CHAPTER SIX - The Side Hustle

C HAPTER S IX

The Side Hustle

O liver smiled politely at the nurses rushing past. Or was he the one rushing? When he got into his car, he looked in both directions to see if anyone was watching. Not that they could hear him unless he started screaming at Dickie, which was a very good possibility. He needed answers on both issues. And he needed them fast.

“How did it happen? When? And what’s the situation?” He rapid-fired questions.

“Seems like she was able to fit through the transom window in the basement. She was a little bit of a thing, ya know.”

The small top-hinge awning window was designed to open out, which was why there were bars installed inside. It was to ensure that no one tried to pull the bars off with a hitch on a truck. Oliver wanted to know how a petite teenager could have dismantled them and escaped. Someone had some explaining to do. “We had safeguards in place, did we not?” Oliver’s breath became short. “Isn’t that what I paid for?”

“Yes, boss. But it looks like the bolts didn’t hold.”

Oliver thought he was going to be the next one in the cardiac unit. He shut his eyes in disbelief. Oliver had two moods: pompous and sullen. At that moment, he was about to experience a new one: rage. When he felt the flash of heat rush from his neck to his face, he tried to calm himself down. He spoke slowly. Steadily. “I want you to do three things, Dickie boy. Number one: you find that girl; number two: I want to see the person who installed the bars; and number three, I want my money back.” He took another breath and pumped up the volume, chopping out the words: “Do. You. Under. Stand. Me?”

“Gotcha, boss.” Dickie waited for the next round of verbal assaults.

“Good. Now get it done. You feeling me?” Oliver huffed.

“Big time.” Dickey knew he was in a very bad predicament. If they couldn’t find the girl, and she made it out of the woods somehow, they would all be in for some serious business. Something the Spangler family might not be able to wriggle their way out of. “She can’t last too long out there. And it’s miles from any road, so she’ll either get lost and never be found, or we’ll catch up with her.”

* * *

Oliver had known he was going to have a major problem when Dickie’s cousin Bart picked up a hitchhiker outside the gas station in Salem. Bart was on his way to make a quick delivery when he saw a pretty young thing with her thumb out, seeking a ride. Unfortunately for Bart, he had his delivery package in the front seat. When he tried to move it so the girl could sit, the tape got caught on the seat belt clip and ripped it open, spilling the contents onto the floor. The girl freaked out and tried to jump out of the truck, but Bart clocked her and knocked her unconscious. When Bart called Dickie, Dickie told him to take her to one of the motels. “The one that backs up against all them woods. Put her in that basement space we made for the new guys from Mexico.”

They held her there for two weeks. No one knew what to do with her. They were drug smugglers. Not murderers. Oliver hadn’t addressed the issue, either, hoping it would resolve itself somehow. Maybe he would have one of his men bring her to his contact in Mexico. Ernesto would know what to do. Human trafficking was one option.

His head began to hurt from banging into dead ends. Bringing counterfeit fentanyl from Mexico to Alaska was very lucrative. Three truckers and the company fleet made the operation seamless. Until now.

“You’ve gotta find that kid, do you hear me?” Oliver was more perturbed than ever before. Everything had lined up perfectly. Until now.

“Got it, boss.” Dickie was worried. There was something in Oliver’s voice that he hadn’t heard before. A menacing tone. He didn’t know what Oliver was capable of, but no matter, Oliver would always come out on the clean side of things. Dickie knew he had to watch his step and get the job done. Even if he had to do the worst. There couldn’t be a trail that led to any of them, especially Oliver. He was the only one who could get them out of a jam.

“What about the other one?” Oliver was referring to the housekeeper.

“She’s on her way to the place near the border. Blaine. Near Vancouver. Canada.”

“Are you sure about that?” Oliver mocked.

“Yep. Got her wrapped up like a nice little bundle in the back trailer, with several pallets of plywood between her and the lift gate. She ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“Let me know when she arrives at the inn, and put her someplace where she can’t escape.”

