One of the Wicked: A Mick Callahan Novel (11 page)

Bone sighed. He tied and gagged the boy and left him by the loading dock. The staff would find him the next day.

My friend got back into the waiting car.
You should have wasted him, just collateral damage
. The kid was a gang member. His hands weren't likely to be clean.
Getting soft in your old age.

The party went on a while; Gordo and his bodyguards doing coke lines off the bare tits of a tall hooker in a black thong. Somebody put out a kit and a few of the gang members shot up, but most stuck to booze and hits of grass.

At one point the cops showed. One lone squad car started up the driveway, but when the first two lines of gang bangers turned and glared, the cop, probably some rookie getting initiated by an amused partner, discovered that discretion was the better part of valor. He drove off quietly.

Bone waited and watched. No one else came his way. Finally Gordo got back in the Beemer and the other cars parted again. Bone sat up, prayed silently and started the Mustang. It ground around some but wouldn't start. He tried again. Finally realized the kid must have done some damage. Frustrated, Bone slid down and checked the ignition, found the problem, started the car. It roared to life.

Bud Stone got behind the wheel and began to coast down the alley toward the front of the parking lot.

The BMWs were maybe forty yards away, going back out onto the main drag, when Bone hit the side street and turned. A few heads turned out of curiosity, but the car was old and the plates were a mess. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one followed. He stayed half a block behind the procession, low in the front seat like one of the locals. Bone opened the door a crack and spat. He got a fresh pinch of chewing tobacco. He kept his tired eyes glued to the back of the car bringing up the rear. If it braked, he braked. If he felt made, he planned to drive on by and try again some other night.

Gordo stopped at a battered, boarded up liquor store near the freeway. Bone pulled to the curb and waited. Gordo stayed in the car while one of his bodyguards went inside to buy a fifth of Tequila and a couple of six packs of bottled beer. The Beemers kept driving. Bone discreetly followed.

The neighborhood turned into large chunks of undeveloped land or decaying wooden crack houses with dying grass around them. Tall succulent plants grew everywhere; the world was darkness, shadows, splintered boards and phallic, spiked undergrowth.

The cars finally slowed. They ended up driving onto a large piece of what looked like horse property. There were two houses. The one out front had men camped at the windows, but they seemed drunk and careless. The cars headed for the back house. At first glance, it was another dump.

Bone left his Mustang and slipped into the bushes. He used his field glasses. The windows were clear and clean. Inside, he could see decent furniture, paintings, and a large-screen, high-def TV.

The black guys collected some cash and left together in one of the BMWs. Maybe their shift was over, or they were hired for show. Either way, the odds had just improved. Bone eyeballed the property. No signs of an alarm, and the only guards seemed to be in the front house. He had to get closer. A long, wooden rail fence wove in and out of thick ivy that offered the only decent cover. Bone went flat and started crawling at a steady, patient pace.

It took an hour, but by the time Gordo closed the thick curtains Bud Stone was squatting right outside the side door, picking the lock. He eased inside and sat there on the kitchen floor, alone in the dark, scared and excited at the same time. Listened. Someone said something and a woman giggled.
Wait
. Another. There were
two
women. But was that it? Would Gordo allow himself to be so careless?

Bone forced himself to wait, and a few minutes later heard coughing. There was at least one other man, on watch in the living room, probably smoking a cigarette. Bone crawled into the hall. The living room was two doorways away and the lights were on; the big TV fired colored shapes at the wall. He crawled closer to one of the doors, heard nothing. Peered inside and looked up. Someone fast asleep in a bed, one foot half on the floor. The guy was out cold and snoring.

Bone choked him out, tied and gagged him.

My friend moved on and soon heard what sounded like a bad horror film coming from the next doorway. He crawled again, froze when a floorboard squeaked. After a time, he continued forward and peeked into what he could now see was the master bedroom.

The television was on there as well, lots of screaming and grunting and blows. The two women had finished ministering to Gordo and were sharing a joint. The big man was naked, seemed inert. Bone waited until the girls passed out, too. His bladder ached, but he ignored it and edged toward the living room.

The other guard, a squat and muscular Latino with oily hair, was parked on a black leather couch, AK by his side, watching an old war movie with the sound way too high.
Almost too easy
. Bone got to his feet, stepped over quietly, choked and tied him up and grabbed the rifle.

Back to the bedroom. One of the girls, a hooker improbably named Angel, woke up to a hand over her mouth. The man standing over her had pantyhose over his face, and his features were mashed and distorted. He looked like something out of the film they'd all been watching; one of those bloody productions Gordo was famous for creating. The man held a finger to his lips and showed her the rifle. He motioned for her to wake up her friend, a cocaine whore more aptly named Candy.

"Be quiet," the stranger said in a menacing whisper. "I'm not going to hurt you. Gordo is the one I want."

Bone marched the two naked girls down the hall and locked them in the bathroom. Then he returned to the bedroom, found a chair and sat down. He watched the DVD for a while. A teenaged girl who seemed genuinely terrified was being slapped around by two naked men wearing Halloween masks. She spoke Spanish. They burned her with a cigarette, then choked and raped her repeatedly. If it was faked, it was Oscar caliber work. Bone figured it for an actual video pirated from another country. His blood started to boil. He turned off the television, sat down near Gordo, aimed the rifle at the dealer and flicked on the light.

"What the . . . ?"

