Ocean Drive, page 15
There wouldn’t be a chance. No phone call, no due process, no presumption of innocence. They’d want him to beg, and use his begging as proof of guilt.
And Tequila would be standing there gloating the entire time.
That enraged him, pushing the fear out. That he’d been manipulated by the three of them, and that he’d end up taking the fall that was rightfully theirs. Who knew how many others had done this before him, taken the same ride, spent their last moments trying to work out a way to save themselves.
Fuck you, he thought, staring at the back of Tequila’s head. Hip hop blared from the stereo. Pusha T. In the passenger’s seat, Harv was lit by the glow from his cell.
I’m going to kill both of you.
If my hands weren’t tied—
They drove east out of White Rock, Cam noticing signs for the border crossing. At Zero Avenue they left the road, bumping down a hill, and he recognized the farm they were taking him to. In the daytime the farmhouse looked even more ruinous, a corner of the roof caved in as if by cannon fire. The barn loomed, its grey doors flung open, swallowing up the Nav in blackness as Tequila drove inside.
Court.
Ivan and Brad and Tito and six others he didn’t recognize stood around the horse stalls, smoking pot and vaping and scowling at him. Cam saw the aluminum and wood bats at their sides.
He was shoved out of the back seat, onto the hard-packed dirt floor. Harv stood him up. Someone laughed, and he heard the chuff-chuff-chuff of the bats striking the ground, the sound meant to frighten him.
Seated on the broken staircase leading up to the hayloft was Cody Hayes, holding a pink-handled machete. He was older than he’d seemed the first time Cam saw him. Maybe late thirties. Steroid-swole, face flushed pink from the cold. Simian features curled in a smile.
“Shouldn’t take fuckin’ long,” Cody said. “There’s a way my brother likes shit done, so let’s get through it. Anything to say?” He was looking at Cam with the same contempt he’d held for the couple that night.
“Yeah,” Cam said. “The person you want is over there.” He nodded in Tequila’s direction.
Tequila laughed, and a few of the others joined in. More striking of the bats. Cody shut them up.
“You’re gonna accuse someone else to save yourself?” Cody said. “That what kind of man you are?” He pointed the machete, sabre-like at Cam’s temple. “You tell the truth and we’re done quickly. Maybe even let you go.”
“He’s playing you,” Cam said to Cody.
“Fuck you. Fucking traitor.”
“Shut up,” said Cody. He looked at Tequila with the same dull hatred. “What do you got to say?”
“Me?” Tequila’s head spun between Cody and Harv. “I’ve been making money for you. That’s what I do, isn’t it? Since day one. Who earns better than me?”
Cody looked to Cam as if it was a salient point.
“He was selling you out,” Cam said. “Making a deal with the Vipers. Then he shot them when he thought it’d get back to you.”
“And you know this how?”
“Check his gun,” Cam said. “It’s the same one he used on them. Idiot doesn’t know enough to toss his shit after a job.”
Cody stood and walked forward and held the machete against Cam’s throat, so that drawing breath hurt. “And. You. Know. This. How.”
“I saw him,” said Cam.
“Bullshit.” Tequila spat on him, Cam feeling flecks land on his cheek, eye. “Pieceashit’ll say anything.”
“I was following him,” Cam said, not caring if Cody believed his innocence or not. If this was it, he’d have company. “Wanted to talk business. Then I saw he was meeting with the Vipes.”
“Prove it, lying asshole.”
“The gun’s the same. He was gonna burn them, too, but he didn’t bring any gas.” Cam smiled. “That’s his thing, isn’t it? How’d I know ’less I heard?”
Tequila struck him, a weak punch that Cam backpedaled from. His next one made up for it, knocking Cam into a support post. He slumped to the floor, felt Tequila’s boot impact his ribs.
“Off him,” Cody said, pointing the machete at Tequila, who stopped everything and retreated, still staring at Cam.
