Bad Penny (19 page)

17
Threefer

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN the two vehicles shrank rapidly. The Polaris was going a little over forty miles per hour. The truck was doing more than that. Maybe sixty. Which meant the combined force of any impact would be around 100 miles per hour. The post felt like it was eight or nine pounds. The big yellow truck with its big black tires had to weigh two tons. If he had a pencil and paper, Frank could work out the velocity, maybe the force per square inch on the tip of his steel lance. But you didn’t need paper to know that an eight pound shaft striking a king cab pickup at 100 mph was going to do some damage, especially where Frank was going to put it.

The Polaris bumped and rattled as it flew over the ruts in the dirt road. Ed popped out of the passenger’s side window and took a pot shot that flew who knew where. He took another that whistled by exceedingly close.

They were close enough that Frank could see Tony sitting up in the back seat. The driver hunched up over his steering wheel and grinned.

Tony got down.

Smart boy.

The truck was closing fast, the grill looking huge, coming right at him. Frank lined himself just to the driver’s side of center. They probably weren’t going to try to run him over. You hit a 400-pound snowmobile at these speeds and you were going to have some problems. On the other hand, this was Ed and his druggie friends. Maybe they didn’t think much about velocities. Maybe all they saw was road kill.

The words of Sam’s road kill prayer sounded in his mind. Good Lord, Frank thought, let’s hope the desk jockeys didn’t get that order mixed up.

Ed’s gun banged; the muzzle flashed again, and the bullet struck the snowmobile’s engine shroud.
That’s right, Ed. Use up as much ammo as possible now. That will be less for me to deal with later.

The truck was closing fast, seconds from impact.

The driver’s eyes went all narrow and mean. He moved slightly to the side. He was clearly smart enough to know that hitting a snowmobile at these speeds straight on wouldn’t work, but clipping one with the pickup’s thick steel bumper just might do the trick.

Now was the time.

Frank rose up on the running boards. He brought the lance aloft with his left hand, right hand steering and keeping the throttle pressed down. He cocked the lance back.

The driver’s eyes went wide.

Frank yelled and hurled the post as straight as he could at the center of the windshield.

The driver, as expected, jerked the pickup to avoid the shaft, but he was too close, which meant he moved the truck and his child-molesting, narco grin directly into the lance’s path.

“Ya-ta-hey,” Frank said.

Then he realized he’d cut it too close. He leaned, tried to move the Polaris out of the path of the hurtling pickup, but they were going to impact. Frank lunged to the side, away from the Polaris and truck.

The pickup hit the side of the snowmobile with a crash and crunch. Something struck Frank’s boot and spun him in the air. He flew down the road, over the edge, then slammed into the slanted shoulder at somewhere close to forty miles per hour. He bounced, tumbled, figured he would die from a blow to his head, then saw the barbed-wire fence and knew it would be decapitation.

It was neither. He crashed to a stop in a scrubby stand of wild rose bush.

Behind him the big Polaris flipped and rolled, caught air again. It was coming right at him. If it hit him, he was dead. But the Polaris crashed to the ground five feet away, rolled once end over end past Frank, then slammed into the dirt on its side.

Frank was dazed. He was disoriented. But he climbed to his feet. His rib cage and part of one forearm was burning road rash. His elbow pinged. And his leg had a hitch in it. He looked down. A stick as thick as a pencil and nine inches long poked straight out of his shin.

Frank turned toward the pickup.

The truck was stopped, pointing across the road. The steel post stuck straight out of windshield. “Moron,” Frank said and began to shamble toward the truck. He’d make sure Ed and the driver were securely out of this picture, and then he’d fetch Tony. With every limping step, his wet pants and boots squished with water.

The side of the truck’s bumper and part of the panel were smashed in where it had hit the Polaris. Had Frank not flung himself to the side with his mighty catlike reflexes, that fender would have been the spot of his demise. He would have definitely made one hell of a bug splat.

Frank hoped Ed was in shock. He hoped a piece of windshield glass had skewered him in the eye.

But the driver, who’d just been sitting there, moved. He turned and looked at Frank. Frank’s heart sank a bit—the post hadn’t skewered him. It appeared to have missed and gone right between him and Ed.

