This is the final part of a fiction serial, in 794 words.

State Trooper Davis saw the boat on the roadside and stopped to check it out. There was nothing much in the cabin, and no sign of anyone around. So he radioed in to ask if anyone had reported such a boat and trailer lost or stolen, but there were no current reports. He took a photo of it on his phone and sent it to the despatch room to be circulated to all agencies and police departments. Then he left, deciding to return later to see if it was still there.

He hadn’t even made it as far as Cambridge when he was told on the radio to go back and secure the scene for the Feds. That meant he was going to miss lunch.

—————————————————————————————-

It was going to be a long drive to JFK, and Ricky didn’t want to show up looking like an off-duty soldier. On his way to the highway he spotted a clothes store, parked the Toyota out back, and went in. His choice was a cheap grey two-piece suit, some black formal shoes, and a white button-down shirt. Adding some new socks and jockey shorts, he was good to go.

Walking to the cash desk to pay, he saw a nice-looking leather shoulder bag hanging up on a rack, the type a young office guy on a weekend trip might carry. It cost more than the clothes and shoes combined, but he bought it.

He left all the new things on, and carried the army surplus clothes. Behind the store there was a dumpster for the fried chicken shop next door. Packing the money and the Cuban’s clothes and stuff into the new shoulder bag, he wiped down the Colt pistol and wrapped it in the army jacket. Then he threw everything into the dumpster, including the old sports bag and the suitcase that had contained the money.

Although it was a good long time since he had shaved and showered, he would freshen up at the airport.

——————————————————————————————-

The Feds arrived in under an hour, which surprised Davis. They closed the road, and told him he could go. As he got back in his cruiser, their CSI team was already clambering all over the boat. Davis didn’t care, at least he would get off on time today.

——————————————————————————————–

After driving all night, Ricky was exhausted, and craving coffee. It was early when he drove into the car park and took the ticket from the machine. He had ignored Connie’s advice about the long-stay, and opted for the twenty-four hour max. He could walk to the terminal from there, and he was never going to pay the parking fine anyway. He left the keys in the Toyota then walked away without looking back at it. Hopefully, someone would steal it.

Before going over to the desks to check on airlines and flights he went to buy some coffee, two large cups. Once he had drunk those, he headed for the men’s room. He needed to pee, and would then have a wash as best he could. Not wanting to wake up Connie too early, he had sent her a text message telling her he was at JFK, and he loved her. Adding that he would be in touch once he arrived at uncle Luis’s place.

———————————————————————————————-

Don Barillà had personally taken the call from Vincent Rizzo’s wife. She was old family, and he had known her grandfather. Once he had spoken to her, he made some more calls. Word was that the guy who whacked Vincent was a Spic. That ruled out using any of his guys. Sicilians only killed other Sicilians, as far as he was concerned. So he made some more calls. An old friend in New York City recommended someone and gave the Don his number. “He’s Irish, but a pro. Does good work”.

———————————————————————————————–

Dennis O’Connor was originally from Boston, but had been living in Albany for a few years. The wiseguys showed up at his apartment with a wad of cash, and photocopies of a driver’s licence and other details obtained from cops on the payroll. The best clue was the Toyota, which the guy had taken when he had run off. He had all the details of that too. Paying off cops monitoring traffic cameras turned out to be worthwhile, and they found the Toyota heading for Buffalo. A contact there called Dennis when it was seen outside a bar, and the Irishman was already long on the road by then.

————————————————————————————————-

Ricky was bent over the sink splashing water, and didn’t hear the man walk in. Dennis fired one close-range shot with the silencer into the back of his head, then scooped the shoulder bag off the floor before walking quickly out of the men’s room.

The End.

This is the seventeenth part of a fiction serial, in 787 words.

The bar was almost deserted that early, other than the barman behind the scratched chrome-topped bar, and an old geezer sitting at the back holding two walking canes and staring at an empty glass. Ricky ordered a beer, and drunk most of it without putting the bottle down. He pointed at the bottle and said, “Same again”. The barman brought the beer over and Ricky asked the question without looking up.

