Yeager's Law Page 4
Thompson shivered and wiped more sweat off his forehead, then massaged his left arm, which had started to ache.
Austin, Texas
A guy in a Cadillac, on his cell phone, camped in the passing lane of I-35, his cruise set on fifty-eight miles per hour. Steven Buchanan rode the guy’s bumper until he had a clear opening to pass on the right, then cut across the Caddy’s nose, missing the slower car by the width of a sheet of paper. He shot the guy the finger and took the Infinity up to Mach 1.4.
His Bluetooth earpiece played a tone, and he tapped it on. “Go for Buchanan.”
“Steven, ol’ boy! How y’all doin’?”
“Danny Ebsen,” he replied, injecting cheeriness into his tone. He made a mental note: Next time, by God, check the caller ID before answering. “Right as rain and fine as frog hair. What about you?”
“Howzat miracle cure comin’ along?”
“Makin’ progress, Danny, makin’ progress. In fact, I got a text from the attorney, Rusty. He said the FDA has all but signed off to go to Phase One.”
“Rusty? I thought you said the attorney’s name was Tony-something.”
Fucking accountants. They never forget anything. “Tony Wasserman’s the top guy. Rusty’s a junior partner, y’know?”
“Gotcha. So when are we gonna get out there to this lab? I’d like to get a look at this thing I sunk a half-mil into.”
Shit. I should have stayed away from the nosy bastard. “Damn, Danny, wish I could, but I’m flying out to DC tomorrow to kiss ass at the FDA some more, make sure they don’t get cold feet. Don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Well, all right, bud.” Ebsen paused for several seconds. “Let’s catch up soon, y’hear? Play us a few rounds.”
“You betcha.” Steven tapped off the connection.
Past time to move on and get the hell out of Dodge. The biotech thing wouldn’t stretch much longer, and if the St. Louis deal played out the way they hoped, then nothing else would matter.
Thinking of St. Louis made him think of Charlie. Stephen took a couple of deep breaths then hit the speed dial for his ex-wife.
Big River
St. Louis, Missouri
Charlie perched on one of the two visitor chairs in Thompson’s meager office, on the guest side of his chipped and stained wood-veneer desk. All the available shelves and surfaces were covered with die-cast metal cars on stands. She leaned back until her chair hit the wall, but her knees still rubbed the underside of the desk. Thompson pecked at his calculator while referring to her list of skids. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it when she saw Steven’s name on the screen.
“Here ya go.” Thompson slid a piece of paper across the desk.
She read the itemized pricing, confirmed it matched the total in her head, then looked at the shipping total. “How much for shipping?” In the past, she had paid less than half what Thompson had written on that paper. No wonder his price for the books was so low—he made it up on the shipping charges.
“Rates is high these days. Price of gas, you know?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I pay for shipping all the time, and this is… a lot.”
Thompson seemed unperturbed. “You’re welcome to arrange your own. Do you have a trucking company?”
“Yeah.” She dug in her bag and found the worn business card. “I think I do.”
Comfort Inn
Wheeling, Illinois
Yeager delivered his load of copper wire, got his paperwork signed, and drove his rig to the Wheeling Comfort Inn close to the Chicago Executive Airport. He winced when he thought of the cost of Avgas for the spit-and-baling-wire machine Victor’s friend was using these days.
Cujo ran contraband across the border in whatever cheap, partially airworthy craft he could find. “If I have to ditch the plane,” he once told Yeager, “I’m only out a few grand. If I bought, like, a real plane… well, shit, I’d be out a fortune if I had to dump it and run.”
Three cards short of a full deck, Cujo reminded Yeager of the Muppet drummer, Animal. No one knew the man’s real name. He had followed Victor back from Afghanistan like a lost puppy, a rabid, insane lost puppy, but still… Victor treated Cujo like the idiot brother-in-law in the family, the guy who showed up at Christmas, got drunk, and threw up in the kitchen sink. He had taken Cujo under his wing and mentored him, teaching him Victor’s Rules of Good Crime.
