The Smack Read online

  The elevator arrived, and Petty stepped inside. As soon as the doors closed, he checked his phone. No calls had sneaked past him. He couldn’t think of anything else to do but go back to the motel and wait for instructions from the guy holding Tinafey. He considered calling his mom, but she knew him well enough that she’d figure out something was wrong no matter how much happy talking he did, and there was no reason to upset her, because everything was going to be fine.

  He drove back to the motel and climbed the stairs to the room. Again he imagined Tinafey waiting for him when he opened the door, having miraculously escaped her captor, and again he was disappointed. The room was freezing. He turned the heater up and kept his coat on, but none of it helped. He sat at the table, staring out the window at the parking lot, the empty swimming pool, and the dead white sky, and shivered all the way down to his bones.

  Diaz brought Tinafey a glass of water and, because her hands were still tied, held it while she drank. That was her name, Tinafey. From Memphis. Diaz had been making conversation with her in order to put her at ease, but she wouldn’t be so calm if she knew the truth, that she and her boyfriend were both as good as dead.

  She finished drinking and sat back on the couch in the living room of Diaz’s dad’s house. Diaz asked if she wanted anything else.

  “There’s an apple,” he said. “And some crackers.”

  “I don’t want nothin’ but to get out of here,” Tinafey said. She glanced around the room, wrinkling her nose at the dust and clutter. Diaz imagined it must look pretty creepy in the grim light that forced its way through the filthy windows, like the killer’s lair in a movie or someplace haunted. Which was pretty on the mark either way, considering the two dead bodies he’d had to step over in the kitchen to get to the sink.

  His dad was already starting to smell. He’d noticed it while getting the water. The odor hadn’t congealed into a stink yet, but there was definitely a primal must in the air that tickled the back of your throat and raised the hair on your arms. Maybe Tinafey smelled it, too, and that’s why she kept fidgeting like she couldn’t get comfortable.

  Diaz turned up the radio. Tinafey wouldn’t choose a station, so he left it on the oldies his dad had listened to. The Delfonics were on now: “La La Means I Love You.” Diaz remembered whispering the lyrics during a slow dance in junior high, his sweaty hands cupping his date’s ass.

  Two in the afternoon. Three more hours until dark. Diaz had held off contacting Rowan, his thought being he’d keep the guy on edge, keep him worried about his girl, so that when Diaz finally did call, he’d be eager to turn over the money in order to get her back. Now, though, he began to wonder if he was putting too much pressure on the dude, pressure that might drive him to the cops or somebody else for help. Maybe touching base wouldn’t be a bad thing after all.

  He picked up Tinafey’s phone and sent Rowan a text.

  Got it?

  Got it came back seconds later, the dude obviously waiting for word about what was going on.

  Further instructions soon, Diaz texted. There. That should hold the guy for another couple hours.

  The place Diaz had picked for their meeting was in the warehouse district, down by the river. The area was deserted after dark, a graveyard given over to scavenging rats and wild dogs. Trains rattled past occasionally, but the intersection where the rendezvous would take place was out of sight of any tracks. The perfect spot to get rid of a couple of low-life thieves.

  He cleared a pile of newspapers off a chair and took a seat facing the couch.

  “This freak you out?” he said to Tinafey, nodding at the gun in his hand.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You gonna use it on me?”

  “Not if you behave yourself.”

  “You got me tied up. How’m I gonna misbehave?”

  “You bitches always got something up your sleeves.”

  “Uh-uh,” Tinafey said. “You don’t know me well enough to be calling me a bitch.”

  Diaz wasn’t in the mood to play games with her. They listened to the radio, and Diaz ran through things in his head, how it would go from here on out. He’d tell Petty to be by the river at six, but he’d show up early and cruise the neighborhood, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. He’d park in one place for a while, then move to another spot, then another. If someone was planning an ambush, this might spook them into jumping the gun. Assuming everything checked out okay, at six he’d roll up to the corner where Rowan was supposed to meet him. He’d use his dad’s truck, make Rowan put the money in the shell. When he had it all in there, bang. Then the girl. Bang. Leave them where they fell.

