CULPRITS

 

The Heist was Just the Beginning

 

Edited by Richard Brewer

and Gary Phillips

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

Copyright © 2018 edited by Richard Brewer and Gary Phillips

Cover and jacket design by 2Faced Design

Interior designed and formatted by E.M. Tippetts Book Designs

 

ISBN 978-1-943818-90-7

eISBN 978-1-9479930-02-0

 

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963882

 

 

First trade paperback edition January 2018

Polis Books, LLC

1201 Hudson Street, #211S


Hoboken, NJ 07030

www.PolisBooks.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOREWORD

 

The Heist. A classic branch of the crime fiction tree. The very word itself, “heist”, conjures up images of intricate planning, split second timing and heart pounding escapes all in the pursuit of a big payoff.

The set-up itself is well known. A group of criminals, sometimes a rag tag group of amateurs with big hopes and sometimes a slick group of professionals with big expectations are pulled together to pull off the theft of… something big. Each member of the crew brings to the crime their own unique set of skills and the job itself can be a bank, a casino, a cruise ship, a train or Fort Knox for that matter. Whatever the target, this collection of criminals must work together as a team in order to pull off the big score.

These stories, give or take some complications along the way, can end in several ways, but in general fall into two categories; disaster or triumph. Either the culprits fail, losing their objective, or they come out on top eluding the authorities, splitting up the ill-gotten goods and going their separate ways. But what happens after the heist? It was that question that lead to the creation of this book. We wanted to know what happened to the crew once the big job was over and done. Where did they go? What did they do? Who did they do it with… or to? How did they spend their cut of the loot? In other words;

What happened next?

So we sat down and wrote out a heist. We tossed in a glitch or two into the storyline to spice things up a bit and pulled together a crew, giving each of them their respective places in the gang (financier, safe-cracker, wheelman, muscle…etc). Then we contacted seven authors and fanned out the characters in front of them like a magician fans out a deck cards. We told them to pick a character, any character and then tell us the story of what happened to that character after the heist.

Tell us what happened next.

There was no hesitation from any of the authors we reached out to, each one snatched up a character and proceeded to give us seven diverse, entertaining and exciting stories. Each story is complete and individual in and of itself, but they also fit together as part of a whole. We could not be happier with the stories our group of writing culprits have come up with, and we hope you will feel the same after you’ve read them.

So come on, turn the page and get started. Come and see what happened next.

Richard Brewer and Gary Phillips

January, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1 – The Heist

by Gary Phillips and Richard Brewer

 

 

O’Conner crossed his arms before his face as the blast from the shotgun knocked him down.

. . .      

Less than two weeks before, he’d gotten a cup of coffee from the ink-laden barista with the pierced lip and boxer’s biceps. At the setup on the side where various types of sugar and dairy were located, he poured some half and half in his cup. As he stirred his unsweetened coffee, he scanned the people in the national chain coffee emporium. He didn’t used to frequent such places, coffee was coffee, for Christ’s sake, and he didn’t see any reason to spend five dollars for his caffeine fix. But as of late, he’d found himself in them more often given Gwen Gardner’s addiction to her premium lattes.

He almost smiled at the notion of how domesticated he’d become. Or rather, how he presented the illusion of domestication. Though it was true he was less inclined to take on jobs these days. His lady Gwen had inherited several Fix & Go auto body shops in Southern California from her deceased father. An enterprising type, Papa Gardner had opened the first one in Gardena in So Cal’s South Bay in the mid ’80s. O’Conner, something of an enterprising type himself, had amassed a decent amount of money from his various scores over the years. Cash he’d squirreled away in numerous locales; buried under a couple of snow birds’ vacation homes in Lake Tahoe, a storage locker in Palmdale, and a long non-working oil field of rusting automated pumpers in El Segundo among his hidey holes.

He’d gathered a percentage of these funds, laundered them through the Financier, and invested the clean monies in Gwen’s shops. Coordinating with her, he helped oversee the operations, with a closer attention to detail than she had before the two lived together. The result of their collaboration was a significant increase in the quarterly bottom line. That, along with his infusion of money, allowed the company to open a new outlet in Culver City with another one coming to the West Adams area of Los Angeles early the next year.

As the auto body shops were not the only legit and underground businesses he’d invested in, O’Conner had income and comfort and a good woman to share it with. What he didn’t have was the rush. He didn’t have the heightened edge to his senses that planning and pulling off a heist brought. And he missed it.

“Better than sex?” Gardner had teased him yesterday, her hand and head tenderly on his chest as they lay in bed.

“A close second,” he’d breathed. Then they made love again. “A distant second,” he amended hoarsely, losing himself in their ardor.

O’Conner allowed a brief smile to alter his placid face at that tactile memory. He sat at a small table toward the rear of the shop, sipping his coffee. Nearby were two women in their twenties laughing and muttering as they both looked at something on a smartphone screen. Cats, he considered, it’s always cat videos.

The man he was here to meet came through the front door. He nodded at O’Conner and walked to the cold case next to the order counter. The Financier extracted a plastic square bottle of a viscous green liquid and paid for his choice. He came over to O’Conner.

“It’s been a while,” the newcomer said, sitting opposite. He wore a sport coat and pressed slacks in contrast to O’Conner’s dark windbreaker, grey t-shirt underneath, and washed black jeans.

“You reached out.”

“And you answered,” said the man. “I wasn’t sure you’d be interested.”

“Yes, you were.”

Though semi-retired, or whatever the term for his current self-imposed status, O’Conner still used the old methods when someone wanted to contact him. In an era where smart TVs could spy on you, the physical drop was as reliable now as when first developed by the Culper Ring during the Revolutionary War, he reasoned.

O’Conner maintained a mailbox under a false name in a shipping store twelve miles from Hemet, California where he and Gardner lived in a suburban housing complex. He varied his route to the box, but once a week would make the trip to see if there was mail. Few knew of its address and he’d been curious when he’d read the terse message from the man sitting across from him. Then, once read, and as was his practice, he burned the sheet with the five sentences on it along with the envelope. He then flushed the ashes down the toilet and made a call from one of his SMS encrypted phones at an appointed time to the number of a similar device that was answered by the other man. The phones were designed not to record messages which could be retrieved by law enforcement. O’Conner and only a few others knew the actual name of this man. To most of the criminal world in which he operated he was only known as the Financier.

Toned and fit, the Financier, with his short, sandy-colored hair and angular face, was in his mid-fifties, maybe eight years older than O’Conner. He showed even white teeth as he undid the plastic strip securing the cap of his concoction, a kale and acacia berry smoothie, the label indicated. He shook the bottle briefly. “I figured there was only so much of civilian life you could stand. Thought it might be time for a break in the routine, as it were.”

“In Texas,” O’Conner said.

“An eighteen-thousand-acre cattle ranch outside of Fort Worth called the Crystal Q.” He drank some of his smoothie, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a finger when he set the bottle down.

“Clovis Harrington is the owner of the ranch. More importantly, he is the head of the North Texas Citizens Improvement League.”

“And they would be?”

“The League is a major fixture all across the Lone Star State. Several of its members, if not exactly in the inner circle of Bush, that is W, were in the immediate outer orbit. Truth be told, a few of them were hoping for a different outcome to the presidential election, but whichever way things went, red or blue, capitalism is capitalism and they knew they would have a seat at the big kid’s table.”

“Still, I would think it’s a bigger one now given who’s in office.”

The Financier regarded his health product, as if debating whether he’d done enough penance for today and would have an order of french fries for lunch. “That is true, and their good ol’ boy ex-governor is a cabinet secretary, but our mercurial president and the ones who have his ear whisper dire things about the League, and not without good reason.”

“They have ties to the teabaggers,” O’Conner gleaned.

The Financier nodded. “Or whatever they are calling themselves these days. But that gets me to this: Harrington’s group knows that no matter how much they prop up the bogeyman of voter fraud to justify their questionable ID laws and help configure districts to ensure the white vote, the brown factor looms just over the horizon—despite the current immigration policies. To combat the dark flood takes an excrement load of ready cash.”

O’Conner had more of his coffee and declared, “They’ve got a slush fund.”

“And they’ve beefed it up with an eye toward the mid-terms and the future. They’ve always bribed judges, water commissioners, and the like. But if the Latino tide is coming, odds are that no matter how committed to La Causa any future school board, city council member, or mayor might be, one does have to pay for those damn braces the kids need.”

“Or have boats to buy,” O’Conner observed dryly.

“Or sex scandals to quiet.” The Financier finished his health drink. “For every three or four torch bearers, there will always be the greedy ones with a hand out and an eye to turn.”

In their arena, notions like altruism were alien concepts. O’Conner noted that the two women had left and a trendy type with a beard, hair knot, and skinny jeans had sat down in their place. He got busy on his laptop after he’d slipped on his noise cancelling headphones. O’Conner imagined he was listening to the best inspirational hits of that tall, big-toothed Tony Robbins, or something on how to start your own artisan cheese and toast shop.

“So, what are we looking at?” said O’Conner.

“The League members have recently levied a tax internally, and my estimate is there’s some seven million in untraceable money being housed in a vault in the wine cellar at the Harrington spread.”

“How do you know this?”

The Financer looked back at him with the slightest of smiles.

“You have a source,” said O’Conner. He’d already come to this conclusion, he only wanted confirmation. “Close?”

“ Close as silk sheets.”

Momentarily, O’Conner’s eyes focused elsewhere as he examined various parameters of the potential job. “How much does your inside man want of this bounty?”

“Inside man and woman. He wanted two million but I told him as the crew would be handling the heavy lifting, he would have to settle for six hundred grand…for the both of them.”

Crossing his arms, O’Conner sat back. “And what’s the complication?”

The Financier managed a wry smile. “Seems there always is one, doesn’t it?”

O’Conner didn’t respond, waiting.

The Financier added, “The info comes from the wife’s side piece. But he doesn’t really have much of anything to do with this, it’s really she who is the source.”

“What’s the boy toy’s name?”

“Zach Culhane.”

“He solid?”

The Financier’s chair was at an angle to the table and he crossed one leg over the other. “If by that do you mean is he a cocaine fiend or prone to maudlin drinking and spilling his guts to strippers, the answer is no. At least he wasn’t when I dealt with him in the past.”

“What do you know about her?”

Expressionless, he said, “The former Miss Range Rider Beer. She’s the third wife, about twenty-two years Harrington’s junior. Her name is Gracella Murieta-Harrington, originally from Corpus Christi.”

“And she’s willing to go along with the takedown for that amount?”

“Apparently. From what Culhane told me, they both came upon this idea during some pillow talk about a month ago. Her husband is bored with her and she with him, but she pretends otherwise, at least externally. She knows about Culhane’s past and he’s the one who reached out to me through an old crime partner from back when. He used to boost cars for an outfit I bankrolled once.”

“What I mean is,” O’Conner said, “if this thing goes down, he and the wife won’t be able to sit tight until the heat dies down. I’ll bet the number of people who know about this slush fund and where it’s kept could be counted on one hand. Maybe the wife isn’t supposed to know, but how long will the husband believe that? She and the this guy could be sitting right in the crosshairs.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” the Financier said. “Harrington will suspect this is an inside job and may put the screws to his wife as the logical suspect. Which would lead him to the kid and maybe to my involvement.”

“Does the go-between, the one Culhane reached out to, does he know how to find you?”

“Where I lay my head?”

“Um-hmm.”

“No.”

O’Conner assessed this. It wasn’t his concern if the Financier was found out. Everyone took a risk in this kind of thing. It was more about making sure he remained as untraceable as was possible. The wife and boyfriend were both sources of vital information and the weakest links. There was going to be no foolproof way for them to effectively mask their own involvement should one or both of them fall under suspicion, get pressured, and crack. What that would mean was that the crew would have to move quickly and effectively. In, out, and be in the wind before anyone could get a bead on them. Judging from what the Financier said, O’Conner was sure the League had a certain reputation in the Fort Worth area, so there was that. Maybe there was a way to throw suspicion elsewhere, minimize their exposure.

“Is there any way I can scope out the layout of the ranch beforehand?” O’Conner asked. “Maybe the wife wants to get some redecorating done.”

The Financier huffed. “This might be very un-PC of me, but you do realize you might be a little implausible as an interior decorator.”

“Be that as it may.”

“I think that might be too chancy.” He paused for a moment. “But the wife should be able to get some shots done on her cell. She can send them to the address of a techie cutout I know who can retrieve them and I can then get them to you.”

“Is there a timeframe?” O’Conner said.

“Three weeks.”

“What happens then?”

“There’s a shindig planned at the ranch. Congress people, lobbyists and what have you, are coming out for a big ol’ Remember the Alamo bar-b-que and political soiree. In all that hoo-rah, the job could go down.”

O’Conner had pulled off heists during functions in the past, pretending to be the hired-on waitstaff or even the magician clown once. But he said, “I don’t know. A bunch of strapped, Second Amendment loving Lone Star State lovers pumping beer and Jack through their veins and feeling all sovereign and shit. No, there’s too much to control. Too much to go wrong. It only takes one asshole thinking he’s Goddamned Wyatt Earp to pull his piece and piss on our parade.”

O’Conner paused, then, “But a bash like that takes a lot of prepping. That means strangers being seen at the house before the event. That wouldn’t be so odd. They could be helping plan things, or be extra help getting the place ready.”

“I can see that,” the Financier nodding in agreement.

O’Conner recalled watching one of those tours of celebrity homes with Gardner one night on TV. “Is there an on-site chef?”

“There is,” the Financier affirmed.

“Know what he drives? “

The Financier pulled out a smartphone and swiped at the screen. “Yes, he has a van. He uses it for errands and such, sometimes he transports a side of beef from one part of the spread to the house. Fresh slaughtered meat being a perk of a cattle ranch.”

O’Conner said, “I would imagine overseeing the upcoming celebration means he’s got a lot to handle, making several runs throughout the day, dealing with the various vendors.” O’Conner wasn’t talking so much to the Financier as working out details, thinking aloud as he did so.

“You thinking of having the wife send him off on a specific mission? That might be too much of a giveaway,” said the Financer.

“Possibly,” said O’Conner. He continued, “Have the boyfriend get word to the wife. Have him tell her I need the chef’s cell number and a few pics of the van so I can match the make. Make sure he gives her a burner phone to use, and that she destroys it afterward. Have her throw the thing in a river or smash it up and bury the pieces in a pile of cow shit.”

He paused for a beat. “You’re sure she’s up for this?”

“From what I gather, she’s game. She really hates her husband. She’ll come through.”

O’Conner considered that and several other variables. “Nothing out of the ordinary. If she can, have her do up a diagram from what she remembers as far as the layout of the place and anything else she can give us that will help when we get there. But only what she remembers. I don’t what anyone wondering about why she’s prowling around. Does Harrington have an airstrip on his ranch?”

“He does,” said the Financier. “No self-respecting cattle baron wouldn’t. Several other ranches around there have them too.”

“That’s good,” O’Conner mused.

He wondered if there was a way to spook Harington, give him a reason to want to move the money and do the snatch with the goods in transit. Keeping that possibility to himself, he added, “We can probably assume the safe where they keep the cash is an electronic make and not manual.”

“That’s my guess,” the Financier said. “But I really don’t know. Could be anything.”

“Well, the man I have in mind is up for the challenge,” O’Conner said.

“The Mexican gentlemen?”

O’Conner said, “He’s A-Number One, reliable and up for whatever is thrown at him. He’ll get the job done.”

The two talked over several other particulars, including where O’Conner would retrieve the Financier’s cash investment he’d use to put together the equipment needed for the takedown. The two then left the coffee shop and said their goodbyes. He drove away in his recent model Cadillac CTS with the Carbon Black package, having been turned on to Cadillacs by the old box man Gonzales back when. O’Conner began to put the pieces together for how the job could go down. First, he was going to do his research.

At a local library, he used one of the computers to look up articles on the North Texas Citizens Improvement League. From left wing sources like The Nation and Mother Jones, he scanned reports that talked about its influence in conservative politics. He also found a profile of Clovis Harrington. A native Texan, he had a lean face, a trim mustache, and in the picture he committed to memory, wore designer glasses. There was a granite cast to those eyes behind the lenses. The shallow smile on his face told you he was polite to a degree but those eyes said he was a motherfucker when it came to his business. Or you messing with it.

As was expected, he was an avid hunter, gun rights enthusiast, and vocal supporter of all things freedom as defined by right of center politics. There was also speculation in more than one piece he scanned about Harrington’s below the table dealings, naming names of certain associates. There had been a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of the League about five years ago but as far as he could tell, nothing came of it. Still, that gave him an idea.

In the parking lot of the library, O’Conner opened his trunk and from a lockbox hidden in a compartment he’d installed under the spare tire, he extracted one of his encrypted sat phones. From memory he called a number and the line connected after the signal bounced around through several satellites so as not to pinpoint the location of the person he was calling. At least not in the short amount of time he’d be on the phone.

“This is O’Conner,” he announced. He didn’t have to tell the one he was talking to the line was secure. Given that person’s technical expertise, their equipment told them it was.

“Well, well,” a voice said. It was electronically modified.

“How long does the SEC keep files? This would be an inactive case but less than six years old.” He related the specifics.

“There should be a trail in their database as it might be a case they would re-open at some point,” came the reply.

“How much to see if it’s there and to get a copy?”

“Ten thousand,” the hacker on the other end said without hesitation. Or rather hacktivist, as she and her colleagues would say, and O’Conner was pretty certain the person was a she though they’d never met. The target being a group she was ideologically opposed to was added incentive.

“Deal.”

“Very well. My procedures have changed since last we did business but I’ll communicate the details to you.”

“I still use the drop,” he said.

“Under the name Donald Lassen?”

“Yes.”

“You do know this is the twenty-first century?” said the hacker.

“So I’ve been told.”

A chuckle. “Okay, we’re cool. I’ll get everything to you.”

“Right.” O’Conner severed the call and returned the sat phone to its compartment. In his car again, heading onto the freeway, he felt like a pro athlete who’d been sidelined for most of the season but now was back on the field. There was a familiarity, but there were always new plays and players coming at you. If you let your old moves make you complacent, you’d be blindsided for sure. For missteps in this kind of endeavor were fatal.

A half smile shadowed his face as he drove on.

. . .

Four days later, O’Conner sat in a Cessna Skyhawk, banking over the land near the Crystal Q ranch. A number of small planes were common in this part of the landscape, several spreads had their own airstrips as the Financier had said. O’Conner and the two other men in the plane with him weren’t concerned about raising unwanted notice from their target.

“That tributary flows behind that maintenance building,” Hector Gonzales pointed out. The building was a modified corrugated metal barn. A man wearing a straw cowboy hat was working on a tractor near the structure.

Gonzales was well into his sixties, but his eyes were still sharp and he was one of the best cracksmen O’Conner had ever worked with. He was an expert on anything that had a combination, an electrical code, or just needed to go boom. Whatever kind of safe held the money, Gonzales could open it.

“I noticed that,” O’Conner said as the pilot brought the plane back around in a circle. “About three miles to the southwest, past that tree line, was that lake we saw. If we slipped in there and scuba’d back here, we could plant the charges to ignite that building.” On his lap were a pair of military grade binoculars and a hand-drawn map on which he’d been making notations. “Assuming we overcome any sensors and the like.”

“Draw them away from us,” Gonzales finished, nodding his head slightly. “I’ll put together something lovely.”

The pilot, a pleasant-faced thirty-plus man named Ellison with pale eyes and thin lips, stared straight ahead. Neither O’Conner nor Gonzales had worked with him before. Howard Racklin, their wheelman, had brought the pilot on, vouching for him. O’Conner liked the fact that the pilot didn’t feel the need to chitchat or try to ingratiate himself with him or Gonzales.

“One more pass around,” O’Conner said to Ellison.

“Okay.” He pulled back on the controls and the small craft’s engine revved.

O’Conner turned some in his seat to address Gonzales, who sat behind the two. “After we land, let’s map out how we get into and out of that lake area. We’re not in fishing season but that doesn’t mean there won’t be campers to contend with. Plus, I’m thinking there might be someplace we can plant a couple of ATVs for the getaway.”

“Right,” Gonzales said, looking out the side window as the Cessna veered back over the Crystal Q ranch.

“You sure you’re up to this?” O’Conner asked. It had been a while since he’d last worked with Gonzales, and it seemed to him that for the first time since he’d known him, the old crook was showing his age.

“Don’t worry about me,” Gonzales said. “I’m good to go.”

“I’m just saying we can’t be bringing a walker along with us on this trip.”

“Wait, did I say don’t worry about me or fuck you? Damn, you get to be my age and… You know what? Just assume I said both.”

O’Conner grinned and turned back around.

Below, the work day of the modern mega ranch of thousands of heads of livestock took place, with pickup trucks equipped with automatic feed dispensers, ranch hands astride horses, and ATVs going about their duties. Various buildings and covered pens dotted the land. The fact that the ranch was of some size figured into O’Conner’s calculations. The main house was some distance from all this and did not have a contingent of guards rotating about. From what they’d seen of other such homes, this one was modest by comparison. It was a three-story, nine-thousand-square-foot structure done in the southwest style. There was a large blue-green pool and built-in hot tub at the back of the house, all of it done up in stone, quartz, and jade. Leading up from this, atop what looked to have been a levee long ago, was a copse of old oak trees. Very old, O’Conner noted, judging from the size of their trunks and many branches.

From the Financier by way of the wife, they knew there were three housekeepers, the on-site chef and quarters for the wife’s driver. There was also a woman named Susan Treacher who served as Murieta-Harrington’s scheduler and all-around factotum. That the slush fund was located there wasn’t known to many, and in this part of the country, who would dare rip off the North Texas Citizens Improvement League?

