Culprits Page 18

  “Hey, Rack. Step on it. You’re drivin’ like an old woman.”

  Racklin tried to will his right foot to lean harder on the gas, but his foot wouldn’t move. Between his flaring vehophobia and Eaves’ veiled threat of blackmail, this was the best he could do without causing a six-car pile-up.

  “How much?” Racklin asked. Because the sooner they could agree on a price, the sooner he could yank the Sentra to the curb and let Eaves and his little girlfriend out.

  “I think a hundred even would be fair. Don’t you?”

  A hundred grand was almost twice Racklin’s take from the Silverthorne job.

  “A pointed stick up your ass is what would be fair.”

  Eaves laughed again, and this time, the girl joined in. “Be that as it may. My price is one-zero-zero, jack. In cash by noon tomorrow. You copy?”

  “And I’m just supposed to trust you won’t come back for more later. Is that it?”

  “I’m not a greedy man, Rack. I can go a long way on a hundred Gs, and so could you while I was spending it. You understand what I’m—Jesus!”

  Racklin had suddenly stood on his brakes, pitching them all forward in the Nissan’s interior like loose mannequins. The idiot in the mini-van who’d seemed intent on running the red at the upcoming intersection had done nothing of the kind. But for Racklin’s money, he may as well have pole-axed the Sentra and killed them all, because Eaves would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to know now that something was seriously wrong with his old “partner.”

  “What happened? Why did you stop?” the blonde asked, dumbfounded. They were sitting in the middle of the intersection, car horns blaring in waves behind them.

  Drenched with sweat, Racklin got the car moving again.

  “Damn, Rack,” Eaves said. “You really have lost it, haven’t you? You can’t drive no more.”

  There was no point pretending otherwise, but Racklin felt compelled to try. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I told you. I’ve been watchin’ you for days. I thought this granny-behind-the-wheel shit was all an act. But it’s not, is it? You’ve really lost your nerve.”

  Racklin didn’t say anything.

  “It’s because of that old man you hit, ain’t it? The dumb fuck.” He chuckled like a kid at a birthday party.

  Eaves’ laughter was almost enough to make him draw his Smith & Wesson in the door pocket to his left. Take his chances in a close-quarters firefight inside a moving vehicle, if that’s what it would take to shut him up.

  But Racklin just kept driving instead.

  . . .

  Before Charley and Racklin’s mother, Nadine, began robbing banks, Charley flew planes, first in an aerial circus where the pair met, and then as a crop duster. But neither occupation paid worth a damn nor held enough excitement for either of them, so Charley and Nadine turned to a life of crime. Racklin was trapped in boarding school up in Oregon during this time. His father, the circus’ abusive and alcoholic PA announcer whom Nadine had left for Charley, had placed him there, terrified of the influence his ex-wife might have on their only child if he didn’t wield his court-appointed custody rights to hide the boy away.

  And then Nadine died. Technically, she was declared dead after seven years in absentia, but the truth was a lot more nuanced: She took a bullet through the driver side door of the getaway car in the last heist she and Charley would ever pull together and Charley torched her body with the vehicle. The New Mexico bank job had turned sideways on a monstrous scale and covering his tracks became imperative to Charley’s survival. But the heist had also made him a rich man, and as soon as he was able to arrange it, he negotiated an unofficial deal with Racklin’s father for the boy’s custody. Prior to Nadine’s disappearance, Racklin used to spend several weeks every summer with his mother and Charley, and Charley had grown rather fond of the kid. Both he and Racklin knew Nadine would want them to be together.

  So Racklin had been there, under Charley’s wing, ever since, right up until the old man’s death in a Vegas convalescent hospital eight years ago. Over the course of their time together, what Charley hadn’t taught him about being a thief and a first-class driver like Nadine, no one on earth knew.

