Chapter 13
Two days later we were in Nap's office going over the plan. His brother came in, one of his homies trailing behind. He was an extra-large, overfed brother who looked like he'd knock his mama in the head if she cracked wise. This dude was carrying an oversized equipment bag which he set down in the middle of the floor.
I looked at Wilma, who was looking at Nap.
"This is private business, you know that," Danny's brother told him.
Danny stood there with his mouth open, a dull look on his dull face. "Yeah, so? Little Tito is my bodyguard."
"What in the fuck you need a bodyguard for?" I raised.
"Why you think, motherfuckah? I got to take care of my business, Zelmont. What you got to take care of, huh, nigga?"
"Before all this is through, you and me is gonna straighten some things out." I didn't even bother to get out of my chair. Little Tito came over toward me like he was Godzilla and was gonna swat me down as if I was an airplane buzzing him.
Wilma pointed at Danny. "You either have your bodyguard raise or you're out of this altogether."
"You better watch who you steppin' to, bitch," Danny yelled.
"You better slow your roll there, brah." Nap had gotten up from behind his desk, coming around in front of it. "You knew from jump street what the deal was, and you said you'd follow the program." Nap hunched up his muscled arms. "Now before we get going, you gonna jam up the works?" He looked at Tito.
"Is she giving the orders or is you?" Danny said.
"It's Wilma's plan," Nap answered him. "You either down with that or you ain't. It's four of us 'cause you're my blood. But if it has to be, it'll be three."
Danny wasn't that goddamn stupid. "Go on out and pour yourself a couple of stiff ones," he said to Little Tito.
"Aw man, you know I'm on a fruit juice diet," the big roughneck whined.
Danny gave him a look and Little Tito left the room, closing the door behind him. I went over and opened it to make sure he wasn't standing there eavesdropping. Satisfied, I shut it again.
"Danny, this has to be a team effort or we're through before we start." Wilma picked up the bag with two hands and put it on Nap's desk. She unzipped it to see what was inside that rascal.
"They're clean and untraceable." As usual Danny stuck out his bottom lip.
I hefted one of the Remington automatic shotguns from the bag. There were two more shotguns one of them a pumpin side and two Glock sixteen-shot pistols, plus ski masks, duct tape, and some kind of electronic device about the size of a shoe box. Danny got this out too.
"This is used for cloning cellular phone numbers," he said. "It's the latest shit so it works even though them companies got what they think are security measures that can block it." He was smiling so I guess he was happy with his toy.
"As long as it stops them dudes from calling out," I said. Then I opened up the nylon bag I'd brought into the room and removed one of the grenades.
"We don't need to blow up the truck, do we?" Wilma said, pointing at the thing I was holding.
"These are flash grenades," I told her. "They'll blind the drivers." I learned about those beauties when I'd done the show on the WB. There was something else I learned doing that cop show, but I kept it to myself.
"Where'd you get those?" Nap asked me.
"From the prop dude on that TV show I did for a hot minute a few years ago."
"You mean they're fake?" Wilma picked one up.
I took the thing out of her hand. "They're real. This dude is hooked into a lot of outrageous shitsurvivalists, NRA nuts, the kind of guys who"
"Does he know about" she broke in.
"No, and he don't want to know what I'm gonna use them for," I said, cutting her off like she had me. "We set on the truck?" I asked Nap.
"Ready for Freddy, baby."
"How we got the route they take?" Danny was messing around with one of the pistols, like maybe that was supposed to intimidate me. Like I wouldn't shove the shotgun butt up his rectum 'cause he was Nap's brother. Shit. Nap would help me.
"We got their files," Wilma said. "Ellison Stadanko is very organized and has his shipments worked out months in advance. The truck will be making a run a week from Thursday. A special run, in fact."
"How much?" Danny asked what all of us were thinking.
"Seven to ten million."
"Damn," I said. "How come so much?"
"He's got the Justice Department breathing down his neck, and we know Weems is up to some shenanigans too. I think Stadanko is suspicious that the commissioner is nosing around in his business. From what I can interpret in his latest file entry, he wants to move a sizable amount of cash for reserves and cool out that part of his operation for a while until things settle down."
"Then let's get busy," Nap said.
"Yeah," I put in, "we need to practice."
Danny and Wilma looked at me and Nap like we were trippin'.
"Y'all didn't think we could just walk up to Stadanko's boys, put a gun on them, and they'd get all weak in the knees and hand the shit over, did you?" I sat on the edge of the desk, folding my arms. "You don't win because you only go over the opposition's moves. You gotta scrimmage, and then scrimmage some more until the shit is reflex in your muscles."
Nap spoke again. "I've secured a couple trucks for us to use for two days. One is the blocker we'll use in the actual robbery and the other is larger, like the garbage truck."
"Won't that draw attention to us?" Wilma frowned at the grenades in the bag.
"There's a reasonably isolated spot out in the desert past Palmdale we can use," Nap said. "I was out there a couple of times for, shall we say, an activity involving flutes, bonfires, and cavorting naked in the open. And we weren't spotted."
Danny shook his head in disgust.
"Plus," I said, tossing a shotgun at Wilma that she caught, "we all gotta get used to handling the equipment. There's no on-the-job training once we're into it."
That Sunday, the Barons beat the Oilers by one point. They were 20 and on a fucking roll. To make things worse, that goddamn Grier caught two touchdown passes. Meanwhile we were doing practice runs for the robbery outside of fucking Palmdale.
Four days later it was game day. I was sitting next to Danny Deuce in an old '83 Cordoba which was idling badly. The seats were torn up and there was a smell coming from below the dash I didn't want to know about. It was close to sunset but we were hardly relaxed.
The cell phone jamming device was in Wilma's ride, a couple of miles down in the flats where she was waiting as lookout. She was to page me when the truck had gone past her.
"What the fuck were you thinking when you got this rig?"
Danny worked his tongue inside his jaw. ''How many times you gonna whine about that? It can't be traced so shut the fuck up."
"I'll keep on you until you get it in your malt liquored head this ain't no Western Avenue mom and pop robbery we're pullin', Danny. This is for all your mama's bags of chips."
"I know that." He showed his teeth to me.
"No you don't, Danny." Wouldn't you know it but coming down the goddamn hill we were hiding behind on the side road was a pair of mountain bikes. "Whatever you do, don't look at them," I warned him.
"Man, I'll do as I motherfuckin' please." Of course he looked at the two like he was gonna bust a cap in them as the man and woman came down the hill and stopped right in front of us. There wasn't much around in this end of Chatsworth except hilly area like this and a couple of power stations. Over the rise behind us was a development of tract houses inside a high wall called Emerald Estates. But none of the houses were green.
The bikers were trying to look relaxed, drinking yuppie bottled water. But I knew they had to be wondering what in the hell two brothers were doing up here in a broke dick ghetto special in the land of the white man near the Ventura County line.
"This is about more money than your brain can count to, Danny," I said under my breath. The couple were dressed in those strange-ass Speedo outfits. They were straddling their bikes, having a conversation. Those two had to be talking about us. I looked at my watch. It was less than three minutes before we had to get the function on. If they didn't get gone in one they were gonna have to be dealt with. I had way too much riding on this to see it go bust. The shotgun was along the side of my seat, down out of view.