Urban Justice: Vigilante Justice Series 2 with Jack Lamburt

by John Etzil

  Jorge finished buckling up his creamed-on jeans, and I pushed his face against the wall, put his hands behind his back, and cable-tied them together, careful not to touch any more of him than I needed to. I duct-taped his eyes. There was a camo backpack next to where he was sitting. I grabbed it and unzipped it. It contained cash and bags of white powder. I zipped it shut again, slung it over my shoulder, and led him into the hallway. “We’re going for a little walk.”

  I stopped when we got to the top of the stairs and pushed him against the wall. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you.” He didn’t.

  I stepped into the room with the two ladies. They were still sitting on the couch. “Listen up, ladies. Today’s your lucky day, because we’re not going to kill you.” I softly took the duct tape off their mouths and cut through their cable ties, but I left the eye tape on.

  “You be sure and tell everyone that OFWGs are in charge now. They leave this hood, or die. Understood? OFWGs, baby.”

  They turned their heads toward me, foreheads furrowed, and asked, “OFWGs? What’s that?”

  This was probably my proudest moment of the day. I managed to answer without laughing. “Old Fuckin’ White Guys. We’re taking back the hood.”

  Though they still had duct tape over their eyes, they turned and looked at each other…

  I left the room and grabbed Jorge by the elbow. “Let’s go. We got steps coming up, so look alive.”

  We negotiated the stairs without incident, the whole time listening to the girls upstairs curse in pain as they tried to take the duct tape off each other’s eyelids. Maybe duct-taping their eyes shut hadn’t been such a good idea. More like a Patrick moment. I made a mental note not to mention my lack of taping etiquette to Debbie.

  We made it to the bottom of the stairs without incident and made a left. I could still hear the girls. They were crying now, bawling their eyes out. Maybe it was their strategy to wet the tape to loosen it up…

  I led Jorge to the side door and we exited the house. I noticed that there were no lights on in the front exterior of the house, so I sat Jorge down and put on my night vision binoculars. I crept up to the front corner and peeked around the side of the house. Nothing. Except the pit bull, who was rolling around in the small patch of grass, chewing on his ball. I looked up and saw that the porch light over the door was shattered. That was a nice coincidence, since I could now walk Jorge to my apartment right down the street, instead of taking the back way, which was a lot longer and presented the added risk of spiders in that overgrown jungle of a backyard. God, I hate spiders.

  I went back and retrieved Jorge, who by now was stifling sobs. I walked him down the street and up the steps to our apartment house. Debbie met us at the front door and let us in. Once we were inside the apartment, she let me have it.

  “What the hell took you so long?”

  “Sorry, babe, it got complicated.”

  “And who the hell is that?”

  “Jorge. Remember? We need to get info from him about Catherine.”

  “Not him, Patrick, that!”

  She pointed behind me, and there was Pit Bull, ball in mouth, mini tail wagging a mile a minute. The little bugger had followed me home.

  I caught a lightning flash of black behind Debbie, and Saber lunged through the air at Pit Bull.

  Oh shit…

  14

  Saber landed on him full force, sending him reeling sideways and into the wall with a solid thud that shook the house. Pit Bull spat out the ball and turned to face Saber. In one quick motion, faster than I’ve ever seen anything move in my life, Saber lunged forward, snatched the ball, and tore ass into the bedroom. I could swear I heard him laughing. Pit Bull stood there, stunned, looked at us for a second, and then chased after Saber.

  The two of them wrestled about, chasing each other and playing with that damn moldy ball all night, as if they were best friends for life. I’m talking hours of endless frolicking, with barely a break, until they finally passed out from exhaustion and fell asleep in Saber’s bed.

  Jorge didn’t have quite as much fun that night. To start off with, he was paracorded to a chair. Plus, he still had duct tape over his eyes, which Debbie caught on to right away.

  “Jeez, Jack, you trying to pull his eyelids off? That’s gruesome, I don’t want any part of that. You ever see a guy with no eyelids? It’s gross!”

  “No, but thanks for the visual.”