  Today, Danny Eaves had Racklin by the short-hairs, and Charley was no longer around to offer advice on how to make the asshole disappear. If it was true that ghosts from Racklin’s Crystal Q past had a bounty on his head, he had to figure out a way to deal with Eaves, permanently, and within the twenty-four hours Eaves had given him to do it.

  Eventually, Racklin came up with a plan he thought Charley would approve of. But the first step would easily be the hardest: he had to pay Eaves off.

  . . .

  “Thanks, Rack ’Em Up. Pleasure doing business with you,” Eaves said, zipping up the bag full of cash Racklin had just handed him.

  “Go fuck yourself, Danny.”

  The laugh again. Eaves tossed the bag in the trunk of his car, taking one last look around the parking structure to make sure Racklin had come alone. “Don’t guess I have to tell you this is goodbye. You can come lookin’ for me if you want, but you ain’t gonna find me.”

  “Famous last words,” Racklin said.

  But driving off with Racklin’s hard-earned money, Eaves sure looked like a man he was never going to see again.

  . . .

  In fact, Racklin saw Eaves only eight hours later.

  The reed-thin gunman entered his apartment in Fresno after his flight up from Los Angeles and Racklin greeted him with a blow to the back of his head, dropping him to the floor in the dark like a tipped cow.

  “We meet again,” Racklin said, returning custody of the black leather bag Eaves had been carrying to its rightful owner.

  Eaves shook his head, trying to clear it. He recognized the voice, but the gun in his assailant's hand was the only thing he could really see with any certainty.

  “Rack?”

  “I had a guy in the business tell me once, Danny: prepare for all eventualities. I couldn’t be sure you or Simmonds would try something like this after I killed the old guy in the walker, but I had to take precautions, just in case.”

  Simmonds was the setup man for the Silverthorne job.

  “Hold on a minute…”

  “So I had somebody keep tabs on both of you. I looked upon it as an investment in my future. I’ve known this was your crib since the day you moved in.”

  “Hold on, I said! How—”

  “How’d I get here so fast? Well, I sure as hell didn’t drive.” Eaves’ eyes had adjusted enough now to the dim light that he could see the small grin on Racklin’s face. “We both know that much, don’t we?”

  He put three bullets in Danny Eaves and left.

  . . .

  The first time Charley ever took Racklin up in his old biplane, Racklin knew he wanted to fly.

  Take-offs and landings were hard for him now, of course. The blur out the windows to each side reminded Racklin of nothing so much as driving a car the way he once loved to drive a car, pedal to the metal, balls to the wall. But there was no one to hit on a runway, no sudden movements to jerk your attention from the wheel, so flying just didn’t hold the same terror for him.

  Still, the two modes of transport held a similar rush. Like driving a car at its limit, flying was the purest form of freedom, lending a pilot the sense of being untethered from the world and all its suffocating hypocrisies.

  It was at a private flight school in Indiana that Racklin met Ellison, the pilot he’d recruited just months ago for the Crystal Q heist. An instructor at the school, Ellison was a natural pilot and probably always had been; where Racklin was a sparrow, Ellison was a hawk. Still, they’d made fast friends and had kept in touch. Racklin hadn’t seen Ellison’s potential for backstabbing until it was too late, and his former flight instructor had made a shambles of the Crystal Q crew so as to try—and fail—to take more than his fair share of the take.

>   Ten thousand feet above green patches of farmland in northern California, en route from Fresno Yosemite Airport to Bozeman, Montana, Racklin checked his instruments again and patted the leather bag occupying the Cessna 182’s passenger seat like man’s best friend. And maybe the money Eaves had died for, and all the rest Racklin had socked away, was, in fact, the only friend Racklin had left. It was for damn sure he couldn’t count anybody Ellison had left alive back in Fort Worth in that group, most especially Ellison himself.

  If so, Racklin could live with being alone. Friends were overrated. Money wasn’t. If there was one thing a wheelman knew how to do, it was run and hide.

  Even one who couldn’t drive a car the way he used to anymore.

