comes to mind that we don’t do a fair share on. And that includes any money that might cross our path, whether earned or lifted.”
The heavyset man sat up in his thick leather seat, his left hand instinctively reaching for the semi that was holstered against his rib cage. The man sitting in the passenger seat had a handgun resting loose across his lap, the fingers of his right hand gently tapping the thick barrel. He was looking up at Stephanie, her figure half shielded by the light rain, and ignoring Buttercup, who had by now inched toward his side of the car. “Thanks for sharing your shit with us, girlfriend,” the heavyset man said, the smile now gone. “But I heard all I want to hear. So no need to let us stop you and your fat, ugly friend from getting to where you need to get.”
“Buttercup doesn’t like to be called fat, and I can’t imagine she’d wrap her paws around ugly, either,” Stephanie said. “I don’t know any lady that would.”
“I give a fuck what your dog likes or doesn’t like to be called,” the heavyset man said, his voice rising a few decibels. “Now you both get the fuck away from the car, this gas station, and this street. And the faster you do it the better I’ll feel about it.”
Stephanie leaned in closer to the car. “That’s not a problem,” she said, her eyes hard on the heavyset man. “Just as soon as you hand over that black bag in the back seat we’ll be on our way. No fuss, no muss.”
The man on the passenger side had braced his back against the car door, the gun now in his right hand and pointed at Stephanie. The heavyset man stared at Stephanie, watching her curl her fingers across the edge of the car panel, her body relaxed and at ease. “Gas station is no place for a pretty woman to die,” he said to her with a slow shake of his head. “And die you will if you don’t fucking move away from my car.”
“I can’t leave without the money,” Stephanie said. “After all, a girl and a dog need to eat.”
Stephanie and the heavyset man held their look for several long seconds. The man on the passenger side slid his body closer, his leather jacket making a squeaking sound as it brushed against the thick upholstery. At the other end of the car, Buttercup braced her body for a jump, her muscles silent and still, spring-coiled and ready for the action she had learned to crave.
Stephanie dived to the ground as soon as she heard the click of the gun, hammer moving against the cylinder. A bullet zoomed past her and blew a small hole in a large black garbage bin. A second shot rattled off a block of cement, inches from the base of a high-test gas pump. The latch on the driver’s side snapped open and the heavyset man put one foot to the ground. Stephanie pulled a switchblade from a leather band wrapped around her right wrist, snapped it open, and jumped to her feet, six-inch blade poised to penetrate skin.
“Will you stop pumping out bullets like a blind fuckin’ sniper, Malo?” the heavyset man shouted to the man in the passenger seat. “Do you fuckin’ see me here or no, you retarded bastard?”
“I thought you wanted me to take her out, you fat fool,” Malo said. “And you know I was keeping an eye out for you, which is why I missed her ass twice. You were twenty-five pounds lighter, bitch be bleeding.”
“Let me worry about this bitch,” the heavyset man said, stepping out of the car. “You just make sure you take care of the foamy-mouth bitch she came in with.”
Malo swung the passenger door open and eased his legs out, gun still in his right hand, feet firm on the grease-stained ground. Buttercup caught him at chest level, pushing him back inside the car, her massive paws fast-squeezing the air out of his lungs, her hot, arid breath heavy on the man’s face. Malo struggled to lift his gun hand up and put the barrel against Buttercup’s side. The dog pressed her weight down on him even harder and then opened her jaw and clamped down hard on his neck, causing thick lines of blood to gush out of his wild-pulsing veins. Malo’s eyes locked onto Buttercup’s, filled with both fright and a maddening frenzy, as he felt the warm blood flow. The gun fell from his fingers, and his legs turned light as feather dust without any sense of feel. Buttercup held her position, waiting for her latest prey to surrender the quick.
The heavyset man was lighter on his feet than he appeared, doing a catlike pounce from the car to behind one of the gas-station pumps, knees bent, gun at the ready. He didn’t flinch or turn when he heard the turmoil in the front seat of the car between Buttercup and his gunman, Malo. “Fuckin’ loser,” he muttered to himself. “Can’t even take out a fuckin’ dog bigger than a billboard. If that bowser doesn’t finish his ass off, I sure as shit will.”
He clenched when he heard a sneakered foot touch a thick spot of grease and he did a full circle around, his trigger finger ready for a pump-and-dump.
He never got off a round.
The knife blade caught him at chest level and penetrated bone, muscle, tissue, veins, arteries. He couldn’t speak and let the gun fall to his feet. His eyes bulged, white spittle mixed with blood rushed down both sides of his mouth. He leaned against one of the gas pumps, his breath coming in slow bursts, his body sliding down the edge of the greasy tank, his elbows knocking aside the black rubber hose and nozzle. “You won’t live to wear anything you spend that money on,” he rasped.
“Not a problem,” Stephanie said to him, turning her back. “I’m not planning on spending one cent of it.”
“What, then?” the heavyset man asked.
“I’m going to burn it,” Stephanie said.
