Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) (31 page)

“Anniversary. We’ve got a present.”

Pryor held up the bag. It looked heavy. Wychovski grunted. What the hell. They had to eat.

“Hot dogs,” Wychovski said.

“Yup,” said Pryor.

Traffic crawled. The car in front of Wychovski had a bumper sticker:

DON’T BLAME ME. I VOTED LIBERTARIAN
.

What the hell was that? Libertarian. Wychovski willed the cars to move. He couldn’t do magic. A voice on the radio said something about Syria. Syria didn’t exist for Wychovski. Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Bosnia. You name it. It didn’t really exist. Nothing existed. No place existed until it was right there to be touched, looked at, held up with a Glock in your hand.

GLUCK, GLUCK, GLUCK, GLUCK, GLUCK
.

Wychovski heard it over the sound of running engines and a horn here and there from someone in a hurry to get somewhere in a hurry. He looked up. Helicopter. Traffic watch from a radio or television station? No. It was low. Cops. The truckers from the Chinese restaurant? Still digesting their fried won ton when they went to their radios or a pay phone or a cell phone or pulled out a rocket.

Cops were looking for a certain car. Must be hundreds, thousands out here. Find Waldo only harder. Wychovski looked in his rearview mirror. No flashing lights. He looked up the embankment to his right. Access drive. The tops of cars. No lights flashing. No uniforms dashing. No dogs barking. Just GLUCK, GLUCK, GLUCK. Then a light.
Pure white circle down on the cars in front. Sweeping right to left, left to right. Pryor had no clue. He was lost in Rolexes and dreams of French fries.

Did the light linger on them? Imagination? Maybe. Description from the hot-and-sour soup-belching truckers? Description from the lady with the baby she was going to name Jessica when Joan would have been better. Joan was Wychovski’s mother’s name. He hadn’t suggested it lightly.

So they had his description. Stocky guy with short gray hair, about fifty wearing a black zipper jacket. Skinny guy carrying a canvas bag filled with goodies. A jackpot pinata, a heist from St. Nick.

Traffic moved, not wisely or well, but it moved, inched. Music of another time. Tony Bennett? No, hell no. Johnny Mathis singing “Chances Are.” Should have been Tommy Edwards.

“Let’s go. Let’s go,” Wychovski whispered to the car ahead.

“Huh?” asked Pryor.

“There’s a cop in a helicopter up there,” Wychovski said, looking up, moving forward as if he were on the roller-coaster ride creeping toward the top where they would plunge straight down into despair and black air. “I think he’s looking for us.”

Pryor looked at him, then rolled down his window to stick his head out before Wychovski could stop him.

“Stop that shit,” Wychovski shouted, pulling the skinny Pryor inside.

“I saw it,” said Pryor.

“Did he see you?”

“No one waved or nothing,” said Pryor. “There he goes.”

The helicopter roared forward low, ahead of them. Should he take the next exit? Stay in the crowd? And then the traffic started to move a little faster. Not fast, mind you, but it was moving now. Maybe twenty miles an hour. Actually, nineteen, but close enough. Wychovski decided to grit it out. He turned off the radio.

They made it to Dempster in thirty-five minutes and headed east, toward Lake Michigan. No helicopter. It was still early. Too early for an easy car swap, but it couldn’t
be helped. Helicopters. He searched this way and that, let his instincts take over at a street across from a park. Three-story apartment buildings. Lots of traffic. He drove in a block. Cars on both sides, some facing the wrong way.

“What are we doing?” asked Pryor.

“We
are doing nothing,” Wychovski said. “
I
am looking for a car. I steal cars. I rob stores. I don’t shoot people. I show my gun. They show respect. You show that piece of shit in your pocket, trip over thin air, and shoot a guy in the back.”

“Accident,” said Pryor.

“My ass,” said Wychovski. And then, “That one.”

He was looking at a gray Nissan a couple of years old parked under a big tree with branches sticking out over the street. No traffic. Dead-end street.

“Wipe it down,” Wychovski ordered, parking the car and getting out.

Pryor started wiping the car for prints. First inside. Then outside. By the time he was done, Wychovski had the Nissan humming. Pryor got in the passenger seat, his bag on his lap, going on a vacation. All he needed was a beach and a towel.

