Do They Know I'm Running? Part 23

In the kitchen, Veronica kicked something metal-a pan, from the sound-across the linoleum floor.

-Where are they in the house?

-The girl is in her room, I think. I have not seen her yet. Veronica is in the kitchen.

-Find out where the girl is.

-The girl, she is sick.

-I understand that, but ... What the h.e.l.l ...?

His voice rose sharply then fell away and she heard squealing tires-a car banged into the driveway, chattering brakes, a door slamming. Swallowing the knot in her throat, she drifted toward the picture window, peered past the curtains and saw the husband charging through the drizzle up the walk, hair and necktie flailing in the wind, his face flushed with rage.

Charlie's going to kill me ...

Into the phone, she said:-You see him, he is- -Stick to your story. I'll call you back.

The front door slammed open, the husband burst in, breathing through his mouth from the rushed climb up the drive, hair s.h.a.ggy and damp, skin florid. Spotting Lourdes, he pulled up short. She still held her phone.

"What are you doing here?"

For the merest instant she considered confessing everything, the five vatos vatos outside waiting to rob him, ready to kill him. But she could not trust him to understand. And her girls, what would happen? outside waiting to rob him, ready to kill him. But she could not trust him to understand. And her girls, what would happen?

"I think," she announced, "I leave my watch here yesterday. I come back, look for it."

He'd already abandoned his question, neck craning toward the stairs, the hallway. Veronica drifted out of the kitchen.

He said, "What the h.e.l.l have you done?"

"I want you to listen," she began.

"Sam said you d.a.m.n near set the house on fire."

"That's a lie. I was trying to cook-"

"She told you she was sick was sick, she puked up half of last week, she didn't want want-"

"I just thought-"

"She said you were drunk."

The mask dissolved. She turned away. "I'm not listening to-"

The husband lurched forward, grabbed her arm. "Don't you turn your back on me."

Lourdes, suddenly light-headed, reached out for the nearest chair at the same moment her phone rang again-only then did she realize it was still in her hand-the sound startling her so badly she nearly dropped it.

-What's happening?

-They're having a fight.

-Can you open the door?

-I don't ... I ... ...

-Nothing's changed. Do as I told you. Just the way we discussed. It's going to be okay. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise.

The phone went dead. In a daze she backed toward the door. She swallowed another clot of air then called out, or thought she called out, that she would come back some other time to look for her watch.

HAPPY FLIPPED HIS CELL PHONE CLOSED AND TURNED TO THE OTHERS."Vamos, bravos."

He considered calling it off, but till when-tomorrow? Next week? Lourdes couldn't handle it, they couldn't handle her, she'd bolt, she'd crumble, she'd beg them nonstop, crazy, infuriating: Let me go ... And her girls, they'd call the law, all that.

He met the others on the street. "Change in plans. This guy Chuck, he's in the house, so is one of the kids. The girl. We gotta take them down all at once, not one at a time. It's gonna be okay. Look, everybody but G.o.do, you go to the same positions we practiced. Efraim, you got the upstairs bedrooms, you take the girl, make sure she don't call 911. G.o.do, you look for this Chuck guy, you handle him, right?" His words met stares, each one with its own distinctive fear or surprise or numb resolve. "Okay then. Be smart, stay sharp."

As they reached the porch they pulled down their balaclavas, dragged the weapons out of the duffel bags, slammed the magazines home, flipped off the safeties. Happy gave the ready signal just as Lourdes opened the door and backed out, saying, "I call before I come back ..."

FOR THE PAST HOUR, CROUCHED IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK, G.o.dO HAD tried to convince himself there was a right way to do this thing, reminding himself this wasn't Joe Citizen they were taking down but filth, one of them them, the arrogant sloppy goat f.u.c.kers who, almost singlehandedly, botched the war. Happy wanted no one dead. Fine, the way it ought to be. Don't just avenge Gunny Benedict, make him proud-a.s.sert control, overwhelming force, stay alert, maintain discipline. He could trust Efraim, he wanted to trust Puchi, Chato was wack. Shoot him if need be, he told himself. Better him than the wife or the girl.

