The Repairman- The Complete Box Set Page 20

  Of course, a variety of weapons are well hidden inside wall panels and in a hollow floor compartment.

  And she's not only four-wheel drive, lifted for extra clearance in tough country, but Hemi-powered and can dust most pursuit vehicles.

  The Marine Corps taught me that having the right equipment was the difference between winning and losing, living and dying.

  Speaking of equipment, I have to unbolt my new armor from my arm, pack it in a small bag that I'll check, as it would be frowned upon by the boys and girls at the airport should I try to board with it in place. That’s fine, as I doubt if I'll be in any jousts on my trip down.

  I call Pax from the Denver airport, e-mail him the picture I took of the guys at the bar who tried to line me up with a fifteen-year-old, beg a ride from McCarran and ask him to get us a date for dinner, hopefully with a young lady who had to fall by the wayside while I was involved in my last confrontation with bad guys. She was my one regret from a week's endeavors. Jennifer DiMarco is her name; Keno running is her game. I doubt seriously if Pax has any luck. She thinks I'm a major schmuck. There may be a song in there somewhere.

  But it's worth a try as it's been a little over two months since I stood her up twice and hated doing so; but duty calls. It's twice as bad when you stand up a beautiful woman after enjoying a highly satisfying roll in the hay with her and are looking forward to a rematch.

  My buddy Paxton Weatherwax was a fellow Desert Storm Marine who saved my bacon more than once. The last time he did so, he lost an inch and a half out of his left thigh thanks to an AK47. Still, even with a platform shoe, I'd take him as a back-up before ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the supposedly tough guys I've come across. And Pax is not only double tough, but triple smart. He's turned his disability pay into a business as an Internet service provider with offices in four cities. He's kept me out of the all-seeing eye of the fed for several years, routed my dough and messages through a half-dozen cities in as many countries, and dug up information needed in my dubious endeavors and on the subjects of my attentions to rival the NSA.

  And he's more than just a buddy. I'd get between him and a cruise missile, should it come to that.

  7

  The newspaper clippings I've printed are very enlightening. For one thing, I gain new respect for Detective Antonio DiAngelo who, it turns out, has had two major shootouts with drug runners and who single-handedly chased a van full of human traffickers over the border into Canada where they were promptly apprehended by the Mounties, with him still hot on their tails.

  So, he's not just a pretty face under a fancy hairdo. I'll have to pay him a little more respect.

  The flight to Vegas is uneventful, except for a very rough landing in Denver and a two-hour layover.

  Pax, like the good buddy he is, waits at the curb in his second car, a CJ7, for me to recover my bag and load up.

  He sees me exit the building and his expression changes from smile to grimace as I near the vehicle, then he calls out, "What the fuck, over?" When I merely give him a grimace in return, he adds, "You look like one of those Bakken field oil rigs fell on you."

  "Five or six assholes with bats and pipes fell on me, after they shot a little wasp spray in my puss."

  He shakes his head and mumbles, "Just can't let the boy go out into the world without his buddy Pax."

  "Trust me," I manage, as I fling a duffle in the back, "I wish you'd have been there. I busted three of them up pretty good a couple of nights before they nailed me. I should have seen it coming, but I'd just walked out of the john in a bar when they hit me with the spray—and that crap makes you lose it fast."

  "Guess what?" he asks, as I pile in the Jeep.

  "I'm guessed out," I say and yawn.

  "Babs has convinced Miss Jennifer to join us, which I imagine is just so she can chastise your ugly butt for standing her up so many times."

  "Hell, I'll take an ass chewing from her anytime, so long as we end the night bosom buddies. And it's great bosoms she has."

  "She'll take one look at your beat and bruised butt and run for the hills. What's with the cast on the wrist?"

  "Broken, but not bad. Just a crack."

  "Too bad they didn't hit you just on your granite-hard head, which I see they did plenty of. But on to more important things than you getting your butt whipped. So, guess what else?"

  "Amaze me even more."

