Culprits Read online

  “We just trust you. Right?”

  O’Conner’s voice was like cut glass. “You’re saying?”

  “Nothing.” Racklin hit the pilot’s shoulder with a stack of bills. “He don’t mean nothing. We’re all good. Right?”

  Ellison looked from Racklin to O’Conner. “Yeah,” he said. “we’re all good.”

  “Okay then,” said Racklin. He quickly finished putting the rest of his money into his bag and lifted it. “Let’s go. I want out of town and out of Texas, and I want it now.”

  As Gonzales and Dollarhyde wiped the place down, the others finished packing up their money and gear. Thereafter they left the office and once again took the stairs to the ground floor and exited the building. Outside on the dirt lot that served as the parking area, everyone began to head toward their cars. O’Conner came out last, buttoning up a windbreaker.

  “What the hell?” Racklin exclaimed.

  “What’s up?” said Benny.

  “Someone slashed my tires.”

  “Mine too,” Dollarhyde said.

  Ellison produced a pistol and slammed it across Racklin’s head, sending him to the ground. At the same time a motorcycle roared from around a near corner, the rider left-handedly spraying bullets at the crew from a Tec-9 with an extended magazine. Everyone ran for cover, rounds burrowing into the dirt, pinging off the cars and the concrete of the office building. Ellison, firing the pistol, threw his duffle of cash into the hatchback of his Jeep, the only vehicle with its tires still intact. He then scooped up two fallen bags of loot and tossed them in to join his.

  O’Conner went prone behind a bonded Monte Carlo, a gun in his fist.

  The motorcycle rider continued to spray the area with bullets, keeping everyone down. He reached the periphery of the lot and, screeching back around, he continued shooting.

  Steeling himself, a grim O’Conner partly rose from his hiding place, a round striking close to him. He took aim and fired three shots at the rider. The second one penetrated the rider’s helmet and the man fell backward off the motorcycle.

  O’Conner looked around for Ellison.

  “Bastard,” he heard Dollarhyde snarl. Ellison was pushing her ahead of him. He had her cut down Mossberg pointed at the woman’s head.

  “Keep your ass on the ground,” he demanded as Racklin began to pick himself up.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Racklin said as he continued up.

  The pilot stepped close and struck him again with the butt of the weapon.

  “Hey,” O’Conner said, stepping away from the Monte Carlo. “This is bullshit. People are looking down here from their windows. Cops will be here in a heartbeat.”

  “Motherfucker,” Ellison said, his voice breaking with emotion. Pushing Dollarhyde to the side, he brought the shotgun up and fired. O’Conner raised his arms to cover his face but took most of the blast to his torso and went down hard. The money he was carrying dropped down too.

  O’Conner grunted as he thudded onto the dry earth. The pilot ran over to get the dual equipment bags with the money, O’Conner laying on his side, his back to him, the bags on the other side of his body. Bending and reaching for them, O’Conner turned around and, sitting up, drove a knife into the pilot’s thigh. He quickly pulled it free of Ellison’s leg as heintended to plunge the blade into the man’s chest. The pilot yelped, moving backward and avoiding blade. O’Conner got to his feet. The sleeves of his windbreaker shredded. Blood leaked from his wounded forearms beneath.

  O’Conner had gotten a familiar feeling in the back of his neck when Ellison groused about the split. Before coming outside, he’d put on one of the special jackets Gonzales had brought along—the old man being overly cautious these days. The clothing was based on a design from a famous tailor in South America who outfitted heads of state, including U.S. presidents it was rumored, in suits and everyday wear woven with his proprietary blends of polyester and nylon. The bullet resistant windbreaker had protected him from the majority of the shotgun’s small gauge load. Apparently, though, the knock-off garment was lacking protection in the sleeves.

