The Coldest Mile (18 page)

It took Chase three hours to win half the cash on hand, about two grand. He wasn't sure he could get the rest. The crew had a nice grift going, playing off each other. Chase was good but he wasn't a pro card handler, and one of the string especially was giving him a hard time. The kid's name was Boze and he had exceptional skill in misdirection, dealing off the bottom, false cuts, top- card peeks, and doing a three- card, sometimes four- card lift. Boze had put hundreds of hours into the moves. Grabbing four cards at a time and making it look like he was holding one. The best magicians in the world could only handle a five- or six- card lift.

The two other marks had long since been wiped out. They left despondent and very drunk. Mackie kept up a lot of talk, trying to get Chase to reveal details about his life, but Chase staved him off with the usual bullshit.

Mackie had taken a piss break and talked briefly with Hildy, no doubt asking where she'd hooked Chase. Boze said almost nothing but kept watching
Chase's hands. Chase knew the kid saw at least every other sleight Chase made, but when you had two con men in the same game, you didn't call one another on it, you just upped your play. Boze had gotten sharper as the game went on, and seemed to enjoy the competition. He had ratty teeth that he showed more and more, smiling whenever Chase raked in a pot.

The third guy on the crew was called Tony Tons, and he was the strongarm. Didn't say much, not even during the cross chatter. Looked a little dopey. Muscular but fat, he tipped the scales at around two-seventy and was maybe five-foot-ten. Not all that imposing for a strongarm despite the ham- hock hands. His smile was a little too wide and his laugh was a couple seconds off, like he had to wait until he heard others laughing first, making sure something was funny before he joined in.

The cross fire died out. There was no point to it anymore. The fish were gone and the crew knew that Chase wasn't a rube.

Mackie finally got up and dragged Hildy into the bedroom. The guy had held out for a pretty long time. He'd been cool but not that cool. Chase sat in his seat for another few seconds, pocketed his cash, and then followed.

Tony Tons reached out to stop him and said, “Hey you, stay here. That's none of your—”

Chase kicked out the back leg of Tons's chair and watched the tubby thug fall over and hit the ground
hard enough to rattle a painting on the wall. Boze was still smiling.

No big surprise about anything happening so far. Chase stepped into the bedroom. Mackie had a tight grip on Hildy's upper arm, his fingers pressing in deeply, the edges of her mouth tilted in pain.

Chase said, “That's enough.”

Mackie immediately released the girl and held up his fists. He was the boxer who liked to teach girls how to fight and then work them over a little. Chase wasn't sure if he should throw down with this guy or try to smooth things out. The situation wasn't too far gone yet.

The five- finger impressions on Hildy's arm were a bright red. They were going to bruise pretty badly. Chase had promised to protect her and he enjoyed the rising anger making its way up his back, settling between his shoulders like his grandfather's powerful hand giving him a shove forward.

Whatever the fuck.

Chase moved in and Mackie feinted with a looping left, then spun and set Chase up for a right cross. Chase saw it coming and tried to counter but Mackie had excellent footwork and eased in through Chase's defenses, suddenly right there a couple inches away having covered half the length of the room in two quick, fluid steps. Chase had enough time to angle his head back before Mackie's fist collided with his jaw.

Molten colors quivered and flared at the edges of Chase's vision. He centered himself, dodged left,
and swung his hips and brought an arching shot up from his knees that landed in Mackie's ribs. An animal grunt of pain erupted. It made Hildy grin.

Something about her smile triggered Chase's memories. In the garage, shadowboxing and working out on the mats while Lila cleaned her gun collection, the stink of gun oil so heavy that he'd start coughing, and Lila asking him if he wanted to learn how to shoot. He'd remind her that the night they met he shot three guys in the leg, and she'd remind him that that wasn't really shooting, standing two feet away from three arguing assholes and just blasting them in the calves. He'd say, “It worked, didn't it?” and slide up behind her while she shined the barrels of her pistols. He'd pull her backward off her stool and down onto the mat and they'd make love right there. In the garage, in their house, and he'd be reminded he was a married man, a man of property, a regular joe, and he'd somehow made it through the fire and come out the other side.

Now he was back again where he'd started. Not even a fall from grace so much as a fucking swan dive. It was the draw in his blood.

