Good To The Last Drop
Crime Fiction
A large figure leaned casually on the silver Mercedes, lit a cigarette, and motioned him to move forward. Only the car’s parking lights were on, giving off a soft orange glow.
Tuck didn’t move though, as he continued to scan the darkness. There didn’t seem to be anything up here but brush, rocks and a couple of small stands of scrub oaks. He didn’t see any other lights or vehicles around, but that didn’t mean a damn thing.
He’d never been to one of these deals yet where there wasn’t some sort of backup involved. Even with the Mendolina boys, who were generally well behaved, there was someone else around. The Mendos as they were called and Tuck’s boss, Ramon Villareal had been doing business a long time, but still. You had to watch your back in this business.
They were on top of a massive butte, in the middle of nowhere, maybe six miles west of town. Way off, the twinkling lights of El Paso could be seen splayed out behind the man. The coyotes started yipping it up again in the distance, then abruptly shut off.
“Senior Simms?” The man’s accent was thick. “Eh…Tucker Simms?”
“Sure, that’s me. Do you have it?”
The dark figure took a step toward Tuck, and with the help of a three-quarter moon, he saw that the guy was probably six-two or so. Put together well. The man held only a cigarette and Tuck saw no weapon.
“That’s probably good right about there amigo.” He held his palm up. In the other hand was his Beretta, which he held straight down along his leg and it was feeling real good right now. Again his eyes did a slow scan of the surroundings, searching for anything and everything.
The man stopped and grinned, perfect white teeth almost glowing in the darkness. “Huhhh? There is no need for the gun and such unease. I believe we both have something for the other. No?”
Tuck didn’t respond, he was staring at the dark shadow of a large boulder behind the man and to his right.
The Mexican took a pull on the cigarette and then dropped it, rubbing it out under his boot. “So.” He spread his large hands wide. “Without one prize, there is not the other. Let’s do business, eh?”
They exchanged a long look and then the Coyotes started up again, still close but a little farther off.
“Si?” asked the big man again and then shrugged.
“Sure, Si.” Tuck didn’t return the grin. He thumbed over his shoulder. “Mine is right behind me, a little ways down the trail. When I see yours, I’ll call him up here with it.”
Of course, there was no “him” down there. Miguel, his partner for the last two years on these deals, had been shot behind the ear and disposed of earlier. Miggy hadn’t been that bad a guy really, not bad at all. But it had been the only way to do this right. No loose ends. He was way the hell out there with those coyotes right now.
There actually was somebody down the trail though, his girlfriend, waiting for his signal. She hadn’t minded seeing him kill Miguel but had hated helping him to halfass bury the body in the desert. Typical, nobody ever wants to do the grunt work.
She had been anxious and excited for this part though. Ready to rock, when he left her at the car about ten minutes earlier to walk the rest of the way up the winding butte road. Her eyes were wide with anticipation as he started to trudge up the narrow rough road.
“Please let me come up there with you, Tuck.”
“Too dangerous darlin’. Stick with our plan now and don’t go doing anything else but what we talked about. Stay here and wait, ‘kay? It’ll be over before we know it.”
“Okay. Yeah, okay. Call me when it’s time, baby.”
Carly watched him go up the road and disappear into the black night just as he started around the bend. Sitting in the darkened car, her job was to wait for the call. Checking the time, she looked in the rear view mirror and wondered one last time if this would work.
As he went, he grinned to himself thinking about her. Carly Ann Walker was a gutsy, hard-edged little thing and just a downright mean bitch when pushed. She had the temperament of a copperhead but could also charm you into slapping your mother. At a mere twenty-five, she was hotter than hell’s kitchen in the sack and a decade younger than he. All in all, she was a dangerous little package.
Turning another bend of the steep road toward the top, he realized that it was too late to back out now and that there would be no room for mistakes from here on out. This deal tonight would be the last job for Tuck.
While Villareal had been good to him over the years, there wasn’t exactly a retirement plan with benefits waiting. You also didn’t just decide to up and leave this line of work with no strings.He and Carly were headed to Galveston right after this, and it would be a long-ass drive for sure, the rest of tonight and most of the day tomorrow. They would be driving her brother’s Challenger, though, a car that no one here knew and no one would know which direction they were headed.
