Chapter 33
Minutes after Tony had driven away from the convenience store, the adrenaline rush of the holdup plunged and exhaustion began to creep like an aggressive malignancy into every fiber of his body. Conscious of a lump in his throat, he had swiped at the tears in his eyes. Not one thing, not even when Ma had been run down by the drunken bastard, had wrung a single tear from him. Yet, Hank’s death, the tension of his relentless flight from the law, or the anticipation of the release of his Ma’s torment, had reduced him to silent sobs. He glanced toward Rudy to make sure he didn’t see his weakness. Relieved to find his face turned toward the window and the gray hoodie pulled over his head, and, with no need to check Natalie as she lay on the rear seat where he had left her, he had opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, lit one, and then tried to change the subject in his mind.
Hank was perhaps the only friend he had known in recent years and his death had no part in the plan. Yet in some cruel turn of fate, the bullet Natalie put in his chest marked the true start of her worthy test and, each time she countered his plan, Ma’s atonement drew nearer. Before he finished with her, one last trial remained for her to face, and it would require all their strength.
Mourning was an emotion he had never felt. In fact, he believed he couldn’t feel anything but anger. Grief, however, came on against his will with such power he had decided his current state must be total mental and physical exhaustion. His body needed to recharge. That meant finding a secure place to sleep.
As a few hours earlier when he had stolen the sedan, he had found a narrow dirt lane off the main road and backed the Nissan into a stand of trees. There, he’d be invisible until the morning light.
*
Natalie had been tossed on the backseat like a bag of dirty laundry. Tony had bound together her hands and feet behind her back with a white nylon rope he had stolen from the store. To complete her imprisonment and humiliation, he had shoved a piece of a disposable diaper into her mouth and had wrapped masking tape around her head to hold it in place.
Once Tony had fallen asleep, she calmed herself with deep breaths through her nose. Since the cab wasn’t as heavy with tobacco smoke, the air had been fresh enough that she felt her body begin to give in to exhaustion. The tension siphoned off, she’d need strength when she had an opportunity, she gave in to sleep.
Now, several hours later, a sound caused her to stir. From the shadows manifested in the passenger compartment, she realized it was the time of day when first light begins to break just before the sun volleys its intimal rays over the horizon. She had experienced this many times before on the farm. Now with her face toward the back of the seat, pleasant thoughts of her dad rising with the sun to begin a long day’s work filled her head as she heard the sound of a distant tractor.
*
The faint hum of a diesel engine crept into Tony’s sleep as well and he woke with a start. He feared his hiding place had been compromised. He looked out through the rain-stained windshield. Across the dirt road from the stand of evergreens under which he had parked, a large recently harvested field lay blanketed with downed corn stalks yet to be disposed of. The wet shucks glistened as the sun found the moister from last night’s shower.
He started the Nissan and crept up to the edge of the forest. In the distance, a half-mile away and to his left, a tractor plowed the field. It headed away from him. Between his position and the tractor stood the prize about a quarter mile up the lane, a burgundy pickup truck. He rolled the sedan out of the trees, turned left, and headed for it.
As he approached, he could see it was a four-door. He stopped beside and just behind it, and hoped to hide the Nissan from the farmer’s view. If the driver of the tractor reached the end of the row he now plowed and turned around, Tony wanted nothing suspicious to attract his attention. He needed enough time to make the switch and avoid the farmer’s eye.
He turned toward Rudy who had woken up when the Stanza’s engine came to life. Before he gave in to sleep last night, Tony had tied Rudy’s hands and feet together with the same nylon rope he used on Natalie. Now, he reached into his coat pocket, produced a box knife also stolen last night, and cut the ropes from Rudy’s feet and hands.
“Get her into the backseat,” he said, “and hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Tony jumped out of the driver’s seat of the sedan and stepped toward the truck He wanted to gain access without breaking a window. Last night he was almost forced to break glass when he attempted to commandeer the Jeep. Generally, such access was a purely amateur means of entry. Back in Jersey, such a feat wouldn’t have posed a moment’s concern as he’d have had the proper tool for the job—a Slim Jim. None at hand, though, posed no problem as the farmer had left the doors unlocked. Once inside he searched for keys. After a few failed attempts: behind the sun visor, under the floor mat, in the console compartment, he thought to look in the most obvious place, the ignition.
“Stupid farmer. He deserves this.”
*
Rudy opened the back door of the truck and then went back to the Nissan for Natalie.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he picked her up off the backseat.
She couldn’t answer with the gag in her mouth but she seemed to grace him with an “I understand” smile in her eyes. After what she had said to Tony last night, “it’s my job to escape from all of you, Rudy included,” this kindness was reassuring.
He realized that the way Tony had tied her had to be uncomfortable, even more than the way she had been tied up in the van, so he placed her carefully on the backseat of the truck.
*
“That’s it,” Rudy said, as he dropped the rest of the supplies on the floor of the passenger side of the pickup.
“Follow me,” Tony said. “Let’s get the hell outa here.”