  Rushing to the pilot, the two men grappled and grunted for control of the shotgun, Ellison kneeing O’Conner and breaking free. But now O’Conner had the weapon and was readying to blast Ellison away when the pilot produced a compact stun grenade and threw it at him. O’Conner wryly noted the damn grenade had been among those made by Gonzales. He dove away as the thing went off. Ellison then lit and threw a remaining petrol bomb at the Monte Carlo, setting the car’s roof on fire. He’d put sugar in this one O’Conner concluded, noting how the fuel didn’t run down the sides of the car. In that way, the stuff would stick and burn. Nasty.

  Ellison turned and ran, putting distance between him and the crew he’d sought to double cross. The Monte Carlo’s fuel tank, having been punctured by bullets, had leaked gasoline all around itself and proceeded to ignite in a deafening blast that sent sections of sharp metal flying in all directions. During this, the pilot managed to get to his dead cohort’s still idling motorcycle. With parts of the destroyed car charred and smoldering, Ellison was a block away in a matter of moments, leaving the battered thieves behind.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Gonzales said, gripping O’Conner’s arm.

  “He’s got to be dealt with,” O’Conner vowed, staring after the receding pilot.

  “He will be,” the older man said, knowing enough about the mindset of the man beside him. “But right now we have to get away.”

  The sound of sirens in the distance seemed to bring O’Conner back to the present.

  “Right,” he said. He looked over at Racklin who was looking at the pilot’s abandoned Jeep. “That good to run?”

  “Yeah, looks okay,” he said. “Keys are in it. He was prepared to get the hell out.”

  “Yeah,” said Gonzales. “With our money. The little shit.”

  “Okay,” O’Conner said. “Everyone crowd in. Racklin, you good to drive?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We’ll drop each of you off one at a time. From there you’re all on your own with your share.”

  “And you two get the car?” said Estevez.

  O’Conner rasped, “You want to argue about it, Eel?”

  He held up his hands. “Not me. I’m good, ese.”

  In the car, O’Conner said to Racklin, “You’ll be the last to get out, we’re gonna have words first.”

  “I know,” a contrite wheelman said.

  Within the next hour, the empty car had been wiped clean and left on the street. The crew had scattered to the winds, Racklin as well, but he was short a hefty part of his cut, due to his having been the one who vouched for the traitor Ellison. The Crystal Q job was now officially behind them and whatever came next, O’Conner reflected, he’d be ready.

  Chapter 2 – Aftermath

  by Gary Phillips

  O’Conner had several problems to deal with after letting off the crew and dumping the Jeep. His forearms were bloody, his sleeves were in tatters, and he was hefting three million plus dollars in cash in two equipment bags. But it was now dark and he’d managed to put more than a mile from what was a fresh crime scene as far as the Fort Worth Police Department was concerned. He had to ditch the bags for now as he knew soon the patrol cars would be making circuits away from that dirt parking lot where the motorcycle driver lay dead. First, though, the cops would determine what went down there, door knocking and badgering folks who, for many of them, the police meant harassment, not solace. O’Conner had picked this area for a reason. But this also meant here was where on the regular the denizens got jacked up by the law and he was nothing if not conspicuous.

  He neared a storefront, its bright lights within bathing the cracked sidewalk. From inside came a voice in Spanish and English over a crackly PA system.

  “God has a way for you,” said the man’s voice, his ragged breathing audible as he must have the mic right on his lips, O’Conner
determined.

  “Come to the light and up out of the darkness,” the voice pleaded.

  O’Conner paused at the edge of the storefront. There were people inside, mostly Latino but some whites too, he saw. Several men and women wore cowboy hats or were fanning themselves with them. The gathered sat on metal folding chairs and some had their hands raised and shouted their amens.

  The walls were plain white and the worn carpeting industrial. It had been some sort of light color once but had faded to what was best described as aged oatmeal. Up front was a modest panel wood podium with the cross on it. A lay preacher in rolled up shirt sleeves and dark slacks extoled the gathered. Like James Brown in his heyday, he energetically moved back and forth behind the podium, bobbing and weaving as he ducked invisible blows from the Devil. He held a plastic encased mic that you had to press a button on to be heard. This was on a long-coiled cord attached to a portable speaker that had to be at least twenty years out of date. The fuzzy speaker sat on the floor, a few feet from the podium.