She snapped her fingers and waited as Buttercup ran to her side. She went over to the car, checked the bleeder in the front seat, opened the rear door, and looked into the thick black bag, stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. She pulled a red cylinder out of the rear pocket of her jeans, snapped down on a black button, and tossed it into the car. Then she and Buttercup turned and crossed Jackson Avenue, leaving two dying men in their wake.
They were two corners down when an explosion tore the car to shreds, sent the gas pumps hurtling into the air, and transformed the area into an inferno. “Lesson to be learned there?” Stephanie said to Buttercup. “Don’t ever play with fire.”
10
Angel slammed his fist down on the hand-carved desk. “What the fuck am I running here?” he shouted to the group of six men, one from each of his respective crews. “A van filled with high-end dope disappears and cash meant for my pockets is left in the back of a car, burning like wood on a winter night. And the doers, so far as any genius in this room can ascertain, belong to no gang we’ve ever heard of. And not even the two bright bulbs who survived the take-and-bake can finger them. Did I ace that quiz?”
“We’ll find out who they are and where they are, don’t worry,” one of the men, the youngest of the six, finally said. “All we need is a little more time. The job just happened a day ago; we have to get people in place to get the answers we need.”
Angel stared silently at the young man for a few moments. “Your name is what again?” he asked.
“Ramon,” the young man said. “I used to run for you in the old country. I was an altar boy back in the day. Remember?”
Angel reached under his desk and came up with a black semiautomatic clutched in his right hand. He pumped three bullets into Ramon, sending the young man reeling to the floor, then let a moment pass as a thick pool of dark blood blended into the room’s antique Persian rug. Angel pushed his chair back, stood, leaned across his desk, and fired two more slugs into Ramon’s silent body. He then sat back down and looked up at each of the five men standing quietly around their dead partner. “Do you all need more time or was it just him?”
He waited for a few moments, letting the silence answer his question. “In that case,” he said, “how about I hear what we do know about these fuckers?”
“There are a lot of rumors out on the street,” one of the men said. He was tall, with a solid gym build and dark bangs partially hiding the upper half of his handsome face. He spoke with a Latin accent. “Not a lot of facts, which is no surprise given the way they pulled the job. I don’t think they’re hooked up with any of the other crews, especially not the Italians.”
“And what’s the why for that?” Angel asked.
“No crew—and I mean not a one—is going to go out and hire a team to take us off and have them come back in the house with only half the haul,” the man said. “There are no deal points to be made by burning up a half million dollars.”
“It sure as shit got our attention, Eduardo,” Angel said. “And let’s do a for instance and say that’s what they wanted to get out of this whole game from the get-go. Throw down a flag and let us know they’re out there and put us in their scope. What if that’s their deal? What if they don’t give a fuck about the dope or the money, any of it? What if they’re just coming in for us?”
“To take over our turf?” Eduardo asked.
“No,” Angel said with a slow shake of his head. “To come in and take back what used to be their ground.”
“Which dealers are we talking about here?” Eduardo asked. “Any turf left that has anybody else’s name stamped on it has either us or the G-Men hovering over it. All the other crews have either stepped back or signed on.”
“What if they’re not dealers,” Angel said. “What if they work the other end of the wide avenue?”
“We got every squad and unit working the drug trade on our radar,” Eduardo said. “It was the first step we took when we walked out onto the field. We know all the badges, good ones and bad. If this was pulled off by cops, it would have hit our ears in less than an hour’s time.”
“Not these cops,” Angel said. “They don’t cut across anybody’s radar. They work on their own timetable and for their own reasons.”
“Which are what?” asked a thin young man standing with his back against the mahogany wall.
“They don’t want a piece of our business,” Angel said as he looked from one face to the next. “They only want a piece of us.”
“You know where they crib?” Eduardo asked.
“I know someone who can find out,” Angel said.
“What do you need us to do?” Eduardo asked.
Angel stood and rested the flat of his hands against his hips, the crease on his hand-tailored slacks butcher-blade sharp, his shirt crisp as a late-autumn morning. He bent his upper body a few inches forward and stared down at Ramon, a thick pool of blood forming around his back and waist, and then looked up at the men in the room. “You tell me,” he said.
11
The Apaches sat around a wood table in the basement of an abandoned building that once housed the busiest pizzeria on the West Side. The front windows were painted black and boarded up with thick planks of plywood. Boomer sat at the head of the table, a large blackboard hanging on the wall at his back. Rev. Jim looked around the room and took a slow sip from a large cup filled with iced espresso. “I figure the Batcave was booked,” he said.
Boomer nodded. “Once we get it set up the way we need it to be, it’ll look a lot better than it does now. And it’s a solid bet that no one will look for us in here, which means we can work and plan clean and free.”
“How’d we come to be in possession of such a palace?” Andy asked.
“Ash found it for us,” Dead-Eye said, pointing a finger at Stephanie. “She worked the arson investigation that gutted the place a few years back.”
“No one’s going to come looking, because no one really cares,” Ash said. “The case is still going through the courthouse turnstiles and will be for a few years more, at the very least. By then, we should be clear out of here.”
“Are we going to live here?” Rev. Jim asked. “I mean, through the run of this?”