Tuck and Carly had been planning this for a while, from right around the time when their relationship had gone from recreational sheet twisting to living together full-time. They were going somewhere where no one would find them. The ocean is a big, big place and that’s where they would be, at least for a year or two.
With money he had saved, skimmed, stolen and squirreled away from more than ten years in the drug trade, Tuck had bought a sailboat for a song. A bankrupt New Orleans real estate developer who had been devastated by Katrina had been desperate.
The fifty foot Beneteau was a sleek beauty, and Tuck had fittingly named it Carly Anne. It was docked in Galveston Bay. Stocked, ready and waiting. Even better, Carly was twice the sailor he was, she’d grown up as the daughter of a Corpus Christi fisherman. He was getting out tonight. This was it.
The man’s voice snapped him back to the here and now. “I am Ezequiel, but people call me E.Z., as in easy.” The Mexican raised his eyebrows at this and grinned even bigger. “Our two employers have been doing business for a long time, many years, no?” The big man just smiled and smiled.
“Why such hostility tonight, Mr. Simms?”
A soft warm breeze came in gently from the south.Tuck didn’t like all this talk. In the darkness and distraction, he had almost missed the top of another head rising slowly up and then back down in the backseat of the Mercedes.
“Show me what I’m buying now and let’s get this fucking deal done. Oh, and hey, tell your muchacho to come on out here, too. I want to meet him.” This time Simms did grin and walked forward.
“Of course. Your product is in the trunk,” E.Z. chuckled, “Pena! Pena, don’t be so bashful and rude, come out to meet Mr. Simms.” Still, the big Mexican smiled. When Tuck got within ten feet of the car, he stopped again. The backdoor of the car opened and the other man, bald and even bigger than E.Z. was climbing awkwardly out. Tuck shot him in the chest as he straightened up.
When Pena went down to his knees, Tuck fired again. The second shot hit the bald man in the forehead, taking off some skull and a flap from the top of his head. The body dropped face first into the dust.
He swung the gun almost casually over to E.Z., who stood at the rear bumper of the Mercedes, staring at him with big eyes. Tuck walked toward him slowly, freezing the man where he stood.
It was clear that E.Z. thought about bolting briefly, but he didn’t move. He licked his lips nervously but just couldn’t move his feet.
Without a word from either one of them, two more chest shots came in rapid succession. The second round sent E.Z. falling hard, like a heavy tall tree, flat on his back. Tuck walked over to him and looked down. The man’s eyes were open but already glazing over. He was dying quickly but Tuck put an insurance shot in his head.
He pulled out his cell phone and punched Carly on speed dial. They needed to really roll now, every minute counted. They had another buyer lined up tonight for the Mendo’s coke in the caddy trunk, and as the kicker, they would have Villareal’s money. By the time they were done, this would be a very profitable night. But this is where they had to really start hauling some ass. His drop off of the coke to Villareal was supposed to be at midnight and it was already ten-thirty.
All he got was Carly’s voicemail. He stared at the phone for a second, then called her number again. This was not the time for her to freeze up on him. A minute later, when she still hadn’t picked up and he couldn’t hear her car or see her lights approaching, the reality of what might be happening sank in.
He fought that thought of what might be going on but his thoughts were scrambled and a touch of real panic was creeping in. On his fourth call he knew she wasn’t going to answer, but he was going to leave a voicemail. This could still work. She surprised him for the second time tonight, though. She picked up.
“Hey, baby.” Her voice was way too sweet.
“Carly, where the hell are you? I need you.”
“Oh hon’, I been gone for twenty minutes. After you cleared the bend, I just put her in neutral and coasted back down the hill, real quiet like.”
He could picture her little smartass smile right now.
“You don’t understand. I been hit. Shot in my side I’m bleeding like a stuck hog. Please.”
“You’re shot? What about our Mexican friends? Dead?”
“Yeah, but I need help bad. I’m hurtin’. Please.”
There was a pause and he liked his chances.
“Well shit, this is working out even better than I expected, Tucky.”
“You can’t just leave me.”
“Look here, if you really thought that I was gonna be your first mate Gilligan and sail around the world, living out of some fucking boat, you’re an even bigger dumbass than I thought. I had enough of boats growing up—and enough of you after about two weeks.”
