by L. J. Martin
"I am the cops."
"I mean the pussy cops, who don't believe in real justice."
"Right. You want to go to the hospital, I presume. You look like a hog that's half-butchered."
"Unless you know someone else who can patch me up. This will be hard to explain to a hospital staff. I've got a side wound that may have broken a rib, maybe a concussion 'cause I'm seeing two of you—and believe me one is ugly enough—a crease or maybe worse across the back, and one across my thigh. Who knows until I get stripped down?"
"My sister's a nurse. If I ask, she'll put you up until you heal, and you couldn't get better care. But you've got to keep your hands to yourself. Go to sleep. It's a little bit of a ride."
"Cool," I manage to mumble, "I like Italian cooking," and I doze off.
30
I'm lying in a frilly bedroom, all pink and lacy, wondering how long it's been since I've slept in a bed under a down comforter, when I hear a low knock on the door.
"Yes," I manage. The door opens a couple of inches, and a dark eye with long lashes is peeping at me. Then the door opens wider, and a very good-looking woman stands smiling at me.
"I was beginning to worry that you'd never awaken," she says then asks, "Coffee? Tea?" Even in my debilitated state, I'm hoping she'll add "or me?" But it's wishful thinking.
She does add, "I'm Tony—Antonia to my family, but Tony Two to my friends. Sometimes my family just calls me Tu, or Tu Tu. It gets a little confusing. Why parents would name kids Anthony and Antonia has always been beyond me."
"Coffee would be great," I say, with as much smile as I can muster, and she disappears. My head is hurting like hell. I'm lying on what is obviously stitches by the pokes in my back. I run a hand down my thigh and feel stitches there. But it's my side that hurts the worst, with every breath. It's not my first busted rib, but my first bullet-busted rib.
In moments, she's back with a tray with a carafe of coffee, some buttered raisin toast, a small bowl of sugar, and a little pitcher of cream.
"I forgot to ask how you take it," she says as she pours.
Pushing myself up to a sitting position, I don't manage without a grimace. I have to clamp my jaw to keep from moaning.
"Hurts?" she asks.
"Yeah, a little. But I've hurt worse."
She laughs, a nice tinkle, and says, "Yeah, I saw that you've had some rough times. If you had a buck for every stitch scar on that hard body of yours, you'd be a rich man."
That makes me wonder about the fee I hope to have coming, but it's a passing thought. Getting well is the first thing on the agenda.
I manage a smile. "Seems like I've got a few more, here and there. Is that your good work?"
"My brother, Tony One, doesn't ask me for much. But he asked me to take care of you…to watch out for you in more ways than one..." She winks at me with those long lashes, "…but to get you well. He'll be back this afternoon."
"Where am I, exactly?" I ask.
"You, sir, are in beautiful downtown Ray, North Dakota, thirty some miles northeast of Williston. My husband, Alex, is pastor of the Lutheran Church here. It's just next door."
Now I'm embarrassed about what I was thinking.
"Did my phone get here?"
"It did. It's on the dresser with your wallet and the first firearm that's ever been in this house, other than the one my brother wears. There's a bathroom through that door, not fancy, but not bad for rectory housing."
I start to take a bite of the toast, but she takes my other hand, and I pause, then she bows her head, "Thank you father for this sustenance we're about to receive. God bless us, this house, and make this fine man whole again. Amen."
Now I'm really feeling bad for what I was thinking.
"Amen," I add. "Just black on the coffee, please." She pours, smiles and heads for the door.
"I'll have a real breakfast for you. You want it in bed?"
"No, ma'am. In about an hour, if that's okay. If you'll hand me my phone, I've got a call to make. Then I'm going to get in the shower, or at least take a spit bath."
"You can shower. I've got good dressings on you and can redo them. An hour would be good, as I have to head over to the old folks’ home and make my nursing rounds. You sure you don't need help getting in the shower?"
Again, I have to quell my thoughts and then redden a little. "No, ma'am, I'm a big boy."
"Yeah," she says, pulling the door shut, "I noticed." She giggles as she heads down the hallway.