Frank hurried his shamble.

The driver saw Frank and went all white-eyed.

Frank’s leg was starting to throb, but he pushed himself to run. If he could just get close enough to jump up on the running board.

The driver shouted something unintelligible, then put the truck in gear and punched it. The tires spun. If the driver cranked the wheel one way, he’d have no problem running Frank down. No problem at all.

But the driver cranked the wheel the other way.

Fight or flight, and he’d chosen to flee. After all, he didn’t know Frank had lost his guns. The motor roared, and the pickup bumped back out onto the road.

“No!” Frank shouted. He half ran, half shambled forward, but the pickup roared away and left him to choke on its dust.

Cowards.
Cowards!

He turned and shamble-loped back to the Polaris and righted it. The windshield was gone. The shroud was in pieces, revealing the motor underneath. Frank straddled it and found the handlebar was bent. He turned the ignition. Nothing. He pulled the kill switch up, turned the key again. This time the motor turned over, coughed, and started.

He was going to chase their worthless hides out onto the freeway if he had to. He was going to chase them down and rid the world of their scum.

Frank pressed the throttle and the motor revved, the studs of the track bit in. He raced up onto the road, gave it more throttle, but something wasn’t right. The back end bumped and kicked, and then the Polaris ground to a stop.

Frank looked down. The track had come completely off. The wheels that kept the track in motion—the whole back end of the chassis—were all bent to hell. This fine horse wasn’t going anywhere.

The pickup accelerated along the dirt road, Tony inside.

Desperation rushed through him. He needed to call 911. How far could they get in a pickup with a post sticking out of the windshield? The cops would spot them a mile off.

He looked around. The closest house looked like it was five miles away. To the north, the direction the pickup was moving, there was nothing but fields. To the south, the remains of the Goroza’s stash house burned, the flames leaping a hundred feet high, a huge pillar of black smoke rising into the sky. That was going to draw some attention. Fire, police. But it was going to take some time for them to get out here in the middle of nowhere. And the more time Ed had, the easier it was going to be for him to ditch the pickup and find a better ride.

Frank saw the two guys on four-wheelers with their dog. They were moving slowly on the road, gawking at the fire. Surely they had phones. If he could get to them, he could sic the cops on Ed.

He began to run in his soaked boots, but pain shot up his leg. He remembered the stick and stopped. He reached down and yanked it out. A length about a long as his pinky finger came out of his leg all covered in blood.

Gah! He cast the stick aside. Then he took off his shirt, removed his undershirt, which was bloody from the road rash all along his rib cage, and tied it tightly around the wound with a double knot. He checked himself for any other injuries and found none. Then he picked up his shirt and began to hobble-run back down the road. He yelled, hoping the sound might carry, and waved his arms.

He thought one of the men spotted him, but they didn’t stop. Didn’t turn. And who would turn to help the guy with the P90 who’d been chasing a pickup truck? The men looked from the house to Frank, and then something spooked them, and they high-tailed it out of there. Maybe the propane tank was still standing, waiting like a time bomb. Regardless, they did not come for Frank.

Frank’s leg was killing him. No way he was going to run five miles on it to get to the next house. He was going to have trouble just walking. Frank took another step. The pain shot up his leg. He could do pain. His choice was the burning house or the neighbors five miles away. The burning house would draw people to it. The neighbors—who even knew if they were home?

Both gave Ed too much time. He glanced back north. Ed’s pickup was gone. Frank blinked and performed a pattern search of the horizon. Nothing.

“Lord,” he prayed.

To the south, the house burned, smoke piling into the sky. From the marsh, a column of gnats moved over to give him a sniff. Out across the water the cows swished their tails and chewed grass. A large flock of black birds wheeled into the field next to him. In the distance, something made a high-pitched whine.

Frank’s whole body was lit up now: his leg, elbow, and ribs all throbbed. He began walking toward the burning house, hoping every second to see the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle on the horizon. He knew Ed’s people were going to be pissed, knew they were going to take out their anger on Tony, knew this whole situation was now out of control.

