10 Tahoe Trap by Todd Borg

looked at the dark windows.
    “Where do I sleep?” he said.
    “I’ve got a sleeping bag and air mattress you can use.”
    “Where would I put it?”
    I gestured at the small floor of my living room. “Here in front of the woodstove is good. Or you could use my bed.”
    “Then where would you sleep?”
    “Here.” I pointed at the floor again.
    “Where does Spot sleep?”
    I pointed to Spot’s oversized bed.
    “I could put the sleeping bag there,” Paco said.
    “True. But Spot is a bed hog. He could push you out or roll over on you.”
    Paco shrugged.
    “But before you go to bed, you gotta take a shower.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you need it. When was the last time you took a shower?”
    “I don’t take showers. I take baths. Cassie...”
    “Says showers are bad for you?” I interrupted.
    Paco shook his head. “She says that a bath soaks the dirt out better.”
    “Unfortunately, I don’t have a tub. So you don’t have a choice.”
    “I’ll take a shower tomorrow.”
    “Not if you want to use my sleeping bag,” I said.
    Paco stared at me.
    “C’mon,” I said. “I’ll show you your towel.”
    He was reluctant, but he acquiesced.
    “Got another call to make,” I said to Paco before I shut the bathroom door. “I’ll be just outside the front door.”
    I stepped outside into the cold night and dialed FBI Special Agent Ramos on his cell number. I paced back and forth in miniature, two steps each way so that I stayed under the overhang and in from the rain.
    “McKenna,” Ramos answered, no doubt reading his caller ID.
    “Sorry to bother you at this hour,” I said.
    “You found the boy who was supposedly kidnapped. Reasonable to call about it. Assuming, that is, that he’s telling the truth. Has he given you any evidence?”
    “No,” I said. “A story, a palpable fear, nothing more.”
    “You believe him?” Ramos’s skepticism was as clear as Mallory’s.
    “I believe something traumatic happened. He did tell me something that I wanted to ask you about. He said that one of the men was black and the other white. The black man said something about salt, while the white man said something about yopep. It sounded to me like names. Salt and Pepper.”
    “Really,” Ramos said. A statement. Disgust in his tone. “Well, then you’ve probably got something. There’s a couple of dirtballs we’ve been looking for. Two suspects who go by those monikers. Did the boy say any more about what they look like?”
    “Just that they were big guys with shaved heads. One wore a cape.”
    “A cape?” Ramos didn’t sound as surprised as I thought he’d be.
    “You know them?”
    “Heard of them,” Ramos said. “They’re based in Vegas. They refer to themselves as The Collectors. An informant has mentioned them. He says that they call each other Salt and Pepper. Silly names, but it sounds like they’re trying to build a persona.”
    “What do they collect?”
    “Anything. You pay their fee, they collect people, payrolls, guns. Often they’re hired to get rid of what they collect.”
    “Big fee?”
    “Medium scale from what we’ve heard. We believe that these two men may have been involved in three murders. Two of the victims were men who were suspects in other murders. One was a man we know nothing about. We never were able to ID the body.”
    “How were they killed?”
    “It appeared that they were all hit with a stun gun and then wrapped with shipping plastic. Arms tight to their bodies and heads, too. Death in each case was caused by asphyxiation from the plastic wrap.”
    “By plastic wrap, do you mean shrink wrap?”
    “Yeah. The stuff that they put around wooden pallets and cardboard boxes to hold it all in place.”
    “Anything else you know about these guys?” I asked.
    “Nothing except their names.”
    “The murders you describe, they all take place in Vegas?”
    “Probably,” Ramos said. “The bodies were found out on the desert in shallow graves. Two in one grave, the