Run For the Money (18 page)

Rico thought about it. A TV blared from inside, a show in Spanish. “Yeah, we’re still good.” He stepped aside to let Bo pass then closed the door behind him, throwing lock after lock until it became comical.

Inside, the house was a combination shooting gallery and electronics store. Rico liked his gadgets. He had huge flat screen TVs hooked up to Xboxes, Playstations, Blu ray players, Tivo. A screen with no sound played a loop of porn that went unwatched by the three others in the room: a girl, early twenties passed out cold on the couch, a young Latino who watched the show on Telemundo and a skittery looking white kid bobbing and weaving between sips of beer in the kitchen.

Bo could see down the hall to the row of bedrooms he used to frequent. The deals went down there. Clients could make immediate use of their purchase in those old bedrooms. Girls were also on the menu and Bo wondered if the passed-out girl was on her fifteen-minute break from fucking crankheads for no money, instead bartering free dope from Rico.

Bo couldn’t believe he ever used to be a regular in this shithole. “I need a gun.”

Rico laughed again. “A gun? What for?”

“You don’t know about my trouble?”

“Oh, I know about some trouble you’re in.” Bo didn’t like the sound of that or the cat-ate-the-canary look on his face.

“The bank? The escape?”

“Look, man, you got trouble. Fine. We all got troubles. Why should I help you out with a piece?”

“I thought there was still some goodwill between us.”

“And I’m the only greasy motherfucker you know who would have a gun to give, is that right?”

“No.” He meant yes.

Rico stepped across the room, over cables and Playstation controllers and Guitar Hero plastic instruments. He lifted the lid on a small humidor and took out a Cuban. One for him, none for Bo.

“Why not go to see Crankhead Bob?” What the fuck did that mean? Whatever it meant, it wasn’t good. “Oh, that’s right. Crankhead Bob is dead.”

“A few years ago. That’s not news.”

Rico rolled the cigar in his fingers. “You know who killed him?”

Bo knew exactly what the fuck that meant.

“Y’know what, Rico? My bad. I’ll be going.”

Rico dropped the cigar and was across the room through the tangle of wires like he memorized the layout. He stood right next to Bo, intimate lover close. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Look, Rico—”

Rico drew a knife from his pocket, flipped the switch and the blade sprang out as he brought it up quickly to Bo’s throat. A threatening move he’d done a thousand times before, but there’s always room for error. Could have been his sincere affection for Bo that made him flinch, could have been something else, sun spots, who knows?

The knife stuck into Bo’s neck. Bo’s eyes widened, so did Rico’s. Blood came soon after.

It was like an alarm went off and Rico was replaced by a team of paramedics. The knife came out quickly, but that only let the full extent of the wound reveal itself. Bo staggered back against the door, blood running freely down his neck. He didn’t grab it, didn’t reach up and apply direct pressure. He looked at Rico with a burning, “Why?” in his eyes. Rico’s eyes answered, “It was a mistake.”

Rico moved fast. He shouted in Spanish to the guy watching TV who leapt up and ran down the hallway. Rico helped Bo over to the couch, kicked at the girl’s legs, but she didn’t wake up.

“Get her the fuck out of here!” he commanded to the tweaker in the kitchen. The kid downed the rest of his beer for courage and came to help remove the girl.

Rico pressed hard against the wound trying to calm the flow of blood. Bo was sure if the bleeding out didn’t happen soon, Rico would inadvertently choke him to death.

The tweaker struggled to haul the girl’s dead weight off the couch. Bo’s eyes passed over the room trying to find some sense in it all. He failed, but caught a glimpse up the girl’s skirt as she was hauled over the arm of the couch. She wasn’t wearing panties. Well-manicured down there.

Rico held Bo close like they were in a foxhole in Viet Nam. “Sorry about that bro. Not what I meant to do.”

Bo grunted.

“We can fix this. Then we can finish our talk.”

So he can kill me the way he wants to?
Bo asked himself.

The Latino came back quickly from the hall carrying a small toolbox. He set it down on the coffee table, smashing the Tivo remote under it. He flipped it open and Bo knew exactly what it was. A tweaker medical kit. For emergencies only, which this qualified for.

