Yeager's Law Read online

  On the left, Tire Iron, the one with close-cropped hair and deep-set eyes, showed white teeth in a nasty grin. He had the look of a bully used to winning. He swung his bat in little arcs as though he was on deck, taking some practice swings.

  Yeager drew in enough air to loosen his diaphragm and get his lungs working again. The blackness around the edge of his vision cleared, and he levered himself up onto his feet. Engage one at a time. Get in close, inside the swing. Disable and clear before the other one closes.

  Woozy and lightheaded, Yeager backed away, gaining time. He wanted to puke from the dull ache throbbing in his gut with every breath. “Well, muchacho,” he wheezed, thinking maybe he could goad the older one into a mistake. “That the hardest you can hit? Your momma hit me harder than that after I promised I wouldn’t come in her mouth.”

  Tire Iron’s eyes flared, but then he showed a thin-lipped smile. “You think you are funny?” He circled further left, and Yeager had to swivel his head back and forth to keep them both in sight. “I think it will be funny when I break your arm like you broke my brother’s. Then I will think it is even more funny when I break every other bone the same way.”

  Yeager feinted left, toward Tire Iron, then bolted right, straight for Hairflip. Too slow. The kid saw him coming and swung. Yeager dodged the bat then closed in, getting in tight before being caught by the backswing. Palm strike to the nose, followed by a neck-twist takedown.

  The palm strike and the takedown were both potentially fatal if not done correctly, but Yeager didn’t much care. He slapped his palm into Hairflip’s nose, and something crunched. Grabbing the short hair at the back of the kid’s head in his left hand, he cupped Hairflip’s chin with his right. Twist and pull. The boy had no choice but to go with the momentum, and he was on the ground before he knew what hit him. At least he went down fast.

  Tire Iron came from behind before Yeager could disengage and reset. Yeager spun and ducked, out of balance and out of position. He avoided most of the strike, but still got clipped on the side of the head.

  Light flashed behind his eyes. Without realizing how he made it there, Yeager was on the ground again, staring at the night sky. Warm, gritty concrete scratched his back. Tire Iron raised the wooden bat as if he wanted to split a log with one hit.

  Yeager rolled left, and the bat cracked the pavement next to his head. He came off the ground and skipped away from the backhand swipe as the bat zipped past his midsection. Tire Iron came in hard, swinging for the fences.

  Fuck, this is gonna hurt… Yeager dove in ahead of the swing, close enough that he mitigated the full force of the blow, and took the shot in his left side. He grunted with the impact but held on and clamped his arm over the weapon to immobilize it. He drove a right fist into Tire Iron’s nose twice—bap-bap—hard enough to rock a fence post.

  The hijacker’s legs jellied, and he lost his grip on the bat. He stumbled back, clutching his face in both hands as blood washed through his fingers. He glared through wet, teary eyes. Yeager had to give the guy some credit; he could take a punch and still have some fight left in the tank. Yeager tossed the bat aside and made a come-on gesture with his sore right hand. A handgun popped, and the guy startled.

  “Hey, esé,” Victor Ruiz said. “You are fucking with the wrong gringo, homes. Nobody beats that white boy but me.”

  Tire Iron looked over his shoulder. Victor came across the parking lot, a gym bag over his shoulder and a stainless steel semi-auto pistol held down by his leg.

  Yeager blinked. “Hey, Por Que. Nice of you to drop by.”

  “I had to walk from the airport, you know. It has made me cranky,” Victor said. He was still about twenty-five yards away but closing. “Why don’t you badasses put your hands up?”

  Tire Iron backed away, and Hairflip scrambled to his feet to join his friend. Each cupped a hand under a bleeding nose. Two broken noses in one night. May be a record. Both assailants started sliding farther away from Victor and his gun.

  “We don’ wan’ no trouble,” Tire Iron made a slow down gesture with both hands. Moments before, he had been the king of the world, but now he was slinking away like a kicked dog.

  “Oh, yeah?” Victor said. “You shoulda thought of that before you done pissed me off. Now you got loads a’ trouble.”

