Whirlwind

33

Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Texas

Mason forced himself to relax.

He ate about half of his nachos, paid his bill with cash and left the bar as if he were just another customer.

Squinting in the bright Texas sun, he got into his truck. He was coming down from his high, and the TV report had hit him like a blow to the gut.

The news changes everything-every damned thing. Hang on. Be cool. Be cool. Be cool. We have to pull this off. We have no options.

He took a long, deep breath then exhaled.

He knew exactly what he had to do-the new risks he had to take.

Mason turned the ignition, calculating that he still had time.

Within minutes he was back on the interstate, heading east. But as he navigated through lines of vehicles with brake lights flaring, horns blasting, big rigs grinding, his knuckles whitened on the wheel.

His thread of control started fraying.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, he mentally tripped through the trouble pursuing him. The surrogate agency was surely looking to get their money back, DOA was on his trail, his parole people would soon flag his violations and now the FBI was all over his ass.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Mason had been running all of his life.

He’d tried running from Jerry, the monster who’d lived with his mother. He would never forget how Jerry’s belt made leathery snaps when he yanked it from his pants and whipped him in front of his drunken loser friends.

“Look what I can make this pup do! Get me a beer from the fridge!”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

The belt would burn across Mason’s arms.

“YES, WHAT?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jerry was not Mason’s father, just the man who stayed with his mother, a junkie whore who’d brought a lot of strange men home. One night when Mason was fifteen and Jerry had passed out on the sofa, he stood over him with a ball-peen hammer determined to splatter his brains.

Instead he left it on Jerry with a note:

I decided to let you live, you piece of shit.

Then Mason left and never looked back, never accepted the blame and beatings for the mistakes his mother and Jerry made in their lives. And he would be damned if he’d go down for Remy’s.

The problem was he and Remy never had a plan.

At first, when she lost the baby, they ran off to get away from the nurse so they wouldn’t have to repay the cash. Then Remy got all whacked out with her postpartum psychosis and grabbed the baby. Hell, maybe she’s bonding with it now while the FBI is looking for them.

I’m not going down for this. I’m not going back to prison. Remy got us into it. I’ll get us out. Then I’ll dump her.

On the east side of Dallas, Mason found his way into the fringes of the Metroplex that were untouched by the storm but were hellish for other reasons. He moved down a strip of taco huts, Big Bobby Jay’s Used Appliances, the Famous Glitter Hair and Nail Boutique.

He pulled into Ray’s Right Fix Auto Repair.

The weatherworn wooden sign above the garage was blistering. The lot was dotted with heaps in various stages of repair. The pavement was a mosaic of oil, grease and fluid stains that fed the film over the two-bay garage.

Mason got out and approached the open service doors.

A Toby Keith song echoed from a radio.

The air reeked of rubber and echoed with compressors and the clank of steel tools dropped on the concrete floor. A man in filthy jeans with a stained bandanna lifted his head from under the hood of an Olds.

“Sorry, mister, we’re closing up for the day. Come back tomorrow.”

“I just need to see Lamont. Is he still here?”

A socket wrench whirred and the man went back to his work before he answered.

“Out back.”

The bay doors opened to the rear of the lot.

A mobile home with vinyl siding sat in one corner, as if it had given up. Across the yard, a high-fenced kennel contained a large dog. The rear area was a graveyard of car parts and equipment, engine hoists, metal drums, chains and batteries. In the middle of it all, a large man was bent over an anvil, hammering on a piece of metal. When the dog snarled at Mason, he’d noticed it was missing its left eye, and fur had been ripped from its hind legs. The dog’s guttural grumbling grew louder until the man stopped pounding and turned.

He stood about three inches over six feet and wore dirty overalls and a welder’s cap. His stubbly beard was flecked with gray; his longish hair was tucked behind his ears, revealing a face that had been carved out of cold stone. He looked at Mason for a long silent moment, his jaw tensing, twirling the hammer in his hand as the dog growled.

As sudden as a cobra’s strike, the man flung the hammer at the kennel fence, making the dog yelp and Mason flinch.

“Shut the hell up!” The man’s black jagged teeth flashed when he turned to Mason. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I need help, Lamont. I’m jammed bad.”

“Why should I give a crap about you?”

Mason indicated the tip of a roll of bills in his hand. Lamont’s eyes rested there for a moment. He was listening.

“When we were inside, you said that if a brother ever needed a place to disappear, a place to lay low if they were hot, that you had one. I need that place, Lamont. I need it now.”

Lamont scratched his chin.

“I don’t know what kinda shit you’re in and I don’t want to get any on me.”

“You won’t, I swear. Me and my old lady need a place.”

“I keep to myself these days.”

“I need this place. This is survival, Lamont. I can’t go back to Hightower. I can’t go back inside.”

Lamont glanced at the roll of bills Mason was showing him and took several long moments to estimate his own vulnerabilities and situation before making the kind of decision that could irrevocably change lives.

“How long you need?”

“Four or five days, a week tops.”

“I want a thousand now.”

“Done.”

“And a thousand when you get there.”

“Yes.”

“And I’ll need an untraceable number. I’ll call you within twenty-four hours with the location.”

Mason shook Lamont’s hand, leaving ten fifties and five one-hundred-dollar bills in it.

When Mason returned to the hotel, his heart was going fast.

He circled the block a few times for any sign of police sitting on the place. Satisfied there were none, he parked in front of their unit.

He was fortified because he’d found a way for him and Remy to escape, regroup and make a play for the money. But he was still shaky from the aftershock of the news report and it took him two attempts to slide his key into the lock for their room.

He opened the door.

What the hell is this?

Mason stood in the empty room. Remy and the baby were gone. Their luggage was still there. He went to the night table by the phone to see if she’d left a note. Nothing. Nothing on the desk, either.

I told her not to do anything. I told her to wait. Where the hell is she?

Scenarios played in his head as his pulse accelerated.

Maybe police came for her? No, they would’ve been waiting for him. Maybe she called the agency and is closing the deal? No, she wouldn’t do that without him. Or would she? Maybe it was something else? The kid had been wailing. Maybe he was sick and she took a cab to a clinic or hospital? Would she take that risk?

He tried calling her cell but it rang through to her voice mail.

“Where are you? Call me now!”

He hung up and cursed.

He had to find her.