Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Page 8

  “Zack.” Daniel gripped the restroom’s filthy sink so hard he felt the nine fingers he had left might all snap off. “I’m sorry, Zack. There’s nothing I can do for you. You’re on your own.”

  “Please,” Randy pleaded desperately. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Daniel knew if his plan was going to work, he had to sell it completely. He had to make certain Randy never had the opportunity to convince Rabidoso there’d been a mistake. If he was going to save Zack, he had to make sure that Randy died. “I’m never coming back, Zack. Never. So tell that psychotic, spic cocksucker there’s nothing he can do that will ever make me come back!” He wanted to cry—or vomit, again—but he forced himself to keep his voice steady and strong. “Tell him to go fuck himself. And his puta mami.”

  A scream went up, so pained and soulless that Daniel wanted to join it with an expression of his own torment, like two wolves howling in shared mourning. He didn’t want Randy to die without knowing he was sorry, maybe offer him a word of consolation. Or thanks. But Daniel couldn’t afford to say anything that might betray his scheme, so he remained silent and sank to the restroom floor as he wept.

  The screaming on the phone intensified, becoming higher and more frenzied until Daniel was certain it couldn’t get worse.

  He was wrong.

  Randy Baldwick was a royal douche bag. There was no doubt about that. And no one could have blamed Daniel if he’d wished for terrible things to happen to him. But not this. Never. Not even in the darkest, most twisted corners of the basement of his soul could he have wished this on anyone.

  “Ear.” Rabidoso called out the body parts he was systematically removing. “Finger.” The screaming became more and more intense with each severed item identified. “Eye.” Until finally the shrieking didn’t sound like Randy, didn’t even sound human anymore.

  “You think I can’t make you come back?” Rabidoso’s voice was crazed with fury. “I hope you didn’t want grandchildren!” There was a shriek so agonized that it slashed at Daniel’s soul with the same ferocity as the madman worked his blade. “You get your fucking ass back here right now or I swear to Santa Muerte I’ll skin every inch of your little bastard.”

  Whether he’d been justified or not, Daniel had done what he’d done. Listening to the tortured aftermath of those actions wouldn’t change anything. With a touch of his finger Daniel ended the call and with it, he knew, Randy Baldwick’s life.

  Still on his knees, Daniel Erickson bowed his head and intertwined his nine fingers. Between his gasping sobs, he prayed to whatever god would hear him—not for forgiveness or compassion, which he knew he didn’t deserve—but for the strength to do whatever he had to do to spare his son from Randy’s fate. He leaned against the filthy bowl like it was an altar and squeezed his hands together, pleading, “Please, please, please,” over and over again.

  When he was finished or had simply concluded divine intervention wasn’t going to be bestowed on him in the fouled stall of a roadside restroom, he climbed back up to his feet. The only thing his prayers had accomplished was to reopen the wound on his finger, now puss-filled and certainly infected. There was blood all over the floor and toilet bowl where he’d knelt, making the crap booth look like Jackson Pollock had gotten his hands on a can of red paint or some unlucky chicken had found itself on a sacrificial altar.

  He washed his face again with the Petro-shit-water from the sink and packed his finger stump as best he could in wads of brown paper towels. Knowing he couldn’t stand to see his specter of a reflection, he left the restroom without stopping to check himself in the stained mirror and stepped out into the convenience store area.

  Above him, the bright fluorescent lights burned his bloodshot eyes. The pop music piped in over speakers in the ceiling made his head hurt even worse. He wanted to leave but felt a nagging obligation to at least buy a candy bar or soda pop. The beige metal shelves were lined with every artificially colored/flavored/preserved/enhanced snack food known to man, but Daniel didn’t think he could stomach any of them.

  He stumbled around the aisles searching but soon realized the only thing he was finding was unwanted attention. The old man eyeing up what hot dog he wanted to choose from the rollers pretended not to notice Daniel. The kid checking out with a Mountain Dew and a pack of Lucky Strikes didn’t bother to hide his interest in the obviously distressed man pretending to be interested in the display of snacks.

