The Midnight Road (35 page)

So the four of them went after the book. It was some times a little tough putting the string together because a lot of pros wouldn’t work with someone named Jonah, despite his first-rate rep. It was one of the reasons why Chase started as a driver so early on, just so they wouldn’t need to find the extra guy.

Chase sat behind the wheel of a stolen ’72 Chevy Nova that he’d tuned on his own. He’d also done the body work and repainted it himself. A Turbo 350 transmission, 454 bored engine, solid lift camshaft, and a Flowmaster 3 exhaust so the car practically hummed like a struck chord. The horsepower seeped into his chest.

Part of being a wheelman was putting everything you had into a car and then letting it go again. After the heist they’d be able to get rid of it to a local chop shop for an extra ten grand, which he’d keep himself. For what Jonah called his college fund. It was a joke to all the crews they ran with, how young he was. It took a while but eventually they came to respect him. For his scouting and driving skills, his nerves, and the way he kept his mouth shut.

Rook and Grayson came out of the fish market with a sack of cash each. Jonah followed carrying another two. Five seconds later Walcroft came prancing out the door holding a giant yellowfin tuna, smiling widely so that all you saw were his bright eyes and perfect teeth under the ski mask. It got Chase laughing.

They’d expected forty grand, maybe a little more since the fish market was the hub for six different books who all turned in their receipts on Friday noon, in time to get to the bank before the midday rush. Not a major score, but an easy one to keep them afloat until the next big thing came along.

They climbed into the Nova, Walcroft hugging the fish to him for another second and saying, “I shall miss you, my friend, but now, back to the smelly depths of Joisey with you,” before tossing it in the parking lot. Chase let out a chuckle and eased down on the throttle, moving smoothly out of there.

They had a hotel room on the lower west side of Manhattan. Chase had the way perfectly mapped, the streetlights timed, and hit the street heading east just as some of the mob boys came running outside. One of the fat ginzos tripped over the fish and took a header. Both Chase and Walcroft started laughing harder.

The goombas rushed for their Acuras and Tauruses. Nobody had too nice a car in case the IRS was watching. They followed the Nova for about a mile until Chase made a left turn from the right lane and bolted through a stale yellow light.

This was a family town. The mob mooks had grand children going to the school on the corner, their family priests were in the crosswalk heading to the local rectory. The Mafia gave it up without hardly a fight, too worried about running over a nun or crossing guard. It almost made Chase a little maudlin, thinking these guys had a home they cared for more than they did their own cash. He hadn’t stayed in the same town for more than three months since he was ten years old.

He’d been ahead almost a hundred and fifty bucks in the game. Walcroft about the same. Now Chase realized the others had let them win to distract them. He wondered if he’d been a little sharper and seen Jonah palming the gun, and had dared to warn Walcroft, would his grandfather have shot him in the head too.

Rook and Grayson finished wiping the room. There hadn’t been much to do, they’d been playing cards for less than an hour. They took their split of the score and said nothing to Chase, which meant they were saying a lot.

He listened to their footsteps recede down the hall and then sat back in his chair. Icy sweat burst across his forehead and prickled his scalp. He stared at the closet and whispered,
“Pleading for murderers to step forward.”

Chase had liked Walcroft. The man had taught Chase a little about computerized engines and how to circumvent the LoJack and other GPS tracking systems. Unlike all of Jonah’s other cronies who’d bothered to teach Chase anything, Walcroft was young, only about twenty-five, and knew about the modern systems. The other pros and wheelmen were Jonah’s age. They’d been at it for decades and only wanted to steal cars that came off the line pre-1970 because they were simpler to boost and reminded them of their youth.

A surge of nausea hit Chase like a fist. He wanted a bit of something but all the liquor bottles were gone. He spread his hands across the table and held himself in place until his stomach stopped rolling.

“Wipe that table down again,” Jonah said. There was no heat in his steel-gray eyes, no ice.

A confidence man knew how to read human nature. He could see down through the gulf of complex emotion and know what people were feeling, which way they were likely to jump. Chase had gotten pretty good at it over the last few years on the grift.

At least he’d thought so. Now he looked at Jonah and tried to read him. He couldn’t. There were no signs. Nothing but the hardness of stone.

Jonah stood five-nine, about two-twenty of rigid muscle, powerfully built. Fifty-five years old, compact, every thing coiled, always giving off intense vibes. Mostly white hair buzzed down into a crewcut, just a flicker of silver on top. Huge forearms with some faded prison tats almost entirely covered by matted black hair.

There was a quiet but overpowering sense of danger to him, like he’d always speak softly and be perfectly calm even while he was kicking your teeth out. You knew if you ever took a run at him you’d have to kill him before he’d quit the fight. If he lost and you left him alive, he’d catch up with you at the end of a empty desert highway, barefoot on melting asphalt if he had to. You’d never stop looking over your shoulder. He’d mastered the ability of letting you know all this in the first three seconds after you met him. Nobody ever fucked with him.

Now that lethal cool was filling the room. Chase had always thought it was for the other thugs and never for him, but here it was, turned all the way up, Jonah just watching.