Without warning, the rage was alive inside him, wanting out. He twisted hard to the left as Mackie hurled a crushing right cross toward his temple. If it had hit, it might've fractured his skull. Chase let loose with a bitter laugh and moved in tighter, cutting loose, full- on rock 'em, pummeling Mackie in the belly before wheeling to club the guy in the chest with an elbow.

It was a nice move but not nice enough. Mackie was incredibly fast and had already pivoted and danced away. He connected with a halfway- hard shot to Chase's throat that rattled him pretty well and got his bile grooving. Chase's mouth filled with sourness and his breathing hitched. He let out a sickly cough and went after Mackie, threw two hard jabs into his gut and another into those battered ribs.

With a groan, Mackie fell across the bed on his belly and had to grip the ornate wooden footboard to heave himself up. Chase followed once more and saw that Mackie was bent to one side, protecting his ribs.

But no, that wasn't it at all, Chase realized a second too late. Mackie had pulled a popgun .22 from where it had been jammed in the space between the mattress and the footboard.

Sneaky shit, all right.

Everybody in the life sleeping with their weapons of choice.

Mackie made a show of brandishing the .22, except it wasn't the kind of gun you could really brandish. A snub .22 wasn't worth shit beyond a couple feet. Crappy aim, hardly any kick. It wasn't any good at all unless you held it right up to a man's temple when you pulled the trigger, the way Jonah did it.

Chase stepped back, not all that worried, still coughing and having a hard time swallowing.

“Well?” Mackie said. “What's your con? You're good enough to figure out our grift, but you don't
mind us knowing you're trying to beat us with a lot of the same moves. Using my own planted cards against me, you prick? You've even managed to hold your own against Boze. Almost nobody can do that. If you were just after the money, you would've tried to walk out by now.”

“I'm new in town,” Chase said, his voice gruff and weak. “I'm looking to hook up with a new string, pull in a couple of scores.”

“Why should we believe that?”

Asking about Dex wouldn't get him anywhere at the moment. If they did know him, they'd deny it until they got Chase into focus. It was going to take time and at least a modicum of trust. Chase stood there, trying to keep himself from thinking about a dead boy in a lagoon.

“I'm a driver.”

“You're giving us back our two grand.”

“Like hell.”

“Like hell you will, you—”

Then, staring over Chase's shoulder, Mackie's expression shifted to one of surprise and he shook his head hard.

Too late, Chase heard Tons rushing up behind him. Had it really taken the guy this long to get to his feet? Jesus Christ, the dude really was slow. No time to do anything now except begin to turn, try to roll the fat guy over his hip, but no, it wasn't going to work. Tons behind him, a punk with a gun out front, a hot chick playing all the angles and waiting for the fallout, he'd lost control pretty damn quick.

Jonah told him to get out the switchblade.

Tony Tons didn't even try to throw a punch, just hurled himself across Chase's back, driving him forward. It hurt like a son of a bitch and Chase tried to let out a shout, but the sound was tight and hardly a squeak.

Covering up as best he could, Chase fell into Mackie and the two of them smashed into a night-stand, destroying it. The popgun went off.

Chase didn't feel any pain, but a hot splash jetted across his hands. He hoped it wasn't his own blood.

Howling like a wounded water buffalo, Tons rolled around on the floor, only half a pinkie now on his left hand. Chase and Mackie wrestled for the gun, and Jonah said it again, louder than if he'd been behind Chase and saying it directly into his ear, The knife, forget the goddamn popper, use the knife.

Chase chopped at Mackie's throat and enjoyed the abbreviated squawk of pain that it brought up from the guy. Good, see how you like it, fucker. Mackie's grip loosened and Chase snagged the pistol and rolled to his feet.

If Hildy had wanted to, she could've shot him in the back, but he hoped she was swinging to his side now. He turned to look at her and she smirked at him. The sudden thought struck him, There it is, that smirk is what's going to get me in to see Dex.

Still wailing, Tons clambered off the floor and came straight at him once more.

Chase said, “Hey, quit it,” but didn't point the .22

at the guy for fear it might go off again and do more damage this time. Tons didn't notice one way or the other. He spun in circles, lifting his knees pretty high for a tubby guy, doing a rain dance in place, blood squirting all over.

