The Soak Read online

  Twenty years back, Hobbs and Hurlocker had worked a job in upstate New York. Hurlocker had driven past the entrance to a VA hospital and whom had he seen sitting out front, shivering his black ass off in rags in the middle of a goddamned snowdrift, but Sergeant Elroy Church, forcibly retired? Hurlocker hadn’t said a word. Just doubled back, driven the car right up to the drift, and put him in the back.

  His only explanation was, “Not leavin’ a man behind.” Hobbs thought Hurlocker had gone off his goddamned rocker. But when the story came out, he understood, a little bit at least.

  The story went that Leroy had saved Hurlocker’s life twice in ’Nam. Both times on patrol. But it was in the city that Leroy caught his. A bomb went off in the whorehouse he was in, in Saigon. Didn’t give him so much as a scratch, but the overpressure scrambled his brains. It was his ticket out. His unit thought he was gonna be fine, he had the VA and his people to take care of him. It wasn’t until New York, years later, that Hurlocker knew any different.

  On this New York job, the third man, an explosives guy named Hargett, had tried to cross them. He had nearly pulled it off. But he hadn’t paid attention to the simple cripple they had brought along as a mascot. Steady as a rock, Leroy had picked up a pistol and shot Hargett in the eye from across the room. “Boy,” he’d said to Hurlocker, “I ain’t saving you no fourth time.” When Leroy had made sure that Hargett was dead, his tremors had started again.

  The shake and the limp and one of the eyes were no act. Those parts of his brain had been rearranged, but the rest was just fine. Leroy liked playing dumb, and getting all the advantages he could from his misfortune. In fact, he had been setting up on the VA hospital when they picked him up. His plan had been to rob it of all the opiates he could get his hands on. Had the whole deal wired, fence and all. So after Hargett was dead, they went on and looted the VA pharmacy as a victory lap.

  Hurlocker had been looking after Leroy ever since. Or maybe it was the other way around. When Hobbs asked him about it, Hurlocker had made light of it, saying, “The minute he starts shittin’ himself, I’m gonna take him out back and shoot him. I ain’t changin’ no goddamned diapers.”

  They all settled into a booth and Hobbs laid the whole thing out for them. Asked if they wanted in.

  “Tha’s r-r-r-real nice, Hobbs. I didn’t think you was h-h-h-half that clever,” said Leroy.

  Hobbs smiled. “I just thought to myself, Leroy’s sneaky. What would he do?”

  “Don’t f-f-f-flatter me none,” said Leroy. “I’m too old to go runnin’ off on any job. ’Sides, I got myself a lady.”

  “She ain’t no lady,” said Hurlocker.

  “He jes-jes’ jealous. He ain’t been g-g-g-g-gettin’ any for a while.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I s-s-s-see you lookin’ at me when I bend over to pull that pig. You got that g-g-g-g-gleam in your eye.”

  “I got some on the side you don’t know about,” protested Hurlocker. They went on like an old married couple for a while.

  Hobbs let them run and then asked, “You in?”

  “I’m too old for all that nonsense,” said Leroy.

  Hurlocker looked over at him and said, “See, now he’s talkin’ sense for once. You’d do well to take it easy, Hobbs. Enjoy your golden years.”

  “I enjoy gold,” said Hobbs. “You did too, once upon a time.”

  “Naw, naw,” Hurlocker said, “I’m all gone to seed.” He slapped his belly. “Too much beer has eaten all the profits. ’Sides, I can’t leave him to run the store.”

  Leroy tremored a little harder as he twisted in the booth and hit Hurlocker in the shoulder. “You think I cain’t handle it? That maybe I’d steal from you?”

  “Why, no. If this place made more money while I was gone, you’d never let me hear the end of it! Not in a million years would you let that shit go.”

  Leroy smiled and twitched, blurring a little with happiness.

  “All right, then,” said Hurlocker, thinking he was changing the subject, “where’s my manners? You need something to eat. You look like you been drivin’ about a week.

  “You haven’t said whether you’re in or not,” said Hobbs.

  “No,” said Hurlocker with a smile, “I haven’t. But you ain’t said if you want something to eat.”