As the front door swung open, he rushed in at the lead, using the AK to track the s.p.a.ce left to right, ground floor to the stair, feeling the eerie deja vu he'd expected but luckily not haunted by it, the ghosts present but silent-Gunny Benedict, Salgado, Mobley, the Iraqi family in the Cressida-as though he were split in two, the old G.o.do, the guy standing here. Then he spotted him, the contractor, Chuck, frozen in place, halfway up the stairs, gripping his wife's dress with one hand, the other clenched into a fist. He stood there fright-eyed, hunched over the woman, then survival kicked in, he dropped her like a bag of sand and charged up the stairs but G.o.do was already closing, adrenalin purging all weakness from his b.u.m leg as he moved to contact, taking the steps two at a time, forging past the wife who covered her head and rolled out of his way to keep from being trampled.

The contractor reached the first doorway, the master bedroom, before G.o.do gun-b.u.t.ted him from behind, knocked him to his knees. He heard Efraim in the hall behind him, running to the other bedrooms to secure them, take care of the girl, while downstairs Happy hooked his arm around Lourdes's throat, shouting, "Stay calm! n.o.body gets hurt, you do as you're told."

Chuck the contractor scrambled to his knees, wobbly but clawing at his pant cuff. G.o.do moved in, planting his foot down hard on the man's calf, feeling the ankle rig beneath his boot. "Leave it!" He prodded with the tip of the AK's barrel, a poke in the small of the other man's back, then reached down, felt for the holster, unhitched the strap, pulled the chrome-plated .25 free and shoved it into the pocket of his coveralls.

"Take us down to the safe, open it up."

Chuck tried to drag his leg out from under G.o.do's weight. "What are you talking about? There is no safe."

G.o.do studied his face. It was him, he thought, the guy in the back, pa.s.senger side, the Blazer at the checkpoint. Him or someone just like him. Applying a little more pressure on the leg, he said, "Don't be stupid."

The man's eyes narrowed. "I know who you are."

G.o.do's mouth went dry. Knows me how, People's Fried Chicken or the checkpoint? Maybe it was the weapon, the AK, he'd sold it to Puchi after all. Lifting his boot, "Get up."

"Or what, you're going to kill me? Then what, genius?"

G.o.do made an instant read and figured two things: One, threatening the wife would go nowhere, the guy was thumping her when they busted in, he could care less. Christ, might even be grateful. Two, that left the girl or Thumper here himself and he wasn't gonna be impressed with mere displays, it was gonna take pain, which meant a change in the ROE. n.o.body Gets Hurt had to downgrade to n.o.body Gets Hurt Too Bad.

He took out the .25 and fired into the man's calf. The burned tang of cordite, a strangled scream, floret of blood on the trouser leg.

G.o.do shouted down to Happy, "It's okay. It's me." Then, turning back, a soft voice: "Infield hit, Chuckles. Man on base."

Face white with pain, that sour breath, the guy hissed, "You're dead, I f.u.c.king swear."

G.o.do fired a second round, the right bicep this time. Another gargled scream. More blood, not too much. "Sacrifice bunt, perfect execution, third-base line. Runner on first advances. We have a man in scoring position." His face beneath the balaclava itched, damp with sweat. Somebody on the stair struggled with the wife, the screech of duct tape. "The safe downstairs, s.h.i.t d.i.c.k, or the girl's next."

"I told you-"

Greedy selfish motherf.u.c.ker, G.o.do thought. "Bring me the girl!"

"You punk f.u.c.k."

"The girl! Now!"

G.o.do felt good, in the hunt, b.a.l.l.s in a swing, spine like a sparkler. It was Fourth of July. Proof through the night. He was alive. Then he remembered: He knows me. Which tracks back to Puchi, to Chato, to Vasco. Estamos chingados Estamos chingados. We're f.u.c.ked.

Efraim dragged the girl into the doorway, flannel PJs, blue socks, her hands bound behind her back with the thick silver tape, another strip spooled around her head, pinning her hair against her head, gagging her. It made her eyes pop. She was waifish like the mother and crying.

G.o.do grabbed her arm, jerked her close, staring down at her father. "Daddy wants you to know, whatever's down there in that safe of his? It's, like, way more important than you." Chuck tried to wet his lips, tongue clicking. "Sammi?"

