A Bad Night's Sleep (13 page)

If Johnson’s speech worried Rafael, he didn’t show it. He gestured to his partner and the two headed for the same door Lucinda and Finley had just used. As Rafael stepped outside, he flipped his middle finger at Johnson.

Johnson laughed and said, “Hey, Rafael.”

Rafael and his partner turned.

Johnson grabbed his gun from the table and fired it. The partner’s head snapped back, struck by a piece of metal that weighed about ten grams but hit harder than a truck.

Rafael opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. He looked down at his companion. Everyone else looked too. The man’s face was half gone. Bone, brain, and blood spilled from the broken shell that had been his skull. The skinny man who knew me from TV said, “Fuuuck!” The others said nothing but looked like they agreed with him.

Then Rafael ran. No one from Johnson’s crew stopped him or went after him.

Johnson lowered his gun, stared at me, and spoke to the crowd. “In case anyone’s wondering, that’s an example of what happens if you break the rules.” Then he asked, “Does anyone else want to drop out now?”

No one moved.

“Okay,” he said. “Ten bucks apiece tonight. Next week, Joe and Raj will want a list of active members and ten dollars for each of them. Same thing the following week and every week after it. With a little organization, life will be easy for you guys.”

“For you too,” someone called out.

“Yes,” Johnson said. “For us, too.”

We sat in the living room after the gang members left, their spinning tires spitting gravel from the driveway, their stereos blasting music. Finley had come back in and nailed a piece of plywood over the broken window. We’d picked up the empty beer cans. We’d mopped the floor and deck where Rafael’s partner fell. Three men had gone to the garage and returned with shovels. They’d carried the body of the partner to the beach and, in less than a half hour, had covered him with sand in a hole five feet deep. Deep enough to keep the smell down and the wild animals out. Deep enough to keep the winter storms from exposing the remains.

Now, Johnson and Monroe seemed thoughtful but Raj and Finley laughed easily and looked happy, like they’d escaped a bloody battle without getting wounded. So did the other guys in Johnson’s crew.

The duct tape had come loose on my thigh, so I ripped away the rest of it and took out the Ruger.

Johnson turned on me and said, “What the fuck were you thinking?”

The question sounded rhetorical so I didn’t answer.

He gestured at Finley but kept his eyes on me. “Peter could have shot your friend just as easily as bringing her in for you to identify. Then you would’ve had a dead friend and we would’ve had another mess to clean up—smaller than the one you made at Southshore but big enough. You’re making it hard for us to work with you.”

Again I said nothing. I figured that cleaning up another body when he’d just splattered one across Finley’s living room and deck wouldn’t be a lot of extra work, but telling him that seemed like a bad idea. And explaining that I’d told Lucinda not to follow me—that she must have hung back when the FBI van followed us when we shot across Congress Parkway, fallen in behind us when we’d reappeared, and come on her own—would just make him ask why I’d told her about my evening plans to begin with.

“And who told you to bring a gun?” he said.

I said, “I figured the idea for this meeting was just crazy enough that someone like Rafael would throw a chair through a window. I wanted to be ready.”

Johnson sighed. “You got the first part right, but we expected that. We were ready for it. Were you? Next time don’t disobey orders. Or if you do, do it right. If you’re going to carry a gun, make sure you can get to it. If it weren’t for me, Monroe, and Raj, you would’ve had ten holes in your body before you finished jerking off and got the gun out of your pants.”

“I could’ve gotten it out,” I said.

“You could’ve shot yourself in the balls.” He turned to Monroe. “You brought this guy in. He’s your responsibility.”

Monroe glared at him.

“No more fuckups,” Johnson said.

Raj interrupted. “You think we’ve got a problem with Rafael?”

Johnson shook his head. “He’s easy. We know where he stands. It’s the ones who stayed quiet that we’ve got to worry about.” He looked back at me. “Them and anyone we don’t know well enough to count on.”

“Why did you shoot Rafael’s partner?” I asked. “Why not Rafael himself?”

Johnson spoke slowly, like he figured I needed special help. “You don’t shoot a gang leader unless you want the rest of his gang to be gunning for you. Rafael’s partner made the point.”