Another pause. He heard wind and traffic through her open window. Music was playing loud in her car. “Oh, and you can have that fuckin’ sailboat if you can get to Galveston before you bleed out. I ain’t greedy, this briefcase of Villareal’s money next to me has all I want and then some.”
He didn’t give up. “Please Carly, I don’t care about the money or the boat, just help me.”
“So there it is, Punkin’. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. Comprende’?”
“Carly…”
“’Sides, you got a shit ton of blow there if you can just get it to our buyers. Of course, ol’ Villareal and the Mendos are both gonna be a little pissed off though, huh? You need to think on that pretty hard and hurry your ass.”
“You just gotta help me, darlin’.”
“I ain’t gotta do nothin’. We’re all done, Tuck. Happy trails.” The line went dead and he tried calling back, but it went straight to voicemail.
“Shit.” he stared at the Mercedes, then at the two dead men. “Shit!”
After getting the keys out of E.Z.’s pocket, he checked the trunk quickly. It was there, thirty kilos in canvas tool bags with Craftsman stenciled on them.
He took the Mercedes and followed the planned route on I-10, heading east. Along the way he would stop and make the prearranged deal just outside of Esperanza with two brothers, Hal and Colt Bonner, whom he knew from past dealings.
Tuck had lined this all up about a week ago but he made a call on the way just to confirm. They said they would be waiting. They were spooky and paranoid as shit, but he trusted these guys about as much as you could trust anyone in this business.
As he neared Esperanza, he realized that while this was initially just going to be extra cash for when Tuck and Carly pulled their disappearing act, now it was going to be all he had.
“Damn Tuck, that’s some good stuff now.”
Hal always, always, did all the talking. Colt never said much at all but he was there, and he was always watching. They were both sturdy boys, but Colt was a Rottweiler of a man. He had a way of looking at you that definitely got your attention, with his head lowered a little and looking like he was deciding whether to only kill you, or to go ahead and eat you too.
Tuck and Hal were sitting in the dingy-ass, beat-to-shit kitchen of the old ranch house the two brothers shared. The light above them was covered with a dusty ceramic dome, half filled with dead moths. On the heavy oak table in the middle of the room, Hal held a small pocket knife and whistled at the slit-open kilo of coke. The tool bags were lined up on the floor.
“Fuck yeah. We got us a deal, Tuck. By the way, where the hell did this come from?”
“That’s part of the agreement, boys. You remember us talking about that, right? I don’t know and you don’t know. It’s better that way. Repackage it and ever’body walks away happy.” Tuck grinned at Hal and then looked across the kitchen at Colt who was leaning against the counter. The dead look he got made him keep talking so he looked back at Hal.
“This is a one-time special offer, Hal. This is just between us boys. I’m out of the game, headed to California after this. Never saw you tonight.”
“You still working for that motherfucker Villareal? I hope this is his.”
“Not after tonight. After tonight, I ain’t working for nobody.”
Colt walked to the shadowed doorway of the kitchen, reached around the door just as Tuck glanced at him again. The silent brother now held a pistol grip Remington that was pointed down at the floor, for the time being, at least.
It was silent in the room now, except for an old wall clock that was hanging crooked but still ticking away above the refrigerator.
“Alright, Tuck, like I said, we got us a deal. We’ve always been straight with each other and ain’t nobody gonna know about this. Colt, get the man his money.”
Colt backed into the darkness behind the door and walked down a hallway out of sight. Tuck knew that this was where the shit would blow up in his face if it was going to.
Hal had no weapon, except for the small knife, and Tuck had already looked around the room closely when he first walked in. Colt was the only wild card here, so Tuck watched the hallway. His gun, which he had openly shown them with raised hands when he first arrived, lay on the table in front of him.
“Tuck. You’re in trouble, man.” Hal leaned in confidentially, his voice was low but held no menace. “Seriously.”
“No, I’m good. I’m just wanting to get this done and start things fresh.”
“That wasn’t a question.” Hal was watching him intently and he shook his head sadly.
A door shut somewhere in another room and he heard Colt coming back towards the kitchen, down the dark hallway. It wasn’t Colt, though. She came around the corner with a smile, eyes sparkling and hands on her hips.
