Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (23 page)

He retrieved the bucket from the corner of the room and flipped it upside down. He
steadied his weight on top of it, careful not to step in the center and risk an implosion.
Some lingering grogginess worked against his sense of balance but he managed to stay
upright.

The pipes were thin enough that he couldn’t hook his thick fingers around them well
with how little room there was between them and the ceiling. He impulsively searched
his pockets, looking for his keys to try to use one as a miniature crowbar. They
were missing. His pockets had been emptied and his belt had even been removed. This
kept his pants low around his waist, being that he had lost some weight in recent
months. He found himself repeatedly tugging them up while he stood on the bucket.

When it became clear that he was getting nowhere, he dropped back down to the floor.
He circled to the side of the freezer evaporator that hosted the row of fans. There,
he saw another pipe, this one copper, leading out from the wall. It was likely protecting
the electrical wiring used to power the machine.

The pipe was as thin as those that lined the ceiling, but its horizontal mount left
some space between it and the ceiling. The pipe wasn’t long, possibly a foot in length.
It wasn’t the ideal weapon, but he believed that he might be able to use the end
of it to smash through the glass of the window on the door.

He leapt into the air and wrapped both hands around the pipe.
He dangled from it
before realizing that it would take more than his dead weight to pull it down. He
wildly yanked on it, thrusting his hips and legs up and down to try to work it loose.
He growled before planting his feet on the wall beside him and, using his newfound
leverage, leaned back and pulled. He felt the pipe bend. After a few more seconds,
the end that entered the wall finally snapped. Sparks flew as he fell to the floor.
He managed to land on his feet before stumbling backwards to his butt. A bare, insulated
electrical wire was left hanging from the wall while the pipe dangled loosely from
the evaporator.

He stood up and twisted the pipe counter-clockwise until the strand of metal that
had kept it attached to the evaporator snapped.

He grinned. When he turned to face the door, however, his hope quickly vanished.

Standing in the now open doorway was the man who had broken through the back door
of Sean’s home. He held a black revolver in his hand and it was pointed directly
at Sean. A thin strip of duct tape bound his glasses together at the center and there
was deep bruising and some swelling under his eyes. A gauze bandage crossed the bridge
of his nose. They were all battle marks from his earlier altercation with Sean. Having
switched out of his black attire, he was now wearing a navy-blue sweatshirt, jeans,
and tennis shoes.

“Drop the pipe and kick it over here,” he instructed Sean.

“No,” Sean said brazenly.

The man’s eyes widened, urging Sean to appreciate the situation he was in. “Excuse
me?”

“If you were gonna kill me, you’d have done it already.”

Clearly angry, he gripped his gun tighter. “Sean, no one
wants
to kill you, but let
me assure you that I
will
pull this trigger if I need to.”

Sean’s eyes narrowed. “You will, huh?”

“Yes. I will. You’ve gotten yourself mixed up in some serious shit that doesn’t concern
you, and you’ve put us in a pretty tough spot.”

“Good,” Sean sneered.

The man shook his head in disgust and repeated his order for Sean to slide over the
pipe.

Sean ignored him. “What did you do with Andrew Carson, you son of a bitch?”

He glared at Sean for a moment before responding. “He should be the least of your
worries right now. Now, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your time in here
wearing a bullet in your gut, you’ll toss over that pipe right now.”

Sean returned the man’s glare, unsure of what to read from his demeanor. Back at
home, the man hadn’t come across like a professional. He certainly wasn’t someone
who could handle himself in a physical situation. He was, however, clearly desperate
and thus unpredictable. He might actually be willing to do what he was threatening.

He side-tossed the pipe to the man, who managed to snag it in the air without deviating
his attention from Sean. The man tossed it behind him onto the floor outside of the
freezer. It landed with a series of clangs.

The room behind the man was barely lit and there wasn’t much to see. The edge of
a wooden table. A couple of broomsticks leaning up against a wall. Beyond them all,
however, Sean was sure he could make out the first few steps of a staircase leading
upwards in the dark. He had to be in a basement. The man’s body obscured the rest
of Sean’s view.

