Veteran Avenue: The gripping thriller with great plot twists

by Mark Pepper

  As Larry’s number one snitch, Eddie wasn’t used to being coerced.

  ‘Hey, come on. Officer Roth, it’s me. I make you laugh, remember? Since when d’you lose your sense of humor?’

  Larry’s sharp intake of breath was enough for Eddie to work out the probable timing for himself.

  ‘Oh, okay. Sorry. I know you and Officer Dista was tight.’

  ‘Yeah yeah,’ Larry said, stepping out of Eddie’s halitosis. ‘Can we get down to business or am I wasting my time?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Eddie said, grinning. ‘You ain’t gonna regret being here today. But you gotta promise: you make detective on the back of this, you don’t forget who made it happen.’

  Larry groaned at Eddie’s typically delusional braggadocio. ‘Sure. You’ll forgive me if I don’t run off and get measured for a suit.’

  ‘No bullshit, Officer Roth. What I got for you – it’s big.’

  ‘It’d better be, Eddie, because I give you fair warning: Job is not my middle name today.’

  After Eddie had finished his spiel, Larry was quiet for a moment. If it was true and he made the arrests himself, it would be something to be proud of. Something Frank could have been proud of. It was something to aim for, a reason to keep on wearing the uniform. But only if he took down the perps himself. No suits or SWAT teams calling the shots.

  Shit. DeCecco. Frank would have gone along with it. But a rookie? Would he risk a dangerous, maverick bust in his first month on the street?

  ‘So, Officer Roth ... you got something for me now?’

  Larry knew what he meant but narrowed his eyes at him. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I was thinking a C-note,’ Eddie said hopefully.

  ‘A hundred? You owe me fifty. That last tip you gave me? Fucking no-show. Captain thought I was an asshole.’

  Eddie shrugged and smiled. ‘Hey, I don’t got no crystal ball.’

  Despair swooped down on Larry like a bird of prey. Its shadow filled his head. He was sick of bartering with scumbags.

  ‘We’re done here, DeCecco,’ he said tersely. He turned and hopped the low wall, brushed through some shrubbery and walked away across the lawn. DeCecco followed.

  ‘What about my money?’ Eddie complained.

  ‘Kiss my ass,’ Larry said over his shoulder. ‘Cash on delivery.’

  Three seconds elapsed before Eddie could formulate a response.

  ‘Officer Roth! You want I should talk to Internal Affairs?’

  Larry halted like he’d bumped into an invisible brick wall. He could feel DeCecco’s scrutiny, a sidelong look of suspicion.

  ‘You’re on the take,’ Eddie said too loudly. ‘You think I don’t know? Oh, yeah, you’ve been on the pad for years, you and Dista both.’

  After pausing to let a couple of civilians pass on a nearby pathway, Larry unsnapped the hammer restraint on his holster, swivelled and raced back towards his snitch, leaping the shrubs and wall in one. Eddie scrambled back but only as far as a conifer that got in his way. Larry stared at him for a moment, checked again for witnesses, and drew his .40 caliber Glock 22 sidearm.

  ‘You wanna drop a dime on me, Eddie – what the fuck, I don’t care any more.’ He put the Glock’s muzzle against his informant’s top lip.

  ‘Larry, it’s not worth it,’ DeCecco said, joining them. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Stay out of it! But you muddy Frank’s name, Eddie, I swear I’ll kill you. No one’s gonna ask where’s Rudolph buried. They’re gonna ask where did that rat-faced motherfucker Eddie get his face blown off. See, I pull this trigger, your teeth turn to shrapnel. The lower half of your face exits through your brain stem. So how you gonna talk to IA then, huh? You piece of shit. Frank Dista was the best cop I ever knew.’

  Terrified, Eddie stammered, ‘I wouldn’t screw with you, Officer Roth, I wouldn’t. It’s just talk, crapola. You know me.’

  DeCecco spoke calmly: ‘Officer Roth … lower your weapon.’

  Larry eyed Eddie uncertainly, then slowly retreated and slipped his gun back in its holster, clipping over the restraint.

  Eddie was still wide-eyed, but his fear was rapidly changing to furious indignation.