Done with their reconnoitering, the Cessna headed back toward the single engine airport in Grand Prairie. They flew over a part of Fort Worth that was, as the term went, trending. What with its Thai-Oaxacan fusion eateries and art galleries springing up in empty spaces where once the likes of auto parts stores and pet suppliers existed.

In a rented house in a residential section not far from this nouveau-hip area, Gracella Murieta-Harrington and Zach Culhane were romping on the rug in the front room. Culhane had his hand inside the woman’s lacy panties, his finger rubbing her clit. He sat on the floor, naked, behind her, and she snuggled against him, sitting inside the V of his legs, her back pressed to him.

“Mmm,” she murmured as he pleasured her. She turned her head up and they kissed as he plunged his wet finger inside her. On the sound system, one of those setups that included wireless speakers, Toni Braxton sang “Breathe Again.” Culhane kneaded one of Murieta-Harrington’s luscious breasts as her chest rose and fell in a syncopated rhythm.

“Oh shit, Zach,” she shuddered. “I want you inside me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Murieta-Harrington stood momentarily, sliding her panties off as her nipples dangled before Culhane’s face. He suckled on them then he lay back on the rug. He was fully erect and she took him in her mouth and purposely made loud sounds as she gave him a teaser blowjob. She didn’t want him climaxing just yet.

“Whoowee,” he chortled.

Murieta-Harrington stopped what she was doing and got on top of him, guiding him into her. They went at it with the fury of battling ninjas and soon both were panting and spent. She reached over and plucked the glass of wine that was on the nearby coffee table. She took a gulp and handed the wine to him. He also drank some.

Murieta-Harrington asked, “Have you met this man the Financier brought in to do the job?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you curious?’

“Sure. But it was pointed out to me that it’s better if I don’t know who he is. You’re the one who has to be at the house.”

“Then I should meet him.”

He stood, eyes moving about the living room in search of his knit boxers. “That’s not going to happen. Other than when he’s there doing the job.” He retrieved his shorts from under an end table. The home had come furnished in the linear Scandinavian style that was all the rage at the moment, a collection of warm woods and chrome trim.

“Then how do we know we can trust him? We don’t even know when the robbery’s going down.” Sans clothes, she sat in a grey and walnut finished lounge chair, crossing her muscular legs, an annoyed look on her face. It was as if she were the director of a nudist colony judging a new applicant who didn’t meet her standards. She had not let her figure go after marrying Harington.

He put on his shorts. “It’s the Financier we’re getting our payoff from. That’s good by me.”

“And you trust him?”

He spread his arms wide. “What choice do we have, babe?”

“They’re thieves, cowboy,” she snorted.

“So are we, darlin.’ Anyway, the Financier doesn’t cheat people.”

“You mean to tell me he has a code or some lame shit like that?” She crossed her arms, the trapped air in the room circulating between them. “It’s not like you know him that well.”

Now he was putting on his pants. “It’s a little late to be worrying on this, ain’t it? ”

“I don’t like us being so out of it. Having to depend on people we don’t really know.” She stood and walked toward her jeans thrown across the coffee table. She began to put them on with no underwear.

“This was your idea. Now we gotta see it through.”

“Yeah, well, the only fuckin’ I want is from you, honey chil’,” she said, a Texas raised Mexican-American who could slip in and out of a thick Southern accent since her teenage years. She clipped her bra back on.

He came up behind her, putting his arms around her taut waist. “Oh, we’ll be doing plenty of that, and in style.”

She got a lopsided grin on her face as she placed her hand on his forearms. She looked at the wall where a near-empty bookshelf was save for some dog-eared issues of Flex magazine that Culhane had piled there, a screwdriver, and a pair of headphones. He wasn’t much on book learnin’, he’d said. She liked that about him. Just keep him pussy dazzled, she reminded herself, and everything would work out.

. . .

The three in the plane were dressed in casual but stylish attire, a trio out looking at Texas real estate their clothes said. O’Conner even wore loafers. Once on the ground, after the plane was checked in, they walked to the two vehicles they’d driven. O’Conner had outfitted any in the crew who had to interact with the public with fake IDs.

“You set?” O’Conner said to Ellison.

“Roger that,” he affirmed. They’d previously gone over his part of the heist.

“See you then.”

With that, Ellison got in a late model Jeep and the other two headed toward an Acura. When the Chrysler’s engine fired up, O’Conner heard a voice on the radio as the driver’s window was a quarter way down. Some wingnut yahoo who identified himself as McLeary was going on about how a cadre of Hillary Clinton’s followers were not only funding Black Lives Matter, but using witchcraft and tantric sex magic to hypnotize the leaders to do their bidding. Getting behind the wheel of the Acura, O’Conner maintained his poker face while Gonzales in the passenger seat gave him a sideways glance.

“He seems okay,” Gonzales said as they watched the Jeep drive off.

“Knows his way around a stick.” O’Conner drove off too. “That was a smooth ride. And Racklin says he’s cool.”

“And how do they know each other?”

“Pulled a couple of jobs together, it seems,” O’Conner said. “That haul from the cosmetic heir’s compound in the Hamptons.”

Gonzales nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that one. Flew the crew away in a seaplane.”

“Given Harrington and the ranches around him have planes, the ground seems safer for a getaway. But he’ll be useful.”

Gonzales was quiet, staring out the windshield.

“What worries you?”

“Oh, I guess I’m getting old. I don’t like working with newbies. If we need a pilot, why not use Billingsly or Lombino?”

“Billingsly is doing a five-year jolt in Merced,” said O’Conner. “And Lombino is dead.”

“No shit,” said Gonzales. “What happened?”

“What do you think? Plane crash,” said O’Conner. “I heard he was working some smuggling thing and tried to take off on a short runway with too heavy a load. He wasn’t able to clear some telephone wires or some such. Flipped the plane and bam that was it.”

“Damn,” Gonzales said. “That’s…”

“Yeah,” said O’Conner. “Yeah, it is. So we get Ellison.”

“Who else is in?”

“Racklin, Dollarhyde…”

“Dollarhyde’s good.” He added, “She’s…something else.”

“Easy, son,” said O’Conner. “She’d chew you up.”

“Yeah, but if you gotta go…” Gonzales said. “Anyone else?”

“Eel and Benny Parker.”

“Okay. That’s a good crew. I feel better.”

“Glad you approve.”

“Just watching our back,” Gonzales said. He decided he’d bring a few items for extra protection the day of the job. It never hurt to be prepared.

At seven minutes past two a.m. on Friday, the day of the robbery, a pale half-moon in the night sky, O’Conner and Gonzales followed the tributary that descended from Lake Washaw, the body of water they’d spotted from the plane. Each man was dressed in black clothing and had an equipment bag strapped to their backs. Gonzales had a pair of night vision binoculars on a strap around his neck. They did not carry any scuba gear. O’Conner had studied a map of the area obtained from a wildlife center, and had determined the tributary was too shallow in this part to swim in. Instead, a small inflatable skiff had allowed them to work their way quickly and silently to the outer perimeter of the Crystal Q ranch.

Night vision binoculars to his eyes, Gonzales swept the landscape before them as they neared where Harrington’s property line began. “I see some heads sticking up.”

There was no fencing here but there were sensors buried about the ground. The intention was to know if a cow was wandering away and not so much to catch an errant hiker. The two didn’t think there was someone monitoring the seismic devices around the clock, but no doubt any recorded movement up this way would be noted.

Taking a knee, the box man unlimbered his equipment bag. From inside it he extracted a device about the size of a shoebox. He placed this on the ground, pulling up an antenna connected perpendicularly to the main section. Gonzales powered up the battery-operated gadget. He studied its screen as he slowly turned first one dial then the next, O’Conner looking on. The thing emitted a low hum.

“I think that’s it,” Gonzales announced as the hum subsided.

“You’re not sure?”

For an answer, Gonzales got up and, holding the device, stepped toward then past one of the sensors. This was a rounded black plastic head the diameter of a coffee cup lid. Beneath the ground was buried the rest of the sensor that sent a signal if movement disturbed its wave net. These rudimentary sensors couldn’t tell a cow from a man, but as the two would not be meandering around, it could be concluded later that their deliberate movements were those of an intruder or intruders.

The machine Gonzales built was designed to cycle the sensor’s signal back on itself, thereby not noting their presence. That was the theory at least.

“Well?” he said, turning back to O’Conner. “You coming? We’ll know soon enough if it’s working or not.”

The other man, standing over six feet, had remained stationary, his large hands down by his sides. It was as if he’d been formed from the rock and wood, inanimate until such time as he needed to expend energy. With cautious, controlled movements O’Conner followed the exact steps Gonzales had made and the two worked their way down to the maintenance building.

“Shhh,” O’Conner hissed as they got close to the building.

Both men went stone. A sound hovered near the building before them. Though in dark clothes, both were exposed on open ground. Somebody was singing terribly offkey.

“Been around a loooong time, Marie,” crooned the voice happily.

With nowhere to hide, both men rushed forward and went flat against the front of the maintenance building. From around the far corner walked an individual who was obviously drunk. He had a beard and was middle-aged. His dress shirt was unbuttoned, a pot belly expanding the athletic tee underneath. He wore slacks and cowboy boots. He also carried what remained of a bottle of Jim Beam. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t so drunk that he wouldn’t see the two interlopers.

“We can’t kill him,” Gonzales growled.

O’Conner was already heading toward the newcomer.

“Who the fuck?” the bearded man began, but before he could get anything else out O’Conner was on him. For his first blow, he sunk a fist in the man’s stomach, doubling him over. He vomited, which smelled liked bubble gum and sour cabbage.

“Ah, gawd,” he grumbled, bent over and staggering, the pain and booze making his head woozy. A swift foot against his ankle and a push to his shoulder sent him down on all fours.

“You done come for my gold, I knew this was going to happen,” he sputtered. “The uprising has begun. McLeary was right.”

O’Conner brought his fist down on the man’s temple, dropping him onto his side where he lay, unmoving. Tim McLeary was a Texas-based right-wing talk show gabber who went on about this or that conspiracy, to the self-fulfilling delight of his loyal listeners. Among his theories was that Barack Obama was a secret ISIS insurgent imam and that a special ops unit of the government had been infusing our drinking water with chemicals to turn the red-blooded gay. Gold hustlers and wipes for men’s taints were among his biggest advertisers.

“Now what?” Gonzales said, looking down at the bearded man who had begun snoring. “There’s no hiding we were here now.”

“So we don’t hide it. We finish what he came to do but we make it look like something else.”

Afterward, Gonzales understood what O’Conner was talking about.

. . .

Lottie Amaya wasn’t much older than that Gracella, she noted for what had lately become something of an obsession with her. And really, to be honest, her ass was just as luscious as that woman’s, though she had to grudgingly admit Gracella’s rack was better, but damn. She knew homegirl was from the barrio like she was, yet here she was, the chick who used to pimp beer in a skimpy bikini raised to queen of the Crystal Q spread, while Amaya, who graduated with a B+ in algebra, was cleaning the toilets and unclogging the indoor Jacuzzi in this pinche ranch house. Not that a woman should get a break because of her body, she admonished herself, but still, damn. That goddamn B+ and two and a half years of community college hadn’t exactly opened wide the doors of opportunity.

Dusting a salvaged wood cabinet in the upstairs hallway, she looked at her reflection in the 1940s era Églomisé mirror above it. She still had it going on, she surmised. Maybe rather than be all quiet-like as was advised when she got this job, she should try chatting the lady of the house up. Be all interested in whatever the fuck the latest thing was these rich bitches got into to occupy their time when they weren’t shopping. What was it lately? Developing a line of coloring books based on famous football players from Texas? This somehow to benefit homeless shelters.

There were worse pastimes she could pretend to find fascinating, she reflected. The doorbell rang. As she was close to the stairs, she descended and opened the door. A striking-looking black woman stood there under the portico, morning light slanting across her tight form. Shit, was she some kind of personal trainer for Gracella, Amaya wondered. She was rocking Michelle Obama-worthy toned arms.

“Good morning,” the black woman said pleasantly.

“Yes?’ Amaya said. The woman was dressed in denim capris, a loose sleeveless number, and a sash around her waist. Nesting under one of her buffed triceps was a rolled-up yoga mat.

“I’m here for Mrs. Murieta-Harrington’s ten thirty.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Her krav maga session,” she said matter-of-factly.

The hell is that? Amaya almost blurted. Well, she didn’t know anything about no session, but then she wasn’t in charge of the lady’s schedule. That was for Susan to say.

“Hold on a second and let me get her scheduler.”

“No problem.”

And where the hell was Gracella? Amaya hadn’t seen her since her coffee and two eggs and lox, and that was more than an hour ago. She must be in her bedroom because she wasn’t out at the pool. Spacious was an understatement when describing that bedroom that was damn near larger than Amaya’s apartment. The housekeeper turned and there was a man standing in front of her with a black hockey-style mask on, only his eyes showing. He pointed a handgun at her face. She gasped and was about to yell but he clamped a gloved hand over her mouth and put his wolf eyes close to her flushed face.

“Where is the lady of the house and the one called Susan?” said O’Conner from under the mask in a voice that was so calm and cool he might as well have been asking for directions to the local Walmart. “Are they together?” He relaxed the hand over her mouth.

Behind her, Amaya saw the woman slip by, a pistol grip shotgun retrieved from inside the rolled-up mat. She too now had on a mask, a curious contrast to the rest of what she wore. Amaya wished she’d paid more attention to what the woman had looked like, but who paid attention to the ones who constantly came and went, being paid to satisfy whatever the hell latest whim had gripped Gracella?

“I think she’s in the library. Susan, I mean,” Amaya answered, stammering some but then getting it together. “I think Miss Gracella’s in her bedroom.” Despite the guns and forced entry, there was a calming quality to this man that soothed her. She could feel her heart rate slowing to normal. How crazy was that?

“Get Susan in here, please.”

“I, ah…”

The man, wide in the shoulders with sizeable hands like her ex who worked construction, pointed at the wall intercom. “On that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nothing funny,” O’Conner advised.

“Yes, sir.”

He accompanied her to the intercom. The other woman had partially closed some of the drapes. Not all the way as they might look odd, but just enough, as if to block some of the harsh early light and also to better obscure their presence from any ranch hand walking by.

“Susan,” Amaya said, pressing the button for the library, “you’re needed in the front room.”

“What is it?” came the reply, clear on the state-of-the-art equipment.

The home invader was holding a half sheet of plain paper with block lettered words on it. She read them. “One of the caterers is here,” she read, verbatim. “Ferenzini, he says. There’s a problem with the check they were given.” How did he know about the upcoming party and who one of the caterers was? Who the hell are these people, she wondered.

There was a pause as Susan ran through her responses, but then said, “Very well. I’ll be right there.”

“Have a seat,” her captor ordered. He was no kid, she could hear the years in his voice, but Amaya could tell he kept in shape. Each of his movements were efficient, measured. She sat on the couch.

“I’m going to tie you up and gag you,” the man was saying to her, again in a reassuring manner, like a car salesman telling her he added the all-weather undercoating free of charge. She caught herself wanting to flirt and ask him was he going to spank her too. What was wrong with her? This was some serious shit going down.

Using zip ties, he began to truss Amaya up. She noticed there were two more men inside the house now, dressed similarly to the first one. Not in burglar’s clothes like what you saw on old movies, but slacks, expensive casual shoes, and dress shirts. They looked like the vendors that had been coming and going all week getting things ready for the upcoming function the mister was throwing. The housekeeper tried to figure out what these robbers wanted—the original art on the walls? Gracella’s jewelry? The missus had a few diamonds, pearls, a platinum band on a watch, but unlike what Amaya had seen on shows like the Real Housewives of Atlanta and whatnot, homegirl didn’t go in for a lot of bling. No, she had a notion these thieves were after something else, something bigger.

The ties cinched, a bandana like you could buy in a liquor store in the ’hood was placed around her mouth. Maybe the robbery was going to be on the news, given that Clovis Harington was well known. Maybe one of those entertainment sites would interview her about her harrowing ordeal. This could be the break she’d been waiting for, and damned if she wasn’t going to take advantage. In her head she began practicing how distraught she’d be for the news cameras. Not too much, didn’t want to overdo it. But give them just enough to let your audience fill in the blanks, that too sincere drama teacher had said, back when she played Mrs. Gibbs in her high school’s production of Our Town.

O’Conner finished securing the housekeeper. Vivian Dollarhyde, the buffed woman from the doorway, held the Mossberg shotgun at the ready. She’d gone deeper into the house where a second set of stairs led to the next floor library. He and Gonzales started for the side hallway that led downstairs to the wine cellar. Benny Parker, who had come in behind her, was to remain up here on watch and lend Dollarhyde a hand just in case. The other two in the string were in position elsewhere, waiting for their cue.

Distantly, O’Conner heard the boom as the charges he and Gonzales had planted in the maintenance building went off. After planting the explosives, they’d ransacked several tractors, ATVs, and generators in the building, smashing diesel injectors, ripping out wiring, and so on.

Using Rustolium spray paint they’d found in the building, they’d graffitied the interior and exterior walls with slogans like “Meat is Murder,” “Animals Have Rights,” and “No hormones, No GMOs.” The dodge being to make their attack look like an animal rights action so that when the drunk man was sober, him going on about the two whose faces he couldn’t recall would be in keeping with those hippie activists types. Given this was a busy ranch with two other maintenance buildings on the acreage, the assaulted building was closed up pending repair. Now, after the explosions, there would be little left to fix.

O’Conner and Gonzales exchanged a look as they heard muffled cries from outside as vehicles sped toward the fire. Time was tight. The plan was to be in and out in under ten minutes, eleven tops.

. . .

Susan Treacher stepped out of the library, turning and pulling the double doors closed behind her. The annoyed look on her face was replaced with one of surprise as the masked woman appeared in front of her, a shotgun barrel pointed at her midsection.

“I need you to remain calm,” the masked woman told her.

“Okay,” she said. Years ago, when she’d managed a clothing store in a mall, she’d been robbed. She knew then, like now, that the best course of action was to do exactly what you were told. Still, the sense of being violated came flooding back to her. Like waving a gun around automatically gave you the right to take what wasn’t yours.

“Where are the two other housekeepers?” Dollarhyde said. They’d been scoping out the house since early this morning and knew the chef—whose phone they’d cloned and tapped—had left on errands in preparation for the Remember the Alamo soiree. They’d planted a tracker on his van. That’s why they knew to have Treacher come see about a matter he’d ordinarily attended to.

“You made Lottie call me.”

“If you would answer my question.”

“Cessie’s in the east wing and Flora’s in the wine cellar.”

“Shit,” Dollarhyde growled. “Why is she down there?’
      Eyebrow raised as if that were an impertinent question, Treacher sniffed, “I told her the bottles needed dusting and the floor mopped. It wouldn’t do to have guests down there and dirt and what have you in the air making people sneeze.”

“Jesus, what, the rich have special noses?” the masked woman said. “Move.” She jerked the shotgun toward the stairs.

Treacher complied. As they descended, Dollarhyde had to hold the shotgun with its shortened barrel in one hand while texting with the other.

“What?” Treacher said as the sound of the exploding equipment building startled her.

“Never you mind.” Dollarhyde was putting the hand holding her encrypted cell under the gun’s barrel and intended to give her prisoner a light jab. To her consternation, the civilian had stopped when the distant boom thundered.

The explosion riled Treacher. She’d heard about the animal rights business and figured this woman with the shotgun was part of that. A bunch of tree hugging Croc wearers. She would be damned if she was going to be part of any of that shit, made to pose with a cow carcass or painted with its blood. She pretended to stumble as they came off the steps and as she did so, came around and up with the house keys she wore on a plastic wristlet. One of the keys stuck out of her fist like a spike and she aimed this at the other woman’s eyes like she’d been taught in her self-defense classes.

“Stupid,” Dollarhyde said. She meant herself for getting distracted and letting the square get the jump on her. She blocked the keys but had to rear back. Treacher lunged at her and now had both her hands on the shotgun. They violently contended to possess the weapon. Treacher tried to use her foot to upend Dollarhyde but she was too quick and, turning sideways, putting her hip into the other woman, torqued her upper body while both still held the shotgun. Treacher found herself momentarily airborne then slammed down onto the hardwood of the back hallway. The Mossberg was wrenched from her sweaty hands.

“Now quit fooling around,” Dollarhyde said, standing over Treacher, the gun barrel pointed dead zero at her head.

The whole thing had taken less than a minute. Treacher half expected to be struck with the weapon, but if she were knocked out, that would probably be too much of an inconvenience. She noticed the veggie militant wasn’t even out of breath. She would be wary now for anything else Treacher might try. With a groan, she slowly got up.

“Let’s go fetch Cessie, shall we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Treacher said edgily.

Then from upstairs, a door could be heard opening and Gracella Murieta-Harrington called out, “What was that? Susan? You there?”

. . .

The smell of cleaning fluids in the musty air reached O’Conner’s nose as the text came in from Dollarhyde. He held up his hand and he and Gonzales paused on the stone steps. Holding the phone over his shoulder, he showed the safe cracker the message. The soles of their shoes were a rubber composition and by habit, they’d been careful coming down to the wine cellar even though they supposed no one was there. The two heard muffled music from around a near corner, a female rapper over the boisterous track.

“Been livin’ long and tough like you was rough. But my game is strong an’ you won’t be around long.”

 

 

 

Flora Tafani had her back to the two men who crept up behind her. She was bopping her head to the too-loud rap tune on her wireless headphones, bent over as she used her microfiber mop to clean the polished cement floor. She went stiff as a hand clamped on her shoulder and she reflexively bolted upright. Turning in the direction the hand indicated, she glared open-mouthed at two masked men, one of them with a finger to the mouth slit of his mask in a shushing fashion.

