“No time to explain. Just get’ em moving.”
Jack got them on their feet and through the stone doorway. Janie opened all the cells and Jack ushered them inside one. Janie slammed the door, the lock clicking into place.
Jack looked over at the last cell where Lopez still lay. “Gramps!”
“No. Lopez,” Janie answered.
“What?”
“He’s not in good shape. I’ve called Peter and he’s getting a warrant. The police have been called as well as an ambulance. Now, I should stay here and help clean up this mess. The cops won’t know where to go. Perry’s in no shape to move, so you two need to get out of here.”
Lolita nodded. “She’s right, the cops will be here any moment.”
Jack whispered in Janie’s ear, “And Lolita blew Romanov’s brains out in the night club.”
“Geez, don’t tell me any more. The police could already be here.”
“And there could be a mass exodus from the club happening as we speak.”
“Good, a little confusion couldn’t hurt.”
“I think I’ve had enough confusion for one night. Give me the three guns from the thugs.”
Janie handed them to him. He gave one to Lolita, stuffing the other in his pocket. He went to Perry and removed his car keys from his pocket. “Where did you park?”
Janie responded, “Against the back fence, directly behind the garage.”
He looked at Janie one last time. “So, Gramps wasn’t here?”
Lolita said, “I told you he wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I have to start giving this hocus-pocus some credence. Where is he then, Lolita?”
“Only you can tell us that, Jackson.”
****
Jack and Lolita carefully made their way to the back entrance through the garage. He eyed the 7 Series Beamer wistfully.
Lolita cut off his thought of taking it. “They’ll see us leaving. Keep walking.”
She would have been correct, as the parking lot was already full of panicked partiers, and the blue-and-red lights of several police cruisers flashed by the front entrance.
They needed to get out of there. Without running, they found Perry’s car and within a few minutes were following a steady stream of vehicles out of the busy parking lot.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
“THE WARRANT’S BEEN EMAILED to the Tampa police. They should arrive soon.”
“Warrant or no warrant, Pete, they’re already here.”
“What are you talking about, Janie? The call went in only minutes ago.”
She paused, trying to figure out how best to explain to Peter what had taken place. “Things got a little crazy. Eli is dead, as are a few of his henchmen in the other room. We found Eli’s secret office, where I’m sure we’ll find all the porn to prove it is being stored and shipped from this place.”
“Eli Romanov is dead? Let me guess—Jack?”
“Nope! He’s clean on this one. The palm reader, Lolita, killed Eli up in the nightclub to save Jack’s life. Eli had a big gun pressed into Jack’s back and was rushing him downstairs. She got behind the Russian with her small gun and put a bullet through his head.”
“Pardon my French, but who the hell is the damned palm reader?”
“Lolita. It’s got something to do with Jack’s grandfather and their spiritual connection.”
“The woman shot Eli Romanov and now he’s dead? Where is she?”
“Actually, turns out she is a he and they are with Jack. They got outta here before the police arrived and are on their way to search for Jack’s granddad, Nathaniel Portman.”
“You’re not making any sense, Janie.”
“Sounds crazy, but we’ll hammer it all out when the lurid details are in front of us. It does sound like we might be able to find some resolution in the Lopez case.”
Peter paused. “I was contacted by City Star Productions. They upped their retainer to find out what happened to Lopez, and to push harder at the Russians.”
“How much?”
“Fifty grand. American!”
“Easiest money you’ve ever made.”
“Maybe. I still don’t like some of the implications, and I really don’t like Jack taking off like that without talking with the police. He’s beginning to show he can get a bit squirrely.”
“True. He gets confused and headstrong. So do I, and a lot of crap’s been fired at him this last week. There’ve been some strange occurrences that might not be related to the Russians. While Jack still figures they killed Josh, and kidnapped Gramps—here’s where Lolita comes in—she’s saying her psychic senses scream about a revenging entity out to raise hell for past transgressions. In fact, Gramps got the same message from his Seminole spirit guide.”
“I vaguely remember Jack telling me over a few drinks how he’d been threatened by the head of the Church of Satan, in the prison van.”
“Yes. We checked that angle. Supposedly, Mason Matye committed suicide over a week ago while still in prison.”
“A bit of a coincidence?”
“I don’t know, but Jack and Lolita were outta here like a bat outta hell.”
He chuckled, “That’s the second time the word hell has come up.”
She took a deep breath. “Pete, can you call the police again and ask them to meet me and Perry at the garage behind Aversions? I’m headed out with Perry, who looks like hell. His face is swelling from his broken jaw and Lopez could be on his last leg. If you want any sort of resolution on this case, you want Lopez alive, able to make a statement.”
“Okay. Are you all right, Janie?”
“A couple of broken fingers, but my gut’s not swelling from a drop kick that sent me across the room. I’m hoping the paramedics are outside with the cops.”
****
Janie opened up the side door to the garage and found herself greeted by about ten squad cars and more than twenty officers standing behind their open doors with guns drawn.
A strong voice hollered out to them, “Disarm and drop your weapons!”