  He talks as he works the Jeep out into traffic and guns it. "I got a file full of stuff on Travis Richter Speck, the guy whose pic you emailed me, and on a bunch of his cohorts. He's a bad apple, but he won't spoil the barrel, as all his buddies are as bad or worse. You got yourself into a den of snakes this time."

  I nod knowingly, but actually don't know ka ka yet. "I'm not 'in' yet, but I plan to get in. You got pics on these guys?"

  "Two of them are right off the Rez. Big Indian boys."

  "Yeah, I met them, I'm sure."

  "Mandan or Arikara tribe. One of them is Big John Broken Toes and the other is Albert Many Horses. Both did a nickel in the state pen for assault, and each of them has been busted for possession, but not enough to put them away for the duration. There's a half-dozen more scumbags in the mix including some just-as-soon-kill-you-as-look-at-you Russians who've been running girls down from Canada."

  "Yeah, I got a lot of it from the local library. It's been bad all over the Bakken, and is getting nothing but worse."

  "You're going to need an army up there."

  I laugh. "I don't plan to solve the problem in Montana, North Dakota, and Canada. I'm being paid to solve the problem at Owens-McKittrick Oil Well Service."

  "Good luck," he says. In minutes we're pulling up at the rear of his two-story office building.

  I walk to the front of the office before going upstairs so I can give Pax's rotund little receptionist a hug.

  "Rosie," I call out, and she jumps up and flings her arms around me. "Hey, you'll never guess what my favorite new hangout in North Dakota is named," I semi-whisper in her ear.

  She plants a slobbery kiss on my cheek then holds me at arm’s length and asks, "The Pussy Galore lounge?"

  "Very funny. Nope, it's Big Rosie's."

  "I could understand Sweet Little Rosie's," she says.

  "Close as I could get to something that reminds me of my favorite girl."

  "A classy place, I'm sure," she says with a typical Rosie giggle.

  "I cannot tell a lie. It's a dump, but that's not the part that reminds me of you," I say with a laugh.

  "Better not be."

  I wave over my shoulder as I head up the stairs to Pax's office.

  When I walk in, he's smiling. "What's with the Cheshire-cat grin?" I ask.

  "I found a couple of warrants out on your boy, Speck. He skipped bail from some bondsman…." He glances back at the file. "Bail Bond Bender, down in Galveston."

  "Never heard of them, but I'll call…."

  "I already e-mailed them your name and success record, said you had a lead and asked for a contract. It's only fifty grand bail. But what the hell. Twenty percent is ten grand, and ten grand is ten grand, if this guy Bender goes for it."

  "I can't imagine he wouldn't, and it'll be a nice lever to have should I need to put a little pressure on Speck."

  I carry a bail enforcement officer's badge. That's not really my vocation, but it comes in handy. On rare occasion, it results in a few bucks. A bounty hunter needs a contract from a bondsman in order to do his thing.

  "We'll see if a contract comes back." Pax is still grinning. "Now to more important biz. The gorgeous blonde, Jennifer, has agreed to give you a chance to redeem yourself."

  Now it's my turn to grin. "So, we got a dinner date?"

  "Late dinner, she's working until ten."

  "Cool. I've got to go pick up the van and reload it from the mini-storage. I can keep busy. Can I meet you at your place about eight, so I can shower and change."

  "See you there. I've got some work, so I'll have Sol drive you over
." He digs in a desk drawer, fishes out a key and throws it to me. "I had to buy a new lock for the unit the van's in, number two sixty-four."

  "I can cab it."

  "Fuck you, Farley." He reaches for his desk phone. It's an intercom. In seconds, his pudgy little office computer guru is at the door, smiling and jumping up and down like he'd just won the lottery. His sweatshirt says, Internet Experts Delve Deeper, which makes me smile.

  "Hi, big Mike," he says. "Let's go."

  As I'm heading for the door, Pax calls after me, "By the way, I tracked down an e-mail account for Speck and found his computer. Looks like he's out to the west of Williston a few miles. He's got a typical lousy firewall and we'll have a Trojan Horse in it soon. Won't we, Sol?" he yells.

  "Yes, sir," Sol yells back as we descend the stairs.

