Blacktop Wasteland(68)
Beauregard kept the van near 60 as they navigated the serpentine road that twisted through the North Carolina hills. The SUV stayed about a car length behind him with its low beams bouncing off his side mirrors. He put the gun in the knapsack with his right hand while steering with his left. Switching hands, he grabbed the steering wheel with his right and slid his left hand under the dashboard near the door. His deft fingers found the van’s fuse box. He visualized the fuse box’s specs. He’d memorized them from the Chilton repair manual. He could see the square black box in his mind with the different colored two-bladed fuses in three short rows that ran the length of the box. Beauregard counted to himself as his fingers slipped across the hard plastic rectangles.
One, two, three, four down. One, two, three to the right, he thought. He pulled the fuse for the van’s brake lights out of its socket. He let it fall from his fingers and buried the gas pedal in the floor. The van lurched forward as the engine screamed. A sharp curve was coming up but Beauregard didn’t let up on the gas. He took the curve at 70. He felt the back wheels trying to slither to the right as he turned into the curve. He wrenched the steering wheel to the left and gave the brake a love tap. Glancing in the side mirror he saw the SUV was now about six car lengths behind them. He grimaced but his bandana hid his own visage from him as he flicked his eyes up toward the rearview mirror. Once again he stomped on the gas. The van’s engine squealed in protest but Beauregard spared it no quarter. The speedometer topped out at 125 and he intended to get within shouting distance of that in the next two minutes. The road ahead careened into another hairpin turn that forced him to slam on the brake with his left foot while keeping his right foot firmly on the gas pedal. The van drifted through the turn like a big man who was surprisingly nimble on the dance floor. He checked the side mirror. The SUV’s headlights appeared after a few seconds.
Beauregard heard the staccato rhythm of gunfire explode behind him. He took his foot off the brake and committed all his strength to pressing the gas pedal to the floor. He checked the side mirror again. Another burst of gunfire exploded even as the headlights of the SUV receded. Soon they disappeared entirely. The crew in the SUV probably assumed the van driver had decided to double-cross them and make off with their boss’s loot.
That was exactly what Beauregard wanted them to think.
A long stretch of straight road unfurled in front of him like a black ribbon. He checked the speedometer. 90 mph.
Beauregard fished his phone out of his pocket. Steering with his left hand he scrolled through his contacts with a quick downward glance. When he got to one that said R1 he pushed the green “call” button. Returning his eyes to the road he saw a chestnut-colored doe step daintily out into the middle of the road.
“Goddamn it!” he grunted. Beauregard whipped the steering wheel to the right while letting up off the gas but not braking. He heard the pallet in the back groan as gravity pulled at it with insistent invisible hands. Beauregard drove the van onto the narrow shoulder of the road and around the seemingly oblivious deer. The front right tire tried to slip into the ditch but Beauregard refused to allow it to escape. He’d come too far and had too far to go for that bullshit. He hit the gas and slammed the wheel to the left. The van fishtailed, shuddered, then the front right tire found the road again and dug into the asphalt. Beauregard did all this with his left hand while still holding the phone to his right ear.
“What is it?” Ronnie yelled.
“Nothing. Be ready. Two minutes,” Beauregard said. He ended the call and tossed the phone in the cup holder. Another series of hills were coming up in one hundred feet. He had driven this road twice since they had come down yesterday morning. He took notice of every divot, pothole and twist and turn. The details were burned into his mind like a cattle brand. He checked his side mirror. The headlights of the SUV were nowhere to be seen. They had the faster vehicle but he had the better skills.
At the top of the second hill Beauregard saw a white box truck had pulled out in front of him from its resting place on the widest part of the shoulder. He eased up on the gas and grabbed the phone. He called Ronnie again.
“You have to keep it at 60. I’m coming in hot,” Beauregard said. His words came out in short clipped bursts.
“I got it. You want the door down now?”
“Yes.” He tossed the phone aside again.
Boonie had gotten them the pickup truck and two other vehicles for Beauregard’s plan. The box truck he had to steal. He and Kelvin had slipped down to Newport News and copped it from a plumbing supply store on Jefferson Avenue. The van they were going to steal was fifteen feet long, six feet wide and six feet seven inches tall. The Akers and Son box truck was just wide enough, deep enough and had barely enough headspace for the job. Originally it had a roll door that slid up and rolled onto two metal slats attached to the roof. Beauregard had gotten rid of the roll door in addition to making a few more adjustments.
Ronnie had wanted to go in guns blazing but Bug knew that was a fool’s run. He’d figured, correctly, that the crew protecting the van would be strapped with some heavy artillery. They didn’t have the time or the money to get into an arms race.
Beauregard inched closer to the box truck.
Instead of rolling upward the door of the box truck began to open outward like the lid of a coffin. Slowly, torturously it continued opening until it was nearly parallel with the road. After a breath-stopping pause it continued opening until the lip made contact with the road. The rubber weather stripping he’d installed at the top of the door began to smoke as friction began to devour it. He only had a few minutes before the rubber wore away and sparks began to dot the night. The door itself was made up of threaded rod welded together in a cross-hatch pattern like a sheet of rabbit wire. He’d sandwiched that between quarter-inch-thick steel plates. Two-inch-wide support struts ran from the bottom of the door to the top. They stopped just three inches before the weather stripping along the edge of the ramp began. Kelvin had helped him hook up the hydraulic system that opened and closed the door. A toggle switch dangling from the steering wheel of the truck controlled the entire apparatus.