10 Tahoe Trap (39 page)

I thought about whether I should have tried to convince the Placer County Sheriff to stake out this location, but I still had no evidence. We were putting on this operation based on the word of a kid.

“Ouch,” Paco said. He took one of his hands off the blower, swatted at his leg, then scratched. He put that hand back, removed his other hand from the blower, stretched. When he grasped again at the blower, he hit something that sounded like a screwdriver as it clattered to the floor and rolled a bit.

I heard him wince.

“How will they come in?” Paco finally asked, his voice too loud to be called a whisper.

“They’ll probably try to break open a window lock,” I whispered, much quieter. “These guys are too big for the smaller windows, and the biggest windows are in the living room. We should be very quiet and listen carefully. Don’t turn on your blower until I say so. If we hear a noise it may be them outside the house. It’s absolutely critical that they are inside the house before we hit them with our ammo.”

Paco went silent.

Ten more minutes passed. I heard Spot turn circles, nails clicking, and lie down. He sighed. I’d never realized how loud his sighs were. Assuming Salt and Pepper were out there, they were probably waiting until they were sure that we were in a deep sleep.

A sudden explosion came from the living room. Someone had kicked in the door. Spot jumped up barking.

I whispered in Paco’s ear, “Not yet!”

More noise. Thudding kicks. The sound of breaking, splintering wood. Spot’s barking was loud, but I hoped they would think that his barks were coming from upstairs.

More kicks. Wood being pried.

“Hurry!” Deep, booming voice.

“Upstairs!” A second voice, higher. “Don’t let them get out the window.”

“Now!” I whispered to Paco.

I hit my blower switch, and Paco hit his. Two blowers roared. It was like a freight train thundering at high speed through the kitchen.

I didn’t know what to expect.

In a moment, over the roar, came shouted words.

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!”

The other voice screamed, “My eyes are on fire! Can’t breathe! My skin’s burning. It’s acid. He’s shooting us with acid!” The words trailed off below the volume of the blowers.

We kept the blowers running. I reached down with one hand and lifted on the pepper juice bucket. It was noticeably lighter. I shook it, hoping to keep the juice mixed for potency. I also shook the ant bucket. It was very light. I popped the lid on the second ant bucket and switched the Venturi lid over to it, the leaf blower still roaring.

The men screamed as if they’d been lit on fire.

More staccato screams. Someone falling to the floor. A crash of glass. More thuds that I couldn’t make out over the blower volume.

After the second ant bucket felt empty, I spoke in Paco’s ear.

“Okay, Paco, let’s turn them off.”

We hit the switches. The motors ran down.

With the roar gone, the screams from the living room were much louder.

I flipped on the kitchen light. The floor had many ants rushing around, but a quick glance through the screen window in the side of the ant bucket showed that most of them were gone.

Burning pepper mist began to fill the kitchen.

I lifted the brace out of the door brackets. Opened the door for Paco.

“Paco, take Spot out the kitchen door. Wait for me outside. I don’t want you to get the pepper juice or the ants on you.”

Coughing, he went out with Spot, into the night.

I took a deep breath of air at the outside door, then opened the door into the dining room and living room and flipped on the living room light.

The room was drenched and vibrating with the movement of countless tiny specks.

The front door was broken into splinters. A window on the side wall was smashed, shards of glass sparkling on the floor.

Salt and Pepper were writhing and jerking on the floor, screaming. Their eyes were clenched shut, their faces contorted with pain. I saw ants on their clothes and skin, but it appeared that the major debilitating weapon had come from the magic of Cassie’s Vipers.

I was amazed to see that our crazy scheme had worked.

I stepped back to the outside kitchen door to get away from the pepper juice miasma and breathed five quick, deep breaths. Then I went back into the living room.

The white man was on his back on the floor, bawling like a child. Near him was a Taser. Using my foot, I forcibly rolled him over onto his side. I grabbed his belt at the back and lifted him up onto his hands and knees. He didn’t really hold himself up, but he took enough of his own weight to lessen the load on me. Ants crawled from him up my arm, but I didn’t care.

“Outside, dude,” I said. “Fresh air.”

He sort of helped me, crawling across the ant-covered floor, slick with pepper juice, as I walked him out the broken door. I sped him up and then lifted him as we got to the porch steps. He made a blind, flying belly flop onto the dirt in front of the house, where he collapsed in a heap, still crying, still jerking from ant stings.

Spot stood nearby, licking his chops, sniffing the air, keeping his distance. He snorted and shook his head.

I thought of telling Spot to watch the man, but it was obvious that the guy wouldn’t go anywhere until the worst of the pepper juice and ants was past.

I took more fast breaths to clear my lungs, then went back inside for the other guy. Spot stayed outside.

Pepper wasn’t crying like Salt, but he looked to be in more pain. He was choking and gagging. Ants swarmed him.

In thirty seconds, I had him outside, on the dirt next to Salt.

I held my breath and went back inside to the kitchen to grab the duct tape.

It was the heavy-duty variety, and it only took two turns each to do Salt and Pepper’s hands behind their backs, their feet, and their knees. They both choked and gagged and cried like children. I heard a car not too far away and wondered if the driver would come to investigate the bawling sounds from the men. If so, the scene would be awkward to describe.

I lifted each of them up to a standing position and walked them up face first against Jeffrey pine trees. With their faces turned sideways, cheek-to-bark, I ran tape around their necks and the tree trunks. I didn’t want to suffocate them, but I wrapped the tape tight enough that their molars would get re-aligned from the bark pressing through their cheeks. Then I wrapped tape around their feet and the trunks. When I was done, they were immobilized against the trees.