Before she could fully assemble what was going on, the headphones were removed and shut off. Gun to her temple, she sat on the floor, back to the wall where the taller of the two men indicated, right near a rack of Malbec and Merlot she’d recently dusted. Zip-tied and gagged, she watched as the men hunched down and reached in between the bottles, feeling around. She heard a grunt from one of the men, followed by a click, and damn if the rack didn’t swing out smoothly over the stone floor.

Exposed was a formidable-looking safe door set into the stone wall that Tafani had no idea was there. One of the men tapped his gloved index finger on the electronic lock on the safe while the other one unlimbered a messenger bag and set it on the floor. From inside this he took out what looked to her like one of those pirate cable boxes her brother used to make. Various coated wires dangled from this thing as the man powered it on. A low hum came from the device.

The man who had tapped the lock let out a sigh of appreciation. “Well,” he said. “Aren’t you a beauty.”

. . .

“Be cool,” Dollarhyde said as she came further into the hacienda-style bedroom that had its own loft, taking up the second and third floors. Treacher was in front of her, the end of the Mossberg’s barrel on her spine. There was a high ceiling with maple wood beams forming a hatch pattern above their heads and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ranch’s cattle and land. The heavy drapes were open but diaphanous inner curtains covered the windows, the light coming through bathing the three in warm, comforting hues. In addition to the massive four-poster bed, lounging couches and plush chairs resided over the herringbone pattern oak floor and the en suite bathroom included a full-size Jacuzzi that Dollarhyde glimpsed through the open bathroom door. There was a seventy-two-inch flat screen TV on one wall competing with over-sized art such as a print of Warhol’s multi-image, multi-colored Marilyn Monroe.

Murieta-Harrington narrowed her eyes at Monroe’s repeated face. It was as if those nine sly, sexy grins were a knowing wink that only she understood. The lady of the house had been having phone sex with Culhane on her burner when the explosion went off. She figured that it was a sign the robbery was going down, something that was confirmed when Treacher was brought in by the gun-toting woman in a mask. Now it was up to her to play the part of surprised victim.

In character, Murieta-Harrington back-peddled, raising her arms as she did so.

“Put them down,” Dollarhyde advised. She didn’t think anyone could see them up here through the curtains but no sense getting sloppy again. “Both of you sit on that love seat, if you’d be so kind.”

Treacher sneered, “Like we have a choice.”

Dollarhyde said to the back of her head, “Really, though?” She bumped the weapon against her back. “You do. Choices you have are easy, hard, or unconscious with possible concussion. Take your pick.”

As the women sat down, a disguised Benny Parker appeared in the doorway.

“We good?” he said.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” said Dollarhyde. “Watch ’em while I get them settled.

Dollarhyde produced two zip ties from her back pocket and proceeded to bind the two women together. A buzzer sounded dully through the open bedroom door.

“What’s that?” she said harshly.

The others exchanged a look. Murieta-Harrington answered, “The side door. The hands use it when they need something.”

Dollarhyde gagged the two women.

. . .

Cassie Warner was taking another toke on her joint when she heard the side door buzzer. She was in the toilet off the kitchen enjoying her unofficial smoke break. The spacious room contained only a toilet and a sink but was large enough for a shower. There was a louvered window and she’d discovered that by putting a towel down at the base crack of the door and blowing her fumes out the window, she could consume unmolested and undetected. To mask the aroma of weed clinging to her clothes, she employed the Lysol she carried in with her. She’d spray some on, covering the tell-tale smell with the nostril-stinging antiseptic.

The buzzer sounded again, followed by a knock. Reluctantly, she extinguished her joint and fanned her hands in front of her face. Hurrying, she didn’t use her cover-all technique, but stepping out of the room, was glad nobody was around. She answered the door. One of the foremen, Raynor, she recalled, was standing there.

“Everything okay in here?” he said in his mild Texas drawl, face tanned from years of being outdoors.

“Yes, sure, why?”

“The boom,” he said.

“Huh?” So that had been real and not an imagining due to her Fantastic Paradise fade. “What happened?”

“We’re checking it out now. Looks like them damn animal lovers left us a goodbye gift. Anyway, figured I just better check in on y’all.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said. Then there was a thud, followed by a grunt, and both looked toward the kitchen’s swinging door leading into the rest of the ground floor.

“Well, since I’m here,” he said, coming inside.

“Yeah,” Warner said. “Come on.”

The two went off toward the sound.

      . . .

Gonzales studied the screen of his homemade electronic device. The safe’s lock required a combination punched in correctly on its keypad. But he wasn’t trying to hack the sequence. What he wanted was to short-circuit the alarm feature. He knew these modern safes were often linked to a smartphone app that would send out an alarm to the owner should someone try to tamper with them.

“Three and a half minutes,” O’Conner announced, no worry in his voice, merely stating the fact. Using a chuck key, he tightened the carbide tipped titanium drill bit in place on the battery-powered drill.

“Copy that, jefe.”

Gonzales carefully turned two black knobs on his box and could tell from the reading he was honing in on the override frequency, digital numbers flashing by on a smaller square screen in a corner of his box. Both men were aware that time was ticking by while the machine searched the airwaves for the correct contact.

“Ah, por fin,” he announced triumphantly when the machine finally made the connection. He pulled one of the knobs out, locking the frequency in place.

“Phase two,” he said, holding out his hand.

O’Conner handed the drill to the old man, being careful not to kick the humming box that Gonzales had set on the floor. With precision, he got to work drilling into the side of the case steel lock. O’Conner was at his side, occasionally spraying some WD 40 on the bit and the deepening hole as it bore, slowly but steadily, inward, , metal shavings falling to the floor like robot tears.

Momentarily, both paused at a thump of something hitting the floor above them. Glancing at each other, they silently agreed to continue on. The others in the crew either dealt with whatever it was or they didn’t. They were too close now.

Upstairs, the housekeeper and the ranch hand came into the front room and gaped at the sight of Amaya lying on her side on the rug. She’d managed to twist her body off the couch, despite one of her ankles being bound to one of the stubby legs. But she landed more off balance than she’d intended and was now tearful from the excruciating pain radiating through her lower leg. She realized she had at least dislocated that ankle if not broken it.

“The hell?” Raynor said as the two went over to the woman. He had a buck knife in a scabbard on his belt and got it out and was about to cut her zip tie loose.

“That’ll be enough of that,” Benny Parker said. He aimed a Glock 19 with a custom-made suppressor at them.

The others were crouched down to the injured Amaya and Raynor sought to hide the knife between his body and hers.

“On the floor, shit-kicker,” Parker said.

Raynor tensed and Warner touched his arm. “It sure as shit isn’t worth it.”

He looked from her to the pleading eyes of Amaya. He dropped the knife on the floor as Parker stepped closer and kicked it away.

“Good thing we have plenty of these,” said Dollarhyde, holding up more zip ties.

Back downstairs, Hector Gonzales inserted what looked like a shortened straw in the hole he and O’Conner had made. Two wires, red and black, led from one end of it. The robbers stood and stepped away from the safe. Gonzales set off the charge by touching the two bare ends of the wires together. A low yield of Semtex handily blew the lock off. They’d used a higher yield of the stuff for their timed explosives in the equipment building.

Tafani jerked her body as the destroyed mechanism clattered across the metal floor to land next to her. Then the two thieves opened the safe’s door to reveal stacks and stacks of cash. The two men pulled out four nylon duffle bags from under their shirts and began loading the money into them.

“We’re a minute behind,” O’Conner said, zipping closed his second bag as they quickly loaded the swag. “We gotta go. Our ride is here and waiting.”

Gonzales was already heading for the stairs. Due to the time constraint and the weight of the bags, they left the drill and their other instruments behind, even the custom-made box whose signal was still broadcasting to whoever was monitoring the safe that it was still whole and secure. It wouldn’t matter when it was found: the parts used to make it were available from any electronic outfit and the shell was a hollowed-out switcher box Gonzales had rescued from the trash. Same for the drill and bits. There was nothing identifying about them that could tie them back to anyone. Gonzales did make sure to take away any leftover explosive material.

Up top in the front room, O’Conner and Gonzales joined the rest the crew. On the couch sat Murieta-Harrington, tied to Treacher and Warner. Dollarhyde had cut Amaya free from the couch leg and she sat in a chair, her leg elevated on a stool, holding ice in a towel on it. Parker stood near Raynor, who sat on the floor, his hands zip tied behind his back and his ankles zip tied too. He glared at the robbers. There was a bruise the color of eggplant on the side of his jaw where Dollarhyde had struck with the stock of the Mossberg when he’d tried to yell out.

“Y’all gonna be in a world of trouble,” he said. “Don’t matter one goldarn you got your faces covered and all that. Mr. Harrington will see you pay. You jus’ wait.”

Outside, the duplicate of the chef’s van idled.

Parker gagged the man who mad-dogged him like whatever they were absconding with was his personally. Warner too was gagged and, with everyone secured and silenced, as one, the four along with the stuffed duffels of cash left through the side door and got in the van.

“GPS tracker indicates the real chef is heading back this way,” Howard Racklin said behind the wheel. “Damn near at the front gate.” He was a square-shouldered individual with a bulldog’s homely face and the temperament of a German shepherd. Loyal to a fault but a terror if crossed.

“Then drive, baby,” O’Conner said.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Racklin descended the slope behind the house then went left along a road that they knew from their aerial scouting would take them toward the main entrance. A ranch this size, the four who’d invaded the house had hiked in on foot before sunrise but knew they would need wheels to hasten their exit.

“Shit,” Racklin swore, eyes on the rearview.

“What?” said O’Conner. He, along with the others, looked out the rear windows in the rear double doors. A battered pickup was coming up fast behind them, a billowing plume of dust and dirt in its wake. A man stood in the bed, firing at them with a rifle.

“How’d they tumble?” Racklin wondered aloud.

“There,” O’Conner said, pointing. In the receding distance, the real chef’s van was parked near the house.

Several gunshots cracked and instinctively, the van’s passengers ducked. Bullets pinged around them but none entered the interior. Dollarhyde and Parker were closest to the back and they pushed out the windows, designed specifically for that purpose in case they needed to shoot. Raising their weapons, they returned fire. The pickup veered off and Racklin took the van onto the rougher terrain, the after factory heavy duty hydraulics being able to handle the off road transition. He drove deliberately into a bunch of grazing cattle that were seemingly oblivious to the gunfire.

“What the fuck, Rack?” Dollarhyde yelled.

“Hold on,” the getaway man said as he expertly maneuvered the van amid the cows that trudged out of the way but didn’t scatter in a panic. Indeed, they were languid about the whole matter.

“You’d think they’d be livelier,” Parker muttered.

“If you knew your fate was to wind up as meatloaf or ribeye, would you?” O’Conner observed.

“Deep,” Dollarhyde said, patting her shotgun for reassurance.

“We got help on the way?” Gonzales asked.

“Yeah,” O’Conner replied.

Racklin was blocked by some cows bunched together and began backing up, the flanks of the animals bumping and thumping heavily against the side of the vehicle. He was using the rearview mirror for guidance as his hands steered the wheel, occasionally turning his head to the side. His face was fixed in place, calm and determined as he expertly maneuvered the vehicle backward at speed. The ones in the pickup were at the edge of the cows and shooting again as they came forward. A cow’s head exploded and red gore coated the passenger side window. A car came up, a ranch hand shooting from that too.

“Here he comes,” Racklin said, the sound of a single engine plane vibrating through the metal roof of the van.

“Jesus,” they heard the one with the rifle yell as the pilot veered over them at such a low level it made their pursuers duck their heads. Then a petrol bomb was dropped on the car, the flaming gasoline dripping inside the open windows. The occupants ran from the vehicle. The bombs had been previously put together by Gonzales and they began to explode all around them. One of the ranch men, his arm and upper torso on fire, went into a tuck and roll in the dirt while several of his buddies rushed to help extinguish him. Eel Estevez was in the plane with Ellison, dropping the petrol bombs.

Divots of earth, grass, and cow shit mushroomed into the air as two other bombs exploded. A man on horseback who’d come galloping up was thrown as the horse reared. This explosion proved to be the catalyst that caused the cattle to finally show some urgency as the driver of the pursuing Jeep tried to avoid being firebombed from the air. As the cattle panicked, two of the beasts collided with the pickup, or maybe it was the other way around; the bottom line was that the driver was thrown forward, his head cracking the windshield and the vehicle coming to a hard stop.

The van reached a tree line of twisted willows to the west side of the ranch, their branches like the petrified fingers of witches reaching up from the grave. Further in, Racklin killed the engine and they left the van amid the brambles and trunks. The quintet gathered their bags and weapons and headed off on foot. The vacated van held a timed device, again thanks to Gonzales, that in twenty minutes would set off an incendiary explosive that would destroy the vehicle and any trace DNA. Through the woods they went, doubling back to the trail that led to the lake, conspicuously making sure to leave noticeable footprints. Then they broke off and up a knoll, then another rise, then down to an overgrown fire trail O’Conner and Gonzales had come upon that day on foot after they’d cased the ranch from the air. In an area of sage and acanthus the group retrieved two two-person ATVs left hidden amid the foliage. Each had a roll bar cage, so with two seated in the vehicles and Benny Parker hanging on the back, they drove off.

Not too long later they abandoned the ATVs on the side of the highway, where they would hopefully be stolen. They got to the safe house in an SUV they’d hidden at the same spot under a camouflage of branches and brush. The “safe house” was actually a rent per day office in a rundown building east of I-35 in Fort Worth. An area not yet a gleam in gentrifiers’ eyes. As far as the building’s owners knew, the space was being rented for a two-day seminar on annuities and dividends by a small actuary firm.

The door to the second-floor office burst open and the crew, loaded with guns and bags of cash, piled into the front room. Even though it was after regular business hours, they had opted to take the stairs up from the ground floor to lessen the chance of being seen by any of the other tenants should anyone be working late.

“Holy shit,” said Benny.

“You can say that again,” Dollarhyde added. She lifted the duffel bag of cash she was carrying, the muscles in her arm flexing under her coppery skin, and placed it on the office conference table.

“Oh, I’m going to be saying that for some time,” said Benny.

O’Conner looked over to Gonzales, who had a portable police scanner in his hands and an earbud in. The older man shook his head in the negative and disconnected from the device.

“Nothing?” said O’Conner.

“Knife fight at a bar downtown and some asshole threatening to jump off a building. That’s it.”

“After the ruckus we just caused?” Estevez said.

“The League is keeping the lid on,” O’Conner observed. They were thieves who’d stolen unreported money. There was no going to the law about this.

“Well, that doesn’t mean we should be standing around any longer than we need to,” Ellison said. “Let’s close this show and get outta here.”

O’Conner and Gonzales picked up the four duffel bags of cash. They proceeded to pull the bundles of money out of them and stack them on a table. O’Conner divvyed up the proceeds. A sense of exuberance pervaded the room as they stared at the stacks of money.

“Holy shit,” said Benny, shaking his head.

“Before we call it a day…” said Gonzales, holding up a bottle of tequila.

“Now that’s a good way to cap off a job,” Dollarhyde said. Gonzales handed her a sleeve of plastic cups and she handed them out to crew. One by one, Gonzales gave each of them a healthy dose.

Inwardly, O’Conner was pleased. It had been a good haul. Even with the insiders’ cut, the Financier’s overhead and share, everyone was walking away with plenty. He raised his cup.

“Good work,” he said. “And good luck to us all.”

“Sláinte,” Gonzales said, the distinctly Irish toast getting questioning looks from the others.

“What?” he said. “I can’t be multi-cultural?”

Benny said, “Dude, the kind of money we got today? You be whatever you want.” With a chuckle, he and the others downed their shots.

Ellison motioned to the larger stacks of cash O’Conner was putting away. “Lot of green there.”       

“It is,” O’Conner said flatly.

“You’re gonna make sure all that gets delivered to all the right people?” Ellison said, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

O’Conner looked at him blandly, a spark like flint rocks striking behind his eyes. Stillness enveloped the room. A large dog barked beyond the walls.

“We just trust you. Right?”

O’Conner’s voice was like cut glass. “You’re saying?”

“Nothing.” Racklin hit the pilot’s shoulder with a stack of bills. “He don’t mean nothing. We’re all good. Right?”

Ellison looked from Racklin to O’Conner. “Yeah,” he said. “we’re all good.”

“Okay then,” said Racklin. He quickly finished putting the rest of his money into his bag and lifted it. “Let’s go. I want out of town and out of Texas, and I want it now.”

As Gonzales and Dollarhyde wiped the place down, the others finished packing up their money and gear. Thereafter they left the office and once again took the stairs to the ground floor and exited the building. Outside on the dirt lot that served as the parking area, everyone began to head toward their cars. O’Conner came out last, buttoning up a windbreaker.

“What the hell?” Racklin exclaimed.

“What’s up?” said Benny.

“Someone slashed my tires.”

“Mine too,” Dollarhyde said.

Ellison produced a pistol and slammed it across Racklin’s head, sending him to the ground. At the same time a motorcycle roared from around a near corner, the rider left-handedly spraying bullets at the crew from a Tec-9 with an extended magazine. Everyone ran for cover, rounds burrowing into the dirt, pinging off the cars and the concrete of the office building. Ellison, firing the pistol, threw his duffle of cash into the hatchback of his Jeep, the only vehicle with its tires still intact. He then scooped up two fallen bags of loot and tossed them in to join his.

O’Conner went prone behind a bonded Monte Carlo, a gun in his fist.

The motorcycle rider continued to spray the area with bullets, keeping everyone down. He reached the periphery of the lot and, screeching back around, he continued shooting.

Steeling himself, a grim O’Conner partly rose from his hiding place, a round striking close to him. He took aim and fired three shots at the rider. The second one penetrated the rider’s helmet and the man fell backward off the motorcycle.

O’Conner looked around for Ellison.

“Bastard,” he heard Dollarhyde snarl. Ellison was pushing her ahead of him. He had her cut down Mossberg pointed at the woman’s head.

“Keep your ass on the ground,” he demanded as Racklin began to pick himself up.

“Go fuck yourself,” Racklin said as he continued up.

The pilot stepped close and struck him again with the butt of the weapon.

“Hey,” O’Conner said, stepping away from the Monte Carlo. “This is bullshit. People are looking down here from their windows. Cops will be here in a heartbeat.”

“Motherfucker,” Ellison said, his voice breaking with emotion. Pushing Dollarhyde to the side, he brought the shotgun up and fired. O’Conner raised his arms to cover his face but took most of the blast to his torso and went down hard. The money he was carrying dropped down too.

O’Conner grunted as he thudded onto the dry earth. The pilot ran over to get the dual equipment bags with the money, O’Conner laying on his side, his back to him, the bags on the other side of his body. Bending and reaching for them, O’Conner turned around and, sitting up, drove a knife into the pilot’s thigh. He quickly pulled it free of Ellison’s leg as heintended to plunge the blade into the man’s chest. The pilot yelped, moving backward and avoiding blade. O’Conner got to his feet. The sleeves of his windbreaker shredded. Blood leaked from his wounded forearms beneath.

O’Conner had gotten a familiar feeling in the back of his neck when Ellison groused about the split. Before coming outside, he’d put on one of the special jackets Gonzales had brought along—the old man being overly cautious these days. The clothing was based on a design from a famous tailor in South America who outfitted heads of state, including U.S. presidents it was rumored, in suits and everyday wear woven with his proprietary blends of polyester and nylon. The bullet resistant windbreaker had protected him from the majority of the shotgun’s small gauge load. Apparently, though, the knock-off garment was lacking protection in the sleeves.

Rushing to the pilot, the two men grappled and grunted for control of the shotgun, Ellison kneeing O’Conner and breaking free. But now O’Conner had the weapon and was readying to blast Ellison away when the pilot produced a compact stun grenade and threw it at him. O’Conner wryly noted the damn grenade had been among those made by Gonzales. He dove away as the thing went off. Ellison then lit and threw a remaining petrol bomb at the Monte Carlo, setting the car’s roof on fire. He’d put sugar in this one O’Conner concluded, noting how the fuel didn’t run down the sides of the car. In that way, the stuff would stick and burn. Nasty.

Ellison turned and ran, putting distance between him and the crew he’d sought to double cross. The Monte Carlo’s fuel tank, having been punctured by bullets, had leaked gasoline all around itself and proceeded to ignite in a deafening blast that sent sections of sharp metal flying in all directions. During this, the pilot managed to get to his dead cohort’s still idling motorcycle. With parts of the destroyed car charred and smoldering, Ellison was a block away in a matter of moments, leaving the battered thieves behind.

“We gotta get out of here,” Gonzales said, gripping O’Conner’s arm.

“He’s got to be dealt with,” O’Conner vowed, staring after the receding pilot.

“He will be,” the older man said, knowing enough about the mindset of the man beside him. “But right now we have to get away.”

The sound of sirens in the distance seemed to bring O’Conner back to the present.

“Right,” he said. He looked over at Racklin who was looking at the pilot’s abandoned Jeep. “That good to run?”

“Yeah, looks okay,” he said. “Keys are in it. He was prepared to get the hell out.”

“Yeah,” said Gonzales. “With our money. The little shit.”      

“Okay,” O’Conner said. “Everyone crowd in. Racklin, you good to drive?”

“Yes,” he said.

“We’ll drop each of you off one at a time. From there you’re all on your own with your share.”

“And you two get the car?” said Estevez.

O’Conner rasped, “You want to argue about it, Eel?”

He held up his hands. “Not me. I’m good, ese.”

In the car, O’Conner said to Racklin, “You’ll be the last to get out, we’re gonna have words first.”

“I know,” a contrite wheelman said.

