Boomtown, p.14
Boomtown, page 14
Detectives can’t control the hands they’re dealt. Some hands are good and some are bad. This one, the murder of Corey Miller, falls on the bad side. Without forensic evidence, you have to put together a circumstantial case. That requires witnesses. Mariola’s visit this morning leads me to believe she knows that Corey worked at the Paradise. And given the time of death, it’s almost certain that Corey died inside the trailer. That’s where her witnesses, if there are any, can be found. Effectively controlled by Charlie and his thugs.
“What you thinkin’ about, baby girl?” Daddy asks.
“I’m thinkin’ about Mariola and that we’re doin’ her wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“She ain’t neglectin’ us, Daddy. And come tomorrow, we’re gonna put the heat on when she in no way deserves it.”
Daddy laughs that mean laugh I remember from when me and Corey were growin’ up. “It ain’t that she don’t deserve the heat. It’s just we’re puttin’ the heat on for the wrong reason.”
“And what’s the right reason?”
“She’s usin’ us as bait.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHARLIE
I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know if you can call it conscience, but some part of my brain I can’t shut up keeps nagging me. You’re the smarts of the organization, the peak and the base of the pyramid. If you go down, the operation goes down. And Ricky Ricci? Being who he is? Failure is not an option.
That’s what I keep tellin’ myself, only I’m not listening. No, what I’m hearin’ is that some opportunities come along only once. Like creeping through what passes for a forest toward what passes for a canyon in this tabletop of a state. We’re not talking about a Rocky Mountain canyon deepened a few millimeters a year over millions of years. We’re talkin’ about a depression, a gully, hollowed out by dynamite and steam shovel, a limestone quarry with sheer cliffs on both sides of a little creek. The cliff on my side is about sixty feet from the stream, leaving plenty of room along its banks for amateur naturalists or drug-addled bikers.
In this case, the bikers have won the competition. The Horde has been using this spot for years. As a hangout, a rallying point, a home for homeless bikers. Just now, they have a big decision to make. I gave them an ultimatum, underlined by the death of Titus Klint, and they have to decide what to do next. And whatever that something might be, it’ll have to be done as a group. One on one, they can’t survive. Not on our turf. Not in Boomtown.
We can hear them, me and Dominick, as we creep forward, keeping inside the shadows thrown by the stringy trees between us and the edge of the cliff. Two hundred yards behind us, parked on a hiking trail, a pair of our associates sit in a Jeep Wrangler with a beefed-up suspension. They’ll back us if we stumble into lookouts. Not likely, though.
First thing, according to several Baxter locals, one an ex-member, the gang’s been using this spot for years. Second, it’s three o’clock in the morning and I can hear some crazy amalgamation of country and rap bouncing between the cliffs on either side of the stream. I don’t know what sound system they’re using, powered by a vehicle obviously, but it’s playing at a volume that speaks to the condition of the bikers close by. Stoned, is what I’m thinking, stoned and tired and feeling a hundred percent safe on their home turf.
Overhead, the moon is a pale blur behind thin clouds, the stars completely obscured. My only fear at this point is that I’ll stumble over the edge of the cliff, but the trees give way about thirty feet from the rim. I stop and kneel, Dominick beside me, and look around for anybody or anything that might prevent us from completing the mission. I find only an owl sitting on a branch, staring straight at us. I understand its point of view. The owl is a pure predator. It would carry us back to its nest and feed us to its young if it was big enough. Survival of the fittest. Or the biggest, or the smartest.
Dominick crawls to the edge of the cliff and peers down for a moment before moving away. “To ya left, about fifty feet.”
I follow directions. This is Dominick’s world, after all, the whole plan his idea. New men have been trickling in for the past week. There’s almost forty of us now, scattered throughout Boomtown. In the bars, in the Paradise, in the new stores we control. Dominick is their commanding officer, my Secretary of Defense, a man with long experience. We’re prepared for an attack.
