The Box by Jeremy Brown (ebook reader play store txt) 📕

of the mugs from the motel’s coffee maker set and filled it from a massive styrofoam cup full of hot coffee.

Rison said, “The gas station didn’t have any to-go carafes, can you believe that?”

“Yes.”

There were three more of the cups, also full, nestled in a carrier on the dresser. A white cardboard box full of cinnamon rolls and donuts and mystery lumps wrapped in waxed paper was next to the carrier.

“Those little things are breakfast sandwiches,” Rison said. “Not bad for a gas station. They had a little setup in there, some tables and a row of stools by a counter along the back windows. It looks like it’s for truck drivers, but there were a few old guys in there who seemed like regulars. Drinking coffee and talking about how bad this winter is supposed to be.”

“Farmers?”

Rison shrugged. “Everybody around here looks like a farmer to me.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Bruder said. “Unless we see somebody holding a sign with ‘Fuck the Romanians’ on it, we can’t approach them. It’s too risky. The people we’ve seen so far are more scared than pissed.”

“Marie seemed pretty pissed last night.”

Bruder shook his head. “Connelly’s right about her.”

Rison was surprised.

Bruder said, “Not the guilty part. She’s rooted, she has three boys around here somewhere. She’s pissed, but she’s also too smart to run her mouth about it. She has too much to lose.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Rison froze with his mug halfway to his face.

“Oh, hold on. What if…Hold on, I’m trying to decide if this idea is terrible or brilliant…”

Bruder waited.

Rison said, “Ah, fuck it. What if we’re undercover? What if we confide in her, or whoever, that we’re on some organized crime task force and we’re here to take the Romanians down? That way, they’ll figure the gang’s done for, they’ll go all-in on helping us out.”

Bruder chewed and drank coffee and thought it over.

Finally, he shook his head again.

“It could work. It could. But it’s too overt. Too loud. If we go that route, everyone will know it was us who pulled the job off when it’s done. The town, and the Romanians. Better to leave everybody guessing, if we can.”

“Yeah,” Rison said. “Not a bad option to keep in our back pockets though, just in case.”

“Not bad,” Bruder agreed.

They stood there thinking about it, then Rison said, “Are we sure we still need somebody local? I mean, we found some good spots to hunker down if necessary, we know the route they’re going to take out of town, thanks to Tug. The only thing we don’t know for sure is when they’re going to make the rounds. If we come back when I was supposed to meet up with him, and we keep our eyes open…”

Bruder said, “We won’t know when they’re going to make the collections until they start, and even then we could miss it. We have an idea of where they’re coming from once they have all the cash, and where they’re going, but not when. We’ll either be too early or too late. If we’re going to do it, we need more information.”

“I know, dammit. It’s just…people screw everything up, you know?”

Bruder knew but didn’t need to say anything about it.

They heard the door to unit two open and close, then Connelly cruised through the opening and went straight for the spread and drank from the open styrofoam cup.

“Poor Ed. Barbara’s on duty in the office, and man, I totally get why he’s cheating on her with that TV show. She’s a real piece of work.”

Bruder looked at Rison to see if it made any sense to him. Rison shrugged.

Bruder said, “We’re going to drive around, maybe browse some of the shops along the main drag and see if anyone catches our eye. Then we’ll hit Len’s one more time for lunch, and that’s it for us. We stay here any longer and we’ll draw more attention.”

“Aw, you’re gonna miss my show tonight,” Connelly said.

Rison asked him, “You got a setlist?”

“I’m getting a strong John Cougar Mellencamp vibe. Maybe pre-Mellencamp, so just John Cougar.”

Rison made a face.

“Hey,” Connelly said, “this is the heartland. These are his people. Is Kershaw coming in today?”

“Saturday,” Bruder said.

“I’ll have the whole town singing the chorus to Jack and Diane by then.”

“Have some goddam dignity,” Rison said.

Connelly started singing with his mouth full of chocolate glazed donut, so Bruder grabbed the car keys and left the room.

Bruder and Rison drove around town watching the traffic flow.

They spent some time going north and south from the main intersection, and while there were some cars and trucks and rigs, the east-west roads were much busier. Whenever they cut around on side streets the smaller roads seemed deserted in comparison.

They stopped at the gas station and Bruder went inside to check out the seating area Rison had noticed. He found two white-haired men in battered trucker hats, sitting apart but watching the same cable news show on a TV mounted in the corner.

There was a small section in the gas station dedicated to cheap souvenirs—toy trucks and combines and water pistols—and Bruder saw a rack of pamphlets with information about the train depot and some handmade flyers advertising a local cider mill with hay rides and, starting after Thanksgiving, hot chocolate and sleigh rides.

He took a copy of everything and got two more cups of coffee, since they’d left the first batch in the motel room with Connelly.

He had a story ready about a nephew who loved trains, possibly an opener to feel out the cashier for any information about the Romanians. But she didn’t look up from her phone or notice or care about the stack of literature he’d amassed, so Bruder wrote her off and didn’t say anything and paid and left.

Rison took the highway west, their rental car getting knocked around by the wind and passing of big rigs on their way to wherever.

A few miles out of town they made the right turn onto the two lanes shooting