The Hitman: Dirty Rotters (26 page)

God, don’t let them die
like Pamela!

I came across a road sign directing me
to the freeway. I was about an hour north of Sally’s house. I
entered onto the south lane ramp and stomped the gas pedal. I
missed the El Camino SS badly.

I put in the Metallica cd and turned
the volume up loud.

Handing out a strong dosage of road
rage, I said, “Here I come.”

Chapter 21

Sally had no migraine
pills.

I checked through the bathroom, in
every cabinet, drawer, and behind the mirror, and only found a
mashed up tube of Colgate, two toothbrushes, and a man’s razor. I
assumed Frank was accustomed to spending the night.

I looked in the mirror. I could see
lumps on my head, which now felt like jackhammers cracking the bone
and rattling what lay underneath. Most of my head and face was
swelling up. My eyes were blackened and bloodshot. My forehead had
dried blood smeared from the cut above my left eye. I looked like I
got the life beat out of me. But right then I was Sally’s and
Palo’s only hope.

I shrugged aside my headache and
walked for her bedroom. I stepped over the bloody paperwork and
went to the gun cabinet. I grabbed a Glock and a box of loose
shells. I counted thirty rounds. I would have felt better with
more, but it would have to do. I loaded the clip then stuck the gun
in the sweatshirt’s hand warmer pocket. I loaded the 12 gauge with
buckshot and carried it out of the room, stepping over the small
speckles of red in the white carpet.

I was on my way back to the kitchen
when I heard the crunching of broken glass from near the garage
door.

I wasn’t alone.

With the shotgun in hand, I walked
slowly to the front door when I heard Frank’s deep voice. “What the
hell happened here? Where’s Sally?”

I turned. Frank was standing by the
door leading in from the garage. He was holding a huge .45 magnum.
He didn’t look happy to see me.

“
They took her,” I said
quickly.

“
Who?” Frank stepped closer
to me, keeping his cannon drawn. “When?”

“
The Russians. Early this
morning.”

I walked over to the table and slumped
down into a chair. I could have fallen asleep if I hadn’t been so
hungry. I set my gun on the table. Frank moved closer. He stood
beside me, looking down with a very serious look.

“
You better fill me
in.”

So I did. I left nothing out. When I
was finished, he sat next to me. “I would love to put a few knots
in your head, but it looks like someone beat me to it.”

“
I am going to get her
back. You can either stay here or you can lend me a hand.” I gave
him a hard look. But all he did was look amused.

“
Don’t give me that look. I
can’t take that look serious.” Frank smirked. “What’s the game
plan?”

“
I don’t know exactly where
they are being held. Someplace in the Red Square though. A
building, heavily guarded with a security fence.”

Frank sighed. “Well that narrows it
down to just about the whole damn place. What else you
got?”

I sat back for a second and tried to
think. All I could smell was bacon. The pan was still on the stove,
the bacon grease formed into a thick goo. “I was told that they
were going to be picked up at midnight by a Russian named Vladimir
flying in from Moscow. Maybe we could track down flights arriving
today? Find him, track him down and find them.”

“
I can make a call and get
someone looking into that. In the meantime, why don’t we take a
drive and see if anything looks familiar. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Frank stood up. “I love her.”

I nodded. “She knows,
Frank.”

He turned and walked back to the
garage door. I stood, grabbed the shotgun, a banana off the
counter, and followed, wincing in pain.

I was too messed up to drive. I kept
waiting for my peripheral vision to close in and the white light to
be the last thing I saw.

Frank drove a big Ford Raptor with a
lift kit. It was black, inside and out, with a moon roof and
navigation. The tire tread gave me the impression that he wanted to
drive up a tree. The seats were leather, the interior was
spotless.

We drove around the Red Square looking
for something resembling what I had pictured in my mind to be the
place I had been before. Wishful thinking at best. We found all
sorts of businesses and all sorts of dead ends. There were plenty
of buildings with chain fences. But there was no traffic. It was
Saturday afternoon and no one was working. Empty parking lots were
abundant. I didn’t see any black Rolls, or any white Phantoms. It
was hopeless.

After two hours of driving in circles,
Frank said, “We need gas. You hungry?”

I was half dead. “I could
eat.”

Frank pulled into a gas station and
filled up. We then hit up a burger joint outside of the Red Square.
We ordered burgers and ate them inside the Raptor. Frank was a
quiet guy. The strong silent type, I figured. The type of guy that
didn’t talk to anyone he didn’t like.

The last two hours were real
quiet.

“
My guy will be heading
into work in an hour. I’ll make the call and he’ll get us a
passenger list on the flight in from Moscow.” He took the biggest
bite I ever saw, chewed a second, then said, “Let’s head back to
Sally’s and get you some sleep. You don’t look so well. I don’t
want you dying in my truck.”

He almost sounded genuinely concerned.
I said nothing in rebuttal. We were doing nothing but waiting. And
I felt as good as I looked. My head needed a helmet of
ice.

“
How’s Belsay?” I
said.

“
He needs to be in the
hospital. Like you.”

I thought maybe Frank just didn’t want
him dying in his truck.

I tucked myself into the guest bed
again at a quarter to five. The pillow smelled like Palo. I found a
fan in the closet and turned it on high speed. The sound drown out
the deep silence shrouding the house. I had a packet of ice wrapped
up in a towel across my head. Frank was someplace in the garage. He
said something about fixing the side door of the garage. It was how
Jeff Dimeglio had gained access. He had punched through the small
glass squares, reached in and unlocked the door, then went through
the garage to enter into Sally’s house. We figured that Sally was
in the shower at that time and didn’t hear anything.

