Page 4 of Backtrack

“A wise man, your grandfather,” the chief said.

“Yep.” Cutter beat his head softly against the headrest. “I’m pretty sure my past is about to bludgeon me senseless.”

CHAPTER 1

July 1977

PARKER COUNTY, TEXAS

6:38 a.m.

“It’s better you let me and Duvall do the shooting,” Vince Millner said from behind the wheel of the stolen Crown Victoria. An unfiltered Camel cigarette bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “If you have to pull, make damn sure you aim for the belt buckle, just like I showed you. If the first shot don’t kill him, there’s not a man alive with the wherewithal to shoot back while he’s holding in his own guts.”

Ricky Lee Pink gave an exhausted groan from the passenger seat. Vince Millner was like an older brother, but this constant nagging weighed on him like the Texas heat—and it was hot as hell.

“We’ve gone over the plan a million times. You act like this is my first job.”

Millner clutched the steering wheel so tight his knuckles flushed white around his prison tattoos. His shoulders twitched like he was nervous, but Ricky Lee knew him better than that. Millner was just restless. Time in the joint could do that to a man.

“You listen to me, kid,” Millner said. “Prying off the back window of the American Legion is a hell of a leap from hitting an armored truck in broad daylight. There’s gonna be blood on this one.”

“I hope so.” Ricky Lee didn’t mean it. It just sounded like something that would impress his friend. “You ever seen a real diamond?”

“Sure,” Millner said.

“I haven’t,” Ricky Lee said. “Not up close, anyhow.”

“What about your mom’s wedding ring?”

Ricky Lee shook his head. “No rock. Probably not even real gold, knowing my dad. Anyway, my mama wasn’t one to let me get a close look at her jewelry.”

“Well, buddy,” Millner said. “We’re about to see five million dollars’ worth of diamonds.”

A baby face and unruly black hair gave Pink the look of an earnest farm boy. Even his eyes were kind—until they were not. When he was younger his mother once told him that his eyes turned cloudy when he was angry—like he was “about to make it rain.” She said it scared her, which was probably why his parents left him in Texas and moved to Arkansas with his brother and sisters. Six-foot-four with shoulders like a barn door and hands the size of shovels, he didn’t have much experience in the armored car robbing business, but he was big enough to be useful. What he didn’t know, he could learn.

Millner was the real pro, with no less than nine robberies under his belt, ten if you counted the botched 7-Eleven job that earned him four and a half years in the Texas Department of Corrections. It was just dumb luck that an Oak Cliff patrolman had decided on that moment to take advantage of the convenience store’s generous policy of free coffee for on-duty cops. Millner had used the old finger-in-his-jacket-pocket trick instead of a real gun or he would have gotten more time—maybe even been shot by the cop. At sentencing, the judge had threatened him with ten years on account of the sniveling little store clerk had peed himself. He ended up with eight, which turned into a little over four with early release for good time. Still, he’d switched to a real-guns-only policy after that. Four years was long enough to see all of prison he ever cared to see. He was not going back.

Millner glanced at the rearview and smacked the steering wheel like he’d seen something he didn’t like. Ricky Lee craned his neck around. The self-described brains of this outfit, Allen Duvall, was two cars behind them in a 1965 Buick LeSabre. Like the Crown Vic, the Buick was stolen. You didn’t pull a job like this in vehicles that could come back to you—or that you ever wanted to use again.

Millner’s eyes flitted between the armored truck ahead and the LeSabre in the rearview mirror. “Son of a bitch needs to make a decision.”

“You’re just ticked off on account of Duvall gets to drive the Nailhead and we’re stuck in this granny mobile.”

“I am ticked off because I’m ready to get this done.” His shoulders bounced in time with his words. “We’re getting way too close to Weatherford.”

Ricky Lee gave a tight chuckle. “‘M, I, double L, NER,’” he said, mimicking the “Tigger” song from theWinnie the Poohcartoon. Millner’s experience made him “bouncy” like Pooh’s stuffed tiger friend—sleeping with one eye open in prison for four and a half years.

Ahead, the armored truck loomed larger as Millner closed the distance.

Ricky Lee rubbed a hand across his chin, then reached down to ease back the slide on his shotgun. He checked the chamber for the fifth time.

Millner glanced sideways with one of his disapproving frowns. “Knock that shit off. You checked it already.” He grabbed the pack of Camels from his T-shirt pocket and shook one out, shoving the pack toward Ricky Lee. “Burn one of these. It’ll help your nerves.”

“I’ve told you,” Ricky Lee said. “They don’t agree with me.” The truth was, he liked the smell of the Camels, but he’d have to practice smoking them somewhere by himself, where Millner couldn’t see him doubled over and coughing his head off. He looked in the side mirror again. Millner was right. Duvall needed to make a move. The chances of getting caught rose astronomically the closer they got to town. For such a little wide spot in the road, Weatherford, Texas, was Cop City USA. All the diamonds in the world wouldn’t be worth much if they got themselves caught by the law from the jump.

Ricky Lee grabbed the folded map from the dash—something he did almost as much as he checked the shotgun.

“I’ve known you for what,” Millner said out of the blue, nodding slowly, as if something had just occurred to him. “Three years now, and I never asked where you got the name Pink.”