The Replacements (26 page)

My head jerked around all on its own. “What do you mean you don't know? Haven't you done this before?”

He smiled. “Hell, no, I'm a stickup guy, not some crotchety old yegg or cheesy little sneak thief who prowls the night afraid of his own shadow. I hate sneak thieves, hate 'em with a vengeance.”

“Why didn't you tell me you never broke into a safe?”

“Cracking a safe. They call it cracking a safe, or peeling a safe, depending on which method you use.”

“How do you—”

“Chill, man. I had twenty-five years to study up on it. Enough time to earn eight college degrees in the subject. I got this. You'd better pay attention to your shit.”

I turned back just as Slim Jim and Roy Boy shot up from the floor in a unified attack. I buried my head in my arms and elbows. Their two cuffed hands grabbed my shoulders beside my neck. They'd been going for my throat and missed as I reacted. With their free hands, they pummeled me on both sides with rock-hard fists of youth. The blows rained down on my forehead and ears and neck with a burst of pain and bright lights. I expected a lion's
roar as Drago counterattacked. Surely, any second, Drago would dispatch them with his hammer. Smash and crush their bodies. Fling them up against the wall like so much human garbage.

But the counterattack didn't come. The whine of drill started again. He'd warned me, and now I had to take care of my own error. Another biker mantra, “Take care of your own shit.”

The blows continued to fall. I turned numb.

While on the street as a deputy working South Central Los Angeles, I had been jumped twice, once by four suspects and another by five. Four and five were better than two to fight any day. With more in the mix, they got in the way of themselves and even struck one another. Back then I had covered up and picked my shots, making them count, meting out all takedown shots. When two of their cohorts went down hard, the momentum of the gang broke and they had fled.

Now in Clay's office there were only two, who were younger and more motivated. I had to make a sacrifice. I opened up my right side in order to take a shot with my best stroke, a right uppercut. I made my move. Roy Boy came in with knuckles to my temple on the weak side that shook me to my heels and made the lights in the room flicker. My uppercut was already on the way, a short violent stroke that I put in everything I had left. My fist connected with the bottom of Slim Jim's jaw. His head snapped back. His broken jawbone radiated through my wrist and up my arm. He went down as though I'd switched off a light. His cuffed hand pulled Roy Boy off balance just enough. I came around with a left hook, the diversion, and followed it up with the heat, a right roundhouse that caught him flat on the nose. He went down on top of Slim Jim.

Mack heard the ruckus and burst into the room just as it ended. He came over and propped me up. My knees wouldn't cooperate, not entirely, and I had to sit on the edge of the desk. Mack asked Drago, “Hey, asshole, how come you didn't help out over here?”

The drill whine went on for another long minute, or maybe
it was two, as we both waited for his answer. A thudding pain bleated in my eyesight.

Drago shut off the drill and pulled down his goggles. “I warned him twice about these turds. I don't have the time to do both his job and mine.”

My injuries settled down to a constant throb. My head rang with several bell tones, and I tasted a metallic wetness in my mouth. “He's right,” I said, “this was all on me.”

“Oh no, it's not,” said Mack. “We're a team here.”

Drago scowled, turned back, went into his bag, and came out with a small flashlight he put in his mouth and a long thin piece of metal. He leaned over the holes he'd drilled and probed with the thin shiv, first in one hole, then in the other. “This was much easier than I thought it would be.”

Mack patted my back. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I just had my bell rung, that's all. I'm too old for this shit.”

“Yes,” said Drago. He dropped his tools and took hold of the two handles. He hesitated and then turned them. The handles moved. A loud clack sounded as the doors swung open.

The large safe was empty. Absolutely and conspicuously empty.

“Shit, we've been had,” Drago said.

“What are you talking about?” asked Mack.

“Son of a bitch, who's watching the front?” Drago ran for the office door as he yelled, “That safe should be filled with guns and ledgers and computer disks.” He made it out the door into the hall with Mack and me close on his heels. Drago said over his shoulder, “They cleared it out for a reason. And there's only one reason it can be.”

In the big open room, the front door burst open. Three Sons of Satan came right at us with M16 rifles leveled at our bellies. They yelled, “Get on the ground. Get on the ground now.”

