Badlands (24 page)

“Here we go,” he said. “If you're gonna take me down, Jon, I'm taking this whole fucking town with me.”

The vibration inside the cab from the wild rhythm of the spaced wood ties beneath his wheels was intense. Every citation book and piece of paper he'd ever tucked under the visors or in the side compartments bounced out. The glove box opened and all its contents spilled to the floor. He could hardly see straight, but there was no doubt what was coming.

The single white high-tech halogen headlight hung out there straight ahead of him and the train engine was coming fast, a mile of tanker cars filled with Bakken crude right behind it.

He floored the accelerator.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WILLIE DIETRICH
heard a distant heavy
boom
from the direction of the rail hub as he climbed out of the Tundra in the McDonald's parking lot. The sound caused a hitch in his step and he paused and looked to the north but there was nothing to see in the close gray sky.

He thought, Man, something blew up.

Willie looked back over his shoulder at Escobar and Argueta, who had remained inside the vehicle. Argueta motioned with an impatient “What's up with you?” gesture but Escobar stared icily ahead.

Willie shrugged and continued across the icy lot.

Of course, Willie knew Rachel Westergaard. They'd grown up together in Grimstad and they were two years apart in school. Willie was older but Rachel hung around the edges of his group, which was made up of stoners and football players. She'd been a typical skank: stringy blond hair, skinny, with eyes so coal-dark with makeup she looked like a raccoon. But, he recalled, a decent ass and a feisty temper. He knew she'd had a thing for him—all the skanks did—but he couldn't remember if he'd put it to her or not. Probably had, he thought. He could vaguely remember her going down on him the night after they burned down that abandoned barn.

*   *   *

SILENCIO ARGUETA
had made her. Throughout the morning, he'd gone into McDonald's three different times wearing three different hoodies. He ordered an Egg McMuffin from one counter worker on the first trip, a Sausage McGriddle from a second, and a Bacon, Cheese, and Egg Bagel from a third. He paid each time with a hundred-dollar bill and exited the restaurant with the food and a wad of change.

They hadn't worried about him looking suspicious. Willie had convinced the Salvadorans they had nothing to worry about. The McDonald's was jammed with customers like always and the McDonald's employees barely had the chance to look up, much less compare notes. Hundred-dollar bills weren't notable, either. There were so many men with so much cash these days.

It was the third order, the Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Bagel, that nailed it down.

While he ate, Willie scanned the currency with his ultraviolet light and it turned out to be awash with swoops and squiggles. When Argueta said the employee had a name tag on that said “Rachel,” Willie whooped. That idiot Winkie had been onto something the night before.

Poor Winkie.

Blink
.

*   *   *

WILLIE DIDN'T
really offer any assistance to Argueta and Escobar when they cut up Winkie's body that morning and put the pieces into a fifty-five-gallon industrial drum in an unoccupied oil field tool garage, but he marveled at their skill. Willie had just stood there hugging himself and glancing out the dirty windows to see if anyone was coming. It was colder than hell inside the unheated warehouse.

Willie didn't know who owned the warehouse or how the Salvadorans had found it, but it was obvious after a few minutes that they were familiar with it. He'd seen the notice taped on the front door by the Bakken County Sheriff's Department—something about the facility being under investigation for “unlawful release of hazardous waste materials”—but he hadn't stopped to read it. All he knew was that the warehouse was empty and the Salvadorans seemed pretty confident that no one would show up to interfere with their project of cutting up Winkie.

Willie stood to the side, occasionally rising to his tiptoes to see what they were doing. Escobar and Argueta wore blood-spattered coveralls and thick rubber gloves they'd found in a storage room inside the warehouse. After a few minutes, it seemed to Willie no different than field dressing and butchering a deer, which he'd done a hundred times. In fact, Winkie was such a little squirt that his legs reminded Willie of deer haunches. Escobar was a surgeon with a blade, able to separate the knee and elbow joints with several quick cuts and strategic twists of his knife blade.