Through it all, they continued to gasp and sputter, and the stinging fire ants made them twitch and jerk. I was glad I’d kept my goggles on. There was no antidote for pepper spray. All you could do was wait an hour or two for the burning, blinding chemical to soften its grip on your skin and eyes and lungs.

Despite my gloves and goggles and holding my breath, a bit of the pepper had gotten into my lungs, and it burned as if I were inhaling fire. I couldn’t imagine what a full dose would do to a person.

Spot had disappeared back around the house.

I left the men against the trees, sagging down, their bulk held up by their tree-tape necklaces as much as by their own legs.

In the light that spilled out from the broken front door, I saw Spot come running back from behind the house. I held my gloved hands up in the air so that Spot wouldn’t touch them.

“Okay, Paco, it’s safe to come around the house,” I called out. “Just stay back from these miserable jerks. I don’t want any of the pepper juice to get on you.”

Spot ran back behind the house, nose to ground.

“Paco, c’mon out,” I called.

No response.

My gut clenched.

I sprinted back to the rear of the house. Spot ran with me.

“PACO!” I shouted.

He wasn’t there.

FORTY-FOUR

I ran up to the kitchen door and shouted.

“PACO!”

I circled the house. Held my breath and ran back inside. Up the stairs. The bedrooms were empty.

“Spot,” I said when I was back outside. “Where’s Paco?” I said.

Spot’s brow was furrowed.

I pounded down the stairs. There was a trail of sorts behind the house. Cars probably used it like an alley. I’d gone out the front of the house just seconds after Paco and Spot had gone out the back. Paco must have gone toward the alley.

I ran out and looked both ways.

Nothing. It was a dark path into the night with no sign of vehicle lights.

I’d been so stupid! I’d focused on Salt and Pepper. When Spot came running to see what I was doing in the front yard, a third comrade ran off with Paco.

If Paco had cried out, Spot would have run back to intervene. But if Paco knew the person, he might not have been suspicious.

Even if the person was a stranger, he might have muffled Paco’s mouth and got him into a car before Spot noticed.

It must have been the car I’d heard while I was taping Salt and Pepper.

I ran back to the front of the house. “WHERE’S PACO?!” I shouted at the closest man, Pepper.

He was still sagged down as if his weight was hanging from the tape around his neck, wheezing, struggling to breathe, his bronchial tubes inflamed from the pepper spray. He wouldn’t be able to speak for a long time.

I went over to Salt. Asked him the same question.

He could breathe, but he said nothing.

I stepped behind him and jerked up on his taped wrists, stressing his elbows and shoulders.

He yelled.

“WHERE’S PACO?” I shouted again.

“I dunno,” he grunted. “I thought he was with you.”

“Tell me what you do know!”

“I dunno anything.”

Another jerk on his arms. Harder. He screamed louder. Ripping apart a shoulder or elbow is a pain near the top of the scale.

“Who do you work for?”

“I dunno.”

I bent down, got my shoulder under his bound wrists and began to straighten up. I heard squeaks coming from his joint tissues.

He screamed like he was being torn in half by a lion.

I backed off just a touch.

“You don’t answer my questions, I’m going to take apart both of your shoulders and elbows. It’s tough to repair that kind of injury. And when your shoulder pops in that position, sometimes it rips the brachial artery. You’ll bleed out in a couple of minutes. At least then you’ll get some relief from the pain.”

“Once more,” I said. “Who do you work for?”

“Just a guy that sent an email. A referral thing.” He stopped to breathe. Gasping breaths. “My arms...”

I let off the upward pressure.

“The guy said he’d pay us our fee for two jobs. Thirty thousand each. Fifty percent down.”

“You were paid to kill both the woman and the boy?”

 “We were only to kill the woman. Kidnap the boy. We had orders. Make sure the kid ain’t hurt.” The man’s eyes were still shut tight. Tears flowed out from between red, clenched eyelids.

A million Scoville units, Paco had said. It was Paco’s brilliant idea that brought these two men down. It was my incredible stupidity that let a third man take Paco while I’d been focused on these men.

“Why would he kidnap the boy?” I asked. “There’s no money to ransom.”

“We jus’ sell our services. Someone pays our money, we don’t ask why.”

“What’d the guy look like?”

“Never saw him.” The man’s words were hard to understand. He coughed and wheezed.

“How’d he pay the deposit?”

“Mail. He mailed it to us.”

“He mailed you thirty thousand dollars cash?”

“Yeah. In a Flat-rate box. Hunnerd dollar bills.”

“And now he has the kid?” It was a reasonable assumption. But so far I’d been wrong about a lot.

“I ’spose,” the man said, his voice rattling with mucous. “Musta followed us. We do the work, and he snatches the kid out from under us. We’ll still get the money.”

“How were you supposed to deliver the kid?”

“Gonna email the guy. Then he’d give us instructions.”

“What’s his email address?”

“I dunno. It’s in my computer.”

“Where’s your computer?”

“In my truck. Down the block.”

I looked through the dark. Didn’t see any vehicle in either direction.

“You believed he’d pay you the balance even though you don’t know his identity?” I said.

The man coughed. “We have a rep. He stiffs us, we track ’im down and make ’im pay. We always get paid.”

“Not this time,” I said.

“I can’t breathe,” he said. “You gotta take this tape off my neck, or I’ll choke to death.”

I ignored him.

By his bulging jaw muscles, I could tell that he wouldn’t hesitate to use his debt-collection techniques on me if he could.