Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Page 18

  Rabidoso’s only response was to lean back in his seat and prop his Tony Lamas up on the dashboard.

  “Get your goddamn feet down,” Moog scolded.

  The boots stayed defiantly where they were. “You my mami?”

  “Get your goddamn feet down off my dash. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  “This ain’t your car,” Rabidoso protested.

  “You see me over here behind the wheel of this vehicle?”

  Rabidoso licked his right thumb, reached forward, and made a deliberately exaggerated motion to wipe away some small spot or smear from his prized boots. “Dude, just ’cause you drivin’ don’t make it yours.” When he was done, he leaned back again and flashed Moog a satisfied grin.

  The big man was no longer in a mood to debate what he regarded as the commonly accepted principles of ownership: “If you got it, it’s yours.”

  Nor was he willing to back down from the demand he’d made. In a single motion, Moog’s hand backslapped the asesino a sueldo’s offending footwear from the leather-covered dashboard of Daniel’s BMW.

  Before his boots hit the floor mats, the hot-tempered killer started reaching for the pistol tucked in his waistband. He was quick, but not quick enough. He hadn’t even touched the Colt’s grip before a tree trunk of an arm fell across his body and pinned him to the seat.

  The BMW swerved right toward the shoulder and then left across the oncoming lane as Moog struggled to control it and his partner. Breaks squealed and tires smoked as the vehicle came to a sudden stop in the westbound lane of a Mississippi back road.

  With his right arm burying Rabidoso in the hand-upholstered passenger seat, Moog curled his left hand into a shot put—sized fist and drew back the blow both men knew could settle their differences once and for all. With all of his fury focused like a laser on his target, the big man took a very deep breath and released it in slow, deliberate puffs while he considered his options. None of them were good.

  “I could end this now, but I ain’t gonna,” he said after a while. “’Cause it ain’t going to get me nothing but a dead Mexican and a blood-splattered ride. And I don’t much feel like cleaning up either one of ’em today.”

  A series of musical tones sounded off in the big man’s coat pocket and he flashed a quick, nervous look down at it before he returned his focus back to a man who, in his own way, was just as lethal as he was. “That’s my phone.”

  Demonstrating he wasn’t afraid was more important to Rabidoso than living. “Well, I’m not going to get it for you,” he quipped.

  The series of tones rang again.

  Moog’s voice was low and calm. “I need to answer. It could be Mr. P. and we don’t need to piss him off more than he is.” Slowly he released a little of the pressure his right arm was putting on Rabidoso’s chest. “I’m going to let you up so I can get this.”

  The tones rang a third time.

  The big man cautioned, “But I swear to God if you do anything—”

  “Just answer your damn phone.” Rabidoso pushed the oversized arm completely off him.

  Moog nodded to confirm their understanding and then turned his full attention to the still-ringing phone. He answered with a “Yeah.”

  Rabidoso could hear the muffled murmur of a voice on the other end, but didn’t recognize it. He was sure it wasn’t Preezrakevich.

  Moog listened for a while. “You sure?” He shook his head. “Shit.”

  More silence.

  “All right, thanks a lot, Ruffy.” Moog ended the call and gently tossed the cell phone up on the BMW’s dash.

  Without a word, the big man put the sedan into gear and pulled a tight U-turn. Rabidoso was too proud to give the big man the satisfaction of asking, so he rode quietly in feigned disinterest.

  He made it only a mile or two before he had to ask, “What the hell was that?”

  “Call from a friend of mine. Friend with connections.” Moog didn’t offer more.

  Another mile passed.

  “About what?”

  “Erickson.”

  “And?”

  “California has an APB out on him.”

  That didn’t sound right. “An APB?”

  Moog nodded. “Murder. Two counts.”

  “Who he kill?” Rabidoso’s question almost sounded jealous.

  “He didn’t kill anyone,” Moog snapped. “They think he killed that maid. And they think he killed his own damn son. Memphis PD found a car they say he stole from his wife’s house.”

