Stash (36 page)

He didn’t know Jude had a daughter, but he did know that Jude would kill him, or try to, if she told him what happened.

He lowered his window all the way and threw the purse out, then the wallet.

Then he made a decision. You’ve got freedom. You’ve got money. You’ve got a chance to redeem your life. You don’t have part of your face but you’ve got enough sense to know you fucked up and need to move on.

He used to be a good person. Did that part of him get blown out? Had goodness resided only in one corner of his face?

He’d go back to the cabin and collect his stash of money and hit the road. He knew an army buddy in Nashville; there was no sand in Nashville. No desert. At least he didn’t think there was. But first, maybe he would go back to Reed. They could help him, fix his face. They could make the pain go away if only he would give himself over to them. When he was healed, maybe he would call that girl again someday from far away and say he was sorry. Maybe she would forgive him.

He drove for twenty minutes. He hadn’t run his truck off the
road and congratulated himself for that simple achievement. He felt better now. He’d made a mistake but would put the past behind him by leaving and starting over fresh somewhere else in America where fresh starts were handed out even to people like him.

He slowed down approaching his driveway, turned in. “Who’s there?” he said aloud, a funny habit he’d developed knowing he’d hit the sensor and sounded the bell inside and no one was ever there to hear it.

Sweet already had paid half the money—an arrangement he hadn’t liked—with the remainder due COD. When Jude informed him about the glitch in plans and that Sweet would need to pick up the product, Sweet liked this new arrangement even less.

“The ‘D’ stands for delivery,” Sweet said. “Besides which and in addition to, you’re already three hours late. That means I don’t have my product, but you still got my money.”

“Daryl, it’s like I just explained to you …”

“Who you callin’ Daryl.”

“Okay, then. Da Da.” Jude spoke slowly, to make himself understood. “I just finished explaining to you that I have the entire shipment of product in a secure location. However, I have reason to believe my movements may be tracked, and I can’t risk making the delivery. My getting stopped would hurt both of us.”

“And I come get it and someone follows me?”

“No, this has nothing to do with you. I’m in a safe location that no one knows about. No one will follow you.”

“I told you not to fuck me over.”

“Look, everything is going to be fine. There’s just been a slight change in plans.”

“Smells to me like Jude is a Judas, you already been tapped and now you giving me up to save your white ass.”

Jude could hear the self-congratulatory note in Sweet’s comment, as if he were the first one to think up the Judas crack. How many ways did he regret getting into business with this fucking juke.

“What do I need to do to convince you?” Jude said. “If I were setting you up, I’d just drive to you like we originally agreed and bring the DEA with me.”

Sweet hesitated for a moment. “Shit, I don’t know. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Let’s face it, neither of us likes this turn of events, but it’s the situation we’re in and we have a transaction to complete. And the results will be worth the effort.”

“So where do I go get it? Tell me the name and location of your guy.”

“You come to me to get it,” Jude said. “I’m your guy.” He told Sweet he was in Rainbow Lake in the Adirondacks.

“I got to drive all the fuck way up in the mountains to some hideaway?”

“It’s not that far. You got a pen, I’ll give you directions.”

“Just give me the goddamn address. I got navigation.”

Jude hated the idea of bringing Sweet to this location and exposing himself that way, but he had no choice except to take the risk. He couldn’t go out on the road, not with what he had stashed in the hold and the police potentially watching. That represented the far greater danger.

“I need a discount,” Sweet said.

“That’s a reasonable request,” said Jude. Anything to get this done. “Like what?”

“Hundred.”

“Try fifty.”

“Try fuck you.”

“Let’s remember we’re both businessmen. That’s why we’re doing this deal together. We trust each other, we believe in being fair. I’ll give you seventy.”

“Eighty.”

“Eighty off, for your inconvenience, pain, and suffering. One seventy due at pickup. But don’t be presenting me your gas receipts as expenses when you get here.”

Sweet laughed, and the tension between them broke.

“I don’t need no snow tires, do I?”

How does this idiot operate a chain of fitness clubs?