“Looking for someone who can get me some convincing I.D., a driver’s licence will do. You know anyone?” The unsmiling barman didn’t even reply, just walked away wiping down the bar top with a rag like it badly needed cleaning. Finishing the first beer and picking up the second bottle, Ricky was wondering where to go next when he heard a voice behind him.

“Buy me a drink, young fella. I can help ya”. The old man must have been eighty, maybe much older than that. But his voice was strong, and unexpectedly loud. “Double Jack, and bring it over”. The barman was smiling now, and poured the bourbon. Ricky picked up the glass and his beer, walked over to the table at the back, and sat down. The old man had a glint in his eye.

“Cost ya a hundred for me, but I can show you where. I know a guy, but he ain’t cheap. You got money?” He downed the drink in one as Ricky replied. “I got some, maybe enough. I’ll give you fifty and another double if you take me there”. The man tapped the glass on the table and looked at the barman. He put down the rag and brought over the second drink. Downing that one just as fast, the old guy stood up and grabbed his canes. “Deal. Pay the bar tab, and let’s go”.

At the end of the block, they stopped outside a shabby store front. The faded sign above read ‘Xerox Copies. Photo Printing. Same Day Service.’ The old man turned and said, “Wait here, I’ll make sure my guy is working”, then he went inside. He was straight back on the street. “You owe me fifty, young fella. He’s inside waiting”. When he got the fifty, he headed back in the direction of the bar. This time he was walking normally, and not using the canes.

A short fat guy was waiting near the door, his sparse hair plastered over a bald head with some kind of oil. He looked nervous as he slid over the sign to ‘Closed’ and bolted the door. “Come out back. I can do what you need. Cost you five hundred”.

The back room was bigger than the store in front, and contained printers and photocopiers, as well as metal cabinets consisting of numerous small drawers, and packets of copy paper stacked as high as the ceiling. Still edgy, he turned to Ricky. “Money first. Five hundred, like I said”. Sticking to what he had decided to do, Ricky shook his head.

“Ain’t got that much cash on me, but you can have two hundred, and this. Reckon anyone around here will give you three hundred for it”. He pulled the automatic from his waistband, and the fat man turned white. Ricky realised he thought he was being threatened.

“S’okay, I aint gonna rob you. But you must know someone who would buy this. Got a spare magazine too”. Relaxing, the man extended a hand. “Alright, let’s see the two hundred”. Happy with the cash, he put it in his pocket and walked over to a shelf to get a camera. “Think of a name you want on it. Use the same year of birth but give me a different date”.

Ricky held on to the gun while the head-shot photos were taken against a plain background, and gave the man a fake name and birth date. Sliding open some drawers on the cabinet, the man said, ‘New York City okay? I got lots of those in blanks”. He produced one to show. As far as Ricky could tell, it was genuine. The guy must have a great contact at the DMV.

Fifteen minutes later, Ricky had a new licence, with his new identity. The fat man seemed pleased with his work. “That’ll stand any stops or checks, and you won’t have no warrants outstanding neither. Now, what about the gun?” Deciding that this man wasn’t about to shoot him in the back room of his own store, he handed him the automatic, barrel first. The guy was still looking at it when Ricky slid the bolt on the front door and let himself out.

Back in the Toyota, he studied the map and worked out his route to JFK.

This is the sixteenth part of a fiction serial, in 791 words.

Just outside the town of Cambridge on a country road, Ricky pulled the Toyota over to the side on the grass. There was no traffic around and he would see the headlights if anything came along. Unhitching the trailer by the light from his phone, he let it slide onto the verge and drove away. After spending the night in the back of the car on a grassy parking area next to the Hudson River, he called Connie.

Before she could start in on him, he got in first.

