James Born - Shock Wave

“She’s a little out of his league, isn’t she?”

“Oh, and I’m not? Thanks a lot.”

This chat wasn’t going to get any better. “Sweetheart, you’re outta my league.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t you forget it.”

“ You know you’re outta Nicky’s league. What do ya see in him?”

She gathered her thoughts. “He’s sweet, and very neat.”

Tasker laughed. “That’s the new criteria? Sweet and neat? According to that, Richard Simmons would be a great catch.”

“He’s very nice.”

“Is he a boyfriend or a girlfriend?”

She frowned at that, as she let out a short snicker but didn’t scold him.

“What happened to the girl who loved excitement and thrills?”

She looked into his eyes. “Excitement shut me out and thrills moved to Miami.”

That hurt enough for Tasker just to keep his mouth shut.

…

Daniel Wells pulled out his phone card and settled into the phone booth at the Denny’s in Cutler Ridge. He only had two people to call, but these might be long conversations. It seemed like he only ever called two people. He sat on the stool between the two phones and thought about who to call first and what to talk about. As he sat there, an elderly lady walked up to use the other phone. Wells immediately sprang from the stool and pushed it closer to the other phone.

“Thank you, young man,” said the woman.

“My pleasure, ma’am.” He waited until she was finished with her short call and settled onto the stool again. He dialed Alicia’s cell phone. No answer. He dialed the other number and immediately heard a male voice.

“Hello.”

“It’s me, Daniel.”

“Where the fuck you been?”

“Everywhere.”

“So I heard.”

Daniel leaned back to hear what was new in the world.

Bill Tasker pulled onto Krome Avenue and headed north. The road was most famous for the huge INS holding facility through which it seemed like half the population of Dade County had come at some point. He picked up speed in the Gold Cherokee he was still using for work. His friend at the dealership said his Monte Carlo was being rehabbed. It no longer made the technicians at the Chevy dealer cry or vomit. The residue of the CS with which Daniel Wells had booby-trapped the car was slowly being eliminated.

In the distance, Tasker could see the parking lot of the empty convenience store that served as the surveillance post. It was two blocks from the small farming road where the house they were watching sat. From the store they could see the side yard and driveway. On the bright side, no one coming or going from the house would be likely to see them. As he came closer to the vacant store, he saw Jimmy Lail’s tricked-out Honda parked next to the shabby white building. Tasker had to admit that, although the car was an embarrassment to look at, no one would ever make it as a police vehicle.

He pulled in behind the Honda, expecting Jimmy either to call him on his Nextel or come out and greet him. After a minute of no response, Tasker climbed out of the Cherokee and eased up to the Honda’s driver’s window. Through the tint, Tasker could see Jimmy’s head resting against the glass. He was asleep. Not just dozing, but all-out dead asleep.

This was not an uncommon event on long surveillances. The hard hours and boredom contributed to cops just drifting off. That was why, when there was enough manpower, you traded off the eye every hour or so. Tasker wasn’t angry, but he didn’t think he could let this slide without some sort of practical joke. He knew Jimmy Lail didn’t like him and that you shouldn’t play jokes on people you don’t like or who don’t like you, but Tasker couldn’t help himself.

He took a minute to look around the lot to see what he could do. There was no one around, so he didn’t have to worry about startling an innocent bystander. The area had a few gang members who harassed local businesses or picked on the poor migrant workers occasionally if the dope trade was slow, but generally people didn’t frequent this part of Krome Avenue.

Tasker wasn’t sure how soundly asleep Jimmy was, but he’d work in stages and find out.

Daniel Wells had the old Ford Ranger loaded with stuff he might need later. He had just picked up all the scrap metal he had stored from the company he’d done work for a few months back. When he had seen the pile of sharp-edged cuttings, he’d known he could put them to good use. They’d loved him for hauling away the dangerous jagged metal pieces, none larger than his hand; the whole box of them hadn’t weighed more than fifty pounds. They had just kept sweeping them into the corner day after day, never giving any thought as to how to get rid of them.

Wells headed south on Krome Avenue from an old farm shed on one of his former employers’ land. They didn’t mind him leaving things inside the unused shed and liked the idea of a reliable person checking on the outlying acres of the tomato farm once in a while. The old Ford pickup backfired for no reason about every ten miles. Wells knew mechanical machinery pretty well and knew the fundamentals of car repair, but it seemed like this old truck was haunted. As long as it got him where he was headed and didn’t draw any attention, he didn’t care.

He knew he’d never hear anything more about the tussle he had had with the Nazis. At least three of them would have had to go to the hospital with gunshot wounds, unless they had some low-life ex-doctor that took care of things like that. It seemed like there was every type of professional available on the black market to handle services that people outside the law might need. Wells decided no matter what, they wouldn’t want people to know one man had come into their clubhouse and taken a truck without getting a scratch.

He was headed to his secret box over by the power plant to hide a map, a.38 revolver and a thousand dollars in twenties he’d saved up in case he needed it to leave the area after his show. He didn’t think he was being optimistic. He felt that his simple but spectacular plan, executed only by him with no other help, would cause enough terror and confusion that he would walk away cleanly and be able to enjoy it for a long time. He had been fighting to keep his mind on the task, even though he had started to get a better idea involving Turkey Point nuclear power plant. Finish what those damn Arabs had started. Shit, it had taken those two idiots months to bring him into their plans and then to try to recruit three others even to attempt to pull it off, and they hadn’t come close. It was true that the reason they hadn’t come close was because of Wells himself, but that was their failure. Too many people involved. At the time, Wells hadn’t realized the wild disorder the plan might cause. It would also have cost a lot of lives. He hadn’t wanted that to happen two years ago. Now it was a tradeoff. A few lives for a lot of chaos. He obviously was past that concern.

Just after he passed the road where that Klan idiot, Ed Conners, lived, his truck let loose with a booming backfire. It scared even him. He hoped the old racist had jumped at the sound, too. He never took his foot off the gas. A block later, he saw a couple of cars in the old closed Manny’s Market. A god-awful gold-colored Cherokee next to a little low-rider Honda. He saw a guy walking around the Honda with some kind of tarp and thought he looked familiar. Wells shrugged and kept driving.

Tasker was about halfway done setting up his prank when he heard what sounded like a gunshot. He ducked behind the Honda, still holding the plastic sheet he’d found near the empty building, behind an old sign that read MANNY’S MARKET. As soon as he discovered that the loud boom was a backfire from an old blue Ford Ranger pickup coming down Krome Avenue, Tasker turned his attention back to the Honda to make sure the noise hadn’t awakened Jimmy. To Tasker’s surprise, Jimmy Lail’s head still lay motionless against the driver’s-side window. The car was idling to give the worn-out FBI agent air conditioning. Tasker could hear the soft thump of the bass from a CD or the radio. He continued to wrap the opaque plastic, probably used for farming, all around the small car. It was thicker than a garbage bag and about three feet wide. Tasker wrapped the whole car twice, blocking out all light. He had looped over the passenger door so he could slip inside when he was finished.