“It’s early September. The leaves are on the trees.”

He shouldn’t have gone for the big payday with Sweet. It was out of his comfort zone, he’d reached too far. He didn’t need a new client at this point, especially a big mean motherfucker with city gangbanger roots and stinking with ambition, and he didn’t like moving large quantities of product. He had conducted what due diligence he could, but in the end Sweet remained an unknown, and unknown meant risk.

He’d missed a call while on the phone with Sweet and when he checked there was a message from Dana. Her knee hadn’t improved and she wouldn’t be running in the meet tomorrow so he shouldn’t bother coming to Plattsburgh. He felt for her, knowing how important the race was to her. He’d drive to St. Lawrence in the morning and surprise her. Take her out for a nice breakfast, boost her spirits with a pep talk.

It was now after midnight, Daryl Sweet hours late. Maybe he had changed his mind and wouldn’t show, which might end up the better turn of events. Jude would be cash-strapped for a long time
while slowly selling off the inventory, but he could leave the bulk of it up here and have Aaron shuttle product down to him as needed.

While waiting for Sweet, Jude used the time to plan the next phase of his life: retirement from this business. After this deal with Sweet, he’d stick with the nest egg already collected—there was enough to launch his daughter, but maybe not to keep the place in Florida. That’s okay. He’d stay with Gull for a while, and Andrew had been talking about opening a second place. No need to look beyond that.

Then there was Gwen: her grip on him he couldn’t explain. For years he had not thought of her, and then one winter day he saw her in his restaurant and it didn’t matter that she was with her husband and children, it didn’t matter their own relationship had been both intense and meandering, it didn’t matter that she rejected his suggestions of getting together. None of it mattered except that he wanted to see her again, experience her again, and he would find a way to do so. There was a reason he wanted her that he probably could uncover if he dug deep and looked at it from every angle. But that would ruin the mystery of it for him, perhaps destroy his desire.

He believed she had no choice except to give his name to the police, and he forgave her for that. He also believed Gwen would be back to see him. She had her own style of saying yes to him. He remembered it from the days at the Patriot. Like the time she tried to distance herself from that cook she had dated a few times who then became obsessed with her and started harassing her. Jude asked Gwen if she wanted him to intervene and she answered by telling him the cook had tried to break into her house. That was a yes. Or that night when Gwen babysat for Dana and Jude came home to find Gwen asleep on the couch—after he shared wine and a few lines of coke with her, he asked if she’d prefer not
to drive home and she answered by closing her eyes and leaning her head against the pillow. That was also a yes. And there were other times, after that night, when he mentioned he might come by after work and the only answer he got was an unlocked door when he showed up at her apartment. And more recently, this past winter, when she’d come to see him about getting a bag of weed and he invited her to return sometime for lunch with him, and she answered by showing up weeks later when downtown for jury duty. Gwen had a way of saying yes without saying yes, which is why he was sure she’d be back to see him again. It made him confident—not just about Gwen, but about this deal he had to close with Sweet, about everything.

The bell sounded on the kitchen wall and a moment later Sweet’s Navigator appeared around the bend in the driveway, bobbing through the puddles, beams and fog lights turning night into day.

He parked next to Jude’s van and shut down. The doors stayed closed.

Jude came out to the porch. Sweet and his passenger opened their doors together and approached the house, stopping at the bottom of the porch steps. The other guy looked like a white version of Sweet: a mountain boy with an iron neck. He carried a backpack over one shoulder, the straps not long enough to let him wear it the regular way.

“Have any trouble finding the place?”

“You know how to hide, I’ll give you that,” Sweet said. He stared into the forested blackness surrounding the cabin. “There any bears around here?”

“Never seen one, although this is their habitat.”

“Mario, here, he’s seen a bear.”

Mario smiled. Horse teeth and jaw.

“He’s wrestled a bear,” Sweet said.

“What was it like?”

“Not too bad because this one had a manicure,” Mario said. “Otherwise them claws would have got me pretty good. As it is, a bear’s got big teeth.”

“Is it kind of like dog fighting? With betting and all?”