All eyes and handguns panned to her. Perry tried to stay on his feet, showing no appearance of being a threat. Janie held up her damaged hand and retrieved her handgun with the other, pulling it out of her pocket by the muzzle.
“Put the gun down.”
She dropped it on the cement floor, holding both hands over her head. “I’m with the good guys,” she yelled out. “We need paramedics. NOW!”
CHAPTER SIXTY-five
“I WAS WITH YOU, Jackson. You know that I was. You had to sense my presence.”
Jack was not willing to admit it out loud. He could only go so far with accepting the unknown. To admit to Lolita, or anyone, that he shared a vision would be twice as bad as admitting he actually had a vision. But he did know someone else had been there.
Lolita shuffled her feet on the passenger’s side, trying to get comfortable. The Chevy Cruise designers did not have extra-large people in mind. “If you’re not willing to admit it, Jackson, let me tell you what I envisioned.”
“Let it go, Lolita.” Jack took the onramp toward Naples.
“You’re heading back to Ft. Myers. You know where you’re going.”
“Let’s just say I have a premonition.”
“I saw the bird fly along the muddy river. It’s dark. She veers toward an old, rickety dock between a rundown plantation house and an old slaughterhouse sitting on the river bank.”
Jack stayed quiet and listened.
“You were there with me.”
Jack flipped on his phone, which took a few seconds to boot. He nearly swerved off the road when he eyed his first text: a picture of Gramps, bound on an old wooden floor. He knew that floor. The caption read: You owe us, Jack Walker. It was signed, Mason.
He passed the phone to Lolita. She gasped. “Who is Mason?”
“He was the leader of the Church of Satan.” Jack explained all that had happened between him and the Frenchman.
“Are you willing
to admit now how I could know the place?”
“Okay, I am. I’m guessing . . . I simply don’t want to admit it.”
“I won’t tell you again that you have psychic abilities, as I know it upsets you.”
“Right now, I have to concentrate on saving my grandfather.” Jack texted Mason back, one eye on the road, and asked, “Where?”
“You should not text and drive.”
Jack turned to give her an evil look. “I could simply stop and let you off in Sarasota. Are you going to keep badgering me? I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do. I’ve seen it. You haven’t managed to get rid of me up to now. Do you think I’m going to let go now that we’re at crunch time? You’ll have to manually pull this fat ass out the car—and it is fat, I will tell you.”
Jack shook his head, the vestiges of a smile forming. There was something he liked about the sincere creature sitting next to him. His warm thought disappeared to be replaced by cold reality. Jack needed to know what awaited him.
“I have to find Gramps. Since you’re the only one here, and I can’t seem to get rid of you, maybe you could help make sense of all this.”
“Hallelujah! This is what I’ve been trying to do for the past week and a half. Now, I’ll only do this if you promise to open up to the fact that there is more going on here than the reality in front of your nose, and that spirits do exist. They’re not as strong and as influential as what people think. Believe it or not, Jackson, they have been trying to help you. You create bad karma with them and the law of attraction can turn into the law of detraction. You’ve been putting up a bloody dam and it’s hurt the people you love.”
Jack gripped the steering wheel even harder. “I’ll be honest, I’ve had those thoughts over the past two days and I’ve been trying to reconcile what you’ve been saying. Maybe I can see what you’re talking about and maybe it exists. I’d have to be blind at this point not to. I’ve rebelled against the notion that I’m strong in the power, and that one day I’ll be my people’s shaman like my grandfather, like my mother. All I want to do is hunt, fish, go to work and have a good time. I can do all that on my own and be perfectly happy.”
“You should have been a country singer, Jackson.”
“I suppose so, but I can’t hold a note.”
Lolita shuffled around again, still trying to find a comfortable position where her feet would not fall asleep. “Those days may come, but you have been grossly negligent up to this point. Look what it caused. I’ve talked to your grandfather about most of what transpired. We have a connection, and I’m worried about him as well. I do not need to tell you that if you’d heeded his advice and let your cousin, Josh, keep an eye on you—”
“You don’t need to remind me. I’ve thought about Josh and my grandfather every day.”
“Somehow, you opened up to the evil spirits lurking on the other side of reality. Tell me about your past. I hear you were a pretty good football player, leading your college team to a bowl game, where you won. What happened after that, Jackson?”
He did not want to go over the messy details, having already done so a thousand times in his head. “I became a drug addict. It ruined my professional career. It ruined me and I became weak.”
“You turned off the faucet. You were no longer in tune with the good spirits.”
“Gramps has said as much.”
“They don’t always come to you with life-changing scenarios, like what is happening now. They can come in subtle ways. People can sense things in others, but most don’t know why. The spirits are always in tune. This is the world in which they live. You have an aura, like all of us. If your aura fades or darkens, other souls will shun you. Your aura is bright right now. Believe me, Jack, I see it. It shines emerald green.”
“I take it that’s good?”
“Let’s not get too carried away; it’s promising.”
“Let’s say I’m on board with all of what you and Gramps tell me. How’s it going to help get him out of whatever situation he’s caught up in?”
Lolita pondered her words. “You have to be wholeheartedly committed, or it will be like bringing a knife to a gunfight. The entity who detains your grandfather is evil incarnate.”