I eased to the ground amongst all the debris, trying to take it all in, trying to understand how we had screwed up, how we could possibly get out of this mess.

The fat bikers with guns jumped in close and kicked us. I was slammed down against the crusty rug. Pain radiated up and down my leg from a kick to my hip.

Out the front door, a van had backed up right to the house entrance. The double doors to the van stood open. Two more men stepped down out of the van and into the house. I recognized one from the photos I'd seen. Clay Warfield, the president of the Sons of Satan International. He'd aged and his shoulders had slumped slightly, but he was easy to recognize. He still possessed that crazed look in his eyes, a fire that wouldn't extinguish until someone cut off his head and buried it ten feet from his body.

Drago held his fists up chest high, ready to take on the M16s with muscle, bare knuckles, and pure, insane stupidity. Two bikers covered Mack and me on the floor with their guns, as the third moved in closer. “Get on the floor, fat man, or I'll open you up like a tomato soup can.”

“Come on, Drago, do what he says,” I said. “They got us cold.”

“Do it, fat man. Do it right now.”

“Drago,” I said, “come on, what good's it gonna to do if you get yourself shot.” My words didn't penetrate his anger. I could see that at any second he'd pull his internal trigger and go on them, take his best and final shot.

“Hey, Meat, do what he says, get on the floor,” said Clay Warfield. “We're just going to talk here.”

“Let 'em shoot, the cops'll come runnin',” Drago said. “The cops are watchin' the clubhouse. You want the cops all up in your shit, Clay? I don't think so.”

Clay broke into a smile. “Looks like we're in what you'd call a white trash stand-off.” The smile intensified the crazy in his eyes. “What'd you do with Roy Boy and Slim Jim? You put 'em down?” He said it casually, as if their deaths had been expected and the prospects meant nothing to him.

Clay turned to a quiet biker dressed in chinos and a long-sleeve blue shirt. “Sandman, check it out.”

The Sandman walked by us and down the hall to the office. He stuck his head in and came back. “They've been spanked but
they're still breathin'. The safe's open. Dipshit here ruined it, just like you thought he would. I liked that safe. A damn fine antique, and he drilled two huge holes in it.”

I got up and brushed off my hands. “You want to talk, let's talk.” One biker jabbed the barrel of his rifle into my gut, a fool's move. I could've taken it from him. But then we all would have died. He yelled, “Get back down.”

Clay held up his hand to stop him. Mack got up and peeled off a cheeseburger wrapper from Bakers stuck to his leg and let the trash drop back to the floor.

“Get their guns and pat them down,” said Clay.

This time the biker played it smart and handed his rifle to a partner. He put us up against the wall, relieved us of our pistols, and patted us down. He took the sheriff's radio, looked it over, and tossed it into the debris on the floor.

Drago had not changed his posture. “We got nothin' to talk about. And you tell your man to keep his dick-beaters off me or we're gonna have a problem.”

“Sure we do, Meat, we have a lot to talk about. Tell me true, do you have a gun on you?”

“Don't call me Meat.” He lifted up his football jersey and did a slow turn. The maneuver had a dual purpose. Showed Clay's foot soldiers his tattoos, showed them exactly who they were messing with. Drago sneered at them. “You can kill us but you can't eat us.”

Robby Wicks had said the same thing a few times when we had our asses in a crack.

Clay Warfield nodded to one of his men. “See to Slim Jim.” One guy peeled off and hustled back to the office, the long chain from his belt, hooked to his wallet, rattled as he quick-stepped, the only noise in the silent room except our heavy breathing.

“The safe's empty,” I said. “No one's here but two prospects, and you come in using a Trojan horse when you're supposed to be on a Toys for Tots run. We were set up. How did you know we were coming?” As soon as I said it, the answer popped up all
on its own. What a complete dumbass I'd been. This whole thing never had been about the money.

“I can see by the look on your face you know who it is, so why don't
you
tell me his name?” said Clay.

“His name's Jonas Mabry.”

“I don't know him. Who is he?”

“He's the guy who set me up.”

Clay nodded. “I know that, asshole, but why? This Mabry called me, gave me most of the details, but wouldn't give me his name.”

