Fortune's Fool : Chance McCabe Book One, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Barry K Gregory (writing as Greg Kithe). All rights reserved. Published by Pulptroplis Media.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Hatchootucknee County and Barksdale are fictitious places. Mississippi is not.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
To Jennifer
For always believing I could.
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
40. Chapter 40
41. Chapter 41
42. Chapter 42
43. Chapter 43
44. Chapter 44
45. Chapter 45
46. Chapter 46
47. Chapter 47
48. Chapter 48
49. Chapter 49
50. Chapter 50
51. Chapter 51
52. Chapter 52
53. Chapter 53
54. Chapter 54
55. Chapter 55
56. Chapter 56
57. Chapter 57
58. Chapter 58
59. Chapter 59
60. Chapter 60
61. Chapter 61
62. Chapter 62
63. Chapter 63
64. Chapter 64
65. Chapter 65
66. Chapter 66
67. Chapter 67
68. Chapter 68
69. Chapter 69
70. Chapter 70
71. Chapter 71
72. Chapter 72
73. Chapter 73
74. Chapter 74
75. Chapter 75
76. Chapter 76
77. Chapter 77
78. Chapter 78
79. Chapter 79
80. Chapter 80
81. Chapter 81
Afterword
About the Author
Why the Pen Name
Also By
one
He awoke in the back of a pickup truck as it bounced along in the dark. Face down, his cheek resting against the metal floor. He forced his eyes open. Puffy and swollen, dried blood cracking and flaking away. He couldn't see, wondered for a moment if he'd been blinded.
No, not blind. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The dim glow of a cloudy night sky, oppressive blackness all around him. The headlights of the truck were the only light.
Everything was hazy, blurred. He remembered being beaten. Had his retinas been detached?
Duct tape was wrapped around his head. His hands, too. Behind his back, so tightly wrapped he couldn't feel his fingers. He tried to move his feet and realized they, too, were duct-taped. He didn't remember how the tape got there.
He was disoriented. Confused.
Who had beaten him? Where was he? What was happening? Why?
Think this through. Analyze everything. Think! What do you know?
I'm in a pickup truck. I'm on a dark road at night. It's bumpy. Not paved? Doesn't feel like it's paved. Shadows are moving, passing over me. Something between me and the night sky. Buildings? Trees?
Think goddamn it. Analyze. Stay calm.
How thick are the shadows? How close together? One side of the road or both?
Both. And thick, but there are gaps in the shadows. So trees, not buildings. The road is bumpy because it's unpaved and there are trees on both sides of the road.
I'm in the woods.
I'm on a dirt road in the woods, in the back of a pickup truck. I've been beaten and my mouth, hands, and feet are taped.
This is bad. This is really fucking bad.
Stop. Think. How fast is the truck going?
Not fast. Kind of slow.
Jump out. Do it now.
I can't. My hands and feet are taped.
Jump. Get away.
My fucking hands are taped together! My feet are taped together! My feet are numb, for Christ's sake! I can't run. How can I get away?
Slow down. Breathe.
He took deep breaths through his nose. Tried, but couldn't focus. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. His heart raced. Fear gripped him in an icy clench, tighter than the duct tape around his wrists.
Why couldn't he remember anything?
The truck slowed.
Do it now. Jump out. Now! Do it now!
He rolled, tried to get his feet under him, get up off the floor of the truck bed. He didn't have the use of his hands, so he braced his feet against the bed wall, tried to push up, slide himself over the opposite wheel well. Use it for leverage, then roll out of the truck.
You can do this. You can do this!
He hit the ground with a thud, landing hard on his shoulder. A stinging pain raced down his arm. But he was out of the truck. He was out of the fucking truck!
Roll. Put some distance between you and the truck. Roll into the shadows. Try to hide.
He saw the red glow of brake lights, heard the truck backing up.
You're going to die if you don't get away. Roll!
He rolled, but couldn't tell how far he'd gotten from the truck. He could hear voices.
Two blurry forms stood over him. He could see jeans and mud-spattered boots. Nothing else. Too dark and his eyes were not working right.
Rough hands lifted him from the ground. He was tossed back into the truck bed as if he weighed nothing. He landed hard, banging his head against the wheel well.
Someone was on top of him, a knee on his chest, raining down heavy blows, pummeling his face and head. He lost consciousness.
When he woke again, he was being dragged by the arms, his bare feet scraping along a muddy dirt road. The pickup was behind them, its headlights reaching into the darkness ahead.
He could see structures of some sort ahead of him. Cages, he realized belatedly.
They are dragging me to a cage.
They dropped him by the thick wire mesh. Heavy gauge. Fifteen feet tall with razored concertina wire coiled atop it.