They hit the hot dog place fifteen minutes later. They followed the smell and went in. There was a line. Soft, poppy seed buns. Kosher dogs. Big slices of new pickle. Salty brown fries. They were in line. Two women in front of them were talking. A mother and daughter. Both wearing shorts and showing stomach. Pryor looked back at the door. He could see the Nissan. The bag was in the trunk, with George Bernard Shaw standing guard.

The woman and the girl were talking about Paris. Plaster of? Texas? Europe? Somebody they knew? Nice voices. Wychovski tried to remember when he had last been with a woman. Not that long ago. Two months? Amarillo? Las Vegas? Moline, Illinois?

It was their turn. The kid in the white apron behind the counter wiped his hands, and said, “What can I do for you?”

You can bring back the dead, thought Wychovski. You
can make us invisible. You can teleport us to my Aunt Elaine’s in Corpus Christi.

“You can give us each a hot dog with the works,” Wychovski said.

“Two for me,” said Pryor. “And fries.”

“Two for both of us. Lots of mustard. Grilled onions. Tomatoes. Cokes. Diet for me. Regular for him.”

The mother and daughter were sitting on stools, still talking about Paris and eating.

“You got a phone?” Wychovski asked, paying for their order.

“Back there,” said the kid taking the money.

“I’m going back there to call Walter. Find us a seat where we can watch the car.”

Pryor nodded and moved to the pickup order line. Wychovski went back there to make the call. The phone was next to the toilet. He used the toilet first and looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look good. Decidedly.

He filled the sink with water, cold water, and plunged his face in. Maybe the sink was dirty? Least of his worries. He pulled his head out and looked at himself. Dripping wet reflection. The world hadn’t changed. He dried his face and hands and went to the phone. He had a calling card, AT&T. He called Walter. The conversation went like this.

“Walter? I’ve good goods.”

“Jewelry store?”

“It matters?”

“Matters. Cops moved fast. Man’s in the hospital maybe dying. Church deacon or something. A saint. All over television, with descriptions of two dummies I thought I might recognize.”

“Goods are goods,” said Wychovski.

“These goods could make a man an accessory maybe to murder. Keep your goods. Take them who knows where. Get out of town before it’s too late, my dear. You know what I’m saying?”

“Walter, be reasonable.”

“My middle name is reasonable. It should be ‘careful’ but it’s ‘reasonable.’ I’m hanging up. I don’t know who you are. I think you got the wrong number.”

He hung up. Wychovski looked at the phone and thought. St. Louis. There was a guy, Tanner, in St. Louis. No, East St. Louis. A black guy who’d treat them fair for their goods. And Wychovski had a safe deposit box in St. Louis with a little over sixty thousand in it. They’d check out of the motel and head for St. Louis. Not enough cash with them without selling the goods or going to the bank to get a new car. They’d have to drive the Nissan, slow and easy. All night. Get to Tanner first thing in the morning when the sun was coming up through the Arch.

Wychovski went down the narrow corridor. Cardboard boxes made it narrower. When he got to the counter, the mother and daughter were still eating and talking and drinking. Lots of people were. Standing at the counters or sitting on high stools with red seats that swirled. Smelled fantastic. Things would be alright. Pryor had a place by the window, where he could watch the car. He had finished one hot dog and was working on another. Wychovski inched in next to him.

“We’re going to St. Louis,” he said behind a wall of other conversations.

“Okay,” said Pryor, mustard on his nose. No questions. Just “okay.”

Then it happened. It always happens. Shit always happens. A cop car, black-and-white, pulled into the lot outside the hot dog place. It was a narrow lot. The cops were moving slowly. Were they looking for a space and a quick burger or hot dog? Were they looking for a stolen Nissan?

The cops stopped next to the Nissan.

“No,” moaned Pryor.

Wychovski grabbed the little guy’s arm. The cops turned toward the hot dog shop window. Wychovski looked, at the wall, ate his dog, and ate slowly, his heart going mad. Maybe he’d die now of a heart attack. Why not? His father had died on a Washington, D.C., subway just like that.

Pryor was openly watching the cops move toward them.

“Don’t look at them,” Wychovski whispered. “Look at me. Talk. Say something. Smile. I’ll nod. Say anything.”

“Are they coming for us?” asked Pryor, working on his second dog.

“You’ve got mustard on your nose. You want to go down with mustard on your nose? You want to be a joke on the ten o’clock news.”

Wychovski took a napkin and wiped Pryor’s nose as the cops came in the door and looked around.

