John Sandford - The Fool's Run

More sophisticated opportunities were available for investors in the trash-hauling firms. One deal had Anshiser executives locating a failing trash-hauling company with old, screwed-up equipment but reasonably good potential. An unnamed dealer supposedly had two million in cash that he wanted to use in the U.S. but couldn't explain to the Internal Revenue Service. He gave the two million to Anshiser and got back in return fifty thousand dollars in stock in the failing trash hauler. Anshiser sent one of his hard-nosed executives in to run the company. New equipment from other Anshiser trash haulers was transferred in, at no charge to the new company. In a very short time, the dealer had stock worth a million and a half, and Anshiser bought him out. The dealer paid his taxes and, instead of two million in impossible-to-explain cash, had a perfectly legitimate, IRS-sanctioned, million-dollar bankroll. Anshiser's people took out a half million and owned a thriving garbage hauler.

We read through all the printouts before ten o'clock, then went down to the shopping arcade for croissants and coffee. I sat in the booth and found it hard to think.

"I really got took," I said finally. LuEllen was watching me across the table. "There was so much money, I didn't want anything to be wrong. We should have gotten out after we bumped into Ratface the first time. That was never right, we knew it wasn't right. And I had Bobby on the other end of the line, and I didn't use him. I should have given him an open account to keep running stuff on Anshiser and everybody else involved. If we'd known about Whitemark's Snagger program, we would have known something was wrong. If we'd known Anshiser's old man was in the mob, we would've been warned."

"Pigs and wings," LuEllen said. She was looking at the light fixtures.

"Thanks. I needed that."

"Stop whining, for Christ's sake," LuEllen snarled. "Tell me why they sent Ratface the first time. I still don't understand that. They had Maggie right there watching us."

"They were paranoid," I said. "Remember how she'd call Chicago to tell them what we were doing? Talking to computer people? When I laid out the attack for them, and they began to see what could be done, in detail, they really started to get worried. I think they wanted a better line on us. Maggie told them what she could, but she's not a computer tech. If they'd gotten a bug on our line, they could've looked at the attack programs in detail. And that's why it was such an old-fashioned bug-we were dealing with the mob, not the NSA or the CIA or the FBI or any other fuckin' alphabet."

"The fuckin' mob," LuEllen said. She thought it was funny.

"It doesn't seem to be a mob. It seems to be a whole bunch of people who float around in rackets."

"What do you think a mob is? Italians in zoot suits with violin cases under their arms?"

"I don't know. This doesn't seem so organized. It seems like they just. know each other."

"That's what a mob is. People who know each other. Our mob got started because you knew me and Dace," she said.

"We're not exactly a mob," I said dryly.

"Oh yeah? Then what are we?"

I thought about it for a minute. "A gang," I said firmly. "We're a gang."

"Okay, so we're a gang," she said. "What I don't understand is why Anshiser does all this stuff. He's already got more money than God."

I shrugged. "Maybe he likes it. Maybe they don't give him a choice. And it must be profitable. They've probably got a hundred of these scams going all the time," I said. "Who knows how much they take down? Thirty or forty or fifty million a year, all of it hidden? I bet there aren't five people in Anshiser's company who know all of it. Anshiser, Dillon, Maggie, maybe a couple more in that working group at his house."

"So. What do you think, Kidd?" she asked. "Is this better or worse than dealing with the feds?"

"Better. Much better," I said. "The problem with the federal people is that once a decision is made, it becomes part of the bureaucracy. Nobody beats a bureaucracy. If they seriously want to get you, they'll do it. If it was the feds, our best bet would be to run. Brazil, or someplace like that. But if we're dealing with a company, especially a one-man gang like Anshiser's, we might be able to develop some leverage."

She considered it for a moment, and nodded.

"Something else," she said, her face cold and intense. "When I thought it was federal people, I couldn't figure out what to do about Dace. I mean, federal people are like cops. But these guys are just hoods.

"We can get back at them for Dace," she said. She reached out and gripped my wrist so hard that the nails bit through my skin. "I want them dead. Like Dace."

Drexel the gun salesman wasn't surprised to see us back. He seemed pleased. "Trading up? Or adding to?" he asked as he opened the door.

"Adding to," I said. "I need an M16."

"What range will you be shooting at?" We followed him through the living room and down the basement stairs. There was no sign of his wife or daughter.

"I don't know. It could be fairly long."

"Ah, you are in luck," he said happily. He opened the gun cabinet. "I've just been out to our farm. I happen to have on hand a scope-sighted weapon. An M16/A2, to be precise. I sighted it only three days ago. The mount is quite sturdy."

He stroked the weapon a few rimes, gazing at it fondly as if it were a female friend, and handed it to me. It was dead black, and long, and cold, and heavy. "Much like the one you probably used in the service," he said.

"Yeah." I looked through the scope at a dart board at the end of the basement. I could see the dart holes.

"There are some differences," he said, "though you don't need to worry about them. The main thing is that you'll be shooting a heavier slug, the sixty-eight-grain Hornady hollow-point. They'll give you excellent accuracy. It's dead-on at a hundred and fifty yards. The weapon does have a tendency to ride up on full auto. If you're shooting that way, at a significantly closer range, you could drop down to a pelvic hold and allow it to ride up. That should cover all the bases."

Or all the people I intended to kill.

I bought three banana clips and four cartons of shells. He threw in a long cardboard box that said "curtain rods" on the side.

"Minimal camouflage, should you be stopped for something," he said, sliding the weapon into the box. "Be careful not to jar that scope. It would be best to brace the box in the trunk so it won't rattle around. If you have a little leisure time before you deploy, you might find a quiet place and check it. Just in case."

"Better safe than sorry," said LuEllen.

"A stitch in time saves nine," Drexel shot back.

I gave him another twenty-five hundred for everything. As we were going out the door he asked if we'd had a chance to shoot the other weapons.

"No, we haven't," LuEllen said.

"I'd like to hear how they perform, if you have a chance," he said pleasantly. "I do have a fifty-percent buy-back policy for all weapons in new or near-new condition, after you are finished with them. Lesser amounts if there is damage."

"Thanks. We'll keep it in mind," I said.

"That guy is a lizard," LuEllen said as we drove away. "He's like a cross between Beaver Cleaver's dad and Alfred Krupp."

I nearly drove the car over a curb.

"Alfred Krupp?"

"I read books," she said defensively. "You act like I'm a fuckin' dummy."

Dace had taken LuEllen to his cabin in West Virginia only once, and it was before Maggie showed up. LuEllen didn't remember mentioning it to her.

The cabin, LuEllen said, sat over a pool on a small stream that allegedly harbored a trout or two, though Dace admitted he'd never seen one. The nearest cabin was half a mile downstream. There was nothing at all above him.