Resurrection Express (32 page)

She tells the girls everything will be just fine.

•  •  •

F
ranklin leads us away from the place, along the tree line behind the burning warehouse. Toni pulls me by the hand—it’s all about us. All about escaping.

I can see the red and blue lights of fire trucks and cop cars just on the other side of the place as we circle around. It’s turning into a circus fast. One of the big red machines cuts off the street where the Ops Wagon is parked. Cops all over it, too.

Franklin curses just under his breath, wordlessly.

“Looks like we’re on foot for a few miles,” Toni says. “Let’s move.”

•  •  •

A
final explosion blows the roof off the place, just behind us. I hear a stormburst of screaming and the sirens close like crying birds. I can still feel the heat from the fire, three blocks away. It almost matches the pain in my head.

The smell of metal and flowers, filling me as I hold on to her hand.

Toni, so close to me, so close at last.

My mind, hovering in and out of memories.

I know right where you live, you nasty bitch.

Hartman’s voice, buzzing in my head.

A terrible buzz.

Damn it all.

•  •  •

T
his neighborhood sucks.

All industrial flatlands and railroad tracks, clusters of trees, storage facilities. Not one car I can steal. We follow Franklin along the back side of the warehouses, as more cops speed towards the scene of the crime. We keep to the shadows, covered by the night.

Toni pulls me.

She moves with precision grace.

Doesn’t say a word.

•  •  •

W
e haul ass for miles, until we get to the freeway. We stay hidden in pools of shadow. Nobody sees us. Away in the distance, deep in the heart of a neighborhood made of pipe and steel, I can still see the flames. More cop cars and EMS vehicles blast past us, but we are invisible. Toni says they’ll figure out what happened eventually and she’s right. The Mexicans will try to finger us. They might even ID Franklin. But even if they don’t, the cops will run a make on the Ops Wagon, which means they’ll trace the title on the vehicle to the Weasel, which means we can’t even go back to Franklin’s house. We’re lucky if black-and-whites aren’t already there by now. We need a safe place. Just for a while.

Until we figure this whole thing out.

•  •  •

T
wo brightly lit auto dealerships with giant American flags whipping in the wind above them tease us with fine rides full of high-tech alarm and surveillance systems I don’t have the tools to break. They’re all spanking-new models. Most of them have computerized keyless entry with fail-safes programmed right into hard drives that shut the engine off and call the cops a half mile away if you don’t have the right codes. We don’t need those hassles, and I don’t have a smartphone with satellite uplink, either—usually all you need is a GPS scrambler to pick that kind of lock.

“I’ve got an idea,” Toni says.

We make it to the nearest convenience store and she calls a taxi from a pay phone.

Sometimes the very obvious is the best answer.

•  •  •

T
he guy who pulls his Yellow Cab into the service-station area of the Lucky Seven Mart is big and black and looks like he could use a few extra bucks. I hand him two hundred in cash and tell him to shut off the meter. I tell him he never saw us. He says we’d be a lot more invisible if there was five hundred in his hand. I give him six. It’s a pretty respectable dent in my cash supply, but that situation won’t last long.

We settle back for the ride and Toni speaks softly to me, her breath so close and so sweet: “Where are we going?”

“We need a place to hole up,” I say. “And I need to ask a few questions.”

“What questions?” she says.

“I have to find out what Resurrection Express is. Did Hartman ever tell you?”

She hesitates before answering.

Then:

“He might have said something . . . but I can’t really remember . . .”

Franklin snorts. “I just want my money.”

“You’ll get your money,” I say. “But we have to play it safe first.”

I look at Toni and my mind races.

Her scent is weaker now, but it still fills me.

That’s not your wife.

•  •  •

T
he driver drops us in the Montrose area downtown. The busy neon and flashing lights of Westheimer Street tell fancy lies. Traffic is heavy, human and otherwise. We walk into a bar full of loud heavy-metal music blasting from a jukebox, then walk right out the back exit.