  But what if his dad wouldn’t lend him the truck? He was still pissed about the Toyota. Diaz had totaled it after taking it without asking when he was fifteen, and the old man was on him about it all the time, calling him irresponsible. Diaz’s head snapped back so hard he bit his tongue. He’d dozed off, his lack of sleep catching up to him as soon as he stopped moving. Just as he was coming to, he thought he saw Tinafey get up off the couch and step toward him. He blinked himself to full wakefulness, and it was true; the girl was on her feet. He pointed the gun at her.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Stretchin’ my legs,” she said.

  “Well, sit the fuck down,” he said. “And don’t move again without my say-so.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, trying to be cute about it. She gestured with her bound hands at a framed piece of needlepoint hanging on the wall and asked, “What’s that say?” It was something that had been there forever, something Diaz’s mom had made. Donde hay amor en el corazón, hay alegría en el hogar.

  “When there’s love in the heart, there’s happiness in the house,” Diaz said.

  “Amor—that’s ‘love,’ right?” Tinafey said.

  “Right,” Diaz said.

  “I wanna learn Spanish,” Tinafey said. “It sounds so pretty.”

  “You know amor,” Diaz said. “That’s a good start.”

  “And hola and adiós,” Tinafey said. “Por favor. Gracias. I went to Mexico once, to Cabo San Lucas.”

  “Cabo’s nice,” Diaz said. A little more small talk. Fine. It’d help keep him awake. “What else do you know?” he said.

  “Feliz Navidad,” Tinafey said. “That’s ‘Merry Christmas.’”

  “Try this: Dame dos margaritas.”

  “Dame dos margaritas.”

  “That’s ‘Give me’—Dame—‘two margaritas.’”

  “Dame dos margaritas,” Tinafey said. “Teach me somethin’ else.”

  “La cuenta, por favor,” Diaz said. “‘The check, please,’ like in a restaurant.”

  “La cuenta, por favor,” Tinafey said.

  They went back and forth like that. Every so often Diaz would quiz the girl on phrases he’d taught her earlier, and she always got them right. He remembered seeing a can of coffee in the kitchen cupboard and a coffee machine on the counter and decided to make a pot. He stepped in a puddle of blood while filling the basket, and his shoes left prints on the linoleum. He thought about cleaning up the mess, but why, when the last part of his plan was burning down the house?

  29

  THE CALL CAME AT FIVE. PETTY WAS LYING ON THE BED, EYES closed but wide awake, listening to the blood roar through his veins like a secret underground river. When his phone rang he sat up, instantly alert.

  “Be at the corner of Mission Road and Artemus Street at six,” the guy said. “You and the money and that’s it. I’m watching the corner right now, and if I get a bad feeling, I’ll pull out, and your girl will die.”

  “How will I spot you?” Petty said.

  “I’ll blink my headlights three times.”

  Petty was standing now, pacing the room. He felt like he was full of helium, like his feet were barely touching the floor.

  “Let me talk to Tinafey,” he said.

  “Hello?” Tinafey said.

  “Say something so I know it’s you.”

/>   “You still gonna get me that trophy?”

  “The biggest one you ever saw.”

  “Six o’clock. Mission and Artemus,” the guy said.

  Petty pulled up a map on his phone. With traffic, the meeting place was twenty minutes away. He dragged the money out from under the bed and carried it down to the Mercedes. When everything was locked in the trunk, he got in the car and sat behind the wheel. He decided to wait a bit before taking off. He didn’t want to be early to the meeting, and he didn’t want to be late.

  He zipped his coat and flipped up the collar. It was going to be another cold night, coldest of the year, the weatherman had said. Frost warnings across the region. The motel manager was sweeping the parking lot in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. What fucking part of India was he from that he could take the chill like that?

  At five thirty-five Petty started the car. The phone directions took him on the 110 to the 101 to Mission Road. He made good time and arrived at the exit five minutes early. Instead of turning right like he was supposed to, he went left and passed under the freeway to park in front of a restaurant-supply store on the other side. The store was closed, and there were no other vehicles in the lot. He kept the Mercedes running.

