Saving Jason Read online

  “Chop shop? What chop shop? It’s a garage. They park trucks here. When the trucks break down, they fix them.”

  “I don’t know how it fits in, but it’s part of your scam.”

  “What scam? Don’t you get it? There is no scam!” He was screaming. “And you!” He poked a finger in the weasel’s face. “You had to drag her into this? What am I supposed to do with her? This is kidnapping. Unlawful imprisonment. Those are federal charges, numbnuts.”

  “You told us—”

  “I told you I had to talk to this rat. I didn’t tell you to assault the goddamn chief of compliance. Did I tell you to do that? Gino, did I tell you to do that?”

  The stoic looked at him with the smallest sneer. “Maybe we should be having this conversation somewhere else?” He made it a question, but it sounded like an admonishment.

  It was finally dawning on me that, while I still firmly believed these four fools were involved in some dangerous conspiracy, it had little to do with penny stock trading or stolen trucks. In a flash, I understood everything and nothing.

  I felt sick. I wanted to laugh maniacally at the cast of four stooges, but the reality was that I’d been caught looking the wrong way—playing Blackmore’s game rather than taking care of business. I was the stooge. I had let Virgil hang. And now, looking at the man who Scott had just called Gino, I knew that I might pay for that mistake with my life. Killing me was the only way to cover their tracks. They’d have to kill Aimee, too. Another noncombatant. Another innocent. Another mistake on my part and another death due to my incompetence and arrogance.

  In my cowardice, I hoped that they would kill me first so I wouldn’t have to watch her die.

  Scott heard Gino’s words, but chose to ignore them. “I’ve got a couple more questions for you, old man. And take it to heart, you will tell me what you know, or I will have Gino gut you like a fish. Then I will sit here watching you hold your intestines in your hands while you bleed out.”

  I believed him. He wasn’t funny at all anymore. But he was making threats. That meant he was scared, and that fact terrified me. He was afraid of what I knew and who I might have told. If I’d had any inkling of what that secret might be, I could have used that power to take charge and possibly save both our lives. But I had wasted my efforts on a chimera and I was clueless. Clueless, and soon to die because of it.

  Aimee shifted her position in the chair, pulling her long legs back underneath her. She could read our future as well as I, and she was about to make a move to forestall it. But the risk was too great. I was flat on my ass and would never be able to get up in time to be of any use. And while no one was yet waving guns around, I would not have been at all surprised if either Gino or Scott was strapped. Even a knife would have immeasurably tipped the odds in that enclosed space.

  “Let her walk away and I’ll talk,” I said.

  “Did you think we were negotiating?!” Scott screamed in my face. “We’re not trading. This is how it works: I ask questions and you answer them. Simple enough? Now, what did you tell the goddamn feds?”

  The most direct method of prolonging our lives was to just keep talking. “They wanted to know about the penny stocks. McFee Plumbing. The whole pump-and-dump scheme.”

  He started screaming again. “I don’t care about that small-time crap. Or those idiots in Jersey.” He turned to Gino. “Fahchristsake, you do a favor and you never hear the end of it, you know what I mean?” And, more reasonably, to me again: “Don’t give me that, okay? I want to know what you told them about me.”

  “I don’t know. What should I have told them? They had your name.” I was dancing as fast as I could, but I couldn’t keep up. If we weren’t talking about penny stocks, I was lost. I had no idea what to say.

  “They had my name?” He spoke to Gino again. “Fucking Barstow again. The guy didn’t know how to just keep his mouth shut. The only thing that guy was good for was drinking my cousin’s scotch.” He turned back to me. “So what else did that finocchio tell the feds?”

  “How do I know? I wasn’t there. What? You think I’m their little buddy? They don’t tell me things. They ask me things.”

  Gino pulled a long, thin-bladed gravity knife from an inside pocket. With a well-practiced flick of his wrist, he opened it.

  “Wait!” I yelled. “They told me he had something big. Something that involved Virgil. That’s all I know. I swear.”