Down the block is a smaller, darker place called Blythe Spirits. I knew the owner when I was four years old. That was before my father got him locked up.

We go in through the out door.

•  •  •

I
t’s one thirty by their clock, almost closing time. The joint is quiet this morning, jazz music floating lazily around, a waterfall splashing rocks against the back wall. It’s blue and black and almost neon in here. Eleven tables and a center bar made out of decades-old polished oak. We light in a corner and a young waitress chewing gum finds us fast, slaps coasters down on the table that advertise St. Pauli Girl beer.

“What’ll it be?”

Her voice sounds like a waitress named Flo. She’s got a thin waist, large talents, short black hair and a barbell through her tongue, hard features traced in tacky dark makeup. Stunning, really, if that’s your thing. Toni orders us all whiskey shots, beer
backs—something nice and forgettable. The waitress doesn’t smile at us. There’s a tattoo on her belly, visible through a stylish rip in her black fishnet tank top, and it says, in thick red Valentine’s Day calligraphy:
Ellie Mayhem.
Underneath the lettering, a pink cartoon mouse, squealing like she just saw something real bad.

She sees me looking and scowls:

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

She’s one of Kim’s.

They’re all helpless mice under the Hammer’s killer kitty.

I almost don’t say anything, it comes as such a shock. But I have to think this over. Came here for a reason. I say to her, very slowly:

“Is Mollie Baker here? I need to talk to him.”

She stops chewing, leaves her mouth open. “You know Mollie?”

“It’s a family matter.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it is.”

“So is he here or not?”

She looks around. Does some sort of check-in with her personal gods for a moment while she sizes me up. This might have been a giant mistake. The second I think that, she tosses the tired once-over back over her shoulder and starts chewing her gum again, making a real Southern gothic trailer-trash spectacle of herself as she smacks the next bit:

“Mollie hasn’t been around in three weeks, honey.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“No.”

“Is there a way to contact him?”

“Someone else has been running the place.”

“Who’s that?”

“Fella named Ray.”

Franklin snorts. “You mean Ray
Carver
?”

“Yeah,” she says. “You know him?”

“I used to.”

Ellie Mayhem cocks her shoulders and head, looking tired. “Look, honey . . . it’s almost closing time and my feet hurt. You can come back tomorrow if you want.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“No problem.”

She drifts away, keeping an eye on me for a few paces, then starts barking orders to the greasy guy behind the bar. Franklin pulls out a cigarette and doesn’t light it. You can’t smoke indoors anymore because people under twenty don’t bother to vote. His question floats across the table like something really obvious:

“What was that all about?”

“The guy who owns this place was a friend of my dad’s. They got in some deep shit back in the seventies. Haven’t spoken in years.”

“So what?”

“So my dad tried to bring Mollie in on the job we did for Jenison. That was before they bought me out of jail. Would have been just about three or four weeks ago.”

And now the guy’s MIA.

Like everyone else who knows anything.

“The lady could be lying,” Toni says, checking out Ellie Mayhem through the corner of one slitted eye. “She isn’t exactly Florence Henderson.”

“I’ve got a feeling she isn’t lying. She knew that I recognized her.”

Toni makes a face that almost looks jealous. “
Recognized
her?”

“The tattoo on her belly. She’s part of a crew that helped me out a few days ago. They’re all MIA now, too.”

She blinks once, then huffs. “That trash could be
anybody
.”

I give Toni a sharp look. “We gotta hang here anyway. Twenty minutes, just to be sure our driver is nice and confused about where we’re headed.”

She rolls her eyes. “Where
are
we headed?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Well, aren’t you the man with the plan,” she says, looking halfway amused. “Maybe we should go see a movie while we’re at it.”

I smile at her.

Cute, darling—real cute.

In this moment, I can see it in her face: something false, something not right. Like maybe she’s trying a little too hard to be in charge of everything. That’s exactly like my Toni . . . but somehow not quite.

That’s not your wife.

