The Wheelman (7 page)
Authors: Duane Swierczynski
W
HEN THE BLACK GUYS WITH THE GUNS ENTERED the garage, Saugherty saw right away he had guessed right. There was Mothers, plus three other guys. Not that it made him feel any better.
HEN THE BLACK GUYS WITH THE GUNS ENTERED the garage, Saugherty saw right away he had guessed right. There was Mothers, plus three other guys. Not that it made him feel any better.
Maybe the mute would get lucky and clip two of these guys. Leaving only two for Saugherty. Not great odds, but it could be done.
“Cut him out,” said a voice.
Two dudes with blades started snipping the bungee cords off the mute. The mute had obviously hidden the gun somewhere for the time being. Come on now, Saugherty thought. Start spraying. Pop pop. One guy, two guys down. Leaving two for Saugherty. His gun hand was already getting sweaty. It was hard playing dead while steeling yourself up for action at the same time. His chest hurt, bad. He hoped he wouldn’t have a muscle spasm at an inopportune moment.
Then, something unexpected happened.
The mute bolted from the table—an old thick wooden door Saugherty had found trash-picking in Mt. Airy years ago—and pulled it over on himself at the same time. He scuttled across the floor of the garage, the door on his back, looking like a crab trying desperately to hang onto his shell. The mute was trying to use the door as a shield.
The three guys with the guns laughed. They catcalled, “Hey, white boy. Where you going?” Who could blame them? It looked pathetic.
“That door ain’t going to help you, Mr. Lennon,” Mothers said, a smile on his lips.
The guys removed submachine guns from their puffy coats. Loaded clips. Switched off trigger guards. The two others had black semiautomatic pistols, which they yanked on to pump bullets into the chambers. The garage was full of the sound of clean sharp metal clicks. Just one submachine gun would be enough to cut Saugherty and the mute in half. Hell, these guys had enough heavy firepower to launch an assault on a police precinct.
“All we need is one arm,” Mothers continued. “The rest don’t matter. These guys here can surgically remove your limbs through that fucking door in seconds. You won’t live long, but you’ll live long enough to be useful to them.”
The door wobbled. Was the mute finally going for his gun?
And if he was, what the fuck was he hoping to accomplish with it?
The situation had gone from
fucked
to
cluster-fucked.
The only tactical advantage Saugherty had was that all four men now had their backs to him. He could try to stand up and get off six rapid, clean shots into each … no, that was ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly take down more than two without the others spinning around and spraying him into pieces.
fucked
to
cluster-fucked.
The only tactical advantage Saugherty had was that all four men now had their backs to him. He could try to stand up and get off six rapid, clean shots into each … no, that was ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly take down more than two without the others spinning around and spraying him into pieces.
The door lifted a few inches from the floor of the garage. The business end of Saugherty’s Glock poked out.
The guys laughed even harder and readied themselves to take aim.
What the fuck was the mute thinking?
“Okay. Will somebody kindly remove this bastard’s leg?”
Saugherty traced the barrel’s aim. Across the floor of the garage, above Saugherty’s head, behind him, and into what? He stole a glance.
The tank of his gas grill.
Oh no.
“Remove
this,
ya fuckin’ arseholes,” the mute said. He fired the Glock.
this,
ya fuckin’ arseholes,” the mute said. He fired the Glock.
T
HE EXPLOSION POUNDED HIM BACK INTO THE WALL OF the garage, but the door held. Lennon could feel the heat trying to blast through the wood. It wasn’t going to hold up much longer. It was probably already on fire. He slowly climbed to his feet with Saugherty’s gun in his hand. He looked over the wooden door.
HE EXPLOSION POUNDED HIM BACK INTO THE WALL OF the garage, but the door held. Lennon could feel the heat trying to blast through the wood. It wasn’t going to hold up much longer. It was probably already on fire. He slowly climbed to his feet with Saugherty’s gun in his hand. He looked over the wooden door.
Saugherty’s garage was an inferno. Pretty much everything inside was either blackened or ablaze, including the black guys with the guns. (Guess they weren’t Russian mob after all.) One of them squirmed on the floor, and Lennon pumped a bullet into him. He scanned for other stragglers through the smoke. This was no time to be uncertain. He was neck-deep in murder. He might as well make the most of it.
But the fire was out of control. He had to get out now. He wasn’t sure if
he
was going to make it much longer without losing consciousness. His body screamed, and his shoulder screamed louder.
he
was going to make it much longer without losing consciousness. His body screamed, and his shoulder screamed louder.
The easiest way out: use the door.
The aluminum garage doors were already buckling. Lennon could hear it. So he hoisted the wooden door—it was a heavy son of a bitch—and used it as a battering ram. The door went through the aluminum, and Lennon followed behind. He released his grip on the door before it brought him down with it, and tumbled off to the side.
Fresh pain spiked through every nerve. Get up, get up, he told himself. His hair felt like it had been crisping over a barbecue pit.