  With unseen communication, both turned and ran at the same time, disappearing into the black field behind the motel. Victor raised his pistol.

  Yeager held up a hand. “Not worth it, amigo. You kill one running away, they throw your ass in jail. They might anyway if anyone heard the shot and called the cops.”

  “Sí.” Victor walked over and patted him on the shoulder. “I wasn’t gonna shoot ’em. Well, maybe jus’ a little bit. On the edges, like. Let’s get inside. Then we can talk about how I saved your sorry butt. Again.”

  “Saved me?” Yeager said. “From those candy-asses?”

  “You gettin’ old, man. Once upon a time, they’d have been pretzels by now.”

  “Well, join the club, Por Que. I need a beer.”

  “Cool, a party!” Victor grinned. “Do I get to wear a funny hat?”

  The motel room ice bucket came with a plastic bag liner, which Yeager filled with ice. He settled into the room’s one chair, alternating the bag between his head and stomach.

  Victor peered into his eyes for a second, declared him concussion free, then plopped onto the bed. He found the TV remote and started flipping channels. Victor stood only five-six, but he packed all of it with muscle. His Body Mass Index would put him in the obese category because he had twice the muscle mass of an average person his height. He looked like a short, Hispanic Arnold Schwarzenegger. “So, what the fuck, dude? You piss on these guys, or what?”

  “Only stopped ’em from takin’ my truck.” Yeager winced as he applied the ice bag to the side of his head. “Where’s Cujo?”

  “He said he wanted to stay with the plane. He’s funny that way. I don’ worry ’bout him. That guy, he would survive a WMD attack.”

  “Or maybe start one.”

  Victor tossed the remote down after finding a soccer game broadcast in Spanish. He dug in his gym bag and produced a six pack of Negra Modelo. “I know you’re too cheap to buy beer. Here.”

  “Thanks.” Yeager popped the top and took a pull. Even warm, the beer tasted good going down. “You staying here or gettin’ your own room?”

  “Only one bed in here. I stay, I get it. I don’ sleep in no beds with guys, tha’s for sure,” Victor said. “I don’t roll that way, esé.”

  “Por que no?”

  Victor shot him a dirty look. “No need for cheap shots to a man who jus’ saved your life.”

  “Did you get my stuff?”

  “Yeah, I got your stuff.” Victor set his beer on the nightstand and stuck his nose back into his gym bag. “My papa finished your gun. Nice sights, by the way. I went by your house, man, and I have to tell you… you ever hear about a thing called paint, dude? I mean, shit, your house, it wouldn’t even qualify for a crack house.”

  “Paint costs money.”

  “Sure it does, but come on…” Victor placed a leather pistol case on the bed then scrabbled in his bag again.

  Yeager retrieved the pistol case, zipped it open, and slipped out his Springfield Arms 1911-A1 Custom .45 Auto. There were two empty magazines in the case, and when he looked up, Victor tossed him a box of Winchester hollow-points. Victor’s dad was a first-class gunsmith and had been installing tritium night sights on the .45, which was why Yeager hadn’t had it on him when he was attacked at the rest stop.

  “You can’t afford paint,” Victor said, “but you own a two-thousand-dollar gun there? Somethin’ don’ seem right, bro.”

  “Priorities. You bring the—”

  “Yeah, I got everything you asked for.” Victor took a long pull from his beer bottle. “Be quiet. Chivas is playing.”

  “Hate to miss that.”

  Yeager loaded the magazines and popped one into the base
of the Springfield. He snapped back the slide, chambered a round, then set the thumb safety. Nothing like an old friend to make you feel safe. He breathed easier than he had in the last thirty-something hours. The checkered grip felt solid and deadly in his hand.

  “What’s wrong with your face?” Victor asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re smilin, man.”

  “I am? That’s tragic.”

  “You ain’t done it much lately is all. Not since the, uh, you know. The wreck and whatnot.”

  “Something happened today.”

  “Duh.”

  “No,” Yeager said. “I met this woman.”

  “A woman? Really? With, like, boobs and stuff? Wow, I’m impressed.”