  The attention was more than he could stand. Daniel gave up the act and went straight for the door.

  “Hey,” the young Puebloan woman behind the counter called out to him before he could push it open. Daniel stopped dead. “Can’t find what want, huh?” Her voice was playful and light.

  He turned and awkwardly shook his head. “No. I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for.”

  “Of course not.” The voice that left her scarlet-glossed lips no longer fit her bright eyes, but was deep and raspy and masculine. The change was so sudden and complete that Daniel couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t her talking at all. “You need to get back out on the road,” something inside her croaked. “That’s where you’ll find what you lookin’ for, mi key!” And then, without warning she burst out in raucous laughter, like the voice within her had just told the funniest joke of the night.

  Daniel stood there for a moment, stunned and watching her laugh at him. Nobody else in the store seemed to be taking any notice of the odd encounter, and in his fragile emotional condition, the experience left Daniel wondering if he was staring back at a ghost. Or something worse.

  He turned and ran out into the night. The door closed behind him with the ding-dong of the security sensor, but he could still hear her laughing.

  He returned the fuel hose to the pump and climbed in behind the wheel. An unsteady hand fumbled with the shifter as a shaky leg stepped on the accelerator. The Kia lurched and then jumped forward, its tires squealing as Daniel pulled out of the service station parking lot and raced back to the highway.

  He drove through the night, through those hard hours when it seems that it’s been dark for so long that a soul should give up hope the skies will ever lighten again. He kept the speedometer pinned well past eighty, but the speed would not let him outrun the savage guilt he felt for what he’d done. Mile after mile sped by, but the distance gained did little to clear the lingering stench trapped in his nostrils or soften the night clerk’s odd remarks and haunting laughter echoing in his ears.

  He slept for an hour or two alongside the highway outside of Conway, Texas, but woke feeling no better. At the Elk City exit, he found a diner and forced himself to eat some of the hot roast beef sandwich he ordered.

  Somewhere in the endless abyss of the Sooner State, he finally succumbed to the endless highway’s hypnotic spell, and the miles began to pass without much of a thought about anything at all. He was grateful for the undeserved chance to rest his mind, and yet he was aware the road had to end somewhere. He was painfully aware that a man can’t outrun his regrets and failures. Not for long, at least.

  And so, he drove the rest of the way like a man who can see a funnel cloud in his rearview and needs to keep speeding just to stay one step ahead of the storm.

  The back door opened and closed. Footsteps approached, but Rabidoso didn’t hear them. Or, at least, they didn’t stop him.

  “The only thing I could find open was a Del Taco,” Moog called out from the kitchen as he casually tossed the bags of burritos and tortilla chips on the counter. “But then I figured that Mexican had to be a’right with you,” he joked as he continued walking through the house toward where he’d last left his partner.

  “Hey, where’d you—” He stopped dead as soon as he stepped into the living room. “Jesus Fucking Christ!”

  Moog rushed over to where a crazed, dazed, and exhausted Rabidoso was still plunging his knife into the clearly lifeless body beneath him. “What the fuck are you doing, man?” The big man picked the pint-size killer up and tossed him
across the room like a bored child discarding a worn-out plaything.

  Shaken from his frenzy, Rabidoso was back to his feet almost before he’d hit the ground. He wiped his foaming mouth, too short of breath to answer.

  “Oh, Jesus, man!” Moog rubbed a hand over his closely cropped hair as he tried to make some sense of the two-hundred-and-some pounds of ground meat at his feet. “I fuckin’ told you I was going to get us something to eat while we waited for someone to show up here. I said, ‘Don’t do anything till I get back.’ Remember that? I told you not to fuckin’—”

  “No one tells me,” the Mexican gasped between panting breaths, “anything.”

  Moog ignored the adolescent rebelliousness and looked down on what only vaguely resembled a man. “Who the hell’s he?”

  “He’s his—” Rabidoso tried to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth but only managed to smear more crimson across his badly scarred face. “He’s his son.”

  The big man’s eyebrows arched, as if he had reason to doubt it. “Well, whoever he is, he’s no goddamn good to us as a motherfucking corpse, is he?”

