by Mike Ryan
The Conflict
The Eliminator Series Book 9
Mike Ryan
www.mikeryanbooks.com
Copyright © 2020 by Mike Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: BZN Studios
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author
Also by Mike Ryan
1
Jacobs hurried down to the spot that Franks asked him to meet at. It wasn’t exactly in the best part of town. He figured that Franks got caught up in something else again. Franks’ injuries had healed from the beating he took at the hands of Blake Oregon, and Jacobs could tell that he was getting jumpy to get back into things. With Gunner by his side, Jacobs stood in front of a vacant storefront at the end of a strip mall. He looked around, waiting for his friend to show up. Gunner let out a whimper.
“I know, buddy. I don’t know where he is.”
Gunner growled slightly in response.
“I hope he’s not in trouble. But you never know with Eddie. Trouble seems to find him.”
Gunner growled again.
“Yeah, I know. It usually seems to find us too.”
Gunner then let out a loud bark and started wagging his tail. Jacobs assumed he saw something and looked around but couldn’t see anything.
“What is it?”
Gunner barked again, his tail wagging faster than before. Jacobs looked around again, still not seeing anything. His eyes finally glanced at the window of the vacant store. He saw Franks’ mug looking straight at him, his face pressed against the glass. Jacobs sighed and shook his head.
“Why do I have the feeling that…”
Gunner growled, interrupting his thought.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly.”
Franks then went to the door and opened it. He stood there, waiting for his friends to come in. Jacobs and Gunner stood still in their spots for a moment, not sure about this. Jacobs looked down at his dog, who also looked up at him.
“What is this place, and what are we doing here?” Jacobs asked.
“Just checking it out,” Franks answered.
“Checking it for what? Termites? Fleas?”
“No, man, checking it for a future possible term of employment.”
“What?”
“Come on in and I’ll tell you.”
“Is it safe?”
“Of course, man, ain’t nobody in here.”
“I mean is it safe as in the walls aren’t gonna fall on top of us or anything, are they?”
“Don’t be silly, dude. Get in, get in.”
Franks ushered his friends inside. Once they stepped through the doors, Jacobs didn’t see much of an improvement from the outside. It was dusty, dirty, smelly, and every other bad thought one could imagine. The place needed a paint job, new floors, new lighting, and a lot of work.
“So what do you think?” Franks asked, a big smile on his face.
“About what?”
“This place. I’m thinking about renting it.”
Jacobs raised his eyebrows, surprised to hear it. Only an insane person would think about renting this place, he thought. “Renting it? For what?”
“Get the business back together.”
“What business?”
“What business, he says. What business? The pawn shop, man, the pawn shop.”
“Eddie, are you crazy?”
“Well…”
“Forget I said that, of course you are. What are you thinking?” Jacobs turned his head in every direction. His first thoughts of the place still stood.
“Listen, I’m getting a check cut from the insurance company, and I thought about starting over somewhere new. I mean, I could just rebuild it in the same spot, but if those dudes got me once, they can get me again. And I ain’t going through that again.”
“Would you just listen to yourself? If they got you there, they can get you here.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Eddie, do you know how much money you’ll have to put into this place just to get it in…” Jacobs looked around again. “Just to get it in average shape? And you didn’t make any money with the last one you had. You’ll be bleeding money.”
Franks sighed as he looked around. “But… that was like… home. You know? I miss it.”
“I know.”
“I mean, I know it didn’t look like much to you. And I know I wasn’t exactly jumping in sales and all, but… it was still home.”
Jacobs put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I get it. I do. You were there a long time, and it meant something to you. It’s not easy to walk away from that. But you don’t really have much choice in the matter.”
“I could make this place nice.”
“Just forgetting the fact that Ames is still out there, you’re gonna have to put a ton of money in this place just to get it looking half decent. Not to mention this neighborhood isn’t exactly the best. You’re gonna have less business here than the last place.”
“You really think so?”
Jacobs nodded. “And what are you gonna do if you spend a hundred thousand on this place to get it up to speed, then Ames burns it down again?”
“Then I’ll be pissed.”
“You’ll also be putting a target on your back. You might as well put a neon sign out front that says Eddie Franks is here, come get me.”
“You really think he’s still out for me? Word on the street that I got says no.”
Jacobs shrugged. “You really wanna take that chance?”
Franks sighed and slapped the side of his leg. “I guess not.”