Chase had been wrong. Tony Tons wasn't the muscle. He was just the stupid younger brother, the stupid- ass boyhood buddy that the others dragged around. The loyal dumb dog. Tons kept hiking his knees, his heart hammering, the blood pumping worse because of it.

“Cool it,” Chase said. He looked at Hildy and Mackie, who remained motionless, and thought, Well, they sure don't give a fuck about the guy. Chase let out a small groan thinking he was going to have to tie off the chopped- sausage pinkie before Tons bled out. “Quit moving around. Settle down.”

Boze had been in the doorway for the last minute or two, just watching. Now he entered the room, walked to Tony Tons, and said, “Stop jumping around, you're painting the room!” Tons quit hopping about and Boze sighed, tied the finger stump off with a sock he got from the dresser drawer, and glanced around the place. “Everybody check around, we have to find the fucking finger, see if they can stitch it back on.”

Tons found it himself, hanging from the broken lampshade on the floor. Boze told Tons to stick it in a bag and then stick the bag in ice. He said it twice, and took the time to explain himself. “If you just
stick it in ice, you'll freeze the nerve endings and they won't be able to do anything with it.”

Mackie said, “If we take him to the hospital, the gunshot wound will be reported.”

“A .22 in the pinkie isn't going to look like a gunshot wound. We'll tell them he was messing around with firecrackers and blew it off with an M-80.”

Chase thought, This is definitely not going the way I expected.

He pocketed the .22 and, once the pistol was out of sight, Mackie started to puff his chest out again. “That's mine. I want it back.”

“Quit it,” Boze said. “Enough with the rough-necking. He's bent like us. First we'll talk. Who knows, maybe we can use him.”

“What? Why? We don't know anything about this character. And shit, you could've helped me out in here, you know. Where the hell were you?”

“You're the one set him off by laying hands on the girl.”

“So what!”

“We're out of ice!” Tons shouted.

“So, we know plenty,” Boze said. “He's smart. He's tough but not too nasty a character. While you had your thumb up your ass he was actually trying to help Tons. He's got something else going on and needs us in order to get into position. Until then, we own him. If he's any good, we can use him.” He turned to Chase. “You want in with us, you start by kicking back the money.”

“That's just not done,” Chase said.

“You weren't here to score cash anyway. You were here to take a look at us and see if we can give you what you want, right? Since you're still here, we obviously can. You want to try to run a play on us, that's fine. It's the world we live in.”

Chase was impressed with the little speech, and found himself a little worried by how sharp Boze was. The four- card lift had already alerted him that Boze was a very focused, patient man.

“We're out of ice!” Tons shouted.

Boze said to Hildy, “You brought him here. He caught you fleecing him?”

“Yeah, he caught me but let it ride. He followed me to the mall, boosted everything in the Mercury, then grabbed my purse.”

“How much did you take off him?”

“Fifty.”

“What'd he get off you?”

“Thirteen, fourteen hundred. And like I said, what was in the car.”

It got Boze smiling again, made him wag his chin at Chase. “All of that you return. You keep your fifty. We start square or we don't start at all.”

Chase said, “The clock never resets to zero.” He emptied the .22 onto the floor, kicked the bullets aside, and tossed the gun on the bed. He took out the thirty- four hundred and peeled off half the cash and tossed it next to the .22. “You can take back half the paper and everything that was in the Merc.”

“For a guy who's new in town, looking to make friends, you sure like to push buttons.”

“We're the same breed. I'm a thief. I worked my play against three of you tonight and I won. Respect the experience.”

“You still at the hotel where she put the touch on you?”

“Yeah.”

“We're out of ice!” Tons shouted.

“Stay there, we'll contact you. But first, let me get this guy's fucking finger reattached.”

C
hase called Georgie Murphy, gave him the names of
Hildy's crew, and asked for them to be checked out. Georgie was distracted by a lady trying to return a Mazda Miata that she said rattled whenever her daughter drove it over 40 mph. The daughter was there in the office, speaking very little despite her mother's constant attempts to get her to explain the situation. It was clear to both Georgie and Chase that the girl had fucked up the Mazda and couldn't manage to tell her mother the truth.