“Good crime,” Victor once told Yeager, “fucks over the Man. It’s like Robin Hood, you know? Bad crime fucks over regular people, like you and me.”
“I’ll stick to legal trucking,” Yeager had responded. “I may go broke, but I won’t go to jail for fuckin’ over the Man.”
“Is okay for you. You a gringo, have all the advantages in a society designed to repress the Mexican.”
“So what’s Cujo? He’s as white as I am.”
“Cujo, he a Mexican at heart.”
Yeager didn’t want to spend the money on a hotel, even a cheap dive, but he needed a shower and a few hours of sleep in a real bed. Since the truck was empty, maybe the danger of theft had passed, and he could relax a little. So why is the itch still there between my shoulder blades? And why did I drag Por Que up here, riding shotgun in a plane with a maniac?
When he checked in, Yeager handed over his Visa card and studied the desk clerk’s face while the man swiped it through the reader. Not seeing the frown he expected, Yeager released his pent-up breath. His cell rang as he took the card back from the clerk. Yeager answered without looking at the caller ID.
“Mr. Yeager. This is Charlie Buchanan. Remember me?”
He had expected it to be Por Que calling with an ETA, so the woman’s voice threw him off kilter for a moment. Over-tired and groggy, Yeager’s mind went blank. Who?
“The rest stop?” she said. “Monday? Hijackers?”
The name finally clicked. “Yeah, sorry, Charlie.” God, that sounded stupid. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again—I mean, so soon.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor? Sure, anything.” He tucked the phone tighter to his ear, wondering why his heart had started thumping like a teenager’s when asking for a prom date.
Charlie told him about some shipping issues she was having with Big River and asked him for a quote to move her skids from St. Louis to Austin. “I’ll pay you a fair price for it. No obligation on your part.”
Anything beat running empty back to McAllen. He asked some questions about the load, gross weight, and number of pallets, then quoted her a price that would at least help him pay for diesel on the way back.
“That’s more than fair, Mr. Yeager,” Charlie replied. “Are you sure it’s not too low? I don’t want any special deals because…”
“Because you saved my ass?” Yeager laughed. “I should be doing this for free. Wasn’t for you, I’d be driving a truck full of coal down to Hell about now.”
“I hardly believe that, Mr. Yeager.” Her smile came through in her voice. “I was going to say because we fought bandits together.”
“That we did. And please call me Abel.”
“Abel. Will do. And thanks again, you’ve saved my butt this time.”
“No problem,” Abel said, finding it hard to end the conversation. “I don’t see any problem at all getting your books down to you. Should be a piece of cake. I’ll pick ’em up Thursday and have ’em down to you probably late Friday, early Saturday.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
CHAPTER 6
Little Rock, Arkansas
Humberto Cruz paid his tab at the Ruby Tuesday off I-30 on the outskirts of Little Rock and left the air-conditioned restaurant for the muggy parking lot. Streetlights were coming on, encouraging an onslaught of flying bugs. Highway traffic droned in the background.
He dropped into the driver’s seat of his fresh wheels—a Ford Taurus—and started the engine to get the cool air blowing. He dialed a number on his prepaid cell.
“Si?”
Muffled sounds and a voice he couldn’t make out came through the earpiece. The restaurant doors opened, and a family of six trickled out and piled into a nearby minivan.
“Humberto?” Oscar asked.
“A little setback.” Cruz explained about the hijacking attempt and the woman with the gun. “I had Chupa plant a tracker. He said the big trucker never even looked twice at the PetSmart truck. He planted the device clean. I sent Hector and Julio ahead to keep an eye on the trucker.”
Oscar sighed. “I told you the plan was ridiculous. You should have driven up and killed him, right there when he got out of the truck.”
“You are such an old woman sometimes. I told you, simply killing him is not enough. He must suffer more.”
“How? By stealing his truck?” Oscar’s voice pitched up a notch. “He is nearly bankrupt. What more do you want? Just kill him. Or shoot him in the kneecaps, so he never walks again. Then we will have our revenge.”
