And Ace—and Jai and Sonny—must have felt it too, because while Eric almost screamed, they all cocked their heads like they were listening for something.
Ace grimaced when he pulled out his phone. “Ernie,” he said, and the others nodded like they’d expected this.
Was this because Ernie had talked about storms the night before?
“’Sup?” Ace said, directly into the phone. “Uhm… no. We take the drop tonight, you know that. Today? And the bank in Baker? Uhm… why?”
Ace blinked slowly. “Me and Jai, I guess.”
He listened to the reply and blinked again. “Okay, so me, Jai, and Eric. Gotta take the drop. Well, ’cause we can’t leave Sonny here alone—oh. Okay. So we’ll do that. Look, Ernie, it’s your show. Learned a long time ago not to ignore you, okay? Yeah, you call Cotton. I guess I gotta go strip my overalls and wash my hands.”
He hung up with a grunt. “Jai, Eric, we gotta go drop the week’s deposit in the branch of the savings and loan in Baker.”
“Isn’t that half an hour away?” Eric said.
“There is a Business Gold Savings and Loan in Victoriana,” Jai said, sounding absolutely puzzled.
“Cotton’s gonna come look after the cashier stand?” Sonny asked, and Ace gave him a grateful smile.
“Yup. Ernie’s calling him now. Jai, you and me gotta scrub off some engine oil. Eric, set up the receipts and invoices so Cotton can come walk through your day.”
Eric stared at him, absolutely at a loss. “Is there anything else we should know?”
“Yeah. You still got your piece?” Ace asked.
Eric put his hand to the small of his back, where his pancake holster with his Beretta rested under his shirt, practically a part of his soul, much less his skin. “Always.”
“Concealed carry, right?”
“Permit’s in my wallet.” He had a permit to match every ID.
“Good. Jai, you bring what you gotta. I got my knife. I don’t know why we gotta be in Baker in forty-five minutes, but I don’t think it’s for dinner and a movie.”
BAKER WASa good thirty minutes from Victoriana, and perhaps twice the size. Not big enough to have a Walmart, Eric thought bitterly, but big enough to have a feed store, a grocery store, a Rite Aid, a two-screen movie theater, and two banks. There was the Wells Fargo and the Business Gold—the credit union was almost necessary because most of the businesses out there were either franchises or independents and everybody needed someplace safe to drop their cash and receipts.
Correction, thought Eric to himself. Bakershouldhave been thirty minutes from Victoriana. It certainly had been thirty minutes when Eric had been driving back from Palm Springs.
But apparently when Ace was at the wheel, all things space and time were warped beyond rational belief—even when Ace was driving the powder-blue Crown Vic that Jai usually drove.
Jai held on to the chicken stick with stoic concentration—and the occasional “Whoo!” as Ace would take a curve or a corner or pass another car and turn it into a roller coaster ride on a hurricane.
Eric was belted in the center of the back bench seat, being thrown around like a rag doll with a rope tied around its waist, wondering if his core muscles would ever be the same.
After fifteen minutes of seeing his life flashing before his eyes—and holy Christ were there some regrets in there—Ace skidded to a halt in the sand-coated parking lot of Business Gold Credit Union. He killed the engine and had gotten out and slammed his door almost before the last notes of Metallica crashed through the speakers from the classic metal station Jai had listened to on the way to work.
Jai and Eric got out of the vehicle a little more slowly.
“Dear God,” Eric muttered, putting his hand out to the roof of the car to steady himself.
“You should see him street race,” Jai replied, although he too was resting his hand on the roof of the car. “But don’t blink or the race is over.”
Ace ignored them, busy scanning the parking lot for a moment. He turned to Jai with the familiar command of somebody used to running an op. “Cameras,” he said bluntly, and Jai nodded.
“We are outside their range.”
Eric realized Ace had parked to thewayback of the parking lot—the place no woman would park at night—in the far corner, practically in the vacant lot next to the savings and loan. The cameras perched on the eaves of the building wouldn’t hitanywhere near this spot—but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t hit inside the building.
“Are we knocking the place over?” Jai asked in surprise.