One by one, the pieces were dropped into the drum and dusted with a white powder. Willie asked what it was and Escobar smiled and said it was called posole, but the way he said it made Willie think it was some kind of sick Salvadoran joke because Argueta laughed and repeated posole aloud several times. Willie guessed it was lye. It smelled like lye and Willie had heard the cartels dissolved bodies that way.

When they were done, they sealed the top and wiped the steel of the drum clean and asked him to help roll it to a dark corner of the garage. There were a dozen other drums there, some with hazardous waste stickers, and they hid Winkie's drum in the back and surrounded it with the others. Willie noticed that Escobar had patted the top of a second drum with his gloved hand and said, “
Dulces sue
ñ
os, labriego,
” but Willie had no idea what the hell that meant.

*   *   *

WINKIE HAD
been a big pain in the ass, Willie thought. Winkie made Willie ashamed to be a fellow Grimstad Viking, the way he kept crying and begging and passing out. Sure, his face hurt.
Of course
it hurt. But Willie thought Winkie should have sucked it up and shown a little dignity. A little North Dakota grit, as Willie liked to think of it. It took two hours to find out about T-Lock.

But where in the hell was that guy?

Now they knew where he lived in the crappy little rental, but where had he gone? There was no car parked at the house, which meant he was out and about, but where? Willie knew T-Lock had an uncle in Watson City, some old farmer who used to let football players hunt pheasants on his land, but when he called there the phone was disconnected. T-Lock's uncle, like so many of the old-timers, had moved on.

And everyone knew T-Lock didn't work in the winter.

But Winkie kept saying, “Rachel, Rachel,” like the name meant something. Willie didn't put it together until the rental house was pointed out to them that morning. T-Lock lived with Rachel Westergaard. Rachel Westergaard worked at McDonald's.

And damn it if she wasn't in the process of laundering MS-13 cash in plain sight.

Willie had to kind of admire that one, although he doubted T-Lock was bright enough to have come up with it. Rachel, maybe. But not T-Lock.

He'd explained all this to Escobar and Argueta. Silencio lost interest halfway into it and looked out the window at the snow. Escobar listened carefully, though, and nodded silently while he drove.

He'd said simply, “We go to McDonald's and find her.”

*   *   *

THE RESTAURANT
had that familiar sweet grease and cleaning smell combo Willie had always liked. It was an odor that brought him back to his childhood when the old man had him for weekends and a trip to the new Mickey D's was a big fucking deal. Plus it was warm inside. Three long lines snaked through the full tables from the back of the restaurant to the counter. The men in line studied the menu board above the counter like it was the Ten Commandments handed down from God, Willie thought with a smirk, like they'd never seen such a fascinating sight before. When an order was up, the customer in front would take it away and the line would shuffle a few feet forward.

Willie stood in the line on the far right. He didn't expect Rachel to recognize him, or even see him for that matter. She was working in a kind of controlled frenzy. Behind her, people of all ages in maroon smocks were frying meat patties, deep-frying fries, pouring drinks. It looked like hard work. Willie remembered working at the Dairy Barn when he was in high school. It was the most miserable day and a half of his life.

Until, that is, the Salvadorans arrived.

*   *   *

“HEY, GOOD-LOOKIN'
—what's good on the menu today, Rachel? Any specials I should know about?”

Rachel snapped her head up, instantly annoyed. She was too busy and the lines were too long for playing around, for being on the receiving end of another guy flirting with her. She wasn't sure she'd squared up the cash in the register with the marked cash for the last transaction, and she knew she'd have to count it later to be sure. Even a one dollar mistake could cause her heartburn.

Her smock was roomy enough that no one could see the fanny pack strapped to her waist beneath it. The fanny pack was now nearly completely filled with unmarked cash from the register. There were only a few more marked bills behind a cardboard divider to transfer from her stash into the drawer and she'd be done for the day.

Then she recognized who knew her name and her entire body went suddenly cold.