  One minute passed. Two. He checked his watch every thirty seconds. At exactly five fifty-nine he pulled out of the lot, took a right on Mission, and drove back under the freeway. Continuing south, he passed a sprawling public housing complex, a recycling center, and a cluster of small factories locked behind razor-wire fences and steel security gates.

  Most of the streetlights weren’t working, which left entire blocks swathed in darkness. Petty drove slowly, juddering over railroad tracks and steering around bottomless potholes. A pair of headlights appeared in his rearview mirror, but they’d disappeared by the time he reached Artemus. He pulled to the side of the road. Artemus dead-ended into a warehouse at Mission, and the three-way intersection was deserted.

  A faint mist hung in the air, enough to blur the edges of the buildings and halo the orange sodium-vapor lights. Petty lowered his window and shut off the engine. The harsh stutter of a Jake-braking semi drifted over from the freeway. Closer, a train horn bleated. Petty squinted into the mist and detected movement. A truck solidified out of the night, an older Ford pickup with its lights off, running dark. It came to a stop in a patch of shadow on the opposite corner, facing Petty’s Mercedes. Its high beams flashed three times.

  Petty stepped out of the car with his hands up.

  “Nice and slow,” a voice called from the truck.

  “Tinafey?” Petty called back.

  A light went on in the cab of the pickup. Petty saw Tinafey sitting on the passenger side. The driver, a Mexican, was holding a gun to her head. The light went out. Petty walked back to the trunk of the Benz, opened it, and lifted out the box containing the money from the piñatas. He carried it to the middle of the intersection and paused there.

  The Mexican got out of the truck.

  “Bring it here and put it in back,” he said.

  Petty walked the rest of the way across the intersection, the Mexican tracking him with his pistol. The door to the shell was unlocked. Petty opened it and set the box in the bed of the truck. The Mexican kept the gun on him as he returned to the Mercedes.

  “It’ll take me two more trips,” Petty said to him.

  “Hurry it up,” the Mexican said.

  Petty’s ears were cold, but sweat trickled down his back. He could see his breath when the light hit it. For his next load he chose the shopping bags that came from the garage, carried them by their handles. He glanced into the truck as he passed by and caught another glimpse of Tinafey. He put the bags into the shell and went back to the Mercedes as fast as he could without running.

  He reached into the trunk and took out the last package, the trash bag Tony had hauled from the lake. He shut the trunk and was about to hustle to the pickup when he spotted someone approaching down Artemus, someone walking quickly but keeping to the shadows. Black pants, black coat, black ski mask, black sawed-off shotgun. Adrenaline surged through Petty’s wiring. He dropped the money and sprinted for the pickup.

  The Mexican hadn’t yet noticed the intruder. He aimed his pistol at Petty and shouted, “Hold it, motherfucker!”

  The mystery man stepped into the intersection, into a smear of orange light. He pointed the shotgun at the Mexican and roared, “Drop your weapon!”

  The Mexican swung his gun toward the intruder. Petty ducked and wrapped his arms around his head as he passed between the men. Both fired at once. Petty hit the ground, rolled, and kept going.

  The blast from the shotgun shattered the pickup’s windshield. Pellets whizzed through the air. The Mexican crouched behind his open door in time and was unhurt, but his rounds all missed their mark. The mystery man jacked another shell into the chamber of the sawed-off.

  Petty reached the truck. He yanked open the passenger door, nauseated with dread. Tinafey had slid off her seat and lay curled on the floor of the cab. Her hands were tied, and she was covered with shards of glass. Petty’s heart started again when she looked up at him.

  “About fuckin’ time,” she said.

  The Mexican, still huddled behind his door, glanced their way. Rage twisted his mouth, and he pointed his gun at them, but Tinafey kicked his forearm as he pulled the trigger. The bullet punched a hole in the roof of the cab. The intruder fired again, and Petty dove on top of Tinafey as pellets buzzed around them like a swarm of angry insects, burrowing into vinyl and plastic. His left hand burned where one grazed him.

