Rum Runner - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 9) Page 4

  “At least someone in this family is getting some,” I said, happy for Mom.

  “Like it’s my fault?” Phin said. “You try to kiss an ice tray, see how that works for you.”

  “I’m telling you guys,” Harry said. “The Marriage Saver app. You could be Channing Tatum, and you could be Natalie Portman. Or vice versa. Whatever weird gender shit you’re into.”

  We both told Harry to shut up.

  “How about Val Ryker?” Harry said.

  Phin nodded. “That might work.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You want to have sex with Val Ryker?”

  “Not on the app. Val could watch Sam. She’s a cop. She’s a friend. She’s responsible. We both trust her. Sam would be safe. Just as safe as she is with me and you.”

  “And she’s in Wisconsin,” Harry added. “You could drop her off on the way to the cabin.”

  I let it sink in. It was a lot to ask Val, but I watched her niece a while back when Val was having some trouble. So she sort of owed me a favor.

  “Plus she owes me a favor,” Harry said. “She owes me like ten favors. I think she’s got a little crush on me.”

  “Don’t we all,” Phin said. “What do you think, Jack?”

  I stared at Sam. She’d stacked up ten blocks and glanced back at me for approval. I smiled, and her chubby fingers went for number eleven.

  It was such a worn-out cliché, but I loved her so much. I could look at her, and see me.

  But when I looked at me, I didn’t see anything. Somewhere, in the last two years, I’d disappeared. All I once was, all I used to be, had been replaced by Diligent Guardian of Sam.

  That wasn’t a complaint. It was a job I gladly embraced. Nothing I’d accomplished in my past was as important as that little girl sitting on the floor, playing with blocks.

  I glanced at Phin. He, too, was watching Sam. And he had the same look of marvel in his eyes that I probably had.

  I wanted to reach out to him. To hold his hand.

  But I was afraid I’d forgotten how.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Phin raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

  “I guess I could call Val, see if she’s free. I’m not sure. I think I need to sleep on it.”

  “No rush,” Phin said. “It’s not like we have to leave right away. We have time to think about it.”

  T-NAIL

  The ambulance wasn’t in no hurry. T-Nail couldn’t look out the window in the back door because it was too high up, so he couldn’t see how fast they were going. But it didn’t feel fast from his spot on the stretcher.

  Just like in the hood. What’s the rush? One more busted-up gangsta. Maybe, if we’re lucky, he dies and we don’t have to waste time on him.

  Nothing had changed. Tech had gone from cassettes to mp3s, from paper to ebooks, from cell phones the size of bricks to handheld computers with touch screens. But 911 was still a joke, and brothers still got no respect.

  “Hey, Chalmers, this really necessary?” he said through his oxygen mask, extending his arm as far as the cuffs allowed.

  “Those are the rules, Terrence.”

  “You gotta chain a human being to the bed? It’s degrading.”

  “Rules.” Chalmers looked away.

  T-Nail looked at the second guard in the back of the ambulance. “How about you, Neville? Why the bracelet? You afraid of me?”

  “Naw. It’s for your own protection,” Neville said. “We wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

  The prison guards shared a snicker. The paramedic, a black guy, joined in.

  “Kicking a man when he’s down,” T-Nail said. “I get it.”

  Chalmers got serious. “Hey, Terrence. I don’t know if the doc said anything, but I think it’s only fair to tell you… it doesn’t look like you’ll ever walk again.”

  More laughter.

  “You guys are hysterical. You should be on TV.”

  Then all four tires blew out, and the laughter stopped.

  “Check it,” Chalmers told Neville after the ambulance skidded to a halt. The guard went to the front of the ambulance, and stopped halfway when the POP POP POP! of gunfire was heard.

  “Shit! That’s shooting! Someone’s shooting at us!”

  “You guys lost your sense of humor real quick,” T-Nail said.

  Both men took their guns out, and Chalmers fumbled for his cell phone.

  Half a second later the back window smashed inward. T-Nail watched the canister drop inside, and he closed his eyes tight.

  Someone yelled, “It’s tear gas!”