Cruz lit a cigarette. The lighter flame flickered as his hand trembled. “It is not enough,” he finally said, blowing smoke through his nostrils.
“Fine,” Oscar snapped. “Do it your way. I’m tired of arguing. Do you need more men?”
“No, I have Juan and Fidel on standby in San Antonio. I have a little surprise planned that should slow the trucker down long enough to get us all together.”
“Fine.” His brother hung up.
Cruz keyed in another number.
“Si?” Hector said.
“Where is he?” Cruz asked.
Comfort Inn
Wheeling, Illinois
Yeager parked his rig in the hotel’s back lot, lengthwise across the lines. It took twenty minutes to disconnect two cell bridges from the battery bank and stow them in his toolbox. Any would-be thief would have a hard time hot-wiring the ignition without a spark. The evening was unseasonably warm and humid for June, and sweat patches soaked his shirt by the time he finished.
He lugged the toolbox and duffel bag through the side door of the hotel, doing an awkward shuffle to get his room keycard into the slot with his hands full. The hotel, built like a tall shoebox, boasted all inside rooms—with their doors opening to an interior hall for greater security, as opposed to those facing a parking lot—and a free continental breakfast. Windows overlooked the front or back lots. The sides of the hotel were blank and featureless. Featureless pretty much described the room, too: a bed, a toilet, a TV, and not much else. But what do you expect for forty bucks? The Beverly Hills Hilton?
Yeager cranked the air conditioning unit to Ice Age and fell onto the bed, fully clothed. Listening to the rattle and hum of air blowing from the vents, he closed his eyes for a minute and woke up four hours later. The room was cold enough to hang meat. The digital clock on the nightstand flickered the time in dim red LEDs: 10:15 p.m. Yeager stretched, rubbed his eyes, and headed for the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, shaved, showered, and dressed in clean clothes, he took the elevator to the lobby. He interrupted a fresh-faced kid playing solitaire on a desktop computer, the screen reflected in his glasses.
“Is there a restaurant within walking distance?”
“Burger King.” The kid pointed to the right of the main doors. “About a quarter mile that way. They stay open until midnight.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem, sir.” The boy’s eyes were already fixed on the computer monitor again. “Enjoy your stay.”
The night had cooled considerably since dusk, perfect for a walk. In no hurry, Yeager strolled down the road, the night settling around him like a familiar blanket. That part of the Chicago suburb was almost rural. The two-lane road ran north and south. On Yeager’s side, commercial and industrial buildings stood every few hundred feet, while the opposite side was lined with trees.
An overcast sky left long stretches of darkness between the few buildings that sported lone security lights. But for the glow of city lights in the distance, Yeager could have been the last man on earth. Nothing stirred but the roadside grit crunching under his work boots.
At Burger King, Yeager dug the last bill, a twenty, out of his wallet and got back a ten, three ones, and a dribble of change. Dinner for less than seven bucks. He could eat twice more on the way home without using a credit card. Well, I needed to lose weight anyway.
Yeager lingered over his meal, arranging the hamburger wrapper, making a place for the fries in one corner, then tearing open ketchup packets with his teeth and squeezing the contents into the opposite corner. He had the restaurant to himself. The employees behind the counter had retreated to the kitchen and were laughing and banging things around while they cleaned. “The Girl from Ipanema” crooned from tinny speakers.
He dipped in one or two fries at a time, chewing slowly. He stared into the distance, holding in his mind an image of Charlie Buchanan sitting across the picnic table from him at the rest stop. Fine, delicate features. Light skin and red hair, strands of it blowing across her face until she pushed them back with those long fingers. Her fresh, tomboy look was so completely different from Martina Ruiz Yeager, his ex-wife/aspiring actress, that they could have come from different planets. Different galaxies.
Martina was a bottle of nitroglycerin left too near an open flame, always ready to explode and rain shrapnel on anyone in the vicinity. Yeager got used to handling her with oven mitts and a flak jacket. She reminded him of a beautiful cat who showed her belly; he could rub it, but every once in a while, she’d bite him for no reason at all.
