Everybody Pays (39 page)

The radio continued its denunciation of the regime. Telling the people that La Casa de Dolor was no more. That the rebels had freed their comrades and executed the traitors who had imprisoned them. Soldiers swarming through the streets were met with sporadic gunfire from rooftops—gunfire that increased as they moved farther away from the presidential palace.

“Everyone goes down,” Cross said to Rhino and Tiger. “A bush moves, you blast it. Turns out it was just a pig, we have barbecue. Don’t even think about telling the rebels from the government. Everyone’s a hostile until we get over the border. Got it?”

Tiger and Rhino nodded, not looking at each other.

Cross looked out the back window and saw two soldiers facing away from the building. Their posture was nervous, alert. He made a hand signal. Tiger stepped out of the whorehouse and shot the two soldiers in the back with the silenced Sig. As Cross covered the area from the shadows, a MAC-10 in each hand, Rhino slipped behind Tiger and yanked the tarp off the package the rebels had brought across the border, revealing a stabilized mortar, pre-aimed. He reached down and delicately touched off a series of timed launches.

Seconds later, chunks of the presidential palace flew into the air. Tiger took the wheel of the armored Chevy Blazer waiting in the back alley. Rhino sat in back, his Uzi steady in his lap. Cross was in the passenger seat, tossing white phosphorus grenades at random as the Blazer fought its way through the clogged streets.

One of the whores trapped in the house screamed. Fire raged throughout the capital. More of the soldiers ran than fought. The Blazer rolled on through, indifferently lethal.

The Harrier touched down. Buddha hit the switches and the pods opened. Princess jumped out first, the woman still in his arms. Falcon and Ace got out more slowly. Of the four, only Ace showed any signs of recent exposure to cold, hugging himself, shivering. Princess was pumped with excitement, exchanging high-fives with everyone in the open-mouthed ground crew. Fal stood by, indifferent. The woman appeared to be in shock. Buddha climbed down from the cockpit.

“Let’s go get our money,” he said.

“You handled the truck beautifully,” Rhino complimented Tiger as they waited for the flight leaving Belize.

“Anytime I can’t out-drive that little slug, I’ll start taking estrogen supplements.” She laughed.

“You can’t,” Cross said.

“Can’t what?”

“Out-drive Buddha. He’s the best there is.”

“Is that why you keep him on? Because, if it is, now that I’m—”

“It’s not the only reason,” Cross said, looking across at Rhino.

The huge man moved his head a fraction, but enough to indicate agreement.

“What, then?”

“He’s one of us,” Cross told her. “He hates them. He hates them
all.
”

“And I don’t?”

“I can’t speak for anyone else.”

“Yeah? Well, you do a pretty good job when you want something.”

“Sure.”

“What’s your problem?”

“You’re my problem. We had a deal. You’re out of the joint, get to start over.”

“And you got paid.”

“And I got paid.”

“So we’re—what?—done?”

“I don’t know what
we
are. But the crew, that’s us, not you.”

“Oh.”

Cross said nothing, dragging on his cigarette, eyes alert. They had decided to go weaponless into the airport, but the local cops weren’t as handicapped. Belize had no treaty with Quitasol, and, according to the CNN feed they could see in the terminal, the capital was still in flames. But a lifetime of watchfulness always called the shots in Cross’s world.

“Because I’m a woman?” Tiger finally asked.

“Because you’re a woman . . . What? Just say what you want to say, all right?”

“I thought . . . you and me . . . we’ve been . . . together before. And this time, I guess I . . . I don’t know . . . I got no place to go. If I go back to what I was doing . . . I may be off their records, but they’ve got my prints and—”

“They’ve got all our prints,” Cross interrupted. “They’ve had mine since I was a kid. Ace and Rhino’s too. Fal and Buddha from the service, at least. Only Princess is off their screen. And he couldn’t hide in a circus.”

“I know. I just meant, look, Cross, you wanted me to be straight, here it is: I don’t want to play house with you. I mean, I don’t want to play house
wife
with you, okay? I want to . . . be with you. But I don’t want to stay home. I want to work.”

