“And if I don’t do it right?” He asked the question with a narrow-eyed leer guaranteeing he wasn’t going to do it right. Good thing Jake limbered up. Assholes like this always took the hard way.
Jake drew his face into Dexter’s, keeping his voice low and even. “Then you’re still going back to Kansas City, but it will be one hell of an uncomfortable ride with that beer mug shoved up your ass.”
Dexter’s face dropped, either from faltering bravado or preparing to get out of the way of whatever was coming from Jake’s blind spot. Jake glanced to the mirror above the door and verified Pool Boy 1 was exactly where he sounded. Jake ducked as the thin end of the pool cue whistled and brushed the top of his cropped brown hair before cracking Dexter’s face. Dexter flew off the stool and landed on his back, holding his shattered nose.
Jake lashed back with a mule kick, catching Pool Boy 1’s knee and popping it backward, the sound like a crisp tree branch cracking. The man dropped the cue and grabbed his knee, howling in pain as he fell to the floor. Pool Boy 2 and Mullet Boy pounced at the same time. Mullet Boy managed to get his wiry limbs around Jake, pinning his arms to his side as Pool Boy 2 swung the meaty end of his pool cue at Jake’s head. Jake dipped his head low, but late. The cue glanced off the top of his crown, sending scattered stars across his vision.
As Pool Boy 2 twisted away from his follow-through, he coiled to strike Jake from the other side. But Jake raised his foot and stomped back, raking Mullet Boy’s leg with the knobs on his hiking boots, from the bottom of his knee to his now broken foot. Mullet Boy cried out, relaxing his grip. Jake exploded his muscular arms out, ducked to avoid the counter swing from Pool Boy 2, and unleased a rabbit punch to the redneck’s kidneys hard enough to loosen the guy’s shoelaces. Mullet Boy hopped on one leg, clutching his shin before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a folded knife. Before he could open the blade, Jake grabbed the cue stick and swung it from the skinny end, letting the meat of the wood bite into the side of Mullet Boy’s face. The guy was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Jake patted the top of his skull, drawing back wet and tacky fingers as he examined the bodies at his feet. A blast of light blinded the bar patrons as Dexter bolted out the front door. As Jake stepped around the men writhing on the ground, the bartender tossed him a dry and relatively clean rag. Jake dabbed it against his head and dug in his pocket.
“Ain’t you gonna chase after Dexter?” the bartender asked, her southern accent as heavy as a two-ton safe. “He’s gettin’ away.”
“He’s not going anywhere.” Jake dropped a ten spot on the bar top. “Sorry about the mess.”
He stepped over Mullet Boy, gave an extra kick to one of the Pool Boys, and strode into the Oklahoma summer heat. His best friend Bear held Dexter by the scruff of the neck beside Jake’s truck. As the county sheriff in his hometown of Warsaw, Missouri, Bear knew how to hold someone at bay.
“You lose something?” Bear grinned. Next to Bear’s stout frame, Dexter was like a skeletal alley cat a month from its last meal.
“I didn’t do nothin’,” Dexter protested.
“Shut up.” Bear jerked a knee into Dexter’s ass, and he yelped like a puppy. Bear nodded to Jake as he approached. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m getting old and slow.”
“They all as scrawny as him?”
“No, and there were four of them.”
Bear’s teeth blazed through his dark beard. “Like that ever mattered.”
“I appreciate your help in there.” Jake grimaced at the blood streak on the dish rag before shoving it in his pocket.
“You said to wait out here and cover the entrance. We’re supposed to be fishing anyway. Unlike you, I’m on vacation.”
Jake appraised Dexter, lips pressed together. “Guess we could still finish the day out at the lake. Go home after dark? As long as Dexter here is back by midnight, I get my money.”
Bear kneed Dexter in the ass again and earned another yelp. “What about numb-nuts here?”
“We’ll handcuff him to a tree.”
“This is bullshit.” Dexter rubbed his ass with his cuffed hands. “You can’t chain me to no fuckin’ tree.”
“What if we gave you a beer?” Jake offered.