Something moved within the cage, rising from the ground and standing on all fours. Something huge. Shockingly huge. Pacing back and forth along the opposite fence wall, giant head swaying.
One man pulled a ring of keys from a pocket, walked around to a metal box mounted on an outer wall of the cage.
He heard the snap of a breaker flipped, the hum of electricity, and then glaring light from overhead. He clenched his eyes shut. He heard the click of a key in a lock, a gate swinging open.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, letting the light filter in.
This is bad. This is so fucking bad.
The giant thing in the cage stepped from the shadows. Its mouth opened and a low, growling rumble sent a wave of icy panic flooding over him.
Oh fuck.
two
Chance McCabe didn't recognize the number on his screen. He looked up from the phone, staring past his reflection in the giant plate-glass window separating the boarding gate from the tarmac. The sun hung low behind a scattering of gray clouds. The 737 he'd watched land a few moments earlier taxied toward its gate.
McCabe had bleached his hair, moved the part to the other side, and added a pair of fake glasses. It wasn't much of a disguise, but he hadn't had time to grow a beard and shaving his head, he thought, might make him stand out more.
He put the phone to his ear. "Yeah?" he said.
"It's me." Eddie Watts' voice came through the speaker. Watts had a new burner. McCabe had held onto his, expecting Watts to call sooner rather than later.
McCabe took a swig from a bottle of water he'd paid five bucks for in an airport gift shop. The one next to the painted mural of New Orleans music legends. Louis Armstrong, Allen Toussaint, Pete Fountain, Fats Domino, Dr. John, and a few others he recognized but couldn't name.
"You have anything to tell me?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe? What the fuck does that mean?"
"Watch the tone, asshole. I'm out on a limb for you here."
"So, do you have something for me or not?" asked McCabe.
"They want you to parlay. Come in and give them your side of the story."
"My side is different than yours?"
"Didn't say that. They want to hear it from your lips."
McCabe was silent for a
"Can they be moved?" he asked.
"How the fuck should I know? I'm just delivering the message."
"Tell me what you think."
"You want to know what I think?" said Watts. "I think you screwed the pooch with the organization's dick. That's what I think. You could have done your fucking job. You could have done what they hired you to do, but you let your fucking idiotic code get in the way."
"You think we could have pulled it off? Do you really? You think after all the shit that came down, anything could have worked? You think there's something we could have done to pull that one out? Tell me. You don't really think leaving a bunch of bodies on the ground was a better outcome? Do you?"
A few seconds lapsed in silence. "Look," said Watts, "I know it all went to shit at light speed. I wouldn't have done what you did, but yeah, there were no good options. I'm an empathic motherfucker, so I can sympathize with you. But that's me. We don't exactly work for the most understanding of people, you know what I mean?"
"So I come in, plead my case, then what?"
"How the fuck should I know? I don't know these new people. The old organization I had a bead on. You fuck up, you own it, make good and pay restitution, maybe take a bad beat, and you stay on the payroll. But that's the old bosses. These new people, I don't know, man. I really don't. They say they want to parlay, so I bring you the message."
"I'm fucked, no matter what I do."
"Coming in is your only play. I mean, look, there's no sugarcoating a fuckup. The whole op was fubar and you ran the show. You keep running and they're going to move on you. You gotta come in and talk."
McCabe stepped back as a chubby toddler with cheeto-stained fingers waddled between him and the window, followed by a young mother chasing after the kid and yelling his name. He hadn't noticed them approaching until it was too late. As the young mother squeezed past him, she saw McCabe was on the phone and flashed him a strained smile.
"I'm sorry," she mouthed, barely above a whisper.
McCabe smiled and nodded, waited until the young mother was out of earshot and then asked, "You think they'll move on me?"
"Honestly?"
"No, I want you to fucking lie to me."
"Yeah," said Watts. "You blow them off and they're coming after you."
"And if I come in to talk, somebody's gonna walk up behind me and wrap a piano wire around my throat."
"You don't have another play."
"Go fuck yourself."
"Fine. Be that way. Do me a favor and lose my fucking number."
"You called me, asshole." McCabe thumbed off his phone and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.
three
Eddie Watts stared at the phone's screen until it went dark.
"That sounded serious," said the girl in bed with him. "What was that all about?"
Watts looked down at her. The girl talked too damned much. She was also a little old for him. The agency had told him she was sixteen, and she looked it in the photo. But when she stood in the doorway of his hotel room, he knew it had been an old photo. Same girl, but there was no fucking way she was sixteen. Probably old enough to buy booze with her own ID. His first instinct was to send her back, call up the agency, rip them a new asshole and demand they send another girl. This time one like he'd asked for. But he hadn't done that. He'd stepped aside and let her in. She was pretty enough — dark hair, dark eyes, nice perky tits — and he just needed to get his rocks off. She'd do. Even if she was too old.
