Hide and Snake Murder (8 page)

Six

I said, “What are
we going to do? Baz, this mess is your entire fault. You are a one-hundred-percent selfish, brainless, pathetic fool.”

“My fault? I'm not the one who—”

“You're the snake thief, dickhead,” Coop said.

Eddy tapped Coop gently on the forehead. “Language, young man. But he's right, Basil.” She settled into a chair with a sigh.

Agnes said, “Nephew, why do you think all that money was sewn inside the snake?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

Coop levered himself backward onto the desktop and sat with his legs dangling over the side. “Well I don't think the snake swallowed it, so it being in there wasn't an accident.”

Rocky perched next to Coop and mimicked Coop's swinging legs. Baz stood looking dazed in the middle of the floor.

The panic, fear, and anger I'd shoved aside since the goons had stormed the hotel room swirled up from my gut to my brain, filling my head with the roar of desperation. I tried to wrestle the welling insanity back into its cage and, with some effort, succeeded.

I wandered over to the filing cabinet and tugged on the top drawer. It rolled open easily. Manila file folders full of invoices for companies that made coffins and various coffin parts were arranged in alphabetical order. I slid out one of the bills: coffin lids ordered from Mexico. The top of the purchase order had the name of the casket company,
Metairie Coffin and Casket, Inc.
, emblazoned across the top of the page in blood red. How appropriate. At least I'd know where I died if it came to that.

I flipped through a few more files and noted most of the supplies came from Mexico. That figured. I gave up, flipped an empty garbage can upside down, and sat.

Agnes asked, “Basil, where did you get the snake?”

He shrugged. “I turned in all the paperwork, and the paperwork had the addresses. All I remember is that it was somewhere in Minnetonka.”

“Well, that narrows it down,” Coop said with not a little sarcasm.

We lapsed into an uneasy silence.

Two hours later, the lock on the outside of the door rattled. We all watched the door swing open.

Tomás walked in, followed by a six-foot-tall, barrel-chested man in a neat, gray pinstriped suit. He rocked back on the heels of his tasseled loafers and folded his arms across his chest. A thin moustache clung to his upper lip. He wore his iron-gray hair buzzed in a crew cut. A police shield hung from his black leather belt, and the straps of a shoulder holster peeked out of the lapels of his suit jacket.

For a brief moment, I thought help had arrived. Until he opened his mouth. “So these are our troublemakers. Rounded up and ready for the slaughter.”

Slaughter? Who said anything about slaughter? Jeez, even if they planned to off us, he could have used a less descriptive word.

Tomás laughed darkly. “Indeed. It was a challenge coordinating things between here and Minnesota, but it all worked out in our favor.”

Agnes shook her finger at the man standing next to Tomás. “You're the nice police officer we talked to about Rocky, aren't you?”

The man grinned coldly. “Lieutenant Pomerantz, New Orleans PD, at your service.”

Agnes glared at him. “You're not nice. I'm going to tell your boss about you.”

The sharp bark of a laugh was the lieutenant's only response.

His name was so familiar. Where had I heard it before? Then the memory crystallized. The New Orleans detective I spoke with from the parking lot of Perkins. He mentioned he'd talk to a Lieutenant Pomerantz about my report. And here was the bastard in the flesh.

My tone was accusing. “You're with Missing Persons.”

He locked his eyes on mine. They were a sickly mesmerizing ice-cold gray. “Quick, aren't you? I run the unit. And, oh my, it does come in handy when I need to make someone disappear. Terrible pity the skiff you Yanks were in overturned in alligator-infested bayou waters. Silly tourists. Such a shame. Maybe we can fish out a leg or an arm for a proper burial.”

For a moment, all the air whooshed out of the room, and the only thing I heard was the buzzing from the fluorescent lights overhead. Coop said hoarsely, “What do we know that's bad enough for you to kill us?”

“If you could only connect the dots,” Pomerantz chuckled. “I'm sorry to say it's late, and I have somewhere I need to be.
Au revoir
.” He spun around and swooped out of the room. Tomás trailed him, and the lock clicked shut again.

“Holy shit,” I said. “We've got to get out of here.”

Coop levered himself off the desk as he looked upward. “Yes, we do.”

I followed his gaze. White tiles hung suspended about ten feet over our heads. The room had a drop ceiling, unlike the exposed beams and girders that made up the skeleton of the gymnasium-sized warehouse.

Eddy stood. “Boost me up.”

I'd settled back on my garbage can, and at Eddy's words, bounced up like a super ball. “Don't even think about it, Edwina Quartermaine.”

Before I could argue further, the door opened. Hunk walked in, the gun in his hand. “Time for a little boat ride.”

When none of us moved, he grabbed the person closest to him by the hair. The hair in his fist was attached to my head. I yowled. The back of my head crashed against his sternum. He wrapped a boulder-sized forearm around my neck and pressed the gun to my temple. “I said move!”