Bone once told me that nothing concentrates the mind as perfectly as the business end of a gun. Gordo shook off the drugs and booze slowly, but then sat up straight when he saw the man with the pantyhose face. His red eyes bulged wide. One palm came up in the classic vain gesture meant to ward off a bullet.

"Hey," Gordo said weakly. "Hey."

"It's about your money, motherfucker." The intruder spoke quietly, firmly. "And I want all of it."

Gordo tried the usual bobbing and weaving. Said he didn't keep it all at the house, the safe was locked and an employee kept the key, maybe tomorrow morning; I'll get you for this and you can run but you can't hide asshole. Bullshit like that, the things people say when they're bluffing. Meanwhile, the strange man just sat there with his face all twisted up.

Gordo probably got bolder then, made some threats without getting a response. Bigger threats. Maybe Gordo even eventually made the mistake of threatening Bone's family. I figure something like that must have happened, something that compounded having viewed the sadistic video. How do I know?

Because Bone tied Gordo to the chair, gagged him, and started in with the knife.

"When's he going to wake up?"

I was lying sideways on a seat that smelled like genuine leather. My hands were tied behind my back. I'd been gagged and blindfolded. The fight in my yard, the blow from the baseball bat. . . .

Everything was humming, vibrating. We were probably in the van, moving rapidly, maybe out on the highway. My head felt too large and I had what felt like a terminal hangover. My stepfather's memory spoke up from deep inside.
Danny chewed me out for having lost a fight. I felt a little sick, probably from blows to the head, but also from shame. When you get the chance, boy, you make them pay.

"Who gives a shit when he wakes up?" Cowboy finally answered. "He stays quiet, it's an easier drive."

"What's this about, anyway? He's just some talk-show guy, for Chrissakes."

"That's none of your business."

This wasn't about revenge. They'd been sent to the strip bar, and had mistaken that first businessman they'd assaulted for Bud Stone. Apparently, I'd interfered with their plans to attack him, and then had been seen talking to Bone, so now they'd been told to pick me up. One of them turned up the radio. A repetitive pop hit assaulted my ears. I wriggled my hands and feet to restore circulation. They were bound by plastic police ties.

No James Bond shit tonight, I was just going to have to be patient.

Times like this, you suddenly think about dying. How easy it can be to get taken out. And anyone who claims they don't feel sick to their stomach and loose in the bowels when that happens is lying. Being helpless was the worst part. It was almost too much to bear on top of feeling scared. I'd woken up with my hands tied like this back in Dry Wells, and this wasn't any easier.

We drove on. I drifted in and out of consciousness for quite a while. The head and neck pain probably kept me from going under for good, a dangerous possibility with a concussion. I did sleep a bit; I don't know for how long, and when I focused again my stomach had settled. The drone of the tires changed pitch as the driver slowed down, maybe for a traffic light. It was light out. I fell asleep again.

"Wake up, Clyde," Cowboy said to Windbreaker. "We're here."

My heart kicked. After a few minutes we drove over bumpy ground and came to a stop. They rolled a window down, and suddenly I caught the scent of freshly turned earth and distant sage. It was dead quiet. We were probably in the desert, many hours from Los Angeles. The seatbelt warning pinged. I opened my eyes slowly, wanting them to have time to adjust, and winced. The sunlight hurt my eyes.

It was mid-morning.

"He's awake," the other one said. The one Cowboy had called Clyde. He rolled me over onto my back, leaned down and ripped the taped gag away. My face burned. Clyde looked down coolly. "Don't look like much now, does he?"

"He still looks like more than you could handle," Cowboy said. "Grab his feet, tough guy."

They hauled me out of the van and dumped me on my side in the dirt. The world got sharp and clear. The hills were beautiful and the morning was fragrant with sage flowers. The ground was rich and moist, as if someone had recently planted here and was tending a new garden. Were they going to shoot me now?

"Why?"

At first I didn't recognize my own voice. I'd asked the question aloud. Cowboy ignored me. He pulled out a switchblade knife and flicked it open. I swallowed. He rolled me over, bent down behind me and cut away the plastic bonds. He nicked my skin, but the rush of blood covered that pain with another.

"The fuck you doing?"

Clyde. He didn't seem to like the idea of me getting back on my feet. He backed towards the van and produced a small handgun. I caught a reflection, but not the make and model. I blinked and looked around. We were at some kind of building site. Tractors were moving in the distance, despite the heat. A construction crew was working busily. A new hotel?

"Sit up, Callahan."

I did. Cowboy cut my ankles free. I massaged them, and my wrists. I turned my head and saw a giant complex, a new hotel of some kind. The pieces started to come together. I squinted against the glare, made out a few markers here and there. Found one that said "The Valley of Fire Corporation."

"Can you stand?"

I rolled over, got up onto hands and knees, then to my feet. "I'm okay." I listed to port, and Cowboy caught me. "Maybe not so okay."

He examined my forehead. "You got popped pretty good. Sorry about that. Clyde gets a little carried away sometimes."

"Me?" Clyde was literally shaking in his boots. "The fuck you mean me?"

Cowboy didn't answer. He pushed me at the small of the back. We started walking. They led me across some black asphalt and bright white sand. We moved through a glass door still covered with crosses of beige masking tape and then into a deserted hallway. Rolls of thick, busily patterned carpet lay everywhere, not yet installed. Our footsteps boomed and echoed.