Monroe nodded, then stood and set out the plans for the next three weeks. Raj would get directions from him, and the two of us would start visiting gang representatives. Finley was checking out a building site that looked almost ready for wiring, which meant almost ready for a late-night visit from the crew. At the end of three weeks, we would meet again at The Spa Club to adjust our plans—unless anything went seriously wrong in the meantime. If that happened, we would meet sooner.

When Monroe finished, Finley raised a finger and Johnson nodded to him.

“About three miles west of here, before the highway, there’s a construction site. Looks like it’ll be a processing plant of some kind. A lot of pipe. Probably a lot of wire. It looks good.”

Johnson nodded again. “When?”

“Tonight?”

“Without checking out the place first?”

“There are no guards,” Finley said. “We go in and out. Snatch and grab. Leave behind anything we can’t take in five minutes.”

Johnson thought about it, then shrugged. “Why not?”

I said, “You’re planning on bringing in thousands of dollars a day from the gangs. Why bother with this stuff?”

Johnson looked at Monroe like he couldn’t believe Monroe had brought me into the group. Then he said, like I’d missed the obvious, “This is the fun part.”

The others laughed.

Raj grinned and slapped my shoulder. “Come on. It’s playtime.”

SIXTEEN

WE DROVE IN FIVE
SUVs and vans back through Pleasant Prairie, past bare farm fields, and through the industrial strip. We turned onto a dark road with a street sign that said
COUNTY HIGHWAY H
, drove past a bunch of single-story white-sided factories and more farm fields, then swung to the shoulder by a construction lot surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. The top of the fence was lined with barbed wire.

Lights strung around the lot showed a main building that matched the ones we’d passed—single story and white—but it had three smokestacks at one end and a tall structure next to it, connected to the main building by a series of wide pipes. A temporary aluminum storage shed stood where I figured a parking lot would be. Next to it were piles of pipe and sheet metal.

Raj pulled to the front of the line of cars but stopped short of a pole that held a video camera focused on a gated driveway onto the lot.

He reached under the driver’s seat, pulled out a pair of work gloves, and slipped them on. “There’s another pair under your seat,” he said.

He got out, took a piece of steel pipe from the back of the SUV, and walked behind the pole that held the video camera. He smashed the camera. Pieces of metal and plastic flew to the ground and when the camera stopped turning it faced toward the clouds. Raj came back and exchanged the pipe for a pair of bolt cutters, went to the gate, and clipped the chain, then swung the gate open.

He ran back to the SUV and we led the others onto the lot.

We poured out of the vehicles and spread across the lot, scavenging for copper and anything else valuable that wasn’t bolted down. “All right,” yelled Johnson. “We’ve got five minutes.”

Finley shouted for assistance. Under a plastic tarp outside the storage shed, he’d found a small store of copper piping. In two trips, we loaded it into the back of one of the vans.

“Four minutes!” Johnson shouted.

The wind had picked up and the night had gotten cold, but we took off our coats and tossed them into our vehicles. We stripped the lot of everything that could be carried by hand and fit so the van and SUV doors would shut.

Raj went to the SUV and came back to the aluminum shed with a crowbar. He rammed the end into the gap between the door and the frame and threw his shoulder against the bar. The door didn’t move.

“Help me!” he said.

I stood on the other side of the crowbar and pulled as he pushed.

The door slowly pulled away from the frame until the lock bolts cleared their housings. The door swung free.

Raj dropped the crowbar and grinned. “Thanks.” He reached inside the door and flipped on a light.

“Three minutes!” Johnson shouted.

The contractors had partly finished the inside of the shed. At the back end, they’d built three small rooms complete with locked doors. The shed smelled like new lumber and a chemical I didn’t recognize. A stack of insulated cable stood near the door. A large pile of two-by-fours stood against a side wall. Other stacks of sealed cardboard boxes stood in the middle of the large room.

I went for the insulated cable.

“Leave that,” Raj said. “Get those.” He pointed at a pile of gray metal boxes.

“What are they?”

”Transformers. Worth a couple hundred apiece.”

We carried a dozen of them to the SUV.