* * *

Some of the money that went into the renovations for the inns included a small area on the lower level behind the laundry facilities. This was where Oliver planned to make his fortune. These private areas were accessed by steel doors with digital locks, and a sliding door to obscure the metal one from the rest of the laundry facility. All three had a separate small studio space where the men could sleep and shower. The adjacent area was where they would manufacture the pills or powder. Those doors were also secured by a metal door with a digital lock.

The first one in Salem was up and running, including the pill compression machine. The teenager had been held in the basement living area up until this fiasco. The Eugene inn had just started manufacturing powder when the young employee stumbled upon it. The Blaine location was almost ready, but now they would have to halt its progress and stash the housekeeper there until they could figure out what to do next.

The first order of business was to find the teenager. Oliver shook his head. It was a dumpster fire in a train wreck.

The first blunder was a result of Bart’s overactive testosterone. The second one was a result of someone leaving the secret door exposed. He still didn’t know who was responsible for that particular gaffe. Things were slipping out of his control.

It never occurred to Oliver that the problems were a result of his bad choices in personnel. He knew Ernesto didn’t send rocket scientists up north, but this? How could anyone be so stupid as to leave that door exposed? He’d had a sliding panel installed to conceal the private door. The panel was built to blend in with the wall. Once inside the secret room, people were supposed to slide it in place and shut the door. It wasn’t astrophysics. What idiot did this?

Oliver had thought bringing in two of his men to oversee production was a good idea. They worked for the company. He could keep an eye on them. Obviously, they weren’t paying much attention, and now he had two problems on his hands. Problems he had not foreseen. But then again, planning was never one of Oliver’s strong suits. He had big ideas, but not necessarily the skills to put them in motion. Maybe he watched too many crime-family dramas and imagined himself as the Pacific Northwest version of Tony Soprano, even if he wasn’t Italian. The setup was inspirational: a boss, two lieutenants, and their team.

The past year of raking in the money had lured him into thinking he was a lot smarter than he really was. He didn’t think about the pitfalls of trusting people who could barely string two sentences together—and English was their first and only language. They would certainly be loyal, but they could say and do stupid things. Like Bart. He wondered: What would Tony do? Probably the same thing as Michael Corleone.

While murder wasn’t really Oliver’s thing, he didn’t mind supplying lethal drugs to unsuspecting customers. Sure, it resulted in fatal doses, but it was their choice to do it, not his. He felt no sense of culpability whatsoever. But now he was in way over his head with no one to save his sorry behind. Benjamin had always been there to dig him out or bail him out, whatever the problem might be. But this. This was a problem he couldn’t turn over to big brother. Benjamin was even-tempered, but Oliver knew something like this could push his brother to commit a felony against him. Even homicide. He couldn’t solicit help from his law enforcement cronies, either. They could look the other way when it came to falsifying documents, speeding, or taking illegal detours. Kidnapping would be out of the question. Drug distribution? Also very much out of the question. The feds and Canadians were coming down hard on the opium superhighway that ran from Mexico to Canada and Alaska. But the Spangler family had a reputation for running a clean business. At least on the surface. Oliver’s accomplices on the side of the law were very few. They liked the non-taxable income they were getting every month, but this transgression was beyond Deputy Sheriff Nelson’s loyalty. He’d turn state’s evidence in a heartbeat. Speaking of heartbeats, Oliver’s was about to speed up.

He started the engine of the Porsche 911 Carrera. Granted, it wasn’t the most expensive of the line, but it had that Porsche crest emblem on the hood, and Carrera spelled in cursive writing across the back. If he could pull himself out of this new glitch, he would be riding in a Lamborghini a year from now.

He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the one-gram brown bottle with the tiny spoon attached to the screw top. Cocaine. Also known as Blow, Nose Candy, Pearl, Toot. For him, the high it gave was the better option. Oliver could not imagine why someone would want to feel the opposite: listless, stupefied. He also couldn’t wrap his head around doing “speed balls,” mixing cocaine and heroin. What was the point? He shook his head. That was what killed John Belushi. He made another scan of the parking lot. No one was around. He dipped the spoon into the white powder and snorted up one nostril, then applied another spoonful up the other.

He zipped through the parking lot as if he were in a Formula One race. His mood was elevated finally to the pace of his heart: racing. That’s what he liked.