“Connie, please just listen. I’m in real trouble and I need you to listen. It all went bad. I had to shoot some guys honey, or they would have killed me. I got rid of my truck, but I’m driving someone else’s now and that will have to go soon. I need to get out of the country, before the Mob guys or the cops catch up with me. I got plenty of money, enough to set us up, but we ain’t got passports, so I’m thinking of crossing over to Canada illegally, just walk across some woods or something. It would be nice to go and stay with my uncle Luis, back home in Puerto Rico, but without passports, we can’t go nowhere”.

His wife wanted to scream at him, but controlled her rage. Despite his rambling bluster, she could hear he was vulnerable, hurting. She loved him, and she was the sensible one.

“Don’t be silly, Rick. We don’t need no passports to go to stay with your uncle. But you will need ID to fly there, at least a driver’s licence. And if the cops are looking for you, you can’t use your own. You ain’t gonna get home for the baby now, no time for that. But you gotta think straight, go to a town, find a bar in the downtown area, and ask around about getting a fake driver’s licence. Don’t flash too much money about, and for Christ’s sake don’t shoot anyone else. Get the ID, then drive to JFK. Leave the car in the long-stay lot and buy a one way ticket. Once you are on your way, let me know. Then when me and the baby are fit to travel, I will fly from Florida to be with you. Oh, and Rick, dress smart, look relaxed, and just take on one carry-on bag, no hold luggage”.

She held back the tears, but Ricky didn’t. He was sobbing as he replied.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I love you so much. Don’t worry, I’ll do as you say and call you before I fly. Kiss the baby for me when it happens”. He hung up, unable to hold it together any longer. Connie didn’t make it to the bathroom before her waters broke.

Checking the map, Ricky found his gaze resting on Buffalo. It was maybe five hours west, but he could take the ninety all the way. It wasn’t in the direction he had come from, so no retracing his steps where they might be expecting him. And it was a big city, bound to have the sort of seedy district he was going to need.

——————————————————————————————-

The Feds had arrived and took over, looking at him like he was a circus clown, Patrolman Machin thought. Even the Captain was dismissed with a wave of the hand. “We’ll take it from here, it’s our crime scene now”. Special Agent this and Special Agent that in their sharp suits, a whole truck full of CSI, and the woodland shut off from the public right up to and including the Caddy in the parking lot.

He had found the two dead guys near an old Sierra truck, with shell casings all over the ground. The Captain had summed it up in seconds. “Mob hit, for sure. They made certain these guys weren’t going to the emergency room. Tell Janice to make that call to the Feds, otherwise this is gonna become a world of pain for us”.

———————————————————————————————

It was early afternoon when Ricky arrived in Buffalo and started to drive around looking for the kind of neighbourhood he wouldn’t want to bring his baby up in. He was hungry, thirsty, and as nervous as hell. But do this one last thing, and he could run off to uncle Luis and start a new life.

By five, he was getting tired of driving around and not finding anywhere likely. Then he spotted a bar on the corner with a sign in Spanish. Parking up the side, he removed some money from the bag, then hid it as best as he could under the front seat.

Before walking into the place, he slid the automatic into the waistband of his trousers.

This is the fifteenth part of a fiction serial, in 738 words.

Ricky headed north around the town, then took the twenty-nine going east. He was driving on instinct, and not thinking straight. One thing he knew for sure, he could never go back to Florida. And another thing he was certain of was that he had to get out of the country, and further away from the reach of the Mob. He had just killed a Made Man, and for all he knew, a Capo too. They would hunt him down like a rat, no doubt about that.

Without a passport that wasn’t going to be easy. He had never had one anyway, no need when Georgia was the only place he had ever been outside of Florida. Connie didn’t have one either, at least he was sure she didn’t. Even with all the money he had now, the prospect of being illegal in Canada didn’t appeal at all. If they had passports, they could maybe go to Puerto Rico, start a new life where their parents had come from.

That meant he would have to source the papers. But as the only criminal he knew was Cisco, he had no idea how to do that.

The sign for the next town read Grangerville. As he checked the rear-view, something finally occured to him. Why the hell was he still towing the boat?