“I should say something,” Harv said. “Cam was following Tequila.”
“Yeah?” Cody said.
“I asked him to.”
Tequila’s response was a wordless, open-mouthed stare at his friend.
Cam wanted to crane his head around at Harv, gauge his expression. Instead he nodded, looking at Cody.
Harv said, “Sukhi told me her brother was acting weird. I was worried he might try to make a deal for himself with the Vipes. I asked Cam to follow him.”
“Lying pieceashit,” Tequila said. “You know—”
“Shut up.” Cody turned to Cam. “And you saw him shoot them?”
“They chased after me,” Cam said. “Shot me in the arm. When they thought they’d lost me, Tequila finished off the others.”
“It’s a fucking lie,” Tequila whined. “They’re lying, Cody.”
“You had your say,” Cody told him.
“But I’m serious—”
Cody stuck him with the machete, a short jab to the stomach that caused Tequila to scream.
“I fucking told you, shut up,” Cody said. “I can’t fucking think.”
He drove the blade into the ground and pulled out his phone. Tequila sank down to the dirt next to Cam, clutching his chest with both hands, sobbing.
Harv quietly picked up Tequila’s gun.
“Bro,” Cody said into the phone. “Nah, it’s a whole fucking—I can’t tell… Harv said he asked him to, yeah… That right?… Cool… See you soon.”
Hanging up, he turned back to the two men on the barn floor. “Dalton’s on his way.”
* * *
Before Dalton Hayes arrived, his brother told the others to wait outside. Except for Harv, Cam and Tequila.
Twenty minutes passed before Cam heard the snarl of an engine. Doors slammed. Two men walked in, almost the size of Cody, one white and one South Asian. They looked at Cam and Tequila with blank expressions. Despite their hoodies and black jeans, they looked like Secret Service.
The third man who entered was slim, narrow-shouldered and dressed in a white long-sleeved T-shirt with a League of Nations vest over it. His hair was the same light brown as Cody’s, though his features were smaller, less ape-like. Definitely the same genes—Cody was the outsized funhouse-mirror version. Dalton was the original.
Dalton Hayes looked at Cam, then at Tequila. Then sighed. His face showed compassion for them, but also aggravation. Like an employer asked to fill in last minute for a sick subordinate.
He sat on the barn’s staircase and asked Harv what was going on.
“That situation with the Vipes, he kind of caused it.” Cam couldn’t tell if Harv was indicating Tequila or himself. “Shit got out of hand. My fault for not thinking he might try something.”
“Mmm-kay. You can’t use Mountain Grove anymore. The cops’re looking at their electrical bills. Shady Acres or Greene & Son.”
“Got it,” Harv said. “How d’you want it handled?”
“You decide. Wait till I’m gone.”
Dalton bumped fists with Harv and Cody, and motioned for his bodyguards to lead the way. Passing next to Cam, he leaned down.
“That thing at the port,” he said. “Nice piece of business. Inspired, brother.”
“Thank you,” Cam said.
Tequila began to cry.
* * *
Cam was helped to his feet, his hands cut free. Harv asked him how he wanted to handle things.
“Think you can do it yourself?” He held out a bat in his left hand, Tequila’s gun still in his right.
A thrill went through Cam, a stray impulse—grab for the gun, take it and shoot them all. Shoot and run far away from all of this.
He took the bat.
Cody Hayes smiled. “Get at ‘er,” he said, stalking out. Harv put a cigarette in his mouth and followed, sliding the barn door closed behind them.
Tequila looked up from the dirt floor, strands of ancient grass stuck to his face, saliva and snot leaving a trail down his neck.
“Not fair,” he blubbered.
Cam placed the bat on the ground between them. He took one, two steps back. “How’s that?”
Tequila feinted and scrambled for the bat—was the first to wrap his fingers around the taped handle.
Cam kicked him in the face.