  Coughing and swearing and retching and random shooting from the bulls ensued. T-Nail breathed easily through his oxygen mask, waiting for this shit to work itself out. It only took thirty more seconds for someone to unlock the back door, gasping for fresh air.

  The guards and medic flopped outside and got themselves shot. From the sound of it, about a hundred times.

  That was followed by the familiar sounds of a beat down, and then T-Nail’s cart was being wheeled out. He peeked open his eyelids, saw bangers all around him. And it wasn’t just brothers representing. Of the dozen-plus guys, there were also some Latinos, and two white dudes. The Folk Nation had gotten a lot more diversified since T-Nail had been running things.

  He locked eyes with every soldier, saw the respect there. Kids, most of them. Not a single familiar face from the old crew. Streets were hard. Thug life had taken them out of the game.

  Neville and the paramedic were dead. Chalmers seemed to be hanging on, shot up and beaten but still moaning.

  T-Nail took off his oxygen mask and took his first breath of freedom in over two decades. The night was warm, the stars out. T-Nail couldn’t remember the last time he saw the stars. Staring up at them he felt….

  Nothing.

  T-Nail knew his emotions had been paralyzed years before his legs, and all that sentimental shit like love and hope and faith had vacated the premises long ago. He’d been dead inside since he was a kid, after his father was killed. Or maybe he was just born that way. It was what it was, no use dwelling on it.

  His gang had hit the ambulance on an empty stretch of highway somewhere between the prison and the hospital. This was southern Illinois, miles and miles of cornfields. He squinted up the road, saw a shorty packing up the spike strip they’d thrown. It had been a good plan, well executed.

  T-Nail looked around for his General, Del Ray. They’d never met before, only communicated through third parties. Del had worked out the whole escape in just a few hours. He’d informed T-Nail his fracture had to be bad enough to warrant a trip to the ER. Knew there had to be enough blood loss to require an oxygen mask. He’d studied for it, prepared every detail, and it came off flawlessly.

  But T-Nail spotted him from his description. Del Ray was standing to the side of the ambulance. He was in his mid-twenties, had a Dr. J afro, and was bare-chested except for a furry looking vest.

  T-Nail had heard rumors about the vest. He hid his surprise that Del Ray had worn it.

  Del sidled up to him, and they did a C-Note handshake.

  “Welcome back, War Chief,” Del said.

  A shorty handed T-Nail his old colors. A leather vest with his rank on the lapels and gang symbols on the back. T-Nail stretched out his arms, allowing himself to be draped in it.

  Tight, but still fit. Like an old pair of kicks.

  “Gat,” T-Nail said.

  Del Ray handed him a .45 Glock. “It’s giggled-out, yo.”

  T-Nail squinted at the gun. The rear slide plate had been replaced with a so-called giggle switch, which allowed the semi-auto to spray rounds like a machine gun.

  T-Nail took aim and shot Chalmers fifteen times in less than a second, turning his feet into hamburger.

  “Hey, Chalmers,” he said above the guard’s screams. “It’s only fair to tell you… it doesn’t look like you’ll ever walk again.”

  He handed the gun back to Del Ray.

  “We got to put you back insid
e,” Del Ray told him, pointing his chin at the ambulance. “Got a doctor waiting for you.”

  “Got eyes on the cop bitch?”

  “Burbs. Sent a team to check it out. Should hear soon.”

  “Good.”

  “We’ll dump the meat wagon and the bodies in Gary. Take time for the po-po to figure out what happened.”

  T-Nail nodded. Del Ray was smart. Genius level. He was the mastermind behind a new way to cook meth, which cut costs and increased output. He was a wizard with firearms and explosives, taking the war on the streets to whole new levels. And the brother knew computers and electronic shit like nobody else.

  But Del Ray also had some… peculiarities. His furry vest wasn’t made of fur.

  It was made of human scalps.

  Rumor was, Del Ray had some Sioux blood in him. But that alone didn’t explain it. T-Nail would hurt people to show power, or send a message, or punish. Inflicting pain was no different than swatting a mosquito. But Del Ray took trophies. To remember the moment. That was seriously twisted.