That’s exactly what I don’t want. Boomtown is a gold mine. The money’s pouring in and it’ll keep pouring in unless . . . Unless there’s a gun battle involving seventy or eighty combatants firing off a thousand rounds of ammo inside three minutes. Do the math. A thousand rounds, eighty shooters, hundreds of innocent bystanders.
The politicians would have to act. Cops would pour in, be they Baxter cops, deputy sheriffs, or state troopers. And my boss? His heart would surely break if his little gold mine had to shut down. Even temporarily.
“Okay, boss, here we go. Take a quick look.”
I come forward on my belly until my head clears the edge. Only then do I open my eyes. I’m not big on heights, but there’s no getting out of it this time. I’m dizzy for just a second, then pick out what I need to see.
The creek is flanked by sandbars that give way to dirt and rocks, the dirt and rocks to a flat sheet of limestone where the quarrymen cut and leveled the stone. The Horde has taken advantage of this table, and for a good reason. Leave a four-hundred-pound Harley Davidson motorcycle parked on dirt? If it rains and that dirt gets muddy, bikes are gonna fall over. Better to park your bikes safe and sound on a limestone platform. Even if you have to park them almost on top of one another.
I rise to my knees as Dominick slides out of his backpack and reaches inside. He comes up with two M67 hand grenades, recovered from our storage locker sixty miles north of Baxter. My heart’s racing now and I can’t slow it down. I don’t tell myself to cool off, because I know from experience my adrenals won’t listen. I need to go with the flow, the flow of adrenaline. Channel the energy. Focus, focus, focus.
Neither of us, me and Dominick, are familiar with hand grenades. We’re not military types, not about to risk our lives for a flag. Money, yes. Flag, no. But we do have a man in town, Marty Marillo, who made it to Ranger training school before he was dishonorably discharged after an affair with the colonel’s wife.
Marty’s instructions were simple. If you fire a gun by accident, at least the barrel’s not pointed at your head. You fuck up with a hand grenade, they’ll have to find your head. The M67’s called a pineapple by soldiers, but it’s shaped more like a Christmas tree bulb, the body rounded to make it easier to grip. It has two parts that command attention, the pin and the handle. The way it works, if you squeeze the handle when you pull out the pin, the grenade doesn’t arm itself. It won’t until you let go of the handle, called the spoon, which breaks off. From that point, you have six seconds to throw the grenade before it goes boom. Marty’s instructions in this regard were real simple. Don’t let go of that spoon until the last second, an instant before the grenade leaves your hand.
Dominick and I are now about ten feet apart, with the mass of parked motorcycles directly below. The bikers themselves are about fifty yards to our right. The blast and flame of an M67 has a kill radius of about fifteen feet. The shrapnel generated from the casing travels much further, but killing bikers isn’t our goal tonight. We’re more into killing their bikes. On foot, they pose no threat.
Dominick signals me to kneel a foot or so from the edge, then motions me to toss the grenade underhand. Me, I have a death grip on that spoon as I pull the pin. I’m half expecting the grenade to blow there and then, but it lies quietly in my hand. Reassuring? My heart’s beating so fast it’s about to explode.
Dominick raises his left hand. “One, two, three.”
I flinch when I let go of the grenade and the handle flies off, only to have my fear give way to a stupendous sense of exhilaration as both grenades disappear on their way to the bottom of the cliff.
“C’mon, boss, let’s get the fuck outta here.”
But I don’t move, not until the grenades explode, almost simultaneously, followed by a burst of flame that lights the rock face on the other side of the creek. Only then do I rise and fall back a few feet as the gas tanks on the bikes, torn apart by the blast and the shrapnel, blow off like a string of firecrackers, scattering still more flame and shrapnel. Then I’m finally running for the Jeep, outpacing Dominick, who grunts with every step.
I can barely stop myself. I wanna whoop it up. I wanna let go of the exhilaration that replaced the fear I felt when I yanked the pin out of that grenade. We’ve pulled it off. We’ve struck a blow the Horde will never forget. Their bikes are their pride. Their bikes are who they are. Their very expensive, customized choppers. And how many dead? How many wounded?