He had hitched the boat out of habit, his mind all over the place following the shooting. Now it was like an advertising sign to anyone following him. And it no longer had any value that he was aware of. During all of this nobody had ever spoken about why they wanted the thing, or why it was worth so much money to them. With no sign of a rest area to dump the boat in, he kept driving on into the night.

—————————————————————————————–

Early the next morning, patrolman Terry Machin of the Saratoga Springs Police Department was given a task by the Duty Sergeant. “Take yourself over to the State Park. A lady rang in about a Caddy in the parking lot. She says it was there yesterday, and it’s still there, so she reckons it’s stolen. She didn’t get the registration”.

Machin was in no rush to do such a routine job, so went for breakfast first, in his favourite diner. He was hoping Charlene would be waitressing. She was dandy, and he was sure he had a chance with her.

No such luck, she wasn’t working. So he ate his breakfast and took a slow drive down to the park, hoping to get something more interesting over the radio in the meantime.

Sure enough the Caddy was there. No keys in the ignition, but the doors were unlocked. Seeing nothing obvious inside the car, he opened the trunk.Next to a tennis racket holder, he could see a .45 automatic with a pearl handle, and a twelve gauge pump shotgun. That sparked his interest, so he called it in for a check on the registration, which was a New Jersey plate. Janice on the radio sounded as bored as always, but he had been around long enough for the result to have some impact on him.

“Comes back to a Vincenzo Rizzo, Trenton, New Jersey. You want I should run that name?” Machin told her to try it. Janice didn’t sound so bored when she came back. “Says here he’s a RICO interest. That usually means a mob guy. Has a number to contact the Feds, you want I should do that, Terry?” Suddenly, Terry’s day had got a lot more interesting.

“Not yet, Janice. Tell the sergeant he might wanna contact the captain, and he might wanna call in the State Police. I’ll go have a look around, let me know what they say”. Taking his portable radio and flipping the tab of his pistol holster, Machin headed for the trees in the distance.

——————————————————————————————–

The Trenton cops tasked with calling on the Rizzo house knew exactly who lived there. One of them had been on the take for ten years, and had been to the house on more than one occasion. Maria Rizzo was as hard-nosed as her husband, perhaps even harder.

“Saratoga Springs, you say? Yeah, maybe. Vincent gets around, he’s a busi-ness-man. You know, busy. What’s he doing up there? How the hell should I know? He don’t tell me shit”.

Then she slammed the door in their faces before making a phone call.

This is the fourteenth part of a fiction srial, in 780 words.

Watching the man walking in his direction, Ricky thought he could have come from the set of any modern mafia film. There was the self-assured swagger, the shiny grey handmade suit worn with a black polo shirt, and glossy patent loafers on his feet. A hundred-dollar haircut and sunbed tan completed the image.

Behind him, the man standing by the side of the Toyota truck was wearing an ankle-length raincoat on a dry, bright afternoon, indicating he was hiding whatever was being carried inside it. Just the two of them then. Ricky confirmed that by looking around.

Vincent was overly friendly.

“Hey, fella. How ya doing? You picked a good spot here, but it’s kinda public, doncha think? Maybe move your pickup over under those trees there, then my guy can bring the Toyota and you can swap the boat?” Not fooled by the friendly smile, Ricky chose to act tough.

“Ain’t moving nowhere until I see the money, mister. You got the money to show me?” Vincent spread his hands wide, then opened his jacket.

“Relax. I ain’t packing, look. The money is in the Caddy. You think I was gonna just walk over with it? Calm down, and let’s get this done”. Ricky was looking over Vincent’s shoulder, watching the tough guy in the long coat. He hadn’t moved. Ricky stood his ground.

“You show me the money. You can see I got the boat, I need to see the money”. The wiseguy turned to his companion, and waved him forward. Long Coat stopped and popped the trunk of the Caddy, reaching in and removing a suitcase. One of those small ones, the sort you can carry-on a flight.