  “Something big?” Gino had taken over. He was waving the knife in front of my eyes as though he might decide to stab me there first. “Something big? Like what, asshole?” He jabbed a feint at my left eye and I jerked my head away. “Talk to me!”

  Scott backed away nervously. He had just lost control of the situation and that scared him. It scared me, too.

  Aimee made her move. She exploded off the chair, her legs like powerful springs shooting her up and forward. Her right arm was straight out and aimed for the throat of the throwback in the Syracuse shirt. If she had connected, she would have crushed his larynx and shifted the odds more in our favor. I was still more liability than asset, but it didn’t matter. The weasel stepped in.

  He had been suckered by her once and was not going to let it happen again. He reacted on the instant, grabbing her wrist and pulling, cutting off her attack and tipping her weight. He ducked and let her own momentum send her flying over his shoulder. She landed with a crash.

  But she wasn’t done. Her hands hit the floor first, breaking her fall, giving her the chance to leap back to her feet, ready for a second attack.

  The big man was ready for her this time. He had been slow to respond, but once moving, he was a blur. He stepped inside her punch and hooked her ankles with a sweep of his leg. She went down hard. She did not spring back up. She moaned and stayed down.

  Gino had moved quickly, too, and he now stood over Aimee with the knife. “Enough with the floor show,” he said. “Let me finish this bullshit right now.”

  “No,” Scott said. “There’s been too many mistakes made.”

  Gino spoke in a grating hiss, his anger barely checked. “This guy knows nothing. Look at him. Right now he’ll tell you anything just to go on living another few minutes. But it’s bullshit. He doesn’t have any idea what your cousin is working on, Joey. You want to talk about mistakes? You. You’re the mistake. There was no need to grab him. You panicked and screwed up.”

  Scott surprised me by responding with a cool head. He didn’t react to Gino’s tone or his words. He spoke calmly. “You were right, Gino. This conversation should take place somewhere else.” He turned and walked to the door. “All of you. Come with me.”

  The weasel and the big caveman went out on his heels. But before Gino followed, he took a minute to stare into my face. He flicked the knife closed and took a short-barreled gun from behind his back. He put the barrel to my temple and spoke quietly. “I promise you this. I’ll make it quick.”

  34

  The door was thrown shut and the truck was again enclosed in darkness. I realized that I had been holding my breath for an impossible length of time and I gasped in air like a drowning man.

  “You okay?” It was Aimee.

  “Wh-wh-what? Yes. I’m okay,” I said.

  “He didn’t cut you, did he?”

  How could she sound so strong? She had been moaning moments before. Seemingly in pain and only semiconscious.

  “No. No. I’m okay.”

  “I thought he was going to cut your eye out. So I created a diversion.”

  She had taken a beating and risked her life. A thank-you would have been inadequate. “I owe you.”

  “Who’s this ‘cousin’?” she said.

  “No clue.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I heard her moving and then felt a hand on my ankle.

  “Is that you?” she said.

  “I would certainly hope so,”
I said.

  We both found this insanely funny and a chuckle built into a burst of full-throated laughter. When we passed hysteria on the laugh chart, Aimee began to hiccup. I wiped away tears composed of three parts fear and one part relief that we were both still alive.

  “What next?” I said.

  “I think we’ve got at most two hours, and most likely at least one before they make their—hic!—move. Damn! How do you—hic!—get rid of hiccups?”

  “Something about drinking water while standing on your head. I think.”

  “Well, that’s not happening.”

  “Or a big scare.”

  There was a pause followed by more peals of laughter. She stopped first and began to take long, controlled breaths.

  “Oh, that’s good. I think that did it. I’m better.”

  “Then tell me why we’ve got an hour.”

  “Or more. Scott isn’t the boss—we just saw that, right? This cousin is really in charge. Or at least, Scott’s not the sole boss. But he’s not going to be the one to dirty his hands putting us down, either. Hic! Oh, damn! He’s got plenty of muscle to handle those kinds of chores.”