Dexter squinted, pondering. “How about a six pack and this asshole can’t kick me no more?”
“I’ll get you the six pack. As for escaping an ass kicking from Bear, you’re on your own.”
Chapter Three
“Sorry the fishing was bad,” Jake said, his truck chewing up the miles of I-35 as it sliced its way through the Kansas plains. Dexter grumbled from the back about his cuffs being too tight.
Bear drained his beer and crushed the can. “The fishing was fine. It was the catching that was bad.”
Dexter stuck his head between the bucket seats. “Tell you boys what. You let me go and I got me a spot outside Kansas City where you could catch so many fish you—”
“Shut up,” Bear said, pushing Dexter’s head back. It was Dexter’s fourth attempt in the last three hours to get Jake to let him go. They’d promptly rejected his previous offers of an AK-47, cash, marijuana, and a “sure thing” date with his sister.
They crossed the Johnson County line on the outskirts of Kansas City just as Waylon Jennings finished singing about Lukenbach, Texas. A woman followed up the classic song with breaking news.
“A lawsuit has been filed by the families of patients who died simultaneously at Quinley Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri last month. Authorities continue to investigate the mysterious death of the three patients but wouldn’t offer any information about the cause of death. Anonymous sources at the hospital confirmed the three patients died when their life support equipment simultaneously failed, and no alarms sounded at the nurse’s station. We’ll continue to track developments with the case. In other news, police are investigating a shooting at…”
“Holy shit,” Dexter hollered from the backseat. “Holy shit.”
Jake turned down the radio and peered in the rearview mirror. Dexter’s jaw hung open. “What?”
“Holy shit.”
“You’ve said that three times. What?”
“That there news report…what if I knew something about it?”
Bear twisted his bulky frame around. “You know something?”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me.”
“You let me go, and I’ll tell you.”
“Maybe I just break out all those yellow teeth. What do you know?”
Dexter held up his cuffed hands. “Take these cuffs off and let me out. Then I’ll tell you what I know.”
Bear blew out a breath and turned back in his seat. “You don’t know shit. Guns, cash, your loosed-legged sister and now this. You’re getting desperate, Dexter.”
“You don’t wanna know? Fine. Maybe I’ll find someone at the police station who’ll be interested.”
“Maybe you’ll find an overworked detective who’ll beat your skinny ass for sending him on a wild goose chase.”
Dexter sat quiet for a beat. “What about an AK-47 and my sister?”
“Jesus Christ.”
* * *
Jake and Bear dropped Dexter at the Johnson County Sheriff’s office, emerging as the blood-red sun snuck behind a bank of cotton-candy clouds on the horizon. They were happy to be rid of Dexter’s whiny ass and decided to celebrate with a beer at Jack Logan’s—Jake’s partner. A surprise visit. Logan hated surprises.
“Logan doesn’t mind you drinking around him?” Bear repositioned his legs, scooting the twelve-pack at his feet to the side. Lamp posts lit the truck’s cab like a strobe as they cruised along Shawnee Mission Parkway. “How long has he been on the wagon now?”
“Three months. Hasn’t touched a drop since his fist-induced coma.” Jake sighed. Had it really been that long since Jake and Bear hunted a Russian with a briefcase containing a skin-melting bioweapon called Ares and a crooked senator? “You done with p
hysical therapy yet?”
Bear growled, rolling the shoulder where he took a bullet in a strip club. “Two more appointments. I cuss you out with every visit.”
“Not my fault you got shot. Again.” Jake stifled a laugh.
“Dick.”
They entered a middle-class neighborhood of ranch homes with deep front yards blanketed by old maple trees, leaves the size of dinner plates. Logan’s place drew up on the north side of the road, his black truck leaking oil on the pitted driveway. Logan limped through the front door as they pulled in.
“Well, shit.” Logan flashed his teeth. “Look at what the cat dragged in.”
Bear and Logan precisely executed the time honored “one-hand shake and double clap on the back” man-greeting.
“I’d say you look like hell,” Bear said. “But it wouldn’t be true. The old Logan is back.”
