Here Comes the Night Read online

  Chapter 5

  Buck breathed a deep sigh as Johnny and Blanche took off in their separate cars. Before getting into his own car, he walked to a public garbage can at one corner of the lot, one he knew always got picked up at 6:00 on Fridays so it’d be clean for the weekend.

  There wasn’t a soul in sight. Buck opened his briefcase and dumped the bag with slicker and gloves into it, giving it a quick push to the bottom. He closed the briefcase and walked to his Mustang.

  After he climbed inside, Buck leaned back in the tan leather driver’s seat. It was done. Over. Relief took the form of a nervous laugh. His body was shaking, fingers trembling, and still a buzzing in his ears. He breathed in deeply and whooshed it out.

  “Okay,” he said aloud, inserting the key in the ignition.

  A deep, raw voice from the back seat startled him. “What’s okay, Buck?”

  Buck jumped forward in his seat. A crude, enormous man with a heavily pockmarked face rose up from the backseat.

  Buck turned to look at him but was stopped by a cold gun barrel pressed hard under his jaw. “Don’t you fuckin’ look at me,” the man said, chuckling. “Remember that one? Blue Velvet? Huh? ‘Don’t you fuckin’ look at me.’ Come on, it’s a classic. My man, Dennis Hopper.”

  Buck’s mind raced. The guy sounded loopy, but his voice wasn’t familiar. “What do you want?” he asked, still trying to sneak a glance of him in the rearview.

  “What do you think, big shot gambler?”

  So it was about the money. How they could already know about his last night’s winnings was beyond him. It had been an exclusive after hours game, run by the city’s most infamous gambling host. Only a very few rich, with an occasional invited celebrity such as himself, even knew how to find the moving poker game.

  He had won so big last night, with Angie at his side, you could feel the hate-filled tension in the room when it broke up at five in the morning. He had stashed his winnings in his office safe that morning, with the plan of getting in touch with them in a few days. “Look, I’ve got—.”

  The guy cut him off with, “Shut up,” then started to kid around again. “I can’t believe you don’t remember that movie.” He muffled his voice as he continued the impersonation. “‘Don’t you fuckin’ look at me’.”

  “I guess I missed that one.”

  Then all business. “Skip it. See that alley across the street?”

  “Yeah. Next to the O.K.?”

  “Drive down there.”

  Then Buck could hear the guy in the back seat giggling and making sounds like he was breathing through an oxygen mask.

  Chapter 6

  Watching Erika flirt with all those cowboy customers turned Tony on. She was as clean and nice a girl as he’d ever hooked up with, and there was something about her natural modesty that made him want to rip it away. That was what she wanted, too, inside, he was pretty sure. Have someone talk dirty to her, show her how it was done.

  He considered himself an imaginative kind of guy, so when she came out from work a few minutes later, he already had a plan in motion. He pulled her into the restaurant’s alley and up against a wall before she could say a word. He pushed himself close into her and put his hands on her breasts.

  “Hey, take it easy. We can be seen,” Erika protested. But he could hear the excitement in her voice. She would like doing it in public, he knew, although that was a ways off. She’d need to be coaxed into it piece by piece. But he was curious how far she’d let him go today. He tugged at the buttons on her uniform.

  She grabbed his hands and pulled them away. “Tony, for cryin’ out loud.”

  He leaned into her neck. “God,” he said. “I love it when you smell like French fries.”

  She giggled at that, but slipped away further down the alley.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” she asked.

  He caught up with her and grabbed her around the shoulders. “Fuck work.”

  “You’ll get in trouble again. You’re already on thin ice.”

  “Bunch of pussies.”

  She pulled a little white box out of her purse and held it up. “Got you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Open it and see.”

  “Come around here first,” he said, pulling her into a niche next to a dumpster. He pulled up her skirt and slid one hand between her legs.

  “Hey, watch it, cowboy.”

  “I wanna do it right here,” Tony whispered, breathing hard. “What do you say?”