Pax answers on the first ring. "I've followed your escapades on the Williston news. They didn't mention finding your ugly carcass, so I figured you crawled away."
"Thanks for worrying. I've got a little heal up time, then I think I'm done here and hope so. A little time by the pool in the warm sun would be welcome."
"Bullshit, you've got a plane to catch, a G5—and I mean snare, not catch in the airport sense."
"Right, after I heal up."
"So, what do you need?"
"Someone to drive the van back, while I drive the truck and camper."
"Skip is back from Europe, broke and ready to go back to work."
"He blew a cool mil already. That boy must have had some kind of good time. Send him up in, say, three days. I'll be gimpy, but well enough to drive, presuming my head heals."
"How many holes you got in you? And tell me what went down."
I spend twenty minutes playing catch up with him and twenty minutes sitting in the bottom of the shower letting the hot water cook the edge off the aches and pains in the old bod. The most interesting thing he has for me is the result of the fingerprints that he recovered from the Coke cans I sent him that I took from Nickleston's truck. He does not have any wants and warrants, but he does have a record. He was fired twenty years ago for taking bribes while working as the superintendent in a California oilfield, and arrested, but got off on a three-year probation. And he's changed his name since then. Morris Alberton became Morris Nickleston, and I'll bet he’s gotten a total phony new background in order to get the good job he now holds.
Only then do I manage to get to Tu's table for a plate full of scrambled eggs, Italian sausage, fresh fruit, and some kind of twisted bread filled with dried fruit. If my side didn't hurt every time I chewed or breathed, I'd be in hog heaven. Still, it ain't bad duty.
There's a small sunroom-greenhouse off the kitchen with an inviting chaise lounge. I ask if it's okay to crash there. In a few moments, I’m sleeping off the great breakfast, while Tu is tending to the old folks.
Alex, Tu's husband and the pastor, is a fine man, as one would imagine, with short gray hair and a close-cropped beard over his white Lutheran pastor's collar. He does seem to think I need some serious work in the soul-saving department. I pray with him daily, penance for my recent sins, which he seems to have some knowledge of. We do enjoy several games of cribbage while I heal.
I'm totally pampered for three days, until Skip, another old Marine buddy and bounty hunting sidekick, calls me on the cell from the Williston airport.
Neither of my hosts are there when Skip shows up in a rental car. I find an envelope, leave a thank you note along with five crisp Franklins, a cell phone number and an e-mail address, and I head out.
It seems my van has not been discovered by the plethora of cops who combed the desolated Quonset hut site. It also appears some of the bad guys found it, so it was a good thing I didn't try to beat feet back there when the bullets started to fly. I guess they didn't want me to sneak in and drive away while they were hunting for me. All four tires have been slashed.
I call Triple A for a tow, explain the situation, and they send a rig out. We manage to winch it up on the back of one of those tilt-bed trucks. I have to transfer a few select items from the van to Skip's rental car.
Then we head for my truck, camper, and Wells Cargo trailer, and I'm pleased to find it all still in place.
I turn to Skip and say, "Back me up." He nods as I head next door to the bus and rap on the door.
The skank answers, sees who it is and opens the folding doors.
"Curly?" I ask, and she waves us in.
Even though I'm still gimping, Skip, who's a Viking blonde type with a barrel chest that’s imposing even without the eighteen-inch arms, is close behind.
Curly, as usual, is lying on his ass, in a ragged robe, watching some soap on the tube.
"Curly, pay close fucking attention," I say. He looks up and shrugs.
"You shrug one more time, or even blink, and we'll burn this piece of shit bus down around your ugly ears."
That gets his undivided attention. He slips a hand down into the crack between the cushions on the beat-up couch, but only gets it halfway in, before Skip and I have weapons pulled and centered on his chest.
"What the fuck?" he mumbles. But he pulls the hand back and folds both of them in his lap.
"I'm sure you're thinking that you can step up to big time in the dope arena, now that most of your buddies are coyote bait."
"That was you?" he stutters.