“No, just for fun. I happen to know somebody with a circus bear and one thing led to another.”

“You going to ask him who won?” Sweet said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“It was a tie,” Mario said. “I can bite, too.”

Looked like he could bite Jude’s hand off. “What do you say we conduct business,” Jude suggested.

Sweet nodded, and Mario pushed the backpack to Jude.

He leaned from the weight of it. He’d been concerned about a tense “you first” “no, you first” game of showing the money and showing the goods, but Sweet hadn’t hesitated to make the first gesture.

“You want to count it?”

“Do I need to?”

Sweet snorted. “Always.”

Jude set the pack on the ground and opened it, clawed through wrappers of hundred-dollar bills. He opened one of the packets and folded half the bills into his pocket.

“Yours is in the van,” Jude said.

Mario went to the van and opened the back. He stuck his head in and then back out, saying, “Ain’t shit in here.”

Jude left the knapsack on the porch step and came over and switched an overhead light in the back of the van. Sweet and Mario looked on.

Jude disassembled the false walls and floor to reveal the packed cargo bed.

“Whoa, that’s tits,” Sweet said. “You do all that custom work yourself?”

Mario started transferring the packages from the van to the back of the Navigator, covering the pile with a blanket when he finished.

“Looks like you could use a better transport system,” Jude said. “A blanket for camouflage?”

“We weren’t counting on arranging our own transportation. Remember, the deal was you deliver.”

“And I told you, it wasn’t safe for me to be on the road with the cargo. It put the whole thing at risk.”

“I think you’re in over your head. Is that the case? Why the fuck couldn’t you deliver?”

“The police could be looking for me. That’s why I wanted to stay off the roads. You wouldn’t want me exposing you?”

“Motherfucker, did you say the police are watching you?”

“They don’t know about this location.”

“They don’t know about this location?” Sweet repeated. “This location right here where I’m standing in the middle of bear country?”

“It’s safe here. That’s the reason why I wanted you to come here and not have me traveling to you.”

“So the police are watching and you want me to drive out of here with a fucking blanket as my armor?”

“You can buy the van,” Jude said. “I don’t need it anymore. Even dogs can’t sniff it out.”

Sweet laughed, a low baritone chuckle. “Hey, Mario, Judas here wants to get out of this business. He’s looking for an early retirement.”

Mario looked up from his blanket work at the back of the Navigator and smiled.

Sweet said, “I knew you were too much a pussy. You ain’t got what it takes.”

“Probably not,” Jude agreed.

“Now what happens when I need a refill?”

“I can get you in touch with some people. I even know someone who can drive for you.”

“You can tell them where to find me, right?”

“I’ll give you a phone number.” To show he meant it, Jude unclipped the phone from his belt. “It’s right here.”

“Mario, we got any extra plates with us?”

“I got some.”

“Commercial?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Move it all back to the van. And switch the plates.” Then to Jude, “How much?”

“Add thirty back on.”

“I don’t have the extra with me.”

“I’m sure you’re good for it. I’ll come by and pick it up.”

Sweet nodded, and shivered. “Fucking cold up here. I hate outdoors. I played a game in Chicago once with the wind chill twenty below. Every time you hit someone it felt like a bone was going to break. The ball was a rock.”

Mario finished moving the packages back into the hold of the van. Jude showed him how to zip the scent fabric and put the sides and floor back in.

When the van was packed and secure, Sweet turned to Mario. “You drive the van.”

“Let me get a couple CDs to listen to,” Mario said. He fished in the front seat of the Navigator. Then he stood up with something in his hand.

That’s when Jude knew. He thought he knew from the beginning when they talked about bear wrestling, something ironic in Sweet’s voice, and maybe that’s why he tried to sell the van to Sweet, a plan that came from nowhere but one that might put distance between him and Sweet, finish their deal and relationship all in one. Although he thought he knew, he pushed the idea down and aside because who can face such a realization, even when you’ve been moving in that direction for months now, taking wrong turns that head farther into a dark, dead-end alley. You can’t go there, even though you are going there.