Weecho: First Shots

Chapter 2 - Punk-Girl Fugitive

For the time being, she called herself Juna, looked to be in late high school or so (or part of a pit crew, the clothes she wore). She’d been on the run almost a year now, ducking an assault charge from back in Louisiana, trying to keep what her people called her tomboy thing under control here in New York. 

She was looking down at the street through a broken window in this gutted canning factory, the place still smelling all these years later from goods gone bad. She’d set up camp here ten, twelve days ago with another runner, guy she’d met who delivered pizzas and gave her one somebody didn’t want to pay for, said he was otherwise gonna leave it for some dogs he watched over. Gave her the hoodie she had on now, like the one he was wearing himself over there, from a box he’d copped off a loading dock. 

She could just make him out across the street, under the expressway in the shadows with his hood up, watching a trailer truck that was backed into an alley. Juna had just heard from him on the cell he gave her he’d gotten from CVS. She could hear the chug of the truck through the broken window she leaned closer to now, the rig almost right below her. Heard it getting a goose from the driver. Nobody else around except for this kid coming down the street taking pictures, Latino looking, short. 

What she saw next was this other truck with a Mercedes chasing it come flying up the street, and the truck in the alley pulling out, almost hitting the other truck, and then, after the other truck goes by, the alley truck stopping, blocking the street and getting slammed by the Mercedes, the car mangling itself underneath. Couple seconds later a blue SUV she’d seen before pulled up and a guy got out who she recognized from his patch of beard, even though he had on dark shades and a cap pulled low. The truck driver who she recognized too hopped down from the cab. 

The kid with the camera stood there taking pictures until the other two spotted him and got in the SUV to chase after him. He gave them a runaround, quick little moves, Juna watching until her cell rang again. 

“This is unreal,” her friend across the street in the hoodie said. “You see them?” 

She did. 

“You stay there,” her hoodie friend said. “Tell me what happens. I’m going to the other place we saw them at. I’ll call you from there.” 

When he did call, half an hour later, it was the last time they spoke. 

Meantime, the kid down there with the camera looked like he had his hands full. 

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The open freight elevator jounced to a stop and the yellow eyes were there to meet him – the patrol cat that Weecho called Wanda, that came with the waterfront storage loft he’d been living in going on six months now. She led him across the wood floor, planking from back when they sewed sails here, past a million-dollar view of the Brooklyn Bridge he could look at anytime for free (he’d made a no-rent deal with the landlord in exchange for keeping an eye on the place, a ship chandler’s building the man had to stop converting to condos when his funds ran out). 

Wanda trotted over to some furniture and kitchen stuff Weecho had set up under a skylight, made noises at the refrigerator while Weecho went to his workbench to boot up the computer.     

“One second, babe.” 

While the computer was booting, he pulled a carton of milk from the fridge, poured some into Wanda’s bowl, made a face when he took a swig for himself. He found some peanut butter to put on a bun and brought the sandwich back to the computer. 

He slipped the flash card he’d swiped back from the cops into the card reader. Clicked Thumbnails andwatched columns of before-and-after shots of the crash come up on the wide-screen monitor, which he’d gotten in trade for some website work he did (which was probably how he’d replace that camera he tossed, lucky to have a spare). 

He looked at the rapid-sequence images, could see right away he wasn’t going to get what he wanted from the ones of the Mercedes he’d shot before it rammed into the truck. The car’s windows were smoked to prevent the likes of him from seeing who was inside.  

That 18-wheeler was probably stolen just for the heist. In the thumbnails of the driver getting down from the cab, Weecho could see that besides the man’s shades and cap, which pretty much hid his face, he was wearing gloves so he wouldn’t leave any prints on the steering wheel and door.   

Same for Soul Patch. His upper face was mostly covered and he’d put on gloves when he went into the Mercedes. The license plate on his blue SUV was spattered with mud, just enough so you couldn’t read the numbers. Weecho thinking the plate was probably stolen to begin with.  

He clicked on the thumbnail of Soul Patch backing out of the Mercedes with that blood-smeared laptop. Like he’d known it was there. Weecho wondering now what could be on that hard drive.  

The way Soul Patch had spoken to the truck guy told Weecho he was the man. It was his voice had said, Pop the little pissant. It was him who had set the Mercedes on fire and killed the beautiful woman.  

Weecho was about to click on another picture when he spotted the woman herself and zoomed in. She was just visible through the torn-open Mercedes door. Face-down on the floor, still out from the crash. Soul Patch had probably thought she was dead until she came to and cried for help. 

Weecho put down his sandwich and stared at the zoomed-in image – the only picture of her he had. He sat there and tried again to think what the connection was, where else he’d seen that face.    

Wanda finished her milk, jumped up on the workbench and plopped herself down next to the screen.  

“Who is she, babe?” He took another bite of sandwich and clicked on another image. 

It was a clear shot of the container truck with the DIPLOMATIC CARGO sticker that had zipped by the 18-wheeler. He chewed and swallowed and zoomed in on the driver, could see the man was wearing the same shades and ball cap the other two wore, everybody coordinated, everybody covered up.  

Same question as with the laptop: What was inside? Far as Weecho could tell, the point of the operation had been to separate the container truck from the Mercedes. What was in that container that it had to be done that way? 

He had four shots of the speeding truck in sequence. Clicked and zoomed on each in turn. Nothing showed up that was useful. 

Until he zoomed in closer. 

Something in the background of the last one. A person. Back in the shadows of the overhead BQE. 

Weecho zoomed in tight as he could. Could see it was some guy in a hoodie.