  Chapter 10 - Showdown

  by Gary Phillips

  “He’s supposed to be holed up in here,” said the one in the passenger seat wearing glasses.

  “The cash Harrington spread around says so,” Ellison said from the backseat.

  “Word is he’s panicked and on the run,” added the man with the glasses.

  The driver looked at this man but didn’t say anything.

  Harrington’s considerable reputation and money, which went further than hands-on beatings, had been used to run down the known associates of the man called the Financier once Zach Culhane had given up his name after the wife had given him up.

  Culhane had been tortured and branded mercilessly under the bland stare of Clovis Harrington. He spilled, was chained up, and then disposed of like the slab of meat he’d become. Harington’s tactics hadn’t produced much else of use because he didn’t know much else. Though a bounty was issued for the Financier. As to the career criminal seemingly only called O’Conner, or Connie to his friends, as was alleged, Ellison knew his name and that of Hector from their time on the scouting mission over the Crystal Q. But he knew little else about the two.

  But from what the maid had said, Flora whatever her last name was, the one who’d been in the wine cellar, her account confirmed it must have been a masked O’Conner down there breaking into the safe. As he had heavy steps, she guessed the man with him was older but she could see he knew what he was doing. Not that she knew anything about cracking a safe, but while he seemed to be of a certain age, he handled himself efficiently. Ellison concluded that must have been Hector.

  When Harrington’s money rained, it was learned that one of O’Conner’s past crime partners was an old-school box man named Hector Gonzales. Thereafter, a freelance team had been engaged to make inquiries about Gonzales—who it was rumored was out of the country. And when the job had gone down, Ellison had a man called Eel in the cabin with him throwing out the firebombs. His name and description also went out on the underground grapevine.

  But all this rigmarole had also produced the one in the passenger seat sitting across from Harington’s other man, who drove. The lean man who’d addressed Ellison was in his forties, a lined face with steel grey hair that looked like it had been cut with him sitting at the kitchen table and a towel around his shoulders. He wore a loose sport shirt and cotton pants, rubber soled work shoes, and dark socks. To top it off, he also sported horn-rimmed glasses with thin lenses. He looked like such a civilian, he could be middle management of a big box store chain. The guy a checker called from out back when the frozen food display started leaking. He even had a square John kind of name, George Collier. Only, he’d been sent in by the board of the North Texas Citizens Improvement League.

  Harrington, Ellison had noted, hadn’t been happy to see Collier. He was soft-spoken and observant, not given to talking if not necessary. Collier wasn’t about the bluster. His effect on Harrington, given to inflating himself and letting everyone know within earshot he was the fiercest cock of the walk, was subtle. Harrington still barked orders but Ellison could tell the cattleman was conscious of the other’s presence, deferential to him even. Like a teacher aware of the principal sitting in the back of their classroom, judging them silently on how well they controlled their classroom. And now he was here with them. It made sense given O’Conner had pulled the string to take down the slush fund.

  “How about over there?” Collier said, pointing.

  “Okay,” the driver complied. Ellison hadn’t gotten this man’s name. The second one, sitting in back with him, was nicknamed Shim. What that was derived from he had no idea and wasn’t interested. But before they’d left the ranch to take a private flight out here to Southern California, it was clear that in the field, Harrington’s men would take orders from Collier, no question.

  The driver guided the black Lincoln Town Car to a stop atop a low rise. He shut the car off and almost instantly, Ellison was aware of how beguiling the air conditioner had been. The three exited the chilled car into the afternoon heat of Riverside County. Ellison knew there were cities out here, even pristine golf courses that looked like the grass had been spray painted in lush greens, but where they were was sparse and flat, with sandy dirt underneath their shoes. Not exactly the desert proper, but close enough for his tastes, Ellison reflected.

  “How do you intend on finding him in this?’ Ellison said to Collier.