"You don't need to know anything but the route out of North Dakota. I've got a couple of errands to run. If this bus is here when I get back, you'll be a sorry miserable piece of dog shit. You got it?"
He nods hard enough to dislocate his neck.
I continue. "And I don't mean just out of Williston. I mean out of the state. I'm surprised the PD or state police haven't picked you up already. I gave them your name on a list."
"I'm gone man," he says. "Arizona, or someplace warm."
Skip and I fade out the door but watch him as we go. I hear the skank yell "Motherfucker," and him snap, "Shut the fuck up and tie shit down." Now I've got one more call to make, before I haul ass out of North Dakota.
It's time to run a high-placed executive out of the state, close behind Curly.
31
This time, even as gimpy as I am, I don't need Skip. I ask him to remain in the waiting room of BP Production.
When I ask for Nickleston, the girl walks away from her reception desk for a minute or so, then returns. "Sorry, Mr. Reardon, you don't have an appointment. He's got meetings all day."
"Okay, but I want you to do me a big favor."
"And that is?" the very officious receptionist asks, as she takes her seat.
"Try one more time for me, only tell him this time that it's Mr. Alberton."
"I can't do that, he's busy."
I lean forward, resting both hands, knuckles down, on her desktop, and this time I give her my most ominous glare. "Young lady, I don't much give a damn if he's busy. You tell him Mr. Alberton is here and wants to see him." Then I flash the bail enforcement officer's badge at her.
She almost trips trying get out of the reception room and down the hall and, this time, is back in fifteen seconds.
"He says he'll see you in the conference room, but I'm to call security."
"You can call the KGB, FBI, and CIA for all I give a rat's ass. Where's the conference room?"
Skip remains in his seat with a cat-ate-the-canary grin on his face.
Nickleston is standing behind a conference table that would seat two dozen when I stride into the room. The girl, from behind me, asks, "Mr. Nickleston, should I call the police too?"
"Not yet," he says, giving me a gruff look, then asks, "So, is it Alberton or Reardon."
"I'm Reardon, and you're Alberton, and here's the way it's going to be."
"What are you talking about?" he says, but his face is flushing.
"First, turn off any recording device you have working this room—and I know you do."
"There's nothing…."
"You dumb fuck. You don't want what I'm going to say recorded."
He moves to the end of the table, reaches under it, and I can hear a switch flip.
"Now, asswipe," I say, with all the growl I can muster, "you know fucking well what I'm talking about."
He turns from flushed red to pale white. "You're the asshole who cleaned out my truck the other day."
"Yeah, when you fell on your fat ass, and I flipped you off. And yes, I got your prints off the cans, and, yes, I know you were Alberton until you lied to BP and used false ID and probably false credentials to get a job. I'll bet if I look on your office wall, I'll find phony diplomas and God knows what else."
He actually backs away a step, until his back is both literally and figuratively against the wall. "I've had this job for ten years. Not this job, but a job with BP…for ten years. What do you want? Is this blackmail?"
"No. You're turning in your resignation. You're leaving the state, and the industry. I'm sending everything I know about you to the corporate headquarters of your mother company and the Investment bank that did their last underwriting. I hope you get fucked out of any retirement you've built up. I'm sending the same to every insurance company in the country. If I were you, I wouldn't try to find another job other than flipping burgers."
"Why are you doing this?" he stammers.
"Because you're part of the problem, and you've been working with the dope dealers. How? I don't know exactly, but I know you have. If you want me to keep investigating, I'll get enough on you to turn your dumb crooked ass in to both the state and local cops. Maybe they'll put your ass away for a couple of dozen years." I start moving toward the door, then stop before exiting and turn back. "I hate fucking dope dealers. If they don't put you in a hole deep in the gray stone mansion, then I'll come back and put you deep in a hole out in the oilfields where you'll never be found. If you watch the news, you know I'm just the boy to do it. You have a clear understanding of what I'm saying."
"Ye...ye…yes," he stammers.
"I'm checking back here in a week, and you fucking well better be gone."
I hear him say, "I will…I will," as I head down the hall.
As we head back into town, I make another phone call, on a throwaway, and the Colonel picks right up.
