Chapter Twenty-six

Michelle was furious with Jack. He hadn't called her, and he and Oscar seemed to be running around in circles.

She should have handled this herself all along.

What she needed to do, she had decided, was to stake out Lucky's place until he led her to wherever he was holding Jen. She should have done that in the beginning, really. But she still had a hard time believing that Lucky would take her sister. There was no need for it. She had found out that he was pulling some kind of deal with drugs for the old people at Blue Wolf, some concoction that was supposed to make them feel younger for a while. She had been half kidding when she had mentioned to him that she wanted in on it. It had to be bullshit anyway, right?

But Lucky had become furious, told her that she had no idea what she was getting into. That made her all the more curious, so she had followed him around for a couple of days until she saw him meeting with his supposed enemy, Alex Williams.

She didn't really know what they were up to but she had tortured him a little while they were having sex, telling him again that she wanted in on whatever it was they were doing. That was when he warned her again.

And so she had backed off, had the lunch with him and her sister. But Lucky had gotten furious at her. She had thought it was because they didn't want a threesome but now she understood.

He had gotten angry because he felt the pressure from his boss, Williams.

They had decided to kidnap Jen in order to shut her up.

She had known she could never get Jen back on her own, so she had sent for the most capable man she knew, Jack Harper.

She had believed that Jack would find Jen, bring her back, and the villains would lose their bargaining chip. Then they would have to pay her.

Only Jack hadn't gotten anywhere. And now she had started to really worry. Maybe she had it wrong. Maybe they had no intention of giving Jen back.

It came down to one thing: she would have to get Jen back herself. She would follow the bastard until he went to her sister's prison and she would kill him and they would get away.

Which was what she was doing right now.

She sat on her motorcycle and used her Leupold Wind River binoculars to keep tabs on the entrance of Lucky's hangout, El Coyote. Anywhere Lucky Avila went she was going as well. Maybe it was a lame idea, but at least she was doing something.

And now, after sitting there for two and a half hours, it looked as though her patience was about to pay off. Lucky had just left El Coyote in his black Hummer, with that giant idiot who worked for him at the wheel of the car.

She waited until they were a little way down the highway, then quickly went after them. Thank God it was getting dark. She could stay far enough behind them on the twisting road so they couldn't see her.

Still, she worried that they might catch sight of her on a straightaway, though with her helmet on Lucky probably wouldn't guess who she was.

They had only gone about nine or ten miles, to just beyond the Red Sombrero, when they turned off the road.

She slowed down, waited for them to get a few hundred feet up the road, and then made the turn herself and cruised after them.

This must be it, Michelle thought. There would be some old mine out here, or one of the hundreds of ancient Indian caves. She'd heard of people living in them for years until the government came and threw them out.

But if you were Lucky Avila you could pay off some government worker and no one would be the wiser.

She felt a twinge of excitement. Yes, this was it... she was certain.

She recalled something she'd read on the Internet about New Mexico's underground tunnels. Many of them had started out as caves but then various business groups and apocalyptic doomsayers had connected the caves using giant boring machines, something called the “ Subterre.” It was like a giant submarine, which some sources said was run by both humans and aliens.

Michelle didn't believe any of this, but she had heard of tunnels under the earth from her own grandmother and from other members of the crew she'd been in. After all, there were drug tunnels from Tijuana to San Diego, tunnels with air conditioning.

She knew that was true because she'd been in them.

And the Indians of the Taos Pueblo were said to have built an underground system in case the white men who had tried for years to wipe them out should ever come after them again. Just like the tunnels in Vietnam, which saved the villagers from napalm bombs.

It was wild stuff, all of it, but Michelle had been coming to Santa Fe long enough to know that things that sounded like sci-fi or the ravings of a lunatic could often be reality here.

She parked her bike, took out her Glock, and moved through a small passage in the rocks. She was terrified that she would make a telltale noise and that Lucky would pounce on her.

She moved forward through a wash and came to two giant boulders. There was a slender crack between them and she could see out into the endless desert.

There, the moonlight streaming down, she saw Lucky standing above a kneeling, whimpering Zollie.