Tequila screamed and reached up to cover his broken nose. Cam fell onto him, knees striking the killer’s ribs, beating his head into the dirt. Tequila crawled across the ground, seizing the bat and swinging it wildly to ward Cam off.
Like timing a windmill shot in mini-golf. When the bat hit the ground, Cam stomped down on Tequila’s hand. Heard the bone break. Booted him again.
“Please,” Tequila said.
“You’d’ve killed me and not thought fuckin’ twice.” Cam strolled around the prone killer, tapping the bat like the others had done, enjoying the reverberations that sped through his arms. Building himself up to what he had to do.
“Nuh-uh,” Tequila said. “I’d’ve—I’d’ve—I’d—”
He rolled and tried to reach the barn door, and Cam struck him with the bat. Tequila flopped onto his back, arms up defensively.
The door opened a sliver.
Harv stepped in, looked at Cam and made a hold-off gesture.
Tequila started laughing maniacally, relieved. “Gonna get it now,” he said. “Had me going for a second, bro.”
Harv pointed Tequila’s gun at him and shot him in the head.
Tequila stared up at them, gawped, then stared at nothing. The dirt beneath him grew slick with blood. Smoke curled out of his forehead, mouth.
“Not a fucking word to Sukhi,” Harv said to Cam. “Far as she knows we got him out of town.”
He handed the gun to Cam and nodded toward the corpse.
“Now on, we’re in this together.”
* * *
The use of the bats became obvious. Brad carried in two blue body bags, and he and Cam slipped Tequila into one. After it was zipped, Harv opened the barn doors, and Ivan, Tito and a few of the others entered and went to work.
“Bones got to be crushed,” Harv said, handing Cam a bat. “’Specially the skull. They can reconstruct that shit. Can’t be anything left.”
Soon the canvas bag was soaked and its contents pulverized. The bats made a snapping sound against the fabric, sloshing the contents around. Harv called them off. He unzipped the bag and took a photo, the flash blinding in the dim light.
Cam and Brad placed the bag inside the second one, noticing the black trails of blood on the earth.
Harv and Cam drove to Shady Acres Funeral Home, backing the Navigator up to the rear entrance. They carried the bag inside and placed it in a long rectangular card-board box.
The room was high-ceilinged, concrete walled and cold. A tall blonde woman in a black polo shirt and grey slacks shook Harv’s hand.
“It’s always sad to see a pet go,” she said. “Of course you can use the machine. Is this a pet with a lot of bones or metal?”
“No.”
“No pacemaker? I ask because they tend to explode.“
“No pacemaker,” Harv said.
“Good. No need for the cremulator, then. Come back in about six hours.”
They drove Tequila’s SUV to a chop shop in North Surrey. Harv handed the keys to the head mechanic, who nodded and drove the Navigator around the back.
Ivan was waiting in a blue Dodge Charger. He handed the keys to Harv wordlessly, ignoring Cam, taking the fifty dollars Harv offered.
On the ride back to White Rock, Harv drove recklessly, pushing the Dodge’s engine up to a hundred, one fifty. The highway flew by.
“Why you and not him?” he said to Cam, as if anticipating Cam’s question to himself. They hadn’t spoken since leaving Zero Avenue.
“I’ve been wondering.”
“’Side from the fact that Tequila wasn’t reliable, if he was meeting the Vipes, someone on their end will know. They’ll want him taken out, if things are gonna stay cool between them and us.”
“Is that what you want?” Cam asked.
Harv looked over at him. His face showed mild annoyance. “I’m not afraid of the Vipers,” he said.
“All right.”
“They think it’s a competition, Coke and Pepsi, but really it’s Coke and Coke Zero. So why not recognize that? What we’re doing in White Rock is the future. A casino goes in, we’re all rich. Generational wealth with no risk, brother.”
“How’s that work?” Cam asked.
“You control the casino, you control the money that goes through there. No better way to wash cash. We’d be in business with the right people—and every dollar that goes through there, we get a taste.”