  ‘I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe it! After all I done for you. I only wanted what was mine. What? You think the service I provide is free? If you don’t wanna pay, officer, then fuck you. I don’t need this shit. I could get killed talking to you.’

  ‘Yeah, you could,’ Larry said pointedly. ‘And if someone was to put the word out, you would. Now … this information – the Armenians. How solid is it?’

  ‘It’s a rock,’ Eddie said through gritted teeth, accepting he had the most to lose.

  Larry produced a roll of bills from his pocket, peeled off two ten-spots and dropped them on the grass.

  ‘That’s for you. And our little arrangement stands. You don’t cancel it – I do. At a time of my choosing. Yes?’

  Eddie’s head was micro-nodding already from the adrenaline, but he said ‘Yes’ anyway, just to confirm.

  ‘Good. And if you ever mention Frank’s name again – to anyone – I will send you to meet him.’

  The name of the gun range brought a smile to John’s face: DODGE CITY. Blue neon, lettered Western-style. It was located in Reseda, in the sprawl of the San Fernando Valley.

  They hadn’t spoken much on the journey down. John assumed Virginia had a lot on her mind and allowed her the peace to mull it over. He had gleaned only her job: a costume designer for the movies. The rest of the time the silence between them was strangely comfortable.

  Virginia parked the Audi beside her father’s blue Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was the only other vehicle in the small lot, since Dodge had temporarily closed his business. As John stepped out of the air-conditioned interior he noted the temperature had risen with their descent from the hills. The heat felt good, reminding him of his years spent abroad. He would have preferred it even warmer but he wasn’t complaining. He had left England in its usual miserable state: cold and wet and grey. A balmy December was a luxury these days.

  Virginia pressed the key fob transmitter and the car replied, ‘Armed!’

  The building stood alone. As security was paramount, there were no windows, but a lapse had occurred today. The metal shutter over the entrance had been rolled up on its tracks and not pulled down again. Virginia cupped her hands to the glass to cut the reflection.

  ‘Yeah, he’s in there,’ she said.

  She needn’t have told him; John could hear the muffled shots. Peering in, he could see a store to the front. It was dark inside, but he could make out shelving and display counters, and, beyond a viewing window at the back, the range itself. The range lights were on but Dodge was not firing from any of the visible booths. Virginia tried pushing the door, which didn’t budge.

  ‘Well, at least this is locked,’ she said, opening her bag to produce a set of keys.

  As she did so, John saw she was packing a stun-gun.

  ‘How many volts?’ he asked casually as she let them in.

  ‘A mill. Why?’ She winked at him. ‘Thinking of trying it on?’

  John grimaced. ‘A million volts? Think I’ll wait for a written invitation.’

  She laughed. ‘You do that.’

  She pulled down the outer shutter so it locked automatically, and closed the interior door behind them. Inside the building, John got his familiar tingle of excitement. Ever since that day in Oregon as a boy, his most abiding passion had been for firearms.

  A brief lull in the gunshots, then they resumed. Virginia led him through the store, its goods dully illuminated by the spill-through of light from the range. Holsters, books, reloading equipment, calendars, body-armour, gun safes, laser sights, T-shirts and baseball caps with insulting logos regarding the anti-gun lobby. The counter section to the left was stocked with handguns for sale, prices tagged to the trigger guards. Against the wall was a locked rack of rifles, shotguns, semi-automatic assault weapons. Beneath them, stacked
cartons of ammunition. Under the furthest glass counter was another array of handguns and ammo. Lying between a Ruger .357 and a 9mm Beretta was a sign: For Rent.

  John wandered back to the wall displaying the assault weapons and stared at them. A part of him wanted to shun his fascination, but it was the smaller part and it couldn’t override their allure. Ginny joined him.

  ‘There may be some empty gaps here soon,’ she said. ‘State pols are after a total ban on assault weapons.’

  ‘Way too late,’ he said. ‘You can legislate but you can’t uninvent.’

  ‘True. You like all this, don’t you.’

  ‘I shouldn’t but I do. You?’

  ‘It’s been our livelihood for years. I can’t bite the hand that feeds.’