"You, he don't give a s.h.i.t about. He's handed you up to me." G.o.do pushed her down so she couldn't avoid her old man's blood, then thumbed back the hammer on the .25. "Man on second, Pops, n.o.body out. Fly ball, deep center, throw to the plate." He pressed the barrel to the sobbing girl's head. "You make the call."

EFRAIM REMAINED UPSTAIRS WITH THE WOMEN, LOURDES AND THE wife, with Chato on the back door, Puchi the front. Couldn't leave Chato alone with two bound and gagged women, no matter how homely they were, not without a tacit green light to use his d.i.c.k for a DNA dispenser. Happy and G.o.do dragged Chuck downstairs, a couple makeshift bandages for his wounds, and they brought the daughter with them, eyes puffy and red, face slick with tears and gouts of snot.

The cellar room conjured bunker, not sanctuary, low-end paneling with a fake pine veneer, an oval braided rug, an office-salvage desk. Nice array of guns, though, the ones racked on the walls all legal, shotguns mostly, a civilian-issue AR-15, a Korean War vintage M1, a Winchester .3030 deer rifle with a 39 scope. The pistols were displayed in a locked gla.s.s case.

Wishing he could draw Happy aside, G.o.do wanted to tell him that Thumper here, Mr. Chuckles, he may have recognized his voice. The original plan had called for Happy to talk, maybe Efraim, no one else, precisely because the guy could make everybody else. That's what happens, G.o.do thought, when things get rocked on the fly. The endgame blurs, you miss the most G.o.dd.a.m.n obvious things. Then again there was the weapon, he may have figured it out from that alone, though one AK looked pretty much like the next. He's not going to the law, he reminded himself. Too much to lose, too much he'd have to lie about. Which meant if this thing went south, it wouldn't be later, it wouldn't be cops, it would be right here, in this room.

He didn't see a safe. The paneling had no obvious defects to suggest a false wall, the gun cabinet hid nothing. That left the rug. With Happy training the Glock on the girl, Chuck slumped in the desk chair looking on, G.o.do shouldered the desk aside, lifted the rug, found the cutout square in the concrete, a notch for a hand grip, the wavy outline of the newer cement like a water stain. Figuring the thing was b.o.o.by-trapped, he dragged Chuckles from his swivel chair, dropped him near the hidey-hole and c.o.c.ked the .25.

"Open the safe but don't reach inside. You do, I blow the back of your head open. And my buddy here does your girl."

His right arm weakened, the bandage seeping blood, Chuck struggled with his left to lift the heavy concrete panel-one try, two, barely budging it upward. G.o.do leaned down, flipped the back of Chuck's ear with the pistol's snub barrel, then pressed it to the hollow at the back of his skull. "You're not fooling anybody."

The man went back to his task, redoubled his effort or pretended to, hefting the concrete slab out of its form-fit hole, pushing it aside with a wincing grunt. The safe lay below, bearing a nameplate: Churchill. It had taken some real work, G.o.do thought, cutting through the old floor, digging a hole deep enough, planting the safe, squaring it plumb in the hole, reworking the cement. He wondered if Chuck had done it all himself. He seemed the type, industrious, thorough, paranoid.

"Open it up now."

Reaching down, Chuck leaned to the side a little for the sake of the light, making sure he could see the numbers on the dial as he worked the tumblers, clumsy again, left-handed. His daughter, in Happy's grip, shuddered and blinked, watching closely like everyone else. Three alternating spins, a pull of the lever, he drew back the door. Figuring there was a gun inside for just this sort of situation, G.o.do pressed the .25 to the man's head. "Back on out, sit down."

The man crabbed his way to the swivel chair and dropped into it, his breathing shallow and rough, the bloodstains on his sleeve and pant leg larger now. G.o.do gestured for Happy to bring the daughter over, sit her on her father's lap, and as she got dragged from one spot to the other he noticed, for the first time, the Rorschach of dampness in the crotch of her pajamas. He felt a sudden meek sympathy. He remembered blowing ballast his first time in combat, Al Gharraf, his MOPP suit drenched with p.i.s.s. Some guys in his unit c.r.a.pped themselves. The indignities of war. Of warriors.

