I PULLED THE bandana up higher over my nose, like a bandit about to rob a stagecoach. “My orders are to give this money to a fed. You a fed?”
“That’s right, boss, I am.” He pulled out his wallet and flashed it like the feds did, too fast to get a name or agency. Only I’d caught a glimpse of it, saw the California driver’s license he’d tried to pass off where the tiny fed badge should’ve been. The dumbass played it like a kid would.
He wore a white linen suit with a baby-blue silk shirt underneath, open at the neck with a gold necklace.
“You’re no fed.”
“I’m not here to play games with you, asshole,” he said. “Gimme the money.”
“Tell your friends in the van to come out. I’ll give the money to you as long as they identify themselves as feds. I need to know who I’m dealing with.”
Jumbo didn’t flinch. “I ain’t gonna fall for any of that old bullshit. You can do better than that. Ain’t no one in no white van that has anything to do with us. Cut the crap and gimme the damn money.”
Jumbo lost his smile and pulled a small .25 auto from his pants pocket, a no-account lady’s gun. “Give me the money or—”
“Or what? Just what do you think you’re gonna do, little man?” I put the kickstand back down and swung my leg over the bike, let the sack of money drop to the ground.
“I’m gonna cap your black ass, that’s what. Whatta ya think of that, huh?” He started walking toward me, using up the last essence of his bluster and bluff.
“You don’t have the balls for it, Jumbo.”
He froze.
“I know you?”
“Damn straight. Put that gun away before I take it from you and stick it up your ass.”
“You gonna go hands-on against a gun? You’ll lose, pal, garunfucking-teed.”
“Tell me who you’re working for. Who are you here to represent?”
I’d figured it out. Some fed had arrested Jumbo for one of his illicit dealings and flipped him, forced him to come pick up the money for him. The fed watched from the van. Jumbo never did menial work like picking up the money, not for his operations. He always sent his flunkies.
A few years ago I’d done some train heists for him that turned out to be financially beneficial for the both of us, although he cheated me out of my last payoff. We never liked each other, and if I revealed myself to him, he’d know I’d take great pleasure in squishing him like a bug under the too-small snakeskin cowboy boots.
“I don’t have to tell you shit, Negro.”
“You’ll tell me by the time I get done with you, Dumbo.” He hated to be called Dumbo.
“Who are you, damnit?”
I advanced on him. He raised the gun again. “Stop or I’ll cap your ass, I swear I will.”
I stopped. “I don’t think so.” I pulled down the bandana.
He hesitated, then squinted. He dropped the gun and swayed on his feet. He whispered, “My God, Bruno, The Bad Boy Johnson. I . . . I heard you were dead.”
I quick-stepped over to him, grabbed him by the throat, and backed him right up to the Lexus. “Wishful thinking,” I said in a harsh whisper right up by his ear. “Now tell me who you’re working for.”
He choked and gurgled. “McCarty, John McCarty. He’s a gun fed.”
“Where are you supposed to meet him after this deal?”
“Said he’d call me.”
I let him go. He wilted to the ground, choking. He smudged the knees of his white linen suit.
I wanted to shoot him dead. He and Robby Wicks had killed Crazy Ned Bressler, stuffed him in a trunk of a car, and laid the whole thing off on me in a near perfect frame. Not that Ned didn’t deserve it. Robby took his payoff with a bellyful of buckshot, close range, from my friend John Mack. I never thought I’d see Jumbo again and had put him out of my mind.
I picked him up and held him against the car. “Where’s the two hundred and fifty thousand you owe me?” The anger rose inside me as I thought about what he’d done and what he’d tried to do.
“I got it, Bruno, I got it. When you want it?”
I hadn’t been ready for him to roll over so quickly. His sudden shift in emotion, his eagerness to give away money, a character trait he’d never possessed, brought me out of the anger and back to my senses. I held him by the throat with one hand and, with the other, ripped open his shirt. He wore a microphone high on his chest. Wired for sound by the fed running his game, monitoring the deal. He didn’t trust Jumbo.
Smart man, this John McCarty, if that was his real name.
I spoke for the fed’s benefit.
“Deal was to hand the money directly to you in exchange for assurances. You can’t give me any assurances from that van. You got sixty seconds to start up and get your ass over here or the deal’s off.”
I shoved Jumbo hard. He bounced off the Lexus and fell to the ground, further smudging his white linen. I counted in my head a slow sixty seconds. I picked up the .25 and tossed it to Jumbo. He didn’t catch it or even try to. He let it fall to his chest. “I warned you about that little popgun the last time, out in the desert, remember? Next time you pull it on me, you better shoot me because that’s what I’m going to do to you. Put one right between those big floppy ears.”
I looked up at the white van, which hadn’t moved. I saluted in that direction and said, “See ya next time, asshole.”
I started for my bike, turned my back on Jumbo, and froze. I turned, went back to Jumbo, leaned over, and ripped off the wire. “You tellin’ me true about the name of this fed? Tell me now. No one’s listening.”
“Sure, Bruno, of course I told you the truth.”
I took out Monster’s knife, flicked it open, and stuck the razor edge down by his crotch. “Tell me his name or I’m gonna give Little Jumbo a haircut.”
“Okay, okay, it’s Larry Gerber.”
I pushed the knife in a little harder, not hard enough to puncture the material, enough though to put pressure on his little brain, the one that ran the body.
“I swear on my mother’s eyes, it’s Larry Gerber. Guys on the street call him Pike. He said he’d put me in prison forever if I told you his name.”
“What’s he got on you?”
“I bought a load of guns I was gonna trade up for some dope. The guy I bought them from was working off a case for Gerber. Hey, you wanna job? I’ll pay ya to take this guy off the board, ten grand. Whattaya say, huh?”
“Here’s my answer.” I stood and kicked him hard in the ribs. I walked over to Bobby Ray’s Harley, picked up the worn-out sack of money, and kick-started the bike. I took one last look at the van and zoomed off.