Before I can say anything, Franklin pipes up: “Look, kid, I’m still on the clock.” He pulls the locker key from a shirt pocket and holds it up for me. “If you want this bad boy back, we need to get to the
money
.”

“It’s safe. We gotta let the heat die down before we move again.”

“We can’t stay here,” Toni says.

“I know where we can go. Try not to worry so much.”

She sighs. “Who’s worried?”

This time Franklin rolls his eyes.

I turn to him with a serious look. “So . . . what about this Ray Carver guy? How come I’ve never heard of him?”

“He keeps low,” Franklin says. “But he’s pretty dangerous, too. One of those pimp-slash-drug dealer types with his fingers in a lot of pies. I ran shotgun on a pickup for him six months ago.”

“If he stays so low, what makes him dangerous?”

“He covers his ass by shooting first. And he enjoys the hell out of it. Nobody works with him much because he’s such a goddamn cowboy. They all call him Death Ray.”

I chuckle. “Clever of them.”

Toni looks at Franklin calmly. “So this guy is running someone’s bar now?”

“More likely he’s the new owner,” Franklin says. “Ray isn’t the kind of guy who works for old-timers, and he doesn’t like partners.”

And if he’s such a cowboy, that means Mollie’s out of the picture.

Maybe permanently.

The drinks come and Ellie Mayhem smacks gum and calls us honey one more time. She sees me glance at her name again. This time I look up from the tattoo and right into her eyes. Asking. She stops chewing, gives a glance towards a small little cubbyhole near the back, where a tiny hall jerks around a corner. An old white sign with a big red arrow says that’s where the bathrooms are. I nod at her. Message received.

She wanders off.

Toni looking jealous again.

I hear Hartman’s voice in a distant echo, telling me she’s not what she says she is, and I snuff it out quickly.

Franklin belts down half his beer . . . then in a long sigh:

“I had a real goddamn job yesterday.”

He shakes his head and stares off into space. Like maybe he’s thinking about his friends back at Hartman’s. The woman and the Weasel, all hacked to death and burned to hell. Or maybe he’s not. Maybe Franklin’s got a point about all this.

Toni stares at her drink intently.

It has to be you.

Don’t tell me my mind is so messed up that I can’t see another woman taking your place. Just don’t tell me that.

Because if that’s really true . . .

Then I can’t trust the ground under my feet.

Everything’s suspect.

Everything.

•  •  •

I
think about Mollie Baker and my father for a second.

Dad told me it was a bad getaway that ended their friendship, over thirty years ago in 1972. When the cops nail you, it’s always because
you
screw up, not because they’re great at what they do. Your average officer of the law doesn’t care about busting the bad guys unless we hand them our heads on a platter. A lot of them are dumb rednecks, especially in Texas. But God help your ass if those rednecks get their hands on you and nobody is looking—if they get just ten minutes alone in a room without air-conditioning and a hot lamp in your face. My dad told me the whole story one night when he was really drunk. Said it was like being slowly crushed to death. While sick lizards with whiskey breath take their turns spitting in your eye and calling you names.

They worked Dad over a lot longer than five minutes.

It was six days before he gave up Mollie, and his employers.

Suicide for guys like us.

My father was lucky to be alive after they were done with him—even luckier on the inside, where the mob guys he sold up the river made six attempts on his life. One of those vindictive old trolls had to die of a heart attack while Dad was still in prison before the syndicate decided he wasn’t worth the effort anymore. A real lucky break. The first job when he came out had to be free, and the one after that. But people forget for the right price. Mollie never forgot, though. He was in jail three years longer. Now he could be dead.

Because my father wanted to do right by him.

Because he went to Mollie first.

Because Dad tried not to involve me.

I sit there and I think about it for a very long time. I think about Jayne Jenison and David Hartman. About how ruthless and smart these people are. About what David said back in that room full of blood and horror. He said he knew where Jenison lived. And he said I saw it, too. Said he gave it to me.

I gave it to you, just like I gave you a reason to exist while you were in jail.

I thought it was just crazy talk.

But now . . .

Now that I really think about it . . .