  “There is only one way,” the man said, the mic nearly pressed on his lips, the words virtually incomprehensible. But that didn’t matter. What did was the good feelings as more who-zaas and exaltations bubbled forth.

  For a moment, O’Conner considered walking in there and taking a seat, putting on the holy roller act. Rocking his upper body back and forth like Ray Charles on the piano. Then afterward, offering a donation to the La Luz de Jesus evangelicals if only they’d safeguard his belongings for a night or so. He smiled wanly and moved on. On the next block was an all-night laundromat. He went inside where there were two women of an older age busy with their wash and a young couple. They didn’t seem to pay him any attention and he walked toward the back of the place like he belonged there.

  In the tiny passageway, off to one side, was a locked door, and before him a doorway with a security screen on it. Past the security screen was a back area that contained what O’Conner concluded were the husks of junked appliances. He could hide the money in one of those rusted out wonders he weighed, but that meant his cash was too exposed for his tastes. He set the bags down, glancing out into the main room and noting again no one was keying in on him. From his back pocket he took out a folding knife and it didn’t take much effort to overcome the cheap lock on the door.

  Revealed was a small room with a mop and bucket in it, a tool box, goose neck lamp and a few parts on a shelf, as well as a toilet, apparently not for use by the customers, only the caretaker. It all smelled of mildew. O’Conner looked up, understanding he had little choice. The more he walked on with the bags, the more his chance of getting stopped by the law or some asshole trying to mug him. He closed the door on the room, turning on the gooseneck lamp. A weak warm light glowed, providing adequate illumination. He aimed the light upward. The toilet didn’t have a lid, but putting the seat up, as it would slide around, he stood with his feet on the edge of the porcelain bowl. He pushed up the acoustic tiles and put his money inside the false ceiling, straddling the bags across the thin metal framework held in place by wire suspended from the true plaster ceiling. He reserved some bills for tonight. The door locked behind him and he walked out carrying the tool box. The idea being the people in here might have absently noted he’d been carrying something so better to reinforce that idea than be empty handed and possibly fuel curiosity. He ditched the tool box a door front later.

  As Ellison’s shotgun blast had concentrated on his torso, only a few of the pellets had blistered his forearms. Before entering the laundromat, he’d pushed up what remained of the material of his windbreaker, exposing his bloody trails so as to make the tatters less noticeable. The bloody wounds were mostly dried and as he walked purposefully, the customers hadn’t paid him much mind. Could be if a cop showed up and pressed the people in the laundromat for a description, one of them might be forthcoming. But again, he judged the odds to be in his favor. He stopped at a liquor store and bought a plastic pint bottle of off brand vodka and some chips. He left with his black plastic bag of items, eating the chips along the way. At a 7-Eleven, he bought rubbing alcohol, mercurochrome, a USA Today newspaper, a disposable lighter, some cotton balls, and two pre-packaged burritos he microwaved there.

  Walking along, he ate one of the burritos and on the advice of the clerk who he’d asked, found the nearby roadside motel. It was called the Cicero Pines. He checked in and, sitting at the tiny round table in the room, had a belt of his vodka. He spread out the newspaper below him on the floor. Then he heated the end of his knife and proceeded to dig the pellets out of his forearms, grimacing and gnashing his teeth but silent as he did so. He would wipe the knife clean with alcohol then repeat heating the blade. Only two pellets were in deep. Each time he took out a shot, he poured some of the rubbing alcohol on the area and dabbled it with mercurochrome to prevent infection. Done, he swept the bloody pellets off the table to join any that had fallen to the newspaper. O’Conner took this into the bathroom and, shaking out the newspaper, flushed the pellets down and away. He then burned the newspaper to ashes in the combo tub and shower so as not to leave any trace of his blood.

  Back at the table, using more newspaper, he gathered up the stained cotton balls and crunched that all down into a ball. This he would take with him and not merely dump in the trash here at the motel. The second burrito was cold but edible. He ate that and had more vodka. There was no twenty-four-hour thrift store so he’d have to wait until morning for a change of clothes. He turned on the television but found no news report about the incident. He turned it off and, sitting at the table, sipping the vodka, outlined his next moves.

