by Beau Johnson
Batista hands me the hatchet, and I watch as Rand watches the exchange, the veins upon his neck now up like steel, pleading and thick.
It would not be easy, taking longer than it should, but when it was done, when his lifeless eyes gazed at me from their new height, I think back to the last time Batista and I stood in front of that house, to a time I remember thinking that the Detective had needed a win. It hadn’t come, not then.
But here now, in this part of the proceedings, and for a little while at least, I choose to believe it had.
Back to TOC
NAILED
Here’s the thing: I don’t know how many of you Bishop has sent to wherever the fuck it is after this, but the number, my man, I will admit to it being pretty fucking large. Me, just so you know, I’ve only participated in twenty-five or so.
Oh, Curtis, put them baby blues back in your head. You going into theatrics ain’t going to change what’s about to occur. If anything, it’s this M-series in my hand you should be wondering about—its content that should be, you know, tying your stomach into knots. I’m almost done too, just need to get, yup, last one, there we go: all snug as a bug in a goddamn rug.
Hold tight. Lemme uncover that mirror.
Also, your neck area, it didn’t really go as planned. You still have some movement, yes, and although you do, I’d maybe refrain from any type of straining or turning once you see why you’re unable to reposition yourself.
And even though you were unconscious for most of it, Curtis, I have to say, besides the neck thing, my workmanship, it turned out better than expected. Hardest part was your outer thighs—not much extra skin to work with, if you know what I mean. It also means someone maybe stuck to their program and has always been a stickler for leg day, am I right?
Anyway, you’re Christ-like for real now and, crown of thorns notwithstanding, all it took was one hundred and forty-four two-and-a-half-inch casing nails for you to see yourself attached to this piece of plywood as you are. Makes it appear as though you’ve been traced, really. It’s also nice it allows us to flip you vertical too. You know, in anticipation of the big show. And this warehouse we’re in? Yeah, it’s one of two we sometimes use. We have safehouses as well, a couple to be precise, but you, Curtis, and what you’ve done, the consensus became it deserved something more. Hence our surroundings.
What? Those chains? If I recall, someone much like yourself hung from them once, and if I remember correctly, Bishop, through that man’s Tinder or Grindr account, he found out his biggest fear. It took time, of course, and two jars of Jif peanut butter I’m told, but once it’s done, roughly a hundred and fifty rats, they don’t eat for a week.
Anyway, back to Rider. As methodical as he is angry, he’s a man who doesn’t take kindly to people such as you. I know you probably see this as unfair, but Curtis, please, you raped a five-year-old child. Destroyed her vagina to the point it required surgery to correct the damage. All things being equal, you went and made your own bed a long time ago. That you were a youth minister at the time, well, that’s the reason you’re displayed as you are.
But I digress. Or have gotten ahead of myself.
Either way, Bishop, the man at the center of this little soiree, he had a sister once. A mother too. Each lost to events right in line with the very things you revel in, my man. What it unleashes in the process, however, is something men like you couldn’t predict.
It’s not just him, either, I’ll have you know. At one point, okay, but over time, he finds others who see things the way they should be seen. Like-minded individuals, I like to say. Men with common goals. Each person adding their own little flair to the proceedings.
Jeramiah, he’s the money. He’s also the son of the man who took Rider’s sister and mother from the world. Weird, I know. There’s also yours truly, who, admittedly, was not much before being plucked from obscurity, and because it’s still just you and me here, Curtis, I will freely admit to how much my life has changed because of it. Total one-eighty, my man. To the point where if Bishop hadn’t found me when he did, there’s a pretty good chance I’d be right where you are now. Not for the same offense, fuck no, but for something that would’ve put me in crosshairs regardless.