On the other hand, he sensed Charlie didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She reminded him of apple pie and ice cream, rainy Sunday mornings, and Christmas dinner.
And she didn’t wear a wedding ring.
Jesus, Abel. Quit being an idiot. You have a grand total of thirteen dollars and twenty-eight cents in your pocket. You gonna ask her to dinner at Burger King?
There were times Yeager missed being married. Missed having someone to share the highs and lows with. Sitting at a Formica table in a deserted fast food restaurant and eating bad food under the glare of neon, loneliness grabbed him around the heart and squeezed. Too many bad choices. Too many fuckups and bad decisions.
Black ice. Downshift, brake. No! Don’t! Ah, goddamnit, she’s spinning out. Pump the brakes, tap the trailer brakes, downshift. Control it.
Even talking to Martina, who always wanted more from him, was better than going back to an empty motel room and staring at the tube until his eyes glazed over enough to sleep.
Martina hadn’t lasted through his first tour in Afghanistan before she packed her bags and headed to the West Coast. She broke up with him over the phone on a Tuesday morning. The crackly satellite connection at the fire base meant they had to yell to be heard, and she had to repeat it twice before he got it.
“I can’t live like this,” she said. “I owe it to myself to follow my dream.”
“Follow your dream? You’re a goddamn hairstylist, Martina. What dream are you following? Cutting Kim Kardashian’s hair?”
“You’ll never unnerstan’! I’m not gonna be a stylist forever. I’m gonna make somethin’ of myself. I’m not gonna hang around McAllen, havin’ babies, while you go play your stupid war stuff, you pendejo asshole!”
She hung up on him, and that was the last time he’d spoken to her. The papers arrived three days later. She’d obviously printed them off a website and sent them long before that last call. He signed them in under a minute.
Then he got drunk, puked, and passed out. Six hours and one helicopter ride later, he had hiked six miles into the Shah-i-Kot Valley in support of Operation Anaconda, which was a place his thoughts really didn’t want to go.
Cowboy up, Abel. Time to get back to that swanky hotel room. He refilled his soda at the dispenser, tossed out the debris from his meal, and headed back into the night. The buzzing of the neon sign gave way to singing crickets as the Burger King lights faded away behind him.
He headed for the side entrance of the hotel. The lot, lit with regularly spaced overheads on metal poles, contained a collection of cars scattered along the perimeter. Bugs whirled over the side door’s single overhead light.
Yeager paused at the edge of the lot, not knowing why. Nothing moved. On his left, at the back of the lot, his rig waited, which made him breathe easier. The smattering of cars created an obstacle course between him and the hotel door, the gaps between them cloaked in darkness.
He narrowed his eyes and studied those black pools, looking for whatever had tickled his sixth sense. In Afghanistan, Yeager had lived for weeks in the bush, often on his own, cat-napping during the day and slinking around at night. He trusted his instincts.
Maybe I’m spooky from the fight in Arkansas. Yeager slipped across the concrete lot, senses open to input and eyes tracking.
Something skittered behind him, tinkling like a coin skipping across the concrete. He spun to look an instant before realizing he’d been suckered. Motion flickered next to a parked car. Yeager registered the image of a man, charging hard, swinging a baseball bat.
With no time to move, Yeager hunched and took the hit under his short ribs. Pain detonated in his torso, and he grunted explosively, doubling over, vision going dark. He grabbed the bat, but it was jerked out of his hands. A rush of feet sounded behind him, and he knew there were two.
Yeager dropped and rolled, fighting for breath as well as room to maneuver. He rose to one knee as two of the guys from the hijacking crew, both with bats, came right at him, murder in their eyes. Yeager sucked wind, trying to expand his lungs with enough oxygen so he could move. He had to get in the fight before the two refugees from the bush leagues got some batting practice on his skull.
His attackers stalked him, spreading out to divide his attention. The kid on the right was Hairflip, the hijacker who played traffic cop at the rest stop. He had a massive purple bruise on his left cheek. Eyes narrowed, Hairflip crabbed farther right, bat cocked. He spun the bat in little circles in the air as if he was waiting for a pitch.