He climbed to his feet and quickly assessed his surroundings. It was madly disorienting. Jesus, this looked like a suburban cul-de-sac. A yellow plastic Big Wheel was perched on a lawn across the way. It was a bright, sunny spring day. The sun burned his skin.
And behind him were five barbecued men—three of them probably gangbangers and the other two probably cops, or excops. Lennon had a bullet in the arm, bruises and contusions all over his body. He also had a gun in his hand and $650,000 waiting for him in the trunk of a car in downtown Philadelphia.
Lennon started walking. He had to get away from the burning house, and away from eyewitnesses. Probably way too late for that. He already saw faces peeking from behind curtains, fathers stepping outside their screen doors.
Enough was enough. Nearly twenty-four hours had elapsed since the Wachovia heist. Now it was time to bring the getaway to a close.
The warm air sharpened his senses, or at least gave that illusion.
Orders of business:
Find a car.
Find a convenience store. Snag a long-distance calling card and a map of Philadelphia.
Dump some rubbing alcohol over his shoulder wound.
Wrap a tourniquet around it.
Pray to Christ nothing got infected.
Figure out where the fuck he was.
Call Katie’s cell. Enough dancing around it. Thirty seconds on the phone would tell him what he needed to know.
Meet up with her. Or cut free, and worry about her later.
Arrange a way out of town, with the cash.
Never,
ever
visit Philadelphia again.
ever
visit Philadelphia again.
S
AUGHERTY PURCHASED HIS TWIN ON COLONY DRIVE IN 1988, with his then-wife Clarissa and five-year-old boy. The price then was $65,000, which made for slightly uncomfortable mortgage payments on a cop’s salary. In the fifteen years since, the value of the house had doubled as the real estate market boomed. In the fifteen years since, Clarissa had gone, his five-year-old boy was now a twenty-year-old Ecstasy-popper on seizure medication, and the cop’s salary had given way to other forms of support. Clarissa and the kid had picked up and moved to Warminster; Saugherty kept the house out of sheer inertia. He kept meaning to rent a place closer to the city where he did most of his work, but never got around to it.
AUGHERTY PURCHASED HIS TWIN ON COLONY DRIVE IN 1988, with his then-wife Clarissa and five-year-old boy. The price then was $65,000, which made for slightly uncomfortable mortgage payments on a cop’s salary. In the fifteen years since, the value of the house had doubled as the real estate market boomed. In the fifteen years since, Clarissa had gone, his five-year-old boy was now a twenty-year-old Ecstasy-popper on seizure medication, and the cop’s salary had given way to other forms of support. Clarissa and the kid had picked up and moved to Warminster; Saugherty kept the house out of sheer inertia. He kept meaning to rent a place closer to the city where he did most of his work, but never got around to it.
But as he sat on his back lawn in the spring air and watched his $135,000 (current market value) twin burn, Saugherty thought about none of this. Instead, his mind was still trying to wrap around something else.
No, not the fact that his former confidant and best friend, Earl Mothers, was a burnt piece of North Philly brisket inside his smoldering garage.
No, not the fact that three other heavily armed guys—sounded like Junior Black Mafia—were also in the Colony Drive BBQ pit.
Nor the fact that Saugherty, sooner or later, was going to have to come up with a story to explain his dead friend and dead niggers inside his burning home.
It was the mute.
He spoke.
All this time, the guy could talk. He’d been fooling people for months, maybe years. Saugherty didn’t know how old the info on the I.O. was, but it wasn’t as if the mute detail cropped up yesterday. Patrick Selway Lennon had been fooling people for a long time. It probably made him attractive as a getaway driver—what better accomplice than one who can’t sing to the cops?
Even when it came down to it, when his life was on the line and any other person would have been pleading for it, the guy kept quiet.
Then why did he bother with that final spoken jab? Irish brogue and everything?
Remove
this,
ya fuckin’ arseholes.
this,
ya fuckin’ arseholes.
An anger limit. The guy had a boiling point, and the lid had blown off the pot just then. This would be useful.
Now Saugherty had to find the guy. He assumed he’d survived the blast, just as Saugherty had. That door had probably shielded him. Saugherty had barely cleared the garage door leading into the basement when the tank went up. When he saw the aim line, from gun to tank, Saugherty decided to screw the charade. He jumped up and ran for it. Two of the four guys—including Mothers—spun their heads around to watch Saugherty run. The others were focused on Lennon, and that gun poking out from beneath the door. Within seconds, the room was full of fire, and Saugherty was diving behind a love seat. A fireball whipped through the air above him, and everything in his basement went up. He had to hurl a chair through the basement bay window to make it out to the lawn.
Lennon hadn’t come out that way. Saugherty had sat there on his lawn, holding his pistol, waiting for him.
He must have gone out the front.
Saugherty walked around the side of the house toward the street. His next-door neighbor, a Home Depot manager named Jimmy Hadder, grabbed him by the arm. “Jesus, are you okay?”
“Home invasion,” muttered Saugherty. “Bunch of black guys knocked me out, robbed me, set the place on fire.” He was spinning off the top of his head. He realized he should stop before he talked himself into a corner he couldn’t explain later. “One guy got out—you see him, Jim?”