He worked quickly and knew what he was doing. The kit had gauze, bandages, sutures, syringes of morphine and atropine. It had scalpels and clamps no doubt stolen from a hospital on a drug run for five-fingered Oxycontin or Vicodin.

One thing Bo didn’t see was hot water, sterilization equipment, even a bottle of fucking Purell. Most likely causes of death: Blood loss, asphyxiation, staph infection.

The Latino got down to business. He knocked Rico out of the way and did a quick explore of the wound. Bo’s neck tensed when he rammed his pinky into the hole and felt around like he’d dropped something in there. Rico held down Bo’s arms, knowing the automatic reaction of the body is to slap away the arm of the guy reading braille inside your neck wound.

He went back to the toolbox. Bo didn’t like what he saw. He could tell by the wetness that had soaked through his shirt and down into his jeans this was a bad cut. No way he was going to simply pack it with gauze and stop the bleeding. Had to get to the source; the veins. Then what? Stitch them up? Nope. Cauterize them.

His new doctor held a soldering iron in his hand and Rico was plugging it into the wall. Dr. Latino set it on the coffee table pointing ominously at Bo with the tip turning red almost instantly. He sure as hell liked the view of that girl’s trimmed bush a hell of a lot better.

Dr. Latino threaded up a suture while the iron heated up. Bo was impressed with his level of concentration and the speed at which he threaded the needle. Then he set it down. Time for the sucky part.

Rico pressed hard on Bo as the doctor leaned in and said a quick Hail Mary.

The pain was a brass band, a sharp Count Basie horn blast that faded into the chugging rhythm of a Metallica riff before giving way to the screeching feedback of Hendrix’s burning guitar.

It took Bo a moment to realize the smell was his own burning flesh. That’s when he passed out.

––––––––

T
here was a deep temptation for Slick to pull up alongside the guy and gun him down in a hail of bullets, west coast rapper-style. But he didn’t. His patience with the world since his reprieve from prison life was growing short. And for as much driving, running and biking as he’d done in the last 48 hours he hadn’t gotten fucking anywhere.

Escape. Keep saying it. Escape. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so say the Chinese. Only these steps were on a goddamn treadmill.

The handsome man driving the blue car was unremarkable in every way when it came to his driving. He obeyed the speed limit, signaled, slowed at yellow lights. A choirboy.
Good
, thought Slick,
maybe he was one of the ones who’d been ass fucked
.

Drizzle turned to light showers and the city outside began to blur. Slick was still tired, exhausted really, from the lousy night’s sleep on a hard wood pew and all the bullshit before and since. The way the wipers smeared the traffic lights and neon signs felt like the last few minutes of being awake before you give in to sleep. Those fleeting moments when you think of something you don’t want to forget, but inevitably do.

The ebb and flow of adrenalin in his system was creating a surge and retreat of energy and he was currently in a low valley, the crash after a sugar rush. Driving him on were equal parts hate for the man in the car ahead, fear of confronting Emma and curiosity about what the hell had gone on since his arrest.

The handsome man signaled for a left, slowed to a modest pace allowing the opposing traffic to clear then turned. Slick was focused on the back end of the car and that blinking light, mocking him with all that following the rules crap. Slick was fairly certain Emma never told the guy about him. If this goody-two-shoes knew he was banging another guy’s chick he would have backed out. Instead he was driving around town stinking like her crotch. Slick knew full well how much she liked oral sex so he was sure the guy had a mouth full of her taste.
Hope he has a roll of mints in the glove box.

It wasn’t until Slick was midway into the turn and angled across the oncoming lanes that he realized where he was turning in to. Eddie “Slick” Himes, wanted felon, was turning left into a police station.

The tires chirped on the wet pavement as he slammed on the brakes and, if it could have, the car would have recoiled and walked backwards like a cartoon car, headlight eyes bugging out and balloon-like whitewall tires scrambling to reverse.

He checked around him for a No U-Turn sign and didn’t see one, but his vision was less than focused. He continued forward cutting the wheel hard and almost making the revolution but having to stop, back up, and get another run at it. By then cars were piled up behind him and honking as if to alert the cops.
Hey! The guy you’ve been looking for? Right here on your doorstep! Come right on out and get him on a moving violation like Capone got busted for taxes.

Slick peeled out and drove away, a pit bull whimpering with its tail between its legs.