  ‘But in an ideal world …’ he probed.

  She smiled faintly. ‘Donnie would be alive and my Dad wouldn’t have gone to Vietnam. Why even think about it? It’s a fairy tale.’

  The viewing window was made of double-sheet acrylic glass. They both nosed up and saw Dodge in the far right booth, white shirt, collar open, tie discarded. He was in a combat stance, ear-defenders over the shaved dome of his skull.

  The door to the range was on the far left and Virginia moved towards it. Had she made to enter at that moment John would have grabbed her. It didn’t do to spook an armed man who thought he was alone, especially one with problems whose son had just died. But she stopped and waited for the next lull before opening the door to poke her head in. John could see through the window that Dodge had slipped the ear-defenders onto his shoulders.

  ‘Daddy!’ she called, and ducked her head back.

  He spun around and John understood her continuing reluctance to simply walk in. Dodge had his hand on the butt of his back-up weapon, a hip-holstered Walther P99 – a sensible precaution for the owner of a hood’s paradise.

  ‘Ginny?’

  ‘I’ve got someone with me. Okay to come in?’

  Dodge answered with an apathetic shrug and turned back to the booth.

  John was several inches taller than Dodge Chester but he didn’t feel it. He had met such men before – authority beyond the physical. The shaved head made it hard to tell his exact age, but, given his military service, John put him at around sixty-five. They both stood behind him as he carried on pressing bullets into the top of a clip, loading from a carton of fifty. There were two more empty clips on the loading table, and the floor was littered with over a hundred and fifty brasses and three discarded boxes.

  Virginia gave John an encouraging nod, but he was stumped. What was he meant to say? He was a complete stranger to Dodge, and had only known Donnie for a matter of days, over two decades earlier.

  ‘Daddy, you remember John? He came all the way from England.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Dodge inserted the clip into a Colt .45 and clicked it home, then released the open slide to chamber the first round. He settled the ear-defenders over his head, thrust the gun towards the target and squeezed off seven shots.

  John watched the slide of the Colt ram back and forth, ejecting and loading until the last round left the muzzle and the slide locked open, releasing the final brass and a wisp of smoke. He couldn’t tell where any of the slugs had hit because the silhouette was already so riddled its paper guts were entirely missing.

  ‘Daddy!’ Virginia shouted.

  There was no reaction for a moment, then Dodge hung his head. He set the Colt down, removed his ear-defenders and turned round. John could detect the sting of recent tears in his eyes.

  Dodge made no attempt to disguise the weariness in his voice.

  ‘What do you want, Ginny? You want me to thank this gentleman for making the effort? Fine. Thank you, son, but you should have put the airfare to better use.’

  ‘I wanted to pay my respects.’

  ‘You think my son deserved respect?’

  ‘I think any man who fights for his country when he’s not conscripted to do so deserves respect – yes, sir.’

  ‘Respect lasts as long as a man values it; no longer.’

  ‘Fair enough. I didn’t come here to argue with you.’

  ‘Then why did you come?’

  ‘John knew Donnie in the old days,’ Virginia answered, nudging John in the arm.

  Dodge huffed. ‘We all knew Donnie in the old days, Ginny. The old days are gone. They’re not some currency you can use to pay off today’s debts.’

  ‘But the past matters,’ she said. ‘You know it does.’

  With fiery eyes, Dodge stared her into a cowering silence before softening his gaze and looking at John.

  ‘How exactly did you know my son?’

  ‘We met during the First Gulf War.’

  ‘So my daughter brought you here to talk nostalgia, did she? Well, I know my son was a good soldier once, I don’t need to be told.’

  John shot Virginia a hopeless glance; her father’s defenses were too well-established.

  ‘Daddy, John actually fought alongside Donnie.’

  ‘Bullshit. Either you’re clutching at straws or he’s lied to you. The British Army did not fight with the US Eighteenth Airborne on the western flank – the French did.’

  ‘Designated the Daguet Division,’ John said. ‘Deuxième Régiment Étranger d’Infanterie, subordinate to Sixième Division Légère Blindé, Force Action Rapide.’

  ‘Talk English, son.’