  T-Nail was put back into the ambulance, along with a still-alive Chalmers, and the bodies of the dead. Del Ray rode in front.

  “You… gotta…” Chalmers paused to moan. “Take… me… to a… hospital.”

  “I got a better place to take you, Chalmers. It’s called hell.”

  As the bull screamed, T-Nail broke all of his fingers. But his heart wasn’t really into it.

  He was too preoccupied thinking about Jacqueline.

  JACK

  Sleep eluded me.

  I stared at Phin, snoring softly in bed. His face was completely relaxed when he slept, in a way it never did during waking hours. It made him look younger. And something else. Something I didn’t want to admit.

  When he was asleep, my husband looked peaceful.

  Awake, he always had a measure of urgency about him. Even when he acted calm. Phin was ten years my junior, but lately he didn’t appear to be. Lately he looked old and worn out.

  Was that a recent thing?

  I thought back to when we first became friends. Me, a cop. Him, dying of cancer, engaging in various illegal activities to make money because he didn’t think he’d see next summer. I knew he’d robbed, and used the money on drugs, to make the pain go away. Though we rarely talked about it, I suspected he’d committed even more extreme crimes. Crimes where people died. Phin had a moral core, and the people he’d killed weren’t innocent, but it weighed on him the same way the deaths I was responsible for weighed on me. Taking a life, even an evil life, was the stuff of nightmares.

  But even back then, living day-to-day as a hired thug, battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, he hadn’t seemed as stressed as he’d been for the last two years.

  Since moving in with me and having Samantha.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, careful not to disturb him, and walked over to the bed where Sam slept. My little girl wore vintage She-Ra Princess of Power pajamas; a gift from Harry, who seemed to constantly troll eBay for nostalgic crap. She looked like she always looked, whether awake or asleep. Innocent. Perfect. Angelic.

  I knew deep down I loved her like every parent should. Fiercely and unconditionally.

  So why did I have to keep reminding myself that?

  I squinted in the darkness of the bedroom, trying to see myself in her. My genes. My dreams. My future.

  But all I saw were my chubby legs and double chin.

  Since retiring from the Chicago Police Department, I’d been mostly taking it easy, and the weight was sneaking up on me. Harry and I were partners in a private detective firm, but most of my work involved sitting; in cars, on chairs talking to clients, in front of the computer prowling the Internet. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to the gym. Or the dojang. Phin had put a mat in the garage, and I’d been teaching him a bit of taekwondo, but it seemed that whenever we began to work up a sweat, something child-related would interrupt us.

  I put my hand on Sam’s chest.

  Felt her heart.

  Wondered why I couldn’t feel more.

  Postpartum depression?

  No. This wasn’t chemical. This was situational.

  Once upon a time, I was relevant. Criminals feared me. Men wanted me. I was dangerous. I was sexy. I was a force to be reckoned with. But taking pictures of cheating spouses didn’t hold the same satisfaction as putting away a murderer. Especially since the cheating spouses were getting laid, and I wasn’t. It had been so long, I’d practically forgotten what Phin’s cock looked like.

  Hell, when was the last time we’d even kissed?

  Any third party looking at my life would think I’d fully embraced domestic bliss, from the suburban picket fence outside the house to the apron stained with congealed applesauce. But I didn’t feel bliss. I felt disconnected. Almost confined. Which made me feel guilty. Which made me feel more disconnected, and more confined.

  With Phin and Sam, I knew I’d been given a second chance. A do-over. They were my reward for a life spent on the street, catching bad guys.

  So how come, instead of feeling like I was being rewarded, I felt like I was under house arrest?

  Noise, from the window leading to the backyard. A soft thump. I immediately switched from self-pity mode to self-preservation mode. In two steps I was next to my nightstand, pulling open the drawer, gripping my .38 Colt Detective Special. Phin immediately jackknifed into a sitting position, sleep still in his eyes even as he pulled his 1911 out from under the mattress.

  “Noise,” I whispered. “Outside.”