  “Shut up, dickhead. I’m tryin’ to tell you something.” Yeager tipped more beer down his throat and set the bottle on the side table. “She was… man.”

  Victor cocked an eyebrow. “Tha’s poetry, dude.”

  Yeager grimaced. “It’s like, like I’ve been sleepwalking, you know? And today, I woke up. The fight with the hijackers woke me up, and Charlie woke me up, too, but in a different way.”

  “So… you’re awake now. Tha’s what you saying? Good to know, bro. You drivin’ a truck and whatnot.”

  “There was this guy in the Stan with me, an 0358—”

  “Remind me?”

  “Force recon. A staff sergeant, same as me. Millnimow was his name. Anyway, Millnimow had been blown up twice by IEDs. Both times, every man around him was killed. He led one patrol into the bush, and they dropped into some deep shit that killed everybody but him. You get the picture? It’s like he was a bad luck charm or something. After about six months of that, Millnimow looked like a dog wanting to lay down somewhere and die. He lost about forty pounds, never slept, just went through the motions until he finally walked into a bullet one night in the Helmand Province.”

  Victor pursed his lips in a brooding way and tipped his beer. “So you, you’re like this Millnimow guy?”

  Yeager nodded. “It’s what I feel like, yeah.”

  “And these guys, they woke your ass up?”

  Yeager gave a grim smile. “Not completely, but at least I can hear the alarm going off.”

  “Well, don’ hit the snooze button, bro. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  Yeager smiled, leaned back in the chair, and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 7

  Book Finders

  Austin, Texas

  Wednesday evening, Charlie Buchanan pulled into her reserved space in the parking lot next to Book Finders and switched off the engine. She stepped out of her bug- and dirt-splattered car and stretched her aching back and neck. Things cracked and popped that never did before. Long drives took more out of her than they did only a few years ago. Hell, everything took more out of her than it used to.

  Her cell rang, and she missed a step when she saw her ex-husband’s name on the caller ID. “Hello.”

  “Hey, kiddo,” Steven said. “Wanted to see that you made it back from St. Louis okay.”

  “Yeah, sure.” She held the phone away and looked at the caller ID again. Sure enough, it said Steven. “I got back last night.”

  “Good. Good. Everything go okay? The place I suggested work out?”

  “Uh… yeah, I guess. The books were pretty good. Cheap, too, except for the shipping.”

  “The shipping?”

  “Yeah, the guy was charging out the wazoo.”

  “So… what’d you do?”

  “I used my own shipper.”

  “Oh,” Steven said. “Well. That’s good then. So you bought some books there?”

  “Yeah, six pallet loads.” She popped the trunk with her remote. “Anything else?”

  “No, no. Nothing. Mainly wanted to check on you. Make sure everything worked out. Okay, then. See you.”

  Charlie said goodbye and touched End. Strange. Steven had never been very interested in her book business, but he’d suddenly gotten all excited about the place in St. Louis, telling her what great bargains they had and convincing her to check them out. Now calling to see how she did? What the hell was up with him?

  Extending the pull handle on her suitcase, she slung her bag over her shoulder. She wheeled the case behind her into the store, chirping the car’s alarm on the way.

  For a Wednesday night in the summer, with no school in session, traffic in the store seemed heavier than normal. During the fall and winter, when the University of Texas filled up with college kids, the store could become packed in a hurry. Charlie didn’t do textbooks—there were dozens of stores for that—but she sold the hell out of Cliff’s Notes and reading list material.

  She waved at Nita Lutz, the store manager, who was busy at the cash register. Nita smiled and gave her a look that said, “If you want to come help, I wouldn’t mind.” Charlie chose not to take the hint. If she became involved, she’d be working until well after closing, and she was so tired her bones ached. She loved Nita like a sister but not enough to work a late shift.

  She used her passkey on the freight elevator and punched three for the top floor. The door opened onto a bare foyer with a tiled floor and unadorned walls. A heavy but plain wooden door across from the elevator led to her apartment. On the right side of the foyer, a steel fire door with a push bar led to a staircase and the alley behind the shop. Charlie unlocked her apartment door and maneuvered her bags into the living room, calling out, “I’m home!”