“Don’t try any more of this bullshit,” warned the man. “We’ll know if you do.”

“What’s your plan here, ace?” asked Sean. “Am I supposed to
live
down here?”

“For now,” he answered. “Just be thankful we didn’t tie you up.”

“Just be thankful
you’re
still breathing,” Sean retorted. “The next time I get my
hands on you, you won’t be.” He fixed a wicked glare on the man to let him know that
he meant it.

The look on the man’s face suggested that he believed Sean. He
began slowly inching
his way backward, keeping his gun trained forward. Sean’s stare continued to burn
a hole right through him. Once the man was standing in the doorway, his hand latched
onto the freezer door and prepared to close it.

Sean spoke again. “When do I get to see Norman Booth?”

The man froze, his eyes growing larger. “What?” He took a step forward as his hand
shook.

Sean’s question had clearly struck a nerve. “Booth. I know he’s here. When do I get
to see him?”

There was a crackle in the man’s voice—an unmistakable sense of breathlessness that
dropped from his mouth. He asked quickly, “What do you know about Norman Booth?”

Sean smiled at the man’s disheveled demeanor. “I know that he’s the man calling the
shots, and that you’re just his monkey.”

To Sean’s surprise, his words evoked what seemed to be a sense of relief in the man’s
posture. His lips curled at the corners. Whatever leverage Sean had earned by bringing
up Norman Booth’s name appeared to have swiftly disintegrated. Sean didn’t understand
why.

“Enjoy your stay, Mr. Coleman,” the man spoke confidently. “If you behave yourself,
you’ll get out of this unharmed.”

He exited the freezer.

As the door was closing shut, Sean was half-tempted to try and rush it, but the plan
seemed too risky, especially with him being unarmed. The door closed with a click,
followed soon afterwards by a muffled snap that Sean guessed was created from a padlock
being secured.

“Remember what I said, asshole!” he yelled with his hand cupped to his mouth. “What
you got last time was just a taste!”

The man said nothing in return. His response came in the form of the overhead lights
inside the freezer going dark.

Sean’s penance for
misbehaving
.

Chapter 19

O
ldhorse was slumped awkwardly along the backseat of Joan Parker’s car. Wrapped
in a sun-bleached, woven blanket with one of his legs outstretched to the side, the
desperately weak man fought through the immense pain of his injuries. He grimaced
as he spoke carefully, telling the police chief in spurts of breath that it was Alex
Martinez who was responsible for what had happened to him. He had smelled the scent
of Martinez’s aftershave just before the blast.

“It was revenge,” he uttered. “He knows what I did to Montoya.”

Toby nearly cut him off, out of breath himself. “Ron Oldhorse wouldn’t let us take
him to the hospital until we brought him here first, Chief Lumbergh. He needed to
tell you about Alex.”

The boy explained how they had stopped by the cabin with a dish of peach cobbler,
which was Oldhorse’s favorite—a fact that the boy was irritatingly adamant about.
They had found his home in ruin and Oldhorse lying unconscious behind it, a bloody
mess. Joan took over the telling of the story when her son got too caught up in its
irrelevant details. Both Parkers’ swollen faces showed that they had been sobbing
most of the way back to town.

Oldhorse was barely recognizable to Lumbergh. Dried blood coated much of his weathered
face. What looked to be a large, white t-shirt—stained crimson red—was wrapped around
his forehead. Sections of his long, mangled hair were singed from the blast. The
chief could only imagine what the rest of the rugged man’s body looked like under
the blanket.

Lumbergh told Oldhorse that Martinez was already in custody, then he and Redick carefully
moved the injured man into the sheriff ’s car. Joan and Toby got inside with him.

“I’m sorry I can’t see this through with you, Chief,” muttered Oldhorse.

“It’s all right. You’ve done plenty. Just get yourself taken care of.” Lumbergh considered
telling Oldhorse about Sean, but decided not to. He felt his friend didn’t need to
worry about it. He also didn’t want to further upset Toby, who idolized Sean.

Lumbergh was about to close the car door when he heard Oldhorse speak his name. He
poked his head inside to hear what his wounded comrade wanted to say.