When we finished, Raj brought the crowbar inside. He went to one of the locked doors. A sign that hung on it said
WARNING—GUARD DOGS
. He jammed the end of the crowbar between the door and the frame.

“What are you doing?” I said.

He cocked his head toward the door. “Listen,” he said. “No dogs.”

“So?”

“So, someone’s using the sign to keep people away from this room. That means something valuable’s inside. Could be electronics. Could be cash.” He pushed the crowbar deeper.

“Two minutes!” Johnson shouted but a moment later he yelled, “Forget it! Let’s go!”

“What’s wrong?” I said.

Raj shrugged. “A car’s coming or there’s something on the police frequency.”

“Come on!” yelled Johnson outside. “Go, go, go!”

Raj laid his weight against the crowbar.

“Come on,” I said.

“In a moment.” The door started to separate from the frame.

Outside, the other men were shouting.

Raj eased the crowbar, reached into his pocket, and tossed me a ring of keys. “Start the car.” He went back to work on the door.

I ran to the shed exit and looked back at Raj as he pried the door and it ripped out from the frame. Raj stood for a moment like he expected gold coins to pour over him.

Then three German shepherds lunged out.

“Fuck!” Raj yelled and one of the dogs landed on his chest. Raj fell back and rolled across the floor, the dog on top of him.

I started toward him but another dog came after me. I sprinted out the door to the SUV. As I fired up the engine, I looked toward the county highway. Two sets of headlights were approaching.

The other SUVs and vans spun their tires on the dirt, snaked across the lot, and shot through the gate and onto the road, heading away from the headlights. I followed them, but when I reached the gate, I hit the brakes. Two dogs, maybe three were ripping into Raj inside the storage shed.

I shifted into reverse, bounced back over the dirt, and looked over my shoulder in time to see Raj run from the shed, blood on his face, the dogs behind him, lunging at his hands and legs like he was a wild animal that they meant to bring down. I headed toward him but it seemed like he couldn’t see the SUV. He ran for the fence and, when he reached it, climbed and kept climbing until his clothes hung up in the barbed wire stretched across the top. The dogs stood against the fence on their hind legs and barked and howled.

With the crowbar I might be able to clear them. But the crowbar was lying on the floor inside the shed.

I drove the SUV to the fence, shined the headlights on the dogs. Raj hung onto the top of the fence, bleeding, his face wild with fear. The dogs ignored me.

The headlights on the road were a couple of blocks away.

I pulled the SUV away from the fence, turned it around, and shifted into reverse. I backed toward the fence until two of the dogs ran to the side and the other yelped and then followed them. The rear end of the SUV touched the fence and I opened my window and yelled, “Climb onto the roof.”

After a few seconds, Raj yelled, “Can’t.”

I leaned out the window. Raj’s clothes were tangled in the barbed wire. The German shepherds were running back and forth, whining, looking for a way to get to him. The cars on the road slowed as they reached the open gate. One of them pulled onto the driveway so its headlights shined on the scene.

I tried opening the driver-side door but a German shepherd came at me. I slammed the door, then squeezed myself through the driver-side window and pulled myself onto the roof. Raj was watching the dogs like they might climb the fence and eat him there. I crawled toward him. “Give me your hand,” I said and he reached toward me, his eyes still on the dogs. I cleared his sleeve from the barbs, cleared one of his pant legs.

“Get me down,” he said.

A voice yelled from the open window of the car that had pulled onto the lot. A woman’s voice. “I’ve called for help,” the woman said.

Help of the kind she would have called was the last thing we needed. “Thanks!” I yelled back.

I helped Raj free his other leg and then his arm, and he inched onto the roof of the SUV. “Can you slide into the window?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Then hold tight.”

I slid into the window and drove away from the fence. As we passed the car that had pulled onto the construction lot, a woman in her sixties watched the SUV with the bloodied man on top as though it was a strange, horrible animal that had gotten loose in southern Wisconsin. I waved to her. Her window went up.

A man about the same age sat in the car outside the gate, speaking into a cell phone. Probably to the cops.

A quarter mile later, I pulled to the shoulder. Raj crawled across the roof, slid down the windshield onto the hood, climbed down, and tried his feet on the ground. They held him.