  “Hola, Señora Buchanan!” Maria sang from the kitchen. A second later, she bustled into the room, drying her hands on her apron, a wide smile of greeting lighting her face.

  Maria Mendoza had been with Charlie for years. More of a second mother than a housekeeper, she was in that indefinable age between fifty and seventy. In all the time Charlie had known her, she had never seen Maria frown.

  After a quick hug, Maria said, “Good to have you back safe, Señora. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, hokay? You get cleaned up and come eat.”

  “How’s David?”

  “Bien. He is in his room, working on a wooden car.”

  “Gracias, Maria.” Charlie dumped her shoulder bag on the couch and crossed the room to David’s bedroom. After a quick tap on the door, she opened it to find her ten-year-old son sitting on his bed and studying a set of instructions, bits and pieces of a Pinewood Derby car scattered around him. “How’s it going, buddy?”

  “Hey, Mom.” David glanced up. “How was your trip?”

  “Same old, same old. Nothing exciting.” No way was Charlie going to bring up her part in the confrontation at the rest stop. David could be a worrier, and he’d fret if he heard she’d nearly been in a gunfight with a bunch of bandits. “How’s the car coming?”

  “It’s not.” David held up a rectangular block of wood slightly bigger than his palm. “This is what we’re supposed to cut the car shape out of, but I don’t know how.”

  Charlie frowned. Since she split with Steven, there had been times where she didn’t have the skills to do the “boy things” that David needed. She hated fishing, couldn’t throw a ball, and her skills with power tools were rusty. About all her daddy had ever taught her was how to handle a gun and manage money.

  Goddamn you, Steven, if you could’ve kept it in your pants… This is your job! Charlie played that thought back and reconsidered. Who am I kidding? Steven would be as clueless as I am and have less interest in learning.

  “And you’re supposed to mount these wheels,” David continued, “on these nails, sticking ’em in these slots, and the whole thing can’t weigh more than five ounces.” He tossed the block on the mattress and flopped back on his bed with a sigh. A thin boy with a serious expression, David wore wire-framed glasses that made him look old and wise beyond his years. He insisted on being called David, never Dave or Davey.

  “Don’t worry, baby.” Charlie sat next to him and stroked his sandy-red hair. “Maybe we can get Tomas to help.”

  Tomas, Maria’s brother, did the o
ccasional odd job for her, everything from electrical to plumbing to drywall, and all with the same cheerful outlook as his sister.

  David never showed it, but Charlie often wondered if he wasn’t secretly disappointed in her, as if maybe he blamed her for his father’s philandering and lack of attention. The one time she’d gotten him to open up about his bi-weekly visits with Steven, she got the impression that his father spent most of their time together on the phone, working on deals.

  The confrontation at the rest stop kept bubbling up in her mind. Maybe if she left out her part of the incident… Brightening her tone, she said, “I saw this guy take on three outlaws and deck ’em all.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it was like Chuck Norris or Jason Statham or something. The three guys were down when I showed up, but I heard later that one had a knife and the other a tire iron. And then, this other guy…”

  “Dinner!” Maria called from the other room.

  “Come on, kiddo.” Charlie pulled David to his feet. “Let’s go eat, and I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

  Comfort Inn

  Wheeling, Illinois

  Early Thursday morning, Yeager’s cell phone rang as he tightened the last nut on the Peterbilt’s battery cell bridge.

  Victor was sitting in the open door of the cab, reading a magazine, one of those with pictures of freakishly muscled men on the cover. Without looking up, he announced, “Phone’s ringing.”

  “Thanks so much.” Yeager pushed the answer button with a greasy finger. “Yeager here.”

  “Mr. Abe… Abelard Yeager?” Male voice, deep Southern accent.

  “Abel is fine.”

  “I heard that,” the man chuckled. “This is Sergeant Jurdan of the Arkansas State Police. We’re investigating the attempted armed robbery of your truck, Mr. Yeager.”

  “Uh huh.” About time.