“Reach in your pocket,” said Wychovski. “Take out your gun. I’m going to do the same. Aim it at the cops. Don’t shoot. Don’t speak. If they pull out their guns, just drop yours. It’ll be over, and we can go pray that the guy you shot doesn’t die.”

“I don’t pray,” said Pryor, as the cops, both young and in uniform, moved through the line of customers down the middle of the shop, hands on holstered guns.

Wychovski turned, and so did Pryor. Guns out, aimed. Butch and Sundance. A John Woo movie.

“Hold it,” shouted Wychovski.

Oh God, I pissed in my pants. Half an hour to the motel. Maybe twenty years to life to the motel.

The cops stopped, hands still on their holsters. The place went dead. Someone screamed. The mother or the daughter who had stopped talking about Paris.

“Let’s go,” said Wychovski.

Pryor reached back for the last half of his hot dog and his little greasy bag of fries.

“Is that a Glock?” asked the kid behind the counter.

“It’s a Glock,” said Wychovski.

“Cool gun,” said the kid.

The cops didn’t speak. Wychovski didn’t say anything more. He and Pryor made it to the door, backed away across the parking lot, watching the cops watching them. The cops wouldn’t shoot. Too many people.

“Get in,” Wychovski said.

Pryor got in the car. Wychovski reached back to open the driver-side door. Hard to keep his gun level at the kid cops and open the door. He did it, got in, started the car, and looked in the rearview. The cops were coming out, guns drawn. There was a barrier in front of him, low, a couple of inches, painted red. Wychovski gunned forward over the barrier. Hell, it wasn’t his car, but it was his life. He thought there was just enough room to get between a
white minivan and an old convertible who-knows-what.

The cops were saying something. Wychovski wasn’t listening. He had pissed in his pants, and he expected to die of a heart attack. He listened for some telltale sign. The underbody of the Nissan caught the red barrier, scraped, and roared over. Wychovski glanced toward Pryor, who had the window open and was leaning out, his piece of crap gun in his hand. Pryor fired as Wychovski made it between minivan and convertible, taking some paint off both sides of the Nissan in the process.

Pryor fired again as Wychovski hit the street. Wychovski heard the hot dog shop’s window splatter. He saw one of the young cops convulsing, flapping his arms. Blood. Wychovski and Pryor wouldn’t be welcome here in the near future. Then came another shot as Wychovski turned right. This one went through Pryor’s face. Through his cheek and back out. He was hanging out the window making sounds like a gutted dog. Wychovski floored the Nissan. He could hear Pryor’s head bouncing on the door.

The cops were going for their car, making calls, and Pryor’s head was bouncing something out of the jungle on the door. Wychovski made a hard right down a semidark street. He pulled over to the curb. Wychovski grabbed Pryor’s shirt, pulled him back through the window, and reached past him to close the door. Pryor was looking up at him with wide surprise.

Wychovski drove. There were lights behind him now, a block back. Sirens. The golden animals lay heavy in his pockets and over his heart. He turned left, wove around. No idea where he was. No one to talk to. Just me and my radio.

Who knows how many minutes later he came to a street called Oakton and headed east, for Sheridan Road, Lake Shore Drive, Lake Michigan. People passed in cars. He passed people walking. People looked at him. The bloody door. That was it. Pryor had marked him. No time to stop and clean it up. Not on the street. He hit Sheridan Road and looked for a place to turn, found it. Little dead end. Black-on-white sign:
NO SWIMMING
. A park.

He pulled in between a couple of cars he didn’t look at,
popped the trunk lock, and got out. There was nothing in the trunk but the bag of jewelry. He dumped it all into the trunk, shoved some watches in his pocket, picked up the empty canvas bag, closed the trunk, went around the side to look at Pryor, who was trying to say something but had nothing left to say it with. Wychovski pulled him from the car and went looking for water.

Families were having late picnics. Couples were walking. Wychovski looked for water, dragging, carrying Pryor, ignoring the looks of the night people. He sat Pryor on an empty bench next to a fountain. Pryor sagged and groaned. He soaked George Bernard Shaw and worked on Pryor’s face with the pages. It made things worse. He worked, turned the canvas bag. Scrubbed. He went back for more water, wrung the bloody water from the bag. Worked again. Gunga Din. Fetch water. Clean up. Three trips, and it was done. George Bernard Shaw was angry. His face was red under the dim park lamp.