“Yeah—he went up toward Axe Factory. But he looked white.”
“You never can tell these days. Thanks, Jimbo.”
Axe Factory Road, which Colony Drive spilled into. From there, it was two choices: east or west. Saugherty thanked him and started jogging toward the end of the cul-de-sac.
Down toward the park: nada. Up toward Welsh Road: a glimpse of his guy, turning a corner.
Got you.
Saugherty ran back for the car he’d taken from Lennon, then realized it had been parked in the garage.
L
ENNON STOLE A HUNTER GREEN 1997 CHEVY CAVALIER parked on the side of a street named Tolbut. Now a Chevy: that was easy pickings. He’d learned how to hot-wire a car on a Chevy. Plus, no alarm, and the Club attached to the steering wheel wasn’t locked. People never locked them. But what made the car even more attractive was the sweatshirt rolled up in a ball in the backseat. Lennon drove two blocks, pulled over, removed his bloodied, ripped sweatshirt, and put on the new one. It was emblazoned with the words Father Judge High School. He’d regressed from college to high school overnight.
ENNON STOLE A HUNTER GREEN 1997 CHEVY CAVALIER parked on the side of a street named Tolbut. Now a Chevy: that was easy pickings. He’d learned how to hot-wire a car on a Chevy. Plus, no alarm, and the Club attached to the steering wheel wasn’t locked. People never locked them. But what made the car even more attractive was the sweatshirt rolled up in a ball in the backseat. Lennon drove two blocks, pulled over, removed his bloodied, ripped sweatshirt, and put on the new one. It was emblazoned with the words Father Judge High School. He’d regressed from college to high school overnight.
A few turns, and he found himself on what looked like a main drag—Welsh Road. Ten minutes up the road, across from a main artery road, Roosevelt Boulevard, was a 7-Eleven. Lennon pulled in and entered the store. His shoulder ached; his skin burned. And Saugherty was right. He was beginning to smell a little ripe. When he put some miles between himself and that burning house, he’d have to do a little rudimentary first aid. Even if that just meant dumping some vodka over it, slapping a bandage on it.
The occupant of room 219 hadn’t kept any money lying around; college kids never did. So Lennon had to pull a little stickup. He was loathe to do it, since it was just the kind of thing to attract attention to himself. But the prepaid calling cards were behind the counter, and there was no easy way to do the five-finger discount.
Besides, he could use a little dough to hold him over until he reached the money in the car. And compared to the murders he’d just racked up, a 7-Eleven heist wasn’t shit.
Lennon selected a detailed map of Philadelphia streets from a spinner rack. He had a better fix on where he was when he crossed Roosevelt Boulevard, but a quick glance at the map confirmed it. He was up in Northeast Philadelphia, about twenty-five minutes away from downtown. Saugherty had taken him home. From the looks of the map, the quickest way back down was to take the boulevard, also known as Route 1, down to where it merged with I-76 headed into downtown. He replaced the map on the spinner rack.
He picked up a copy of the
Philadelphia Daily News,
a packet of precooked chicken strips—easy protein—and a bottle of water. As an afterthought, he grabbed a chunky white stick of Old Spice deodorant. He placed them on the counter.
Philadelphia Daily News,
a packet of precooked chicken strips—easy protein—and a bottle of water. As an afterthought, he grabbed a chunky white stick of Old Spice deodorant. He placed them on the counter.
The counter kid looked at him funny as he bagged the stuff. Chances were, he attended Father Judge High School. Lennon picked up the bottom of the sweatshirt and showed him the Glock tucked into the waist of his jeans. He pointed to the cash register, and then to the bag. The kid understood. He opened the register, scooped out bills, and shoved them in the bag. Next, Lennon pointed to the prepaid calling cards.
“How many?” the kid asked.
Lennon just curled his fingers into his hand.
Give them to me.
Give them to me.
“Okay.” The kid grabbed a stack and slid them into the bag.
Lennon took the bag.
“See you in class,” he said, smirking. From the looks of it, the kid looked completely thrilled. Lennon had probably just fulfilled a long-term work fantasy/running gag.
Dude, I was totally robbed!
Dude, I was totally robbed!
There was a security camera in the place, but at this point, Lennon reasoned, it was beside the point.
After fifteen minutes on Roosevelt Boulevard, Lennon fought his way to the outer lanes and turned into a large mall parking lot. He found a pay phone bank inside a Strawbridge’s department store and used one of the prepaid calling cards to dial Katie’s disposable cell phone. The emergency one.
Prepaid calling cards were the best thing to happen to planning heists since the invention of the road map. Absolutely untraceable—these rip-off companies bought long-distance minutes in bulk and sold them to people too poor to have home phones or with shitty enough credit to be turned down by long-distance phone companies or criminals who didn’t want their calls traced. There were no bargains to be had, even though the cards claimed significant savings per minute. But when you used a prepaid card to call a cell phone that would only be used once, then tossed away, you had a next-to-perfectly secure means of communication.
Katie’s disposable rang five times, and then an automated voice-mail message picked up.
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