  “We’re right by a dumpster.”

  “You’re just afraid someone’ll see,” he teased. “You got no guts.”

  “Guts are what’s in the dumpster, Tony.” Shaking her head in disbelief, Erika pulled away from him.

  At that moment, a car headed down the alley toward them.

  As it drove past them, her eyes grew wide.

  Chapter 7

  Buck’s hands shook as he steered the Mustang past a row of dumpsters. The guy in back was still jabbering about Dennis Hopper.

  “He had like this gas or something in this oxygen tank kinda thing, got him high, and he’d breathe it while he did shit to her—can’t remember her name—somethin’ Italian.” Then abruptly back to business. “Okay, see that dark SUV at the end of the alley. We’re headed there.”

  Buck thought he’d glimpsed somebody back by the dumpsters, but it was too late now to get help. He drove the alley length to where a black SUV with tinted windows waited.

  “Okay, cut the engine.”

  “Look, here’s my wallet,” Buck offered, going for his pocket.

  Laughter from the back seat. “They don’t want your wallet, football boy. They want your ass.”

  Buck lurched for the door handle. He felt a stinging jolt in his neck as a stun gun zapped him. His head clunked against the window.

  His kidnapper was still clowning around in the back seat. “Don’t you fuckin’ look at me.”

  Chapter 8

  Angie Wesner wasn’t quite as pulled together as she’d hoped. Her nerves were all to pieces, and she hadn’t been able to eat a bite all day, in spite of her bad hangover. Taking Buck to the poker game last night had not been the best timing. Or probably the best idea, but not because anyone would find out. Nobody, but nobody, talked about “Hankie” Hanks movable poker palace.

  First, everyone there was an elite rich of the city who understood the unbreakable rule of image management: you can do anything you want as long as nobody finds out. Second, if any details were ever divulged they would be permanently blackballed from the no limit stakes game. That’s how “Hankie” had continued to escape the Oklahoma City Vice Squad’s efforts for years on end.

  Going had been a bad idea because she got home after sunrise, and way too drunk. After it turned into an all nighter, Buck emerged victorious but awfully haggard. She had a bad feeling about it. All this had not hit her until the light of day, when it was too late to do anything about it. She did not dare call him at the bank.

  When Buck had confessed he owed some big time money a few weeks ago, Hankie’s game was the first solution Angie thought of. She and Hankie had grown up together in southeast Oklahoma, something few people in the city knew. It was easy to make it happen. She just picked up the phone and punched in his number.

  He was delighted to hear from her. “Hey, Babycakes, I was starting to think you’d got too big for your friends.”

  “And here I was thinking it was your turn to call me.”

  “I figured you’d blocked my number.”

  She laughed. “Now you’re just flat out lying.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Maybe a little poker? Anything going on?”

  “You calling for yourself or your rich hubby?”

  “Actually, a friend.” Angie paused a moment. “Buck Dearmore.”

  She heard Hankie whistle on the other end. “Sure, always room for a aging local hero.”

  “Thanks.”

  “As long as
you come with him. He knows the stakes? Or lack thereof?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He gave her the location and told her midnight.

  It was fun watching Buck take his ride on the roller coaster and come out sixty thousand richer. It was easy to think they were leading a charmed life. They hadn’t even discussed calling off the plan for Friday afternoon. Then it had felt like everything was clicking.

  By 5:00 p.m. Angie was supposed to be shopping along a set of storefronts she patronized on Exchange Avenue, the same street where the bank was. After he killed Gordon, Buck would drive by slowly in his Mustang after he left the bank, down Exchange, then turn toward the interstate. They both understood there could be no contact under any circumstances. When she saw his car, Angie would know it was done.

  Antsy, she left earlier than she’d planned and drove her BMW to the public parking lot close to Stockyards City. For over an hour, she nervously moved from shop to shop, watching through the display windows. Nothing.

