Shady Cross (18 page)

Grote looked surprised for a split second, as if he thought the finger-breaking incident would sour Stokes on the whole loan idea. He started in on the nails on his other hand, letting Stokes twist in silence for half a minute or so.

“What do you need it for?”

To pay to your goddamn thugs, you ugly bastard, to get a scared, innocent little girl out of
your
goddamn custody and back into her own life.

“I’d rather not say what the money’s for, Mr. Grote.”

Grote shook his head. “Your balls are way too fucking big, Stokes. They’re gonna get you killed.”

“I thought you said my mouth was gonna get me killed.”

“Your mouth or your balls. One of them will get you killed.”

“Tonight?”

This time Grote definitely didn’t chuckle.

“So how about the money?” Stokes asked again.

“You came here thinking I’d give you a hundred thousand dollars because your father saved my life decades ago.”

Stokes nodded. His broken fingers pulsed with the blood flowing through them, and each beat of his heart intensified the pain.

“Even though you don’t have a dime to your name,” Grote said, “and no collateral but that shitty trailer you live in, and no obvious means of repaying the loan.”

“When you put it like that . . .”

“And you think I’ll do this just because your dad saved my ass a lifetime ago.”

“That was my plan anyway. So how about it? For good old, piece-of-shit, walk-out-on-his-family dad.”

Grote fixed Stokes in the sights of his eyes. “Your father was a buddy of mine. He saved my life a long time ago. That’s why I gave you a job a few years ago when you came knocking. That’s why, when you pussied out and couldn’t follow orders and only broke one knee when I told you to break two, and when you mouthed off with your smart-guy wisecracks, saying things no one without a death wish would say to me, thinking you were bulletproof because your old man saved my bacon one time, well, your father was the reason I only had my guys rough you up a little. It was why I didn’t have them break every bone in your body, turn you into a vegetable, and leave you in a gutter, or maybe just put a bullet through your face. All that, I did for your father. Debt repaid, as far as I’m concerned. He saved me, I spared you. A life for a life. So I don’t owe you a loan now. In fact, I ought to let Brower here loose on you again. He looks like he enjoyed smashing your fingers. I can only imagine how much he’d like to do whatever the hell he’d like to do to you.”

Stokes looked over at Brower, who was smiling wide.

“But I’m not going to do that, Stokes. Out of respect for your father, asshole that he truly was. Not out of some sense of debt, but just respect. But seeing as I’ve already repaid my debt to your old man, it seems I’m granting you a favor here.”

“Yeah?” Stokes asked. “What favor is that?”

“Not having you beaten to a pulp or killed.”

“Oh, that one.”

“Seeing as I’m granting you this favor,” Grote said, “I guess you’ll be in debt to me now. You owe me one now, right?”

Stokes wasn’t sure he saw it quite that way, but Grote seemed insistent, so he nodded as noncommittally as he could.

“Good,” Grote said. “So one of these days, I’ll send one of my guys around to collect. Maybe you’ll do a job for me to repay my kindness.”

“Whatever.”

Despite everything that happened two years ago, and despite Grote having Stokes’s fingers broken just now, Stokes figured that somewhere behind that ugly face, up in what was certainly a malformed, abnormal brain, Grote held a grudging respect for Stokes’s balls. And despite what the man had said, Stokes knew that he still felt indebted to Stokes’s father for pulling him out of a bad situation a long time ago, making this life of decadence and crime possible. Stokes first discovered that deep-rooted sense of gratitude after he’d been in Grote’s employ for only three months. He’d skimmed five hundred bucks off the top of a payment he’d collected for Grote, mistakenly thinking his boss wouldn’t find out about it. But Grote did and, to his surprise, Stokes didn’t permanently lose the ability to use one of his hands—something Stokes later saw happen to at least two others who skimmed half of what Stokes did. Stokes, whom Grote had told about his debt to his father when he hired him, realized why he’d been spared that day. Stokes never really took advantage of that deeply instilled sense of gratitude, probably because he wasn’t sure how far he could push things. But he knew, he’d been aware of it, even subconsciously relied on it, when he hadn’t been able to stop himself from mouthing off to Grote two years ago. It was why he’d had the balls to come here in the first place tonight and tell Brower to get Grote out of bed. And it was why he had the guts, or maybe the stupidity, to ask one more time. “So no loan, huh?”

