Chapter 26
It was a clear sunny day, if a bit dry, as I waited in my black muscle car beside a street-side cafe while watching the armored transit truck up and across the street.
Mimi came walking out with a profusely creamed and caramel drizzled iced coffee in a clear cup with a dome lid and a thick orange straw, hopping into the front passenger seat beside me with Barry buckled in the backseat beside a canister of Ichor.
The way her cleavage jiggled in that black top did things for my focus, forcing me to look across the way at the truck.
“There’s no cup holder,” I said while looking through a new set of binoculars. “You’re gonna have to hold onto it.”
“That’s fine!” Mimi said as she sipped on her cold jet fuel. “Want some?”
“What’s in it?”
“Five sugars, six creams, three shots of espresso and a whole bunch of whipped cream—ooh and a mocha shot under the caramel.”
“Am I gonna fly through the roof if I drink it?”
“Oh, it’ll send your ass into orbit.”
She held the cup out in front of me as I lowered my binoculars, then with a reticent shrug, I sipped from the wide straw and felt the rush the second it touched my tongue.
“Damn!” I uttered while looking at Mimi in disbelief. “Where are you trying to go, Sagittarius?”
“Actually, I’m a Scorpio,” Mimi giggled while taking an icy sip.
“I was talking about the middle of the Milky Way—what’s Scorpio mean?”
“It means I was born between Halloween and Christmas and I really need to fuck…”
Suddenly, Mimi started making a whole lot more sense.
That response caused me to immediately look ahead to see the driver loading up the truck with a bag of money before hopping in the front.
“Three men. All armed. Looks like private contractors,” I surmised before picking up a shortwave radio. “You see ‘em, Gingerbread?”
“Copy. Why am I Gingerbread?” Jenna answered over the walkie talkie.
“Because you have red hair and you make me want to eat you.”
“I should be Red Velvet. Momo can be Gingerbread.”
“Why, because I’m brown? And don’t call me that!” Monica protested over the radio.
I shifted my eyes to my black SUV several spaces behind the money truck, where Cassie was driving with Monica riding shotgun.
“It’s because you’re spicy, not brown,” Jenna countered.
“I’m a Mocha Coffee Macaron.”
“Because you’re hard on the outside but soft on the inside?”
“Part brown, part white; all gas.”
Cassie chimed in. “Then what am I?”
“Ladyfingers.”
“Not anymore. Now I’m a cream pie…”
“Ladies, can we focus?” I cut in. “They’re on the move.”
The money truck pulled into traffic as I headed in the opposite direction. Cassie put my SUV into gear and followed far behind while I circled the block, putting the pedal to the medal to pass the two-line traffic and get up to the light.
Cassie broke off after two intersections, which is when Jenna turned onto the street in her Crown Victoria. Transit truck drivers were trained to look for tails, so we alternated every few blocks to keep eyes on them.
Once we got to the parkway, that’s where it got tricky.
A sudden flash followed; a snippet of those ‘traveling visions’. It was like there was something more than just money on that truck, a feeling I kept with me as I got ready to accelerate.
“They’re going to radio in the second there’s an incident,” Jenna advised.
“Copy, Red Velvet,” I said into the radio. “Get the jammer ready.”
“Ten-four, Beefcake.”
The jammer turned on before I could respond, forcing radio silence.
“OooOoh!” Mimi nudged me in the shoulder with the flat of her fingers. “Beefcake!”
“I can roll with that,” I said with a nodding smirk before turning my head toward Mimi. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
I floored it on the long stretch of plains-flanked road and pulled up alongside the truck as Mimi rolled down her window and leaned her seat back.
The driver looked at me with a cold, almost inhuman stare. Professional was one thing, but this driver was about as emotionless as the gray man I’d seen with that Mutie looking creature.
I waved with a friendly smile, then reached into my trench-coat and took out my gauss cannon.
Bulletproof? Not against mine.
Maximal power; minimal recoil.
My hyper-sonic slug went through the reinforced glass, leaving a perfect hole behind along with a massive, milky white crack in a wide circle around it, like looking at the eye of a storm.
The truck slowed as I sped up to power slide in front of it, stepping out to aim directly at the forward windshield as I approached the truck.
“You see that?” I hollered. “Next one goes through your heads! Open the door!”
The driver tried backing up, which is when Cassie blocked it from behind, preventing an easy escape. Jenna immediately pulled up beside it, boxing the truck in so that there was nowhere to go except down into the ditch leading out to the fields.
And then I fired again, shooting right through the security shield and putting a hole in the steel backing beside the driver’s head.
His co-driver, the one in the front passenger seat recoiled in revulsion, then stared at me with wide-eyed shock as I aimed my cannon at him.
“I’m not gonna tell you twice!” I shouted.
The driver met his cohorts eye, then nodded to each other as they raised their hands slowly. I came around to the driver’s side door and pulled it open as soon as he hit the latch, aiming my cannon at the nervous looking driver.
“You’ve got another guy in the back,” I said. “Tell him to stay chill or things are gonna get real messy.”
“Stand down!” the driver hollered before glaring at me. “Do you know who you’re dealing with?”
“Do you?” I retorted, then waved my large bore golden barrel at him. “Get in the back. Both of you. Open the door.”
They did as they were told, swinging the double back door open to the light of the high sun as Jenna approached with her pistol raised.
“On the ground,” she ordered, wearing her badge around her neck, deterring any rubberneckers who might’ve called the cops.
“You’re police?” the driver questioned as he stood with his hands up. “He’s robbing us!”
“I said get on the ground.”
Their confusion was palpable, but they did as they were told. Monica hopped out of my truck and took all their weapons, stashing them in the back of the truck while Cassie remained in the SUV.
Jenna took their radios and IDs, then handcuffed all three before shoving them into the back of her car.
“Alright, everybody load up!” I ordered with a winding motion of my upward aiming finger, the wind bustling in my hair with no care for the sparse traffic passing us by.
I got behind the wheel of the armored truck while Mimi drove my muscle car, then we headed off the parkway to stash our cars behind an overpass, leaving the cuffed truck personnel behind as all four women got into the truck with me, including Barry and the Ichor.
“Everyone buckle in,” I said once the truck was locked down, then glared ahead and wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel. “One stop left…”