  Hobbs said, “Sure, I’ll take some barbecue. But I also need some of the other.”

  Hurlocker smiled. “Well then, let’s go have a peek in the ol’ Hurt Locker.”

  The place was a real restaurant. Hurlocker handled the short-order cooking and public relations while Leroy tended the smokers out back, turning out barbecue that was so well-loved they hardly ever had leftovers. In and of itself, it was a profitable little operation. Hobbs couldn’t have done it. He didn’t like people. And he hated cooking.

  Hurlocker led Hobbs into the back. On the right, stairs descended into the basement. It was filled with a musty, clammy smell. The thick Georgia clay locked in the moisture. There were wire shelves with supplies for the restaurant, and a large walk-in freezer in the far corner.

  Hurlocker picked up an ancient eight-pound ball-peen hammer off one of the shelves. “Been a while since I had any customers in the showroom,” he explained as he opened the freezer.

  Inside, a side of beef lay on the floor. It was frozen into two inches of ice and surrounded by thick frost stalagmites. Hurlocker grabbed it and pulled. When it didn’t budge, he hooked a hand under it and pounded away. Chips of ice exploded into the air, and soon his hammer rang on steel decking. Within a few minutes he had broken the beef free and slid it to the center of the room.

  Where the beef had been was a trap door. As Hurlocker battered the edge of the door and the hinges he said, “Been meaning to get a blowtorch for this…” He pulled the door back and descended a metal ladder.

  Beneath the freezer was a cement-walled room stretching the width of the freezer and the length of the building. The walls were lined with pegboard, and on the pegboard was a treasure trove of untraceable weapons. Below the pegboard, rifle cases were stacked up around the perimeter, five and six high.

  “Shop is open,” said Hurlocker. “What you need?”

  “Who the fuck buys that?” Hobbs asked, pointing to a surface-to-air missile on the far wall.

  “Lots of folk. Them that’s nervous about the second War of Northern Aggression. People with an overdeveloped sense of privacy. Some as just wants to make an impression at the Fourth of July. So, AKs?” he asked, pointing to a wall of Kalashnikovs in many configurations. “I got stamped receiver and, for a little extra, milled. Totally untraceable.”

  Hobbs said, “I like your enthusiasm, but we’re not going to invade a country. Things go right, who’s gonna need to fire a shot?”

  “Better to have and not need, than need and not have.”

  Hobbs rubbed his eyes. After years of this kind of thing, it was getting old. At least he wasn’t dealing with an asshole. Hurlocker would charge him the arm, but not the leg, and he wouldn’t fuck around as he did it.

  Hobbs picked six revolvers, in .38 and .40 calibers. Hurlocker made a joke about size and limited firepower. Hobbs said, “You’re welcome to bring whatever you want on this job, just so long as it isn’t that missile.”

  Hurlocker smiled that versatile smile of his and said, “Didn’t you hear Leroy? He was talkin’ sense.”

  “Was he talkin’ your kind of sense?”

  Hurlocker looked around the room a good long time. “This thing ain’t even proper fingered yet. You gonna take a chance on this kid?”

  “No,” said Hobbs. “I don’t think he has any sand anyway. We’ll see in Saint Louis.”

  “Saint Louis,” said Hurlocker, drawing Louis out to about three syllables in his south Georgia accent. “That’s one shitty town.”

  Hobbs said nothing.

  “Well, I just wouldn’t feel right about letting a little fella like you head up there all alone.”

  “OK,” said Hobbs, p
utting an end to it.

  “No, I’m serious, if I let you go up there and something were to happen to you—well, Leroy, I mean, there’d be no living with him.”

  They wrapped the guns in plastic bags and put them into Styrofoam to-go containers. In the kitchen Leroy ladled a little barbecue into each, saying, “For the smell. Shame to waste it, though.”

  When Hurlocker went up front to grab some cash from the register, Leroy grabbed Hobbs’s shoulder with surprising strength. “You sure you know your business? You sure you need this business? You’re too old for this.” His one good eye was wide and accusing.

  Hobbs said, “I’m too old for anything else.”

  “I’m serious, now. If it don’t look right, don’t force it.”