“No alcohol and a good woman tend to improve one’s outlook on life. Come on in.” Logan’s limp was less pronounced, but it was obvious he wouldn’t be chasing the bad guys on foot anytime soon. Then again, since the beating, he left the dangerous tracking work to Jake and stuck with the private investigator standbys of surveillance and computer work, something more suited to a man approaching sixty anyway.
They trailed Logan through the living room and into the kitchen. The girlfriend’s apparent influence shined as the abode no longer appeared or smelled like it doubled as a crack house. Jake stashed the twelve pack of beer in the fridge, grabbing two cold cans and following Logan to the back deck. Logan had applied a fresh coat of stain to the deck and his backyard at last contained more grass than weeds. They sunk into cushioned chairs as Jake and Bear popped beer tabs and Logan drank iced tea from a Quik Trip plastic cup.
Bear raised his beer. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“I’d mind if you didn’t. I take it you nabbed Dexter? Any trouble?”
Jake rubbed the sore spot on his forehead. “Got cracked in the head with a pool cue in some rat hole Oklahoma bar. Other than that, it went smooth enough.”
Jack nodded. “How ’bout you, Bear? What’s new in your world?”
Bear slouched in the lawn chair and took a deep pull from his beer. “Same shit, different day. Working on getting re-elected this fall. My name is plastered all over Benton County.”
“Any competition?”
Bear’s lip curled. “Dick Blackwell. He’s on the reserves and does lakefront real estate on the side. Though, his main job these days seems to be making shit up about me. Rumors are spreading like tuberculosis in a Mexican mule truck.”
Jake belly laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, you little wiseass, in addition to physical therapy on your account twice a week, I’m spending too much time putting out fires Blackwell seems intent on setting.”
“He doing any damage?” Logan asked.
“Naw. He’s a mosquito buzzing around. If I lose to him, then something is seriously screwed up in Benton County.”
As Bear discussed the goings on in their Lake of the Ozarks hometown, Jake jumped up to grab a couple more beers. Glancing into the living room, he spotted two battered suitcases by the closet near the front door.
“Going somewhere, Logan?” Jake asked as he tossed a beer to Bear.
“Yeah, was going to talk to you about that,” Logan said. “I’m taking some time off. Heading to the Florida Keys with Bonnie. She manages a little bar down by the water, and they could use a hand pouring the drinks.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You sure this is a good idea? You talk to your sponsor?”
Logan huffed. “Of course, he thinks it’s a terrible idea, but Florida’s where she’s going to be for the winter, and she isn’t leaving my sight. If I’m out of the picture too long, she’ll realize what a shitbird I am and dump me. Besides, she’s a recovering alcoholic too so we keep each other in line.”
“What about your open cases?” Jake asked.
“Really only have one outstanding, and you might as well finish the job.” Logan dipped through the door and returned with a manila folder that he dropped in Jake’s lap. “Harold Dawson. Was Dexter’s gunrunning buddy. Address is in the file, but I haven’t seen him yet.”
Jake thumbed through the file. Dawson stood almost six inches taller than Dexter and had a hundred pounds on him. A list of offenses dated back a decade, but mostly drunk and disorderly raps. “No problem. You look happy, man.”
Logan’s gaze dropped to the deck, his focus fading away, the corners of his mouth ticking up. “If I was any better, I’d have to be doing something illegal. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me, Jake.”
“We’re happy for you, Logan.” Bear raised his beer. “To the future.”
Lines blossomed at the corner of Logan’s eyes. “And bonus, my bitch ex-wife just got remarried so bye-bye alimony.”
“Well, it’s all rainbows and unicorns, ain’t it?” Bear beamed.
Logan smoothed the front of his garish Hawaiian shirt. “You can take care of business while I’m gone?”
“Yeah, I think I can handle it,” Jake replied. “If something is too far out there, I’ll turn it down.”
Logan groaned. “I hate turning away dollar bills.”
“It’s either that, or you can stay here over the winter and jerk off while Bonnie’s in the Keys.” Bear punctuated the statement with a belch.
“Not much of an option, is it?” Logan winked.