Looking at Ricky with undisguised contempt, he brought the case over and snapped open the latches. Inside was a lot of money. Old notes, small denominations bundled in thousands secured by rubber bands. Vincent dropped the friendly act.

“So I showed you the money. Now you ain’t getting the case until the boat’s on the back of the Toyota, so just move it under those trees like I asked, before it gets dark”.

Driving the short distance into the trees, and looking for a gap in the woodland large enough to make the switch, all of Ricky’s senses told him there was no way they were going to give him the money.

Once out of view of the parking lot, they were one hundred percent intending to whack him and take the boat. He knew that for sure. But for now, he had to go through the motions.

The Toyota followed him into the trees, with Vincent now in the passenger seat. When he stopped his pickup, the mob guy leaned out of the window, shouting and waving. “Not here. Go further!” Unwilling to get to a place where he couldn’t turn the boat around on the trailer, he carried on for a hundred yards more and stopped. Before anything else could be said, he got out, walked to the back, and started to unlock the hitch.

It was the loud clicking sound of the shotgun being racked that stopped him dead. He rolled forward like they did in the films, reaching back for the automatic as he came up in a crouching position.

Long Coat guy had fired the sawn off, but had badly underestimated Ricky. The buckshot had hit a tree off to the left, and Ricky was already wildly firing the automatic before the man had a chance to work the pump-action for the next round. When the magazine was empty, Ricky grabbed a spare from his coat pocket and reloaded before he stood up.

Vincent was hit, but moving. The blood seemed to be around his right side, above his hip. He was bent over, pulling up his trouser leg to reach the ankle holster containing a hidden pistol. Ricky fired twice in quick succession. The first bullet missed, the second hit Vincent square in the side of his head above his ear.

Hearing a groan, Ricky looked to his left to see the other guy flat on his back, his right hand extended toward the shotgun he had dropped. Three more shots hit him in the centre of his chest and he stopped groaning.

Running back to the Toyota, he found the case on the back seat. Trembling, he stared at the Caddy in the parking lot beyond. There was nobody around. He had to hope that the gunfire hadn’t been heard and the cops hadn’t been called. Just in case they had, he didn’t have much time.

But time enough to hitch the boat to the Toyota and get the hell out of there.

This is the thirteenth part of a fiction serial, in 755 words.

Still driving north on the coutry road, Ricky saw a campsite sign off to the left and took the rutted track leading to it, hoping nothing came the other way. It opened out at the end next to a small lake with a tired-looking jetty for boat launches.

Nobody else was there, so it looked to be a good enough place to spend the night. He knew he really should try to contact Connie, but wanted to wait until he had some good news to tell her. She was going to have to stay mad at him until he had the money.

After his last experience of sleeping in the boat, this time he made sure to secure the small door to the cabin. He had been checking the rear-view all day, and hadn’t seen the same car twice. But he was nervy, all the same. The phone showed a seventy-percent battery, so he decided not to use it as a torch.

Once it got dark, it was completely black but for some watery moonlight, and all he could hear was the sound of nocturnal animals and birds in the distance.

When he woke up needing to pee, it was barely light. He had slept so soundly, just as well no Cubans had come to get him.

Far too early to drive all the way to Saratoga Springs, he reckoned a good breakfast would be the thing, and retraced the track up to the main road, where he soon saw a sign for Kingston. That would reconnect him with the eighty-seven north, and there was bound to be a cafe or diner up there.

The Breakfast Special was very good, though he had to wait a while, as the diner had just opened. The waitress was getting on in years, and trying to cover that up with too much make-up. Her style was chatty and flirty as she slid the plate in front of him.

“You in the service? Have to say I’m partial to a man in uniform. Let me get you some more coffee, honey”. She must have been fifty if she was a day, but he didn’t want to piss her off and cause a scene. So when she brought the check he tipped her almost ten dollars, and winked at her as he left.

It was less than two hours to Saratoga Springs, going left on the ninety to avoid Albany. It was bigger than he expected, so he turned off into the State Park and found a quiet parking lot.

Vincent answered the phone before it had hardly rung.

