Wild Card

Finally Pedro frowned with disappointment, boosted himself off the Nav, and held up his palms in acquiescence.

“Yo, chill, I hear you,” he said, looking quickly around at the garage.

Raul saw one of the dark figures outside the vehicle bays reach for a wall-mounted control box next to the automatic door. As the door started to rise, he almost crumpled in his seat with relief.

“You wan’, I give you a ride into town when you done,” Pedro said, studying Raul curiously. Then his expression sharpened, and he added in a low, confidential whisper, “El basuco alvidar mis hambres.”

The crack will fill our hunger.

Raul looked at him, momentarly speechless. He’d been struggling to hide the unbearable fear and need at his core, but realized now that the need showing through might have been the best thing he could have wished for. That it was all that had disguised the other.

“Bien,” he said at last, and nodded. “I got you covered.”

Pedro gave him another soul handshake, his grip lingering a few seconds. “Hey, awright,” he said with a grin.

Raul flashed a pretend grin in return. Then he pulled his hand back through the window, shut it, and reached for the shifter.

* * *

On his belly in the Nav’s cargo section, his balaclava pulled up so that only his eyes were visible through its narrow opening, Lathrop looked between its two front seats at the video display. He’d thought he might have seen someone’s outline at its left-hand border… a dim, fuzzy human silhouette flitting into the image, such as it was. But that had been several seconds ago. Now he saw only the faint red glow of the vehicle’s taillights tinting the blacktop.

His gaze steady on the screen, Lathrop heard Raul and the lookout conclude their exchange. I got you covered. Hey, awright. It had been dicey having the kid lower his window more than a little — Lathrop knew he’d have been discovered in an instant had Pedro stuck his head in. But if Raul had kept the window any higher up, it would have invited suspicion, given the appearance he had something to conceal.

Lathrop had weighed his choices, and what he saw now seemed to confirm he’d made the right one. The lookout had stepped away from the vehicle, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his warm-ups.

Raul had managed to get by him.

Now he raised his window, shifted into Drive, and rolled across the lot toward the garage.

That instantly killed the video, but Lathrop hadn’t expected it to be of any real use until they got inside. The rearview camera was a crummy excuse for a spy eye, meant to help an Average Joe driver avoid backing over toddlers, pissing dogs, and low stationary obstacles in his mirror’s blind spots… not pick out roving Quiros stooges in a dark nowhere like this. A crummy, inadequate option with a range that extended fifteen feet at best. Still, Lathrop had gotten a sense of what he could expect from the thing.

As the Navigator began to move, he slipped his free hand under his partially unbuttoned tac jacket and withdrew a shoulder-slung MP7 compact assault gun he’d carried tucked away against his side at the ready, keeping the other hand around the.45’s checkered rubber grip. He had prepared carefully for tonight’s work and knew they were pieces he could count on.

Lathrop would have liked to know if anybody was out in the dark circling the wagon, though. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he wouldn’t have minded having a second pair of eyes to cover the very dangerous blind spots in his own sight. But he had gotten along with less than he wanted before, and there had been three million dollars’ worth of incentive for him to do it again tonight.

Just ahead now, the garage’s vehicle bay was opening wide for the Nav. Lathrop pressed his chest almost flat against the carpet. He hadn’t seen or heard Pedro indicate he wanted the door retracted, yet the lookout had somehow given the okay to somebody before his prolonged handshake with Raul.

Lathrop wondered if his quick glance around could have been it, decided that explanation didn’t wash. The garage was about a hundred feet away, and it was too dark a night for that look to have been seen clearly by anyone out front. So what was the signal? He pictured the MP3 player on the lookout’s arm, asked himself if maybe it wasn’t what it seemed. A hands-free radio unit could be easily modified to look like an audio player and equipped with an ear/bone microphone that would pick up the wearer’s words from vibrations in his skull. If that were the case, Pedro would have barely needed to move his lips to give his order.

It occurred to Lathrop that Enrique Quiros, who’d packaged the family business in his tech savvy and Stanford degrees, would have appreciated exactly that kind of touch. And though his cousin and former underboss Armand had a reputation as a throwback player with more muscle than brains, it might indicate that at least some of Enrique’s modern standards of criminality were being carried on two years after he’d been erased from the world.

Lathrop put that thought aside as the Navigator reached the garage, cool white fluorescent light rinsing over it from the open bay entrance. Raul stopped just outside it, his foot on the brake.

About thirty seconds passed. Lathrop scooched forward, raised his chin slightly to look out the windshield, saw two men stepping over to the Nav from inside the garage. Lean, dark, curly haired, they looked enough alike to be brothers. One of them wore a black-and-silver rugby pullover shirt, a handgun bulging a little under the shirt, his neck zipper lowered to showcase the tats on his chest. The other had on a flamingo pink button-down with short sleeves, its untucked tails hanging loosely over the belt holster clipped to his jeans. He also had a lot of ink on his arms. Neither man wore a vest or had taken very much trouble to conceal his weapon. Placing strut over smarts.

They came closer, Rugby Shirt stepping over to the driver’s door, Flamingo Pink hooking toward its right side.

Lathrop recalled the scouting he’d done, placed this matched set among Armand’s traveling entourage of bodyguards. He had never seen Armand go anywhere without five or six armed men around him and didn’t suppose it was any different tonight. There would be more of them around… the only question was where. He couldn’t see out the vehicle’s side windows without bringing his head up, but a glance at the rear video display told him its image had been improved by the garage’s fluorescents — although the low line of sight still restricted what he could observe.

Getting his elbows underneath him, propping himself up a bit, he adjusted his pistol in his right hand, then checked again that the MP7 was within fast and easy reach under his other arm.

He knew he’d have to move at any moment.

There was nothing left for him to do now but stay ready for when it arrived.

* * *

Raul brought his window partly down again, leaving it raised a little higher than before.

“Here it is.” He looked out at Rugby Shirt. “Got what I promised.”

Lathrop heard the strained edge in Raul’s voice, noticed his fingers were back around the steering wheel, fidgeting with the wheel.

The guard stood there and didn’t say anything. His eyes slid over the Navigator, inspecting it in the outspill of light from the wide bay entrance. Then they came level with the kid’s face.

Lathrop drew a breath. The mingled garage smells of car exhaust, valve oil, and gasoline vapor reached him along with the night air… that and a metallic clanging beyond the door. There would be other bays besides the one that had been opened to admit the Nav. Some probably with mechanics in them, working to dismantle the latest stolen vehicles delivered by Armand’s crack-addicted worker ants.

Raul continued to sit there facing the guard, waiting to be let inside.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” he said, angling his chin toward the bay entrance. “Thought Armand know I got here.”

Rugby Shirt’s eyes held firmly on Raul.

“No este tu irrespetuoso,” he said.

Do not be disrespectful.

The kid dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. When he clenched it around the steering wheel again, Lathrop noticed it was glistening with streaks of wiped-off perspiration.

“Didn’t mean anythin’,” he said. “Jus’ want to be bringin’ in this coche, do what I gotta do.”