I never meant to run the hustle in Barstow.
Too hot, too watched, and the BNSF bull there—Old Lewis—had a face like rust and a memory like a tattoo.
But the math checked out.
A boxcar full of pallet-wrapped smart lights was being staged for transfer east.
The brand? A startup that ghosted its warehouse crew and owed half the desert money.
And my contact, Sticks, said the trucker loading manifest came with a weird clause:
“No stops longer than 11 minutes at any weigh station.”
Which, to those of us who read between the freight, meant: dirty load, off-the-books manifest, and probably financed by someone who doesn’t ask questions.
So I said yes.
The plan was simple.
Get into the yard from the south fence, crack the wagon, pull three boxes, and disappear into the side channel where Sticks had a stolen FedEx van idling with iced yerba mate and a shaved GPS.
That was before I saw Lewis.
Still in the wide-brimmed hat, still dragging a dead leg, still carrying a thermos that probably held black coffee, hate, or both.
“Cosmo,” he said, not looking up.
“You know I gotta chase you, right?”
“Not if I beat the clock.”
He didn’t smile. He never did. But his hand twitched just slightly toward the baton, and I knew we were on.
I hit the wagon, pried the panel, and heard the siren crack before my feet touched asphalt.
No chance now. Plan B.
I dropped a decoy—a dummy tablet with a “shipment control panel” screen looping on startup—and lobbed it into the ditch near the admin office.
As Lewis hobbled toward it, I ducked behind the hopper, sprinted between the grain cars, and popped a pre-cut lock on the old graffiti tagger’s hatch point.
Inside: the “hammock tunnel.” A forgotten air vent turned hidey-hole, left behind after the 2017 fire shutdown.
I laid low for an hour.
Sweating battery acid and guilt.
When the sun dropped and the patrols slowed, I slipped out the fence, met Sticks, and we drove.
He didn’t ask if I got the lights.
I didn’t tell him about the envelope Lewis left taped inside the hatch, marked just:
“This ain’t a game. Next time you stay.”
Inside was a photo.
Me. Six years ago. At a totally different yard.
Same hat. Same eyes. Same dumb grin.
That night I lit sage, scrubbed the manifest data, and sent the lights to a little off-grid grow op that paid in seeds and silence.
They never flicker.