“Remember me?” Willie Dietrich asked with that boxlike smile he'd always had. She hadn't seen him in line and she knew her reaction—freezing like a mouse caught in the corner of a kitchen—had given her away.

“Willie,” she said with no enthusiasm. “What can I get you?” Her voice sounded scared and wooden even to her.

“I'm paying with a hundred-dollar bill,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you still had enough change?”

She remembered the dark man in the hoodie who had paid with a hundred not ten minutes before. She'd given him change with marked bills. This was Willie's way of saying he was on to her. Willie
knew
.

She thought, Damn you, T-Lock, you son of a bitch.

“So I guess you do have change,” Willie said. Then he leaned back on his boot heels and studied the menu board. “Yeah, there are a lot of choices, you know that? I'd like something good. Is everything fried?”

She looked over Willie's shoulder. A man wearing oil-spattered coveralls rolled his eyes and sighed, not amused by Willie holding up the line. But he was also about fifty pounds smaller and six inches shorter. Further back, she could see a couple of men glaring at the back of Willie's head.

Willie wore a tight black
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
concert T-shirt with no coat. He'd never worn a coat in high school, she recalled, otherwise no one would be able to marvel at his biceps and thick forearms. Back then, he used to stop in the middle of the hallway between classes, flex both arms, and say, “Welcome to the gun show, ladies.”

“Look,” Willie said leaning toward her, “I know what's going on with you and T-Lock. You two have something that belongs to some friends of mine and we need it back, like now.”

Rachel knew he wouldn't get violent right there. He was probably aware of the security cameras trained on him. Which is why he spoke pleasantly and maintained the smile.

She said, “I don't know what you're talking about, Willie. Now will you please order? You're holding up the line.”

Willie turned to the man behind him and said, “You don't mind, do you?”

The man obviously minded but he looked down at his steel-toed workboots.

“See?” Willie said. “Everything's cool. Now listen to me, Rachel. You and T-Lock are Grimstad Vikings, just like me. I don't want anything to happen to either of you and I know you somehow got involved in this because you didn't know what was going on. And believe me, you did the right thing not turning it in to anyone.

“But playtime's over. We need it back and you and I are going to figure out a way
right now
to return the property. When is your break?”

It was twenty minutes away, she thought, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Instead, she leaned forward and said, “I'll give you all the money. I have it on me right now. You buy something and I'll give you all the money in change and you can walk right out with it.”

She could tell he was weighing her offer. Then the boxlike smile came back and he shrugged and said, “Naw, good try, but I'll wait around until you take your break and we can work out the arrangements. And in the meanwhile, I'd like a cup of coffee to go. I'll just hang around until your break, okay?”

The man in back of Willie lost his patience, and said, “All this for a goddammed cup of coffee?”

Willie didn't even acknowledge him.

Rachel rang up a large coffee and turned to go get it from the bank of coffeemakers in the back. As she walked away from the counter, her legs felt stiff. She could feel his eyes on her back.

When she rounded the corner and was out of Willie's line of vision, she broke for the back door. As she did she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket to speed dial T-Lock, to warn him.

She pushed through the steel door into the cold white morning and before she could duck or scream the skinny dark man in the hoodie hit her hard in the face with his fist and she dropped like a rag doll. Hot blood filled her nose and mouth and spattered on the ice.

Rough hands grasped her under her arms from behind and lifted her into the backseat of a pickup. Her legs were limp and hanging outside the door and the skinny man shoved them inside and climbed into the back with her. He sat heavily on her legs and held her facedown into the seat cushions with his hand. She was afraid she'd choke to death on her own blood.

Her brain was scrambled and she couldn't think. She knew what was happening but she couldn't react. The pickup was moving for a moment and then it stopped again and she felt cold air as the front door opened.

She heard Willie say, “Damn it if she didn't try to run.”

Then to her, “Rachel, we need to find your boyfriend. We know what's he's got and we need it back. Nobody has to get hurt. All we want is our money and our product back before you two figure out a way to fuck this up even more.”