Varga’s heart pounded hard as he braked the truck against the curbing. He kept the motor running and twisted on the seat. Artist and Pope were crouched at the rear doors of the truck now. Suddenly they threw the doors open and pounced on the girl. She yelped, library books flew. Then the girl came skidding into the truck, sliding on her front. Artist and Pope jumped inside, yanked the doors shut.
“Roll!” Pope snapped. He had snaked out a gun, was crouched at the rear windows.
Varga moved the truck. He had to steel his foot. The temptation was to jam the accelerator to the floor. But he managed to drive at a sane pace, watching the reflections in the rear view mirror more than he watched the street ahead. Iris kept a lookout in the rear view mirror on the passenger side.
“Clean,” she breathed after three blocks. “Nothing behind us.”
Varga risked a look into the back of the truck. Lisa English lay trussed on the floor. She was face up, wrists taped together under her spine, another slash of adhesive tape plastered against her mouth and cheeks. She was breathing hard and her eyes were wide in fright.
Artist and Pope flanked her. They sat facing each other, buttocks on the floor, knees high, spines braced against the side of the truck. Artist grinned down on the girl from under the floppy hat, the brim of the hat shielding the top half of his face from Varga. He seemed at ease.
Pope stared at her. He was grinning, too. But there was a savagery in the twist of his face, the brittleness of his dark eyes. He reached out and patted the girl’s bare thigh. The girl writhed.
“No!” Varga yelped.
“Watch where you’re driving!” Iris snapped. She pushed the steering wheel.
Varga regripped the wheel, straightened the path of the truck. He breathed harshly. He had been heading into the curbing. Iris probably had saved them from smashing into a tree.
Varga shuddred. He had to get a grip on himself, take firm hold of the happenings. After all, he was supposed to be the leader, he had planned all of this, it was his operation.
He stiffened as he felt the muzzle of the gun pressed lightly against his neck. Pope snarled, “Don’t tell me no, man. If I want the cat, I take the cat!”
“You don’t take anything, Stevie-boy,” Iris said without looking at him. “You do all of your taking after the next twenty-four hours. There’s plenty ahead. With your cut, you can forget the kids. You’ll be able to afford women. Now put that goddamn popgun away.”
But it was twenty seconds before the muzzle of the gun left Varga’s neck. He sucked a rattling breath. The best day of his life was to be tomorrow. Tomorrow night they all would be in Mexico, rich, he and Iris would be heading for Mexico City and the commercial flight to Rome — but best of all, Pope would be out of his life forever and ever.
“We on schedule?” Artist asked from the back of the truck.
Iris glanced at the silver wristwatch again. In a couple of days she would be wearing a gold watch, new and sparkling. And in another week maybe she’d have it figured out how she was going to ditch Varga. Maybe she’d figure it after they were snug in Rome and she had time to think. Walking out was no problem, of course. She’d have her two hundred and fifty thousand and she knew how to stealthily open a door while a man slept. Latching on to Varga’s two-fifty was going to be the problem.
But she’d figure something that would work.
“We’re doing okay,” she said. “Plenty of time to get to the rec center. I just hope—”
She cut off the words, then grinned. “The kid didn’t pick this afternoon to go make out with his girlfriend after school instead of going to his handball game.”
“He’ll be there,” Varga said quickly. “He plays handball until six o’clock every Tuesday afternoon.”
The boy pushed open one of the large double doors of the city recreation center at ten minutes after six o’clock on that Tuesday afternoon and moved on quick strides toward the small motorcycle propped in the side parking lot.
He was a short, stocky youth with semi-long brown hair, wet and shiny now from shower. He carried an orange helmet in his right hand, and he didn’t pay any particular attention to the faded white panel truck parked across from the cycle, the rear doors open, two men bent and seemingly struggling with something heavy inside the truck.
“Hey, kid,” one of the men called out, “can you give us a hand?”
The boy hesitated, looked at the truck. He saw a driver, someone on the other side of the driver. At the back of the truck a slight, dark man was erect, waiting for his answer. Then the other man stood erect. He wore an easy grin under a floppy hat.
“We’ve got a heavy desk in here,” said the man with the floppy hat. “All we need is a little help jerking it to the doors. The driver’s a cripple, can’t help with the deliveries. And that’s his wife sitting on the other side.”
The boy approached the truck slowly. Uneasiness was alive inside him. He stopped, stood thumping the orange helmet against his thigh unconsciously.
Floppy Hat looked okay. He was grinning, relaxed, but the other guy was hard-looking. Tough.
“Come on, kid,” said the tough-looking man.
The boy didn’t move. He sensed an ominousness about the man, something sinister. It scared him.
The man proved to be snake-quick. He leaped forward, caught the boy in the half turn. He shoved a gun hard against the boy’s flat stomach. “Move it, kid,” he snarled.
The boy shuffled toward the back of the truck. He was tense but seeking an opportunity. He might be able to slash down with his arm, knock the gun hand away, smash one of the two men with his helmet.
He glanced inside the back of the truck, saw the trussed girl on the floorboard. She was straining, head up. Her eyes were wide, her mouth taped, and she was shaking her head violently.
The boy lashed out with his arms. And then something smashed the back of his head, driving him down to his knees immediately and bringing blackness.
He was out cold.
Varga squealed the rear tires of the truck moving out of the parking lot. He damned himself silently, swiped perspiration from his left eye, forced himself to lift the accelerator foot.
“Clear back here,” Artist said from the rear door windows. “Nobody comin’.”
“Looks clean, it looks clean,” Iris muttered, eyes glued to the reflection of the mirror at her side.
“Why didja hafta hit him?” wheezed Varga. “Jesus, if anybody saw that it was a dead give-away!”
“You wanted him, didn’t you?” Pope snarled. “You got him!”
Varga glanced over his shoulder. Tony Littrel was face down on the floor of the truck, unmoving.
“Is he… is he?”
“He’s okay,” Pope said, hefting the gun and waving it in mild warning. “Dreamland, that’s all. Saves taping him.”
“Tape him,” Iris ordered. “We don’t take no more chances than necessary. We’ve got two more to go.”
They abducted Jack Caulkins as he jogged along a quiet residential street, and they yanked Christina Jacobsen from a bicycle in Herman Park.
Forty-five minutes later, they were backed into the loading dock at the rear of the abandoned factory building in a dark, seedy area of the city. They walked Jack Caulkins and the two girls into the building. Then Artist breathed, “Hey, man, we got a problem. This one is dead.”
Varga froze on the loading platform. His heart beat wildly. Artist was squatted inside the truck beside the Littrel boy, the light from the flash strong on the youth’s spine.