Within the next hour, the empty car had been wiped clean and left on the street. The crew had scattered to the winds, Racklin as well, but he was short a hefty part of his cut, due to his having been the one who vouched for the traitor Ellison. The Crystal Q job was now officially behind them and whatever came next, O’Conner reflected, he’d be ready.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2 – Aftermath

by Gary Phillips

 

 

O’Conner had several problems to deal with after letting off the crew and dumping the Jeep. His forearms were bloody, his sleeves were in tatters, and he was hefting three million plus dollars in cash in two equipment bags. But it was now dark and he’d managed to put more than a mile from what was a fresh crime scene as far as the Fort Worth Police Department was concerned. He had to ditch the bags for now as he knew soon the patrol cars would be making circuits away from that dirt parking lot where the motorcycle driver lay dead. First, though, the cops would determine what went down there, door knocking and badgering folks who, for many of them, the police meant harassment, not solace. O’Conner had picked this area for a reason. But this also meant here was where on the regular the denizens got jacked up by the law and he was nothing if not conspicuous.

He neared a storefront, its bright lights within bathing the cracked sidewalk. From inside came a voice in Spanish and English over a crackly PA system.

“God has a way for you,” said the man’s voice, his ragged breathing audible as he must have the mic right on his lips, O’Conner determined.

“Come to the light and up out of the darkness,” the voice pleaded.

O’Conner paused at the edge of the storefront. There were people inside, mostly Latino but some whites too, he saw. Several men and women wore cowboy hats or were fanning themselves with them. The gathered sat on metal folding chairs and some had their hands raised and shouted their amens.

The walls were plain white and the worn carpeting industrial. It had been some sort of light color once but had faded to what was best described as aged oatmeal. Up front was a modest panel wood podium with the cross on it. A lay preacher in rolled up shirt sleeves and dark slacks extoled the gathered. Like James Brown in his heyday, he energetically moved back and forth behind the podium, bobbing and weaving as he ducked invisible blows from the Devil. He held a plastic encased mic that you had to press a button on to be heard. This was on a long-coiled cord attached to a portable speaker that had to be at least twenty years out of date. The fuzzy speaker sat on the floor, a few feet from the podium.

“There is only one way,” the man said, the mic nearly pressed on his lips, the words virtually incomprehensible. But that didn’t matter. What did was the good feelings as more who-zaas and exaltations bubbled forth.

For a moment, O’Conner considered walking in there and taking a seat, putting on the holy roller act. Rocking his upper body back and forth like Ray Charles on the piano. Then afterward, offering a donation to the La Luz de Jesus evangelicals if only they’d safeguard his belongings for a night or so. He smiled wanly and moved on. On the next block was an all-night laundromat. He went inside where there were two women of an older age busy with their wash and a young couple. They didn’t seem to pay him any attention and he walked toward the back of the place like he belonged there.

In the tiny passageway, off to one side, was a locked door, and before him a doorway with a security screen on it. Past the security screen was a back area that contained what O’Conner concluded were the husks of junked appliances. He could hide the money in one of those rusted out wonders he weighed, but that meant his cash was too exposed for his tastes. He set the bags down, glancing out into the main room and noting again no one was keying in on him. From his back pocket he took out a folding knife and it didn’t take much effort to overcome the cheap lock on the door.

Revealed was a small room with a mop and bucket in it, a tool box, goose neck lamp and a few parts on a shelf, as well as a toilet, apparently not for use by the customers, only the caretaker. It all smelled of mildew. O’Conner looked up, understanding he had little choice. The more he walked on with the bags, the more his chance of getting stopped by the law or some asshole trying to mug him. He closed the door on the room, turning on the gooseneck lamp. A weak warm light glowed, providing adequate illumination. He aimed the light upward. The toilet didn’t have a lid, but putting the seat up, as it would slide around, he stood with his feet on the edge of the porcelain bowl. He pushed up the acoustic tiles and put his money inside the false ceiling, straddling the bags across the thin metal framework held in place by wire suspended from the true plaster ceiling. He reserved some bills for tonight. The door locked behind him and he walked out carrying the tool box. The idea being the people in here might have absently noted he’d been carrying something so better to reinforce that idea than be empty handed and possibly fuel curiosity. He ditched the tool box a door front later.

As Ellison’s shotgun blast had concentrated on his torso, only a few of the pellets had blistered his forearms. Before entering the laundromat, he’d pushed up what remained of the material of his windbreaker, exposing his bloody trails so as to make the tatters less noticeable. The bloody wounds were mostly dried and as he walked purposefully, the customers hadn’t paid him much mind. Could be if a cop showed up and pressed the people in the laundromat for a description, one of them might be forthcoming. But again, he judged the odds to be in his favor. He stopped at a liquor store and bought a plastic pint bottle of off brand vodka and some chips. He left with his black plastic bag of items, eating the chips along the way. At a 7-Eleven, he bought rubbing alcohol, mercurochrome, a USA Today newspaper, a disposable lighter, some cotton balls, and two pre-packaged burritos he microwaved there.

Walking along, he ate one of the burritos and on the advice of the clerk who he’d asked, found the nearby roadside motel. It was called the Cicero Pines. He checked in and, sitting at the tiny round table in the room, had a belt of his vodka. He spread out the newspaper below him on the floor. Then he heated the end of his knife and proceeded to dig the pellets out of his forearms, grimacing and gnashing his teeth but silent as he did so. He would wipe the knife clean with alcohol then repeat heating the blade. Only two pellets were in deep. Each time he took out a shot, he poured some of the rubbing alcohol on the area and dabbled it with mercurochrome to prevent infection. Done, he swept the bloody pellets off the table to join any that had fallen to the newspaper. O’Conner took this into the bathroom and, shaking out the newspaper, flushed the pellets down and away. He then burned the newspaper to ashes in the combo tub and shower so as not to leave any trace of his blood.

Back at the table, using more newspaper, he gathered up the stained cotton balls and crunched that all down into a ball. This he would take with him and not merely dump in the trash here at the motel. The second burrito was cold but edible. He ate that and had more vodka. There was no twenty-four-hour thrift store so he’d have to wait until morning for a change of clothes. He turned on the television but found no news report about the incident. He turned it off and, sitting at the table, sipping the vodka, outlined his next moves.

Taking care of Ellison was a priority, but getting out whole from Fort Worth was primary. Harrington’s wife and Culhane were loose ends but he knew that going in. He’d already calculated one or both of them wouldn’t be able to extricate themselves from the husband’s grasp. But that was their lookout. He’d get the money to the Financier and they’d get their end. Assuming they were still around to collect. What happened afterward, well, thieving was not for the risk adverse as there were no guarantees of winding up in a rocking chair on your front porch. Though he had to admit he wanted to get back to Gwen and their subdivision home.

Before dropping him off, O’Conner having extracted his penalty on Racklin, he’d also gotten from him what he could as to who Ellison might pal or bed with—which wasn’t much, though it wasn’t his impression the wheelman was holding back. And on the subject of wheels, he ruminated as the cheap vodka burned its way down, he needed some transportation. The car he was going to use was back at the parking lot. It was cold so he wasn’t worried about the cops towing it off. But who knew when they might clear out. Plus, if they found the office they’d used, they might leave a patrol car on post just in case one or more brigand wandered back.

He moved the drapes over the window slightly aside and scanned the lot. There were a couple of possibilities out there. He could lie in wait and strongarm whoever showed to drive off in that family van he liked. Probably an errant horny husband who could ill afford to summon the cops, he imagined. But that could be more of a complication than he needed at this time. He regarded what was left of the vodka and screwed the cap back on and set the bottle on the table. He had a slight buzz from the booze but this only heightened the edge O’Conner desired.

Because he assumed to be in and out of Fort Worth, he hadn’t done any more advance work than securing the location. The crew had taken care of getting their own cars there. The locale had been obtained through an intermediary, someone who’d come recommended. Ellison had also been recommended, so O’Conner wasn’t exactly in a trusting state of mind, but he had to start somewhere. He checked the time and called the go-between on his encrypted phone.

“Understand there was a shit storm,” said the woman on the other end after he’d spoken. She had a raspy voice that nonetheless gave her an alluring quality. He only knew her as Kawolski.

“Nobody was caught,” O’Conner said, “and it isn’t on the news.”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t rat.”

“Okay,” came her reply after a beat. He’d been vouched for previously. “You want wheels.”

“Yes. Now.”

“It’s going to cost you.”

“I’m in no position to complain.”

“This is true.”

Three hours later he was at the Fam-Ram salvage yard. He’d taken a bus and walked to get there. There were several such establishments in this area. The yard was cast in darkness but there were lights on in a wood and corrugated metal standalone office. Two men were there. One was in jeans, the other in overalls. There was a pit bull on a chain too. The dog sat on its haunches, eyeing the newcomer.

“Hear you need a ride, man,” the one in overalls said.

“That’s right,” O’Conner answered. “Kawolski gave you my name.”

“Yeah, so what?” the other one snorted. “That haughty bitch don’t run us.”

“How about we just do our business, okay?”

“How about you ain’t calling the tune, man,” overalls said, thumbs hooked in his pockets.

O’Conner kept his anger in check. “The agreed price was twenty thousand for a Hyundai Entourage minivan.” An eleven-year-old vehicle, he didn’t add. They were robbing him but the plates were solid, he’d been told.

“We’re of the mind you got some real money,” the other one stared, moving to O’Conner’s side. “If you can afford twenty, thirty shouldn’t be a problem for a high stepper like yourself.” He grinned broadly at his buddy.

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“Fuck that,” the one in jeans said. His bad breath was laced with marijuana. He pulled a pistol and jabbed it in O’Conner’s side.

“Uh-huh,” O’Conner said. He whipped around with his knife and slashed the man’s arm. Then he grabbed the wrist of the pistol hand and twisted it violently. At the same time, his foot swept behind the other’s heel and, leveraging, he had him down on the ground flat, the gun now in his hand.

“You let that dog loose, I’ll shoot it first then you,” he said to overalls, who held the dog’s chain. The dog reared up in its hind legs, barking and snarling at O’Conner.

“Show this motherfucker we is real, Boyd,” the one on the ground demanded.

O’Conner stomped him in the face, never letting his eyes off of Boyd and the dog. “Harness that beast,” he demanded.

The chain attached to the dog’s collar was secured this time, O’Conner making sure overalls padlocked the links in place. He said, “Give me the keys.”

“Give me the money.”

O’Conner shot him in the foot. “The next one is in your heart.” He’d had his fill of backstabbers today. He drove away in the van. Back at the laundromat, he retrieved his goods. He took a nap in the vehicle and not long after dawn, was on the road heading out of Fort Worth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3 – Last Dance

by Jessica Kaye

 

 

Maybe Zach Culhane had seen Urban Cowboy a few times too many. He had heard it called a chick flick but John Travolta’s smooth combination of cowboy, dancer, and lover reminded Zach an awful lot of himself, or, at least, who he wanted to be…who he intended to be. He’d been dancing all his life, growing up in Houston where he and all his friends loved music. Didn’t everyone? As they got to middle school and then high school, their ability to keep pace with each other’s moves to hip hop or alternative or even classic rock became an integral part of their entertainment.

After high school, he worked a job here, a job there. He didn’t have what folks called a career. He had been a dishwasher, worked on an oil rig, clerked in an office and at the local Walmart. There weren’t too many jobs he hadn’t tried, he figured.

He got by. He didn’t get rich and he didn’t put much aside for a rainy day but he paid rent and drank all the beer he wanted and still went dancing. A fun and good-looking boy could find ways to pick up a few extra dollars, and he fit the bill.

Along the way, there had been petty larceny, an occasional burglary. He never resorted to violence, never attempted armed robbery or assault, no grand theft auto. No one groomed him, no one readied him for a higher level of crime and its higher level of payday, but this was a wealthy town and sometimes good fortune found its way to him. Good fortune was how he found his steady gig.

He was between jobs at the time, spending days at home in front of the computer, binge watching Netflix, or out at the local Starbucks for the air conditioning and an occasional iced coffee. Nights were spent with friends, at each other’s homes to watch whatever sport was in season or out for beers. He was broke, not destitute, and a man had to stay social, didn’t he?

It was another hot day and he was waiting to order at Starbucks. “Grande iced coffee, room for cream,” the man ahead of him said. Zach smiled and said, “Same thing I order.” The customer glanced at him, turned back to the clerk, and said, “Make it two.” He returned his gaze to Zach and said, “This one’s on me.”

Zach protested an appropriate number of times before thanking the stranger for his generosity. When the order was ready, it made sense that they would share a table. That was how Zach left the ranks of the unemployed.

 

Zach started working part time, driving his new boss around when the man didn’t want to drive himself and then waiting while the man had his meetings. In time, he learned a few things about business, moving up from lackey to junior apprentice, learning to boost cars for the company chop shop.

He still loved to go dancing. Now that he had a little money, he could go out as often as he pleased. He dressed better, drank better booze. The ladies still loved him and he had no trouble finding someone who would gladly take him home or to a hotel room.

The evening he met Gracella at a honky tonk gave him confidence that he was about to score on par with the best criminal masterminds’ greatest exploits. Spending that first night with her was fun, but becoming co-conspirators was even more orgasmic. They became an item, in as clandestine a fashion as was possible given each other’s penchant for going out dancing and drinking. They weren’t in love but they had a good thing going and they each appreciated it, for some of the same reasons.

It was Gracella who broached the idea first. Zach’s surprise was genuine. He had assumed he would have to plant an idea in order to glean the information they needed. What she told him turned his smile into a grin. The payday he had been anticipating was looking like small potatoes compared to the haul Gracella described.

Seven million dollars in unclean money. How serendipitous that her wealthy rancher husband was also the bagman for an illegal slush fund. Even better, these folks used cash, and cash was king, thought Zach, a saying he had heard numerous times on a TV ad for a paycheck cashing service. Even after dividing the spoils among all the participants, that left a pretty good amount of mad money for him. Maybe more than he’d ever expected to see.

Zach kept his eyes on the prize and his mind on the details, but that didn’t foreclose daydreams about having big money of his own and the dual scenarios of being offered partnership with his boss or starting his own company, an upscale gray market consulting service. Self-employment had great appeal; no one to report to, having complete control over saying yes or no to new clients, vacations whenever he pleased.

That would be after the gig. For this escapade, he contacted a man who went by the nickname “the Financier.” Zach had stolen cars for the Financier’s chop shop a few times when his own boss had loaned him out. It was just like the old movie studio system, Zach thought. He knew then that he was a star. From those occasional crossed paths, he also knew the Financier had the contacts to corral a posse with the skills they needed: safecracker, pilot, strongmen. Zach’s part was to continue to be Gracella’s lover and find out everything he could about the house, the cache, the guards, the works. It was no hardship to be with Gracella. She was easy on the eyes, fun in bed, generous, and a tad unpredictable. That added up to a good time as well as a good payday.

The date was set, everyone had their assignments. Zach didn’t even have to be there. His work was done—all but the spending.

He didn’t have many possessions. A little furniture, some clothes. Not much else. Sentimentality wasn’t his strong suit. He had already given his furniture to St. Vincent de Paul. They’d taken it away in a U-Haul. Who needed that secondhand crap? Traveling light made more sense. He was out the door and away.

That evening after the heist, the plan was for the team to meet at a prearranged location and the money was divvied up. The Financier delivered his cut as promised. He told Zach that some of the gang had tried to cut the others out in a burst of unexpected ugliness but O’Conner took care of that bit of bad business, leaving an even larger share for the rest of them. It couldn’t be a total surprise when thieves tried to steal from their fellow thieves. The Financier reminded Zach to be careful. This was big money and they had to be smart about their next moves.

Zach had already packed up his belongings and was ready to get the heck out of town. He didn’t expect that his involvement in the caper would be traceable either by cops or the victims but he hoped he had found a way to protect himself in case the what-ifs became what-is.

Too bad about the girl. He would have liked the company but he couldn’t imagine Gracella going unnoticed. She was too beautiful and too vibrant to escape attention. He hadn’t been to very many places but he had heard people say that travel was much better when it is shared with a friend. He thought about calling her one last time to extend the invitation but he had worked on the dark side long enough to know better. Make the move, get the grift, and get gone.

Usually, the get gone part just meant laying low for a while, but this was too big a score. Zach had been a Boy Scout in elementary school. The Boy Scout motto was Be Prepared. He had never forgotten that.

There was no time for even a celebratory drink with his cohorts. They all knew to scatter too. He was going to head north in the car he had bought from his boss. Zach had purchased a few vehicles from him from time to time, when one or another caught his eye. Sometimes cars were more useful unchopped. Sometimes his boss had acquired cars legally. Those were the ones Zach opted for, as long as they met his aesthetic sensibility.

Traffic was light on the road north from Fort Worth. Zach had planned to make his way to Canada. Mexico was closer but it was also a place where he could be found more easily. Too many Texans knew too many Mexicans for him to avoid being spotted, no matter how low a profile he was keeping. The same went for flying. There were names on tickets, passengers had to show ID, and the potential of TSA agents who may have known Harrington added up to the logical conclusion that Zach should leave town by automobile.

He had his passport in the car. He would drive to Detroit because it was close to Toronto. He had figured he could be there in two days if he didn’t sleep very much. From there, he would decide whether to cross the border legally, showing his passport, or to finesse his way into Canada. He wondered if the dancing was as much fun there as in Houston.

 

The big puzzle was how to get that much cash across the border. He needed an accomplice to help and the Financier had made an introduction. He could leave the cash behind in the States in the hands of a recommended aide, who would take a cut in exchange for depositing it in an offshore bank. There wasn’t time to do anything else with that much money. He would meet up with his contact in Michigan.

He drove, stopping a few hours later in a barely populated rest area along the highway. He stepped out of the car to use the bathroom. As he walked back to the car, humming to himself, a knock on the back of his head took him down. He looked up, head throbbing and eyes swimming, into the eyes of his boss, who stood alongside a large man Zach didn’t recognize.

“Wha…” was all he managed to say before losing consciousness.

The boss motioned to the other man standing nearby. “Let’s get him to the ranch,” he said. The other man slung Zach over his shoulders and took him to a spotless American four-door sedan with tinted windows. He got into the backseat with Zach, cuffed him behind his back, and then tenderly drew the seatbelt over him.

“That’s kind of you,” said the boss. “It’s the last nice thing anyone will do for him. He’s part of Harrington’s herd now.” He looked sympathetically at Zach. “It’s too bad,” he said. “I like the kid.”

They got the cash out of Zach’s car, placing it in their own sedan. They left Zach’s car unlocked and with the keys in the ignition, all but guaranteeing it would be stolen shortly. The boss didn’t bother to remove the location tracker he had placed on the underbody of the car. It could be fun now and again to see where the car’s travels took it.

The boss placed a call. “We have him. I’ll call you when we get close.”

They drove directly to the Crystal Q and carried the groaning lad into the hacienda. Harrington had gotten the second call announcing their impending arrival and he welcomed them, motioning the team to carry Zach to the wine cellar. He had the lad placed on a stool in a corner far from the wine, so as to minimize the risk to valuable bottles of notable vintages. Zach teetered precariously from one side to the other, barely conscious.

“Hmmph,” Harrington grunted. “I can see why my wife liked him. He’s a nice-looking boy. Maybe a little cleaner than most of her entertainment. Maybe a little younger too.” He stared at Zach for another long moment. Then he turned to the other two men. “Where’s the cash?”

Neither missed a beat. Zach’s boss said, “It wasn’t in the car, sir. We searched it. He must have left it with someone he trusted before leaving town.” The strongman nodded, backing up the story.

Harrington gave each man another hard look. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

The two didn’t change expression. “The money wasn’t there.”

Harrington left this issue for another day. He would handle one thing at a time. Let them do his dirty work tonight and let someone else do it to them tomorrow. He nodded at the branding irons stacked in the corner and then gave his orders.

“Fun’s over. I’ve got a party to get dressed for. I’ll be back later, but leave him here when you’ve done your work. You can go back to my chop shop as soon as you’re finished here.”

“Yes, boss,” said Zach’s boss, and his henchman reached for the irons, already hot, as Clovis Harrington left the cellar without a backward glance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4 - The Wife

by Zoë Sharp

 

 

 

Twenty-four Hours Earlier

Gracella arched away from the blade slicing down toward her back. The bite of it jerked at her wrists, then her arms flopped free. She tossed the remains of a severed zip tie and yanked the gag from her mouth. It came away in a ball of spit that she wiped inelegantly with the back of her hand.

“You okay, ma’am?”

A sheriff’s deputy crouched in front of her. Although her robe was gaping open his eyes were on her face, a fact which was unusual enough for Gracella to register. The badge on his uniform breast pocket read Martinez, and she realized she knew about him. Married, with twin daughters in first grade, she recalled. Off duty, his tastes ran to the boys in the local biker gangs, and slim-hipped bull riders when the circuit was in town.

She pulled the edges of the robe closer, even so. “Yes…gracias, José.”

He smiled, quickly releasing the two other women Gracella had been tied to. Susan Treacher first, then Cassie Warner, as if he recognized the hierarchy.

Gracella rubbed absently at her wrists, inspecting the damage. Clovis would know immediately if it didn’t look like she’d been a genuine hostage. But the skin was raw where the plastic ties had bitten in deep. It might even be enough to convince him.

She got shakily to her feet, legs barely able to support her, and went to Lottie Amaya. The maid was still on the chair where the robbers had put her after she’d struggled from the couch. She was clutching her injured leg, her face sheened with the sweat of genuine pain, although Gracella wouldn’t put it past her to ham things up a little.

“You were brave to try, Lottie,” she said, lifting the melting bag of ice from the woman’s ankle. It was swollen and already starting to bruise. She clucked. “But foolish. Look what you did to yourself.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Gracella,” Lottie moaned. “It’s just, I-I thought maybe they were here to kidnap you, and I couldn’t help myself.”

Like hell you couldn’t.

Gracella straightened, steadier now, put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and managed to murmur, “Thank you, Lottie,” with a straight face. She glanced across to where Martinez and one of the other deputies were releasing Traynor. “We heard gunfire, and explosions. Is anybody else hurt?”