"Am I paying you to ask questions or to suck dick?" Watts said.
The girl returned to her task. Watts watched her work for a few moments, then brought the phone back up and tapped the screen. He hesitated for a second and then keyed in the number he'd memorized a week ago.
The cold, familiar voice answered after the second ring. "You called him?"
"I did," said Watts.
"Where is he?"
"Didn't say."
"Didn't say, or you didn't ask?"
"He's not stupid. If I'd asked, he'd have known something was up and you could forget about ever seeing him again."
"Where do you think he is?"
"He's in an airport. I could tell that much. Best guess, he's bouncing from city to city. Constantly moving. He won't be easy to find."
"I don't want your fucking guesses. I want you to find him."
"I'm working on it."
"You recorded your conversation?"
"Of course."
"Bring me the phone."
"I can play it for you now."
"I don't want you to play it for me now. I want you to bring me the goddamn phone."
"He's on a burner. By the time you track it, it'll be in a landfill, and he'll be in another city."
"Then we'll know where he was when he spoke to you. That's more than we know now. Bring me your fucking phone and don't make me ask again."
The line went dead.
Watts put the phone on the nightstand. He picked up his pack of cigarettes, shook another out, and put it between his lips before realizing the last one was in the ashtray, only half-smoked. He snubbed out the old one and lit the new. His hand shook as he returned the lighter to the nightstand.
Jesus, these new people scared him.
"You okay?" the girl asked.
Watts gave her a look that said, Don't talk to me. Despite her best efforts, he could feel his hard-on slipping away.
Should have sent her back and waited for another girl, he thought. But he knew the girl wasn't the reason he couldn't keep it up. He smoked the cigarette down to the filter while the girl tried valiantly to pump him back up. It didn't work.
Watts pushed the girl off of him and rolled out of bed.
"Get out," he said.
"I'll do better," said the girl, a hint of fear in her voice.
Watts slapped her hard on the side of the head. "I said get the fuck out."
While the girl pulled her clothes on, he went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He stood staring in the mirror. The girl was probably going through his wallet, but he didn't care. He never kept more than pocket change on him when he called for a girl, in case he fell asleep afterward. He waited until he heard the girl step into the hallway and close the door.
Fuck. I shouldn't have hit her.
He left the bathroom and got dressed. He considered leaving the goddamn phone right there on the nightstand and doing exactly as McCabe had done. Bug the fuck out.
But he knew it wouldn't work. They'd find him, just as they were going to find McCabe.
He pulled on his shoes, took his coat from the closet, and put his cigarettes and the phone in his pocket. He picked up his wallet and peeked inside. Two twenties and a few ones.
The girl had taken nothing from him.
four
McCabe went to the handicapped stall in a men’s room across from his terminal gate. He turned the latch, hung his carry-on from the hook behind the door, and took his phone from his pocket. He pried off the back panel, pinched the SIM card between his thumb and forefinger, pulled it free of the phone, dropped it into the bowl, flushed, and watched it disappear in the vortex of swirling water. He broke the phone in half and tossed it in the wastebasket.
As far as he knew, Watts was the only one in the organization who knew his real name. They were in a business that prized plausible deniability. Everyone had an alias. Nobody was supposed to know anybody’s name and that was the way they liked it. But the reality was somebody always knew. And for McCabe, it was Eddie Watts.
He and Watts had done time together up in Shawangunk. Shared a cell for a while. But even then, McCabe had been careful about what he said to anyone he didn’t know. Watts had his name, but nothing else. Nothing personal. They weren’t friends. Never had been. They were cellmates then, associates later. Watts didn’t know where McCabe came from, didn’t know where he lived. Watts knew his name, knew his sentence, and knew he was good in a scrap. That was it.
When word got around that Watts might’ve had a thing for young pussy, McCabe stood down some Aryans who came to drag Watts out of the cell. But he didn’t do it to protect Watts. He did it to uphold a principle. Nobody comes into your house without permission.
Still, Watts had felt indebted. He told McCabe he knew some people on the outside, people who could use a guy like him. And the money was good. McCabe looked him up when he got out and Watts was true to his word. Of course, it rubbed McCabe the wrong way that Watts still expected him to kick up for the first couple of years. “That’s the way the organization works,” Watts said. “You bring a guy in, you get a cut of his earnings.” Normally, McCabe wouldn’t have had a problem with that. But considering the circumstances, he thought Watts should’ve waived it. It irked him he didn’t. But McCabe never let it rise above the level of irksome. Watts had been right. The money was good. Real good sometimes, so why pick at a scab?