“Hey!” Rocky shouted. “Don't do that to my friend Shay O'Hanlon!” Before anyone could react, he rushed Hunk.

Coop caught Rocky around the middle right before he crashed into us. The barrel of the pistol dug deep into my skin. I tried not to hyperventilate.

“Easy, Rocky.” Coop grunted as he held the squirming man in a bear hug.

“Let me go! Let me down, Nick Coop!”

I could feel Hunk's chest expand and contract rapidly against my back, his breath hot on my ear. “You keep that crazy munchkin away from me, or I'll pop her now.”

Coop hauled Rocky from the room, giving us the widest berth he could. Agnes, Baz, and Eddy followed him out.

Hunk loosened his hold on my neck. He clamped a huge hand on my shoulder and hissed in my ear, “You try anything, and I'll cap your ass so fast you won't know what hit you.” Then he shoved me out of the office.

The van was where they'd parked it, except now there was a long, flattish boat lashed to its top.

Donny's little-girl voice floated from the other side of the vehicle. “I've got it tied down, Hunk.”

Tomás said, “Donny, come zip-tie their hands. Make them just tight enough so they can't get out but not enough to cut the skin. I'll see you two after you've taken care of this little problem.” He disappeared around the van.

Donny wasted no time securing us once again. I cringed as he roughly yanked Agnes and Eddy's arms back. I swear I've never felt as powerless as I did at that moment, watching Eddy being manhandled like that.

Hunk gave me a shove and growled, “Get in.”

We returned to our previous positions in the van, except this time Donny climbed into the driver's seat while Hunk remained in back with the gun on us.

Donny pressed the garage door remote. The pulleys creaked and groaned as the door rose. Hunk leaned against the van wall, keeping his gun pointed in our general vicinity.

My shoulders pressed against the side of the van. I arched my back, trying to keep pressure off my wrists. Coop was on one side of me while Baz sat on the other. Eddy and Agnes were beyond him, with Rocky tucked between them.

Hunk slouched down and stretched his long legs out, his weapon steady as a rock.

We needed a Hail Mary maneuver ASAP or we were going to wind up as fish gumbo.

Seven

Donny had to be
the slowest driver on the face of the Earth. Or time was moving at less than a snail's pace. I figured it had to be closing in on midnight by now.

Hunk said, “Donny, come on, man. This is boring.”

“I'm going as fast as I can. Settle down.”

Hunk let out a pained sigh. He glared at us for a moment then pulled a cell phone from his pocket with his free hand and turned it on. Every so often, he rested the phone on his knee and surveyed his hostages. It looked like he was in the middle of a hot game of solitaire. I was surprised he felt comfortable enough to mess with it. Apparently, he didn't think our threat level was high enough to be concerned about. Jerk.

Each time he got caught up in the game, the business end of the gun in his beefy hand dropped ever so slightly. Then a bump in the road would jostle him back into awareness, and up the weapon would come. This process repeated itself a number of times.

I closed my eyes as ideas churned through my brain. There had to be a way to use his preoccupation against him. If I slammed my foot down on one of Hunk's knees in the stretched out position they were in, maybe it'd snap in half, or at the very least hyperextend. That would hurt like hell.

The next time the muzzle tilted down, I nudged Coop. He slowly leaned toward me, and I whispered in his ear, “Tackle him.” Beyond that I had no idea what we were going to do, but we had to do something.

Coop nodded almost imperceptibly and his body tensed. I bounced my knee against his thigh. One, two, and on the third whack, he exploded from his seat like a rocket from a bottle. With a roar, Coop slammed into Hunk, who grunted in surprise. I whooped and tried to balance without using my arms and stomped as hard as I could on Hunk's knee. My foot grazed the top and came harmlessly down beside his leg.

The van careened from side to side as Donny twisted in the driver's seat to see what was going on.

Incoherent shouts echoed through the interior. I lost my balance and fell headfirst into Coop's bony butt. My dead weight hit Hunk's legs. Violently shooting stars filled my vision. There was a split-second resistance, and then one of Hunk's knees gave out.

An inhuman scream filled the space.

My right elbow smashed into something hard. I added my own howl of pain to the din.

Multiple muzzle-flashes of gunfire lit the dark interior of the van, and the noise was deafening. Coop still flailed against Hunk, trying to pin the man to the wall of the van. Not an easy task without arms.

The van swerved and tipped precariously sideways. Then the world reversed in an instant. My head ricocheted off something, and pain exploded behind my eyes. This time I bypassed the stars altogether as blackness swallowed me whole.

I slowly became aware of Eddy's terrified face above me, barely discernible in the darkness. Suddenly I fell into a time warp and I was seven years old again, screaming in pain as Eddy dragged me from the twisted wreckage of my mother's car. Blood from a gaping head wound streamed down her face and dripped on my cheek. I sucked in a huge breath and yelled, “MOM!” at the top of my lungs—and then someone was roughly shaking me.