After a moment’s hesitation, it was Martinez who answered, “’Fraid so, ma’am. They were dropping Molotovs from an airplane, from what we can gather. One of the guys is out cold, and a couple of the others are burned pretty bad.”

“Them sons o’ bitches,” Traynor swore, then flushed. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.”

Gracella waved a distracted hand in his direction. Her heart rate stepped up. Nobody was supposed to get hurt—except Clovis, of course. A kick in the bank balance, where it would sting the old bastard the hardest.

“Where’s Flora?” Susan Treacher demanded suddenly.

“She was down in the cellar,” Lottie piped up. “They seemed real upset about that.”

Susan headed for the door, only for one of the deputies to put his hand on her arm. “Best leave it to us, ma’am. Whoever these people are, seems they like to leave little surprises behind. Wouldn’t want you finding none.”

Susan paled, nodded, and stepped back.

Two of the deputies went out. A tense silence followed their departure and Gracella realized she didn’t need to smother her apprehension, even if it was for a very different reason to the others.

If the men her lover contracted had failed to blow the safe, or hadn’t gotten away with all the contents, then the whole plan was going to go to shit. And her along with it.

After only a minute or so, the sound of Flora’s loud and indignant wailing floated upward, getting louder as the sheriff’s men led the maid from the cellar. She entered being supported by deputies on either side, sobbing into the apron she held to her face.

Gracella let Cassie Warner take care of Flora with soothing words and pats and sympathy. There were limits to how familiar she wanted to get with the staff. She’d tried it when she first arrived, unused to servants and more than a little intimidated by the opulent ranch house where she found herself alone most days. Her attempts at friendship made all concerned uncomfortable. And once they’d gotten past that, they started trying to take advantage.

Despite the sleek dark hair, the 40DDs and the sultry black eyes, Gracella had never been anybody’s wetback fool.

Martinez touched her arm, his face tight. “Ma’am, there’s something I think you should take a look at down there. Will you come with me, please?”

What does he know?

Alarm flashed through her system, manifesting as sudden gooseflesh that broke out along her bare forearms. As she made to follow him, Susan Treacher hustled in. “I’m Ms. Gracella’s personal assistant. I should—”

“With respect, ma’am,” Martinez cut her off, “this concerns Mrs. Harrington.”

“It’s Mrs. Murieta-Harrington,” Susan corrected sharply, bristling. “And can’t it wait? Surely you can see she’s in shock.”

Gracella offered a weak smile. “It’s okay, Susan,” she murmured. “The deputy is only doing his job.”

Martinez led her down into the cellar, which now contained a cocktail of unfamiliar smells—hot metal, oil, burned plastic, and something like tar—overlaying the usual musty scents of old wine bottles and stale air conditioning. No Range Rider beer ever found its way into this rarefied atmosphere. Which was cool with Gracella, because she’d never liked the taste of the stuff anyway.

Halfway down, she hesitated. “Is it safe?”

Martinez almost smiled. “You think I’d be down here if it wasn’t?” And she noticed he’d dropped the “ma’am” now they were alone.

At the bottom of the steps he moved aside and indicated the blown safe behind the swing-out door, as if she might miss it.

Gracella hardly had to feign her surprise, but at the damage that had been wrought rather than the safe itself. She took a step closer, gaped convincingly, and turned bewildered, dewing eyes on the deputy. “But…I don’t understand. What is this?”

“It looks like a hidden strong room,” Martinez said. “You didn’t know it was here?”

Gracella shook her head. “No, but fine wines are my husband’s thing. Clovis is always fussin’ around down here. I hardly ever come down.” She wrinkled her nose, leaned in conspiratorially. “To be honest with you, I’m a little clumsy, and I guess I’m always kinda afraid of breaking a bottle of somethin’ real expensive.”

The deputy smiled again, a little condescendingly this time, and Gracella finally began to relax. He may not be of the right sexual orientation to want to fuck her, but at least he was beginning to see her as a wide-eyed—and innocent—niña estúpida.

“So you don’t know what might have been taken?”

She gave a helpless shrug. “But how could I?”

“Is anything else in the house missing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. There are other safes I do know about—in my bedroom for my jewelry, of course, and in my husband’s study—but nothing like this.”

Whatever the deputy might have been about to say next was lost in the sound of commotion from above. Martinez mounted the stairs first, leaving Gracella to admire his tight uniformed butt as she followed.

They emerged into a crowd of ranch hands carrying three injured men into the hallway. The first person Gracella saw through the confusion was her husband. His harsh features were clenched into a scowl that only deepened when he laid eyes on her.

“Clovis! What happened?”

He strode through the men like he was cutting through cattle, stood over her, looming down. “I was about to ask you that very same question…honey.” And from him, the endearment sound like a threat.

“We were robbed! They wore masks and carried guns. Lottie has a busted ankle. It was terrible.”

He folded her into his arms, for all the world the loving husband, but his hands on her were hard where they should have been soft, his grip unforgiving.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this—you can take that to the bank,” he said, his voice rumbling through his chest and into her body. “Nobody fucks with me or my property and gets away with it, y’hear me? Nobody.”

Gracella knew that as his wife he counted her part of that property. She barely suppressed a shiver.

“Mr. Harrington?”

With a last cruel squeeze, Harrington released her and turned. Gracella recognized a doctor her husband kept on beck and call. Lebermann—a trauma surgeon who favored the roulette wheel a little better than it favored him. He was wearing latex gloves and his hands were bloodied.

“Sir, it’s vital the worst of the burns victims is gotten to a hospital. I don’t have the equipment here to—”

“Didn’t I already tell you no hospitals?” Harrington’s tone brooked no argument. “Do what you can. And remember, boy, I’m relyin’ on you.”

Lebermann swallowed. His shoulders slumped as he scurried away.

Martinez stepped forward. “I appreciate you want to deal with this your own way, Mr. Harrington, but if the man dies…”

Harrington stared him down. “If he does, José, then I’m sure you’ll manage to write a real convincing accident report.”

Gracella tried to use the distraction to ease out of her husband’s reach, but Harrington grabbed her arm with iron fingers.

“Where d’you think you’re going, honey?”

“Up to her room.” Susan Treacher appeared resolutely by Gracella’s shoulder. “The doctor says she’s in shock and she needs to rest.”

Harrington threw a narrow-eyed glare at Lebermann, hovering in the doorway, and released Gracella with a grunt.

“Okay, but don’t think this is over. Later you and I are gonna have a little talk about this here robbery, and you’re gonna tell me everything you know…”

. . .

A Year Ago

The first punch landed high in the vee under Gracella’s ribcage, hard enough to blast the air clean from her lungs. The blow dropped her to her hands and knees on the cowhide rug, roiling from the pain and gasping for breath. Her beaded evening purse was plucked from her arm and tipped out onto the floor in front of her.

The purse held the usual contents—lipstick and powder, pocket book, keys, gum, her compact Smith & Wesson 640, and three condoms. The bare essentials for a night on the town.

She’d been out clubbing downtown and one thing had led to another. It was two a.m. and while she hadn’t exactly crept back into the ranch house, she’d hoped her early-rising husband would be asleep in his bed when she did so.

It was a surprise to find him by the lit hearth in the great room, a crystal tumbler of Michter’s sour mash whiskey by his elbow, waiting for her. That was nothing to the surprise of when he’d hit her for the first time.

He nudged through the contents of the purse with the caiman-skinned toe of his handmade Tony Lama’s. The revolver raised no comment—he’d bought it for her as a wedding gift, after all. But the condoms were something else again.

Something with a purpose that could not be easily excused away.

Gracella had been married to Clovis Harrington for eighteen months at that point, of which only the first three had held any kind of contentment. If it didn’t have four legs or dollar signs printed on it, she’d discovered, then her husband tired of it quickly.

But that didn’t mean he was prepared to share.

He picked up the three brightly-colored foil packets and fanned them like cards in his leathery hand.

“You had a half dozen of these in here when you went out,” he said with a calm that was eerie after his sudden burst of violence. “So, you fuck one guy three times, or three different guys?”

“What do you care?” Gracella threw at him when she had the breath to speak. “And how the hell do you know what was in my purse before I went out? Are you spying on me?”

“With good reason, it seems…wife.” He grabbed a handful of her hair, twisted her head back to meet his eyes. “I got a dozen classic automobiles in my garage. Just ’cause I don’t drive ’em every day don’t mean any damn fool can take ’em out for a spin whenever he feels the urge.”

“How dare you compare me to a car!” Gracella shrieked her outrage.

Harrington gripped harder, discomfort becoming pain. Then his other hand snapped out, striking her across the face hard enough for starbursts to explode behind her eyes. Instant tears blurred her vision.

“Because I own you, honey. Body and soul. And because I’ve got a reputation to maintain.” He slapped her again, letting go this time so the weight of it sent her sprawling into the side of the buckskin sofa. “And I won’t have nobody laughin’ behind my back because my goddamn wife will spread her legs for any cockhound comes sniffing.”

When he unbuckled his belt, Gracella’s first thought was that, finally, he was riled enough to want to fuck her. Then he began to wind the thick leather around his hand and fear pooled in her belly.

She hid it behind a lifted chin and defiant tone, brain working overtime. “Don’t you want to know what it was I told that cockhound before you accuse me of ruining your fancy reputation?”

“To use your own words, honey, what do I care?” He took a step toward her, intent and merciless.

“Because I made sure the last thing he would do was laugh at you,” Gracella said desperately, edging away on her rump.

That made him pause. She grasped the chance offered to her with both hands and appealed to the only thing that really mattered to Clovis Harrington.

His pride.

“I told him you are hung like un toro—a bull—and like to fuck all night until I can barely stand,” she tossed at him. “That I am forced to look elsewhere because you are too much man for me to handle.”

Harrington was utterly still for several seconds, then his arms dropped, allowing the belt to uncoil slowly. He not only cracked a grim smile, but he laughed. A deep belly laugh of genuine amusement.

He picked up the whiskey tumbler and took a sip, savoring the mingle of flavors that cost over thirty-five hundred dollars a bottle, while Gracella’s heart thundered against her breastbone and her swelling face throbbed in suit.

“Honey, if that’s the kinda crap you’re sellin’, you can keep spreading those pretty thighs often as you damn well please,” Harrington said. He shook his head. “I never should’a married you, Gracella. I should’a just hired you as my PR.”

. . .

Twenty-three Hours Earlier

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck, FUCK!”

Gracella stabbed a thumb on the end call button of her burner phone and redialled yet again. Alone in her private en-suite bathroom, she had been trying to reach Zach Culhane for the past twenty minutes. Ever since she’d escaped her husband’s clutches and sought sanctuary upstairs.

Finally, she had to admit the inevitable—that while she’d been aiming to take Culhane for a ride, maybe he’d taken her for one instead.

A part of her even admired him for that. Oh, he would have to suffer, of course, but even so…

Unless something had gone wrong with the getaway. Committing any kind of crime was the easy part, she knew. It was the getting away clean that was the problem. And the bigger the score, the bigger the effort put into making sure that didn’t happen.

In this case, it wasn’t law enforcement they had to worry about—except the ones who’d sold their soul to Clovis Harrington, or had it stolen and held for ransom by him, like Deputy José Martinez.

No, she knew her husband had other men on call. Men who frightened her by the lack of pity in their eyes. She had caught glimpses of them coming and going from the ranch in the past, but no more than that. She had not wanted to see more.

Gracella bit her lip, indecisive for a moment, weighing up the risk versus the reward.

I have to know.

She hurried to her walk-in closet, dived through the racks of designer gowns right to the back, where disguised in a dry cleaners bag was the same drab black dress, apron, and cap the maids wore. She’d persuaded Cassie Warner to let her “borrow” her spare outfit. In return, Gracella turned a blind eye to the weed the woman smoked when she was supposed to be cleaning.

She stripped and dressed, adding the black hi-tops she wore for her step aerobics classes, and coiling her hair so it was hidden by the cap. She shoved a change of clothes into a bag and took the back stairs to the kitchen, then out to the lot where the staff parked. Harrington liked to keep their compacts, SUVs, and pickups well out of sight of the house. Lord preserve us from any of his high-falutin’ guests seeing such inferior stock.

Gracella knew the ranch hand, Traynor, left the keys to his Ford pickup tucked into the sun visor and the doors unlocked, and she reckoned he’d have too much on his plate right now to worry about going anywhere. She took the side road out of the Crystal Q and headed for Fort Worth.

She drove as fast as she dared without getting a ticket, stopping only at a down-at-heels gas station to ask for the key to their restroom. It was unisex and stank, the cracked tile floor sticky with dirt. The faucet ran constantly into the oil-stained sink. For a moment, Gracella stood and stared at her slightly distorted face in the scuffed stainless steel mirror.

If this doesn’t work out, I could be wearing these clothes for real. Either that or a shroud…

She changed quickly into jeans and a blouse, and got back on the road. All the way over, she see-sawed between anxiety and anger. It was hard to say which emotion came out on top. By the time she arrived at Zach Culhane’s rented house, she was strung so tight she was ready to snap.

There was no response to her hammering on the front door. Peering through the side glass, she saw the living room was now devoid of furniture. Not that Culhane owned much, but even the little he’d had was gone.

Swallowing back the rising nausea, she circled the property, pressing her face to all the windows. The house was completely empty.

As Gracella stepped back onto the front porch, she noticed one of the neighbours—a short black woman who must have weighed in at two hundred fifty pounds—standing by her open screen door, watching her.

“He’p you?” the woman asked in a voice that implied she had no desire whatsoever to do so.

“I was looking for Zach.”

“Ain’t here no more.”

“Yes, so I see. When did he go?”

“First thing. I wuz just turnin’ on ma TV for Jerry Springer when I heard the U-Haul backin’ up to his door.”

More in hope than expectation, Gracella asked, “I guess he didn’t leave no forwarding address?”

The woman shook her head, looking almost regretful.

“He run out on you, huh?”

“Sure looks that way.”

“Ain’t it always so. Men! Can’t live with ’em, can’t kill ’em and bury ’em in the back yard, huh?”

She cackled at her own joke and waddled back inside, letting the screen door bang behind her.

If your back yard is big enough, oh, yes, you can…

Gracella drove back to the Crystal Q on autopilot, her mind revving. By the time she returned Traynor’s truck to its space on the rear lot, she was no longer angry, or anxious, but functioning with a coolly logical mind.

Only last month she’d read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in eBook form, prepared to tell her husband, if he asked, that it was just some trashy romance. He never asked.

In a battle, she knew the general who managed to follow their original strategy most closely would win, but also that no battle plan survived first contact with the enemy. What mattered was how you adapted to circumstance, used the forces at your disposal, and how decisively you counterattacked.

Well, Zach Culhane was about to find out what kind of a general Gracella would have made.

Back in her bedroom, she changed again into linen pants and blouse, took a last bracing look at the portrait of the multi Marilyn Monroes, then went downstairs. It was too quiet. The injured men were gone from the front roomto where she had no idea and was reluctant to ask—and the house had returned to its stiff normalcy.

But as she crossed the hall, Harrington’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“In here, honey. You didn’t think I’d forget about our little chat, now did you?”

The doors to his study were partly open and she could see him slouched behind the huge mahogany desk. Cautiously, she pushed the doors wider and stepped inside.

At once, she saw Harrington was not alone. On the other side of the room sat a guy in his early thirties, pleasant faced and pale eyed. One leg was up on a stool, a bloodied bandage wrapped around his mid-thigh. He was dressed in city clothes, casual but stylish. Gracella did not recognize him.

Not one of our men hurt in the attack. So who is he?

For a moment, the position of his leg reminded her of the maid, Lottie Amaya. Certainly, the guy seemed in as much pain, but it wasn’t just physical, she realized. There was a bitter resentment about him too.

Behind the injured man’s shoulder stood one of the cold-eyed men her husband occasionally had call to use. He was big, wide, muscular, with a military buzz cut. There was a pistol in his right hand, held casually, the way some men might hold a glass or a phone.

A click behind her made Gracella gasp. Another man with the same demeanor had just closed the study doors, and now stood in front of them, blocking her escape. She felt the sweat prickle along her hairline, but managed to turn back to Harrington with one eyebrow raised in calm enquiry.

“I didn’t realize we had guests.”

“We don’t,” Harrington said. He indicated the three men with a flick of his fingers. “They were never here.”

Gracella said nothing. Harrington regarded her with hooded eyes for a long time, then said abruptly, “What do you know about a thief called O’Conner?”

“Who?”

Her response was automatic. So, it seemed, was that of the man behind her. She never heard him move from his position by the doorway, but the next moment a fist travelling with the size and speed and weight of a small truck hit her in the back, just around her right kidney.

Her legs gave out instantly. The pain was a separate entity, a monster that screeched in her ears and robbed her of sight and breath as it thundered over her in sickening waves.

When she came back to herself, she was slumped on the polished wood floor. Somewhere above her head she heard a tutting sound, realized it came from her husband. She swiveled her eyes—the only part of her body she dared move—and found he’d rounded the desk to crouch in front of her.

“I know you were in on this, honey, and the longer you hold out on telling me what I want to know, the more this man is gonna hurt you. And he can hurt you real bad—you can take that to the bank.”

Gracella had to moisten her lips before she could whisper a denial.

“Cl-Clovis, please, I don’t—”

The man who’d punched her grabbed her arm at the elbow, dug in with cruelly scientific force. Gracella’s skin suddenly lit on fire, electric shocks sizzling down the nerve pathways into her hand. She convulsed, screaming.

Harrington continued to watch without emotion. When she subsided again, he said, almost gently, “I know you ain’t as stupid as you care to make out, honey. Oh, you play the part well enough, but you think I didn’t have you investigated a’fore I married you? Be sensible now, and use that brain I know you got inside that pretty little head.”

Wary of saying anything that might induce more agony, Gracella kept silent. It didn’t help her. Steel fingers bit into her flesh and she screamed again. Vaguely distant, she heard the man with the bandaged leg protesting, being told to “sit the fuck down.”

“Ain’t nobody to hear you, honey. I sent the staff home.” Harrington rose, knees creaking, and nodded to the man standing over his wife as she writhed weakly. “Just be sure you don’t mark her where it will show,” he said. “She’ll talk soon enough.”

“They all do,” the man said without undue conceit—he was simply stating a fact.

And he was right. Gracella held out another couple of minutes, until she prayed for unconsciousness that was never allowed to her, before she caved. She closed her eyes briefly, felt the slide of tears from the corner of her eyes, and gave them what they wanted—Zach Culhane’s name.

. . .

Six Months Ago

His mistake was thinking he could fuck her, and then fuck her over.

Feigning sleep on the tumbled bed, Gracella watched through slit eyelids as the cowboy stealthily rifled through her purse. She never carried much cash—maybe five hundred for emergencies. If he’d asked, she would have given him what she had in any case. It was chickenfeed, and Lord alone knew the boy had been worth it, but what was his name?

When they got back to her suite, they’d each been in too much of an all-fired rush getting the other naked to bother making introductions, or even closing the drapes. Now, the glittering midnight skyline of Dallas provided enough light for her to admire the cut of his abs as he folded the bills into the pocket of his unbuttoned Levi’s.

That same denim molded to his perfectly formed ass when he bent to retrieve the boots and shirt he’d thrown aside. Gracella groaned, managed to turn it into the kind of noise that one satisfied woman might be expected to make in a post-fuck dream. And for once she was only half faking it.

He froze, eyes raking over her. She was still in a face-down sprawl across the king-size bed, head turned toward him, with her right arm under the pillow, her left dangling off the edge of the mattress.

As he came closer, Gracella concentrated on keeping her breathing steady and slow.

But she barely suppressed a flinch when his fingertips touched her hair at the nape of her neck. He let out a sigh as he drew a soft line along bicep and forearm to her exposed wrist. Then those dextrous fingers circled, flicked, and the white gold Cartier Le Dona watch—an anniversary gift from her husband—dropped loose into his waiting paw.

What the fuck? Okay, cowboy, you’ve had your fun…

Gracella grabbed his hand, twisting her body to yank him off balance and halfway onto the bed. As she did so, her right hand snaked out from under the pillow. In it was her Smith & Wesson revolver, chambered for .357 Magnum rounds. Right at that moment there were five of the little beauties available at the twitch of her right forefinger.

Since she was eight years old, Gracella had been able to hit a rattlesnake from the back of a moving horse with less than three rounds. Considering she had the front blade sight rammed up hard under his jawbone, she reckoned she’d need just the one.

She’d slipped the gun out of her purse when he’d gone to the bathroom, something about the way he’d gotten out of bed setting her alarm bells ringing.

There was considerate—not wanting to disturb her—and then there was downright sneaky.

Now, he reared back as far as his spine would bend. It wasn’t far enough to escape the prod of the S&W’s muzzle. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing jerkily in his throat, and spoke past gritted teeth.

“Hey, babe! Ease up, will you?”

“Now why would I wanna go and do a dumb thing like that, huh, cowboy?”

“It’s not what it looks like—”

“Oh no, by my guess it’s exactly what it looks like,” she cut in. “Now back off and put the watch on the goddamn table.”

He shifted his weight as if to comply, then lunged, knocking her hand away and pinning it to the mattress. She expected he’d either try to wrench the gun from her grasp or make a run for it, but instead he dropped his head and sucked her exposed nipple into his mouth.

The unexpected jolt of pleasure made her breath hitch sharply in her throat. Her back arched of its own accord. When he released her with a last nip of his teeth, he paused a moment, as if expecting her to punch him, or shoot him—or both.

When she did neither, he carefully laid the watch between her breasts like an offering and straightened, reaching into his back pocket for the money.

“Keep it,” Gracella said. “You’ve got some nerve, cowboy, but I like your style.”

He grinned and tipped the brim of an imaginary Stetson. “Ma’am.”

Raised up on her elbows, she watched him get halfway to the door before she asked, “This how you make your living—rolling bored rich bitches?”