“So why deal in the Vipers?”
Harv slowed and took the off-ramp, down the industrial road leading to the crematorium. “Blood always costs more than you think,” he said at last. “If we have to take them out, so be it, but there’s enough for everyone.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yeah, I do. I’ve been in this since I was a kid, Cam. Since a buddy at elementary school told me to keep something in my locker for him. That was Tequila Narwal. He thought to make money you got to take it from others. He never saw that the really rich people, the ones with fuck-you money, sit back and get it given to them. Just takes owning something everybody needs. Setting terms so they got to deal with you.”
“Like PayPal,” Cam said.
Harv smiled. “Knew you’d get it. That’s why I cut you in.”
* * *
The white-grey ashes of Tequila were handed over to them in a plastic sack. Harv drove by the beach, along Marine Drive. He pulled over near the pier, waited as Cam walked out onto the promenade.
Cam stood at the edge, with the breakwater of piled white stones the only object separating him from the ocean. Other than an elderly Vietnamese woman checking her crab traps, the promenade was empty. Cam crouched and loosened the knot in the bag, and shook the ashes out over the water. They were sucked below the pier, the fine dust coating the barnacles growing on the near-black wood.
Cam crumpled the bag and watched it float down to the water.
* * *
“I don’t know what happened to him,” Sukhi said on the phone nights later. “Harv won’t tell me anything. Just that you straightened things out. Do you think the Vipers got him?”
“No clue,” Cam said. “Maybe he’s out of the country.”
“No, he’d at least tell mom. Promise you’ll tell me if you hear anything?”
“Course,” he said. “When can I see you again?”
* * *
It was Harv’s decision for who would replace Tequila. White Rock–South Surrey was lucrative, relatively safe. He offered the territory to Cam.
Cam tried to talk him out of it.
“I can’t be doing that while I’m on parole,” he said. “Plus there’s guys been waiting for their shot, they’ll resent me.”
“It’s serious money,” Harv said.
Cam nodded, thinking, and serious trouble. Tequila was the perfect dealer. Flashy but not too flashy, smart but not too smart. Canny enough to only meet people he knew, in public areas with multiple routes of escape. Cam might make a go of it for a while. But eventually he’d trip up. The law of averages. Those cop cars that had driven through Softball City—one night they’d be ten, fifteen minutes closer, and that would be that.
All of which was a concern. But Cam also didn’t want to spend his time looking out for the Vipers.
“Ivan’s the one,” he said.
“And why’s that?” Harv asked. Cam sensed it was a test.
“Tito’s got mood swings. Too erratic. Brad is good all-around, but not self-motivated. Ivan wants it. He’s smart.”
“He’s the one that didn’t go for your warehouse heist,” Harv said. “Told us it wouldn’t work. And not to trust you.”
“Smart, but not that smart,” Cam said.
Harv smiled.
* * *
He booked a hotel in Harrison Hot Springs and took Sukhi there for a weekend. They spent their Christmas in bed.
* * *
Boxing Day Cam was sitting in the hot tub near the hotel’s indoor pool, watching Sukhi do long laps, pop up near the shallow edge and smile at him. Then push off, splashing into the water, only to emerge on the other side.
The next time she got close to his end, he was there to lift her out, laughing, kicking at him lightly, and carry her to the hot tub. Her hands reached down through the turbulent water and worked him out of the swimming trunks she’d bought him for their trip.
After, lying on the hotel bed eating room-service hamburgers at thirty bucks apiece, Cam checked his messages, saw one from Harv.
Call now.
Not on his cell, of course. He dressed, slapping away Sukhi’s hands as she tried to strip him, her toes as they brushed his ear and neck. He kissed her and headed to the lobby.
On the concierge’s phone, he dialed Harv’s number.
“Get back here soon’s you can,” Harv said, once he was sure the line was secure. “Dalton says we gotta tool up.”
Twelve
