Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Page 33
The big man’s face was swollen and bruised, but not so disfigured that Daniel couldn’t read the grim determination in it. And then suddenly it all cracked into a wide smile. “Nah, I’m just fucking with you.”
It made Daniel feel better, but not much. “What—”
“I never owed nobody nothing in my whole goddamn life, but I guess I owe you—whether I want to or not.” A big, bloody grin revealed some lost teeth. “As far as I’m concerned my contract to burn your ass was terminated when that fucker found out he couldn’t call me boy—or fly. So we’re all good.” He looked around at the bodies scattered across the balcony deck. “But seriously, we all need to get our asses out of here quick before the po-po show up.”
“And the money?” Daniel wondered.
Moog shook his head. “I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t no thief. Money’s yours.”
Daniel went over to the amp, picked it up, and handed it to Zack. “Here. This is yours.”
His son looked at it tentatively before taking it. “I don’t—”
“I’m going to have to go underground for a while.” He looked over his shoulder at Moog for confirmation.
The big man surveyed the damage they’d caused and made a quick calculation in his head. “Oh, you’re in some subterranean shit here.”
“Take it,” Daniel insisted. “No one knows about you.” He looked past his son to Rabidoso’s lifeless body. “You’ll be fine.”
That wasn’t enough for Zack. “And you?”
“I’ll be fine too. But I need to know that you’re safe, so you have to go now.” He pointed at the amp. “That’s enough money to float all your rock-and-roll dreams.”
“All right.”
“And go check in with your mom,” Daniel told him. “She’s going to need someone to take care of her for a while.”
“I will.” He wanted to say something more, but all that came to him was, “Thanks.”
Daniel shook it off. “The money was always for you.”
“Not the money,” Zack said, “For everything else.”
Daniel hugged his son as tightly as he thought the boy would tolerate, held on to him as if he was letting him go forever. And then he did. “Hurry up,” he said, leading him through the now-abandoned suite and putting him on the elevator. “You take care of yourself.”
“I will.” The elevator doors opened and Zack stepped on.
“And don’t ever give up on those dreams.” Daniel felt overwhelmed with emotion. “Promise me that.”
“Promise.”
“And when you play—” Zack waited. “You play just for today.”
“Promise.”
Daniel leaned forward and kissed his boy one last time. Then the elevator doors closed and he was gone.
“What you planning to do now?” Moog wondered aloud.
“I’ll tell you in a minute.” Daniel went to work and in a minute and a half he’d found the Russian’s stash of cash and packed it away in a leather duffel.
“How about we split this,” Daniel offered, opening the bag and showing him the cash he was taking.
“Told you,” Moog said resolutely. “I ain’t no thief.”
“It’s hard to live on nothing but principles,” Daniel warned. “And I’m guessing your employment prospects are dim considering you just tossed your last boss sixty stories to the pavement.”
“I’ll be all right,” the big man assured him.
“But I might not be, right? I’m guessing I pissed off some people tonight.”
Moog nodded his head. “Oh, there’s folks going to be plenty pissed about what we just done.” He pointed at the bag Daniel was carrying. “And that’s five million more reason some folks are going to want to take you out.”
Daniel had a thought. “Well, since you’re out of work. And I need protection. And since I’ve recently come into a sum of money—”
It didn’t take Moog long to consider. “I ain’t calling you Boss.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Well, all right.”
“All right.”
And like that a deal was struck.
They walked together to the elevator and rode down in silence.
Ten minutes later, a task force of FBI agents entered the Hotel du Monde’s penthouse suite in a classic single-file “snake” formation. Every one of them had spent enough time in the bureau to see death’s handiwork up close before. It was just none of them had ever seen so much of it in one place before.
The agent at point stopped as soon as he saw the scene. “Holy fuck!” The 9mm he held at the ready dipped slightly for a second as his mind struggled to make sense of the endless buffet of carnage stretched out before him. “Everybody’s dead!”
Special Agent Feller pushed past him, wanting to get his own eyes on the situation. “Goddamn it!” The other agents saw corpses on the ground, but Feller saw his one chance to redeem himself after Chicago lying as a casualty among them. “Goddamn it!”
For a split second, he panicked, lost sight of his need to take control of the situation. For a brief moment, his professional life flashed before his eyes. It was a very brief moment.
“Agent Feller?” one of them asked, his tone of voice making clear it wasn’t the first time he’d put the request for instructions to their team leader.
“What? Right.” Whether it was procedure or not, there was only one thing he wanted. “I want IDs on all of these bodies. Do we have Erickson here?”
“Negative!” one of the agents called out as he looked down on Potbelly’s remains.
Another agent checked Ponytail’s. “Negative!”
And the practically headless corpse of Rabidoso. “Negative!”
With each response Special Agent Feller’s hopes took on just a little more water. “Where the hell is Erickson?”
The agent who’d led the “snake” into the suite was the first one to answer. “He’s not here.” He looked from corpse to corpse. “Turner or Preezrakevich either.”
It just kept getting worse. “Well, where the hell are they?”
No one wanted to wade into that one.