  Taking care of Ellison was a priority, but getting out whole from Fort Worth was primary. Harrington’s wife and Culhane were loose ends but he knew that going in. He’d already calculated one or both of them wouldn’t be able to extricate themselves from the husband’s grasp. But that was their lookout. He’d get the money to the Financier and they’d get their end. Assuming they were still around to collect. What happened afterward, well, thieving was not for the risk adverse as there were no guarantees of winding up in a rocking chair on your front porch. Though he had to admit he wanted to get back to Gwen and their subdivision home.

  Before dropping him off, O’Conner having extracted his penalty on Racklin, he’d also gotten from him what he could as to who Ellison might pal or bed with—which wasn’t much, though it wasn’t his impression the wheelman was holding back. And on the subject of wheels, he ruminated as the cheap vodka burned its way down, he needed some transportation. The car he was going to use was back at the parking lot. It was cold so he wasn’t worried about the cops towing it off. But who knew when they might clear out. Plus, if they found the office they’d used, they might leave a patrol car on post just in case one or more brigand wandered back.

  He moved the drapes over the window slightly aside and scanned the lot. There were a couple of possibilities out there. He could lie in wait and strongarm whoever showed to drive off in that family van he liked. Probably an errant horny husband who could ill afford to summon the cops, he imagined. But that could be more of a complication than he needed at this time. He regarded what was left of the vodka and screwed the cap back on and set the bottle on the table. He had a slight buzz from the booze but this only heightened the edge O’Conner desired.

  Because he assumed to be in and out of Fort Worth, he hadn’t done any more advance work than securing the location. The crew had taken care of getting their own cars there. The locale had been obtained through an intermediary, someone who’d come recommended. Ellison had also been recommended, so O’Conner wasn’t exactly in a trusting state of mind, but he had to start somewhere. He checked the time and called the go-between on his encrypted phone.

  “Understand there was a shit storm,” said the woman on the other end after he’d spoken. She had a raspy voice that nonetheless gave her an alluring quality. He only knew her as Kawolski.

  “Nobody was caught,” O’
Conner said, “and it isn’t on the news.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I don’t rat.”

  “Okay,” came her reply after a beat. He’d been vouched for previously. “You want wheels.”

  “Yes. Now.”

  “It’s going to cost you.”

  “I’m in no position to complain.”

  “This is true.”

  Three hours later he was at the Fam-Ram salvage yard. He’d taken a bus and walked to get there. There were several such establishments in this area. The yard was cast in darkness but there were lights on in a wood and corrugated metal standalone office. Two men were there. One was in jeans, the other in overalls. There was a pit bull on a chain too. The dog sat on its haunches, eyeing the newcomer.

  “Hear you need a ride, man,” the one in overalls said.

  “That’s right,” O’Conner answered. “Kawolski gave you my name.”

  “Yeah, so what?” the other one snorted. “That haughty bitch don’t run us.”

  “How about we just do our business, okay?”

  “How about you ain’t calling the tune, man,” overalls said, thumbs hooked in his pockets.

  O’Conner kept his anger in check. “The agreed price was twenty thousand for a Hyundai Entourage minivan.” An eleven-year-old vehicle, he didn’t add. They were robbing him but the plates were solid, he’d been told.

  “We’re of the mind you got some real money,” the other one stared, moving to O’Conner’s side. “If you can afford twenty, thirty shouldn’t be a problem for a high stepper like yourself.” He grinned broadly at his buddy.

  “That wasn’t the deal.”

  “Fuck that,” the one in jeans said. His bad breath was laced with marijuana. He pulled a pistol and jabbed it in O’Conner’s side.

  “Uh-huh,” O’Conner said. He whipped around with his knife and slashed the man’s arm. Then he grabbed the wrist of the pistol hand and twisted it violently. At the same time, his foot swept behind the other’s heel and, leveraging, he had him down on the ground flat, the gun now in his hand.