  “What’s that all over his pants?”

  “Ugh, you don’t want to know, just don’t touch it.” Damn woman doesn’t miss a thing…a vision of the little cocksucker spasming in death and Jorge’s load-shooting prowess, along with his brown stinkeye winking at me, popped into my head. I cringed.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just a tough night, that’s all.”

  “If you want to talk about it…”

  Dear God, no.

  “No, no, that’s okay. I’m good.”

  “You got nailed by the motion detector, didn’t you?”

  Damnit. She really doesn’t miss a freaking thing.

  “Yep, but I shot the lights out right quick.” I stuck my chest out in pride at my expert marksmanship. “Just call me Wyatt Earp.”

  “You missed on every shot.”

  “What?” I frowned at her. “What are you talking about? All the lights went out.”

  “That’s because I sent a round into the light above the side door. After you left, I studied Amelia’s video and I saw that there was a motion detector in the backyard. I saw a conduit pipe running to it from the light above the side door. I had no way to warn you, so I waited with scope on target while you were dicking around the neighborhood. As soon as the light came on, I shot the light fixture over the side door and severed the feed to the motion detector and backyard light.”

  “What? No way. I’m sure I hit that light.”

  “Fine. We’ll send Amelia over tomorrow to get a damage assessment,” She held her hand out. “I bet you five bucks that the backyard lightbulb is still intact.”

  I shunned her shake and turned serious. “We don’t have time for this nonsense. Let’s quit fooling around and get to work on Jorge.”

  We questioned him relentlessly about Catherine, but all he would tell us was that she was fine and hanging with a guy named Roberto.

  I led Debbie to the bedroom and closed the door. “I’m losing my patience with this clown. Time to get serious.”

  I opened up my go bag and took out the sodium pentothal. I loaded up a syringe and went back into the living room. I didn’t bother alcohol-swabbing Jorge’s arm. I just stabbed him with the needle and drove the plunger all the way home. He jumped and stifled a groan through gritted teeth, having been forewarned that if he screamed, our red-meat-loving Doberman would bite his nuts off.

  I waited a few minutes for the truth serum to kick in and started questioning him again. Most of the things we asked him got the same answers, but we did get out of him that Roberto was a fellow drug dealer and that he had been “loaned” Catherine from a drug dealer named Cosmo in New Jersey. He and Roberto shared Catherine, and she was the best lay he’d ever had, and her tits were freaking gigantic, and he loved her and wanted to marry her, but he needed to talk with Cosmo because she was his, and he wasn’t sure how Catherine felt about him, but he would move the earth for her, and he loved her gigantic tits, and he’d slept with hundreds if not thousands of whores, and Catherine was the best by far, and his dying wish was to take his last breath between her humongous tits, and…

  I had to duct-tape his mouth to get him to shut up.

  I also had to stop Debbie from shooting him on four separate occasions.

  After spilling his guts, Jorge passed out, and Debbie and I went over our plan. I picked up Jorge’s phone and read through the texts. I found a conversation from Roberto that mentioned Catherine and included a selfie of him next to her. Naked. I looked at the photo longer than what was polite and turned my back so that Debbie co
uldn’t see it. She’d had enough bad news for one night.

  I thought long and hard before putting my plan into action, and I texted Roberto from Jorge’s phone.

  Jorge: u round dog?

  Roberto: what up dude?

  Jorge: need some shit

  Roberto: now? its late dude

  Jorge: make it worth your while. Big client

  Roberto: oh why didn’t you say so? Meet me in 30 at the usual

  Jorge: naw man, bad news at the house, let’s do the warehouse on liberty

  Roberto: see you in 30

  I turned off the phone and looked at Debbie. “We’re on. Let’s go. Grab your weapons, I need you as top cover.”

  “Roger. Where are we going?”

  “Warehouse on Liberty.” I knew from my HFS research that they used an abandoned warehouse at that location to conduct business.