“I was thinking that, yes,” Boomer said. “We’ll clean it up some, maybe even paint it in spots, then bring in all the equipment we’ll need, or as much of it as we can get, and stock it with enough food and drink to keep us content for as long as the job lasts.”
“Why the quick change?” Rev. Jim asked. “We didn’t do that the last time. What makes this one so different that we all have to become frat brothers?”
“Each job goes its own way,” Boomer said. “The last time, we had one crew out to kill us. This time, we have two that we know of and whoever else wants to take a shot once they catch wind we’re back on the dime. And, while we’re on the subject, it might not just be us that will have a gun pointed our way. If any of you have family you want covered, now would be the time to come across with that gift vacation you promised but never delivered on. Just to play it all-the-way safe.”
“Besides, we worked out of a squad room when we were on the job or, in Quincy’s case, the morgue room,” Dead-Eye said. “This is no different.”
“Who bunks with the dog?” Quincy asked, pointing at the slumbering body of Buttercup.
“I think we’ll make the lady herself make that call,” Dead-Eye said. “She’s earned at least that much.”
“I’ll follow your lead, Boom,” Rev. Jim said. “I have in the past, and see no reason to point my compass in another direction now.”
“Let me hear the ‘but’ that follows all that,” Boomer said, looking away from the others and squaring down eye to eye with Rev. Jim.
“Just want to make sure you’ve thought all this through with a clear view,” Rev. Jim said. “Having us all in one place like this could be as much of a risk as it is a reward. It’s not like we haven’t each been on high-end jobs before. We should all know how to work as a team without the need to turn it into Camp Apache.”
Boomer stared down at his folded hands for several long, silent seconds and then did a slow nod. “You’ve slept in worse places in your life, that I know,” he finally said. “So how about we make a move past that and get to what this really is all about. There always comes a time when the air needs to be cleared, and for us, every one of us, now is that time.”
“Fair enough,” Rev. Jim said. “Clear air’s always better to breathe. I need to ask Quincy here a few questions before I can roll with this.”
“Ask away,” Quincy said, sitting up straight in his hard-back chair. “I didn’t come in looking to hide anything.”
“I know this disease you have is a killer,” Rev. Jim said. “I wish I could change that, but it’s not in my hands. Now, I don’t care how you got it or where. But what I do need to know—in fact, I think we all do—is how much and how often it can slow you up. Because we’re going to be fighting in thick growth, and all we’ll have going in are the guns in our hands and the partner by our side.”
“Most days are good,” Quincy said, not backing away from the hard line. “So good there are times when I forget I even have it.”
“What about the days that aren’t so good?” Rev. Jim asked.
“You mean the days when you just want to curl up in a corner and jam a loaded gun in your mouth because the pain is so bad?” Quincy asked.
“Yes,” Rev. Jim said.
“They come on sudden and stay as long as unwanted company,” Quincy said. “Mix the worst flu you’ve ever had with the pain of a knife wound and maybe you’ll have half a clue of how bad it is. It’s in those hours, lying in a bed soaked through with sweat, that you know the time you have left is short and it doesn’t matter. You want to die. You want that pain to go away. You want to be at peace.”
“Do you get a heads-up?” Dead-Eye asked.
“Sometimes, but not always,” Quincy said. “You might feel a little weaker the day before or you might start to feel your body drag a bit, but most times it hits like a heart attack: hard, fast, relentless.”
“So it could happ
en out on the field?” Boomer asked.
“Yes,” Quincy said. “And that’s something for each of you to think about before we take another step. Rev. Jim is right to ask the questions. This is a serious business, and I never want to be the one to put another life in jeopardy. I guess this is as good a time as any to see if you want me dealt out of the game. However it is you decide that, it’s your call to make.”
“You’re not alone,” Rev. Jim said. “I just asked because I needed to know what to look for, to be able to see it coming before it landed. I can’t help you, none of us can, if we don’t know at least that. And on the flip side, you each should know about us. You’re not the only cripple in this room. Boomer’s lung could give out at any time, same as Dead-Eye’s bad leg. And I don’t know Ash well, but I don’t need to be the Amazing Kreskin to know she’s got her dark spots like the rest of us. And me, I’m held up by glue and pins. I can fold at any time and will look to you to help bail me out. The dog does give me pause, but shit, she’s just as fucked-up as the rest of this crew.”
“I guess that just leaves me,” Ash said. “There anything any of you need to know about me that you already don’t?”
“You single or married?” Rev. Jim asked.
“Single,” Ash said.
“Anybody special in your movie line?” Rev. Jim asked. “You know, somebody makes your heart jump a few beats?”
“No, there isn’t,” Ash said.
“Are you looking?” Rev. Jim asked.
“Always,” Ash said. “Just not your way.”
Rev. Jim smiled and turned toward Buttercup, leaning down to rest a hand on her massive head. “I guess that leaves just you, sweetheart,” he said.
Buttercup slowly opened her large eyes and let out a low growl. Rev. Jim eased up and pulled his hand away.
“It’s good to know you haven’t lost your touch with the ladies,” Dead-Eye said. “They still flock to you like flies to rancid meat.”