  “Agreed. Hold your breath and count to one hundred.”

  “I’m fine. Really. That was the last one. So Scott needs an alibi. He needs to go to someplace where he’ll be recognized and surrounded by people who will vouch for him. Believably.”

  “I can see it.”

  “Hic! Damn! On the other hand, they can’t leave us here for too much longer.”

  “Because as long as we’re alive, we’re a risk.”

  “A big risk. Though we seem to be well contained for now.”

  “Well, we’re going to change that,” I said.

  35

  We were ready for them when they returned. And they were almost ready for us.

  The door was wrenched open so hard it slammed back against the outside of the truck and a blinding white light stabbed into the darkness, seeking us. But we had each taken up position on opposing sides of the doorway. When the light hit me, I lunged forward and stopped abruptly, drawing the first one up the steps to grab me. It was the caveman. Of course.

  Aimee hit him behind the ear with the lantern battery and he went down to his knees. He wasn’t coming up again right away. The weasel was behind him, holding a big spotlight. He swung it around to highlight Aimee, and I saw a Taser in his other hand. She saw it, too, and rushed straight into him. He fired and there was an immediate crackle as he pumped fifty thousand volts into her stomach. She went down and began to jerk like a landed fish. Gino was coming up the steps behind the weasel, gun at the ready. If I let him get all the way up, we were finished. And if there were more thugs behind him, my best course of action would be to lie down and play dead.

  I grew up in my father’s bar. A friendly local gin mill in College Point, Queens. Most of the regulars knew one another and maintained a camaraderie that tended to smooth rather than ruffle feathers. But every once in a long while, someone would need to be ejected. Pop’s technique was to come out from behind the bar via the kitchen so he’d be behind the bellicose drinker. He’d grab the poor slob by the back of the belt with one hand and the back of the neck with the other and propel him out onto the street. Once he got him outside, he’d give one last push, then come back in and lock the door. If they insisted upon making a fuss, he would then call the local precinct and let the cops handle the drunk. He told me, “You put your hands on another man and anything can happen.” The keys to success were surprise and speed, not strength or agility. “Once you get the guy moving, don’t stop until you’re in the clear.”

  The weasel hunched his shoulders as soon as he felt my hand on his neck. It was a natural reaction, but it did nothing to release my grip. And it helped to get him slightly off balance. I grabbed his belt and lifted. He came up onto his toes and swung the spotlight wildly, trying to get at me. He held on to the Taser, and as I ran him to the door and tossed him down onto Gino, the wires popped out of Aimee’s stomach and followed the weasel. He and Gino tumbled down the few steps, landing with the weasel on top. The spotlight smashed, which actually made it easier to see, rather than the opposite, as the twilight of the few wall lights made dimly lit pools surrounded by areas of near total darkness.

  I turned and lifted Aimee to her feet. There was no time to see whether she was capable of action. I simply grabbed her arm and pulled her. She staggered past me and dropped through the doorway. I heard a man’s scream followed by a gunshot.

  There was no choice. The only exit, the only possible escape, was out that door. I ran for it.

  A huge hand grabbed at me, managing to snag the back of my suit as I went by. The Cro-Magnon was back in action, if in a limited way. I leapt out the door and the jacket ripped up the back and I fell, spinning as I did, leaving half of my suit in the man’s grasp.

  I landed on a squirming mass of struggling arms and legs. Aimee was on top, but if Gino had been able to extricate himself from underneath the weasel, he would have been able to take her apart. She wasn’t fighting so much as thrashing. She was still half dazed.

  I rolled to my feet and kicked at where I thought Gino’s head was. I clipped the weasel instead and he screamed again. The gun was on the ground in front of me and I kicked at it, sending it skidding out of the light.

  When I turned back, Aimee was up and running. By instinct or accident, she was heading deeper into the lines of parked trucks. She wasn’t moving fast and she reeled like a kitten in a windstorm, but she was moving. I followed.