  We grabbed our bags, took Jorge by the elbow and led him out to the truck. The truth serum was staring to wear off, and he started asking questions. I’d had enough of him, so I got behind him, slid my right arm under his chin, and rear naked choked him out. I held the choke for about thirty seconds longer then needed, in hopes that he would stay out for the short trip. I tossed him into the bed of my Toyota, where he landed with a savage face-plant. I didn’t mean to hurt him like that, but when he started falling awkwardly, I reached out to grab him but had to avoid touching the front of his pants at all cost, so I whiffed on the rescue.

  Debbie picked up on that. “Nice catch.”

  We drove down to the Hudson River and I parked by an abandoned pier. I dragged Jorge down to the end and he started to come to, so I rear naked choked him out again. I yanked the duct tape from his eyes, which made him writhe in pain even though he was out cold. I knew I shouldn’t have done this, but, I looked at the piece of duct tape before I balled it up and threw it in the Hudson. I saw his torn-off eyelids on it. My stomach tightened and I almost retched.

  I cut the cable ties from his wrists, stuffed a bag of white powder from his backpack into his front pocket, and slid him into the slow-moving Hudson, careful not to look into his eyes.

  He floated for a while, and when he reached the middle of the river, he started to come to. He thrashed and screamed in pain, so loud that he awakened the occupants of a moored fishing boat in the Hudson. He disappeared for a minute and then came to the surface.

  Like in a bad dream, I watched in slow motion as the lights of the boat flicked on. Someone came on deck, turned on the spotlight and lit up Jorge, his eyeballs reflecting the light like a cartoon monster. He went under, then resurfaced a few yards away. They sounded an air horn, pulled up anchor, and raced over to him.

  Before they reached him, he went under for the final time.

  15

  We pulled into the parking lot of the abandoned warehouse on the bank of the Hudson River, and I hopped out and went over to one of the back doors of the warehouse. I picked the lock and let myself in.

  Debbie pulled the Toyota into a dark corner of the lot and parked next to a bunch of abandoned vehicles. She was far away but had an unobstructed view of our meeting place, which was the main office just off the side entrance to the warehouse. I couldn’t use that entrance because Roberto had installed a massive padlocked chain on it, effectively claiming the warehouse for himself, and I didn’t want him to know I was inside already.

  It was dark, but the sun was just peeking over the mountains, so enough light came in through the filthy windows and bird-shit-covered skylights that I could make my way to the side entrance without walking into anything. I found a dark corner and waited for Roberto.

  A few minutes later, Roberto’s SUV pulled up and he got out carrying a bag. He looked around and then pulled out a key chain and unlocked the monstrous padlock. The loud ratcheting of the chain as he pulled it free of the door echoed through the warehouse. He tossed the chain on the ground and stepped inside.

  He walked over to a desk and put the bag down. I stepped out from the shadows: “Hands up, or I shoot.”

  He did as instructed and turned around to face me. “Who the fuck are you, and where is Jorge?”

  “Don’t worry about Jorge. Where’s Catherine?”

  “Catherine? That’s what this is about? She’s gone, man, back to New Jersey.”

  I sensed the men before I heard them, and by then it was too late. The unmistakable feeling of the cool metal barrel of a pistol pressed against the back of my neck, and Roberto put his hands down. He reached into his bag and pulled out a pistol. Someone reached around me and grabbed my gun and wrenched it from my hand.

  A chair was slid across the floor and I was pulled into it from behind. A hood was pulled over my head, and my hands were tied together behind the chair. My ankles were fastened to the chair legs, and I felt a pair of beefy hands patting me down a little too rough, especially when he searched my nutsack, which made me wince in pain. He held my junk for a couple of seconds more than was necessary to confirm that I didn’t have a sawed-off shotgun in my pants, and I heard him giggle at my discomfort.

  I tried to appear calm, but inside my heart raced. I had a lot of faith in Debbie, but this was bad, and I had no idea if they’d compromised her position or not. I needed to think fast on my feet if I was going to survive.

  “Now suppose you tell me what this is all about.” Roberto’s voice was soft and calm, as if we were having a conversation over Sunday brunch at the Hilton.