With a few hours’ sleep, Tony regained invincibility. He turned the ignition. The sound the 5.7-liter HEMI engine made as it sprang to life fueled the adrenaline already pulsing through his body. He checked to see that the tractor was still headed away, then turned the Dodge Ram about and drove toward the main road.
Rudy followed close behind with Hank’s lifeless body in the Nissan’s trunk.
*
Agent Hawk had left the site of the gas station holdup, the last known sighting of the sedan, several hours before.
Sonya, the attendant, had been tied up and gagged in the back room but, she had been able to scoot to a phone, maneuver her hands enough to dial 9-1-1, and scream a muffled “Help!” into the receiver.
“Did they use the restroom?” Angela had asked during the interview at the store.
“Yeah, she did. I forgot about that. He scared the shit out of me.”
“What did the man do while she was in there?
“Well, I wasn’t paying much attention but, now that you mention it, I think he stood outside the door,” she said and combed her fingers through her hair. “Yeah, he kept looking in my direction, kinda creepy like, until she come out.”
Angela had made an examination of the restroom and turned up a handwritten note, penned on a piece of paper with the name Pair-A-Dice Motel at the top.
“Been kidnapped and raped Tony, Rudy and Hank. Hank is dead. Driving a tan Nissan, headed to Rudy’s uncle’s cabin in Canada.
“Natalie Beaumont (Amy Westerhill) 714-555-8526”
After she showed Sonya photos of the suspects taken from the security video in California and Natalie Beaumont’s headshot, she confirmed the identity of the couple in the store but didn’t recognize the other two men.
Something the clerk hadn’t reported stolen caused Angela to stay in the area. They had taken the cash in the register drawer, cartons of cigarettes, food, beer, bottled water, nylon rope, a Washington State map, and a box knife. All practical things but, Sonya didn’t mention gasoline. When Angela asked about it, Sonya said, “There’s a security monitor in the back room. I watched them drive away right after they tied me up.”
That left one conclusion. They didn’t fill the tank because they planned to steal another vehicle in the area. Like a good hunting dog, she had caught their scent. Now it lingered in the air.
After she had finished her report, except for a couple of hours when she couldn’t drive another mile without closing her eyes, she spent the night searching for the subject’s stolen car. She had been alone in the pursuit and, with too many places where they could have holed up, knew it practically impossible to find them at night. She had filed a BOLO for the Stanza in Pacific and the surrounding counties but, by daybreak, nothing had surfaced.
Since she had been on duty for over twenty-two hours, she decided to stop for something to eat. The sun had come up about an hour before and while she sipped her coffee and ate her over-easy eggs, she looked out from the window seat of the diner to the street as the city of Baker came to life.
A phone rang behind the counter and drew her eyes to two old men and a middle-aged woman sitting on barstools. They laughed and chatted like this was their daily ritual. A young female server took the call and then looked across the café to the entire police department in Baker, Chief Clarence Bigad.
Bigad had responded to the robbery last night just after Angela concluded her interview with Sonya. The Jack Daniels on his breath partially explained his impertinence but, after two minutes with him, she recognized it was either her agency or her gender—and probably both—that gave him that brazen edge. She could almost see the wheels spin in his head when she introduced herself as FBI. She wouldn’t have been surprised to overhear him refer to her with his cronies as that “G-Man, or to be absolutely politically correct, G-Person with the G-String.” Last night his eyes said, “Get the hell out of Baker,” but he had been cooperative and, when he entered the café fifteen minutes ago, he produced an almost polite smile and a wave.
He now sat across the diner with the morning newspaper and stuffed breakfast through his fat reddish cheeks. From her position, Angela could see his rotund belly filled the gap between the back of the seat and the table edge. Since he couldn’t lean over the table when he ate, the white paper napkin tucked into his shirt collar protected his khaki-colored uniform shirt from drippings of egg yolk, coffee, and strawberry pancake syrup. Just the edge of a polished gold badge winked out from under the stain barrier as it caught the overhead light.
“It’s for you,” the server said as she stopped at the Chief’s table.
As he struggled to shift his bulk out of the bench seat, a loud squawk as the vinyl upholstery complained against his polyester trouser bottoms filled the diner. He finally came free. With the table and the seatback for leverage, he hoisted himself to a standing position. He threw the napkin on the table and waddled to the phone behind the counter.
Before the server returned to her station, she dropped Angela’s bill on the table. While the Special Agent studied it and pulled her billfold from her pocket, she listened to Bigad’s half of the conversation.
“Chief Bigad,” he shouted into the receiver and winked at the server.
“Stolen?” He met Agent Hawk’s eye and looked away. Bigad cupped his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and turned his back to the restaurant patrons. Even with a lowered voice, Angela could still hear him in the now silent café. “When, where?”
“I’ll be right there,” Clarence concluded and hung up the receiver.
He motioned to the waitress for his bill and, while he paid it, he glanced toward Angela.
“You might want to join me,” he said and without hesitation, headed for the door.