  “He didn’t know anything,” Rabidoso said in his own defense. “Besides, the fucker told me he wasn’t coming back for him.” The little psycho shook his head as if that was some coldness even he couldn’t comprehend. “His father, man. Wouldn’t give the money up for his son’s life.”

  “What?” None of what he’d heard made any sense. “What do you mean he told you? He who?”

  “Erickson, man.” Rabidoso didn’t understand his partner’s confusion and held up the blood-smeared iPhone as if that explained everything. “I had him on the phone. Fucker said he wouldn’t come back. Not even to save his son.”

  The big man hit the living room wall with his right fist, but it was only so he wouldn’t make a similar hole in the partner he hadn’t wanted in the first place. “You had Erickson on the phone?”

  “That’s what I just said.” Rabidoso didn’t see the problem.

  “And you didn’t think to talk to him before you started getting all ‘carvey’ with this kid?”

  “I thought—” Rabidoso started to explain, but the truth of the matter was that once he pulled his blade out he never thought about anything but getting “carvey.”

  “No. You didn’t think.” Moog looked down at the body again and then surveyed the mess surrounding it. The high pile carpet was saturated with thick, dark blood. The walls were splattered with an assortment of crimson Rorschach tests. Across the foyer was a pooled lake of death. “You killed the goddamn dog?” He shook his head in disbelief that bordered on genuine remorse. “The dog was in the fucking laundry room. Why would you kill the dog?”

  “I don’t like dogs.” It seemed like a perfectly good explanation to Rabidoso.

  But not to Moog. “You better get this shit straightened up. You’ve put enough evidence down in this goddamn place that the Westlake Village PD is gonna be able to make a case on us.” Moog shook his head in disgust. “And they roll all volunteers.”

  The little man puffed up his chest. “I’m not worried—”

  “Not worried?” Moog wasn’t sure he’d heard him right, but he was certain this was why he worked alone. “Well, you better get worried. Cause I ain’t pullin’ no forty years in Chico ’cause you too fuckin’ stupid to be scared.” He fought hard to regain his composure as he looked around at the blood-splattered walls and gore-drenched carpet. “And you got a lot of shit to clean up here.”

  “Clean it up?” Rabidoso looked around at the carnage. “What’s the point?”

  “The point is that the more evidence you leave here, the more evidence they have to lock up your ass.” He was losing patience. “But the real fucking point is that I told you to do it.”

  Rabidoso didn’t answer, but his burning eyes silently warned there was a price to pay for talking to him like that. No one talked that shit to him and lived. Not for long, anyway. Without a word, he turned and walked away like he had business to attend to.

  The big man didn’t give a goddamn for what he saw in any man’s eyes. “Now get moving! We can’t be waiting around all damn day.” He straightened his tie and walked away.

  No, Rabidoso didn’t like the big man’s tone at all. It was the same one his mami had used with him—and look where that had gotten her. He was a good soldier, but it was getting harder and harder for him to follow his orders.

  Vernon “Moog” Turner was ducking under doorways by the time he turned twelve. He could press five hundred reps before he could drive, and when he dropped out of the tenth grade, he tipped the scales upward of three fifty. Even on the hard streets of Kansas City, east of Holmes Road, everyone feared the man-size boy who was filled with all the rage of a campsite-raiding bear.

  Elma Mae Nutdon needed the stepstool from her pantry to kiss her grandson’s cheek and she never saw a day when she weighed more than a hundred and five pounds. Still, what she lacked in size, she overcompensated for with spirit. She was not slow with a belt or a broom or the back of her hand and she raised her baby boy’s baby boy with all of the love and discipline she had left in her.

  “Vernon Turner!” she’d holler, and her Frigidaire-size grandson would come running like a puppy, obediently accepting whatever punishment she’d decided to mete out for his latest offense.

  One Sunday afternoon Vernon showed up at the supper table with a Chiefs hat on, cocked to one side with the price tag still dangling from the brim. The old lady took one look at it and then removed it from his head—with a back swing that sent the offending cap sailing across the room. “Don’t come to my table looking like one of them clowns. Hats on sideways. Pants falling down. Fools and clowns!