Like I said at the beginning, I shouldn’t be here. I should be planning, not executing, but I live for this. I live for the risk and the reward, even knowing that if I keep taking risks, it’ll go bad sooner or later. Long shots win races too.
This time, though, I’m not afraid of pursuit. Certainly not by the Horde, and not by the cops either. Knob Canyon is fairly remote and the first responders will come in through a road that leads to the bottom, to the wounded and the dead. With no idea, at that point, what happened, they’ll stay put until they have answers. Meanwhile, we’re running over back roads, another hats off to Dominick, who mapped the route. Ten minutes from now, we’ll enter an interstate. Just another SUV rollin’ down the highway.
Adelyn’s still up when I walk into her house, sitting in a chair, sipping at a glass of wine. She doesn’t know what or where, only that something was up, something big. A woman of long experience, she’s wearing a white negligee and a knowing smile enhanced by lipstick the color of a high-end ruby. She rises, slowly, as if we had all the time in the world, then leads me into the bedroom.
We don’t speak as she undresses me and lays me on the bed, as she tucks a pillow under my head. I close my eyes as her hands slide over my body, my throat, my chest. Bright as an exploding star, I see that first flash again, the flames reflected in the cliff face on the far side of the creek, the rock itself on fire. I feel Dominick’s hand on my shoulder, urging me to leave. Instead, I watch those gas tanks explode, even though I’d already turned away. I see slices of hot metal ripping through the air, bikers too stunned to get out of the way. I hear their screams, though I couldn’t possibly have heard them.
I like what I see, what I hear. As I like what Adelyn does to me. This moment is what I have and it’s enough. Fuck the future.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHARLIE
Up in the morning and back to work. Or I will be after I finish the breakfast Adelyn’s prepared. Adelyn’s going on about the Stardust and what she could do with the store if given the opportunity.
“I had two men come in yesterday, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. They wanted to look at engagement rings. Five minutes later, they walked out the door. That’s because the rings in our display cases are such crap even the yokels aren’t fooled.” She sits down on the far side of the table. “Before they walked out, I asked them how much they were lookin’ to spend. Six thousand dollars, Charlie. And I’m sure I could’ve convinced them to spring for eight if I had something decent to sell.”
“Selling jewelry’s not the point, Adelyn. Not sellin’ jewelry and makin’ it appear that we’re sellin’ jewelry is what the game’s all about.”
At this point, I could give Adelyn a lecture about the retail jewelry business. About a high-dollar inventory that moves very slowly. About reliance on Christmas and June weddings to stay afloat. You compensate with a three hundred percent markup, followed by a twenty-five-percent-off sale. And whenever the economy takes a nosedive, you hang on by your fingernails.
I’m not gonna deliver the lecture, not now, because the only thing I really want to do at this point is turn on the local news. Yeah, the explosions and the fires were impressive, but how much damage did they do? And how many casualties were there, dead and wounded? Still, I don’t even suggest turning on the TV. Adelyn knows something was up last night, she’s not an idiot, but I don’t intend to even hint at what it was. Let her draw her own conclusions. As long as she can’t quote me.
We have an understanding, Adelyn and I. It’s more than don’t ask, don’t tell. Sooner or later, what with the store and her house inside Baxter, the cops are gonna knock on her door. My instructions are simple: Ask for a lawyer. If they say you’re not a suspect and not entitled to a lawyer, walk away. You’re not obliged to cooperate. And that’s true even if you’re an eyewitness to murder.
“This thing with the store?” Adelyn says. “It’s a chance, right? For a woman who’s spent most of her life in the game? I can’t go back to hooking.”
“I don’t want you to,” I say, surprising myself. “And I’ll try to set you up with the store after we leave. Hear me? After we pull out, which is at least eighteen months from now, I’ll try to leave you with the store. Until then, profit just ain’t the point.”
I stand up. Collections need to be made and I don’t want to deviate from my normal routine. Just in case someone’s watching. Adelyn follows me to the door. She kisses me on the cheek and says, “Thank you, Charlie.” For just an instant, I think I’m feeling an emotion, but then she ruins the moment by adding, “But we can still go upscale, right?”