It leaves Ray and Batista. Each man knowing Rider the longest. One from a war from before I was born, and the other his partner from his days on the job. Oh, I never mentioned that? Yup, true story: Bishop was a cop once. Turning in his badge as he realized the only person to get him what he needed could only ever be himself. Batista, though, he stayed on, retired even, becoming the eyes and ears that linked us to men, well, to men like you, Curtis. Not always, no, but enough for people to begin to talk. Or whisper. Or whatever the fuck it is people like you do in the dead of night as you discuss the things you do.
All told, it even got to a point where Bishop’s name begins to circulate, and then instead of us going after guys like you, you guys start coming after us. Not the most ideal situation, Curtis, but you know what, we made do. We persevere. Unfortunately, we lose a man in the process, and it comes as quite a blow if you must know, but you know why this happens, Curtis? You should. As with most things, it’s because of you. More important, men like you. And yes, I know you’re cold. Sucks to be naked, don’t it? But what we have in store for you, I believe it plays better this way.
And those axes, you hear how they’re being dragged across the concrete like that, right? Strictly for your benefit, my man. And the big guy in black there, that’s Bishop. Slick to his right? Jeramiah. It means the afternoon shift is over, Curtis, and short as it’s been, our time together has come to an end. Not saying I won’t see you again, as the boys here, they sometimes like to stretch things out. But if we don’t cross paths, I hope you at least come to a point where you understand you being hung like that, it’s not because you believed in God, but because you used him as a shield.
If not, picture this: pre-cleanup, me and my dick, we’ll do our best in a continued attempt at letting you know.
Back to TOC
THE AUCTIONEER
The same time a certain ex-football player is professing his innocence in regard to the murders of his wife and her boyfriend, Culver P.D., in conjunction with the FBI, closes a multiyear, multipronged investigation that leads to the dismantling of one of the largest human trafficking rings ever uncovered by law enforcement. Multiple arrests come of this. Multiple incarcerations. Failed men and women no longer able to hide behind their computer screens as they once did. Ten of thousands of images that, on a daily basis, destroy the very core of what makes humankind at least halfway decent, cataloged and scrubbed from the internet. The undertaking was enormous, the coordination to do so even larger, and what can sometimes occur during such enormities is this: specific pieces of intel can fall through cracks. Or in our case, are omitted outright.
“You sure about this?” He was. I knew he was. But since beginning what we had, this was by far the biggest piece of intel outside of “official channels” that Batista had brought my way. Would it work? Almost certainly. Could it backfire and bring everything down around us as well? Absolutely. But as Batista had come to understand, I was willing to take the chance.
“As sure as a man I once knew, one who may or may not have taken a rocket launcher to a two-story off Canal this time last year. That sound sure enough for you?” I feign surprise and step back from the big man, both my hands now facing him palm up. Retreating, I take cover under the canopy attached to what he’d come to call his “day house,” the patio furniture there the same shade of beige as the two-door shed we’d just exited. “Hell, if you’re going to put it that way, John. Makes me think you may have buried the lede.” And that was how, two beers deep into a four-beer night, I first came to know of the Auctioneer.
Before this, however, Batista finishes his tale: bounces me from a shitbird by the name of Brady Hartsfield who, as it turned out, (and far from ever the case, it seemed) held links to Anthony Kincaid—and
by links, I mean known associate. Anthony Kincaid being a man I would come to regret making an example of instead of ventilating outright.
Connection made, info and the crack it comes to fall through does what it does, becoming a real-time event. And poof, just like that, one very common name is omitted from a very particular report. Further still, it gets us to here—where men like Hartsfield and Kincaid, if ever granted the knowledge, would never want to be.
“Happens annually, by invitation only. Fucker also said it like he was proud.” Of course Hartsfield did. Seen it happen this way more times than I cared to count. Every piece of shit and the shit-stain above them never seeing themselves for what they were, but only as men doing a job. Not all men, no, but the ones we specialized in, the ones who knew how heinous their acts truly were and continued regardless, these are the men in need of a holocaust.
These are the ones I strive to erase.