  Rabidoso considered these developments. And smiled. “That’s good, right?”

  “No, it’s not good.” Moog snorted his disgust. “It draws all sorts of attention to a situation Mr. P. wanted handled discreetly. It also means we’re not the only ones looking for this cat now.”

  “Well, that’s good, right?” Rabidoso thought the extra eyes should be a positive.

  The big man shook his head. “No, that’s not good either. Means we got competition now. Means we got to get him before the cops do. ’Cause if Erickson gets popped, he’s gonna tell ’em everything. And if he does that, the next thing you know cops are gonna come looking for us.”

  “I ain’t worried,” Rabidoso assured him.

  “Well, you should be,” Moog countered. “   ’Cause we get picked up, Mr. P. is sure as shit gonna start worryin’. He’s gonna need to cut this shit off and he’s gonna start with you and me.”

  “Still not worried,” the little man bragged.

  Moog was unconvinced. “What you’re not is smart. What you’re not is professional. And what you’re not is helping me get our asses up out of this shit. So, would you just stop this crazy-ass, psycho shit you got going on.”

  “That’s right, I’m crazy.” Rabidoso announced it proudly like it was an achievement. And, for him, it was. He’d been born as a runt in a savage land. His mental state—or lack of one—was all that had allowed him to survive. And prosper.

  Moog wasn’t impressed. “And if Mr. P. says so, you can get as sick as you want on this dude once we get him. But we gotta get him first. Squeeze that into your deranged little mind.” Moog tapped his own head for emphasis. “We gotta get this guy. Soon. Before anyone else does.”

  “I know.” Rabidoso nodded like a schoolboy who’s been reprimanded but still didn’t understand the lesson. And resented the teacher for trying to teach it.

  “You know what?” Moog asked incredulously. “We had him in New Orleans.”

  “I almost got him.”

  “What you got was a motherfucking riot started.” Moog shook his head. “And just so you know, ‘almost’ doesn’t put a gag in this guy’s mouth and shove him in our motherfuckin’ trunk. We can’t go back to Mr. P. with ‘almost’ in the motherfucking trunk.”

  Rabidoso had nothing to say to that one.

  “And the worst of it is that if the cops are looking for Erickson, they’ll be looking for his car too. This car.” Moog had come to enjoy the smooth-driving sedan. “We’re going to have to find a place to clean and drop this.”

  He shook his head in frustration, unable to believe how such a simple assignment could have turned out so many layers of fucked up. His eyes burning with resentment, he straightened his tie and looked over at his partner. “If I knew I was going to have to clean the goddamn car anyway…”

  Daniel tucked the envelope in his jacket and ran down McLemore Avenue as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he ran blindly until his legs felt like they were about to give out beneath him and his lungs burned like he’d breathed in fire—about two and a half blocks.

  There was no use in running. He wasn’t twenty any longer, and even for a man in his forties he wasn’t exactly a picture of aerobic conditioning. But it was more than just that. Even an Olympic marathoner wouldn’t be able to elude the dragnet that was being thrown up around him.

  If he was going to make it through the night, he had to get off the streets. And soon. He crossed over McLemore, half limping
and half loping, and moved toward whatever temporary sanctuary he could find in the surrounding residential neighborhood. He followed a tree-lined meridian running down the middle of Fountain Court, moving quickly and quietly under the cover of its barren canopy until he came to the end of the street.

  Sirens sounded in the near distance. He looked over his shoulder and saw a squad car shoot down McLemore, its red lights flashing and its sirens wailing. He watched it race past and realized it was only a matter of time before he’d be riding in the back.

  In front of him was a large white house—much larger than the others in the neighborhood—with a detached garage behind it. Daniel didn’t want to take a chance with any of the residents and so it was the garage that interested him most. If he could sneak inside, he could weather the night in relative safety and then head out in the morning once the dragnet had been quit.