I quit thinking then. I heard Frank’s
voice talking in the living room. He was making the call. I tried
to hear what he was saying, but I fell asleep instead.

Frank’s hand woke me. I opened my eyes
and noticed right away that it was dark out. I sat upright, alert
and ready. Frank backed away gently.

“
You are not getting any
more sleep until you are dead.”

“
What time is
it?”

Frank said, “’Bout nine.”

“
I slept for too long,
Frank.” I was discombobulated. “We’re wasting time.”

“
Plane doesn’t land until
ten. You needed the rest so you can make better decisions later. I
need you to think more like a cop and less like you.”

He walked out of the room. I got up
and followed him, brushing the sleep from my eyes. I felt better. I
could have used a shower, but that could wait. I had a feeling that
I wasn’t done getting dirty.

Frank polished his badge then stuffed
it into his jeans pocket. “My man called a few minutes ago. There’s
a cargo plane coming in from Moscow.”

“
It has to be Vladimir.
Let’s go.”

“
One thing.” Frank met my
gaze and held it. “Belsay called. I told him everything. He’s
renting a car. He’ll meet us at the airport.” I gave him a
concerned look that he blew off right away. “Belsay is her brother.
I couldn’t ask him to stay away. Plus there’s not a lot of men on
the force I can trust. Russians control most of them in one way or
another. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

I was only hesitant with feeling
responsible for another life. Belsay had once almost lost his head
because of me. But I understood and thought that maybe one more
good guy wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“
Agreed.”

“
You didn’t have a
choice.”

Frank’s presence was comforting, in
spite of the hard looks and his general disdain for me. He was calm
and collective. He had the skills of a good cop. He was probably
known for making right decisions too. He was a good man for Sally.
“Let’s go get our women.”

Frank grunted something to himself and
turned for the door with his giant gun in hand. I said, “And I’m
driving.”

He turned back quick. “No way. I
wouldn’t even fit in that relic.”

I grabbed the shotgun. “That relic is
fast and we don’t have time to argue. I’m driving,
Frank.”

I walked past him, out the front door,
to old reliable. The door shut behind me and I could hear more
muttering.

At the airport, it didn’t take us long
to find Belsay. I parked the car then Frank and I tucked our
handguns out of sight. I carried the shotgun close to my right
thigh as we began walking for the building, and there he was. He
stuck out for a few reasons. One was the white medical wrap around
his head. He looked like a walking Q-tip. Another reason was that
Belsay saw us first and was flailing his arms and yelling. Another
reason was he had his gun and badge drawn, moving a scrawny man
towards us.

Frank and I shared the
same
is this legal?
look. We walked faster. We reached Belsay and he began
rambling on, nearly tripping over his words.

“
I got the sun of a bitch!
Look at him!” Belsay shoved the guy, who didn’t weight a buck-ten
in concrete boots, closer to us. The guy was young and scared. He
wore a black Adidas windbreaker and matching running pants with
thick black combat-style boots. His forehead was high and his chin
was blocky.

“
Who is this?” Frank
said.

“
The plane landed an hour
ago. When I found it, he was the only one on it. The snake tried to
talk his way out of it, but he ain’t going nowhere.”

The Russian spoke something nervously
and quick. It wasn’t English.

Belsay’s smile disappeared as he
looked to Frank, who in turn looked at me. I said, “He said he’s
just the pilot.”

Belsay shoved his pistol into the
pilot’s ribcage. “Pilot or not, he ain’t going nowhere.”

“
Frank, we need to find out
where everyone is. I’ll ask him some questions, but we should check
out the plane, too.”

Frank nodded. Belsay added, “It ain’t
no plane. It’s a friggen house with wings.”

“
Take us there,” Frank said
to Belsay.

We began walking around the side of
the terminal closest to us, heading for one of the hangars. I
walked close to the Russian and started questioning him in Russian.
His responses were short and nervous. I believed him.

Frank looked at me and said,
“Well?”

“
Well, the pilot says they
arrived an hour ago and the others left. He was told to stay with
the plane. Said they be back after midnight. He said there are a
dozen of them.”

We went silent then. A daunting task
to begin with, now undoubtedly outnumbered. A sense that time was
slipping away faster than we could catch it settled in quick. I
began to grow nervous. My stomach began to churn. We all walked
faster.

We rounded a hangar and saw it. It was
a massive cargo plane. It was made to carry more than just people.
This thing could carry tanks and maybe other jets. It was a shiny
blue color. It was probably packed with expensive bottles of
flavored vodka.

“
Told you it wasn’t a
friggen plane.” Belsay smiled.

A retractable set of stairs slanted
down from an open door near the nose. We walked up the steps and
inside. It was big. There were two dozen leather seats right away.
After that it was empty. Maybe thirty yards of empty.

“
Makes you wonder what the
guy shipped over here,” Belsay said.

I asked the Russian, but he said they
were picking up something. I didn’t understand what, aside from the
women. Then I asked him where his friends went. He said they left
in a red van. That was all he knew. It was ten o’clock.

I exited the plane and stood on the
black pavement staring skyward, thinking. Which wasn’t easy. My
head felt like it spent an hour in a blender. The others followed
me. We stood together looking around, searching for answers we
didn’t have yet. There were no flights circling or landing, nothing
taking off. It was quiet. I’d rather it have been really
busy.

I turned to Belsay. “Stay here with
the plane.”

“
No friggen way! I ain’t
being left behind. Tell him, Frank.” Belsay grew
anxious.

“
Listen, we need to have
someone here. This is the only place we know for sure that the
Russians will be with the women. If Frank and I can’t find them, or
something goes wrong, at least we’ll have this end covered.” I
offered the shotgun to Belsay.