  She checked her watch for the umpteenth time. Almost 5:30. She was sure he hadn’t driven by yet. She had barely glanced away from the street, even though she was pretending to look at the shop displays.

  The painful waiting reminded Angie of growing up. Never part of the action itself. Just always waiting for her stepdad and stepbrothers to come home from some two bit deal they’d dreamed up during the day. Maybe they’d let the women in on what happened, maybe not. They might just want beer and to slap your ass.

  They were all penny-ante thieves. Stealing copper tubing, or doing smash and grabs at businesses without alarms. But they swaggered around like they were Dixie mafia while she and her mother waited, to hear and to serve. Angie had grown to despise the helplessness of waiting.

  She made her way down several more shops as a blood-orange sun began to set itself down over the building tops. By nearly six o’clock. Angie Wesner had a creeping sense that things had gone very wrong.

  Chapter 9

  “Prick tease,” Tony threw at Erika.

  “Screw you, Tony.” Erika straightened her blouse and skirt. “You always do this to me. Coming on in grocery stores or in the park—now by a dumpster, really? That’s supposed to turn me on?”

  He knew that tone in her voice and backed off. “I’m sorry, baby. I just want you all the time. I forget where we are. And when you throw yourself at me…”

  “The only thing I tried to throw at you was a present, which you didn’t even both to look at.”

  Tony quickly patted down his pockets. “I just…here it is. What is it?” He opened up the little box and his mouth dropped in surprise.

  It was a ring he’d stopped to admire when they were walking back to her apartment last week. In a pawn shop window, just calling out to him. A silver serpent design, with black onyx eyes.

  He smiled his thanks then used the excuse to playfully grab her butt again and pull her against him. “I can’t believe you did this for me,” he whispered.

  Tony noticed in his peripheral vision a couple of cars at the other end of the alley, doors opening and slamming. But he was making one last play for Erika, pulling her close and biting her ear, something she could never resist. He felt her respond, in spite of pushing him away.

  “Stop that until we get home,” she giggled. “Try it on.” He kept looking at her as he slipped the ring on his finger. “It’s perfect,” he said, finally admiring it.

  Chapter 10

  Angie pretended to look interested in a fuchsia bandana while she waited inside a Southwestern boutique. She despised the store, with all its citified cowgirl outfits, but it had an unobstructed view of Exchange, and she knew the salespeople wouldn’t interrupt her as long as they saw her browsing.

  She wanted a drink so bad her throat ached. But she didn’t dare find a bar quite yet. She checked her cell just in case. No messages, no texts. Of course, they weren’t supposed to contact one another no matter what. But surely if it’d gone bad, he’d get in touch somehow. Now she wished they’d gotten a pair of throwaway cells. It seemed so practical in retrospect.

  “Isn’t that cute as all get out?” The saleswoman’s voice startled her. “We got in a bunch of those in the most darling colors. I love the neon green myself.”

  Angie stifled the urge to tell her what she thought. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she finally smiled, which was true. Where she came from anybody wearing a bandana other than red or blue was considered a greenhorn.

  The saleslady glanced at the wall clock, and Angie realized why she’d come over to her. It was a few minutes after six, closing time. Angie put the bandana back on the counter.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” she said, heading to the door.

  The evening sun glossed red over the buildings as she stepped out the door. She remembered someplace where she could get a drink and still see the street.

  Chapter 11

  With the new snake ring on his finger, Tony’s mood had improved considerably, even if Erika had been a bitch about his advances. When she got horny later on, he’d give her a hard time and make her beg for it.

  At the moment, Erika was staring down the alley with a frown on her face.

  “What?” he asked, looking at the same place, where only a few minutes before he’d noticed an SUV’s doors opening and snapping shut. But now there was only a fancy Mustang, sitting there empty with the driver’s door open. And the motor was still running.

  “That looks like Buck Dearmore’s car,” Erika said as she walked toward it.