  The blinds were drawn on all of the windows in the big house, but the light that escaped at their edges suggested someone was at home. Daniel crept through the yard as quietly as he could. It would be darkly ironic to have survived the pair of professional killers and then be shot dead as a burglar by some disgruntled Memphis homeowner.

  He tiptoed past the house, satisfied no one inside had seen him or detected his presence on the property. It was an old garage with a wooden door that rolled up on two tracks. Using a discarded fence post he found in the yard, Daniel was able to lift the door just enough for him to squeeze under. Almost.

  As he wiggled through the opening, the fence post slipped free and the weight of the door came down on his chest. Daniel wanted to cry out in pain, but his breath had left him. When the air finally returned to his lungs, he allowed himself just one low moan, afraid anything more would alert the homeowner. He tried to move the door off him, but couldn’t get a grip—and probably couldn’t have moved something so heavy anyway. He was trapped like a turtle on its back.

  The February night was cold, but the ground was colder. It was like being pinned to a glacier. He tried his best to stay warm, but his efforts were futile and after a while, he began to shiver. He knew he’d never survive the night on the ground. If it hadn’t already begun to set in, hypothermia was certain to take him in a matter of hours.

  He wondered how long that might be. Time passed, but he was too disoriented to estimate the rate of its flow. He wondered how long he’d been trapped. And how long he had left to live.

  With the weight of the garage door full on his chest, each breath became more difficult than the last. He fought against the pain, struggling not to slip under the surface of its dark contours, but eventually it all became too much for him. The cold and the pain, the labored breaths, and the four days on the road. It all lead to exhaustion. Exhaustion gave way to sleepiness, which faded to black.

  He couldn’t be sure if he was asleep and dreaming or awake and suffering from shock, but he knew the darkness he was drowning in was deeper than any he’d ever known before. It was all around him, and still he felt like he was falling, deeper and deeper. Plummeting into nothingness.

  And then there was light. A puncture in the blackness. A single beam that pierced the darkness right above him. A light. The light?

  “Hey!” A voice called out in the darkness. A woman’s voice. An angel’s voice? “What the hell you doin’ in my goddamn garage?” Probably not an angel.

  If Daniel squinted against the glare, he could make out a figure, but nothing more than shadows. “I could shoot your goddamned ass right here and now,” she informed him. “And there’s not a motherfuckin’ soul who’d say I done wrong.”

  Daniel couldn’t see a gun, but the mention of one made him try again to lift the door that pinned him to the ground.

  “I admire your effort, sugar, but I think if you coulda moved that door, you wouldn’t be stuck there now.” She seemed only amused by his efforts.

  He stopped struggling.

  “Now the question is,” she continued, “What do I do witchu now I gotcha?”

  “Please.” It was hard to talk with the door on his chest. “Just let me go and I’ll get out of here and—”

  “Break into one of my neighbors’ places?” she scoffed.

  “No. I swear to God—”

  “Sugar, you trapped on your ass breakin’ into my garage. That ain’t no position to be callin’ on the Almighty for anythin’.”

  Another squad car raced up McLemore and Daniel jerked with the instinctive reflexes of a fox at the sound of a hound.

  For a split second, the flashlight beam was diverted down Fountain Court and then returned to Daniel. “Oh, that’s what it is,” the woman said knowingly. “All that noise and commotion for you?”

  There was no sense in lying anymore. “Please.”

  A motor inside the garage groaned as the door came up off Daniel’s chest. Releasing the pressure made him cough violently. He rolled onto his side and the first deep breath he took made him cough until his ribs hurt.

  “Come on,” the woman said hurriedly. “We best get you inside before they take a turn down this way and see you there.”

  The offer took Daniel by surprise. “What?”

  “Inside. We best get you inside.”

  Daniel tried to get to his feet, grateful but still unsure what was happening. “I don’t understand.”

  “Whatever you got to say to me you can say inside.” A hand gripped him under his arm and helped him up. “But if the po-po catch you, it won’t matter what you say to no one.” She held him by the arm and led him inside the big house. “Folks call me Ma Horton.”