  “Pride!” She wagged her arthritic finger right in his face. “A man without pride don’ have nothin’! Ain’t no man at all.”

  Elma knew her grandbaby wasn’t going to grow to be an angel, but she wouldn’t stand for him being less than his best. “Lord knows I tried. But whatever you’re gonna do, Vernon, you do it with pride. You don’ go around like one of them street clowns. You take pride in how you look. In what you do. In who you are.”

  His reply wasn’t anything more than a meek “Yes, ma’am,” but from that day on he was a changed man. He dressed for business. Carried himself like he was someone to be respected—or reckoned with. And no matter what his job required, he always went about it like a professional. From top to bottom. Through and through. He was a professional.

  That was why the partner he’d been unwillingly burdened with bothered him so much. Rabidoso was undisciplined. So goddamn sloppy. So bat-shit crazy. He left messes everywhere he went, and that kind of shit was how your ass ended up in prison. Or a grave.

  The cell phone in Moog’s pocket vibrated and he put it to his ear. “Good evening, Mr. Preezrakevich.”

  It was the wrong way to begin their conversation.

  “No, sir. I know it’s not a good evening, I just meant—” He held the phone away so the yelling would just be an annoying buzzing in the near distance.

  “Yes, sir.” Moog’s eyes never came up off the ground as he paced back and forth listening to what his employer had to say.

  “No, sir. I understand.” He paused to listen to the runty Russian’s tirade but kept pacing the carpet Rabidoso had scrubbed as best he could.

  “Yes, sir.” Pause. “No, sir.” He curled a fist but had nowhere to throw it. “No, sir. There’s no need to involve any outside talent in this. You have my word.” He held the phone away from his ear again as his boss made it deafeningly clear just how little his pledge of honor meant.

  “Yes, sir. I understand.” Moog ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.

  “What did he say?” Rabidoso asked, as he twisted the last of the trash bags and tied it shut.

  The big man hadn’t slept in two days. His Alexander Amosu suit was ruined. His Hermès tie and his Ferragamos too. And he was in no mood to recap the verbal whipping he’d just gotten
for the Mexican madman he’d been chained to. “He asked if we needed help. I told him I didn’t. And he told me to go get it done.”

  Rabidoso considered the news and then translated it in his head. “You think he’s going to kill us?”

  “Don’t know.” Moog shrugged off the suggestion. “But you can be goddamn certain dropping a million dollars in Mr. P.’s lap is going to improve his mood some. So let’s just focus on doing what we need to do to get that money.”

  Rabidoso nodded like he understood.

  The not-so-gentle giant wanted to make absolutely sure that he did. “That means, you need to stop fucking killing everything.” He shook his head in frustration, knowing he was close to losing his temper and making a bad situation worse. He took a deep breath and counted to ten. “From now on you don’t kill anything you don’t have to. Nothing. Got it? You don’t swat a fucking fly—”

  “You work your way,” Rabidoso smirked as he turned his knife over and over, checking it for some stubborn, telltale trace of Randy Baldwick’s blood on its shiny steel surface. “And I’ll work my—”

  “You’ll work my way!” Moog’s voice boomed like the .50 holstered beneath his arm. “You don’t kill anyone else unless you absolutely have to.”

  Rabidoso concluded the blade was clean enough, casually folded it, and returned it to his front pants pocket. “And how do I know if I absolutely have to?”

  “You’ll know when it’s time for killing because I’ll be the motherfucker doing it.” The big man locked eyes with his unprofessional colleague like a laser-assisted sight. “And if you try and cross me up on this, I’m going to start all that killing with you.”

  “You threatening me?” Rabidoso’s dark, empty eyes seemed to brighten at the prospect of a challenge.

  “Consider it a professional courtesy,” Moog shot straight back. “I’m telling you straight off so you won’t die wondering what you done to get yourself killed.” Then he shrugged the rest of it off. There was work that needed doing. “Come on, I don’t have time for this. We got some driving to do.”