Lee Child - First Thrills

Noise was good. It stopped the passengers in soft seats a short distance above Shorty’s head from hearing his movements.

Shorty finished unzipping the case and stood to stretch. Even at three feet ten and one-quarter inches, a suitcase was a tight fit.

Dressed in black cargo pants and turtleneck, Shorty liked to believe he looked as cool as Steve McQueen in Bullitt . With an excited grin, he pulled on his spelunking lamp, tightened the headband, and flipped the switch. Three super bright LEDs lit up the cabin to reveal a mountain of luggage.

He hoped at least one of them contained chocolate. Milky Swiss was his favorite, but he had to be careful. Two months earlier he wolfed down a full box of festive Irish whisky liqueurs. The alcohol-filled chocolates had sent him into a near sugar coma and he was barely able to zip himself back inside the case before passing out. When his partner retrieved the case at the terminal, he discovered Shorty had puked all over his favorite McQueens.

The memory still made him shudder.

After rubbing his hands together to get the blood flowing, Shorty ripped bags open.

He started with the largest one, but was disappointed to find that all it contained was a collection of old lady clothes. And from the look of them, they would have found more use in a landfill than in somebody’s wardrobe.

He rolled his eyes. “Freakin’ loser.”

He shoved the bag aside.

The second bag contained a slick digital camera, a superthin Mac laptop, and a snack pack of Ritz Crackers with the fake cheese goop in the middle. A nest of rolled socks protected the crackers as though they were some kind of luxury treat.

“Loser number two.”

Shorty crushed the crackers in his hand before sprinkling the disgusting remains over the own er’s clothes. Whoever ate that garbage, he decided, deserved to wear it, too.

He slipped the camera and laptop inside his own suitcase and moved to the next.

Unzipping the bag, he stared at a gun… attached to a hand… pointing at a spot between his eyes.

“Shorty.” A familiar scratchy voice was attached to the hand that was aiming the gun.

“Twinkle?” Shorty lifted his head and exposed the gunman’s face to his headlamp. “What the hell are you doing? You’re Wednesdays on the Washington run.”

Twinkle squinted against the light and his upper lip curled in a sneer. “Change of plans.”

Jonathon “Twinkle” Toews climbed out of the suitcase, his gun never wavering from Shorty’s head. Shorty had heard Twinkle brag he had a quarter-inch on him in the height department, but he suspected the lying dwarf wore lifts.

“Well fuck me blue,” Shorty said with a laugh. “This is some mix-up.”

“No mix-up, Shorty. Big haul on this bus and I want my cut.”

“Big haul?”

Twinkle snorted. “Don’t play dumb. The horse is trotting crosscountry, but it ain’t gonna make the stable.”

Twinkle cocked the hammer. Even amid the blanket of engine noise, it was decidedly menacing.

“Whoa, back up.” Shorty raised his hands in surrender. “I ain’t part of your circus, so what the fuck?”

Twinkle snorted again. “You don’t know, for real?”

Shorty shook his head and the light from his lamp danced around the cabin like the return of E.T.

Twinkle resettled the hammer and lowered the gun. “Guess that’s why you ain’t packing.”

“Exactly,” Shorty agreed. “I’m not packing because…” He hesitated, then sighed. “Really, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Heroin,” said Twinkle. “Sixty keys.”

“That a lot?”

“When it’s pure, uncut bone, baby. One hundred Gs a key.”

Shorty whistled. “Six million dollars. And somebody put it on a bus?”

Twinkle grinned, his Hollywood caps reflecting the light. “Who’s gonna rob a bus?”

“Except you.”

Twinkle shook his head. “ ’Cept you, Shorty. I work Wednesdays, ’member? The Washington run. Ask anybody.”

As the double-crossing realization hit, the blood drained from Shorty’s face. It didn’t have far to go.

“Keep opening bags.” Twinkle lifted his gun into the light as a reminder. “Find me the barking dogs.”

Shorty tossed suitcases and boxes aside, searching for the likeliest suspects, until he discovered four black canvas bags with reinforced seams and heavy-duty zippers.

“Here’s your barkers,” he said.

“Dogs,” corrected Twinkle. He moved in closer. “Heroin is called ‘dog.’ ”

“Ahh,” said Shorty as if he understood. “Because you have to be barking-mad to use it?”

Twinkle was unamused. “You’re a lost cause. Always have been. Open the damn bags.”

Shorty turned his attention and his headlamp to the bags. They were each locked with a tiny padlock.

“Who, in their right mind, thinks these locks do any good?” he said. “I mean, really. You can get better ones out of a gumball machine.”

“Just open them,” Twinkle growled. “Save the commentary for your eulogy.”

Shorty pulled a pair of folding snips from his pants pocket and snipped off all four locks.

“Open them,” Twinkle ordered.

The first bag contained twenty vacuum-packed squares of white powder. The next two bags contained the same, but the fourth bag held money. Lots of it. One hundred dollar bills, crisp and smooth, bundled in packages of 50. If Shorty’s math was right, and it usually was, there were at least 120 bundles.

Shorty whistled. “That’s not pocket change.”

“I wasn’t expecting any money,” said Twinkle.

“Oh, good. Can I have it?”

Twinkle sneered. “You can’t use it where you’re going.”

Shorty sighed and zipped up the bags. Bigger men than Twinkle had threatened him in his time, but none rankled quite so much.

“So how you getting off?” he asked.

Twinkle nodded toward the large loading doors that ran along the side. “I sure as hell ain’t going all the way to Boston. Open the doors.”

“They’re locked.”

Twinkle lifted the gun and pointed it at Shorty’s crotch.

“I hear you only got one ball, Shorty. Want me to even you up?”

Grumbling to himself, Shorty slipped the snips back into his pocket and returned with a stubby screwdriver that held six different bits. With the flick of his thumb, he made the Torx head shoot out of the compact handle and lock in place. Shorty settled in front of the loading door and worked his magic. Within seconds, the doors were ready to be opened.

“What about the driver?” Shorty asked. “He’s bound to notice.”

Twinkle cut him off with a snort. “He’s gettin’ paid enough to ignore what’s in his mirrors.”

Shorty spun around. “So everybody’s in on this except me?”

Twinkle grinned. “Somebody had to be the fall guy.”

“Fuck!”

Twinkle brought the gun barrel close enough to caress Shorty’s cheek. “What you waitin’ for?”

Shorty heaved open the doors to bathe the compartment in blinding daylight. A hurricane rushed inside, ripping open the lids of unzipped suitcases and forcing the loose contents to take flight.

Twinkle screamed as a giant pair of old-lady bloomers leeched onto his face. Its breathable cotton crotch stuffed itself into his mouth and became lodged in his throat. When Twinkle finally yanked the choking garment free, Shorty’s clenched fist was closing in.

Shorty hit him with everything he had, sharp knuckles against soft cartilage, powered by arms, legs, feet, and toes. The punch was a beauty.

Twinkle grew two inches, his gun flying from his hand to the rear of the cabin as his nose was crushed against his cheek and his upper teeth pierced his upper lip. He flew backward, landing hard on the four black bags.