“Eddie, you don’t need a place like this. If anything, it’ll only hold you back and hold you down. Without it, you’re free to kind of do whatever.”
“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, man, I do. It’s just… I kind of feel like a bum sitting in my house all the time. I’m kind of lost without my store.”
“You can do everything you did before from your house. Most of your time was spent on the phone anyway, right?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Well then that’s all you need. If you need to meet someone, just do it in a public place. Or better yet, you could just get out of the business entirely.”
“Bite your tongue, man. Get out? And do what? Sit on my keister all day and watch soaps?”
“Well, you did seem to enjoy it that time.”
“Yeah, but day after day, week after week, month after month, year after—”
“I got it. Or you could just enjoy retirement.”
“Retirement?! You been sniffing some glue or something? I ain’t even close to retirement age!”
“People retire early all the time.”
“Not me, man, not me.”
“Why not?”
“From where I’m from, when you retire, that’s when they put you in the home ’cause you’re ready to see the big guy
in the sky if you know what I mean. And I ain’t ready for that.”
“Nobody said anything about that, did they?”
“Well, you said…”
“All I said was maybe you could get away from this life. Go bowling, take up golfing, start a few new hobbies.”
“Like stamp collecting or getting ancient coins or something?”
“Whatever floats your boat.”
“It’s not me, man, it’s not me. Not yet.”
“You do realize I’m not always going to be able to save you, right?”
“I did all right before you came along, man. I did all right.”
“Well, you seem to have taken a turn for the worse since then.”
Franks rubbed his chin and looked at Jacobs with a cynical eye. “Maybe you’re the problem.”
“With what?”
“All these bad things didn’t start happening to me until I met you. Maybe you’re bad luck or something.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with you there.”
Franks then let out a laugh and slapped his friend hard on the shoulder. “Just kidding, man, just kidding.” He then looked around the place. “All right, man, if you think this is a bad idea, maybe I’ll just forget it.”
“Hey, you didn’t sign a lease or anything yet, did you?”
“What do you think I am, some sort of dumb dumb?”
Jacobs had a blank expression on his face as he awaited an answer. “Well?”
“No! I was kinda waiting to get your thoughts on it before I moved in.”
“Oh. Well, now you have them. Is this all you brought me down here for?”
“Isn’t this enough?”
“You said it was kind of urgent.” Jacobs looked around again. “This place really doesn’t qualify.”
“Oh, yeah, almost forgot. I got word about Ames being up to something. Thought maybe you’d wanna look in on it.”
“Don’t you think you should’ve led with that?”
“Priorities, man, priorities. My business comes first.”
“So what’d you hear?”
“Word from my sources indicates that Ames might have some kind of deal going down later tonight.”
“What kind of deal?”
Franks shrugged. “Don’t got that information yet. Just heard that it was big. Could be drugs. Could be guns. Could be something else entirely. Just heard that it was big and a lot of money was involved.”
“How much money?”
“Millions.”
“Ames himself gonna be there?”
“That I don’t know. Could be. But maybe not. No way of knowing for sure until the deal goes down.”
“You know where it’s supposed to happen?”
Franks reached into his pocket and removed a piece of paper. It had the address of the place in question. “This is it.”
“Empty warehouse, I assume?” Jacobs asked.
Franks laughed. “Shockingly enough, no. It’s actually a place that’s really doing legitimate business.”
“Oh yeah? Didn’t think any of those still existed.”
“One of the few, my man, one of the few.”
“How sure are you that this is Ames’ deal?”
“Hundred percent. It’s got his men’s names attached to it.”
“And the other party?”
“Unknown. Outside party, I believe. No one in the city.”
“You know anything about this place it’s going down at?”
“Some type of trucking or warehouse business.”
“So it is a warehouse!”
Franks smiled. “Yeah. But it’s not an empty one. Anyway, I can’t be sure if the deal’s going on inside the building or outside. It might just be an outside deal where they quickly make the exchange and go their separate ways.”
“What kind of setup is it?”
“Normal, I think. Nothing crazy or anything. Just a building, parking lot, and a wired fence on the outside.”
“Gates?”
“Two or three, I think. Yeah, three. One in the front, then there’s two on the sides. Why, what are you thinking?”
“Well, if our friend Ames is having a party, it’s not very nice of him not to invite us, is it?”
“Uh, yeah? I guess so? What do you mean by us?”
“Me and Gunner.”