  A Taser delivers a high-voltage, low-amperage charge. It works best from a distance of four or five feet because the two points need to be far enough apart to allow the current to arc. Aimee had been right on top of the weasel when he shot her. She’d been stunned, but she was recovering quickly. She ducked between two big semi cabs and out of the light.

  There was a roar like an enraged bear behind me. I looked back over my shoulder. The big guy had charged down the stairs and was coming on fast. The weasel was up and moving my way. Gino was on his feet, bent over, searching for the gun. I dodged between the next two trucks and kept running.

  The lack of overhead light helped us and hindered them. It wouldn’t be long before one of them—my bet was on Gino—would figure this out and head for the electric panel. Once those big strips of fluorescents were turned on, we’d be easy to trap. We had a narrow window to squeeze through.

  I looked around wildly, trying to orient myself. They would expect us to head for the main doors—the largest and most obvious exit. If we headed the other way, we would have to cross the whole open expanse of the area that I had thought was the chop shop. But there was a small door there beyond the work tables. I tried to weigh odds, but there were too many unknowns.

  A voice hissed at me. “Down here.” Aimee’s head was poking out from under a long flatbed truck. I threw myself on the ground and rolled under with her. She ducked back into the darkness and I stayed with her.

  “I hope you know what comes next,” she whispered.

  “Shh.” Large lumbering legs passed just feet from where we hid. The caveman. He kept going down the line of trucks, only bothering to look underneath when there was a light nearby. He sped through the truly dark splotches. I risked peeking my head out and watched him make the turn at the end of the row. “Come on. We go.”

  I took her hand so that we wouldn’t be separated. We dodged among the trucks, avoiding all of the brightest puddles of light. The big man and the weasel were calling out to each other as they searched the area behind us, reporting to Gino as they cleared a section. They were approaching the main door. We were at the other end of the garage. The old riding rink was in front of us and only a few rays of reflected light ran this deep into the building. I could see the hulks of partially rebuilt trucks in the center of the space, but only as massive shadows of black upon
black.

  “You holding up?” I asked.

  “I’m good,” she said.

  “Stay close. Not much farther.”

  Though the space was mostly open, there was plenty of clutter stacked on the dirt floor. We had to edge forward, sliding one foot ahead of the other, but we were making it. More than halfway to the far wall, I caught sight of a flash of light on glass. There were four small panes of glass in the upper half of the door. It was straight in front of us, only another twenty feet or so to go.

  That’s when the lights came on. One of the gang had finally reached the electrical panel and thrown the switch. But it wasn’t the main panel that controlled the long strips of fluorescents, nor the meager low-watt wall lights. The big glaring floods over our head all came on at once. We were standing, lit as clearly as in an operating room, in the middle of an expanse with nowhere to hide. Like cockroaches caught in the middle of the kitchen floor when the light comes on, we did exactly what they do. We scurried for the nearest bit of cover.

  A massive engine block hung by chains from an overhead winch and we dashed behind it. A gunshot sounded and a bullet ricocheted off the side. The huge piece of machinery rang like a wounded bell.

  Gino had found his gun.

  I looked over my shoulder. The door was less than ten feet away. If we stayed where we were, Gino could just walk up and shoot us. We had to take the chance.

  “Ready?” I said.

  Aimee looked back.

  “Suppose it’s locked?”

  I laughed. “Then we’re really screwed.”

  She didn’t find that nearly as funny as I did.

  It should have worked. A handgun is notoriously inaccurate beyond ten feet. Even professionals who practice shooting often tend to spray bullets during the heat of a firefight, depending upon noise, ricochets, and quantity of ammunition rather than a well-placed solo shot. It was because of this that police departments had moved away from the five- or six-shot revolver to the larger magazine semiautomatics like the Glock. I had learned all this by watching an old Law & Order rerun many years earlier.