Grote ignored him as he clipped yet another fingernail. Stokes looked at his watch again—the hell with it—and saw that it was 12:39 p.m.

“Well, if you’re not gonna give me the money, I guess I’ll be going. Want me to just throw myself out?”

“Unless you want help,” Grote said without looking up from his nails.

“No thanks,” Stokes replied as he stood and headed toward the foyer. As he passed Brower, the goon held up Stokes’s canister of pepper spray, which Stokes took and shoved into his jeans pocket.

“No hard feelings, Stokes?” Brower said, smirking and holding out his left hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

Stokes’s own left hand was sporting three purple, swollen, misshapen fingers now, so he had to use his right to give Brower the finger as he walked away.

Stokes’s crossing of the huge foyer seemed to take several minutes, but when he looked at his watch outside, he saw that it was 12:41.

Shit, his fingers throbbed.

Nineteen minutes until the next phone call. Forty-nine until he had to be at the Laundromat. And he still needed to come up with $103,000.

He had only one option left. He knew who would have almost exactly what he needed. He really had no other choice. He just wasn’t looking forward to it. At all.

TWENTY-FIVE

12:45 A.M.

FRANK NICKERSON AND LEO GROTE
may have been professional rivals for most of the illegal action in and around Shady Cross, and they may have maintained their personal offices on opposite sides of town, but—fortunately for Stokes—they lived in the same upper-class neighborhood. Stokes made the drive from Grote’s to Nickerson’s in under two minutes, which was good, as time was growing terribly short for him.

Stokes pulled the Camry to a stop in the moon shadow of a big tree, half a block from Nickerson’s house. The place wasn’t quite as grand as Grote’s, but it wasn’t far off. No fence around the property, which was helpful, and a little less acreage to cover before he reached the house, which was also helpful, but the house itself, while maybe not as big as Grote’s, wasn’t a hell of a lot smaller, which wasn’t helpful at all.

He had driven there with the intention of asking Nickerson for a loan, hoping for better luck than he’d had with Leo Grote. He knew the odds were against him, considering that he’d taken nearly a year to pay back the last loan, which he’d repaid that very day, and also given the fact that it had looked to Nickerson’s crazy sons like he’d been about to skip town without paying off his debt to their father. That it was nearly one in the morning didn’t make Stokes feel any more confident about Nickerson flipping open his wallet and handing Stokes a hundred grand. So during the two-minute drive to Nickerson’s house, Stokes had come up with a different plan, one that was risky, stupid, suicidal even, but at least seemed possible now that he saw both of the Nickerson boys’ silver Escalades parked in front of the house, right where he hoped they would be.

Stokes glanced at his watch: 12:46. He had fourteen minutes until the next call from the kidnappers. If he were smart, he’d wait for the call before going into the house. But he couldn’t. Every second counted now. In their last conversation, they had been clearer than ever that Amanda’s life depended on everything going as planned. And that meant Stokes needed another $103,000, and he needed to be at Laund-R-Rama in forty-five minutes. So he didn’t have fifteen minutes to kill by sitting in the car, waiting for the phone to ring.

He popped the Camry’s trunk with his right hand—he did everything now with his right hand—and went around to the back of the car. He took his lock pick set from the backpack, and he took the two guns he’d taken from the antique dealers. One he put in the pocket of his jacket; the other he stuffed into his belt at the small of his back. Except in the Wild West fantasies of his youth, he’d never fired a gun in his life. But he knew how they worked.

He left the money in the trunk and turned toward Nickerson’s house. It was dark but for a light on by the massive front door. Nickerson’s property had plenty of big trees on it, and Stokes trotted toward the first clump of them. He moved quickly across the lawn, slipping from shadow to shadow. Finally, he was at the house. Everything was quiet. He slid over to a window and cautiously peered in. It was dark inside but enough moonlight drifted through the windows to outline the features of a kitchen. A nice one. Gourmet, with marble countertops and big, shiny appliances. He looked for evidence of alarm sensors on the window and saw none.

Despite the chill in the October night, Stokes was sweating like a kid on his first date, or a guy about to break into the house of a criminal with ties to the Mafia and two violent, batshit-crazy sons.

He slipped his cowboy-shirt mask over his face and tied it behind his head. Then he sneaked along the side of the house, pausing at each window as he did. He saw an exercise room stocked with expensive, professional equipment that he doubted had ever been used by Frank Nickerson, but which he was fairly certain saw regular use from the iron-pumping Nickerson boys. Next came a spacious bathroom. He stopped at the corner of the house and peeked into the backyard. No signs of a dog, which didn’t surprise him as he hadn’t heard any barking. Still, that was a break. One of his few today.