“You here already? Jeez, I’m gonna need a coupla hours. We’re up at the Hilton, you anywhere near there?” Ricky told him he was in the State Park, and he didn’t know where the Hilton was.

“Good choice. A truck towing a boat won’t get no attention in there. Okay, I’ll call ya”.

Beginning to wish he hadn’t quit smoking when Connie announced she was having a baby, Ricky was not only bored, his nerves were jangling. This mob guy Vincent was talking like he paid to collect boats every day, and had no idea what a big deal it was for him. He checked his phone every five minutes for over two hours, and was close to giving up on all of it when it rang.

“Hey, fella. We’ll be there at five. Had to arrange something with a tow hitch. Don’t move from the parking lot you told me about”.

With even longer to wait than he had expected, Ricky was left wishing he had bought snacks and drinks. To while away the time, he examined the automatic he had taken from the Cuban, working out where the safety was, and how to change the magazine. Not that he expected to have to use it, but if it came to it there was more firepower than the Colt revolver.

The arrival of a car a few spaces away made him even edgier. But it was a woman driving a Buick, and she got one of those tiny dogs out the back and went off with it on a leash, not giving him so much as a glance. She was back in less than thirty minutes. He guessed such a small dog didn’t need much walking. His phone said five-fifteen when a silver Caddy drove in, followed by a white Toyota truck.

Ricky slipped the automatic into the back of his cammo trousers as the door of the Caddy opened.

This is the twelfth part of a fiction serial, in 752 words.

Feeling pleased that he had studied the map before leaving the strip mall, Ricky hung a right before Middletown, heading in the direction of Monticello. Soon after, another right took him onto the two-o-nine heading north in the direction of Albany. With less than one hundred and thirty miles before he got to Saratoga Springs, he reckoned he would be there in around three hours.

—————————————————————————————-

Connie might have been very pissed off at her husband, but she was loyal, and not about to roll over for the two patrolmen who were looking at her like she was some kind of low-life.

“Yeah, my husband has a pickup like that, I don’t remember the registration though. He left a coupla days ago to do a job for a friend. I don’t know which friend, or where the job was. Virginia? I doubt that. Ricky ain’t been further north than Georgia his whole life. Have I heard from him? No, why would I? He’s out working, getting paid to provide for me and our baby”.

The senior of the two cops had expected nothing, so was unsurprised to get nothing. Reminding her to contact the police department if she heard from Ricky, he walked away without a word. Waiting until they drove off, Connie went back into the house and collapsed on the sofa, sobbing.

——————————————————————————————

Detective D’Angelo had been doing his best, and went into the Captain’s office holding his notebook. “Last we know of Cuesta’s cell, it was up in New York State, registered on a mast there. That ties in with his call to the dead guy from the motel. Since then, nothing. He must have dumped it”.

Schwarz looked up from a file. “Contact the Staties in New York, ask them nicely to put an alert out for the pickup and driver. Send them the driver’s licence photo we got from Florida DMV. Make sure they know to mark it armed and dangerous. They can let the local county and city cops know too. Save us a lot of time on the phone”.

——————————————————————————————–

Although he was pleased to be away from the main road for a while, it was slower progress. So when he saw a diner and gas station ahead, he pulled off to get a burger and fries and fill up the Sierra. He got the food to take out, and then sat in the parking lot to eat it. If he was going to be in Saratoga Springs before dark, he best let the mob guy know to expect him. Taking out the paper he had written the phone numbers down on, he dialled. It was answered quickly.

“Who’s this? The tone was definitely no-nonsense.

“Is that Vincent? I got a boat for you, asked to deliver it by Cisco. Said I should call you. I’m a coupla hours south of Saratoga Springs, where d’ya wanna meet”.

He had tried to sound tough. And nonchalant, like he did this sort of thing every day. It hadn’t worked.

“So what happened to Cisco, and who are you? Why have you got my boat?” Ricky stopped trying to be a gangster and told a half-truth.