  From the doorway Hurlocker said, “Christ on a crutch, Leroy, just ’cause that one wonky eye looks like it can see into the future don’t mean you should act like it does.”

  Leroy didn’t look at Hurlocker. He said, “That one ain’t got no sense. You got sense. You don’t let it go sideways.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” said Hobbs, annoyed that Leroy had gone so soft that he’d even think to say such a thing.

  TWELVE

  There were twenty-three companies licensed to build and upgrade armored cars in the United States. Most of them were newcomers, specializing in discreetly armored vehicles for executives and government officials and members of regimes, cartels, and organizations so crooked that they had people fighting to be first in line for a chance to kill them. Business for these companies was booming, and not all their production was shipped out of the country.

  Regent Armored in Saint Louis, Missouri, was not one of this kind of company. A family-owned business, it had been one of the primary suppliers to couriers like Securitas, Brink’s and Moonis-Brainerd. But this is not to suggest that business was bad. On the contrary, business was stable and profitable. Making new armored cars is, by nature, a pretty limited business. Armored cars are designed to be impervious. Because of their requirements, they don’t conform well to schemes of planned obsolescence. And they can’t be made more attractive through cost-cutting measures. Cold rolled steel costs what it costs, and that is that.

  Daniel McCaffery, the patriarch in charge of Regent, knew this. That’s why he had focused on transferring existing armor to new chassis. All the weight quickly wore out engines, drivetrains, and suspensions. McCaffery had figured out how to make this refurb business so profitable that he sold new armored cars for less than it cost to make them, with the provision that he was contracted to get the refurb when it came due.

  The majority of the Brink’s truck–style armored carriers in the United States made the pilgrimage to Saint Louis to be refurbished. It was nothing less than the Fountain of Youth for armored cars.

  From the roof of the abandoned factory across the street, three men watched a semi pull three armored cars into Regent Armored’s facility. The facility was an up-fitted Art Deco brick building that looked antique on the outside, but through the gigantic sliding door they could see that it was pristine, well-lit, and state of the art on the inside.

  “Glad I don’t work there,” said Alan. Hurlocker passed the binoculars to Hobbs. Neither of them acknowledged the whiny kid when he added, “Glad I don’t work,” with a nasty little giggle. The kid opened his laptop, a powerful, custom-built gaming PC that he had once devoted to the Universe of Strife. It was a few years out of date as far as gaming went, but its powerful processor, twin onboard graphics cards, and high-resolution screen made it plenty fast enough for the hackery he needed on this job. His fingers flew across the keyboard, and a detailed blueprint of the building appeared on the screen.

  “You guys want a closer look? Here are the plans,” he said triumphantly.

  Hobbs looked over his shoulder to where Alan hunched in the pea gravel with his shiny laptop. “It’s not the parts that don’t move that we need to worry about. It’s the people that are going to be your problem.”

  “What do mean? You mean I’m going to steal the truck? I’m in this thing as the tech guy. I’m not, not a…you know, a…”

  “You’re not in this thing at all,” said Hobbs. “You want in? This is an audition. You’re a guy I don’t know and nobody I know knows you. So I gotta find some way to know.”

  “But this isn’t the job. These trucks don’t have any money in them!” said Alan.

  “This is the job so we can do the job. He doesn’t get it,” Hobbs said to Hurlocker. “Maybe you can explain it to him.”

  “It ain’t exactly clear that we speak the same language,” said Hurlocker, not looking at Alan.

  “Hey, that’s not friendly,” said Alan. Hobbs and Hurlocker looked at Alan as if he were crazy. Then Hurlocker turned back to the binos.

  Hurlocker said, “I make twelve guys total. Don’t know if they run a third shift, but we can call this second shift.”

  “What are we stealing?” asked Alan, peering up over the wall to take a look at the problem in the real world for the first time.

  “Not us,” said Hobbs, “you.”

  “But I’m not a…”

  “What? What aren’t you? What are you? That’s what we are here to figure out. You don’t want to do it. That’s fine. You go back to Philadelphia. We’ll give you a share if the job comes off. You want to be a thief, you’re gonna steal one of those armored cars for us.”

  “Can I see the binoculars?”