“There are worse ways, babe,” he said. “But no, this I do just for fun.”

“What else do you do?”

He shrugged. “Whatever will earn me a few bucks.”

“Legal? Or otherwise?”

“‘Legal’ is okay.” He grinned again, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “But otherwise is a whole lot better.”

Gracella threw him a sultry look as she threw off the sheets. “Then come back to bed, cowboy. I may just have work for you.”

. . .

Twelve Hours Earlier

“Gracella, my dear, you look awful. Whatever did those animals do to you?”

Gracella lifted her wan cheek for the federal court judge’s kiss, aware of the residual pain in her body caused even by so slight a movement. She caught her husband’s unyielding gaze from across the great room, holding sway among his political cronies, and gave the judge a fractional smile.

“It was a most unpleasant experience,” she said without inflection. “Something you hope will never occur in your own home.”

The elderly man followed her sightline and sighed. “Ah. Yes, I’m sure it was,” he murmured. He put a gentle hand on her arm. “My dear, I wish there was something I could—”

But Harrington had crossed the distance between them with every appearance of playing the attentive host.

“Judge,” he greeted with icy cordiality. “And how’s that lovely goddaughter of yours?”

The judge paled and muttered some conventional response. As a warning, Harrington’s words came across loud and clear. The girl in question had fallen in with the wrong crowd, hooked into drugs, been tricked into muling for one of the Mexican cartels. Getting her out, and clean, and hushing the whole thing up had taken more money and influence than the judge alone could provide.

He would hardly meet Gracella’s eyes as she edged away, trying not to limp. Harrington curved an arm round her ribcage and she went instantly still. He knew where to find every bruise and tender spot under the concealing long gown.

“Goin’ somewhere, honey?”

“To my room,” she said, voice brittle. “I have a headache—the stress of today’s…events, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” Harrington echoed, his eyes mocking her. “You run along now, and be a good girl.”

And those words were a warning too.

She excused herself to their guests and left the great room, with its twenty-four-foot ceiling, flaming fire in the fieldstone hearth, and wagon wheel chandeliers. But as she tottered along the corridors toward the main staircase, Gracella’s spine began to stiffen—and not simply from the beating.

With a glance behind her, she slipped off her heels and made her way to the cellar steps. As she descended, noises from the rest of the house faded behind her. Instead, she heard the faint rasp of someone trying to breathe around the pain, a scuffle of cloth against the concrete floor, the clink of metal.

And she became aware of something else too. Something that brought the hairs bolt upright at the back of her neck.

The smell of charred flesh like an outdoor barbecue.

Her mind recoiled even as her feet took her forward. In the far recesses of the cellar, out of reach of her husband’s precious wine, slumped a man in bloodied clothing. He didn’t move as she approached. Only when she bent to touch his leg did he jerk in reaction, loosing a hoarse cry of protest and drawing his knees up to his chest. Or he tried to. The chain locked around one ankle brought him up short.

“Zach?”

She knelt and tipped his head back, almost wept at what she saw there. Burned into the side of her lover’s face was a Q inside a diamond—the same mark branded into every head of cattle on the Crystal Q.

Gracella swore softly and ran her hands down his body. She found numerous other matted, scorched patches where they hadn’t even bothered to remove his clothing first before they’d applied the red-hot iron, fusing the fabric into his flesh.

“Zach!” she said again, more urgently this time. “Jesús, cowboy.”

His head lifted slowly and he looked at her with glazed eyes. They’d given him something to take the edge off, she realized. Or, more likely, to keep him quiet while the party went on above his head.

“Hey, babe,” he slurred. “Sure am a cowboy now, ain’t I?”

She sat back, moving slow against the pain stabbing through her own body. Nothing to what he must be enduring, but bad enough, even so.

At last, she said in a small voice, “You were always planning to run out on me, weren’t you? I was just another rich bitch to roll.”

He hesitated, and that told her all she needed to know.

“Nothing personal, babe.”

“S’okay.” She shrugged, forgetting, and flinched at the sudden spike through her shoulder. “If I’m honest, I never expected you to do anything different.”

Despite the admission, he looked momentarily affronted, then let out a long, careful breath. “My one chance to make some serious money.” He gave a lopsided smile tinged with sadness. “Blow this town and go live like a king down in South America, y’know? Honduras maybe. Shack on the beach. Pretty maid all my own to cook and clean…” His voice drifted away, hazy, then he blinked and dragged his focus back onto her. She could see what the effort cost him. “You know he’s gonna kill the both of us, don’t you?”

She gave a little nod.

“So run, babe, while you still got the chance.” He rolled his head back against the wall, letting his eyes close. “Run fast, and go long.”

“Uh-huh. I’m looking at how well that worked out for you.”

The same lopsided smile again, the best he could manage. “You’re smarter than I ever was, Gracella. If anyone can stay ahead of that old bastard, I’d put my money on you.”

She bit back the comment that “his” money had been stolen twice over. Then it was a groan she was biting back as she struggled to her feet and had to grab the nearest wine rack to get her there.

“I’ve nowhere to run where Clovis wouldn’t find me,” she said, “so what’s the point in running? I’d only die tired.”

. . .

Three Years Ago

Gracella shoved through the doors to the emergency room at a dead run and skidded to a stop on sequined white cowboy boots. She almost bowled over a junior doctor who was too busy gaping at her sudden appearance to pay attention to his own feet.

“I need help! Please!” she begged, grabbing hold of his arm with bloodied fingers. He just froze and she glared at him.

The doctor—who must have seen just about everything in his time—was reduced from weary efficiency to tongue-tied stuttering. “B-but you…you’re the Range Rider girl!”

Gracella bit back a shriek of frustration, realizing belatedly that she was still in her full promotional outfit. Her attire consisted of the boots, pearl-laden Stetson over wild black curls, a miniscule fringed bikini bra, and suede chaps worn over a diamante G-string that left her ass out in the wind.

“I sure am, honey chil’,” she assured him, plastering on the Southern twang her Range Rider contract specified. She was already linking her arm firmly through his and swinging him toward the doors. “Now step right this way.”

The sudden chill of the hospital air conditioning had her nipples standing out almost as far as his eyes. As long as she kept her chest thrust out, Gracella knew she could lead him by the cock wherever she needed to.

And right now, she needed him outside.

Out in the windswept night, under the glare of the lights covering the ambulance loading dock, she’d abandoned her car with the driver’s door open and the engine still running. The wipers still scraped across the now-dry windshield.

And her best friend in the world still lay unconscious and broken in the passenger seat, bleeding into the cloth upholstery.

As soon as Gracella yanked the door open and the doctor saw Ashleigh, his big brain finally took over from his little brain. He elbowed Gracella aside and leaned over the girl, checking her vital signs and yelling for assistance.

Everything happened fast after that.

Her part over, Gracella sagged, delayed reaction making her tremble like a foal in its first thunderstorm. They wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, pushed a vending machine cup of something hot and sweet into her hands.

Later, she recalled only odd images that imprinted almost randomly on her mind. Running figures in ill-fitting surgical scrubs. A gurney with one wheel that skittered on the wet concrete. Sterile wrappings ripped from needles and drips and tubes, and strewn to flutter away into the night. An inflatable bag over Ashleigh’s nose and mouth with a nurse squeezing it rhythmically to force air into the girl’s unwilling lungs.

One of the hospital staff was asking her questions—Ashleigh’s personal details, a number for her parents, whether she had Medicare. Gracella mumbled answers through chattering teeth.

“And can you tell us what happened to your friend? It looks like she’s taken quite a fall.”

Gracella straightened too quickly and the room lurched around her. “That was no fall! Her bastard of a boyfriend showed up, accusin’ Ashleigh of flirtin’ when she was only doing the promo work she’s paid for, same as me.” She jerked a hand dismissively toward her clothing, or lack of it. “Just because the folks at Range Rider dress us up like hookers, that don’t mean we behave like ’em. But he kicked her down the damn stairs and kept right on kickin’ her.”

The woman glanced at her sharply. “Did you call the cops?”

Gracella shook her head. “Didn’t have my cell, and if I’d left her there to go get it, the bastard would’a killed her.”

The woman hurried away, returning a short while later with two uniformed officers. Gracella repeated her story. They seemed more interested in the event the Range Rider girls had been attending—and who else might have been there.

One cop moved out of earshot and spoke into his radio. When he returned he murmured something to the other man, who nodded without expression. Then he turned to Gracella again.

“Ma’am, have you been drinking this evening?”

“What?” She threw up her hands. “What’s that got to do with any damn thing?”

“Just the facts, ma’am. We’ve gotten reports that your vehicle was seen driving erratically and I smell booze on you. Are you willing to perform a Field Sobriety Test?”

“I work for Range Rider and I just spent the entire evening handing out free beer at some fancy party after the Cowboys game. You think I’m not gonna smell of booze?”

But even as she spoke, she recalled the couple of cocktails she’d been persuaded to drink by the vice president of Range Rider as the party wound down, and the glass of champagne. Or was it two?

Anxiety manifested as temper. “Of course I was driving erratically,” she spat. “I’d just watched that bastard Kyle tryin’ to kick my best friend to death! How would you expect me to drive after that?”

“Nevertheless, ma’am, if you are not willin’ to perform the FST, I will be forced to place you under arrest and have the folks here carry out a chemical blood test.”

The two cops stepped apart, an automatic move to split her attention. One of them shook loose the cuffs from his belt.

Seriously rattled now, Gracella shot to her feet, the blanket dropping from her shoulders. She needed this job to pay her way through school. “Wait a damn minute—”

By the time her immediate boss arrived, with several other men in tow from the party including the Range Rider VP who’d plied her with drink, she was facedown on the tile floor with her hands cuffed behind her and one cop’s knee between her shoulder blades to keep her there. She was cussing long and loud.

They all started arguing over the top of her, indistinguishable harsh voices. She closed her eyes against it all. She knew without being told that bringing the Range Rider brand into disrepute was cause for instant dismissal.

But getting caught on a DUI would mean more stringent penalties. They could even demand she repay everything she’d earned so far this season, and most of it was already long spent…

“Now hold hard,” said a loud male voice above her, enough authority in his tone to quell the other men instantly. “Sounds to me like this young lady was on a mission o’ mercy, and maybe we should be cuttin’ her a little slack.”

And before she knew it, she was back on her feet with her hands freed and a silk-soft tuxedo jacket draped around her shivering shoulders.

The voice, and the jacket, belonged to a tall, lean man with the tan of the great outdoors and the watchful eyes of an old-time lawman. She vaguely remembered him from the party. He was quite a bit older than Gracella, but expensively dressed and still attractive. And clearly, he had power—enough power to hold others to his command—which was his most attractive feature of all.

Within ten minutes she was gliding through night-time Dallas in the back of his stretch Lincoln, all charges dropped. He made calls to the hospital on his cell, bullied his way through the bureaucracy to find out Ashleigh’s condition. She was stable, her parents already on their way down from Tulsa. Alongside him, Gracella sat in what she recognized later was a star struck daze.

When they arrived at her hotel and the driver held open the rear door, Gracella at last remembered her manners. “I’m truly grateful for everything you’ve done tonight, sir. How can I ever thank you?”

“By havin’ dinner with me tomorrow evenin’, honey,” he said smoothly. “I’ll send the limo to pick you up.”

He seemed to take her silence as acceptance, and in her naivety she mistook arrogance for sophistication.

She climbed out, paused, and glanced back into the limo. “I don’t even know your name.”

“My name is Harrington—Clovis Harrington.”

Six weeks later he proposed, and Gracella thought she’d reached the end of her troubles.

Instead, they were just beginning.

It wasn’t until six months after she married him that she discovered who’d tipped the police to her possible drunk driving that evening. By that time, no act of petty cruelty seemed beyond her husband.

. . .

Thirty Minutes Earlier

Clovis Harrington leaned against the rear wheelarch of the Chevy Silverado dually pickup, watching Traynor operate the backhoe. They were way out on one of the more deserted stretches of Crystal Q land, well beyond sight of any habitation.

It was early morning, the sun only just beginning to clear the far hills and chase the chill out of the air. Harrington sipped hot coffee from an insulated travel cup while he watched his foreman work. Traynor was good with the backhoe, manipulating the articulated arm and bucket with a smooth precision that belied the misgivings he’d voiced about the purpose of the exercise.

They’d hauled the excavator on a flatbed trailer towed behind the dually, driving out from the homestead into the pre-dawn darkness to the same GPS coordinates Harrington had cause to use a time or two in the past.

No doubt he would have cause to use ’em again.

Or maybe his wife should take an overdose in her own bedroom? He pondered over this as the hole Traynor was digging grew in size. Being able to show a body might cause fewer questions—especially when he had a tame doc and the local sheriff’s department on a short leash.

Anyway, it was high time he traded in his wife for a newer model.

The noise of the backhoe meant the two men didn’t hear the approaching Bell 407GX until the downwash from the main rotor began to flatten the shrub around them, gusting grit into Harrington’s eyes and threatening to blow the tools and tarp right out of the back of the dually.

The helicopter circled once and set down about fifty yards away. It carried the livery of the sheriff’s department. Harrington thought he recognized Deputy José Martinez in the co-pilot’s seat and relaxed enough to lift a hand in greeting.

He glanced at Traynor. The damn fool had shut off the backhoe and frozen, halfway out of the cab, a miserable and downright guilty look on his face. Harrington glared until the man slumped back into the seat.

Martinez was out of the helo now and striding toward them as the rotor slowly spun down behind him. So, this ain’t no flyin’ visit, Harrington realized, and almost cracked a smile at his own pun.

“Mornin’, deputy,” he called into the unexpected quiet. “What can I do for you?”

“Mr Harrington,” Martinez returned gravely. “Can I ask what it is y’all are doin’ here, sir?”

“My land, son. My business.” But seeing the set of the other man’s jaw, Harrington added, “Matter of fact, we’re diggin’ a coupla new wells. Cattle gotta have water.”

Martinez didn’t reply to that, just walked past. Before Harrington could protest, the deputy had put a boot on the dually’s outer wheel and hoisted himself up into the pickup bed. He bent and lifted a corner of the tarp with the caution of a man who already knew what he was going to find.

From a ruined face, Zach Culhane’s lifeless eyes stared back at him.

Martinez switched his gaze to Harrington, who met it with a cool disregard, and emptied the dregs of his coffee out into the dirt.

“Fuckin’ my wife was one thing, but then he had to go fuck with me,” he said calmly. “And that, son, is never a good idea.”

Martinez nodded, like he got the warning for what it was. He dropped the edge of the tarp and climbed out of the pickup bed. Harrington opened his mouth to tell Traynor to get back to work but the deputy forestalled him.

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to place you under arrest for the murder of Zachary Elmore Culhane,” he said, shaking the cuffs loose from his belt. “You have the right to remain silent.”

“What the fuck d’you think you’re doin’ son?”

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“You gone crazy? I own you, boy. You’re makin’ the biggest mistake of your goddamn life!”

“You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

“You’re finished! I will fuckin’ finish you for this!”

“Do you understand these rights, sir?”

“’Course I understand my damn rights. You think I’m some goddamn wetback can’t speak English?”

Martinez countered that with a bland stare but his hands were less than gentle as they cinched the steel bracelets tight around Harrington’s wrists, his hands in front of him. For the first time, a sense of unease scuttered through Harrington’s chest. He swallowed, tamped down his anger, and thought fast.

“Listen, son, the guy was havin’ an affair with my wife. I reckon he tried to break it off and she musta killed him in some kinda jealous rage. Maybe it was an accident,” he offered in a reasonable, placatory tone. “Anyhow, he was already dead when we found him. I was tryin’ to protect my wife. I admit it was the wrong thing to do, but I guess I just wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”

Martinez didn’t reply to that either, just turned and waved toward the helicopter.

One of the rear doors swung open and a man jumped down with a bulky bag on a strap over his shoulder. Even though the Bell’s rotor was barely moving now, the man jogged forward with his head instinctively ducked, so it wasn’t until he got closer that Harrington realized with a jolt it was that little rat, Lebermann. The unease swelled into a sharp pain in the vicinity of Harrington’s breastbone. His heart began punching like a fist.

“Doc, if you’d be so kind?” Martinez said.

Lebermann avoided Harrington’s eye as he scrambled clumsily into the pickup bed. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves before making a brief examination of the body. Then the doctor produced a fancy camera from the bag and took photographs from all angles, like some goddamn CSI on the TV. The only noise was the whine of the flashgun recharging between shots.

“This man has been tortured and then shot,” he announced when he was done.

Harrington had to force himself not to jeer. He cleared his throat.

“My wife has a gun—a Smith & Wesson .357. Gave it to her myself.”

Martinez asked, “And tell me, sir, does your wife also own a branding iron?”

Harrington did not respond.

Lebermann reached into the bag again, this time for a sheaf of papers with photographs clipped to the pages. The topmost one, Harrington saw, was a close-up of a woman’s torso, covered in bruises.

“It’s my professional opinion that Mrs. Murieta-Harrington is in no state to have tortured anyone,” he said meaningfully. “Indeed, she has been the victim of considerable physical assault herself. It’s all right here in my report.”

Martinez took the papers with a nod. From the way he didn’t even glance at them, Harrington gathered he already knew what they had to say. A cold fear washed down over him.

“What do you want?”

Martinez shook his head. “I ain’t the one you need to negotiate with, sir.”

The rear door of the helo opened again and two more people got out. A man and a woman, neither of whom moved easily. This time, Harrington recognized them by their gait alone.

Gracella, leaning on the arm of the federal court judge.

When they neared, he said, “Shoulda known you’d be behind this, honey—you scheming bitch.”

“Gracella.”

“What the—?”

“It’s Gracella. Not honey. Not wife. My name is Gracella.”

Harrington took a breath to lambast her, until the judge said mildly, “You might want to hold off on expressing any colorful opinions, Mr. Harrington, till you’ve learned what this lady has in mind.”

Harrington grunted.

The judge gave a small smile and withdrew from the inside pocket of his jacket a legal document—Harrington had seen enough to know one instantly. The judge unfolded it and held it up for him to read.

“Divorce papers?” He scanned further down out of ingrained habit, waiting for the catch, but saw nothing outrageous or out of the ordinary.

“Divorce papers,” Gracella agreed. “Sign them, and this all goes away.”

“You signed a pre-nup,” Harrington said, baffled. “You won’t get a cent.”

“All I want from you is my freedom.”

He glanced at Martinez, who offered him a pen without uncuffing his hands. Harrington hesitated a moment, then shrugged and scrawled his signature, letting the pen drop in the dirt when he was done.

He glared at the men surrounding him. “And what do you bastards want?”

“From you? Nothing,” Martinez said. “Just bear in mind we have all the evidence of what you’ve done here safely tucked away, and there ain’t no statute of limitations on murder.”

“As this crime was carried out in retaliation for the robbery at the Crystal Q yesterday, it becomes capital murder,” the judge said, “which, as I’m sure you’re aware, carries the death penalty here in the great state of Texas.”

“And in case you were thinking in terms of a little more retaliation, Mrs. Murieta-Harrington has already returned to us certain, um, incriminating evidence,” Lebermann said.

Harrington’s gaze shot to his soon-to-be ex-wife. She stared right back at him, coolly defiant.

“Looks like you fell real lucky, hon—Gracella.”

“Luck?” she queried. “Oh, no. Luck had nothing to do with it.” She laughed out loud at the consternation in his face, leaned in close enough to kiss—or bite. “You followed the plan I laid out, honey—every step of the way.”

Harrington’s eyes widened and slid involuntarily to the body in the pickup. “But—”

“Yeah, you got it,” Gracella said. “If I hadn’t thrown you a sacrificial goat, well, we wouldn’t be here now, would we?” She glanced at the body, and the trace of sadness in her face was chased away by the fierce note in her voice. “And when it comes to betrayal, well, Zach damn well started it.”

. . .

Six Hours Earlier

The gathering at the homestead was long over when Susan Treacher showed Deputy Martinez into the living room and closed the doors behind him. He paused uncertainly just inside, his hat in his hands, and nodded cautiously to the three people already present.

“Your Honor. Doc. Mrs. Murieta-Harrington.” He focused on Gracella. “What’s this about, ma’am?”

Gracella rose, something she achieved only by levering up on the arm of the chair, devoid of her usual grace.

“If I had balls, my husband would have me by them,” she said flatly. “Just as he’s gotten you all by yours.”

She waited for denials. None came.

“I take it, then, that you wouldn’t exactly be averse to finding a way out of his…grip?”

Martinez glanced at the others and saw a kind of desperate hope reflected in their eyes. He cleared his throat.

“What did you have in mind?”

. . .

Now

As the Bell lifted off, the judge leaned forward in his seat and gave Gracella a worried frown.

“Will you be able to manage, my dear? Under the circumstances, I’ve no doubt the pre-nup agreement could have been broken.”

Gracella shook her head. “I meant what I said—all I want is my freedom.”

Martinez twisted in his seat and looked back at her. He was smiling. “Where to, Ms. Gracella?”

“The homestead,” she said. She flashed the judge a sheepish look. “Okay, there’s one thing I need to pick up there before I leave—of sentimental value.”

The portrait of the Marilyn Monroes from her bedroom wall. Oh, she liked the painting well enough, but tucked behind the frame was a memory stick containing a great deal of fascinating information on the members of the North Texas Citizens Improvement League.

She leaned back in her seat and watched the acres of the Crystal Q blur past beneath them. With the sun coming up like this the ranch really did look quite beautiful, but she wouldn’t miss it for a moment. She had something far prettier—the dirt on a whole bunch of very influential people.

And the brains to use it.

 

 

 

Chapter 5 - The Financier

By David Corbett

 

As the twin-engine Cessna banked toward the Clyde River airstrip, he looked out the weather-scarred window across Davis Strait and saw, looming beyond Baffin Bay over the coast of Greenland, a phenomenon resembling a sky-high wall of rolling smoke.