Oldhorse leaned forward as best he could. “A shark doesn’t let a pilot fish kill
its prey.”

Lumbergh squinted at the cryptic statement, letting its meaning soak through his
head.

In no time, the deputy who had previously been watching Martinez was sitting behind
the steering wheel of the sheriff ’s car. He sped through the parking lot with his
three passengers inside and tore up the largely melted road toward Lakeland. Sirens
howled away.

Redick received a radio call seconds later, before the men even had a chance to step
inside the police station. Another deputy, Bartels, was on the other end, one that
had been sent to Lakeland. He was reporting in from the motel that matched up to
an orange key that had been discovered in Martinez’s pocket during his pat-down.

With the possibility of Sean Coleman being held inside the room, there was probable
cause to enter—along with the emphatic consent of the motel’s owner who had had his
own reservations about the quirky tenant.

“The guy’s a nut-job, Sheriff,” said the deputy from inside the motel room.

“Tell us something we don’t know, Bartels,” replied Redick.

“He’s got a hard-on for Lumbergh. All kinds of photos of him in here. Some are from
newspapers. It looks like he even took some of them himself, from a distance, probably
without the chief ’s knowledge.”

Lumbergh shook his head, angry with himself for never picking up on any suspicious
behavior from the young man he had had over to his house several times for dinner
and cordial conversation.

The deputy continued. “He scribbled some Spanish shit all over a bunch of this stuff.
A single word with red pen or marker.”

Lumbergh snatched the radio from Redick’s hand. “Does it say
mentiroso
?”

“Uh. Yeah. How did you know that?” came Bartels’ voice.

“Son of a bitch,” Lumbergh whispered. He then asked, “What else is in his room? Anything
that can get us anywhere on Sean?”

“Yeah. He’s got a bunch of video tapes in here. Hold on. There’s already one in the
VCR. This thing’s been beat to shit. I hope it still works.”

Lumbergh and Redick exchanged pensive glances. A moment later, the chief heard his
own voice blast out through the radio speaker.

“This is the first I’ve heard of this allegation. I’m certainly willing to discuss
this topic with the county sheriff if there are any facts that need to be ironed
out.”

“It’s a press conference, Chief,” the deputy’s voice weighed in. “You’re standing
outside your house in it.”

“Is that where the tape was when you started it, Bartels? You didn’t forward it or
rewind it all, did you?”

“No, sir. Sir, I’m also seeing some building material in here, laid out on a nightstand.
Pipes. Wiring. He might have been trying to make a crude bomb.”

“Yeah,” answered Lumbergh. “He did.”

“Sir?”

“Does anything else stick out in the room, Bartels? Anything obvious? We can go through
the pictures and tapes later.”

“Well. . . Other than what I’ve already described, there’s not much in here. The
place looks like it was barely lived in. That’s odd, because the motel owner tells
me he’s been staying here for months.”

The deputy’s statement jarred Lumbergh. He’d been led to believe that Martinez had
lived in an apartment with roommates while he took criminal justice courses at a
community college. He even had an address on file somewhere, which had to be fake.
Being that Martinez was an unpaid intern, Lumbergh’s office was never compelled to
verify the address at the time of his hire.

“I’ve got some clothes hanging in the closet and folded in some of the drawers,”
said the deputy, who was continuing to work his way through the motel room.

“Anything that would fit a larger man than Martinez?” asked Lumbergh. “Any women’s
clothes? Is there any sign at all that more than one person was staying with him?”

After a few moments, the deputy answered. “I don’t think so. The clothes all look
like his. There’s only one bed in the room. He’s got a busted lamp here in his trashcan,
along with a McDonald’s bag and some candy wrappers.”

Lumbergh could hear the sound of crumpling papers.

“The receipt stapled to the bag only shows a single meal. Egg McMuffin Combo. With
cheese.”

Lumbergh rolled his eyes.

“There are some other receipts in here,” continued the deputy.

“From where?”

“A couple from a diner in Winston. A gas station in Lakeland. Wait a minute. Here’s
one that looks to be for the bomb supplies, at least some of them.”

Lumbergh asked where the items were purchased.