It couldn’t end like this. He wouldn’t let it. He’d go back to the deputy director and make a case that what had happened in the penthouse suite was just another example of why it was so important to apprehend Daniel Erickson—and that he was still the best-suited agent in the bureau to get that done. He could turn it into a positive. All of this could be a positive.
The point guy interrupted his inner pep talk. “What the hell happened here?”
Feller wondered how there could be any confusion about that. “Offhand, Agent Hosney, I’d say he killed everyone.”
“But I thought you said he was just some music weasel.”
“Well, it’s obvious that he’s changed, hasn’t he?”
The casino’s driveway was ringed with the complete spectrum of emergency vehicles: patrol cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance. There was an emergency crew tending to a situation that a ring of police officers were trying hard to keep the gathered crowd from seeing. There were still more officers beginning to canvas the people on the ground, asking each of them if they’d seen anything. All of them were too interested in the twisted corpse on the main drive to take any note of the battered pair walking toward the valet stand. Daniel and Moog walked past the whole scene, disinterested.
The Monte Carlo shimmied and knocked to a stop at the valet kiosk and the same kid in the maroon jacket popped out from behind the wheel. He handed Daniel the keys. “Not a scratch.”
Daniel put the bag in the back, took a C-note off the top of a stack, and handed it to the kid. “Thanks.”
The kid looked down at the Franklin and smiled. “Well, you look like you have a grand, long story to tell.”
Daniel looked up. “What did you say?”
“Exactly what I meant to say. I always do.” The kid held the dented door open and waited as Daniel eyed him suspiciously for a moment. The kid
slammed the door and muttered, “You better get going, mi key.” The voice was raspy and rough.
Daniel wasn’t surprised any longer, he just smiled. “Thanks.” He looked hard into the kid’s eyes and saw exactly what he’d wanted to see. “For everything.” Then he reached out through the window and pressed a wad of hundreds into the kid’s hand.
“I take your cash money. And I give you this.” He put something into Daniel’s hand. Daniel opened it and it was the bones of his finger suspended from a gold chain. “I figured you’d want it back.”
“Thanks?”
The kid grinned wider. And ran back to his stand. He watched the battered Monte Carlo pull away. “You on your way. But I ain’t through with you yet, mi key.”
“Where we headed?” Moog asked as Daniel eased the battered Monte Carlo out into the traffic cruising up the Strip.
“I was thinking maybe the islands, lay low like a lizard.”
Moog thought about some time with nothing but the surf to interrupt the quiet. “Sounds good.”
Daniel had just one proviso. “I just have to make a quick pit stop in Jersey.”
“We’re going to the Caribbean via Jersey?”
“It shouldn’t take long. I made a promise.”
Moog was in no hurry. “Man’s gotta keep his promises.”
They drove silently until the very last sign on the Strip offered them a neon farewell: “Drive Carefully. Come Back Soon.” Daniel headed off into the pitch-black desert with no intention of ever coming back again.
He switched on the stereo and a blues vamp began with a single electric guitar. Daniel was expecting Dockery Plantation’s vocalist, but this singer had a rougher and raspier voice.
Hard promises that you made in the night
The bargain you struck for the fire to fight
“I thought we was all done with this?” Moog asked, obviously alarmed.
“I never heard this one before,” Daniel insisted.
“And you ain’t gonna hear it now.” He pressed a button and pulled out the disc he’d ejected. Without giving Daniel a chance to object, he flipped the disc out into the cold, black night. “That’s that. Let’s get us some Jeezy up in here. Somethin’ to travel by.”
Daniel didn’t object and Moog switched on the radio. The same blues guitar vamp came on. The same lyrics.
Hard promises that you made in the night
The bargain you struck for the fire to fight
“What the—” Moog tuned through the dial but every time the hiss of static subsided, the same blues vamp would begin.
Hard promises that you made in the night
The bargain you struck for the fire to fight
Blood has been spilled, lives have been lost
There’s no walking away without paying the cost
And there’s a heavy
There’s a heavy
A heavy price to pay
“Just turn it off.” Daniel reached over and did it himself. It was silent in the car until damn near Cedar City, but he couldn’t get the tune out of his head.
Hard promises that you made in the night
The bargain you struck for the fire to fight
Blood has been spilled, lives have been lost
There’s no walking away without paying the cost
And there’s a heavy
There’s a heavy
A heavy price to pay
Photograph by Eyre Price, 2011
Eyre Price has traveled the Blues Highway, from Bob Dylan’s boyhood Minnesota home all the way to Professor Longhair’s shrine in New Orleans. With his son by his side, he’s made pilgrimages to Graceland, Sun Studios, Stax, and Chess Records. He’s stood at the crossroads where legend says Robert Johnson sold his soul, and he’s walked the alley between the Ryman and Hank Williams’s favorite honky tonk. The result is Blues Highway Blues, a novel reflecting his passion for American music, from the Delta’s blues to Seattle’s grunge. Eyre and his wife, Jaime, live in central Illinois (for now), where they are raising their son to have a wandering heart and a musical ear.