Dead and Gone

He passed on my next choice, too. And the one after that. I went on autopilot, hardly speaking at all, mechanically searching for spots. I left the cellular on, the lifeline between us.

“Change of plan.” His voice cut into my thoughts.

“What?”

“I found a spot. Just past the meat market. Drive back over there.”

“Right.”

It was only a couple of minutes away. But when I drove by, slowly, I couldn’t see anything but a couple of burnt-out hookers waiting on a semi. Or a serial killer. Car-trick roulette, with all their blood-money on the double- zero.

“Keep going,” the voice said.

He must have me on visual now, I remember thinking. I didn’t answer him, just let the Plymouth motor along, a touch past idle.

“See the train?”

Train? I saw what was left of an abandoned railway car sitting on rust-clogged tracks. “Yeah,” I told him.

“Kill your lights and pull in there.”

The ground was all ruts. I drove real slow, like I was worried I’d snag an axle, but the Plymouth’s independent rear suspension handled it fine. I’d told the trader the truth about what the car had started out as, but all it had in common with the original was the body.

I figured he was somewhere in the shadows, and in a four-by, too. He didn’t know what the Plymouth could do, so he thought he’d given himself an edge.

But it was me who had the edge—my Neapolitan mastiff, Pansy. One hundred and fifty-five pounds of war dog, resting comfortably in the Plymouth’s padded trunk. Pansy’s about eighteen years old. I’d raised her from a tiny pup, weaned her myself. She’s lost a step or two. But you couldn’t have a better partner at your back. More than a partner … part of me. And, like everything that was part of me, we’d chosen each other.

When I got almost parallel to the boxcar, I could see I’d been right on both counts. His ride was a black Lincoln Navigator, crouched in the boxcar’s shadow.

“Get out,” his voice came over the cellular. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

I did that, moving like I had major arthritis, slitting my eyes against the expected blast of light.

He didn’t disappoint me. It was so white I felt the heat. Then it blinked off. I kept my eyes on the ground, waiting for the ocular fireworks display to fade.

The driver’s-side door to the Lincoln opened. A man got out. At least I thought it was a man. I’d never be able to pick him out of a lineup.

“Where’s the money?” he called over to me.

“In the back seat.”

“Get it … slow.”

I walked stiffly back to the Plymouth, opened the back door, reached for the satchel on the floor. At the same time, I pushed the button to pop the trunk. Not all the way, just to the first detent. Maybe six inches of space. But Pansy was free now.

I stiff-walked back to where I’d stood before. Dropped the satchel to the ground at my feet.

“Step away,” the man said.

“No. This is as far as I go without the kid.”

“You’ll get the fucking kid, friend. Just move off a few feet, that’s all.”

I did that.

“Get out here!” he snarled over at the Lincoln.

The passenger door opened and a kid got out. I couldn’t see him real well … only knew he was a boy because that’s what the Russians had told me. Real skinny. Wearing a dark jacket and jeans. His pale hair was shaved on the sides and spiked in front. The kid seemed to know what he was doing—walked to my left until he was out of the shadow and I could see him better.

“We trade steps now,” the man said. “One for one. You get closer to him; I get closer to the money. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Now.”

We each started walking, me slower than him. I still had the edge—the kid could move on his own, but the money couldn’t. As soon as I got close enough for the kid to hear me, I said: “Come over here to me. Everything’s going to be all right now.”

The kid started toward me. I stood my ground, turning my head slightly to watch the guy pick up the satchel. The kid made some kind of grunting sound. I looked back and saw him holding a pistol, aimed right at the center of my chest. I tried to dive and roll, but I was too slow—the first couple of shots hit me in the rib cage. I staggered back, groping the darkness like it was a handrail, felt another shot slam into me somewhere.

Then I heard Pansy’s war cry as she launched over the rutted ground, heading for where I’d fallen. The kid saw her coming, the hellhound on his trail. He turned and ran but Pansy hit the back of his thigh and pulled him down like a lioness dropping an antelope.