The pilot—a short-haired, cinnamon-freckled blonde named Rachel, ex-RCAF, proud owner of a malamute named Amos, don’t get her started—followed the direction of his gaze and shouted over the engine, “Looks like you could get socked in here for a few days.”

He feigned unconcern. “Not a problem. Time’s not the issue.”

I came all this distance to vanish, he thought. How could a blizzard not help?

With Zach Culhane no doubt dead or nearly so, squeezed of all relevant information concerning the disaster at the Crystal Q—specifically, who else was involved—there was no rush whatsoever in returning to so-called normal life.

Though Culhane didn’t know enough to put his finger on a map and say, “You can find him there,” and he had no actual name to attach to the moniker “the Financier,” the truth remained that no escape plan was perfect, no firewall impregnable, no alias inscrutable.

An arctic snowstorm? Bring it on.

He reached in his pocket for his itinerary, issued to the blandly named Carl Russell. He’d not been foolish enough to try to finagle a phony passport on short notice and wanted to kick himself for not planning ahead with a bit more foresight—or paranoia. That said, in an era of international terror, acquiring false passports that could withstand even routine scrutiny required contacts far above the pay grade of even his most sophisticated criminal associates.

Instead, he’d walked the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara, using his own passport at the checkpoint and telling the customs inspector he was meeting friends for dinner at the Sheraton on the Falls. Then he slipped into a waiting car parked at the casino—courtesy of a hedge fund associate who’d asked no questions—found a counterfeit Ontario driver’s license in the glovebox, and, for all intents and purposes, vanished into thin air.

First stop, Ottawa, where the freshly incarnated Carl Russell, using cash, purchased the clothes and other gear he’d need for this excursion, then hopped on a flight for Iqaluit in the territory of Nunavut, where he caught his connection with the malamute-besotted Rachel and headed for the opposite end of Baffin Island.

He’d never been one for bucket lists, but after watching Iditarod coverage on ESPN, he’d developed an itch to hop on a dog sled with a team of huskies and head off into the icy nowhere. Turned out traveling all the way to Anchorage wasn’t necessary—the east coast was equally, amenably frigid. And, more to the point, remote.

His destination, lying along the fabled Northwest Passage, lay closer to the Arctic circle than Alaska’s North Slope, and even with the onset of spring and the ravages of global warming, snow lay heavy on the ground into May.

And judging from the front he could see moving west from the Cessna’s cockpit, more was on the way. A man might very well get lost in it.

An Inuit guide from the trek outfit greeted him on the landing strip, just outside the corrugated Quonset hut that passed for a terminal. He was small, leather-skinned, with a windblown mop of wiry black hair atop a baked apple of a face, creased with a tobacco-stained smile. He wore seal-skin pants, seal-skin boots, and a flimsy wool pullover.

“I am Miki,” he said in vaguely accented English, offering a thickly callused hand and nodding eastward toward the oncoming storm. “I am sorry, but I think we will not start out tomorrow. Maybe day after, or day after that.”

“That’s what I gathered. Not a problem on my end.”

“The lodge will charge you for the extra nights.”

“Again, not a problem.”

“And you will probably have to share a room with one of the hunters.”

A sudden pinprick somewhere along his spine. “Beg your pardon?”

“They will head south when we head north. But no one goes out till the storm goes by.”

A shared room. With an unknown hunter, which meant a gun of some sort, possibly a knife. Not the plan.

“Is there nowhere else, someplace I could get a room of my own?”

Miki offered a wincing smile and shook his head. “Only one hotel. I am sorry.”

Complain too much or too loud, he thought, you’ll only draw attention. Make an enemy.

Miki pointed west, suggesting they head off, and once each man had grabbed a duffel they marched with crunching footsteps toward the scramble of low-slung pre-fab houses that made up the town, each seemingly nailed in place by a twenty-foot TV antenna. Here and there he spotted a wood-plank rack for stretching sealskins, or a husky, beautifully furred with its mask-like face and haunting blue eyes, chained in place on a ten-foot snow drift, its home.

. . .

The lodge was a one-story structure of long pinewood hallways and small tan rooms, but a great stone fireplace anchored one end of the lobby, and welcoming flames crackled within the hearth.

A half-dozen men, Americans from the look of them, sat around the fireplace apron, slumped in low leather chairs and sharing a fifth of something brown. The hunters, he supposed.

One of them got up and ambled over, bringing with him the bottle and an empty glass. He had a wind-burned face, rough blond hair, and several days’ stubble.

“Welcome to the middle of Bumfuck.” He held up the bottle. On closer inspection: bourbon. Wild Turkey. “Dry as a nun’s cunt up here. Wanna drink, gotta bring your own. Where y’all call home?”

Neck hairs bristled at the sound of that accent. Texas. Could that really be mere coincidence?

“Ottawa.” A brisk handshake. “Ontario, specifically.”

“Come up to hunt?”

“No, no. I’ll be sledding up the coast toward Eglington Fjord.” Inwardly, he chastised himself: Don’t talk so much, broadcast your plans. “Just see the sites. Take some pictures.”

“Pictures. Huh. Well, we’ve been out just one day, but already bagged two caribou and tagged a few wolves too, just to scare the others off. Fucking scavengers. But that’s not what we came up for. Spring hunt’s begun. Polar bear. Then this damn storm.”

“Yes. I hear we’ll be doubling up. In the rooms, I mean.”

Finally, the man poured some of the whiskey, and offered the glass. “Yeah, we all got bunkmates now. Like good little scouts. Pain, ain’t it?”

. . .

When he reached his room, one of the two narrow beds already lay cluttered with gear. No signs of any weapons, which only begged the question: Were they hidden? Stored elsewhere?

He told himself not to overreact, but there lay the problem, he’d never had to react at all before. The crime had always taken place so far away, the risk an abstraction, so remote as to be negligible. Now? Several men already had died, and they were mere prelude. Clovis Harrington would not stop until every man, woman, and child who’d dared to cross him learned that insolence had a price. And the price would be paid.

But how could that mean he somehow knew about this spot, this trip? Was he really so all-knowing—or capable of near instant phone, internet, personal surveillance?

Maybe that wasn’t the issue. What if Culhane let slip information before the heist went south? He was definitely stupid and careless enough. What if inquiries into who else was involved were already being made? If that were the case, it wouldn’t take much for a man like Clovis Harrington to assemble a group of killers, kit them out as hunters, and send them at a moment’s notice to the frozen edge of the continent.

Or was that just the paranoia talking?

It did seem a bit drastic, even a special kind of madness, to think such a thing, and yet that was exactly what Harrington would do if given the chance. Send men to collect him, truss him up, bring him back like bagged game. Or maybe they’d drag him out onto the snowpack, gut him, field dress him like a buck, then take a snapshot for Harrington’s trophy wall.

He studied his absent, nameless roommate’s gear, looking for some clear sign of evil or innocent intent. Snow gear, a knapsack, goggles. The fear began to roll in waves, he felt a need to vomit, trembling so bad neither hand could restrain the other. Like the phony you are, he thought. The money man.

A knock came at the door. It creaked open. The baked apple face appeared. “We need to go to the market,” Miki said. “To get food. Before, you know, the storm.”

 

The wind had picked up, whipping between the houses and the smoke-blackened snowdrifts. The market lay only three blocks away, but with the ice that had formed beneath the snow the walk felt like climbing a hill of powdered glass.

Once there, he found the shelves stocked with nothing but canned goods—Spam, ravioli, kippers, chili. No liquor, or even beer or wine—alcoholism, he thought, no doubt a plague up here, and he remembered what the Texan had said, they’d brought their own. From wherever.

He bought food enough to last two days, in case the storm lasted. Miki said they’d restock before hitting the sled and heading out. That prospect, a future, if only a day or two ahead, heartened him. There still was a plan.

Back at the lodge, he opened one of the cans of chili and dug in with a spoon borrowed from the pantry, eating it cold, chasing it down with tap water as he switched back and forth between the two TV channels available, both so uninteresting the boredom could have served as a narcotic if not for his banjo nerves.

As he was spooning out the last slithery beans from the can, his bunkmate appeared: one of the hunters—heavyset, almost soft compared to the others, wheezing from lack of breath and eyes in a perpetual, baffled squint. He staggered, clearly drunk, and wordlessly swept his gear to the floor, then collapsed facedown on the bed.

He lay like that, not moving, for hours.

. . .

As night progressed, the wind intensified, battering the lodge with howling gusts. Sleep was impossible, so he gathered his coat and went outside.

Three of the hunters stood there in shirtsleeves braving the storm, laughing against the wind, knee-deep in newly drifted snow. They gestured him over, offered some more bourbon, straight from the bottle this time.

How easy, he thought, to die out here—a snapped neck, or pushed facedown into the snow, suffocated. Blame it on exposure. How far were they from the nearest police station, clinic, jail?

Unable to bring himself to accept the bottle, he instead gestured feebly he was going back in. They stared for a moment, as though trying to weigh this lack of grace, then nodded to each other and turned back to the whirling sheets of snow, like drunken sailors on the deck of a pitching icebreaker.

Back in the room, the chubby roommate lay exactly in the same position, like a tuna ready for flailing, still fully dressed, down to the boots, but snoring now. A ruse? Was he simply waiting for this weakling, this tourist, this phony Canadian—the target—to fall asleep, the better to beat him or gut him or strangle him where he lay?

Texas. Christ. Of all the places on earth…

He sat up in bed all night, listening to every rattle and shudder as the wind and snow hammered the roof and outer walls, watching the man across the room, studying his every twitch as he lay there, a shadow in the darkness.

. . .

Come noon the next day the storm had yet to lift, but its force was clearly spent. He found himself excruciatingly anxious to leave, his lack of sleep not helping. Walls seemed to sigh as he passed, the floors bucked under his feet as though trying to shake him off.

At one point the stubble-faced, wind-burned Texan sidled up and once again tried to kick-start a conversation. Luckily the door to the room was only a few steps away, and thus easy to back toward, with an agreeable expression in response to whatever it was the man was saying.

Reaching behind, he collected the doorknob, tried to turn it—locked, of course. I’m acting like a coed getting cornered at a party, he thought. He was searching his pocket, trying to dig out his room key, when the door opened suddenly behind him.

He nearly tumbled backward into the room.

It was the roommate. “Thought I heard somebody out here.” His voice was a mumble dragged out of his chest. An awkward exchange of nods all around. Then he stepped back, an invitation to enter, and shortly the door closed again, just the two of them. Roomies. Alone.

It took a moment before he noticed the pistol on the bed. Was it too late to turn around and get out? Was the first man, the blond, still outside, guarding the door, making sure no one interrupted whatever was coming next?

The fleshy roommate picked up the weapon, plopped down on the bed, and glanced up sheepishly.

“I wonder if you could do me a favor.” He held the pistol like a paperweight. “I wasn’t expecting the extra nights up here, the hotel, lodge, whatever the fuck you call this place. I didn’t bring enough cash. Don’t know why I bought this thing in Montreal, not like I needed it to hunt, but I did, buy it I mean, and now I could use the money back. I know it’s a lot to ask—Christ, I don’t even know your name—but I was wondering…”

He held the pistol out—a .38 from the looks of it, revolver.

“Why not sell it to your friends?”

“They’re not my friends.” The man swallowed. “And I look like enough of an asshole to them already. Seriously, I’ll let it go for a hundred. Cost me more than twice that.”

The offer felt beyond strange. So now I’d have a gun, he thought, I’d be armed. And all I’d need to do is pull it out, no matter how innocently, maybe even because I was asked—and then someone, anyone could claim I’d drawn on them. I was a threat. Killing me would be self-defense.

“I don’t really need it for where I’m going. What I came up here for.”

“I’m not asking you to use it. I’m asking you to buy it.”

The man’s soft face seemed even less forbidding from humiliation, the bloodshot eyes his most noteworthy feature. He really didn’t fit with the others. And what to make of that?

“I’ll tell you what. Give me the pistol and whatever ammunition you have, I’ll pay for your half of the room. Last night and tonight both.”

The man tried to smile. “Could you front me a little cash as well? I’m sorry, I sound like a whiny little bitch, I don’t mean to beg, but…”

“Sure.” He took out his wallet, counted out forty Canadian dollars, the bills colorful and crisp and blazoned with faces that meant nothing to him, handed them over. “That do?”

The man couldn’t meet his eyes, just folded the money over quickly, shoved it in his pocket. “Yeah. Thanks. I really appreciate it. I mean that.”

 

By mid-afternoon the snow had stopped, the wind had died. A two-engine Kodiak bearing the RCMP insignia—that distinctive heraldic badge, the crown, the bison head, the garland of maple leaves, Maintiens Le Droit—flew in from the southwest, landing as twilight gathered.

So that was the plan, he thought. Sell me an illegal weapon, God only knows where it came from, how it was used, for what, then snitch me off. How could I be so stupid?

As nonchalantly as possible, he went to the lodge’s front desk and inquired of the clerk standing there, “Any idea what the Mounties are coming for?”

The clerk, a tiny, round-faced Inuit woman in an oversized red-and-blue Canadiens hoodie, shrugged. “Just one Mountie. The others are lawyers, a judge. They come once a month. Have court.”

He’d heard about this—prosecutors and defense counsel fly in with a bailiff to hear whatever cases are pending, drunk and disorderly beefs mostly, the occasional assault or theft. Once in a while, a murder. If need be, they heard civil cases as well, minor stuff. That can’t be all there is to it, he thought, still wondering if or how the gun played into the situation.

On top of which: more bodies. Where would they sleep, he wondered.

The matter resolved itself with the hunters packing up as night fell and heading south in darkness toward their initial campground. So the lumpy roommate won’t be around to drop the dime, he thought, tell the Mountie and prosecutor I have a loaded pistol.

He almost relaxed.

For reconnaissance purposes, he chatted them up as they signed in at the desk.

The Mountie was in his sixties, lantern-jawed, taciturn, fit as a lumberjack, his hair close-cropped and white.

The prosecutor, a birdlike, bespectacled man in a long fur coat, coughed nonstop into a phlegm-spattered kerchief.

The other lawyer, an aide juridique, the equivalent of a public defender, was a shambling, middle-aged woman in a fur-collared snow jacket, her hair pushed up clumsily beneath a wool watch cap, the renegade strands giving her an air of mindless distraction.

The last member of the party appeared to be something of a tagalong. Her name was Adelaide Cote, attractive, mid-twenties, barely five feet tall, even in boots, with porcelain skin and opalescent green eyes, her hair a short brown bob.

“I’m here to help out, if need be,” she said, nodding toward the distracted defense attorney, her supervisor. “Though it all seems pretty straightforward, and the docket’s hardly jam-packed.”

Exactly, he thought. There’s no real reason for you to be here, his paranoia still simmering just below the surface despite the departure of the Texans.

 

The simmer reached a full boil a short time later when Miki, his Inuit guide, knocked on his door.

“Would you mind,” he said, his breath smelling of tinned fish, “if someone joined us on the trip to Eglington Fjord?”

Mind? Fucking right I’d mind. “Who, exactly?”

“The young lawyer who came up today. For court.”

He felt a trembling sensation in his arms—lack of sleep again. And fear.

“Why isn’t she staying behind with the others? Going back once they’re done?”

“I didn’t ask. She just wondered, is it possible. If she pays, we don’t refuse. As easy to take two as one.”

Of course. How rude and unfair and thoughtless could this snotty rich American be, forcing Miki and his partner to turn down the money?

“Can I think about it?”

Miki simply stared with a dull, practiced smile, not even bothering to shrug.

 

Alone in his room, he loaded the pistol, making sure extra bullets were readily at hand in his pocket. Just tell them you’ve changed your mind, he thought. You’ll pay but stay behind, let the lawyer, Adelaide, if that was really her name, go on alone. Feign illness if need be, a sudden bad back from a slip on the ice, arse over tea kettle as they so colorfully say.

Oh, stop your sniveling, he thought. It’s simply beyond the realm of possibilities that this woman has any connection to Harrington. The Texans, yes, fear was at least understandable, if a reach. But how could Harrington identify and locate a lawyer in the French legal assistance program capable of insinuating herself into a team due to come up here at just the right time, not to mention recruit her as an assassin? It was insane. And that just underscored how out of his depth he was, always had been, flirting with crime.

Midlife crisis? Shorthand for juvenile, reckless, and stupid. The idea it would never come back on him, let alone this hard, seemed such a blatant miscalculation he felt his insides boiling with shame. The continuing hangover from his lack of sleep didn’t help—a dull current of tension jagged continuously along every nerve in his body. He needed to rest, needed to think, needed to calm down.

God, how I could use a drink.

Again, sleep failed him. Once, as he almost drifted off, his heart began to thrash so erratically inside his ribcage he thought he was having a seizure of some kind, even a coronary, and he couldn’t draw a breath for what felt like several minutes. The onset of death. Or simply a panic attack—what if you have one out there, on the ice, middle of nowhere? They’ll leave you to die. Harrington’s desire for revenge will prove irrelevant. You’ll do the job yourself by being such a blubbering coward.

He hadn’t felt this helpless against his terror since the very first job, before O’Conner entered his life. A Russian client, one of those extravagantly charismatic wildings with a thundering voice and a crushing handshake and the inescapable whiff of corruption—Murat Nazarov, his name—had suggested fronting a casino scheme. His connections in St. Petersburg had reverse-engineered some of the older machines still in use across the U.S., identifying their algorithms. The operatives would play the slots, hold a cell phone to the tumbler to display the cycle to a scanner in Russia, and once the proper algorithm was identified, a signal would be sent to the phone when it was time to hit the spin button. In a single hour, working several machines in succession, a man could turn a sixty-dollar play into winnings of over twenty thousand dollars. Multiply the number of men to five, extend their play to several hours, you were clearing a million a day, undetected.

Of course, in time, it all fell through. The gang of Russians working the casino floors got rounded up. To their credit, though, they held their mud, lawyered up, ponied up bail, then fled the country. This coincided with six straight weeks of insomnia. He’d never felt so scared.

It should have taught him a lesson, and would have if not for his introduction to O’Conner. The man had a certain kind of power, a reassuring calm and simplicity that let you know it’s okay. The bases are covered. I’m thorough and smart and disciplined.

And that’s how it had been for the length of their partnership. Until now. For all he knew, O’Conner was dead—how was that for simple and powerful? And if O’Conner could be eliminated…

It took over an hour, but his heart settled down, his breathing went from labored to ragged to fitfully steady. He closed his eyes and waited for the sound of footsteps in the hall, a signal that day had begun, even though darkness would linger for several more hours given the latitude. He would rise from bed and pretend he was ready to go. He would do nothing to arouse suspicion. He would watch everyone with excruciating care.

 

Miki’s sidekick was a seemingly ancient Inuit named Anik who spoke no English. He laid out the traces for the dogs, ten in all, while Miki loaded gear onto the sled and a snowmobile they called a Skidoo: tents, sleeping bags, fishing rods, waterproof mats, a hotplate with butane tanks, food—human, mostly. The dogs would not get fed every day—“Slow them down,” Miki explained—and when they did eat, they’d get strictly protein, seal meat and fish.

For their part, the dogs took in all the activity with languid indifference, looking on while sitting or lying in the freshly drifted snow, blinking against the first real sunlight in days.

Adelaide got kitted out in sealskin—a hooded coat, short-legged britches, knee-high boots, all with the luxurious fur outside, not against the skin. The stiffness of the underlying hide made her arms stick out at doll-like angles. She did a pirouette in the icy air, her breath an immaculate cloud, then danced over, childlike in her happiness.

“I really, really want to thank you for allowing me to come along. I’ve dreamed of this since I was a little girl in Montreal. We went to the jail last night and found out all but one of the defendants wanted to plead out, which pretty much meant I was free.”

She shivered with delight—or so it seemed, hard to know with the biting cold—her smile every bit as radiant as the sun overhead.

“I’m glad to have the company,” he told her. And to his surprise, he actually meant it.

In design, the sled seemed hardly different than what it might have been a century before, only the treated wood and stainless steel hardware distinguishing it from traditional predecessors. The dogs accepted their leads like professionals, and once the gear got stacked and strapped into place, it formed a natural backrest, and he took his position, Adelaide seating herself virtually in his lap, with Miki standing behind. No declamatory “Mush!” to launch them off, just a guttural wordless cry—the dogs plunged ahead, the sled jolted forward, Anik kick-started the Skidoo. They were off.

 

Soon the town vanished in the distance behind them, nothing but endless white all around. The plain gave way to a cliff-bound riverbed, the water frozen over, hard as asphalt, except for a gaping crack dead ahead. Anik and Miki pulled to a stop.

It was decided that Adelaide would remain on the sled, holding on for dear life as Miki, with another bellowing command, sent the dogs racing ahead, straight for the gap. They dove over in loose formation, dragging the sled over the crevasse at top speed, water rushing below. Adelaide screamed with panicky joy as she and the sled went airborne, landing on the gap’s far side.

The dogs just kept running, and she would have disappeared from sight, unable to voice a command they would obey, if not for a pick-like anchor she jammed into the snow, which managed at least to slow the dogs down. Anik and Miki took off on the Skiddoo, taking a long route around beyond the gap in the ice and intercepting Adelaide far in the distance. Then Anik returned for the final rider, Mr. Russell from Ottawa, and he held on tight as the Skiddoo sped quickly over the windswept snow toward the sled.

Mid-afternoon, they stopped to ice fish. Using a six-inch hand drill, Miki bored through the ice, then handed out rods and bits of seal meat for bait. Adelaide wandered off toward a distant bluff to relieve herself in private, and as he watched her totter away in the stiff sealskin suit, the hush of the wind the only sound as wisps of snow rippled over the ice, he felt something like fondness, even admiration. She just seemed so relaxed, so unafraid, so small and yet game for anything.