There were no lights on back here. He moved through the shadows along the back of the house. Through another window he saw a desk. Books on the wall. Looked like an office or study. That was the kind of room where they’d stash money. At least it felt that way to Stokes. He’d start his search there.

He sneaked along two-thirds of the length of the house before he came to a back door. He blinked sweat from his eyes and set about inspecting the door for signs of an alarm system. He found none. He looked through the door, into what appeared to be a TV room, and saw no alarm panel. Though he hadn’t counted on this, he’d been hoping for it—hoping that Nickerson was arrogant enough to think that no sane person would break into his house to steal from him. Of course, he was probably right; no sane person
would
steal from him. But Stokes was too desperate at the moment to be in his right mind, so there he was, on the verge of the stupidest breaking and entering of his life. But the lack of an alarm system was another small break. He’d been prepared to try the same trick he used on Wiggins and Martz. If that didn’t work, he would have rung the doorbell, stuck a gun in the face of whoever answered it, and asked for the money he knew they had because he’d given it to them just a few hours earlier.

But there was no alarm and Stokes silently thanked God—in whom he didn’t truly believe—that he had the ability to pick locks. In the next breath he cursed God, if he existed, for giving him this ability, because without it this crazy operation wouldn’t even have been a possibility, and Stokes could have given up with a marginally clear conscience.

What the hell was he doing?
He couldn’t bring himself to punch a clock for his own daughter, yet he’d thrown away a shot at a great new life—and was now risking his shitty old one—for a kid he’d never met? This was insanity. This was suicide.

He looked at his watch: 12:49. He really should wait, he knew. But with luck, he’d be in and out quickly. Unlike when he broke into the antique dealers’ home, though, this time he took out the cell phone, flipped it open, and figured out how to engage the silent ring mode. He slipped the phone back into the inner breast pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out his set of lock picks. He examined the dead bolt and lock-in-knob on the door, selected his tools, and got to work. It was tough with broken fingers on one hand, so it took longer than it should have, but he managed it. Too bad he wasn’t this good at something legitimate.

He slipped a black leather glove on his right hand, looked at the ugly, twisted fingers on his left hand, then put the second glove back into his pocket. He took a deep breath, grasped the doorknob, and opened the door a few inches, tensing for the scream of an alarm in case he’d been wrong about that.

The house remained silent. He let out his breath in a shaky rush. He’d broken into homes before. Dozens of them over the years. He’d long ago learned not to be too nervous about it. But this was different. If your typical home owners caught you, they’d just start screaming and you’d either run or you’d take the offensive, as Stokes had unthinkingly done last night. There was always the risk they’d have a gun, but most people didn’t want to shoot anyone. They’d rather yell down through the darkness, from the safety of the top of the stairs, that they were armed and you’d better leave because they’d already called the cops, which was probably a lie, but it usually wasn’t worth sticking around to find out, so you’d get the hell out and try your luck somewhere else some other night. But this was different. If Stokes were caught tonight, he wouldn’t have to worry about the cops. Actually, he’d be praying for a cop to come along and save him from Frank Nickerson and his psycho sons, who would be pretty miffed about his being there, and who would probably do awful things to most parts of his body while he prayed for death, which would certainly arrive eventually, but which would take its own sweet, cruel time getting there.

After listening for another moment at the door and hearing nothing, Stokes slipped into the house. He left the door open an inch or two in case he had to make a fast getaway.

Though not necessarily easy to accomplish, his plan was simple. Find the money Stokes had paid the Nickersons earlier, then get the hell out. It was nearly five o’clock when he gave them the money, and, because all the banks in town close at four on Fridays, they couldn’t have deposited it. So, seeing the Escalades out front, which was what Stokes was hoping he’d find as he knew the Nickerson boys still lived with their father, he figured the money was almost certain to be somewhere in the house right now, hopefully in the study, which was where he planned to start looking. All he had to do was find it and sneak out. The sooner the better. And if the money was locked in a safe, what then? Well, he’d have no choice but to do something completely insane. He’d slip upstairs, jam a gun barrel into a sleeping Nickerson’s ear—whichever one he came across first—and get the combination. He’d have to tie and gag the Nickerson after, which could be dangerous work—he might even have to coldcock the bastard with the butt of a gun, but he’d have no choice. That whole scenario was a truly frightening prospect, so Stokes kept his unbroken fingers crossed that the Nickersons hadn’t bothered to put the money in a safe.