“Why hell, you ain’t shot at all. You lied to me, Tucker Simms. But I knew you’d make it here. Hell, you had to make it. The alternative wouldn’t have worked out too good, right?”
“You little bitch.” Tuck glared at her, trying to hide his surprise.
“Hold on there, stud, that really ain’t the way you need to be talking to me right now. That just ain’t right.” She crossed her arms and smiled even bigger. Colt now came into view, standing behind her in the doorway.
“Hal. Man…what the fuck?” Tuck looked over at him and slapped his hands on the table.
“Look man, it’s nothin’ personal here. She just, well, she just made us one helluva offer. Not an hour ago. Called us right out of the damn blue, she did.” Hal shrugged and shook his head.
“They get two of those tool bags for making you go away somewheres out there in big ol’ West Texas.” She twirled her finger around and made an exaggerated expression with her eyes. “Plus!…Plus I offered them a lower price than yours for the rest of the coke. “I got to thinkin’ that money of Villareal’s? Just wasn’t quite enough for me, after all.” She smiled and sighed.
Hal held a finger up. “But then,” Hal continued as if she hadn’t said a word, “Then, I got to thinkin’ just now about this whole thing. Yessir, I remember getting worked over bad by some bitch about ten years ago. She tried to shake me down, steal from me and almost got me killed to boot.”
He gazed over at Carly and he was the one smiling now.
She was still looking at Tuck for a moment until his words sunk in, then her eyes quickly darted over to Hal.
“You even resemble her…’cept she was way hotter than you, little sister. What really pissed me off about the whole thing was that I never caught her. Never got that satisfaction of a payback.” Hal’s face hardened.
“Now hold on, you wait just a fuc…” Her voice had a little tremor to it as it trailed off.
“Member that whole deal, Colt?”
“Boy howdy. Oh Yeah, I remember that. I sure do.”
“Been a shift in the weather it seems.” Colt’s voice from behind Carly was deep and gravely. He raised the Remington and touched her back with it. “Feel that cold?”
“Tell you what, Hal,” said Tuck. “Just let me take a little of Villareal’s money, whatever you think you can spare me. I’m gone forever man. We go back some, she don’t. You can have all the coke and do what you want with this little bitch.” Tuck was making the only play he had because he had no real leverage. They would both probably be dead in seconds anyway, so what the hell.
She glared at Tuck hard, gritted her teeth and then looked over to Hal. Once again, all that could be heard was the old wall clock ticking. Ticking away whatever time was left.
Hal cleared his throat and nodded.
The Carly Anne was docked in Veracruz, but not for long. A newly hired captain replacing the old one who had disappeared a few days ago, was putting the new provisions away. They would set off today or tomorrow morning. Destination unknown. It would not be shared with him until the boat got underway.
The owner had headed into town last night and still hadn’t returned. The new captain didn’t think much of it, though. It had been a gift. He had made his plans and was anxious to get underway too. This was a fine boat and Pico’s future looked bright.
“Hey, Pico.”
The owner of the Carly Anne had approached the boat quietly from the starboard side. He was tanned and seemingly rested. Dressed casually…but expensively at the same time. Something some people can carry off very well. He carried the attaché that never seemed to leave his side.
“Ah, you surprise me!”
“Gotta keep you on your toes.”
“Haha! Si, si.”
“So, we ready to vamoose?”
“Oh yes, yessir.”
“Any visitors while I was in town?”
“No one, not a soul, Mr. Tucker.”
“Excellent. Yeah, make ready, Pico, we’re moving on. We get out into open water, just head south toward Coatzacoalcos, huh?”
“Si. Como dices.”
“It’s early for a drink but I’m having one anyway.” Simon Tucker made his way down to the galley.
While pouring his bourbon, he wondered if he shouldn’t slow down on retiring captains. The poor bastards didn’t really deserve it, and his tracks were pretty well covered by now. Maybe ol’ Pico here, is where we start, he thought.
Up on deck Pico quickly texted the destination information to Cruz before they got too far out. He would stick close to the coast and await the boarding.
Boy, I feel giddy from all these twists! "looking like he was deciding whether to only kill you, or to go ahead and eat you too.": brilliant
Didn't see those twists coming! Crime fiction with a very classic feel.