“Yeah, he’s the fucking head of the Church of Satan.”
Lolita closed her eyes and nodded. “Mason is his name?”
“Yes. He’s the one who texted the picture of Gramps tied up. And you know what? I recognize the floorboards and the couch.”
“We both saw the vision of the bird. You know where this is located.” She stared at Jack.
“The McFadden Estate.” He did not want to admit it because the place brought back so many horrific memories. Still, he knew it to be true. As much as he hated to admit it, the bird never led him astray.
“Darlin’, I have to ask you, what on God’s green earth did you do to have that enemy?”
“It’s quite the story. The long and the short is I got wrangled into doing a few things for the matriarch of the Church of Set, Henrietta LePley.”
“I knew of the woman—strong with the spirits.”
“I was fooled and ended up being captured by the McFadden brothers: badass swamp people. I ended up killing all of them. The old woman was shot when the police arrived at the plantation.”
“Mason?”
“He was on the side, so I thought, but evidently he played a big part in the South Florida cult, offering support from the national Church of Satan.”
“Are you leaving anything out?”
“Yes. Mason swears that I made a deal with the Devil.”
“That’s a strong statement, Jackson. Is it true? Did you?”
“Maybe, halfheartedly. I’m not sure.”
Lolita rubbed her forehead as if she did not want to bear bad tidings. “The followers of Satan take our halfhearted proclamations seriously. Tell me about it.”
“Henrietta made the statement. She promised me a walk-on tryout with New Orleans.”
“Yes, and there’s always something that you need to give back in return. This is how the Devil works, and believe me, he exists and his followers will do anything to please him.”
“I promised to fulfill a few requests for her from time to time. I was to look after Sarah Courtney, and treat her well. I ended up having to take some cash up to Clewiston, where I was fingered for a double murder.”
“The Devil never asks for little favors. If you cross him, he will see his enmity through to the end. Tell me more about Mason.”
“We got into a pretty good tussle inside the prison van. It came about after he made a vow to avenge the breaking of my deal and the deaths of the members of the Church of Set.”
“How many did you kill?”
“Six, to the best of my knowledge. There’s the Freshwater Bill as well. I think, ultimately, I was being used to bring down Senator Hunter, who was out to get Big Sugar and the cattle industry, who not coincidentally were backed partially by Henrietta.”
“You stirred up one big can of whoop ass. And look at you now. You don’t look well at all. I suspect they may have put a curse on you.”
“What? Now that kind of shit I’ll never believe. I have the flu.”
“Curses are real and can have serious consequences. So, what are we doing here?”
“I’m going to resolve this once and for all. I’m going to find out if my gramps is okay or not before I shoot Mason Matye between the eyes.”
“Sounds simple enough, but I don’t think it’ll be so easy. He is using your grandfather as bait. Mason knows he’s no match physically for you. That man didn’t rise to the top of his hierarchy without being conniving and clever. He’ll have some sort of trap set in place. Don’t discount the fact you may be cursed. Could we not call the police in on this?”
“We need to keep that thought in our back pocket. I wouldn’t want Mason to kill my gramps once the police show up. Plus, what am I going to say?” Jack sputtered. “I think my grandfather w
as kidnapped by a bunch of Satanists? I want to see what’s going on first. I need to see that my gramps is still alive. If what you say is true, this guy Mason will harbor his grudge for life. Is that right?”
“He will, or he’s not a proper Satanist.”
“I don’t want him getting arrested again, and coming back for me in the future. I’m going to finish this correctly. Once and for all. I’m going to feed the fucker to the gators. Then we call the cops. Maybe.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
PSYCHIC RUSH, THE INFUSION of power from human sacrifice, was an experience that truly could not be explained. Mason felt the rush when he slayed the witch in New Orleans. The power he released killing Nathaniel Portman would be heady, but nothing compared to what he would experience in slaying Jack Walker. That human being had damaged Satan’s power dramatically in the South. Senator Hunter’s Clean Water Bill, championed by the state senate, passed two years ago. Already, profits from cattle and sugar were on the decline as measures were put in place to re-energize the ancient flow of the Everglades from the great interior lake system down through to Florida Bay. Still, it was not too late.
Mason’s bid to perform a Black Mass was well received within the Satanic Brotherhood. He’d attracted some of the major players, including the Grand Master himself along with high-ranking Magi, members of the Illuminati, Witches and Warlocks. Mason would reposition himself into a place of influence. He paid a heavy price during his incarceration at Angola Prison. Now, he would be rewarded for his devotion to Satan.
Attention would be given to the Florida problem, which he would oversee. A void had been created in the slaying of Henrietta LePley. Mason envisioned himself filling that position, open once again to the pipeline of funds available within the Church. Unlike many religions, the Church of Satan kept expanding at an incredible rate throughout the world, attracting the fringe sectors within modern society—those full of anger or looking for an excuse to rebel against the norm. It was happening in politics. Leaders with aggressive mandates for change were being elected, for better or for worse; the same had started in religion. Satanism did not espouse mindless faith. It required the ability to think for one’s self and form one’s own opinion.
The Palm Reader Page 25