So now Chase knew.

One wrong move and he’d be quivering in the closet. He met his grandfather’s eyes and held firm, as cold as he could be.

“I liked him,” Chase said. “Tell me it wasn’t because of the fish. You didn’t snuff him because he was dancing around with the goddamn fish.”

“He was wired,” Jonah said.

“What? For who?”

“Who knows?”

Chase shook his head but didn’t shift his gaze. “No. No way.”

“It’s true.”

“I didn’t see a wire.”

“Even so.”

There was nowhere else to go with it now but to check.

Chase stood and started to make his way to the closet. Jonah blocked him and said, “We need to leave.”

“We were going to stay here for three days.”

“We’ve got another job waiting to be cased. We have to be in Baltimore by midnight.”

“I want to see it.”

“We don’t have time for this. We need to go. Now.”

Unable to do anything but repeat himself, like a brat demanding presents. “I want to see it.”

“Rook took the tape and microphone.”

“I didn’t see him do that either.”

“You were too busy trying not to throw up.”

Said in the same flat tone as everything else Jonah ever said, but somehow there was still a hint of insult in it.

“Walcroft’s chest will be shaved.”

“It wasn’t on his chest. It was down his pants.”

“Then his goddamn pubes will be shaved.”

Jonah crowded him now, refusing to get out of his way.

Had this been coming for a while? Chase wouldn’t have thought so twenty minutes ago but abruptly he felt a cold fury asserting itself within him. As if this was the natural course for them to follow, the only one, and always had been. The two of them standing here together face-to-face with a dead man in the closet. The air thickened with potential violence. Chase glanced down at Jonah’s hand to see if he was still palming the .22. Jonah had his hand cupped to the side of his leg. Jesus Christ, he was. It had really come down to this.

Time to let it go, but Chase couldn’t seem to do so. It was stupid, he could sense Jonah’s thin patience about to snap, but maybe that’s what he wanted. He wondered if his need to push the point had anything to do with his parents, with the way his father had ended up.

“Why would Walcroft suddenly start wearing a wire?” Chase asked.

“You say that like it’s an actual question.”

Maybe it wasn’t. Everybody eventually flipped. Chase moved another step forward so that their chests nearly touched. He realized there was no way he could beat Jonah, but at least the man would have to work a little harder for it than a quick tap to the temple. All these years, all the talk about blood and family, of fatherhood and childhood, the discussions about unfulfilled vengeance, going after his mother’s killer, and they’d come down to this. Two kids in a sandbox.

“Why did you really ace him?”

“We need to leave.”

“You didn’t even blink,” Chase said. “You’ve done it be fore.”

“You asking for any special reason?”

“I’m not asking. I can see it now. You’ve done it be fore.”

“Only when I had to.”

“You didn’t even let me in on it.”

“Would you have wanted to be?”

Probably not but what was he going to say? “What if I’d hesitated? Those two would have killed me too.”

“There was no chance of you hesitating. I taught you better than that. You’re a pro.”

It was a comment meant to appeal to Chase’s vanity. There was no substance or emotion behind it. Jonah didn’t quite understand how regular people felt about things, and when he tried to play to any kind of sentiment he always wound up way off base.

“I’m through,” Chase said.

“You’re not through.”

“I’m going my own way.”

“Turning your back on blood?”

“No,” Chase told him. “You ever need me for some thing other than a score, let me know. I’ll be there.” That almost made Jonah smile, except he didn’t know how to do that either. “Going to start doing scores on your own? More second-story kitten burglaries, shimmying up the drain pipe? Knock over liquor stores and gas stations? Home invasions? You’ll get picked up on your first run.”

“A minute ago I was a pro.”

Jonah stared at him, eyes empty of everything. You looked into them for too long and it would drive you straight out of your skull. “You’re a string man now. You’re part of a chain. You’re a driver. You going to start working for other crews?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll retire.”

“And deliver newspapers?”

Gripping Chase’s arm, Jonah dug his fingers in deep. It hurt like hell. In the past two years Chase had grown to six feet and gained thirty pounds of muscle, but he knew the cold spot inside him wasn’t as deep or icy as the one inside his grandfather. He didn’t think it ever would be. He wondered for perhaps the ten thousandth time how his fatally weak father could have come from this man. Chase fought to remain expressionless.

His mind squirmed and buzzed with all his failed tasks and unaccomplished dreams. He hadn’t yet killed the man who’d murdered his mother. He’d never made a major score. He hadn’t even gotten laid yet.

“I don’t have any answers,” Chase admitted. “I just know we’re through after this.” He tried to shrug free but couldn’t break his grandfather’s hold. “He wasn’t even dead yet.”

“Close enough.”

When you’ve got nowhere to go you go back to the be ginning. “I didn’t see a wire. I don’t believe it.”

“You’ve got an overabundance of faith.”

“Not anymore. Let me go.”

“Okay, then try it on your own,” Jonah said, releasing him. “But wipe the table again before you do. You know how to get in touch with me if you need to.”

THE MIDNIGHT ROAD

A Bantam Book / July 2007

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.