“Cisco asked me to do it ’cause I had a trailer on my pickup. We winched the boat on it down in Florida a coupla days ago. He gave me your name and number, told me to get up to Saratoga Springs, hand over the boat and get the money he’s due. So, can we meet tonight? I don’t wanna be up north longer that I have to”. Vincent was feisty.

“That lazy Mex got one of his crew to deliver, did he? My boss ain’t gonna like that. I’m gonna have to call Cisco and get back to you”. Before he could hang up, Ricky interrupted.

“Cis ain’t answering his phone, dunno why. Look, I’m up here, the boat’s behind my pickup, and I can deliver it where you want. Why waste time?” He heard the sound of Vincent lighting a cigarette.

“I ain’t wasting time, fella. But I need to see my boss tonight first. You think I carry two hundred grand around in my jacket? You find somewhere to stay over tonight, and call me after breakfast tomorrow”. He hung up. Ricky sat staring out of the window in a daze. Two hundred grand. Who would pay that for an old boat?

Not only was Cisco always intending to rip him off, he had now put him in harm’s way with the mob.

This is the eleventh part of a fiction serial, in 735 words.

Still some way off Middletown, Ricky saw a dated strip mall up ahead, and pulled off to see what was there. At one end was a shabby used car dealership, further down a general store, and an army surplus next to that. An old-stle barbershop looked out of place next to a gas station and diner at the end of the strip. Peeling off some money so as not to be seen with the whole roll, he hid the pistols under the driver’s seat and went shopping.

The general store provided a cheap phone, and vouchers to add credit on it. The clerk was trying to be friendly. “This for your kid? Don’t add so much credit, they burn through it like they don’t know what money is worth”. Adding a map of New York State from a spin-rack, some twinkies and a six-pack of Coke, Ricky paid and left without a word. In the army surplus he bought some cammo trousers and a matching coat. It was feeling cold up north, and he thought the combo might make him look like a hunter or fisherman, seeing as he was towing a boat. Adding some aviator-style sunglasses, he paid the man.

The last stop was at the barber shop, where he had a shave, then got his hair cropped to look like a new intake soldier. The barber didn’t stop asking questions all the way through, so he just answered “Yeah” to everything the old man asked. Just before he was going to drive out, something occurred to him, and he swung the pickup round and parked in front of the used car lot. Hiding the guns in the Cuban’s sports bag, he walked across and looked over an old GMC Sierra truck near the back.

It had a tow hitch, but no winch. That wouldn’t be a problem for off-loading the boat though. As far as he was concerned, the mob guys could keep the old trailer. A fat man came out of the office, which was a hand-painted cabin at the side. He threw away a cigar butt as he came over, giving the broad grin that car salesmen must be born with. Then came the spiel, which was the same even this far north.

“You obviously know your trucks, young man. That one’s a doozy, one of the best pickups they made. And it’s got the big engine too, the twenty-five hundred. That’ll pull that boat of yours all the way to Alaska if need be. Climb in, see how clean it is. Why the previous owner never used it for hard work, just to drive back and forth to the market at Middletown”. Ricky had to admit to himself that the pickup had never seen hard driving. The bed at the back was hardly scuffed, and the rubber on the pedals looked brand new. He pointed over to his own truck.

“What will you give me for that? I can pay the balance in cash”. Ricky’s truck was paid off, but the back bed was badly marked after years of having mowers and tools thrown in it, and there were some small dents and scrapes all over. But the Sierra was older, and had high mileage, despite what the fat guy had said.

After walking around Ricky’s truck, pulling faces and shaking his head, the man came back. “Side window’s gone, truck bed’s in need of repainting. Tyres are good though, give you that, and the mileage ain’t too high. It’s got a winch too, that staying?” Ricky smiled, trying to seem relaxed. “Yeah, the winch stays, and the side window just got broke yesterday, reckon it was a stone on the highway. Made me jump out of my skin”.