A couple hours later, Logan dropped a hint about an early morning flight, so the trio bid farewell. Jake and Bear decided they’d rather snuggle up for the night with their significant others than listen to each other snore through the paper-thin walls of Jake’s apartment, so they hopped back in the truck and drove to Warsaw.
* * *
Jake managed to slip inside the house without waking Maggie. He admired her peaceful beauty from the hallway light spilling over her sleeping, slender frame. Dropping his clothes on the floor, he slid between the sheets and draped his arm over her chest. She moaned with contentment and he pressed his arm tight against her.
The last thought that fluttered through his head before he drifted off to dreamland was Dexter and his comment about the hospital deaths.
What if I knew something about it?
What if the guy wasn’t full of shit?
Chapter Four
Marta Niroff’s heels clicked on the rain dampened sidewalks of Westport, Kansas City’s infamous bar district. Midnight music blasted through the walls of the local clubs, and a waft of marijuana floated along the late October breeze. Police closed the packed streets to traffic as Saturday night drunks stumbled from bar to bar, their whoops and hollers adding to the cacophony of noise. In front, a pack of testosterone-laden twenty-something males in tight t-shirts and gelled hair catcalled a bachelorette party of sloppy drunk bimbos sipping red concoctions in plastic cups through long straws shaped like a penis. Americans.
She spotted him across the street, staring through the window of a closed antique store. A warmth swept through her groin as the fine, blonde hairs on her arms tingled danger. Though she feared him and his power, she couldn’t help but remember those nights in the Moscow barracks many years ago. His piercing misty-blue eyes had burned a hole in her soul with each powerful thrust, sending her over the edge again and again, those eyes that never left hers and thin lips curled atop oversized canines. It was no wonder they called him the Wolf.
She thought of Sokolov, throwing off the lustful thoughts with a guilty shake of her slender shoulders, and clipped to the Wolf, worry lines creasing her forehead. Why did he want to meet in the first place?
“You’re late,” the Wolf said. He smelled delectable—the perfect amount of an earthy cologne.
“This place is crazy. I had to park three blocks over.”
“Walk with me.” He headed downhill, away from the bar action. When the foot traffic thinned and they were out of earshot of any passersby, he spoke again. “I have to
talk to Sokolov. Where is he?”
She jerked her arm from his grasp. “Why? Who sent you?”
“Who do you think? What you’re doing is stupid and reckless.”
“Which is why I won’t tell you where he is. We don’t need to add another body to your growing count. You’re going to get caught and put everyone in danger.”
“I’m going to put everyone in danger? He’s killed three people already with the Blackbird. When the Americans figure it out, you’re all in deep shit.”
She sighed. “They won’t figure it out and you have your own troubles to worry about. You know, the Director has expressed serious concerns about you.”
“Has he now?” The Wolf shook two cigarettes out of a pack and lit them both with a Zippo. He snapped the lighter shut and handed her one. “What have you reported?”
She blew a plume of smoke toward the ground, unable to meet his eyes. “The truth. You’re getting reckless and taking unnecessary risks.”
“Maybe I’m acting…unhinged?”
Her arms blossomed with goosebumps. Unhinged. The exact word she used in her report. A sense of dread balled in her stomach.
He tossed the cigarette and clamped a thick hand around her bicep, steering her into a narrow alley. The bar sounds and music dulled, and the temperature rose as the narrow pathway cut off the cool breeze.
He pressed her against a pitted brick wall behind a dumpster, out of sight of the alley entrance, both hands gripping her arms, his barrel chest crushing against her. The grout in the bricks bit into her back, reminding her of the springs under the thin mattress in the barracks. Fear and lust battled for dominance in her lithe frame. He was capable of causing both.
“The Director has bigger things to worry about than me,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Your boyfriend for openers.”
“My…my…what?” Her heart thundered. He knew. How the hell did he know?
“I’m not an idiot, Marta, and I don’t care who you spread your legs for. But if he releases the Blackbird, it could start a war. I can’t let that happen. You have to let me talk some sense into him.”
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 53