  ‘I was a Legionnaire. We were probing Iraqi territory long before any British or American forces.’

  ‘You were in the French Foreign Legion?’

  ‘For seven years. I left as a sergeant.’

  ‘Based where?’ Dodge quizzed, still skeptical.

  ‘Quartier Vallongue, Nîmes.’

  ‘What was wrong with the British Army?’ Virginia wanted to know.

  ‘I preferred the Legion; they discourage contact with the family.’

  ‘A regular Beau Geste,’ Dodge said without humor.

  ‘Something like that. Listen, for what it’s worth, Mr Chester, I liked your son, and I don’t make friends easily.’

  ‘Thank you, but it’s not worth the breath it took to say it.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you? I don’t think you do. If you came all the way from England you must be badly in the dark over this. My son was buried in a closed casket because his face had been shot off. Did you know that? Did my daughter tell you that in the email I asked her not to send?’ These last words were directed at Virginia, but his focus quickly swung back to John.

  ‘Not that detail, no, sir.’

  ‘I’m just glad his mother never lived to see this day. So what did she tell you that made you fly all this way? Tell me, what? Donnie died in a car wreck?’

  Virginia drew a harsh breath to object but John held up his hand. He spoke to Dodge in a level, cautious voice.

  ‘She said Donnie had hired himself out to the Urabeños in Colombia. She said he was killed in a shoot-out with DEA agents in Mexico whilst protecting a narcotics consignment bound for the United States.’

  Dodge looked winded, as though he was receiving this information for the first time. Perhaps he had not heard it put that succinctly, like a headline on the TV news. He glowered at his daughter.

  ‘That’s what you put in the email?’

  ‘I didn’t want anyone showing up under false pretenses.’

  ‘I didn’t want anyone showing up period,’ Dodge said, then looked at John. ‘So what’s your excuse? How come you thought the sun shone out of my son’s ass?’

  ‘Dad!’

  John felt the need to extricate himself and decided to come clean. ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I knew your son as a good soldier and we liked each other. But I’m only here because I fancied a holiday. I have no family and I got your daughter’s email between work contracts and I thought, what the hell, I’ve never been to California; Oregon when I was a kid but never California. My being here is simple expedience, sir, nothing more than that.’

  Virginia
was looking at him with disappointment in her eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said to her. ‘It’s the truth.’

  She gave a feeble smile. ‘My fault. I shouldn’t have brought you here.’

  ‘I’ll get a cab back; you stay with your father. Sir, I apologize for intruding on your grief. I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.’

  Dodge didn’t answer and Virginia didn’t prompt him. John walked to the door at the end of the acrylic glass. As he grabbed the handle, a voice stopped him. It was oddly humble, from the mouth of a subdued Dodge.

  ‘You could have taken your vacation anywhere in the world. You didn’t need to be here today.’ He paused. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ John said with a smile. ‘By the way, you need a new B twenty-seven.’

  Dodge looked at the bullet-riddled B27-type silhouette.

  ‘Yep, forty-five makes a real mess. Army should have never dropped it.’

  ‘It’s a fine weapon. Could do with a few basic modifications, though.’

  ‘How’s that, son?’

  John let go of the door handle and walked back. Dodge couldn’t see but Virginia was smiling; her father had been side-tracked – far better than any nostalgia trip.

  ‘May I?’ John asked, indicating the pistol.

  Dodge moved away from the loading table. ‘Be my guest.’

  John picked up the gun. Its weight felt good. He had missed handling such firepower. He didn’t have to read the barrel markings to identify the exact make.

  ‘Colt Government, mark four, series seventy,’ he said. ‘Well, to start with, I’d polish the feed ramp, throat and polish the barrel, adjust the extractor, check the recoil spring against the load, fit combat sights and give it a decent four-pound trigger pull. Also lower the ejection port, open up the magazine well and fit a full-length guide rod.’

  ‘You could do that?’ Dodge asked.

  ‘No,’ John said perversely. ‘When I left the Legion at the back-end of ninety-five I was all set to embark upon a career as a pistolsmith. But I didn’t get any further than reading up on it.’ He dropped the mag out of the Colt. ‘Mind if I squeeze off a few?’