  The Mexican had been hit, too. One side of his face was dotted with bloody freckles. He turned his gun on the mystery man and popped off more rounds. Petty backed out of the cab, and Tinafey scrabbled after him. They crouched and ran to the rear of the truck, putting steel between them and the gunfight.

  The shotgun boomed again, like a giant stomping his foot. Petty heard the Mexican grunt. He lowered himself to the ground and peered under the truck, watched the dude drop to the pavement.

  “Show yourself, Rowan!” the intruder shouted, and Petty recognized the voice.

  “Hug!” he said. “What the fuck is this?”

  Hug McCarthy approached the pickup cautiously, shotgun first. “A robbery,” he said from behind his ski mask. “Come out with your hands up.”

  Petty helped Tinafey to her feet, and they side stepped slowly into the open.

  Hug went wide to come around the open driver’s-side door, kept the shotgun ready. The Mexican lay sprawled on his back on the damp pavement. His eyes were closed, and Petty couldn’t tell if he was breathing. One arm extended out from his side, the other was twisted behind his back. Hug moved in, lowering the sawed-off until it was pointing at the guy’s head.

  “Turn over,” Hug said to him.

  The Mexican didn’t respond, gave no evidence of having even heard the command.

  “Hey, shitheel, turn over,” Hug said again. By now he was standing above the dude. He prodded him with the toe of his boot. The Mexican rolled suddenly onto his side and brought the arm he’d been lying on straight up, the gun clutched in his fist. He fired twice before Hug could react. Both rounds slammed into Hug’s chin, tore through his brain, and rocketed out the top of his head, accompanied by geysers of black blood.

  Hug dropped the shotgun but stayed on his feet. He stumbled backwards into the intersection before crumpling. The Mexican jumped up, ran to where Hug was sitting like a man staring into a campfire, and pumped another bullet into him. He bent and pulled off the ski mask.

  “Who is this?” he yelled to Petty.

  “His name’s Hug McCarthy,” Petty said.

  “And you guys were gonna rip me off?”

  “Man, I have no idea what he was doing here.”

  The Mexican pondered this, then pointed his gun at Petty.

  “Get the rest of the money,” he said, jerking his head toward the last bag, the one Petty had dropped near the Mercedes.<
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  Petty considered making a run for it but couldn’t figure out how to communicate this to Tinafey, so instead he started for the car. He heard an engine rev and saw a pair of headlights zooming up Artemus. The Mexican faced the lights, too. A Range Rover popped out of the darkness and bore down on both of them. Petty ran back toward the pickup and Tinafey. The Mexican panicked and took off in the opposite direction, north on Mission. He fired wildly at the Range Rover as he fled. The Range Rover squealed around the corner and slammed into him before he’d gone fifty feet, mowed him down and rolled over him.

  Brake lights flared as the vehicle came to a stop. The Mexican was lying on his side, moaning and thrashing about. The driver of the Range Rover got out, walked back to stand over him, and pointed a gun. Two shots boomed, and the Mexican went limp. The shooter then hurried to Hug’s body. It was Carrie. She knelt, wrapped her arms around Hug, and cradled him against her.

  Petty walked over. Carrie’s eyes were closed, and she was humming a song into Hug’s ear. Petty took the gun from her. She didn’t resist.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  Carrie shook her head. She couldn’t or wouldn’t talk.

  Petty tapped the back of her head with the barrel of the pistol. “Carrie,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  She sniffed hard and cleared her throat but kept her eyes shut while she spoke.

  “We got a call from Avi a few days ago,” she said. “Hug did a job for him a while back. He wanted to know where you were and what you were doing. I said I hadn’t heard from you in years. ‘If you do, give me a shout,’ he said. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’ The very next day your mom called about Sam and about you being out here, and I let him know.”

  She glanced up at Petty. He saw tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we were in a deep, dark fucking hole, and this was our only way out. Avi told us about the money he was after and said we could keep a third of whatever we got. That sounded good to us. That sounded like a lifesaver.”

  She sat back and wiped her face with her palms.