He lifted the barrel of the .25 until it was level with the bridge of the contractor's nose. "You got that safe rigged-there a trip wire, a flash-bang, anything else in that hole-you better tell me now."

Dry-mouthed still, Chuck worked his tongue around, trying to talk. His girl sat perched on his knee, gazing at the floor. Ashamed. Don't be, G.o.do wanted to tell her. He traded glances with Happy, stepping back and letting the .25 drop as his cousin lifted the Glock in its place, pressed it to the contractor's head and spoke for the first time G.o.do could remember since the start of the robbery.

"Anything goes off," he said, "you die. And I promise, the girl gets it too, the wife, cleaning lady, everybody. You got one way out. Take it."

The girl started crying again, breathy tears, eyes shut tight, like she was trying to catch herself, hold back. G.o.do flashed on a house raid in Fallujah, the unit acting on a tip about a weapons cache, finding only a Shia woman with facial tattoos, a line of big colored dots along her chin and eyebrows, standing in the kitchen with her simpleton daughter who wore a shabby white linen dress and bit her arm to stifle her sobs, trying to be brave as the marines tore her home apart. Something about this girl here, Sammi her dad called her, she was the portal. Then became now, the claustrophobic shadows and the adrenalin fever and the smell of lentils and goat fat and mint, all of it, flooding his senses. Don't do this, he thought, trying to shake it off, but it was already too late. The misgiving and dread lingered. They belonged.

"There's a sensor," Chuck said finally. The anger remained but it swam around in his eyes untethered. "Sets off a frag grenade inside the hole. Hit the switch just inside and on the top, push it back. That clears it."

G.o.do studied him a second, looking for deceit, then lifted the Kalashnikov's strap from around his neck, set the rifle on the floor, went to the hole, knelt down, peered inside. "I don't see a switch."

"It's tucked inside the door. On top like I said. Have to feel for it."

G.o.do checked that Happy had his gun up, hammer back. G.o.do reached down, put his hand inside the safe, curled his hand up and around, felt for the toggle. Just as a sixth sense told him no, back out, the flash went off, blinding him. The explosion came next, that fraction of a second that saved him, otherwise the hand would be no hand. Still, he felt the scorching wave rip through the glove and his skin caught fire or seemed to, the strange gum-stretch of time with its impersonal calm even as he knew he was yowling with pain, the gravity of shock and a muddy ring in his head, the after-blast, through which he could hear a fleshy drumming tock, the rotors of the little bird chopper overhead and he braced for the storm of dust, until he understood the sound was just blood, pulsing in his ears. He feared he might weep. He could make out scuffling, the Glock's fierce crack, once, twice, and he snapped back through the funnel of time to now, then gla.s.s shattering, the gun cabinet, the barklike grunts of hand-to-hand, Happy and Chuck going at it, the thud of flesh against something hard, the side of a skull maybe, a throaty cry of pain and then the Glock again, three times now.

It got quiet.

The hand, his right, felt like he'd boiled it, fingers clenched so tight, a claw. His ears kept humming, a keening pitch, punctuated by the strangled howls of the girl, almost inhuman now, m.u.f.fled by the tape gag she'd half worked loose just by screaming.

He blinked, tried to see but there was just a wincing blur, things shifting, outlines stripped apart and bleeding color. He waved his hand through the vaporous muck. In time he could make out Happy, upright, mostly so, leaning against the cabinet with its sawtooth gla.s.s, all broken, the girl in her pajamas huddled nearby. Happy's sleeve was dark and that meant blood. His chest bellowed in and out as he tried to draw breath through the balaclava's soggy black wool.

No sign of the contractor. Had he run?

He felt it first, the foot. He nudged it trying to stand, gathered his balance, saw the man finally, sprawled on the floor facedown, one side of his face a b.l.o.o.d.y knit of ripped flesh and jagged bone. Close-quarter impact from the Glock, G.o.do could put that together at least. One of the shotguns lay just beyond the dead man's hand and G.o.do figured he'd pushed the girl up from his lap for distraction, shoved her into Happy, reached for the rack, pulled the weapon down.

G.o.do heard himself say, "You all right?"

