Lakota, North Dakota
“Where’s the broad?” Nick Mayo asked his son from the rear door of the house. “Where’d she go?”
Joe Mayo was checking the oil on his cousin’s car. He had just pulled the dipstick and was wiping it to read when his father called.
“Where the hell she go?” Nick asked again.
Joe looked up at his father before he noticed Mary Beth’s car was missing. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I didn’t see. Why?”
“I think she saw something.”
“Saw what?”
Nick waved his son toward the house.
“What?” Joe repeated.
The old man glanced around the area, then said, “Your cousin. I think he hurt himself.”
Joe looked confused until his father made a gun of his hand and held it against his head.
“Oh,” Joe said. “Oh!”
* * * * * * *
Joe Mayo wasn’t sure what Mary Beth would do once she was on the highway, but he was positive that she’d witnessed his cousin’s murder. He finished packing his cousin’s car and pulled out of the driveway. He beeped a few times until his father appeared on the front porch.
“I knew bringing that cunt was a mistake,” Nick Mayo told his son as soon as he was inside the car.
Here we go, Joe was thinking. “You didn’t have to kill Frank. Not in front of her.”
Nick ignored his son. “What she got in her car, this hick twat of yours?”
“One of my bags. Dirty laundry, I think. I had the stuff in the garage with me.”
“Thank fucking God you did something right.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You tipped off those guys in Vegas, right?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, I told you.”
“Then they owe you.”
“That’s what they said.”
“Good,” Nick said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Joe turned onto an avenue that led to State Highway One. He shook his head as he looked around the road.
“I hope she doesn’t go to the cops,” he said.
“She’s probably shitting her pants someplace,” Nick said. “We’ll ditch this car at the first exit we find on the Interstate. It’ll be April before somebody smells your cousin in the trunk. Then we’ll boost a car from wherever we stop, take a hostage, and head south a couple states.”
“A hostage? Great. Now you can kill somebody else.”
“Try not to wet your pants.”
They drove in silence until Joe spotted the sign for the highway. “I just hope you’re right,” he said. “This new game plan.”
“I am,” Nick said. “I was a skipper. I’m always right.”
* * * * * * *
Mary Beth was crying hysterically by the time she turned the corner. She could no longer see the house, but her body was shaking from adrenaline as she drove through two stop signs and a red light. When she spotted signs for U.S. Route 2, Mary Beth wasn’t sure whether she should head back west to Montana or search for a local police cruiser. Then she saw flashing lights along the entrance ramp of the Interstate. An officer had just pulled someone over.
Mary Beth was leaning on her horn when she pulled up behind the police cruiser. The Minnesota State patrol trooper was approaching the driver of the car he had stopped when the incessant blaring of the horn caught his attention.
* * * * * * *
Nick Mayo was giving it to his son as soon as they pulled away from the house. More than forty years in the rackets, seven of them behind bars, and all he had left was a kid with little more street sense than the average hillbilly. Nothing had rubbed off; the kid was his mother’s son.
Twenty-five minutes had passed since they discovered the woman and her car were gone. He was yelling at his son again for bringing her along in the first place.
“What, for a blow job?” the old man asked. “Because she wet your noodle? You know how long it’s been since I knocked off a piece?”
Joe Mayo was doing his best to remain quiet. He’d already heard more than enough.
“Fuckin’ twat,” Nick said. “You’re lucky she didn’t grab the product. You’re lucky she didn’t get these, your cousin’s bags.” He pointed to two small duffel bags filled with the money his nephew had shorted from the drug deal. “He stiffed that farmer thirty grand, by the way, your cousin. He was a lot sharper than you.”
“That why you killed him?” Joe asked, unable to restrain himself anymore. “Because he did something you approve of?”
“You’re so fuckin’ smart,” Nick said. “Why you think I put you in the restaurant business, you fuckin’ clown?” He grabbed at his own crotch. “Because you don’t have the balls,” he said. “You don’t have what it takes.”
It had been a long haul since he first became involved in helping his father. It was bad enough having to live on the lam the last few years, but now it had become as dangerous as it was insulting. He was thinking he should have taken the money his old man had stashed before going away and then running off with it. Half a million was more than start-up money. He could be in Mexico living like a king right now instead of listening to this bullshit.
If the bullshit wasn’t enough, he was now an accomplice to a murder.
“You’re a real jerkoff sometimes,” his father said.
It was the last insult he was willing to take. Fuck loyalty. He saw a bus stopping at a corner near a red light and pulled to the curb. He grabbed one of his cousin’s two duffel bags and opened his door.
“Go fuck yourself,” Joe told his father a moment before getting out of the car.
The old man’s eyes opened wide. “What the fuck!” he yelled. “Get back in here! Joe! Joey!”
Joe Mayo flipped his father the bird as he jogged to make the bus before it pulled away from the curb.
* * * * * * *
Ten minutes after his son had left him sitting in the car alone, Nick Mayo accepted he was on his own. He was doing fine making his way through the streets until he turned onto the Interstate. Then he saw the flashing lights of the roadblock around the first curve and pulled the car up onto the grass. He grabbed the duffel bag and left the keys behind as he walked as fast as he could back toward the entrance ramp. He was less than fifty yards from the abandoned car when two State Police cruisers turned onto the ramp.
“Shit,” Nick said.
The police pulled onto the grass and blocked Nick’s path. The old man could see the blonde in the rear seat of one of the cars. She was pointing at him.
Nick did a quick about face and started back toward the car.
“Turn around with your hands up!” one of the patrol troopers yelled.
Nick ignored the command. He jumped when he heard the shot, then stopped and turned around. Two Minnesota State Troopers had drawn their weapons.
“Drop the bag and hands up!” one of them yelled.
Nick dropped the bag.
“Hands up!” the trooper yelled again. “Now!”
“Fuck you,” whispered Nick as he raised his hands. “Hick cocksucker.”