He walked another twenty yards. The house continued to burn. The smoke continued to rise. But there were no flashing lights. The volume of the high-pitched whine grew louder. Frank turned, looked around. There was nothing on the road. No motorbike, no four-wheeler, no cars.

In the field, the flock of black birds rose up in a undulating cloud that flew one way, then suddenly changed direction and sped another way. When the black mass cleared away, it revealed a plane flying toward him maybe two hundred feet off the ground.

It was a Cessna.

It had a yellow cowling and a brown stripe down the side.

He watched it come, watched it buzz past, and Frank swore he saw Henry looking out the back window.

There was no freaking way.

The plane banked and turned, then came back around.

Two men sat up front. The big man on the pilot’s side was definitely Pinto.

Freaking way.

Frank waved both his arms, yelled.

A moment later he heard the distant sound of a car horn. From the northeast, a vehicle was coming, kicking up a trail of dust. It wasn’t Ed’s yellow pickup. It wasn’t an emergency vehicle with flashing lights. It was a Mazda mini-van. Baby blue, shining in the sun.

Frank looked up into the heavens. Looked back down at the van. Looked back up. “Is this some post hoc joke?”

Silence.

Maybe it
was
all intermediaries, and the desk jockeys
were
in charge. Maybe God had servants assigned to watch various regions. Maybe he gave the hosts of Heaven jobs, because who would want a bunch of sycophantic folks in robes singing at you day and night? Unless it was Michelangelo’s vision of heaven, and then it would be a bunch of sycophantic naked people doing the singing. But even that would get old.

“Thanks for moving my number up,” Frank said. “I assume you realize things have just hit the fan?”

The heavens did not reply.

The plane circled around once more, then flew off toward the burning house. Frank began to hobble toward the mini-van.

About two minutes later the mini-van turned onto his stretch of road. He watched it grow larger, watched the trail of dust kick up and blow away in the slight breeze. When it got closer, he could see Sam at the wheel. Sam gave the horn a couple of happy toots, then a few moments later rolled up and stopped to let him in. The cloud of dust that had been following the van blew over Frank.

Frank opened the passenger’s door. “Sam.”

“I’ve got him,” Sam said for his Bluetooth’s ear. Then he turned to Frank. “You look like crap.”

Frank climbed into the car. The van still had all the junk that it had before—spilled Cheerios, a sack of potatoes, and all the PVC Cub Scout mess in the back.

Sam said, “Where’s Tony?”

“You talking to Pinto?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him to go north-west of us. Tell him to look for a bright yellow pickup with a fence post sticking out the windshield.”

Sam looked at him with puzzlement.

“Just tell him.”

Sam repeated the message, then said, “Who’s in the truck?”

“Ed. He’s still got Tony.”

“Aw, crap,” Sam said. He relayed the info to Pinto, then turned to Frank. “Dude, we were looking all over.”

“Tell me you have Tony’s phone.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. He dug down into the pink diaper bag between the seats and came up with it. “You left it on the back seat.”

Frank took the phone. “Hang on,” he said. He scrolled through the log of calls and found the number he was looking for and pressed the dial button. The phone on the other end rang once, twice, three times. Frank was thinking maybe Ed wasn’t going to answer; maybe the fencing post had given him pause, but then someone picked up.

“Frankie,” Ed said in an angry voice.

“Let the boy out now.”

“You just dug yourself a grave, Jockstrap. You dug it deep.”

“I’m going to put your head in a meat grinder, Ed. You let him out.”

“Forget the house. Forget the foot soldiers. Frank, you just killed Jesus Goroza. Do you know what that means?”

“Self-defense.”

“You just took this to a whole other level. You just sent a missile into Red Square.”

“That’s right.
I
sent it. Not Tony. So put him out.”

Above Frank the Cessna buzzed to the north-west.

“You put me in a bad position, Frank. I don’t know that you’re going to get Tony. I’ll call you back.”

“Ed.”

Nothing.

“Ed!”

Ed hung up.

Frank dialed again, and it went to voicemail.

He turned to Sam. “Tell Pinto the pickup was heading west, right along that road up there, about a mile out.”