Happy looked at his sleeve as though discovering for the first time he had an arm. "Cut it on the gla.s.s." He pressed his hand to the b.l.o.o.d.y cloth. "You?"

PERCHED IN THE VAN'S Pa.s.sENGER SEAT, CHATO COULDN'T HELP HIMSELF, lifting his hand to slap high fives, grinning like the luckiest guy alive. Puchi, behind the wheel, obliged him distractedly, offering him a raised palm. G.o.do and Happy, the wounded, sat in back with Efraim, who rummaged through the duffel bags filled with weapons they'd taken off the walls of the cellar room. They'd left the safe alone-why risk a second blast?-even pa.s.sed on the desk and the display cabinet, anything with a door, not worth it, scrambling to grab what was there in plain view. But that was a haul. They'd come for weapons and needed something to show for their trouble. They'd left the girl and the two women tied hand and foot, made sure their gags were tight, gathered up all the cell phones and cut the cord on every landline they found.

Happy, squeezing the cut on his arm, trying to stanch the blood, thought of Lourdes. Asking her to bear up with just a robbery in the picture was one thing, especially given who the target was, but they'd left a body behind and it wasn't just Happy the law would come after. The whole crew was looking at felony homicide. That'd wipe the smile off Chato's face, once he got his head around what it meant. And sure, Crockett was small-time, locals hadn't seen this big a thing in who knew how long, but that just meant they'd call in the wise men. Word would reach Lattimore faster than rats up a rope. And they'd grind poor Lourdes down, no way she'd hold out. And that meant no immunity, no citizenship, no nothing. He'd gambled, a long shot, no point crying. But it meant going on the run. That's how quick, he thought, the future dies. Not that he didn't know that already.

He glanced toward G.o.do. The burned hand was sickly red in places, charred in others, blisters bubbling up. He sat there flexing it, open, closed, wincing from the pain but not stopping, staring at the thing like he could heal it with his mind alone. That was G.o.do. Pity the ugly f.u.c.ker, the guy was nothing if not stubborn. G.o.d knows he could take punishment and he had the instincts of a puma-who else could have stuck his arm in that hole and not lost the whole d.a.m.n thing? Too bad it wouldn't count for more.

At the farmhouse they split up. Chato and Puchi kept the van, taking the weapons to Vasco with a report on why there wasn't more. Efraim drove off in his own car. G.o.do and Happy lingered in the rusted Ford pickup with the Arizona plates.

Neither spoke for what felt like an eternity, Happy sitting with his keys in his lap, G.o.do still working his hand like a prosthetic he couldn't quite get the hang of. The sky remained leaden and the wind blew from the north but the rain had stopped. Blue jays cawed in the walnut trees. A splintering shaft of sunlight broke through a coral-hued, cuquita-shaped cuquita-shaped gash in the cloud cover, like something off a p.o.r.nographic prayer card. gash in the cloud cover, like something off a p.o.r.nographic prayer card.

"The guy back there," Happy said finally, "the guy I killed-was that really the cat you thought he was? You know the one I mean. At the checkpoint."

G.o.do stopped messing with his hand for a moment, staring out the windshield. A blue jay buzzed something zigzagging through the tall gra.s.s, a ground squirrel probably, maybe a vole. He shrugged. "Won't bring Gunny Benedict back if it was."

"That wasn't really why I asked."

"The man deserved what he got. If that's any comfort. And if not, it should be."

Happy watched a second jay join the first, dive-bombing their invisible prey. "I can't stick around here," he said.

With his good hand G.o.do reached into the pocket of his coveralls, took out a bandanna, and wiped away some fluid leeching out of his blisters. "Take me with you."

"You need that hand looked after."

"The hand's a f.u.c.king giveaway. Once the cops talk to the girl they'll check every ER in the state, then move on to every state nearby."

"There's clinics that'll keep it quiet."

"Not once this thing hits the news."

Happy felt the usual boil of nausea churning in his gut. "I'm heading to Mexico."

"I can handle that." G.o.do wrapped the bandanna around his charred and blistered hand, fashioned a knot using his good hand and his teeth. "We'll get my guns and meds at the trailer."

"Your hand like that? What good are your guns?"