Moon Underfoot (24 page)

Walter rubbed his nose in disgust. “Sebastian, whatever you do, do not lick your lips…or smile. It’ll stain your teeth!” He laughed as he dropped the minivan into drive and pulled out of the parking lot with all the windows down. After a moment, Walter said, “Okay, guys, back to business. Wadda y’all think?”

“Tonight’s the night. We’re ready. We’ll be in and out in seven and a half minutes,” Sebastian explained. “That’s the maximum exposure we can afford.”

“He’s right. Tonight’s the night. Plus, the storm and the football game being televised on ESPN makes it even better,” Bernard added.

Walter pulled into an all-night convenience store, and the three guys filed out to pee and get coffee. Nobody said a word. Walter paid cash for everything. When he saw Bernard eyeing a pickled egg in a giant jar, he emphatically said, “No way in hell are you eatin’ one of those!”

Everyone laughed, including the store clerk. The levity seemed to ease everybody’s tension as they exited the store, chuckling to themselves.

Before they got back inside the van, Walter looked around at each of the guys and exhaled. “Okay. Let’s do this. Bernard, you’re driving.” Bernard clapped his hands and briskly rubbed them together. Sebastian smiled.

Bernard drove past their target. Nothing appeared to have changed. After a second pass, he pulled directly behind the store and cut the engine.

“Radio us if something happens.”

“No problem.”

“Bernard.”

“Yeah?”

“Please pay attention.”

“I will.”

Walter looked at his watch and said, “Someone call it.”

“I’ve got nine forty-five” Sebastian said.

“Okay, boys, synchronize. Let’s do this,” Walter said as he exited the vehicle.

Sebastian and Walter eased their doors shut and walked quickly to the rear entrance. Sebastian slid the new key into the stainless door handle, and they grinned at each other as the lock accepted it and turned.

“One down,” Walter whispered as they opened the door and rushed inside.

Walter used a small flashlight to illuminate the room. Sebastian used a clip-on light attached to the bill of his ball cap. After shutting the door, Walter went straight for the keypad. It was right where Bailey’s diagram had indicated. He stood in front of it, and it glowed red, indicating it was still armed and the magnet had kept the connection complete. Walter looked at Sebastian, and both men laughed as Sebastian patted Walter on the back.

“Two down,” Sebastian said just above a whisper as he looked at a ceiling-mounted camera pointing into the room. He knew it was too dark for the camera to reveal more than their outlines.

When Walter turned toward the office door, his light illuminated the full-body lion mount, causing him to jump back from shock. “Holy shit!”

Sebastian almost knocked Walter down when he saw the mount. “Dammit…I’m guessing Bailey didn’t tell you about that,” he nearly yelled.

“Not a word.”

Walter shined the light toward the office door. Sebastian’s gloved hand grabbed the knob. He tried to twist it, and it didn’t budge.

“Locked,” Sebastian said excitedly.

“What!”

“It’s locked!” Sebastian snapped as he turned to look Walter in the eyes.

“You’re blinding me!”

“Sorry,” he said as he clicked off the light.

“She also never said anything about this door bein’ locked!” Walter almost screamed in frustration.

“Well, it is, and we gotta deal with it.”

Walter tried the knob himself, and when it held tight, he exhaled. “Shit fire. Should we call her?”

Sebastian dropped to his knees and clicked on his flashlight. “No. Give me a minute.”

“Can you pick it?”

“Maybe,” Sebastian said as he studied how the lock’s mechanism pushed into the doorframe.

Walter stood still and held the light on the lock as Sebastian studied it. He couldn’t believe it was locked. From inside his jacket pocket, Bernard’s voice cracked over the radio, “Hey, guys!”

“Go ahead.”

“A black-and-white just went by.”

“The police? Shit. Did they stop?”

“No. They just drove by kinda slow, but they didn’t stop. Y’all hurry up.”

“We’re trying. We’ve encountered a slight problem.”

“What problem?” Bernard asked.

“Hang on,” Walter said. He was beginning to feel the pressure of the mission.

With a surgeon’s steady hand, Sebastian carefully slid his AARP card between the door and the jamb. When the card didn’t release the lock, he pulled out a thin-bladed pocketknife and inserted the blade in the same fashion.

“Is that gonna work?” Walter asked anxiously as he looked around the room.

“Just hush so I can concentrate!” Sebastian fired back. “You’re makin’ me nervous.”

The radio cracked again. “Fellas? What’s the problem?”

“Shut up, Bernard! We are workin’ on it,” Walter said and instantly regretted his tone. He knew Bernard was just trying to help. Everybody was wound too tightly at the moment.

“Damn! I almost had it,” Sebastian exclaimed. He took in a deep breath and continued working. His knife bit into the latch bolt, between the face place and the strike plate, and just as it was about to move, he released it suddenly and leaned back as if he had been shocked. He stared straight ahead at the knob and said, “Walter! What if this door is wired to the alarm? We didn’t plan for this.”

Walter cussed under his breath and then said, “I don’t know…you’re right. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Sebastian stood and calmly ran his fingers over the top of the door frame. “Nothing. You’d think he’d have some tight security,” he said.

“Sebastian, we’re just two old men who have never burglarized anything before in our lives, and we got inside this place with a magnet from a drugstore.”

“So, what are you sayin’?”

“This ain’t Fort Knox.”