  “Good question.” To the driver he said, “Pop the trunk, will ya?”

  The driver thumbed the key fob and the trunk unlatched.

  Collier retrieved a pair of binoculars from there and, coming back to stand with the other three, scanned the junk yard down below. No, Ellison corrected, it was more of a recycling center on steroids. For what Collier was viewing were several acres of used shipping containers, some of them forty-feet long and others twenty-feet long. Whether the longer or shorter version, the height and width seemed the same.

  There were rows of double stacked containers under an overhead metal skeleton of railing and metal lattice work while others were in the open. There seemed to be little to distinguish why there were those under the arrangements and those that weren’t.

  “Why the hell are these way out here with no ocean around?” the driver said to no one in particular.

  “The containers have a second life as portable offices, storage for your business, or even housing.” Collier rattled this off like explaining price changes on the tomatoes to the staff as he continued studying the area. Where they had parked was the eastern side of the container compound. There were no gates, as who the hell could steal one, and as far as Ellison could tell, no housing around containing tagging prone teens. There were though a number of heavy duty fork lifts about for moving the shipping containers around.

  Collier lowered the binoculars, pointing. “Toward the northern end is an office, several cars littered around this. There’s some sort of fabrication set up that way too. There’s a two-story L-shaped facility made out of the containers with glass windows installed. That’s where I saw some sparking from welding going on. Other than that, there’s no personnel about. Certainly not on this end of the facility.”

  “How could he be inside one of those tin cans and not melt?” Ellison said. He sounded on edge and scolded himself to be cool in the company of these men.

  Collier pointed again. “There are power lines snaking around some of those overhead constructions and thick cable crossing the ground thereabouts. He could have fans going, hunkered down in one with windows a couch and flat screen. Who the hell knows. But we have to find out.”

  He then regarded Ellison. “’Cause it’s not like you nor I have much of a choice.”

  O’Conner had killed his crime partner, who had also been his life partner. He’d made the decision that late afternoon on the gravel parking lot to see to it he ended the thief’s life. Why else would he have made his unwise alliance with Harrington. He knew he was a dead man, but he had to end O’Conner’s days first—see the light go out of his eyes as he took him out.

  From the still partly open trunk the crew took guns out. Ellison hung back. He knew he wasn’t going to get a gun. The driver and Shim each acquired a lightweight but deadly efficient Ingram
M11. The weapons’ stocks were folded in and each had an extended magazine and a suppressor on the end of the barrels. Collier lifted out a handgun and closed the lid. The four then descended. Collier spoke as they did so.

  “Like it or not, it makes sense to fan out as we’ve got plenty of ground to cover. Sweeney,” he said to the driver, pointing, “you take that quadrant. I’ll take more or less down the middle and you two that way,” he said to Shim and the pilot. “Only call if you tag him or have him pinned down.”

  The four split off into three and began scouring the storage yard. The men walked along hard packed earth amid rows of the stacked cargo containers. Ellison limped slightly from his leg wound. The containers were varied in coloring from several shades of blue, yellows, greens, reds, oranges, and white ones as well. Letter and numbers were marked on the narrower ends of the containers that were designed to be opened for loading or unloading. Cawing crows perched atop the containers, their heads turned as their ink deep eyes watched the interlopers prowl about.

  “Why don’t you go that way?” Shim said to Ellison. He indicated a side passageway they were almost upon.

  Ellison was going to object, but to what end? He’d realized before they left Texas that if a lead to O’Conner developed, he was to be the staked goat, the bait to draw the thief out. Tucked into his sock was a steak knife he’d palmed from Harrington’s ranch house. He did as ordered and moved cautiously along the passageway. The efficiency of the containers’ design was such that they could be stacked on top of each other and in rows, butting up one against the other. But periodically there would be spaces between these which Ellison concluded must have been done to let the workers walk around the stacks. Width-wise, there were passageways between the rows and he could see these were wide enough for the forklift to access.