Chuck the contractor scrambled to his knees, wobbly but clawing at his pant cuff. Godo moved in, planting his foot down hard on the man’s calf, feeling the ankle rig beneath his boot. “Leave it!” He prodded with the tip of the AK’s barrel, a poke in the small of the other man’s back, then reached down, felt for the holster, unhitched the strap, pulled the chrome-plated.25 free and shoved it into the pocket of his coveralls.
“Take us down to the safe, open it up.”
Chuck tried to drag his leg out from under Godo’s weight. “What are you talking about? There is no safe.”
Godo studied his face. It was him, he thought, the guy in the back, passenger side, the Blazer at the checkpoint. Him or someone just like him. Applying a little more pressure on the leg, he said, “Don’t be stupid.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I know who you are.”
Godo’s mouth went dry. Knows me how, People’s Fried Chicken or the checkpoint? Maybe it was the weapon, the AK, he’d sold it to Puchi after all. Lifting his boot, “Get up.”
“Or what, you’re going to kill me? Then what, genius?”
Godo made an instant read and figured two things: One, threatening the wife would go nowhere, the guy was thumping her when they busted in, he could care less. Christ, might even be grateful. Two, that left the girl or Thumper here himself and he wasn’t gonna be impressed with mere displays, it was gonna take pain, which meant a change in the ROE. Nobody Gets Hurt had to downgrade to Nobody Gets Hurt Too Bad.
He took out the.25 and fired into the man’s calf. The burned tang of cordite, a strangled scream, floret of blood on the trouser leg.
Godo shouted down to Happy, “It’s okay. It’s me.” Then, turning back, a soft voice: “Infield hit, Chuckles. Man on base.”
Face white with pain, that sour breath, the guy hissed, “You’re dead, I fucking swear.”
Godo fired a second round, the right bicep this time. Another gargled scream. More blood, not too much. “Sacrifice bunt, perfect execution, third-base line. Runner on first advances. We have a man in scoring position.” His face beneath the balaclava itched, damp with sweat. Somebody on the stair struggled with the wife, the screech of duct tape. “The safe downstairs, shit dick, or the girl’s next.”
“I told you-”
Greedy selfish motherfucker, Godo thought. “Bring me the girl!”
“You punk fuck.”
“The girl! Now!”
Godo felt good, in the hunt, balls in a swing, spine like a sparkler. It was Fourth of July. Proof through the night. He was alive. Then he remembered: He knows me. Which tracks back to Puchi, to Chato, to Vasco. Estamos chingados. We’re fucked.
Efraim dragged the girl into the doorway, flannel PJs, blue socks, her hands bound behind her back with the thick silver tape, another strip spooled around her head, pinning her hair against her head, gagging her. It made her eyes pop. She was waifish like the mother and crying.
Godo grabbed her arm, jerked her close, staring down at her father. “Daddy wants you to know, whatever’s down there in that safe of his? It’s, like, way more important than you.” Chuck tried to wet his lips, tongue clicking. “Sammi?”
“You, he don’t give a shit about. He’s handed you up to me.” Godo pushed her down so she couldn’t avoid her old man’s blood, then thumbed back the hammer on the.25. “Man on second, Pops, nobody out. Fly ball, deep center, throw to the plate.” He pressed the barrel to the sobbing girl’s head. “You make the call.”
EFRAIM REMAINED UPSTAIRS WITH THE WOMEN, LOURDES AND THE wife, with Chato on the back door, Puchi the front. Couldn’t leave Chato alone with two bound and gagged women, no matter how homely they were, not without a tacit green light to use his dick for a DNA dispenser. Happy and Godo dragged Chuck downstairs, a couple makeshift bandages for his wounds, and they brought the daughter with them, eyes puffy and red, face slick with tears and gouts of snot.
The cellar room conjured bunker, not sanctuary, low-end paneling with a fake pine veneer, an oval braided rug, an office-salvage desk. Nice array of guns, though, the ones racked on the walls all legal, shotguns mostly, a civilian-issue AR-15, a Korean War vintage M1, a Winchester.30-30 deer rifle with a 3-9 scope. The pistols were displayed in a locked glass case.
Wishing he could draw Happy aside, Godo wanted to tell him that Thumper here, Mr. Chuckles, he may have recognized his voice. The original plan had called for Happy to talk, maybe Efraim, no one else, precisely because the guy could make everybody else. That’s what happens, Godo thought, when things get rocked on the fly. The endgame blurs, you miss the most goddamn obvious things. Then again there was the weapon, he may have figured it out from that alone, though one AK looked pretty much like the next. He’s not going to the law, he reminded himself. Too much to lose, too much he’d have to lie about. Which meant if this thing went south, it wouldn’t be later, it wouldn’t be cops, it would be right here, in this room.
He didn’t see a safe. The paneling had no obvious defects to suggest a false wall, the gun cabinet hid nothing. That left the rug. With Happy training the Glock on the girl, Chuck slumped in the desk chair looking on, Godo shouldered the desk aside, lifted the rug, found the cutout square in the concrete, a notch for a hand grip, the wavy outline of the newer cement like a water stain. Figuring the thing was booby-trapped, he dragged Chuckles from his swivel chair, dropped him near the hidey-hole and cocked the.25.
“Open the safe but don’t reach inside. You do, I blow the back of your head open. And my buddy here does your girl.”
His right arm weakened, the bandage seeping blood, Chuck struggled with his left to lift the heavy concrete panel-one try, two, barely budging it upward. Godo leaned down, flipped the back of Chuck’s ear with the pistol’s snub barrel, then pressed it to the hollow at the back of his skull. “You’re not fooling anybody.”
The man went back to his task, redoubled his effort or pretended to, hefting the concrete slab out of its form-fit hole, pushing it aside with a wincing grunt. The safe lay below, bearing a nameplate: Churchill. It had taken some real work, Godo thought, cutting through the old floor, digging a hole deep enough, planting the safe, squaring it plumb in the hole, reworking the cement. He wondered if Chuck had done it all himself. He seemed the type, industrious, thorough, paranoid.
“Open it up now.”
Reaching down, Chuck leaned to the side a little for the sake of the light, making sure he could see the numbers on the dial as he worked the tumblers, clumsy again, left-handed. His daughter, in Happy’s grip, shuddered and blinked, watching closely like everyone else. Three alternating spins, a pull of the lever, he drew back the door. Figuring there was a gun inside for just this sort of situation, Godo pressed the.25 to the man’s head. “Back on out, sit down.”
The man crabbed his way to the swivel chair and dropped into it, his breathing shallow and rough, the bloodstains on his sleeve and pant leg larger now. Godo gestured for Happy to bring the daughter over, sit her on her father’s lap, and as she got dragged from one spot to the other he noticed, for the first time, the Rorschach of dampness in the crotch of her pajamas. He felt a sudden meek sympathy. He remembered blowing ballast his first time in combat, Al Gharraf, his MOPP suit drenched with piss. Some guys in his unit crapped themselves. The indignities of war. Of warriors.
He lifted the barrel of the.25 until it was level with the bridge of the contractor’s nose. “You got that safe rigged-there a trip wire, a flash-bang, anything else in that hole-you better tell me now.”
Dry-mouthed still, Chuck worked his tongue around, trying to talk. His girl sat perched on his knee, gazing at the floor. Ashamed. Don’t be, Godo wanted to tell her. He traded glances with Happy, stepping back and letting the.25 drop as his cousin lifted the Glock in its place, pressed it to the contractor’s head and spoke for the first time Godo could remember since the start of the robbery.