  Phin picked up his iPad with his free hand and checked our security system while I crept up to the window and peeked through the side of the shade.

  My backyard was well-lit, almost to the level of a soccer stadium. We had motion detectors and cameras covering every inch of the property. I didn’t see anyone.

  “Holy shit,” Phin said.

  “What?” The hairs on my arms stood up in alarm.

  “That’s the biggest damn squirrel I’ve ever seen.”

  He showed me his tablet, which was zoomed in on a squirrel sitting atop our plastic garbage can. And it was, indeed, a big one. Though not over eighteen inches, which was the size we’d set the perimeter alarms for.

  “Wow,” Phin said. “Check out the size of his nuts.”

  Our intruder had two acorns in his paws.

  “Funny.”

  “Those nuts are so big he’ll never fit them in his mouth.”

  I sat on the bed and put my gun back in the drawer.

  “I used to be able to make you smile,” Phin said.

  He didn’t reach for me. I guess he knew better.

  “I’m not in a good place,” I told him.

  “I want to help you get to a good place.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Assuming you want my help.”

  I knew that was a cue to snuggle against his body. But I didn’t want to give him false hope.

  Shit. How had it gotten so bad between us?

  A minute passed. The silence felt loud.

  “You been up all night, Jack?” he finally asked.

  I noticed his use of my first name. When our marriage was good, he called me honey or hon. A tiny little term of endearment that I hadn’t really paid much attention to.

  Until he stopped.

  Phin hadn’t called me honey in months.

  “Most of the night,” I answered.

  More noisy quiet.

  “Been thinking about Harry’s offer? Cabin in Wisconsin?”

  I nodded.

  “Are we going?”

  I didn’t want to leave Sam. But I didn’t want things to stay like they’d been. Or get worse. Something had to be done. Inaction hadn’t improved us, so I either had to take action, or give up.

  I was pretty good at navel-gazing and moping. But giving up wasn’t something I did very often.

  “I guess I’ll call Val in the morning, see if she can babysit.”

>   DEL RAY

  The paramedics and guards had been stripped and dumped at an old warehouse, teeth and fingertips removed to make ID’ing the corpses harder. The ambulance went to a chop-shop in Joliet, to be sold in a million pieces. Del Ray had been checking the police chatter on an app, but no word yet about the escape.

  Perfect plan, perfect execution.

  T-Nail was in the clubhouse den with the gang doctor, patching up his leg. Del Ray felt good that he was able to help an OG. T-Nail was old school, and deserved respect. But it remained to be seen how he’d fit in with the new clique. During his time inside he’d been consulted on big issues, but Del Ray had been running the game for the last few years. If T-Nail wanted his territory back, the manifesto said he’d get it. He could elect to take a less active position, which would probably be best for everyone. Or, if T-Nail wanted to rule as War Chief again, Del Ray would have to ease him back into the groove.

  But the best case would be if T-Nail stepped down. Things had changed. It was the new mack’s turn to shine.

  His cell buzzed, and Del Ray answered without talking.

  “She got up late, talked to her man.”

  “The equipment work?”

  Del Ray had put together the laser microphone himself. It was a long range listening device that sensed the vibrations caused by sound waves when pointed at glass. When people spoke indoors it could translate the sounds bouncing off the window into words. Del had ordered his team to set it up outside the cop’s window.

  “It was like butter, dog. You want to hear?”

  “Yeah.”

  Del Ray was subjected to some stupid shit about a squirrel, before getting to the part about Harry and Val and a cabin in Wisconsin.

  Was the happy family planning a vacation? If so, that would be good. An earlier report showed that the cop’s home security was tight. Cameras. Sensors. Alarms everywhere. She was a seriously paranoid bitch. But if she left home, grabbing her would be easier.

  “Keep me posted,” he told his men.

  Del Ray put away his phone and walked into the den. The doc had finished patching up T-Nail, who was sitting in one of the leather theater recliners. In his left hand was a bottle of Hennessy XO. In his right was a barbell, which he was pumping. Dude had a chest and arms like Terry Crews.