  Sol drives a Prius, bright red with every gadget known to man, and he’s a real groupie when it comes to the rougher side of my biz. He's always picking my brain about what happened and where. Generally, all I'll talk about is my time in the Corps, but he knows a lot of what I've done as he's done much of the background work digging info out of the Internet. In fact, he placed a Trojan Horse in the computer of some cartel guys on my last case, a dozen of whom took a painful trip to Hades. Pax himself does the real critical stuff, but Sol can't help but be curious when he's done research on some criminal cat who turns up, toes up, or at least in the headlines for being busted, as he knows it's too much of a coincidence. It's always a righteous act—at least, most often—on my part, but Sol has no way of knowing that, except for the fact that I'm not doing twenty-five-to-life in some gray stone mansion.

  I no more than get my seatbelt hooked up in the little electric monster when he starts with the inquisition.

  "So, that big shootout down in California was you and Pax…and that other guy…Skip was his name?"

  I laugh. "What shootout?"

  "You know what shootout. Why won't you guys ever level with me?"

  "You don't want to know. If we tell you we'd have to bury you in the desert." I'm kidding, but he blanches, and his lips go tight as a lizard.

  "Sorry…" he mumbles and keeps his eyes on the road.

  I laugh. "Sol, you're Pax's most valuable employee, and you know it. Sometimes it's better not to know stuff. You're the number one guy around Weatherwax Internet Services, and Pax can't do without you." I pause for effect. "I sure as hell can't."

  This brings the grin back to his face.

  I'm glad to reach the mini-storage, as he's started back on Iraq, which he knows I'm somewhat willing to talk about. But to be truthful, there are lots of memories I'd rather leave buried. I jump out of the Prius in mid-sentence, give him a wave and head through the walk-in gate, having to poke in the code first.

  Pax has rented a van-size unit for the vehicle and has been lucky enough to rent one next to the one where my prize possession is garaged. My classic Vette, the 1957 Corvette I keep stored there is, of course, a rarity. Red with white inserts, it's absolutely original—except for the blown, tricked-out engine requiring a scoop breather in the hood; the racing transmission and rear end; and a roll bar I added, knowing my propensity to overdo thing. I've flipped more than one vehicle. It's good for a hundred forty or more in the quarter mile, if I put slicks on the back. Her top end is beyond my reckoning. There's not much room in the trunk of a Vette, so I've left the chrome luggage rack in place over the trunk lid.

  I seldom take her into harm’s way, as I value her way too much. She's my pride and joy.

  The van is primo again. I'd folded in the front of it—a pursuit gone bad—and the body shop has done a great job with repair and paint. It starts, I'm happy to learn. I idle it out, close the unit, and move a couple of rows over to my primary unit. It contains my life history and several items so I'll continue to have a history.

  I maintain mini-storage spaces in three cities: Las Vegas, Nevada; Ventura, California; and Sheridan, Wyoming. They are not just for storing my old high school pictures and the antique clock grandma left me. In addition to the bug-out bag I keep in the van, which can now go back in, there's enough weaponry to start a revolution in most third world countries.

  With any of the major bug-out bags I have in each mini-storage unit, and a mini-version I keep in the bags on the back of my Harley Sportster, I could live in the Rockies, the Sierras, or the deserts for a long, long time, if not forever, without the benefit of cities. If you can call cities a benefit.

  I've accumulated a nice collection of weapons that will again be widely distributed among secret side panels in the van and in hideouts in the three storage rooms. On casual observation, you see no weapons. In each storage room, I have an upright armoire-size cabinet with hidden weapon storage. Both ends swing open with hidden push latches to reveal four long arms in each, and drawers inside what appear to be three-inch-thick shelving that hold ammunition, side arms, and other accouterments. The shelves are covered with clothes and other mundane items to make the armoire look as if that's its purpose.

  My Vegas unit is on a major thoroughfare, Tropicana, right on the edge of the action. These days most modern mini-storage facilities have sophisticated computer entrance monitors that record your entrance and exit. Consequently, they’re not a place to hide out or even spend the night, unless you're adept at scaling the eight-foot fences and dodging cameras, and even then, some are monitored with motion alarms. The Tropicana is such a facility, so I never bunk there. Besides, the van has a fold-down cot, a tiny sink, and port-a-potty—all the conveniences of home. Almost every truck stop or highway rest stop will do for a free overnight—not that I'm too cheap to pay, but paying means registering, and registering means leaving tracks, even if with phony personal identification and a plethora of plates.