“He's someone who wants the worst kind of harm to come to me.”

“He did a good job, because I'm going to oblige him. Break into my house, try to steal my shit. You're going to die in the worst possible way.”

Mack spoke for the first time. “You can't shoot us. Like Drago said, it'll make too much noise.” Mack took a step toward the front door. “We're leaving, and you're not going to stop us.”

The other two bikers with guns threw down on him. Mack hesitated.

Clay said to Mack, “I would strongly advise you to rethink what you're about to do.”

The other biker came out carrying Slim Jim like a mother would a child, and semi-dragging Roy Boy, his nose bloated and bloody. Did all of these assholes have superhuman strength?

“What did you do to them, and which one of you did it?” asked Clay.

“I did it,” said Drago.

“No, I did it,” I said. “They jumped me and I defended myself. I think I broke his jaw.”

“What about Roy Boy?” asked Clay.

“I just knocked him silly. His nose might be broke. He'll come out of it okay.”

Clay scoffed. “Broken jaw I can see, but just gettin' your dick knocked in the dirt isn't good enough. Neither of them made a
decent enough show of themselves. We'll settle up on that later. Take those cuffs off.”

The biker who'd dragged them out and set them on the floor pointed his M16 at the chain.

Clay yelled, “Hold it. Hold it you, dumbass. Haven't you been paying attention to what's going on here? Never mind. Jesus! I'm surrounded by idiots. Sandman, deal with that, would you please?”

Sandman went over, took a key from a key ring in his pocket, and undid the cuffs. Then he slapped Roy Boy until he came around, his face pink, his eyes going wide when he saw who had slapped him. Sandman jerked him to his feet.

Clay grabbed the rifle from the closest biker and shoved it into Roy Boy's hands. “Now, you do exactly as I say when I say it. Do you understand?”

Roy Boy nodded. Clay said, “These three who desecrated our revered clubhouse don't think I possess the brains or the balls to shoot them because the cops are right outside watching. Do you understand?”

Roy Boy again nodded as he held the gun, uncomfortable, as if it were an alien ray gun. Like Drago had said, he hadn't made his bones and hadn't been trained yet. Maybe he was about to get both accomplished at the same time.

“They're burglars, you understand?” said Clay. “If I say shoot them, you shoot them. We'll all leave in the plumbing van the same way we came in. You wait for the cops. You'll get three years for manslaughter and be out in eighteen months, you got it?”

Roy Boy nodded. The truly scary thing about it, Clay was right.

“When you get out in three, you'll have earned your patch,” said Clay. Roy Boy stood straighter, pulling back his shoulders.

“Right,” said Mack, “shoot us with an illegal machine gun, because that's what that gun is classified as, and you'll get life, guaranteed.”

That quick, Roy Boy lost motivation. His shoulders slumped. He looked at Clay for confirmation.

“Son of a bitch,” said Clay. He reached inside his denim jacket and pulled out a beautiful H&K P9 from a shoulder holster. He jerked the M16 from Roy Boy's hands and shoved the P9 into them. He spun on Mack. “Who the hell are you?”

“Like you said, I'm a burglar.”

“Chickenshit, sneak thief burglars don't know the law. Not like that.”

Mack shrugged.

Clay turned back to Drago. “Drago, you want outta this mess? I'll give you one chance. You tell me true, I'll reinstate you with full privileges.”

Reinstate him? He'd said he was never an SS.

Drago sneered. “Not a chance in hell. You killed Willy. No, you assassinated Willy. Gunned him in cold blood. Walked right up and put the gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. And for no good reason other than you just didn't want to cut the money three ways. He was with us. He told us which armored car to hit. He was my friend. No,
Mr
. President, you're going to have to kill me first.”

Willy. That name sounded only vaguely familiar until Drago said the part about the armored car job, then it locked in. Willy Frakes. Drago hadn't killed the guard after all—Clay had. Clay had been in on the armored car heist all those years ago. Now it all made sense. Drago lived by the code that you did not rat. He couldn't get even with Clay, not by ratting him out. But he could rub it in Clay's face by hiding the money from the job right under Clay's nose. The gold protected by the club to whom he'd sworn his oath and an allegiance. I realized my jaw had dropped open.