After fishing a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket, the fat man stared at his shoes for effect. Suddenly looking up, he grinned and extended his hand. “You give me eight hundred and your pickup, and I’ll shake on it now if you got the registration”. Ignoring the hand, Ricky made a counter offer. “Call it six-fifty and we have a deal. The registration’s in there”. Lighting the cigar, the man nodded. “Follow me into the office”.

Less than forty minutes later, Ricky was on the road to Middletown in a different pickup, looking like he had just been discharged from military service.

On the way, he ate the Twinkies and drunk two cokes. The sugar would do him good.

This is the tenth part of a fiction serial, in 770 words.

Taking advantage of the rest area, Ricky used his T-shirt to wipe the blood off the boat deck and side. Then he dumped it in the trash bin under some fast food garbage. The contents of one of the bottles of water was rubbed over his chest to wash off the blood that had soaked through, before he took a shiny black shirt from the dead Cuban’s bag and made himself look reasonably respectable.

Next time he was in a gas station, he would use the Cuban’s stuff to wash properly, and have a shave.

Handing over the boat was going to be delayed now, probably by an extra day. He couldn’t face another argument with Connie, so decided to call her later. But he had to let Cisco know, as he would need to either get away from the motel, or go to the office and pay for extra nights.

Cisco’s phone rang inside a plastic bag on the desk of Detective D’Angelo. Captain Scwarz heard it too, and shouted through the door of his office.

“D’Angelo, answer the goddam thing!” Scrabbling to put on a plastic glove, the detective pulled the phone from the bag on the tenth ring. He heard a voice at the other end. “Cisco. It’s me. You okay?” Following the usual procedure, D’Angelo replied formally. “This is Detective D’Angelo of the Fredericksburg Police Department. To whom am I speaking?”

Ricky jumped back in the seat and hung up. The cops had Cisco’s phone, that couldn’t be good. They either had him in jail, or maybe he was in hospital.

Seconds later, his phone rang, an unknown number. Must be the cops calling back. He switched the phone off, and sat thinking hard. They could trace his phone call, he knew that. And they could get his phone records from the number, find out who he was. They might get the Florida cops to go to his house. Then they would know about his pickup, and put out an alert for it.

Now he was visibly shaking. If only he hadn’t made that call. His life had unravelled in an instant. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Scrabbling around in the glovebox, he managed to find a stubby pen and some business flyers. Running through the list of contacts after switching the phone back on, he wrote down some numbers that he would never remember otherwise. Then he removed the SIM card and battery, smashing the phone into pieces using the butt of the revolver. Back at the trash can, he placed everything under the T-shirt before driving slowly out of the rest area.

Nothing else for it, Ricky knew he had to start thinking like a criminal. Push on to Saratoga Springs, get as much as he could for the boat, then somehow get a message to Connie to join him somewhere, maybe Canada. It felt like a dream. No, not a dream, a complete wide-awake nightmare.

With no Cisco to count on, he was going to have to act tough, not something he was used to. But he had seen enough gangbangers around the neighbourhood to know what to do, as long as he had the guts to carry it off.

The cops were never gonna believe his story if he handed himself in. He had shot and killed a guy, was carrying guns and cash, and was also associated with Cisco, a hardened criminal. They would lock him up and throw away the key, he was sure of that.

A new phone would be needed, and that meant stopping off in a town or shopping mall. Ricky was savvy enough to be aware that there would be security cameras in stores and malls, and he could only estimate how long it would be before the cops in Fredericksburg knew who he was, and what he was driving. With little or no traffic around, he picked up speed, hoping to see a town ahead soon.

—————————————————————————————-

It took a couple of hours, but D’Angelo got the information he needed. Grabbing his notebook, he hurried into the Captain’s office.

“We got lucky, the guy had a phone contract for business use. Ricardo Cuesta, a Florida address. You want I should contact the local cops down there, Captain? He ain’t got no record I can find on the computer. I can get them to check with the DMV down there too, get a photo from his driver’s permit sent up”.

Schwarz was nodding that he should do all that, then added. “What the hell is a no-mark from Florida doing all the way up here?”