“You mean you want in, right?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah. Just like that. You and me, we get along now. What happens if we stop—getting along, I mean?”

“You think I’d rat you out?” Tiger snarled low at him.

“No. Not for a minute. I think the reason the others go along with me is because they know I don’t have my emotions in it. It would make a mess. Fucking Buddha, you know how he is. First thing, he’d say you and me, we should split one share. Okay, that wouldn’t fly. But he’d put it in people’s
minds,
understand? So, when we hand out assignments, the first time it looked like you got the softer piece, there wouldn’t be the same . . .”

“Trust?”

“Yeah.”

“But I worked with you before. With the crew, I mean.”

“Sure. But that was free-lance. Same as Fal.”

“I held up my end?”

“No question.”

“But this is different because . . . ?”

“Fal isn’t in on every job. He gets to pick and choose. He passes on most of what we have anyway. He’s connected to us, but he’s not. He has his own . . . None of us do, see?”

“I don’t have my own,” Tiger said, eyes welling.

“You had your own fucking
cell
a few weeks ago,” Cross said, staring straight ahead.

“It’s too big a risk,” Buddha told Falcon. “Nothing was said about me
driving
back. Fuck a whole bunch of that. I want to see Chicago soon, not in a couple of weeks.”

“Flying, that’s what’s too big a risk,” the Indian said. “You can’t take her on a commercial flight. Look at her, she needs a hospital, not a plane trip.”

“I’m . . . okay,” the woman said.

“Yes. And you may be recognizable as well,” Falcon told her politely.

“But what
difference
does it make? I mean, you men are heroes. You
rescued
me. Why should you care if—?”

Falcon turned to face the woman, who was lying on a motel bed, propped up by several pillows. “Ma’am, what we did or didn’t do isn’t important. What
is
important is that we disappear. We agreed to do . . . certain things. In exchange for payment. We are . . . unauthorized to act by any government, despite what you may believe. Quitasol has no extradition treaty with America, but that is only because it operates as a safe harbor for drug dealers. We agreed to return you to Chicago. I don’t believe you are in any condition to travel unassisted. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then
you
take her,” Buddha said. “
You
drive through the fucking South with Princess, see how far you get before he hammers a few people and you all end up on some chain gang.”

“Buddha—”

“Man, don’t even think about threatening me. I did my piece. Came back for you and all. Got you across the border. I earned my money, and I want it. What I
don’t
want is to wait for it.”

“Come on, Buddha,” Princess exhorted him. “It’ll be fun!”

“No way.”

“All right,” Ace said. “It ain’t no big thing. I just hope none of us mess up the shark car.”

“What the fuck you talking about?” Buddha demanded. “Nobody drives that car but me. And it’s not exactly parked in the lot outside.”

“No,” Ace said, swinging a single key on a ring he had pulled from his pocket. “But I know where it is. Real close. Right over in Liberty City. Cross had it brought down here so we could have cover, in case it got bad going back.”

“That miserable lowlife sonofabitch!” Buddha said. “He said a Lear. I fucking
knew
he’d—”

“Have a nice flight, Buddha,” Falcon told him.

“Princess has to stay in the back seat,” Buddha replied, defeated.

“She’s a mess, Cross.” The speaker was a white male, somewhere in his forties, with a husky chest and a wrestler’s build. His eyes were a whirling miasma of compassion and cynicism.

“That’s why we brought her to you, Doc.”

“I don’t think so. And
you
must think I’m pretty stupid. That’s not like you, Cross.”

“All of that means . . . what?”

First,” Doc said, ticking off the points on his fingers, “this is . . . the girl the Quitasol government was holding in that prison in the mountains. You know . . . Quitasol? That place that’s apparently burning to the ground.”

“I heard there was some kind of revolution going on, yeah.”

“Second,” Doc continued, as if Cross had not spoken, “that job has your fingerprints all over it. Somebody paid you to pull that girl out. And, as usual, you got it done.”

“People say things.”

“Third, no way you did
anything
without being paid. At least a substantial portion in front. So, the way I figure it, you have to turn the girl over to get the rest of the money. How am I doing so far?”