  Hurlocker passed them. Alan scanned the whole building. He looked a long, long time. Then he said, “So, just boost one of those big trucks. Like boosting any other car.”

  “Just steal the truck,” said Hobbs.

  “But not like any other car,” said Hurlocker. “With another vehicle you’d be able to run for it like a spooked moonshiner. But with one of these big sombitches, you gotta get away clean, or they’ll chase you. And if they chase you, they’ll catch you. So no hurting people, no triggering alarms, nothing. All very professional and untraceable. Like a movie—if it’s the most boring movie you’ve ever seen.”

  “What are they doing in there? All those sparks?” Alan asked, still looking through the binos.

  Hobbs said, “They’re putting old truck bodies on new chassis. New engines, new springs, new everything.”

  “OK, which one you want?” asked Alan.

  “Doesn’t matter, just make sure you steal one that runs.”

  Alan handed the binoculars back to Hobbs. “OK, let’s do it.”

  Hurlocker smiled a pained smile and looked away.

  “Kid,” said Hobbs.

  “Seriously, why fuck around? I’m gonna go steal a truck. Right now.”

  Hurlocker said, “Got to love a game rooster,” in a way that suggested he really didn’t love this one.

  “Well then, fuck you. You steal it.”

  “Easy. Easy!” said Hobbs. “Look, there’s a right way and a wrong way. A lotta wrong ways. There are steps to this dance, and we’re gonna show you.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “We wait. We watch. We take notes. We—”

  “That doesn’t sound like the next-level, badass shit I signed up for.”

  Hobbs rubbed his eyes. “You didn’t sign up. You applied. And you haven’t been accepted yet.” He threw down a composition book and a pen. “Take notes, you’ve got the first watch.”

  Alan looked at the pen and paper as if they were something from the Jurassic period. “You want me to sit here and just watch.”

  “Eight-hour shifts, you’ve got the first one.”

  “In the middle of the night? But I won’t get any sleep.”

  Hurlocker chuckled a low, wry chuckle. As he walked to the stairwell, he muttered, “I hate this town.”

  THIRTEEN

  The next morning Hobbs and Hurlocker ate breakfast and went to the stakeout. When they got there, Alan wasn’t on the roof. The notebook was there, but nothing was written in it.

  “Well,” said Hurlocke
r, “now we know.”

  Hobbs grunted and looked around.

  Hurlocker said, “I wanted to catch him sleeping.”

  Hobbs said, “What difference would it have made?”

  “Kicking the shit out of him would have served as my daily constitutional. Besides, you get to be my age,” said Hurlocker with a grin, “you’ll jump at any excuse to feel young again.”

  Hurlocker turned and walked to the stairs. Hobbs stayed a minute, looking out over Regent Armored. Five stories below him and across the vacant lot, ordinary men were filing in for their ordinary day of work. For a moment Hobbs envied them. Men who had a respectable trade, never worried about the law or the double cross. Then he rubbed his eyes and saw them for the tame creatures they were. He’d be bored out of his mind in a job like that. What was he going to do when it finally did come time to retire? Would such a thing even be possible? He shook it off. He wasn’t retiring today. Today was all that mattered.

  He caught up with Hurlocker in the stairwell. The rangy man was standing motionless, halfway down the flight of stairs, as if some movers had abandoned a wooden Indian. Then he turned and beckoned to Hobbs with one finger while he held the other to his lips. Hobbs closed the rooftop door gently and tiptoed down the stairs.

  Hurlocker whispered, “You don’t hear it?”

  Hobbs shook his head.

  Hurlocker whispered, “Hearing’s the first thing to go.”

  Hobbs descended.

  By the time they got to the fourth floor, Hobbs could hear it, a little at least. Music, high and tinny, no bass. And shitty music at that. Rap, hip-hop, some shit. He looked down and saw that Hurlocker had a pistol in his hand. He held it naturally, conversationally, as if it weren’t a weapon, but maybe a flashlight that he would use to point out structural repairs in the crumbling building.

  Hurlocker always did like guns too much, but he’d never been the trigger-happy sort. Hobbs had left his pistols where they belonged, in the trunk of the car. All the same, he eased out onto the floor quietly.