I checked the terrain one more time, got out, and walked up to him. “What’s with all the sand this time?”

“It’s the big one I told you about. It’s got to be a long ride. I got triple the crew catching for you.”

This time I held up my hands. “Where? I don’t see ’em.”

“They’re up ahead. I didn’t want them to see you. It’s better that way.”

I looked around again, not sure I believed him.

He cracked a small smile, “Why? You gettin’ sketchy on me?”

“Jumbo, if you haven’t noticed, we are out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Ease up on it, bad boy.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

He smiled broader. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to need a hundred thousand this time.”

The smile disappeared. “I was going to be generous and double what I gave you the last time, give you fifty, out of the kindness of my heart. But a hunert, no, you can’t call the game like that, not after I already got this thing rolling. I could’ve got someone else for your part.”

“I don’t understand why you want me to begin with. But I’m here, and my price is a hundred. You said it was a big score.”

“I told ya before. It’s because no one else has the balls. They get up in the car, panic, and just start tossin’, breakin’ everything. You’re cool, take your time, treat the shit like it’s yours, and our recovery rate is higher. But this time there’s going to be a lot of loss no matter how gentle you are.”

“What’s the load?”

He squirmed a little, so I knew the next thing out of his mouth was going to be a lie. “Computer towers.”

“Bullshit.”

His eyes went hard. “Don’t push me, big man.”

“What’s the load?”

He hesitated, his mouth a straight line, “Computer chips.”

“Computer chips?”

Now, all the other times made sense. They were dry runs, training for this one. That nonsense about soft hands was just that, there was going to be heavy security. Heisting computer chips had become big business. They were small and valuable and easier to handle than gold bars. The computer companies had taken to delivering them in armored cars with escorts.

I smiled at him. “How much security?”

He nodded his head, smiled back, “Piece of cake, really. Four guards, two up front and two in the back. If you do it right, like you have in the past, they’ll never tumble to it.”

I tried to calculate the odds in my head. This changed the whole scenario. No one had hit them like this before. This was virgin territory for something of this magnitude. We were kicking over a hornet’s nest, and folks were going to be beyond pissed off. “What’s the take going to be?”

“None of your damn business. You in or you out?”

“Out.” I turned and headed to my car.

“Bruno! Bruno!”

The sand swished as he ran around me to be seen, a small gun in one small hand, the other up against my chest.

Chapter Ten

I looked down at the hand on my chest, “You better think twice about shooting me with that popgun. Sure, you’ll hit me with it. And I’ll probably eventually bleed out. But I’ll rip your head off first. And you know I’m telling it straight.”

He looked down at the gun in his hand, thought about it for a long second. “It’s too late to get someone else. You have to do it or you’re hanging my ass out here. I paid out the ass just for the information on this load and timetables for this gig.”

“What’s your end?”

He took the hand from my chest reached into his pocket. “Here.” He slapped the bundle of currency against my chest. I let it fall to the warm sand and ignored it.

He said, “Here’s seventy-five. I brought twenty-five extra just in case you tried to hold me up like this. Seventy-five, that’s even twenty-five more, that’s triple what you got before. Take it.”

“The deal’s changed. After the fence takes his cut, you’ll clear a couple million on this, won’t you? Even after you pay all your guys off, you get a cool couple of million. Fact is, your hooligans probably don’t even know what a computer chip is. They’re probably doing this for the same chicken-shit little price as last time.

“I’m taking all the risk. No. Now my price is two hundred thousand.”

His mouth dropped open.

I stooped and picked up the seventy-five. The money, cool to the touch, was compressed and bound tight. Still, it barely fit in Chantal’s sugar daddy’s pants pocket. “What’s two hundred to you when you’re looking at an easy two mil? And that’s two million tax free.” He didn’t say anything. I smiled, “It’s more than two mil, isn’t it?”

“Okay, okay then, two hundred K, that’s what you said. We got a deal. That seventy-five’s all I got on me, but you know I’m good for it.”

I moved right up close. I could smell his Doublemint breath. His teeth gnashed away a hundred miles per hour. “And you also know I’m good for coming for you if you try and gyp me out of it. I won’t be happy.”

He held out his hand. “You got Jumbo’s word.”

I took his hand and gave it a good squeeze, gave the bones a little grind. He maintained his smile. It looked like he’d just pulled one over on me. Like he knew it would go this way all along. Jumbo never played the dummy, never. He had something else lined up. I’d played right into him. I would have to keep my eyes open. “Where do I get on?”

“Gyp, and hooligans, what kind of words are those? You slay me, you know that, you really slay me.”

I waited.

His grin lost some its shine. “Okay, continue on down this road until it veers right. Stay on it another mile and three-tenths. There’s an orange cone in the road by some juniper trees at the base of the grade.”

“Where do I get off?”

“Same as before.”

“You got to be kidding me, that’s an extra sixty or seventy miles.”

“Eighty-eight, that’ll give you another hour and ten for the job. I’m paying you two hundred big ones. Don’t start your bellyaching now. You’re going to have to earn your money this time. Get going. You got,” he looked at his watch, “twenty-one minutes to get set up.”

I hesitated, again thinking something was wrong. I had somehow walked right in and got blindsided. It scared the hell out of me. He stood facing the west. The dying sunlight turned his face orange and contrasted greatly with his jet-black hair. He waited, comfortable, knowing no matter what, he had me. I would do it the way he wanted. I got in the car and headed out, going around his Beemer, spinning sand in a rooster tail. He scrambled out of the way. In the rearview, he brushed sand off his Tommy Bahama, mad enough to stomp his feet and kick at imaginary minions. I couldn’t put it from my mind. I couldn’t help thinking like a two-bit sneak thief. I imagined all the money before I even had it in my hand. Enough money to do it all the right way. I couldn’t wait to tell Marie, show her, and watch her eyes light up. Not from greed but from what the money could do for the children.

I passed the rock-strewn mountain and looked to the right. In a little rock alcove were fifteen or twenty four-wheel-drive vehicles, with three to four men each, a small army of thieves to support me in my endeavor to make Jumbo a kingpin thug. They all stood ready, overly animated in their anticipation. They stopped talking and watched as I kept going on by, their faces too far away to distinguish features. Jumbo was right, I didn’t want them to see me.

I drove. Just as he’d said, I came upon an orange cone. I turned and followed the railroad tracks south. I came to a bunch of salt cedars as the sun switched off all the yellow, the ground turned red, then quickly into long shadow. In the head lights, on a branch among a clump of salt cedar, hung a canvas bag weighted down with heavy tools. I didn’t have to check my watch. The bright light from the train to the north heading south cut through the clear night air, through the vacant desert all the way to where I sat watching. I shut off the headlights and pulled in behind the salt cedar. I didn’t have time to contemplate the act. Jumbo planned it this way. I got out, pulled the bag of tools from the branch. I scrambled along the right-of-way a hundred yards to the base of the grade where the train would have to slow. I found a good place just off the right-of-way, and lay down among some sage. As the massive freight approached, the ground started a soft rumble and grew as the behemoth rose up larger. I should’ve been scared, but I’d done this before and knew how it would play out. I opened the canvas bag, took out the cotton work gloves, put them on, and then took out the small set of bolt cutters. I put the powerful flashlight in my back pocket and the pry bar in the back of my belt.