“You may be right.”

“Just open the damn door. If the alarm goes off, we’ll just run like hell.”

Sebastian exhaled and leaned forward. “Promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Before you start runnin’, you gotta help me stand up.”

T
AM’S DRIVERS WERE
totally freaked out. Nothing like this had ever happened, and they didn’t have a contingency in place, let alone a succession plan. His guys did only what they were told, which was not much. Tam didn’t employ freethinkers. He made all the decisions, and those decisions were final.

As discreetly as possible, the driver of the truck slowly exited the hotel parking lot. His partner tried to call Alexa, but it went straight to voice mail. At the first major gas station south of town, they pulled over to refuel and make a plan. After several minutes of discussion, they decided to alert the crew back home with a quick call to sit tight, wait for further instructions, and, most importantly, not breathe a word about the situation to anyone outside the organization. They broke the connection and then called Moon Pie, whom they had met on past drops, to give him a heads-up.

Moon Pie was deep in cold beer when his cell phone rang. He assumed it was Levi, but when he saw the area code, he knew it was Tam.

“Yeah, man,” he answered, hitting the mute button on the remote.

“Moon Pie?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah, sure. Who the hell is this?”

“Mike. I work for our mutual friend…we’ve met a few times.”

“I remember you. What’s up, man?”

“We got a big problem.”

“Talk to me.”

“He got busted tonight.”

“You’re shittin’ me. Where ’bouts?”

“Tupelo.”

“This ain’t good.” Moon Pie was more concerned about the deal at the moment than about Tam’s arrest.

“Yeah, they got him and his girlfriend.”

“Why did they get her?”

“She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“No, we split with the product and headed south. We just pulled over to call you.”

“Sounds like y’all were lucky. What are you driving?”

“A black pickup with a camper shell.”

“Okay, let me think.” Moon Pie’s mind raced, trying to devise a way to benefit from this. After a long silence, he asked, “Where y’all at?”

“’Bout fifteen or twenty miles south of Tupelo.”

“Okay, here’s what you do for right now. Remember coming through West Point?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. There’s a new hotel right in front of that big Mossy Oak store. Get a room and let me do some more thinkin’, and I’ll get back to you in the mornin’ or sooner. You’re only about thirty minutes away from there now. I gotta relative that’s a lawyer up in Tupelo, and he might can find out what’s going on and at least
get Tam’s girlfriend out, and y’all will be close enough to go get her.”

“That makes sense.”

“We also gotta make the trade tomorrow or I’m dead.”

“We’re still good to go. Call us if you learn somethin’ from that lawyer.”

“Don’t worry. I’m on it,” Moon Pie said and hit the end button.

Moon Pie had the money, and he knew where the drugs were going to be parked. This was a unique situation that might prove particularly lucrative. He just didn’t want the Tennessee Mexicans and the Gulf Coast Vietnamese hunting him down like a dog. He punched in the speed-dial number for Levi as he walked to the refrigerator for another beer.

J
AKE WAS IN
the Tupelo police station pacing back and forth after explaining his situation to the desk sergeant, who was now on the phone with the West Point Police Department. Listening to one side of the conversation and trying to gauge what was being said on the other end was driving him crazy. Through the glass front doors, he could see Morgan talking on her cell phone. Katy and her friend had their heads lowered, texting, he assumed.
Even if you’re as innocent as Job, police stations make me uncomfortable
, Jake thought.

The desk sergeant wrapped up his call and leaned back in his desk chair, looking down at the menacing words on the napkin. Jake turned to face him.

“Well, you’ve got a pretty interestin’ past, Mr. Crosby.”

“I’m more concerned about the future. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“I understand completely.”

“So, are there cameras in the arena that we could use to try to find him?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What about askin’ some of the folks that were sittin’ around us to see if they saw him?”

“It’ll take us days to determine who was sitting where and actually contact them. And most people watch the band. I just don’t think we’ll find out much.”

Jake sighed and looked around the office, his mind racing, trying to think of some way to get the upper hand, but he wasn’t coming up with anything, “So what can we do?”

“I don’t think there is anything we can do tonight, to be honest. You should take your family and go home.”

“There’s gotta be something. I just can’t believe he was that close to me and I didn’t see him,” Jake said, starting to pace again.

“Look, we all know who Moon Pie Daniels is. We’ve arrested that punk several times over the years. Last time I saw him, he had gotten the shit beat out of him by some guys from the air force base. He said somethin’ very unpatriotic ’bout someone’s mama, and they didn’t appreciate it. Kinda tells you either how dumb he is…or how much he likes pokin’ hornets’ nests. I know you’re worried, and you got good reason to be…he’s obviously trouble. He’s big trouble ’cause he’ll do anything and he’s fearless, and that makes him that much more dangerous.”

“Believe me, I’ve heard.”

“Do you have a self-defense weapon?”

“Yeah. A pistol.”

“You know how to use it?”

“Oh yeah, that’s one thing I know I can do.”

“Good,” he said, acting sympathetic as an awkward silence fell across the room.

“Mr. Crosby, we are gonna have a unit follow you to the county line, and a state trooper will pick you up there and escort you all the way to West Point. Once you’re there, the West Point PD will follow y’all home and then check out your house.”

“You think that’s necessary?”

“Probably not, but we’re gonna do it anyway. Just to be safe.”