  “Cosmo sent me to look after Catherine. He hadn’t heard from her in a while, and he wanted to make sure that she was all right.”

  “Really,” Roberto said. “Hmm, I wonder why Cosmo didn’t ask me that himself when he picked her up this morning…”

  Shit.

  The hood was torn from my head, and Roberto’s face was inches from mine. He stank of stale body odor, and it took all my willpower not to gag and cough in his face. He stuck his pistol under my chin. “Quit fucking around, white boy. Why are you looking for Catherine?”

  I decided on another tack. “I’m a federal agent.”

  “Got ID?”

  “No, I’m undercover.”

  “You’re full of shit. Enough with the pleasantries.” Jorge nodded to one of the guys behind me, probably my ham-fisted nutsack-squeezing buddy, and I heard a knife being drawn from its sheath. Someone knelt down to the right of me, placed their arm around my shoulder and brought me in close, my head resting against his smelly armpit. He placed the blade against my neck, and I felt my skin part under the pressure.

  “Hey, boss, do a selfie, to add to my collection.”

  “You’re a sick fuck, Ernesto, you know that?”

  Okay, Debbie, love of my life. Now would be a good time to—

  The beautiful sound, music to my ears, of glass being punctured by a 2800-feet-per-second projectile never got old. The solid thunk of metal smashing bone was a close second, and my knife-holding nut-squeezing tormentor froze in place for a split second before falling away. I felt the air pressure change as the bullet screamed by my head and ripped through his chest, creating a firehose of blood that painted the right side of my body. Gross.

  Her next shot was a head shot. I could tell by the sound of the third guy’s head exploding behind me. Thankfully all his blood and bone fragments were sent sailing in another direction.

  You should have seen the look on Roberto’s face. A mix of shock, fear, and dread, all captured in a statuesque frozen-in-time second before he blinked himself back to reality. The proverbial Kodak moment.

  He spun around to face the window, and his gun hand disappeared in a cloud of red mist. The gun flew across the concrete floor, clanked off a steel support beam, and continued like an out-of-control fidget spinner on steroids until it hit the back wall of the warehouse.

  Roberto crashed to his knees, grasped his right stump, and fell headfirst into the fetal position. He screamed at the top of his lungs for a good fifteen seconds, a high-pitched whining affair that grated on me like fingerna
ils on a chalkboard. He finally passed out from the pain, much to my auditory relief.

  I looked around to make sure that there were no more bad guys. I didn’t see any.

  I shook and pried my hands free just as Debbie came running through the front door. She took one look at me and frowned. “Jeez. You’re a mess.”

  “Yeah, thanks to you.” I pointed to a small red mass on the floor that was still pulsing out blood. It was Ernesto’s heart, minus a few chunks that had been blasted away.

  Debbie stepped over and examined it. “Wow, it’s still beating. That’s crazy. I wish I had my iPhone with me so I could video it. No one’s ever going to believe this.”

  “I’m telling you right now, I’m not cleaning that shit up. And by the way, that bullet came awful close to my head. I actually felt the air pressure change. Why didn’t you do a head shot? Show-off.” I continued untying my ankles to free myself from the chair.

  She pointed to the third guy, now a headless corpse with blood from his neck spilling out and widening the surrounding pool to over ten feet in diameter, with no signs of slowing down.

  “That guy’s making even more of a mess. You better get up off your ass. The red blob’s coming for you.”

  I stood up and hopped away from the red sea, then sat back down and finished untying myself. When I was finally free of the chair, I stood back up and noticed that the whole right side of my body was damp, covered in blood from my nutsack-squeezing friend. I couldn’t wait for it to dry so it could chafe my skin with every movement. It’s a damn shame that killing is a dirty business. Almost takes the fun out of it. I vowed to figure out a cleaner way.

  Debbie explained her chest shot rationale. “I couldn’t do a head shot because he had a knife at your throat. I had to stop the action. Ever see a chicken running around after its head’s been cut off? Well, I have, but I’ve never seen one run around after its heart’s been exploded.”