I flip on the radio as I drive toward Boomtown. Three dead, sixteen wounded, extensive property damage. A reporter named Jack Catton’s at the scene, but the cops won’t let him close enough to describe the carnage. Catton does manage to interview the Leland County sheriff, Elvin Morrow. There were a series of explosions, Morrow confirms, origin unknown. Drugs were also found on scene, though not in the possession of any individual. Is it possible, Catton wants to know, that the bikers set off the initial explosion themselves? Perhaps accidentally?
“I won’t speculate, Jack. We’re just beginning what promises to be a long investigation. At this point, we can’t rule anything out.”
Music to this gangster’s ears. I feel that same rush, though not as strong as last night, and I quickly stifle the exhilaration. Boomtown will belong to us exclusively. No competition. But not Baxter. First, Baxter’s under the control of the Baxter PD and there’s a minor bust every few days. Better it be some local and not one of my people. As long as the Baxter dealers buy from us, they’re free to service their customers as they see fit. Knowing, of course, that if they get busted and snitch, they’ll go the way of Titus Klint.
I’ve calmed by the time I reach the Paradise and not even the presence of Maggie Miller and her cuckoo father upsets me. Maggie’s laptop is open and it’s likely she’s aware of what happened to the Horde in Leland County. Hopefully, she’ll think twice before she runs her mouth at her sister’s viewing. Hopefully, she’ll reconsider my generous offer. I’m willing to go five grand if she’ll leave town with her sister’s ashes.
The Paradise Inn’s interior is about what you’d expect. Patterned red wallpaper with a velvety feel, black leather couches and chairs arranged on a blood-red carpet, a plain wooden bar with shelves behind it, a condom dispenser in a corner. Numerous paintings imitate the more lurid offerings of the baroque era and the space reeks of cheap room deodorizer.
Bruce greets me when I come through the door, but he doesn’t tell me what I want to hear. “Some of the girls wanna go to Corey’s viewing,” he says. “Pay their respects.” Then he shrugs, setting his jowls in motion. “They’re, like, pretty determined.”
I walk to the bar and pull a Coke from the soft-drink chest. As I pop the cap, I make a decision I don’t really wanna make. My whores have to go, replaced with hookers who never heard of Maggie Miller. There’s another decision I have to make, but I don’t have to make it now. Bruce has to go too. Because the more I think about it, the more I’m coming to believe that Bruce murdered Corey Miller by feeding her a dose of fentanyl he knew she couldn’t survive.
Bad Bruce. Maybe dead Bruce.
Later is later, and now is now. I’ve kept my hands off the Paradise, left it to Bruce. No more. I head for the rooms in the back, opening doors, yanking whores out of bed.
“In the front, right the fuck now.”
One girl resists, shooting off her big mouth about how she’s not a dog and she won’t be treated like a dog. A backhand across the mouth adjusts her attitude. I’m not playin’ here. Five minutes later, they’re assembled, eight girls in various states of undress, one completely naked.
“Get a robe, for Christ’s sake.” I’m standing in the middle of the room, staring at each of the girls in turn, wondering if any will meet my gaze. None do. Meantime, I’m not angry, just annoyed at having to deal with this Maggie Miller bullshit. I’m doin’ what Bruce, if he was a decent manager, would already have done.
“I don’t know what you’re thinkin, maybe that you’re livin’ legit, that you’re good citizens, you can go where you want, do what you want. Well, you can stick that bullshit up your asses. You’re whores, engaged in criminal activities for which you can be arrested. If that should happen, it’ll come back on my operation, which is a development I’m gonna prevent. Any way I have to.”
The women are pulling back. I can see it in their eyes. They’re not gonna challenge me, not to my face. No, they’ll watch and wait and eventually do whatever they want. That’s what I’m reading and I need to make myself clear.
“You’re not goin’ to that viewing, or whatever Maggie Miller wants to call it. Not one of you. You’re gonna stay right here and you’re gonna do your jobs. You don’t like that? Then pay your fucking debts and move on. Like far away, like to another state, like to another country.”