  “Buck Dearmore? What the fuck kinda name is that?”

  “Famous O.U. quarterback? Where’ve you been?”

  Tony smirked. “In the slammer, remember? How you know it’s his?”

  “The license plate,,” Erika said, pointing out the custom QTRBACK tag. “Half the bank eats at the O.K.. They practically bow when he comes in.” She didn’t add that it gave her a thrill to wait on him, and that his eyes had a way of making you flush.

  When they reached the Mustang, Tony leaned in, checking out the fancy leather interior. “He’s a showy fucker. Look at this shit.”

  “You’re just eat up with envy,” Erika said.

  “Dumb, too, leaving it running.” Tony slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Tony, what are you doing?”

  “Ever drive an old Mustang?” His eyes got a dark, oily look.

  “Get out of the car. If he catches you…”

  Tony looked pointedly up and down the alley. “He’s not here. I think he left in a SUV.” He raised his eyebrows to her in an invitation.

  Erika knew the look. “Oh no. Hunh uh.”

  He reached over and opened the passenger door. “We’ll just take it for a little whirl.”

  “Are you insane? Tony, you can’t do this.”

  Tony shrugged and put the car in gear. He let the car crawl forward as he teased her. “Okay, see ya.”

  Erika ran alongside, still afraid to get in.

  Tony leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Come on, just a quick joyride.”

  As they got closer to the end of the vacant alley, Erika looked around. The few people in the sidewalks across the street seemed indifferent to them and the car.

  “Come on, baby. Five minutes.”

  Erika finally gave up and hopped in. “You are so bad.”

  Chapter 12

  Buck came to, enveloped in the putrid smell of a moldy canvas bag. The guy in the back seat had thrown it on his head, apparently, after he’d zapped him with a stun gun. He felt the urge to gag, but steeled himself.

  As he stirred, Buck knew from the sound of the engine that he was in a different car, probably an SUV. Stale cigarette smoke lingered in the interior.

  He could hear another male voice with a Mexican accent coming from the front seat. The vehicle was moving, he guessed, at about forty miles an hour, and he could still hear traffic, so they must still be in the city.

  Buck lay in the floorboards, his hands bou
nd in front. The scratchy canvas of the dank hood rubbed against his neck and face, and his mouth was duct taped.

  In front he could hear the hoarse laughter of the large man who had grabbed him from the Mustang. Another male voice, who was probably driving, sounded Hispanic, with a muffled quality.

  “This fucking tooth is killing me,” the Mexican voice said.

  “You need some good drugs, man.” A rustle of paper. “Hey, you see Miss September? Big tits.”

  “They all got ‘em.”

  “I wouldn’t throw her out of bed.”

  “You don’t want anyone that pretty.”

  The big guy laughed. “I do.”

  “No, man. I’ve had a lot of pussy, and, trust me, a girl like that—even when you’re doin’ ‘em, they’re still posing like for pictures.”

  “Yeah, like you’d know, Elvis.”

  “I do know, Meatface,” the other man insisted. “They’re a cold piece of ass. They don’t even see you, you know? They look at you like…like what they’re really watching is how you’re lookin’ at them.”

  Buck heard the magazine slap closed. The big man shifted his weight in the passenger seat and said, “What in hell, you say? Fuck you, Jorge, you can even ruin a centerfold.”

  The Hispanic man chuckled. Then after a moment, “Here we are.” Buck felt the voice directed toward him. “Don’t try anything now. My tooth is killin’ me and I’d love to beat the shit out of you.”

  Chapter 13

  Angie stepped inside the Wrangler Bar and Grill, a cowboy water hole a block down from the boutique. She found a place at the bar where she could see the traffic on Exchange.

  A bartender dressed like an Old West card dealer came over. “What can I get ya?”

  “Extremely dry Stoli martini, straight up, no fruit,” Angie said smoothly, then added. “Make it a double.”

  When her drink came, she asked, “You got a pay phone?”