Justice Edge (Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Book 10)
Page 17
Around 5:30 a fresh group of guys showed up, older, probably getting off work around now, and this was their routine.
The earlier players had enough, most of them, and it seemed that included the two kids -- but the new team needed an extra player and asked them, and you could see the other kid motion that he was going, and Chris’s kid thought about it a second and shrugged and played the one more game.
This innocent little tweak opened the door for Chris, and when the new game ended and the tall kid had rounded the first corner and was heading to back to Bridgeway, the main drag that put you back under 101 and over to the Marin City projects, Chris pulled alongside and opened the passenger window and said to get in please, he just wanted to talk to him a minute, clear the air about what happened.
The kid looked at him like who you kidding honky and he had on the tough guy scowl, but Chris could tell the kid knew, remembered.
Chris said, “Either you’re going to have to get in my friend, or I’ll have to figure out a way to run you over. And then I’ll report you after that. And then we won’t be good . . . Which we can be in about 2 seconds if you get in.” Chris now giving him back his own medicine, laying the death stare on him -- which Chris wasn’t bad at by now, having practiced a fair amount in the mirror.
And, there was a chance Chris really would have been true to his word and run the kid over, who knows.
And there was apparently enough there, projected out, that the kid picked up on and wasn’t sure about either -- that this white boy motherfucker just might be crazy enough to do it.
So the kid reluctantly pulled the handle and got in, and said, “Just so you know mister, I didn’t got nothing to do with it.”
“I know you didn’t,” Chris said, and he stepped on it and made the yellow light, and instead of the left to Marin City he got on 101 North.
And it’d been a blur up there that evening, frankly, Chris didn’t have straight anymore which one pulled the gun on him and who said what, though yeah, he did think it was the older guy, the shorter one, who pistol whipped him in the side of the head.
The specifics didn’t really matter, and the kid said, “Where you going?”
“What’s your name?” Chris said.
The kid answered Tyson, not real loud, and Chris took the Blythedale exit, then the service road that bypassed some of the bullshit clog where the drivers kept trying to turn left, and then the short cut he knew, Hansen Avenue, and you came out at the 2AM Club, the start of the road up to Mount Tam.
“I just want to show you something, and then we got it covered,” Chris said. “You have a nice vertical jump by the way. You play high school ball? Currently? Or just pick up games?”
Tyson didn’t say anything.
Chris said, “Which is fine too. Sports are too organized now. First and foremost, you want to be having fun.”
Nothing from the kid.
Chris said, “All this is, I just want to get my 60 bucks back and like I say, we move on. How much you got on you?”
Tyson didn’t even check. He said, “Sheeeeiiit dude? I already tol you. It warn’t me that motherfucking janked you!”
“Can you call the other guy, get the money from him? Where is he? Let’s go see him then.”
They were halfway up there now, the road getting steep, and the Bootjack Trail and its spin-offs were a couple miles further -- and that’s of course where Chris started off that night before making a careless turn a mile in, and almost getting lost before surfacing in the parking lot of the other, substantially lesser used trail -- and proceeding to run into Tyson and his bud.
Which they coming to presently, and Chris put on his blinker, even though there was no traffic at all up here currently, and he turned into the lot and stuck it back near the restrooms where they pulled the gun on him.
Tyson was shaking his head. You couldn’t tell for sure if he was scared yet, but Chris figured he was.
If I was him at this point, Chris was thinking, I’d consider making a break for it. Probably not back down the road, giving this insane white boy a real shot of running me over -- but into the woods, find me one of them trails.
Chris said, “If you open the door and run into the woods, you might make it, but if I find you in there, I’ll shoot you and kill you. I will.” Tyson’s eyes glanced over and Chris was nodding his head -- not the fast nod, not the slow one, but the no-doubt-about-it one.
Chris said, “You have a mom and dad, together, you live with, or what?”
Nothing from Tyson.
“Because whether you do or not -- I saw something out there on the court. It gave me some optimism . . . You know what that is?”
No reaction.
“You can make it,” Chris said. “You got a spirit. There’s a joy in you, if you can find it. That’s the hard part, but it’s there. Can’t say the same for everyone.”
Nothing from Tyson, except he was licking his lips slightly now.
“You know what tough guys do? Real ones?” No answer. “They respect themselves,” Chris said.
“And that’s not easy,” he continued. “But it’s worth it. And you’re gonna get there.”
Nothing.
“Right?” Chris said. “Just agree with me -- you don’t even have to mean it -- and we’re done.”
Tyson turned. “You fucking crazy,” he said.
“Or how about this,” Chris said. “Smile. Just smile. You have it in you, I saw it on the court. Let me see it.”
Chris waited long enough, and Tyson contorted a smile.
“That wasn’t one,” Chris said. “It was fake. Do it again . . . Come on, we gotta get out of here.”
Tyson smiled again. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.
Chris said, “Do you ever need help?” Tyson didn’t say anything.
“Here’s my number.” He wrote it on a scrap of paper and handed it to the kid.
“If you do,” Chris said, “you call me. Never worry about it. When or where or what. You call me . . . Are we good?”
It was barely there, but Tyson gave a microscopic nod.
Chris took a moment. “Okay,” he said, “out of the car.”
The kid was confused for a second but did as he was told, and as he was shutting the door Chris told him to take it easy on the way down, and watch the traffic.
Chapter 18
Holly said, “Of all the pieces of feedback that have been delivered here, that had to be the stupidest. Not to mention, the most insulting.”
“I would agree,” Ned said.
“That makes three of us,” Rosie said.
Finch cleared his throat. “I believe what Chris was touching on -- and yes, he could have framed his thought in a decidedly more diplomatic manner -- is the continuity aspect. Does the reader -- can the reader -- follow along adequately.” Finch glanced at Holly, all of this having to do with her latest installment, which she just got through delivering to the group.
“Well I like Micah being conflicted,” Rosie said. “That keeps me guessing, what might happen with the high-diver dude and that road construction thinggy.”
“Same here,” Ned said, “it flows for me fine . . . Also the dentist in Palm Springs with the bad finger . . . I mean we’re talking sub-characters, but that was a nice touch.”
“Thanks, you guys,” Holly said, making eye contact with both of them, and leaving Chris out of it.
Finch said, “Excellent then . . . Now, for next week, we’ll slow the action temporarily . . . and ask each of your main characters to reflect on what they’re thankful for, in the plot line to date.”
“Oh Jesus,” Ned said.
“No kidding,” Chris said.
“I’ll admit,” Rosie said, “I was waiting for a bit more of a qualifier.”
“I hate to agree with Chris tonight,” Holly said, “but Terry, that sounds awful. You’re going to grind us to a halt, with an assignment like that.”
“Gosh,” Finch said, “that’s quite a reaction, and
one I frankly didn’t expect . . . All right then, how about . . . they reflect on what they’re not thankful for?”
“I like it,” Holly said.
“Fits much better,” Rosie said.
Ned agreed and he said to Finch, “You scared us there for a second, with that first one.”
“You really did,” Chris said.
THE END
*****
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The Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Series:
Who Needs Justice? (Book 1)
Justice On Ice (Book 2)
Dirty Justice (Book 3)
Justice Squared (Book 4)
Justice Wrap (Book 5)
Justice Blank (Book 6)
Justice Redux (Book 7)
Justice Spiked (Book 8)
Justice Dig (Book 9)
Justice Edge (Book 10)
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Copyright © 2019 Rex Bolt
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, organizations, events or locales, or to any other works of fiction, is entirely coincidental.