  You can't stay under the radar if you leave tracks.

  I do plan to leave tracks—across the backs of some North Dakota Bakken oil field dope dealers, but not until I heal up a little and have the chance to be, hopefully, pampered by a beautiful blonde.

  That's on top my list, after I restock the van.

  8

  Most of my bag of tricks are already in Williston in the Wells Cargo trailer I towed up. But there are a few more weapons I might as well haul. The van has hideout panels in the walls and floor that will accommodate same. As they could have been traced, if not through ownership then through ballistics, to a few I owned during our last major shoot out where Pax, Skip—another Marine Corps buddy—and I engaged in a major battle with some cartel misfits, many of my firearms were deep-sixed into the Hoover Dam end of Lake Mead.

  One of those weapons, now over four hundred feet deep in Mead, was a XM110 SASR, a .308 caliber semiauto sniper rifle. It was my baby. Thank God, Pax was able to pick up another one on the black market. I plan to find a lonely spot on the way back to Williston to make sure it's dead-on. It has a removable scope and a night vision scope as part of the package, but it should have for the six and a half grand he laid out. That will require my reimbursement as soon as I dig the cash out of the hideout safe in my mini-storage.

  I spend a couple of hours leisurely rooting around in my stuff and reloading the van, before I find some decent threads to wear to dinner tonight, then lock things up.

  In khaki slacks, a light blue dress shirt that I could barely get over my cast, a dark blue blazer, brown leather belt and loafers—the only pair of dress shoes I own—I wander down Pax's stairway from the guest room in his condo to find his current live-in lady, Babs. I say ‘current’ as I claim he's had more than a dozen, though he claims only a couple.

  She's mixing some concoction at his bar.

  She glances up and gives me a questioning smile. "Hey, big boy, you clean up pretty good if it weren't for the bruises and bumps." She laughs out loud then adds, "The shaved patch on your head and stitches don't add much. You're not shaving your ugly mug?"

  "Nope, going all out with the beard and stache…. The rest is the best I could do."

  "I'll re
serve my opinion. You want a Manhattan?"

  "No, thanks. I'd go for a beer."

  She reaches under the bar to its built-in fridge and comes up with a bottle of some microbrew, pops the cap with a church-key and hands it over as I reach the bar and mount a stool.

  "You're a gentlelady," I say and toast her before taking a drink.

  She smiles again and shakes her head. "And you're six kinds of a jerk. You know Jennifer really likes you, even though you did stand her up a half dozen…."

  "Twice," I correct, "and it was life or death or it wouldn't have happened."

  She shakes her head again then adds with a serious gaze, "Try and treat my best friend a little better; she deserves it."

  "I'm glad she's giving me the chance to treat her better."

  "We'll see," she says then glances over to where Pax, in his stocking feet, is limping down the stairs.

  I'm used to seeing my buddy in shoes or boots that have an elevated sole on his short-leg side so he walks normally, and it kind of surprises me.

  He notices me watching him, looks up and says very graciously, "Fuck you, Reardon."

  I laugh and offer, "Had you not given up a chunk of that leg we'd both be looking up at the sod."

  He laughs in return, finally hits the floor and growls at me, "I often wonder if you were worth the effort."

  "No more than I do, old buddy. Want a beer?"

  "My darling is making me a Manhattan. Thanks anyway."

  He joins us at the bar just as the doorbell rings. I take a quick look at my phone, checking the time and see it's only ten fifteen. She didn't waste any time. I hope that's good news. "I'll get it," I say and jump up a little too eagerly.

  I open the door and we stand looking at each other for a moment, then she brushes by without a peep and heads for the bar.

  "Hi," I call after her.

  She turns, walks back, doubles up a fist and busts me in the shoulder; a pretty good shot for a small woman, and as sore as I am, I wince.