“Oh.” Franks wiped his forehead. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Not that I’m against helping or anything, you know that…”
“Sure.”
“But, um, well, you know my expertise is not in the field.”
“Uh huh.”
“Anyways, whatcha planning on doing?”
“Well, if he’s having a party,” Jacobs said with a smile, “then I guess we’re going to crash it.”
2
Jacobs went back to his house with Franks tagging along, so he could try to get a better readout of the area that the Ames deal was going to go down at. He pulled up as many pictures as he could find, as well as getting satellite images from the area. After looking at them for close to an hour, Franks started making some noises, mostly moans and groans. But they were loud enough for Jacobs to hear.
“You wanna share?”
“Share what?” Franks asked.
“What the noises are for?”
“What noises?”
Jacobs stopped looking at the pictures and turned to his friend. “I’m assuming you were making those moans loud enough for me to hear for a reason?”
“Uh, no, not really. I mean, maybe. Yeah.”
“What would you like a few minutes in conference with yourself so you can get on the same page with what’s gonna come out of your mouth?”
“No, we’re good. I mean, I’m good.”
“So is there a problem?”
“No.”
Jacobs shrugged, then went back to looking at his pictures. He didn’t believe that nothing was wrong, but he wasn’t going to keep asking and pestering about it. He’d known Franks long enough by this point to know that if it was something that was really bothering him, Franks would eventually say it. He always did. Keeping things inside was not one of Franks’ strong points. He blurted everything out eventually. In this case, it took all of about thirty seconds for Franks to come clean.
“Fine, if you’re gonna wear me down like that, I’ll tell you.”
Jacobs stopped looking at the pictures again and slowly faced him. “Wear you down? I only asked you once.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure felt like I was under the hot lamp for like three hours or something.”
“Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”
“This thing you got going on tonight. You sure you wanna do this?”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
“Yeah, well, I mean, that thing with Oregon’s over and…”
“You’re thinking we should just let the past be over and done with?”
“Uh, yeah, maybe, something like that.”
“Listen, Eddie, Ames wants both of us out of the way. You. And me. He’s made that perfectly clear with some of the moves he’s made up to this point. Now, just because he’s been quiet the last few weeks doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind. He wants both of us out of the picture. For what reason, I don’t know. Maybe with me he just views me as too dangerous to keep around. For you… well, I don’t know, but I’m sure he has his reasons. We can stop looking for him, but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop looking for us. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather find him before he finds me.”
“Or we could just stay low and not let him find us at all. Wait him out.”
“Wait him out? For what? For someone else to take him on?”
“Something like that.”
“Who else is gonna take him on? The police? I’ve been there. That’s in all likelihood a few years’ worth of investigating before that happens. And a lot of people will get hurt in the meantime.”
&nb
sp; “Maybe Butch and his boys.”
“You even heard anything about Butch in the last few weeks? ‘Cause I sure haven’t. I don’t even know if the guy’s still in town. And even if he is, what’s he gonna do? Get in a bloodbath with him?”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe it’s on us to get rid of the scum in this city. You know, for a long time I’ve struggled with who I was and what I’ve become. But I’m not anymore. My family’s death has turned me into what I am now. And what I am now is someone who is fighting to prevent what happened to me from happening to somebody else. That’s all I got left. If I don’t, then I might as well slip away. That’s all I got. It’s all I got. Now, I’m not just fighting for me or justice for my family. I’m fighting for everyone else. If I don’t do that, I’ve got nothing left to live for.”
Franks nodded, understanding his friend’s point of view. “I just hope that you don’t eventually come up against something that you can’t walk away from.”
Jacobs smiled. “It’s OK, Eddie. Whatever happens, and it probably will eventually, I’ve accepted it. I know what could happen to me if I walk down that road. And I’m good with it. It’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
Franks looked at his friend, not wanting what he knew would probably happen to happen. Maybe it wouldn’t happen tonight, maybe not with this war with Ames, maybe not with the person who came after Ames, but eventually, he knew his friend would be gone. It was just a matter of time for anyone who was involved in this type of stuff. Franks just hoped he could help to prevent it for as long as possible. To that end, he tried to lighten the mood.
“Hey, whatever happened to that thing you had going with Miss Thing.”
Jacobs raised one of his eyebrows. “That thing with Miss Thing? Is that supposed to make sense?”
“Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about, what’s her name, the schoolteacher?”