They caught one fish, no more, and Anik cut it up to feed to the dogs. They journeyed on until darkness thickened around them, deep in a long, winding canyon.

Miki and Anik pitched the tents, then laid out the waterproof mats and blankets, unrolled the sleeping bags side by side, a tight fit inside the small tent. The dogs, loosened from their harnesses but chained, would sleep out in the cold. Adelaide petted each one, saying good night, and they lifted their heads to accept her affection.

The butane stove served as heater inside the tent, despite the warning label that it was not to be used indoors. Dinner was served—canned chili again, but hot—and as a treat before bed: cocoa. Only once they were snugly cocooned inside their sleeping bags did Miki turn off the burner.

The air remained close even as the temperature dropped, fouled by the lingering smell of butane fogged by bad breath and flatulence. Anik’s snoring sawed through the stark black silence.

He felt Adelaide’s body, no larger than a twelve-year-old girl’s, stir from time to time beside him. Strangely, he felt himself relaxing, the first time in days. Not that thoughts of death and vengeance never crossed his mind. They were constant companions, like echoes of one’s own breath in a cave. If this young woman—or Miki or Anik, for that matter—had plans to take him down, then fine, he thought, let me die—and with that he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

 

They rose long before sunrise, ate a breakfast of oatmeal and dried fruit chased with scalding coffee, then packed up their gear and continued heading deeper into the mouth of the river valley, the walls of the bluffs to either side rising up like sentinels packed shoulder-to-shoulder, while off to the east, the first thin rays of dawn cast a bluish sheen along the horizon.

Anik sped off ahead on the Skidoo, searching out possible campsites for that evening, leaving the others alone with the dogs. The silence seemed to descend like a presence, nothing but the sound of the dogs’ churning paws and the sled runners skimming over hard-packed snow. He felt Adelaide easing back against him, her body relaxing into his. He resisted the impulse to wrap his arms around her waist.

Come noon, they stopped, pulling up in the shadow of a snow-capped hill that rose from its base like a stovepipe. As Miki tended to the dogs, Adelaide shook off the hooded sealskin coat, wearing only a turtleneck underneath, and wandered off into the sunlight, shading her eyes and scanning the sky.

A lone Arctic tern sailed far overhead. They’d seen precious little wildlife, only the occasional seal sunning itself beside a hole in the ice, ready to dive back into the water at the merest hint of a nearby bear.

She bent over to adjust her boots, tug them back up to her knees. He turned away, playing the gentleman, not wanting to seem too obvious, checking her out, and gazed down the winding path of the frozen river among the low white hills.

A sudden twitch of instinct, prompted from far below the surface of his mind, made him suddenly turn, and that’s when he saw it, the buck knife sheathed in leather and pulled from deep inside her boot.

A quick tumble of thoughts—no, not thoughts, impressions—suddenly fit together neat and tight, prompting a response, a near instantaneous decision.

First, thank God for sleep, otherwise he would have seen nothing.

Second, his suspicions hadn’t been cowardly, but sound.

Third, a prompt: do what O’Conner would do.

He reached into his pocket, withdrew the .38, stepped quickly toward her, and emptied the cylinder, all six bullets, into her face, her throat, her chest.

The gunshots echoed down the canyon like a giant’s handclaps. He stood there, holding his arm out, pulling the trigger over and over as the terrible echoes faded, giving way to the harmless click-click-click. She lay in the snow where, just a moment before, she’d stood crouching over. Blood drained from the face and neck wounds onto the snow. Her sweater darkened around the bullet holes. She stared, wide-eyed, her mouth moving open and closed in silence as her limbs twitched helplessly from shock.

Finally, he turned toward Miki, the pistol still held rigidly out at arm’s length. The Inuit guide, standing maybe sixty yards away, stared back in silence, as though waiting to hear the impossible. Then he quickly jumped onto the sled, cried out to the dogs, and the team sped off, heading across the drifting snow toward the mouth of the frozen river, growing smaller, smaller, then disappearing beyond a jagged hill.

He walked over and stood there, watching her die, waiting until she lay there still before reaching inside her boot for the knife. The evidence.

Nothing was there.

He turned to look down the canyon, the shadows of the hills stretching long across the snow in the late-day sun. Soon it would be dark, no way to discern his direction, and viciously cold. Wolves would come out, smelling Adelaide’s blood, then him. He was two days from town by dog sled. No telling how long it would take to walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6 - Snake Farm

Manuel Ramos

 

 

 

“It’s been almost a week and you still don’t have any leads? What the hell you doin’, Garza? It was a fuckin’ riot in the middle of the Crystal Q. At least a half-dozen assholes shot up the ranch and each other. I can’t believe that no one’s talkin’, no one knows shit.”

Antonio “Tony” Garza recognized the red hue creeping up his boss’s neck, then along his jaw, nose, finally the forehead. Big Jim Spencer’s face looked like a pudgy glob of pink bubblegum. It meant the chief of police was ready to hit something, or someone, and Garza tensed up.

“Believe it, boss. Even Harrington is playing dumb. You know what his statement said. Claimed he didn’t know what the hell happened at the house. Says he was busy with details for the party. By the time he got to where the action was, no one was left except the dead and wounded ranch hands. Then, when the feds figured out where they split up the money, the only one around was the dead guy, who no one knows, and he ain’t talking.”

He moved a few inches further from Spencer and tried to be inconspicuous.

Garza wanted to tell Big Jim that the Crystal Q wasn’t in their jurisdiction and that every North Texas agency from the FBI to the county dogcatcher claimed the case as theirs. The Kilroy Police Department wasn’t in the mix, official or otherwise. But Big Jim was convinced that some of the thieves scattered into “Kilroy’s bailiwick.” Big Jim obsessed after a headline, something to grab the attention of the suits in Austin.

“When I hired you, I thought you was an upgrade to the usual inbred mutants that wanna play cops and robbers.” Big Jim talked as slow as the tumbleweeds that bounced against the curb of Main Street. “Not by much. You ain’t exactly J. Edgar. If I hadn’t needed someone immediately, I might’ve passed you over, just ’cause your history is sketchy. But I hoped with your degree from UT and your experience over in Lubbock that you’d add somethin’ to our department. So far, I ain’t seen it. Not sure you’re all that cut out for police work.”

Garza flinched. He took the job in Kilroy because he didn’t have much choice. He needed a fresh start more urgently than Spencer needed a replacement. The trouble in Lubbock—that damn Clara Johnson, no way she was only sixteen—had driven him out of Buddy Holly’s hometown, but so far it hadn’t caught up to him in Kilroy. Clara had cost him a lot of money. Well spent, but expensive.

“We’ll get something, boss.” The words sounded hollow. “If I could lean on Harrington’s wife, Gracella, that’d be a good place to start. But I can’t even get on the ranch, much less have a one-on-one with Mrs. Harrington.”

“Do whatever you have to do. The shoot-out has stirred up too much negative attention for Texas. The damn Citizens Improvement League is making life miserable for cops. It’s bullshit politics but if you can’t get results, I’ll find somebody who can.” He slapped his palm on his desk and Garza took the cue that it was time for him to leave.

Tony drove the dinged-up department Crown Vic straight to his house. Slow but steady. The car had suffered seven years of police abuse and Garza didn’t like to test it. He was the least senior cop on the force, which meant he drew the most senior wheels. Fifteen minutes to his rented house on the edge of town and he saw all of Kilroy on the way. The four-room shack was the only place he could afford.

Vivian Dollarhyde stretched on the faded living room carpet. Her lime green workout clothes—skimpy shorts, skimpier top—popped, as she liked to say, against her skin’s sweaty glow. She’d been at it since five a.m., two hours before Tony woke up. She’d run her daily five miles in the grayness of the morning moon, safe from prying eyes who might wonder about the dark-haired, obviously not-white stranger. Then for ninety minutes she tormented the used elliptical and a few weights Tony kept for those rare times he thought he should exercise. She finished with yoga twists and Pilate stretches. Tony tried not to think about it but he imagined himself jumping on her prone body and burying himself in the sanctuary of her overheated flesh.

“Hey, baby,” he said. “Looks like you could use a drink.” It wasn’t quite lunchtime.

He opened the refrigerator, extracted two Lone Stars, twisted their caps, and offered her one. She chugged half of the bottle before she looked at him.

“I have to get out of this town. I’m going nuts.” She sat at the rickety table and patted her body dry with a gray towel she’d found in a closet.

“You just got here, Vivian. What’s the rush? Besides, it’s way too hot, and I’m not talking about the weather. Every brand and style of cop is all over this part of Texas. From Fort Worth to the Oklahoma state line. South to Waco and west to Abilene. It’s like a war zone. Anyone even just a little bit off is getting rousted by state police, Rangers, you name it. You and your pals riled up more law enforcement than we’ve seen around here since they shot JFK.”

“How the hell would you know that? You’re older than me but you ain’t that old.”

“Whatever. I’m just sayin’.”

Vivian wadded the towel into a ball. “That goddamn pilot.”

“Oh, Christ. Here we go again.”

“You don’t like it, get out.”

He thought about reminding her that they were in his house. He kept quiet.

“I got the right to complain. Ellison tried to kill us and he almost made off with all the money. O’Conner should’ve never let him in on the job. But the old man’s getting soft. I should’ve told him to fuck off when he said he needed me. Practically begged. Said I’d get a bigger share since I had special skills. What bullshit. All the good that share is doing me now. Can’t even buy myself a decent steak. Hell, not even a hamburger.”

She stood up, dropped the towel on the floor and headed for the shower in the narrow bathroom. She lifted the tank top over her head and turned to Garza. “None of it would’ve happened without me. Seven million. Now look where I am.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Stuck in this pissant town, as far as I could go after the shit hit the fan, a bag of money that I can’t use, sharing a bed with your horny ass. Story of my life.” She disappeared into the bathroom, grumbling to herself.

Tony thought about joining her in the shower but decided the mood wasn’t quite right. Vivian liked to play. But she was too wrapped up in her trouble. Too focused on how she was going to get out of the state with her money without confronting the cops or the guy who’d double-crossed the crew at the safe house. Or maybe she wanted to deal her own justice to the pilot.

She’s crazy enough to blow it all on revenge, he thought.

He again looked around the shack for any sign of the money but it was a fruitless search. She’d promised him a cut of her take, although she hadn’t said where she had it stashed or even how much she had. Tony calculated it was more than a hundred grand, easy. Maybe half a mil, maybe a million? There had to be mountains of money at the Crystal Q.

She’d told him that after it went cockeyed in Fort Worth, O’Conner dropped her off on the edgy outskirts of town. Cops everywhere, no time for long goodbyes. She left the shotgun from the job with O’Conner—too conspicuous to carry around—and she hadn’t brought anything else from her own collection of guns since O’Conner provided all the equipment she thought she’d need. She didn’t like the way she felt without a weapon but accepted it as part of her situation.

She’d run long and hard to the only person she knew in Texas who would take her in. On the point of exhaustion, she found Garza in Kilroy. Her toned body, strong lungs, parkour training, and iron will carried her across the wind-scarred merciless Texas prairie without much water or food. She described how she hid from police helicopters and curious coyotes and she cursed that she couldn’t quit thinking about how it had all gone bad.

Over the years he’d tried to stay in contact. He always had a cell number or email address for her except when she was on the run or sweating out the latest fallout from one of her jobs. She never failed to circle back to him.

Her career, as she called her sins and crimes, didn’t bother him. Vivian was the forbidden fruit, the type of girl his mama warned him about.

Good thing he’d let her know he was leaving Lubbock. Here she was, in all her half-naked glory, relying on him to keep her safe and hidden from the heat with more money than he would ever make in Kilroy and all he had to do was bide his time until she made her move.

Then he would get his share.

Or maybe, take it all.

. . .

Tony finished his shift at five p.m. but told Big Jim that he would keep on it during the night, “going over the file.”

“You have fun with that file,” Big Jim said.

“I’m gonna drive over to the Crystal Q in the morning. Try to talk with Gracella, if I can get her away from Clovis Harrington, if I can get past the front gate. I know a guy on the task force who’s camped out on the ranch. I’ll start with him and see where I end up.”

The scheme sounded weak, pointless, but Tony thought he had to propose something.

“Good luck with that. Clovis hangs onto that woman like she was the last remainin’ piece of Mexican tail in all of Texas.” Big Jim laughed at his own crudeness. “You know it’s a good three, four hours to the ranch?”

“Yeah. So I’ll be gone all day.”

“You’d better come back with somethin’.”

Big Jim’s response surprised Tony. He expected to be rejected. Big Jim’s grasping at straws, he thought.

On the way home, Tony hoped Vivian would go with him to the ranch. Then he shook his head. “Now that is a stupid idea,” he mumbled. He again drove slowly through the Kilroy streets until he was back at his house.

“Hey, baby,” he hollered from the front door.

“Hey yourself, Tony.”

She was in a better mood than when he’d left her earlier. She called him Tony only when she felt at ease, or in bed.

“What’ve you been up to?” He opened the refrigerator and did not see any beer.

“Well, I finished the Lone Stars, for one thing.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“Then I got hungry and grilled that ribeye you said I could have.”

“I thought we’d share it.”

“It wasn’t that big.”

“I’ll get something at the bar.”

She didn’t tell him that in the afternoon she’d relaxed on the back porch with homemade lemonade and thoughts about what she would do with the money. She listened to country music on the radio and practiced a few line-dance moves. She’d decided she had to think of this downtime as a vacation. A vacay with eyes out for cops.

“It was good, have to say. Or else I really needed some protein.”

“Yeah, don’t sweat it. But since I gotta go out to eat, you want to join me, maybe have a little fun?”

She wrinkled her nose. “You trying to get me busted? You think no one will notice me?”

“It’s not a big deal. You’re my old college amiga in town for a few days on the way to your new job. That’s all true. And if one of my co-workers starts asking questions just because you’re a stranger, well, too bad. I’ll make it clear you’re on the straight and narrow. Who’d suspect that you had anything to do with the big shoot-out anyway? You don’t look the part, you want to know the truth. No one’s after you specifically. Not yet.”

“You said it was too hot for me to leave. Now you’re saying I got nothing to worry about. Which is it, Tony? Maybe I should just hit the road.”

“No, not what I mean. You can’t travel out in the open, away from town. It’s certain you’ll get stopped and questioned. That could go any way but good. But here in Kilroy? No one’s thinking about the Crystal Q except for Big Jim and the three stooges he calls officers, and me. And none of us are looking for you. You got nothing to worry about in this town.”

She wasn’t convinced but she worried that she’d lose it if she stayed one more hour in the pitiful house.

Tony drove the Crown Vic during his shifts or when he ran errands for Big Jim. But at night he cruised in his two-year-old Ford F-150, the only nice thing he owned, or so he bragged. “A work in progress,” he’d told Vivian. “I added step bars and the chrome and black wheels to match the Tuxedo Black paint. Gonna trick up the interior next, soon as I have enough saved.”

She’d grunted an ambiguous response. Boys and their toys, she thought. Ain’t nothing new.

Tony kept up a steady stream of small talk on the drive to the Kilroy Ice House. He went on about his plans for the truck, about how Big Jim was an idiot, and what he thought they could do when it came time to finally leave Kilroy.

Vivian listened with one ear. Her mind was on the money and how soon she could run. All she had to do was get out of town and across the state line. And dump Garza when some of the dust settled.

Along Main Street, a few yellow lights emphasized the emptiness. He turned onto a cross street in the direction of the pale moon. They drove past old frame houses with thin lawns or gravel front yards. The bushes were permanently bent from the wind. Gray light shone through the blinds or curtains that hung in most of the front windows. Looking at the town made her tired. She’d been in Kilroy one day too long. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she had to run. Vacation was already over.

Tony stopped at a squat narrow building lit up with beer signs, Christmas lights, and a blinking billboard that simply announced BEER! The open-air place was surrounded by more cars than Vivian had seen in the entire town since she’d appeared on Tony’s porch.

A noisy booze-soaked crowd packed the ice house. Everything and everyone was bathed in orange light that vibrated with the hum of the customers. Tony worked his way through the loud men and women, many wearing cowboy hats. He acknowledged several with a nod of his head or an energetic greeting. Most stared at Vivian. A few smiled at Tony with a look of admiration, a few others didn’t hide their hostility.

They stood for several minutes until a pair of underage boys stumbled from a small table in a corner. Another ten minutes and they drank cold beer. In the background, Vivian heard Ray Wylie Hubbard growling—couldn’t really call it singing—that the snake farm “just sounds nasty.”

“This place ain’t happening for me,” she said. She almost had to shout to make herself heard. “Maybe we can get something to eat somewhere else? Doesn’t look like there’s a kitchen in this joint.”

Before Tony could answer, a shadow covered their table. Vivian looked up into the bloodshot blue eyes of Big Jim Spencer.

“Well, well. Where you been hidin’ this young lady, Tony? Seems like only yesterday you was bitchin’ about no action in this town and here you are with what looks like more action than even you can handle. My, my. You’re full of surprises. Guess you forgot about that file, eh?” Big Jim straightened up. He extended his hand to Vivian. “I’m Big Jim, sweetie. Chief of police around here. Tony’s boss, in case you didn’t know.”

Vivian took his hand. Big Jim’s sweaty, meaty palm surrounded her fingers. She let go as soon as she felt his leathery skin but he hung on until she finally jerked away.

“Yeah, Tony’s mentioned you.” She stared at her empty beer bottle.

“Uh, boss, this is Vivian,” Tony said. “An old friend. From school. She just got into town. I’m showing her the Kilroy sights, such as they are. She’s only passing through.”

“Too bad. This town could use some prettyin’ up. So, where you headed, Miss Vivian?”

“Up to Dallas.” She moved her eyes back to Big Jim’s and locked him in her gaze until he blinked and looked away. “I got family there. New job. Taking a break before I go back to work.”

“Oh yeah? Family, huh? I know a lot of people in Dallas. Maybe I know your kin.” He paused, watched Tony for a few seconds. He looked down at Vivian again. “And what kind of work you do? Maybe we could use you here. That way you could stay on. Sure Tony’d like that.” Tony smiled at Big Jim. “Where’d you say you’re from, sweetie?”

“The coast. Oakland.”

“California? Shit, we can’t compete with California, right, Tony? Not with the ocean and movie stars and all those fancy houses. Long ways from here. You come by train? I ain’t seen any strange cars on the streets and we sure as hell don’t have no airport. Trains, we got.”

Vivian’s fingernail picked at the label on her beer bottle. “You might not believe it but I hitchhiked from Austin. Wanted to see Texas up close. You know what?” She found his eyes again and stared hard at the lawman. “So far, I haven’t been impressed. Once you get past Austin, there ain’t much to hold your attention. Maybe Dallas will be better.”

Big Jim half-laughed, half-coughed. “You right about that. Like someone once told me. He could never live in Texas, that’s why he lived in Austin.” He faked another laugh. “Anyway, that’s mighty dangerous, hitchin’. If you was my daughter, I’d say don’t do it. But you ain’t, is you?”

“That’s funny, boss,” Tony said. “I mean, her father and all that.” He watched Vivian, unsure about what she might do. He’d seen her in bar fights and it wasn’t pretty.

“You know we got some real bad hombres runnin’ lose, don’t ya?” Big Jim asked. “Tony must’ve filled you in about the battle at the Crystal Q. Young lady like you could get caught crosswise. Good thing you know a policeman, right? I’m sure Tony is takin’ care of you every which way.”

She clenched her fists under the table. She smiled at Big Jim. “Yeah, I’m in good hands. I got good old Tony for protection. If I need it. Can’t be too careful these days.”

Big Jim’s face glistened in the orange light. He surveyed the crowd, patted the gun in the holster on his hip, and tapped his fingers on the brim of his gray stained hat.

“Hate to walk away from such attractive company but I’ll leave you two old friends to get reacquainted.” He placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “You takin’ off early for the Crystal Q?”

“Yeah, sure. Probably around seven. But I won’t be back until day after. Like we talked.”

“Sounds good. Hope you dig up somethin’. I got another call from Austin. Somebody has to do somethin’. Might as well be the Kilroy Police Department. Right, Miss Vivian? Think Tony can get his name in the papers and the politicians off my ass? Excuse the French.”

“Oh, Jim, I don’t know anything about all that. Like Tony said, I’m just passing through. I’ll be gone in another day or two.”

Big Jim nodded. “You bet.” He walked away. The crowd parted to let him through and his tall, bow-legged frame slipped into the artificial haze.

“Goddamn,” Vivian cursed. “This was a very bad mistake. He’s on to me. I have to leave this town, tonight.”

“Hang on,” Tony said. “We can’t panic.” He reached for her hand but she slid away from him. “He doesn’t know anything he can prove. He has to get corroboration of his suspicions, especially if he doesn’t want to look like a dumbass to all the other cops in North Texas. Or to that damn League.” She shook her head. She knew better than to believe Tony. “Just wait,” he continued. “Until tomorrow. It’s perfect. I’m supposed to drive to the Crystal Q. You’ll be with me and we’ll run for it. Get the money and take a flight out of Dallas. We can be in another state, hell, another country before Jim figures out I ain’t coming back and you’re gone.”

“He’ll watch the house.”

“Maybe. But in the morning we’ll leave like we’re going for breakfast. Nothing wrong with that. He can join us if he’s really following. If he is watching, I drop you back at the house after we eat and head west like I’m going to the ranch. But I’ll circle back, pick you up at the junction of Burnt Mill Road and the highway as long as you can give him the slip, which I know you can do.” He smiled at her but she didn’t smile back. “And if he’s not on our tail, we hit it, hard, immediately. On the road, if you feel exposed, you can hide in the bed of my truck. It’s covered. Only until we get to the city. We’ll fly out of Texas and never look back. Or, if we have to, we drive like maniacs through Oklahoma.”