  The woman let him in through the back door and then closed it behind them. A ceiling light in her kitchen gave Daniel a first look at his hostess and savior. She was tall and round and something about her size suggested a boundless love of life. Her chestnut eyes twinkled with mischief but unmistakably had seen their share of sorrows and shed an ocean of tears.

  “Daniel Erickson.” It had been so long since he’d heard his name aloud that he wondered for a second if he hadn’t gotten it wrong. He wasn’t sure it suited him any longer.

  “Well, welcome, Daniel Erickson.” She offered him a seat at her kitchen table and, without asking, began making him a plate from the pots and pans on her stove. Ham with a sour cherry glaze. Fried green beans with bacon and onions. Mac and cheese with a crunchy crust of browned bread crumbs on the top.

  “Now what the Memphis Police want with someone like you?” she asked, sliding the plate in front of him and pairing it with a can of Coca-Cola she’d retrieved from the fridge.

  “It’s a long story,” he dodged and then filled his mouth with ham.

  “Ain’t they all.” She laughed as she took a seat across from him. She didn’t press him further for answers she knew weren’t coming, but seemed content to look him up and down like she was making up her own mind about what sort of trouble he’d gotten himself into.

  He hadn’t felt hungry. If she’d offered the food instead of putting it there in front of him, he certainly would have declined. But Daniel hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the Camellia Grill and it took only a mouthful of the heavenly concoctions to convince him he was ravenous. He wolfed down mouthful after mouthful, pausing only to ask her, “Why’d you save me?” Another mouthful and then, “Aren’t you worried I may be guilty of something that deserves all that attention out there?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a good judge of character.” She chuckled at what she clearly thought was a major understatement. “And, sugar, I can tell you ain’t guilty of nothin’ but bein’ a fool.”

  He couldn’t disagree, so he didn’t. “So why help me?”

  “’Cause that’s what I do.” Her smile grew. “I help the foolish.”

  When his plate was cleaner than when she’d first dished it up, she took it from him and put it in the sink. “Come on, let me introduce you to my little pride and joys.”

  She led him through a swinging door into a living room that was completely overwhelmed by a j
umbo flat-screen TV. There were six young women—the youngest maybe sixteen, the oldest no more than twenty—circled around it; some lay on the floor, some were draped over couches or slouched in chairs. They were all fixated on their program, but when Ma called out, “Girls!” they all obediently turned their heads.

  “This is Mr. Erickson.” The girls all waved halfheartedly, completely uninterested in the middle-aged guy who nodded awkwardly at his introduction.

  Ma lit up like a marquee up on Beale Street as she singled out each girl, starting with the oldest, a pretty redhead: “This is Rose.” The Latina she called “Elsa.” She pointed toward the twins with hair as wild as the night wind without making clear which one was “Keisha” and which was “Raven.” The blonde whose attention almost immediately returned to the television was “Morgan.” And the petite Asian curled in a chair was “Amy.”

  Ma turned back to Daniel with her hands up in one final display, as if she’d just announced the greatest show on earth. “These are my girls.”

  Daniel nodded as warmly as he could. “Nice to meet you.”

  None of them seemed to feel the same way. Or care. Without another word, their attention returned to their program, ignoring him like he was just a ghost that had drifted in with the night.

  “Ain’t they all beautiful,” Ma beamed, shaking her head like even she couldn’t quite believe it.

  And it was true. Every one of them was attractive in her distinct way.

  “An’ every one of them is just as talented as she can be.”

  And then the pieces all came together: Big Ma. Big white house. Six beautiful teenaged girls. Talented. The realization was like a softball hitting the bull’s-eye on a dunk tank that dropped Daniel into five hundred gallons of ickiness. “Ooooooooooooh,” Daniel said in a long, pained attempt to gain some time to formulate a response.

  “‘Ooooooh,’ what?” Ma asked, her question edged with a suspicion that she already knew.

  “Nothing,” Daniel tried to cover quickly.

  “No, what?” she dared him.