He looked around. He was in a family room of sorts. A huge flat-screen TV hung on one wall with a big, soft couch facing it. He left the room, passed a bathroom bigger than his whole trailer, then walked through the kitchen. His stomach rumbled loudly enough that he worried the sound could have carried upstairs. He hadn’t eaten since he’d taken a few bites of meat loaf at Tootie’s Diner, back when all this started many hours ago. But seeing as this wasn’t the time or place to fix himself a sandwich, he walked on, moving as quietly as he could toward the end of the house, where the study was, listening hard for sounds that anyone was awake.

He glanced at his watch: 12:54. He’d never make it. He wasn’t going to be able to find the money and get out in the next six minutes. But he’d gotten inside without alerting anyone to his presence, and the place was huge, so he was confident he’d be able to find someplace where he could answer the phone, which would ring silently, and carry on a quick conversation before finishing what he came for. Maybe the bathroom he just passed. Slip in, shut the door, talk quietly, and get back to work. The kidnappers had been punctual all night, calling right at the top of every hour as they’d promised Jenkins they would do. All Stokes had to do was shut himself away at 12:59 and wait for the call. For now, he’d keep searching. Again, every second was precious.

Stokes walked through a huge, formal dining room, then a huge living room. As he moved through the house, his eyes scanned each room for drawers and cabinets, places they might be likely to stash the money for a few days, just in case it wasn’t in the study as he hoped. He passed through a smaller living room—they probably called it a sitting room or something like that—and saw a pair of open wooden doors in the far wall. As he neared them, the corner of a desk became visible and Stokes’s heartbeat quickened. For some reason, he felt confident the money would be in that study—hopefully in a desk drawer, but maybe in a safe in the wall or floor. It was possible that Nickerson didn’t bother with a safe, though. After all, if he wasn’t worried about anyone breaking into his house, why should he worry about someone searching his house for money?

Stokes slipped into the study. Two walls were lined with books, none of which Stokes believed a single Nickerson had read. The wall behind the big desk was covered with floor-to-ceiling windows. Two leather chairs faced the desk. On the wall behind the chairs hung another big flat-screen TV. Through an open door on the other side of the room, Stokes saw a sink. Another bathroom. He checked his watch: 12:57. He decided to take a minute to search for the money before slipping into that bathroom to take the kidnappers’ call. After he hung up, he’d find the money, if he hadn’t before then. And if he didn’t find it fast, he’d fall back on his monumentally stupid backup plan to drag a Nickerson out of bed with a gun in his face and have the bastard find the money for him. He figured that if he could leave the house by one fifteen, he could be at the Laundromat in time for the kidnappers’ call.

He had rifled quickly but quietly through the three drawers on the left side of the desk and was about to duck into the bathroom for his hourly call when something flashed faintly in the corner of his eye. He looked back through the sitting room, into the dining room, where light now spilled in from the hallway. Someone had turned on a light in the hall.

Oh, shit.

Stokes’s heart began to beat so hard and so loudly that he almost expected whoever was in the kitchen to come rushing into the office to find the source of the pounding. He listened for approaching footsteps but had trouble hearing over the roar of blood in his ears.

He stepped closer to the double door, where he could listen better. Someone was moving around in the kitchen. He heard a plate placed onto the marble countertop. He heard the refrigerator door swing shut. He heard a cabinet close. He heard the refrigerator door open and close again. Finally, he heard footsteps and prayed they’d move away from him. They didn’t.

He unconsciously patted his jacket pocket, feeling the weight of the gun there, as he moved quickly across the room toward the bathroom. As the footsteps got closer, probably entering the sitting room now, Stokes slipped into the bathroom. He considered closing the door behind him, but Nickerson or whoever was approaching might have remembered that it had been left open. He looked around for a window and saw a big one near the toilet, big enough for him to crawl through if he had the time, which he didn’t think he did, but he didn’t want to do that anyway if he could avoid it. He’d have much preferred that whoever was coming would grab a book or something from the office, something to read in bed, but Stokes realized this was unlikely given that the Nickersons weren’t known for their intellectual curiosity. But the footsteps were almost there already and going out the window was no longer an option anyway.