“All right, all right, I’ll follow what’s going on there. Worst case, we’ll try to get you a new van that nobody will be looking for, though I’m not sure we have any people in that area who can make that happen. For now, just assume that everything’s cool. I’ll call you back.”
“Are you going to contact Bateman?”
“Oh, hell no. Just keep going. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Thanks,” said George. He hung up and tucked the cell phone back into his pocket.
“I noticed that you didn’t mention your new hostage,” said Ivan.
George ignored him. “Still take the next exit,” he told Lou.
“Why?”
“Because this wolf is going to talk.”
CHAPTER SIX
An Unwise Decision
“That seems like it could turn out bad,” said Lou.
“We’re not going to let him out of the cage,” George insisted. “We’re not even going to get close to it. I’m just going to make him talk.”
“Why does he need to talk? Why do we need to know anything? I’m perfectly happy not having a clue in the world about what’s going on.”
“Well, I need some answers. We were not sufficiently briefed before we took this job. There’s a big frickin’ difference between transporting an annoying guy in a cage and transporting a guy who can command dogs to do his bidding...or, you know, his scent makes them crazy and violent, or whatever it is that he did. If he can mess with animals like that, who knows what else he can do? Maybe he’s...I don’t know, an abomination or something, and we should destroy him for the good of mankind.”
“I liked it better when we didn’t care if he was a werewolf or not.”
Truth be told, so did George. He usually didn’t want to know the details. He’d committed plenty of immoral acts without understanding the true motive behind them.
But this was different. A lot different. This wasn’t about stolen cash or sleeping with the wrong person’s wife or making a poor business decision that needed to be rectified with knives. This was an unexplained phenomenon. Or, if it had been explained, then Ivan really was a werewolf, which was completely absurd but a matter that needed to be further investigated.
Sure, George had absolutely no intention of doing anything to put the job or his personal safety at risk, but Ivan didn’t need to know that.
“Are you having trouble adjusting to your new view of the world?” Ivan asked. “It’s always a little devastating when decades of preconceived notions about the way things really work are shattered all at once. But just wait until you meet the aliens.”
“Let me explain something to you,” said George. “Do you understand the concept of ‘everybody fucks up once in a while’?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Good. This is how it relates to current events. When Lou and I do a job, we’re expected to complete it successfully. That’s what we get paid for. But no matter how good you are--and we’re good, believe me--there’s going to be the occasional job that goes bad. Somebody’s not where they’re supposed to be, somebody who’s not supposed to be there shows up, your car breaks down...there are lots of reasons why a job might not work out properly. The people in charge understand this.”
“Yeah, right. If you don’t deliver me to Tampa, you’ll be at the bottom of a lake by midnight.”
“Oh, we’re going to deliver you, don’t get me wrong. But if we deliver you with your arms and legs broken, we’ll get yelled at, and possibly forfeit our fee, but nobody’s going to kill us. Now, I don’t want to get yelled at, and I certainly want to get paid for all the crap I’ve gone through today, but I’ve reached a level of frustration where busting you up might be worth it.”
“Cool. I’m glad I could bring you to that level.”
“George, are you sure you wanna do this?” Lou asked. There was a knowing look in his eyes. He was playing along.
George nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“All right. Promise me you won’t do any permanent damage.”
“Do you see what they’re doing?” Ivan asked Michele. “They’re going to break my legs. I wonder how they’re going to do it? Tire iron to the kneecaps, I guess. That’s what I would do if I were them, to make sure it hurts enough.”
“You don’t really believe that he’s a werewolf, do you?” Michele asked George.
“I might.”
“But that’s crazy.”
George pointed to her shoulder. “How do you explain that?”
“A pack of feral dogs. A chemical in the air. A ridiculously elaborate assassination attempt on you. There’s a huge number of things I’d need to cross off my list before I got to ‘werewolf.’“
“Well, hopefully he’ll help us cross them off.”
“You know, George,” said Lou, “we really should get rid of the girl. The longer we keep her around, the more she’s gonna see, and the worse things are gonna get.”
“So you think we should just drop her off somewhere?”
“Maybe.”
“What if she talks?”
“What’s driving around with her gonna do to change that? Are we so charming that an hour in the van with us is gonna keep her from going to the cops?”
George sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you to let me go,” said Michele.
“What?”
“I’m staying with you. I want in.”
“What?”
“I want ten percent of what you’re getting.”
“You don’t even know what we’re getting,” said George.
“Did you see the shitty car I was driving? I’ll be happy with ten percent of anything. Look, I already know what’s going on with you guys, so you might as well keep me around and pay me off.”
George and Lou exchanged a look of disbelief. “And why wouldn’t we just kill you?” George asked.
“If you wanted me dead, you could’ve just left me back at the gas station. Instead, you brought me with you, knowing full well that we were leaving behind my car, which has my purse in it, which means that people will know that I’m missing, which means that they’ll look for other clues, which means that they’ll find some blood on the pavement, which means that they’ve got DNA evidence on you. It’ll take a while, because there’s so much blood to sort through, but why would a couple of smart men like you want to link yourselves to a murder when you could just keep a cooperative girl around for a tiny payoff?”
George grimaced. He tried to think of a bigger blunder they’d ever made in their careers in crime than letting Michele into the van. None immediately came to mind. Still, bad guys or not, they couldn’t have just watched her get ripped apart by dogs while she was trying to save the attendant from getting ripped apart by dogs. Obviously, they should’ve expelled her from the vehicle as soon as they’d driven away from the gas station, but Ivan had opened his big mouth right away, and George wasn’t thinking straight, and he had a hot chick on his lap, so how could he be expected to make an intelligent decision?
That said, they were supposed to be professionals. He gave Lou a sheepish look. “When did we become such retards?”
“Don’t say retards. That’s offensive to developmentally disabled people. We’re just the regular kind of stupid.”
“Fair enough. What do you think?”
Lou shrugged. “Better than disposing of a body.”
“All right,” George told Michele. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Ten percent.”
“Ten percent of your combined take, not just ten percent of what one of you is getting.”
“Of course.”
Michele extended her hand. George shook it. He had to admit, he now liked her on a much deeper level than just her physical attractiveness.
“You guys are going for that?” Ivan asked. “Seriously? Well, shit, if I knew it was that easy to negotiate, we could’ve saved ourselves a couple of hours. Let me go and I’ll make it worth your while. How much do you want?”
“One hundred bazillion dollars,” said Lou.
Ivan sneered. “How about twenty bucks and a gently used porno mag, you fuckin’ Neanderthal?”
“Watch the potty mouth,” said George. “My partner doesn’t appreciate foul language around women.”