With his right hand, Lucky stuck his .38 in Zollie's face. In Lucky's left hand was a plastic bag with something in it.

“You took the hog, didn't you?”

Zollie shook his head.

“No, I didn't.”

“I told you we needed Biggie. I told you and you just ignored what I said, right?”

“No, honest I didn't,” Zollie said. He was crying now and shaking his head back and forth.

“Tell me the truth,” Lucky said. “I need to know for sure. If you tell me the truth everything will be all right. I can still protect you.”

Zollie wept harder and Michelle felt panic sweep through her. What should she do?

“Tell me now, Zol,” Lucky said. “You know you want to.”

“All right,” Zollie said. “But you promise you'll let me go?”

“Of course I will,” Lucky said.

“All right then. I thought if you guys were going to do some experiments on Biggie that you would bring him back afterward. I thought I could nurse him back to health. But when I got him in the car, I saw how cut up he was. So I just drove out of there with him. You understand that, doncha?”

“Of course, I do,” Lucky said. “ See, that wasn't so bad. So where did you take Biggie?”

“I took him home to bury him.”

Without a word, Lucky smashed the gun into Zollie's face, breaking his nose, causing blood to gush down his shirt.

The big man fell over on his side, screaming in a high-pitched wail.

“Liar,” Lucky said. “ You know you can't lie to me like that. Get up. Back on your knees.”

Lucky crawled slowly up to his knees, crying and bleeding.

“Now tell me where you took him,” Lucky said.

“I took him to the Jackalope. It was my shift there. I carried him to this place in their old storehouse so nobody would see him in my truck. I looked him over and realized you guys had operated on him. I was going to take him home after my shift and bury him. It was very upsetting. He was like family to me.”

“I thought I was like family to you, Zollie.”

“You were. I mean you are. But he was like a little brother or something. I was gonna give him a nice home-style burial but that guy, Harper, he got in the way.”

“Yes, he did,” Lucky said. “And if he saw the surgical cuts on the hog, he'll be able to put two and two together.”

“No. Wait. I'm almost sure he didn't see anything like that.”

“Really?” Lucky prompted.

“Yeah, for sure,” Zollie said. “See, it was real dark in there. And I came right in after he got there. I kicked his ass, too.”

“I'm sure you did, Zol,” Lucky said. “'Cause you are one badass mother. Well, I must say, Zol, this has been very disappointing.”

“I'm so sorry, Lucky,” Zollie said, weeping.

“I'm sure you are, big guy,” Lucky responded.

He put the pistol in his belt and quickly took something out of the bag. Michelle couldn't make out what it was.

“What's that?” Zollie asked, his voice high-pitched again.

“It's a toy,” Lucky said. “ I believe there just isn't enough play in the world. Everyone is so darn serious.”

“That a Super Soaker?” Zollie asked.

“Yep,” Lucky said. “ You got it, hoss. ‘Cept I had it retrofitted by one of the boys to make it a real, honest-to-God grown-up toy!”

“What ‘chu going to do?” Zollie asked, shaking and crying.

“Just gonna give you a good soaking,” Lucky responded.

“What ‘chu got in that thing?”

“Well, I'll give you three guesses,” Lucky said. “And to make it easy for you I'll tell you up front that it ain't water.”

He pumped the gun forward and back. A stream of gasoline shot out and ignited as it hit the cigarette lighter that was now embedded in the barrel. The lighter was attached to the gun's trigger and activated as the gasoline shot through the barrel. The gas ignited and a flame engulfed Zollie's surprised face. The big man screamed and rolled over, trying to put his face out in the dirt, but Lucky, laughing wildly, shot him with the Super Soaker again, this time on the back and legs.

Zollie screamed and tried to roll again but then a third flame finished him off.

Michelle gasped and turned away. And found herself looking directly at two men with shotguns. One of them hit her in the face, knocking her to the ground, unconscious.

“Well, well,” Lucky said, as he walked around the boulders and looked down at her. “At last the chicken has come home to roost. Pick her up, fellas. I know just where she needs to go.”