“Shay. SHAY! Calm down, girl. You're all right. Everyone's okay.” Eddy's voice seeped into my awareness.

I thrashed even as cognition returned. I wasn't seven. I wasn't in the wreckage of our broadsided tan Ford Falcon. My mom's dead body wasn't sprawled beside me and Eddy's son, Neil, wasn't lying mangled in the back seat.

Hysteria retreated, and I gasped for air. I realized Eddy straddled me and felt her hands on my shoulders.

“I'm—” I struggled to sit up, but she was in the way. “Okay.”

She climbed off but remained kneeling in the gravel next to my stretched-out form.

“Oh.” My stomach nearly rebelled and my head swum. I sucked in a couple of desperate breaths and forced them out, trying to calm the queasiness.

The bright moonlight hurt my eyes. I squinted and looked slowly around. The van was upside-down in a low ditch. I was near the edge of the road about ten feet away. The scent of burned rubber and spilled automotive fluids filled the air.

I passed a hand over my forehead and my fingers came away sticky. The bony ridge above my right eye hurt like hell.

Then I realized my arms were no longer bound behind me. “What? How?”

“That Agnes is a 108-year-old Gumby. She managed bend herself into a pretzel, get her hands in front of her, and pull out a fingernail clipper that was in her pocket. Didn't take long to cut everyone loose after that,” Eddy said as she rubbed my back.

As I blissfully overindulged in the simple process of breathing, my brain and stomach slowed their spinning. Coop and Baz came scrambling around the far side of the upturned van, followed by Agnes and Rocky, all of whom appeared to have survived the crash in one piece.

Coop skidded to a stop at my feet. “Is she okay?” he asked in a tight voice.

Eddy said, “Ask her your own self.”

“I'm right here, and I'm fine.” I felt something trickle down my cheek.

“Hey,” Baz said. “You're bleeding.”

Rocky crouched down on my other side. “Here, Shay. You must put pressure on a wound for it to stop bleeding. If it doesn't stop after twenty minutes of firm, direct pressure, we must seek medical attention.” He whipped off his battered hat and slapped it to my forehead.

If I didn't die from my head wound, the germs on Rocky's beloved hat were probably going to do me in. But I didn't have the heart to make him take it away.

“Where're Hunk and Donny?” I asked, trying to peer around one of the earflaps that blocked my line of sight.

Agnes said, “We pulled them out of the van and dragged them over there.” She pointed in the general direction of the upside-down vehicle. “Then we tied them to the tree.”

“How did you manage that?”

Baz startled me by chortling. “Between bullets, broken glass, and—”

“My fist.” Coop's voice held a note of wonder as he flexed his hand and winced.

“And Coop's fist,” Baz agreed. “We didn't have any problem.”

“How long have I been out?”

Eddy looked at her wristwatch. “Ten minutes, maybe.”

Holy crap. I hope I didn't have brain damage. I tried to place events in order, but my mind wasn't cooperating. “What exactly happened?”

Rocky said, “You and Nick Coop were like an action movie!” He wriggled excitedly. “Nick Coop jumped on Hunk. You … ” He trailed off with a frown. “I am not sure what you did. But then there were explosions.” He mimicked the gunshots. “And the van went this way,” he leaned to the right, “and that way,” he leaned to the left. “Then you tipped over and Hunk screamed. Everything was upside down. It was amazing!” He nodded. “That was almost as fun as riding the Wild Thing roller coaster at Valley Fair. It is 207 feet tall and reaches a top speed of 74 miles per hour. It is also green, like my Doodlebug.”

“Yeah,” Coop said. “I'm not sure ‘amazing' covers it. I can't believe no one got seriously hurt. I'm sure we'll feel it tomorrow though. Anyway, when you took Hunk's knee out, I don't know if he meant to pull the trigger, but he blasted a hole in the windshield, a hole in the passenger seat, and nicked Donny.”

My eyebrows lifted.

Rocky bounced on his knees next to me. “A bullet went right through the top of his ear!”

“Yeouch.” I cringed.

I got my feet under me and stood, not-so-accidentally dislodging Rocky's hat from my forehead. “Okay, now what?” I asked as I dusted my hands off. A wave of dizziness spread through me. Through a nauseated haze, I heard Eddy say, “I think we should start walking the way we came.” She pointed down the dark road. “If any cars come, we can flag them down.”

“Wait a minute,” Agnes said. “We might want to see if we think the car is being driven by someone nice.”

“Wise,” Coop said.

That's how, forty-five minutes later, we wound up in the back of a pickup truck full of stinky sheep, driven by a farmer kind enough to detour into New Orleans proper on his way to an early morning livestock auction in Baton Rouge.