more he talked about it, the more realistic it all started to sound. Ron probably would come out to the warehouse if they had the money. They probably could fool him if he wanted to see it—at least, fool him long enough to shoot him. They could dump the truck in Vegas. It would probably be awhile before anyone looked for him and found the truck and figured out he was missing. It was probably just that easy to disappear for real, so people wouldn’t assume right away that he’d been killed.
“Okay, so how do we get the money? We can’t just go to the branch here and withdraw that much. Everyone in town will know about in an hour.”
“Easy. Each of us just stops a few times on the way home tomorrow. Just go into a Wells Fargo and withdraw four or five grand. Piece of cake. Shit, there’s two of them in Barstow. Stop at each of those and then stop at the one by the mall in Riverside. Between the two of us, that’s six stops. No one will notice anything.”
They drove into town, past the Super 8, past the Golden Dragon, through the stoplight. Then Eddie said, “Okay, fine, we’ll do it tomorrow. We’ll call him up, have him come out tomorrow night and just get it over with.”
Eli grinned. “Now you’re talking. Look man, this guy can’t be trusted. It’s him or us in this deal. And I ain’t about to let him chase after me with his baseball bat.”
“There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We need a gun.”
“I’m one step ahead of you.” Eli pulled into the parking lot of the service station. Cookie stood in the doorway of the open garage bay, staring up at the Subaru wreckage still dangling from the hydraulic lift. They parked next to the old gas pumps and got out. Cookie remained standing with his back to them, staring up at the cascade of wires and hoses. Eli called out to him, “Hey, Cookie?” But there was no reaction.
Eddie said, “I swear, every time I see him, he seems to have killed even more brain cells.”
“Hey, Cookie,” Eli tried again, walking up to him this time. “Hey man.” Cookie noticed Eli when he got right up beside him and reacted with surprise, turning around to see Eddie coming toward him as well.
Eddie raised a hand and gave him a slight wave. “What’s up, Cookie?”
Cookie responded with a grunt of sorts, nodding his head. Eli asked him where Leo was and Cookie motioned around back. They thanked him and headed down the side of the garage. Cookie remained behind, staring out at the street.
At the back of the building was a locked door. Eli banged on it and they waited for a response. After a minute, Eli knocked again. This time they heard noise coming from behind the door. A few seconds more and it opened a crack. Eli saw an eye emerge from the darkness behind the door and then it opened further and Leo poked his head out, squinting at the daylight.
“Sorry guys, I had to see who it was through the peephole first. Sometimes Cookie’s not the best at keeping watch, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure you do. What do you guys need?” Leo’s pinpoint eyes darted back and forth from Eli to Eddie.
“Can we come inside for a second?”
“Oh, hey, sure man, sure, no problem. It’s fucking bright out here anyway. I can’t think out in the sunlight. It hurts my eyes.” Leo grinned at Eddie and stepped back, opening the door to let them in. They walked past him and down a steep set of stairs to a basement storage room converted into a makeshift laboratory. “Hey,” Leo called after them, “be careful not to knock over the bucket of benzyl chloride at the bottom of the stairs.”
The room was lit by three naked eighty watt bulbs strung in series across the joists that ran beneath the floor of the garage above. Metal racks of auto parts lined the walls. In the center of the room were two full-size banquet tables holding an elaborate display of beakers, vacuum tubes, and Bunsen burners. The air was acrid and Eddie and Eli felt their eyes water around the edges. They stood around the tables, watching fluid bubble in one of the glass cylinders.
Leo came down after them. “Check this shit out,” he snickered, and retrieved a large silver mixing bowl from a table along the wall.