A cop. A fucking cop. Emma is nailing a fucking . . . okay, a plan. Need a plan.

The cop knew about the money. No doubt about that. Question was, had Emma already given it up? Was she holding out and biding her time with Johnny Law until Slick came to rescue her or had she gone the straight and narrow? Or was she keeping it all for herself and screwing Magnum P.I. for the sport? Or, was Kojak in on it with her? Was he helping her to take the money and run?

Too many unknowns. It opened up the possibility for more distrust that Slick knew he held for Emma. He kept driving back the way he came, back to the haunted house.

It wasn’t as bad as the hurricane, but wet is wet. Crouching low to peek into the basement apartment, Slick soaked water up through the knees of his jeans. Empty. Lights off. Only the ghost image of Emma’s naked body left over from the last time he peered into the tiny windows.

Should have stayed here. Instead he let Emma escape.

Escape. Say it again. Escape.

Easy to do with $642,000. Hard to do on nothing.

For the first time, Slick knew Emma had betrayed him. She was gone. Doubted he’d ever see her again.

Only one thing to do now. Go see the cop. Chances were good she’d show up there or he’d lead Slick to her. Even if he never saw her again that cop would have some answers. Answers Slick needed to move on.

Then it’s time to kill that motherfucker.

“First class to Miami. One way. Oh, and can I pay cash for that?”

The girl behind the counter, Cali said her name tag, finally looked up from her monitor.

“I know, I know,” said Emma, trying to look appropriately embarrassed. “I sold my car to a guy on Craigslist and he gave me cash. I kinda don’t want to travel around with it so I figured I’d use it for this.” She gave a sheepish grin. Cali was suspicious, but the line behind Emma was growing and she sure as hell didn’t fit the profile for a terrorist so, move on.

The digital readout above Cali’s head: 4:41. Missed the 4:30. For another romp with MacKaye? Worth it.

“Miami leaves at nine-thirty and first class is eighteen hundred and sixty-three dollars.” Cali lifted her head back to Emma to smugly look at her and await the inevitable choking reaction to the price. Everyone did it. No one knew the real cost of first class. All the jackasses up there had their trips paid for by the company so even they didn’t know.

Emma was smooth though. “Oh, great. The guy gave me two grand so, perfect.” She counted out hundreds on the counter as Cali tried to remember how to open the cash drawer, it had been so long.

––––––––

B
o woke up handcuffed to a chair, foggy, feeling like he’d lost something then remembered,
oh yeah, about two pints of blood on the carpet by the front door
.

It was knocking that woke him. His eyes found focus again in time to see Rico open the door to the bedroom. A silhouetted figure filled the doorway. Bo tried to concentrate on who the figure was, but the pain in his neck flooded back and his vision went double for a second. He felt sure he was going to pass out again or throw up, but he managed to hold on.

Rico spoke to the man in Spanish, low as if Bo might understand, which he couldn’t even if they shouted in his ear.

He looked down at the chair. A wooden kitchen chair with no arms. Old, chipped and stained like everything else in the house. It creaked when he moved. The creaking caught the attention of his doctor who turned his attention away from the doorway and to Bo. He rose and came to check on his handiwork. He tilted Bo’s head back and surveyed the damage. He seemed satisfied and clicked his tongue before returning to a stool beside the bed. Bo couldn’t deny the lingering smell of grilled meat in his nostrils.

Bo realized he’d been in this room before, as a client. Chances were good the bed sheets hadn’t been changed since he was in here last.

The silhouette handed Rico a briefcase. He entered the room.

Bo had no idea who he was. Rico scurried off to the corner to open the case. The man came into the light and Bo could see he was a large, muscled Latino in a plaid shirt, baggy jeans with a gun center stage in his belt pointing down directly at his dick. The man never took his eyes off Bo.

“You know who I am?” His accent was thick, but street-cred thick like it might all be fake to sound tougher.

“No.” Bo’s voice was ragged.

“I know you.” He moved in close to Bo, his eyes ran down to his neck. He reached out a hand a brushed a finger over the tiny whiskers of black suture holding Bo’s neck together. Bo winced as the man caressed slowly, back and forth like he was admiring a beautiful flower. “I’m Rodrigo, Bob’s brother.”