“The kid would have none of it, though. Taking a screwdriver to Hartsfield’s upper thigh until the man gives it up. I’m talking all of it, Bishop. Names, a date, and if you can believe it, a goddamn location as well.” The kid was Alex, and he wasn’t so much a kid as a new hire. Not by choice, either. Long story short: months ago, Batista and I create an abattoir as we take a man by the name of Marcel Abrum apart at his seams. The remaining pieces of this man fitting into a wheelbarrow on a stage already filled to capacity with some of the very same body parts, though female in nature. Alex witnesses this all from between the crack of two barroom doors that separated the kitchen and main entertainment floor of Abrum’s strip joint. Apprehended after the fact, after Batista and I have vacated the premises, Batista catches wind of Alex through one of his fellow officers. Puts the detective and me between a rock and a hard place almost before we can wedge ourselves free. But wedge ourselves free we do, offering Alex not only a job, but a service, albeit one that would come to include benefits of a different kind.
“You’re saying he seems to be fitting in?” Batista throws me a look, pretends the burgers need more attention than they maybe require. He and Alex weren’t exactly enemies, but they sure as hell weren’t chummy either. “All I’m saying is he got what he got out of Hartsfield. Do I still think it was a bad idea, us bringing the kid on board? I think you already know my answer to that.” Not much phased Batista, but this kid, Alex, he got under his skin more than I ever thought possible. Either way, he’d gotten us what he had, and I now understood the magnitude of what it represented.
Men were about to die. Correction: men were about to burn.
If the date and location were correct, it gave us a month of prep time. We use it wisely. First procuring cover from three distinct positions, each roughly two hundred yards apart and out from the hangar. Vegetation is sparse this far out into the desert, but we find enough of it to satisfy our needs. The hangar itself is more of the same—not quite derelict, but far from standard. The perfect place to hold a black-market meeting of the minds, in other words. To the right stood lines of engine blocks, most as big as cars, while two pristine Cessnas sat perched and wedged above them. The floor is grey concrete, slick, and in contrast to the domed overhead. Two doors directly ahead, flanked by two on the east side of the structure and one to the west, all of them dwarfed by the entrance.
“We are gonna bottleneck these fuckers! They ain’t even gonna know what hit them.” True, yes, but if Batista and I knew anything, it was this: you couldn’t count on operations like this going according to plan. “I know. Christ. I’m just sayin’.” Batista lets the kid’s comment slide, his only response a slow hand over his face and down a freshly cropped beard. Alex, undeterred, puts up his hoodie, his bleached blond hair now totally obscured.
We move forward, three men bathed by the night. We move forward, three men searching for the light.
As ready as we’d ever be, we stay at an alternate Motel 6 off the 1-5 the day before it goes down. Alex calls early the morning of, letting us know that movement had come into play. A cube van. White. Pulling up with two men—big dudes, bald fuckers too—who pull out folding chairs first, and after Alex watches them set it up, a makeshift podium and stage they place a small table on. After this, another man arrives—short dude in a suit, bowtie and all—and transfers computer equipment from his trunk to the table.
“Stay put,” I say. “We’re on our way.”
There are monsters and then there are monsters. People devoid of what makes most of the population human. The men and women we watch enter that hangar are of the latter kind.
They come in limos, in Humvees, in cars that cost more than most people’s houses. The hardpan off the cracked blacktop kicking up dust along the way as they do. They park in rows, two deep, and just after dusk I mark the count at twenty-four. It includes computer guy, he of the Bowtie, and the two setup guys even though I hadn’t personally laid eyes on them.
“Everyone in place?”
Through the ear comm, I hear them respond that they are. I pause. Take a breath.
Time to light the night.
I walk right in. Like maybe I could have belonged. I don’t, though. Never could and never would. But it’s when I see and hear the man on stage—he of the small stature, tight, light hair, and aforementioned bowtie—that I come to believe I had seen it all. I hadn’t, no, far from it, in fact, but the kid in the picture, naked except for his underwear, projected to life-size onto a screen Alex never mentioned, came very fucking close. One step better is their numbered paddle signs going up and down as each of them continue to bid.
