Drago opened his mouth wide, more bits of Doritos dropped onto his chest. “Whoa, there, my Negro cowboy. If Drago’s not goin’ in, then no one’s goin’ in.”
“I’m confused here, my Aryan brother. How, in your pea brain, did you think you were goin’ to make your Sons of Satan friends think you were an FBI agent?”
“They’re not my friends.”
But my question caught, made him think. I could see it in his eyes. “I could lay down in the backseat and-”
“And what, sneak in when no one’s looking? No, the deal’s cheesed, we’re done.”
Someone knocked on the bathroom door loud and high up. Not Eddie, for sure. I opened the door, expecting to see Marie.
John Mack had his hand in the air about to knock again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Mack peeked around me at the hulk. “You two reliving a little bit of that prison love?”
I ventured out cautiously, half expecting to see a squad of cops behind Mack, ready to take down the federal fugitive who came back to kidnap more children and spark fear in every household in America. What was he doing here? How had he found us? He didn’t know where we were. We were supposed to meet in two hours on Hospitality Lane.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
He slugged me in the stomach, hard. I bent over, choked and gasped and fought to keep down my Sno Balls and chocolate milk. Drago pushed by me, his big paws up, going for Mack’s throat. Mack took several steps back, his legs parted in a strong horse stance, hands up, ready to take on the tsunami headed his way. No fear in his expression where there should have been one of impending doom. I rasped, “No, hold it. Don’t.”
They both froze, inches away from grappling. I coughed and choked. “Everyone take a breath and relax.”
Mack leaned around Drago. “I owed you that one and you know it.”
“That right?” Drago asked. “He owe you that?” I nodded.
“Karl Drago, meet Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective John Mack.”
Drago didn’t hold out his hand. His eyes narrowed. “A cop? A county cop? Are you kiddin’ me? I hate cops. I mean, I really hate cops.”
“He’s a friend.”
“No cop’s a friend of mine.”
I waddled over to the bed, cradling my stomach, and sat down. Eddie continued to eat his Little Debbie cupcakes as if he always watched adults play their stupid games.
“Where’s Marie?” asked Mack.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Drove.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, how did you find me?”
Mack didn’t need to answer. In an instant, my mind had tracked backward until I came across what happened and realized I had probably subconsciously done it on purpose. I had called John with a burner phone and got Barbara. I didn’t pull the battery or destroy the phone after the call. They had pinged me and got the coordinates. He came to the motel as a sign; he wanted to show me he could be trusted.
He shrugged and smiled.
“I’m sorry, John, the deal’s off. We can’t make a play on the Sons of Satan clubhouse.”
The smile disappeared. “Why not? The SS clubhouse? Man, that’s somethin’, really somethin’. They have that kind of money in there?”
Drago came over and again sat on the other bed, compressing his end almost to the floor. “Bullshit, we go or I go by myself, but it’s going to get done, believe me. It’s going to get done.”
“Watch your language,” Mack said.
Any other time those words would have ended in a fight, but Drago looked at Eddie and nodded.
“Drago here tells me there’s now a pole camera on the clubhouse, and the FBI’s monitoring it.”
“So?” Mack said.
Drago wanted his money enough to side with a county cop. “Yeah, I’m with the dipshit. So?” Drago must’ve thought Mack a dirty cop and that Mack wanted in for a piece of the pie.
“I’m not going to tell you again about your language,” said Mack.
“You’re both a couple of fools,” I said. “The plan was to pull up to the front of the clubhouse dressed in FBI windbreakers and use subterfuge to get in. How can we do that if the FBI’s watching the place?”
Eddie didn’t need to hear any more language that Drago couldn’t control. “We’re not going to talk about it now,” I said. “We’ll talk about it later. But I’m telling you, there isn’t a scenario that’s going to work, not under these conditions, not with these narrow parameters and the amount of prison time at risk.”
Mack came over close to the bed I sat on with Eddie. He nodded. “Hey, kid, you got any more of those?”
Eddie held out the bag. Mack stuck his hand in and came out with another package of Sno Balls and the last carton of chocolate milk. “Thanks, kid, you’re all right. You Eddie Crane?”
Eddie looked at me. I nodded, then Eddie nodded. I said, “Eddie isn’t talking right now because he doesn’t have anything to say. When he has something to say, he’ll let us know. Right, Eddie?”
Eddie nodded and took another bite of his Little Debbie.
Mack opened his Sno Balls and shoved half of one into his mouth. He opened the chocolate milk and slurped some of it down. “Okay,” he said, “I think this thing will still work.”
This wasn’t going to end easily. “Hold on,” I said, “you two come with me.” Mack and Drago followed me over to the bathroom. Drago and I went in. No room remained for Mack, and he stood at the threshold, his back to the room. I said, “Okay, go.”
“What is this, the cone of silence or something?” asked Mack.
“The kid, you idgit,” said Drago.
“Don’t call me an idgit. And you’re the one who can’t control his pie hole.”
“Children, play nice,” I said. “What were you going to say, Mack?”
Mack took a drink of chocolate milk as he looked over the top of the carton, past me, at Drago. He swallowed and said, “FBI’s spread too thin to be involved in the surveillance of the clubhouse. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Criminal Intelligence Unit is doing it for them in a joint operation.”
“It doesn’t matter; it’s still being watched by cops.”
“Look,” Mack said, “It’s not FBI, and that’s all that matters. We…I go to the Sheriff’s Criminal Intel guys and tell them we’re going to do a ‘knock and talk’ as a ruse to get in to see who’s inside. We tell them we have an informant who is going to lead us directly to some evidence that we’ve been looking for and haven’t been able to find until now. And, that we took Lex Luthor here out of custody just for the ride over, and to do the knock and talk. Then he’s going back to prison where he belongs.”
“I done my time,” Drago said. “I’m out free and clear.”
“You’re on parole, asshole.”
“I’m an asshole?”
I held up my hands between them. “Stop it, right now.” I thought about it for a minute. “That’s no good.”
“Damn straight, that’s no good,” Drago said. “You’re not goin’ in there without me.”
“Dipshit, with my plan, you are going in.”
“Huh?”
Mack raised his voice. “According to Bruno, you were never going in in the first place, fat boy. But this new way, you’re going in, but you’ll be handcuffed like our prisoner.”
I shoved one man in the chest, then the other, to keep them separated. Who was I kidding? If Drago wanted to go through me, he needed only to raise up his size sixteen shoe and squash me like a bug. “It won’t work, Mack, because you’re putting yourself up front,” I said. “When this thing goes down and they investigate, you’re done. You’ll be prosecuted. You’ll lose your job and go to the joint.”
Mack smiled. “For what?”
“Yeah, wait a minute, he’s right, for what?” Drago said. “You think the SS are going to complain to the cops that someone snuck into their clubhouse and took a million in gold? Hell, we do it right, they won’t even know what we took.”