"You were a busy boy last night. [Actually, Reardon stayed several days at Tu’s house recuperating, so the bloody mess happened at least three days ago and not “last night.”] I wondered if I'd ever hear from you again, or maybe they'd find your DNA in that bloody mess you left. Shades of Fallujah."
"Tough luck, Colonel," I say with a chuckle, "I'm still around. Is this a cash and carry deal?"
"If you're happy with your work, it is."
"I'm happy."
"Swing by the office. There's a briefcase here with your name on it."
Now, for a week or so by the pool in Vegas letting the sun heal me up; then, with any luck, and if Pax has the contract he went after, I'm off to hunt the elusive fifty-million-dollar G5.
An Excerpt from G5, Gee Whiz, the next book in The Repairman Series
After you've sent a dozen men to hell—where they damn well belonged—a little respite is in order. Respite, and a good woman to soothe your wounds.
Peace, at last, by the pool in Vegas, with a beautiful lady by my side—but peace has never been on top of my priority list, and it doesn't take long until the urge to kick ass kicks into gear. It seems to be an inverse reaction in my psyche. When my pain decreases and my wounds heal, my aggression and craving for adrenaline increases.
I know. I know. It's a personality flaw—or so the women in my life have oft told me, usually with great disdain, but occasionally, thank God, with increased interest.
Prather K. Wedgeworth, or I should say one of his secretaries, called at least sixteen times during the two weeks it took me to heal up from my last repairman job in Williston, North Dakota, where I was helping out—for a substantial fee—my old CO from my Marine Recon unit in Iraq. The dope trade was costing his company at least a mil a year in accidents, insurance premium increases, and downtime. So, I flushed some of the scum down the drain. But it cost me a concussion from a 150-grain across my battle helmet, a deep crease across my back, one gouge across a thigh, and a punch in and out of my side that clipped a rib, but thank God not a bowel—all from AK47's badly aimed, I'm thrilled
and lucky to recall. I'm still not 100%, but right enough to deal with some dot com billionaire in Santa Barbara, or more precisely Montecito, and to help recover his fifty-mil G5 that's gone missing.
I hope against all hope that he's not an arrogant prick who's impossible to deal with, as I refuse to kowtow, even for a seven-figure fee. But I'm sure East Valley Road, which is lined with ten-million-buck-and-up estates, enjoys the presence of more pricks than the average thirty-foot-tall Saguaro cactus.
You see, a Grumman G5 is the ultimate in private business aircraft. Properly appointed, it costs a cool fifty million. This guy, who's so smart in the world of hyperspace, was a dummy and didn't have it insured. There was no lienholder who insisted upon same as Mr. Wedgeworth paid cash. He offered a cool half million right off the bat, which means he'll pay me what the recovery is worth. That's a minimum of five percent, or two and a half million.
After all, those of us who dabble in the recovery biz often command fees up to twenty percent, even higher if the danger coefficient is super high.
I have four vehicles, but don't think it's appropriate to arrive in my van, my F150, or on my Harley Sportster. I'm driving what I imagine would be considered chic in Montecito, my 1957 tricked-out red and white Corvette. After all, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Jags, and Porsches are blasé in and around this posh area of the California coast. Leaving Vegas before dawn, I've enjoyed a leisurely drive over, hearing everything Willy and Waylon have to offer on Sirius and then getting deep into Katy Perry. That's wishful thinking and a Freudian slip.
It's one of those glorious February days that makes half the world want to migrate to California—temp in the seventies with the hint of a sea breeze, clear, with the offshore islands looking so close you could swim there. It's nice enough that I stop in Santa Clarita and put the top down on the Vette. As my military cut couldn't be messed up with anything but a razor, I have no worries there, except for the fact I still have a couple of angry scars from splits on my noggin from baseball bats or pipes that a half-dozen guys used on me behind a joint called Big Rosie's up in Williston. Both cuts took a dozen stitches to close and don't add to my boyish good looks. But I yam who I yam, as my fellow Navy type, Popeye, would say—even though I hate to quote a squib.