As I would come to do many more times in the future, I take the moment.
Pull the AK up from my side and with both hands squeeze against the metal as hard as physics allowed.
Isn’t until I’m halfway way through the clip that I realize I’m screaming.
They fall, they duck and cover, they scream and attempt to run. I cut them down. Batista cuts them down. And then I watch as Alex comes forward from his position at the rear of the building, following to the letter the angle we placed him on. He’s firing, a man as determined as Batista and me, but then Bowtie is up and into my field of vision, emerging at a run from the line of engine blocks. A gun is in his hand, up and unloading, Alex the target of his rage.
Alex turns toward Bowtie, is hit twice, and even though he’s wearing Kevlar, I catch sight of blood.
We advance, doubling down on the bodies in front of us. I take right of the stage, Batista the left. No one lies in wait. No one but Alex and, yes, he’s bleeding out.
“Go! I got him.” And Batista did, though it wouldn’t be the only time this type of situation would occur. No, there would be one more bullet in Alex’s future, along with an altercation between him and two thousand pounds of American steel that puts him in a body cast for months. But here now, down as he was, I leave him in good hands. The best of hands. In the care of a man who a decade from now would lose parts of his face to a man neither of us had yet to radar.
Up and running, I leave the hangar and re-enter the night.
I see stars instantly, and not from above. Where I took Bowtie for a runner, I should have taken him for smart. He lay in wait, and soon as I’m out the door, he hits me from behind. The hardpan and I greet each other, but the blow, fortunately, fails to knock me out. I roll. Roll again. And roll once more as the pipe comes down hard into the dirt where my head had just been. It’s enough, and from my back I extend a boot as he lunges forward for another try. The contact is good, up into his junk, and I watch and hear the air come out of him in a rush.
It gives me time to stand.
More so, to rage.
I have him by fifty pounds, sixty perhaps. It doesn’t take much. Not once I’m around his neck. “I’ll tell you this much. By the time I’m done with you, you’re going to wish you never even tried.” He slaps at my head, at my arms, and I only release him from the choke hold once he’s gone limp. I pull zip ties from my jacket, apply them to his wrists and
ankles, learning long ago to leave at least one of them alive. It’s tough, and I sometimes fail at taking my own advice, but this time I managed.
Breathing heavy, I head back inside, not yet sure if I still had three partners or two.
He was breathing. Better yet, he was up and moving.
“It’s still in there, but the bleeding is under control. Best bet is for us to vacate. Agreed?” I did. We all did. Alex uncharacteristically quiet, but given the circumstances, not unwarranted. I tell Batista to grab the van and met us around back, as I did in fact have a package for us to pick up.
“The fucker who shot me?” I tell Alex yes and then catch him off guard by offering him thanks. “Think you took up the last of the man’s ammo,” I add. “Bastard tried to break my head with a pipe as I ran through the door.”
I get grunt at that, and Bowtie, real name Patel Fanning, aka the Auctioneer, takes a size eleven to the face twice before I tell Alex to knock it off and Batista pulls up. Inside, buckled up, we are back in Culver by dawn.
Batista chooses the safehouse on Buchannon, the one that housed the larger kill room.
I take care of Alex first, and to the kid’s credit, he holds it together better than I thought he would. Bullet out, sutured and bandaged up, we move on to Fanning. Batista has him bound and strung up, his feet just grazing the ground. We use chains now, half-inch double link, as I’ve found the steel elicits in them a fear far greater than when we used ropes. I believe it’s the sound that does it, but who knows, perhaps it’s the touch. Either way, Fanning is sobbing like a child when I approach him, his nose a faucet, his pants the same. Right eye swollen shut, I realize Alex’s love taps did more than I previously thought—the side of the man’s face now slanting downwards, in a way I’d seldom seen.