income go up like a Roman candle? I don’t think so.”
Crank jumped up, pulled a hunting knife out of the sheath on his belt, and stuck it right under Suit’s chin. For a barrel-bellied guy, Crank moved more like a ballerina.
“Listen, Swanson, you dickless motherfucker, don’t start giving me fucking orders. You get your cut from us, not the other way around. Remember that.”
“And I fucking protect you guys,” said Agent Swanson.
“And we’re paying for your retirement, asshole.”
“Gee, and I thought cops were the only ones who hated Feds.”
Crank back-kicked his leg and hit me square in the belly with his heavy boot. “Who the fuck asked you? Unless you got a name for me, shut the fuck up.”
That one hurt, but the damage could have been much worse had he got me in the jaw. Probably would’ve broken it. As it was, I couldn’t catch my breath.
Crank refocused on Swanson. “Back the fuck off, you suited prick. I don’t take orders from nobody. Just ask my Desert Storm commander. I broke his arm in three places, one place at a time.”
Swanson tried to look cool, but there was real fear in his eyes. “Okay, okay, but we need that name.”
Crank pulled the knife away from the agent’s neck and put the blade back in its sheath. He turned his attention back my way, lifted me off the ground and shoved me into a chair. He spoke softly to me, almost cooing, trying to cajole an answer out of me.
Wouldn’t I feel better getting it off my chest? Wouldn’t I rather avoid the torture, which would surely come? Wouldn’t I like a chance to live until morning? Wouldn’t I…
I would have been happy to give him an answer had I any notion of what he was going on about. I felt like a character from one novel who had fallen through the looking glass into another book: Alice in Fatherland, maybe. My mind drifted, I wondered if this was all part of Brightman’s grand scheme. But when I retraced my steps to my original contact with Crank, I rejected the idea. This was wrong place, wrong time at its worst. Yet in spite of the threat and bluster, not much was happening. Crank even got me a drink and cloth to clean me up some. More than an hour must have passed since I was first brought into the cabin. I got the sense that he was playing for time.
“This is bullshit!” one of the gang of four bikers growled. “Are we gonna kiss this guy’s ass until he gives us a name or what? Deuce and Deadman are gonna be here any minute and they’re gonna wanna know what the fuck is what.”
Swanson raised his hands like a traffic cop. “Hey, don’t look at me. That’s one of your boys talking, Crank, not me.”
“All right, Max, get the wire,” Crank said matter-of-factly. “Prager, gimme a name now, or you’re gonna bleed.”
Only I could see Crank’s face. His back was to the bikers and Swanson. There was something both imploring and reassuring in his expression. It was if he was telling me that things would be okay if I could only give him something to work with. I scoured my memory, trying to recall how things had played out the night the lab exploded. If I wasn’t already motivated enough, seeing the razor wire kicked it up a couple of notches.
“Cutter,” I said. “It’s Cutter.”
Crank winked at me in a brief second of calm. Then one of the bikers, a rough looking dude with a long beard, sunglasses, and prison tats lunged at me.
“You lyin’ motherfuckin’ snake.”
Well, now I knew who Cutter was. Instinctively, I pushed back and my chair went down and I tried to roll away. Crank threw out his left fist, catching Cutter in the Adam’s apple. Cutter, gasping for air, went down on top of me.
“Get ZZ Top off me!”
Agent Swanson actually laughed at that. The other bikers were on Cutter, punching him and kicking him even as they pulled him off. A few minutes of that and he’d look like Fallon sans pickaxe.
“Gag the rat and cuff him!” Crank ordered. “We’ll let Deuce and Deadman deal with him.”
Then, as if on cue, the quiet of the woods was ripped wide open by the distinctive throaty rumble of twin Harleys. The two bikes pulled up almost to the front door. The woods again went silent. The door opened. Two more bikers joined us. They didn’t look any more fierce or rough than Crank and the four that were already here, but it was evident from the look in everyone’s eyes that these two were players: princes among the common scum. There was a round of ritualized hugs and handshakes between the boys. It had the feel of a meet and greet at a Masonic temple. The bikers kept their distance from Swanson. They seemed to regard him as an infectious disease.
“You got my cut?” Swanson said. “I can’t be here for the pleasantries.”
“Shut the fuck up, man,” said the shorter of the two princes. “Ya’ll get your money when I’m ready to give it to ya.”
Crank pointed at me. “That’s the ex-cop. He fingered Cutter as the rat.”
Cutter struggled against his restraints and tried to say something. One of the bikers kicked him in the ribs and told him to shut the fuck up. Apparently, I’d chosen the right fall guy. Neither the original gang nor the two princes acted at all surprised by the news of Cutter’s disloyalty. Swanson was fidgeting, clearly worried about witnessing what would surely happen to Cutter and me.
“Deuce, pay the cunt and get him outta here,” said Deadman, the short prince.
Deuce reached around his back and pulled out a duct-taped brown paper bag. Swanson’s eyes got big, but he didn’t reach for the stack. Deuce threw it on the cabin floor like scraps for the dog and Swanson couldn’t pick it up fast enough. The second the Fed grabbed the package, the world hit a speed bump. There was a flurry of activity outside: gunshots, shotgun blasts, tires skidding, running feet on gravel, motorcycles rumbling. The cabin flooded with blinding light from all sides.
“Inside the cabin, this is Special Agent William B. Stroby of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Combined Meth Task Force. The cabin is completely surrounded. You are all under arrest. Any attempt at escape will be futile and will result in additional charges. Please follow my instructions promptly and to the letter and no one will be injured. A failure to do so will force me to use all necessary means to effect your arrest. Open the cabin door and throw out all weapons. Then, when I give the word, I want you to knee-walk out of the cabin in single file with your hands clasped behind your heads. Any variation in this procedure or attempt at escape will result in your being fired upon. Starting now I want…”
As Stroby droned on, Deuce looked my way.
“We got us a bargaining chip,” he said, reaching for the butt of a handgun tucked into his pants.
“I don’t think so,” said Crank, pressing the muzzle of a Glock to Deuce’s head. “Prager, stand up.” With his free hand, Crank reached into his pants pocket and removed a cuff key. He handed it to Deuce.
“Uncuff him.”
“You fuckin’ mother-”
Crank slammed his boot into the side of Deuce’s knee. Something snapped and the prince crumbled, yelping in pain. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Crank then ordered one of the original bikers to undo my cuffs. He did so.
“Prager, get that hogleg from Deuce and come over here with me.”
I followed Crank’s instructions. Deuce’s gun was a Colt revolver. The barrel on the damned thing was the size of a deer femur.
“Jesus Christ! Will you look at this thing,” I said, pulling back the hammer. “Please, somebody move. I’d love to see what a bullet from this thing would do to you.”
Crank got a kick out of that, but then his face went all business. “All right, boys, all weapons out on the floor now.”
Stroby was still at it when Crank yelled out the door. Some of Shakespeare’s plays had less acts than this guy’s speech. Until that point I had been successful at focusing on saving my own neck and not letting my mind drift to Katy’s plight. If I got myself killed, Katy had no chance. But now that my freedom was at hand, it all came rushing back in.
“Stroby, will you please shut the fuck up!” I thought I heard some of the assault team laughing. “This is Agent Markowitz,” Crank yelled. “The code word is pelican and the color is green. I repeat, this is Markowitz. The
