The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

  He drove through the dozing streets and sleepy lights till he found a secluded parking space and stretched back and went to sleep.

  He pushed on before dawn and reached Damascus just before ten.

  He checked into a motel, freshened himself and drove around the town to get his bearings.

  The town had a population of less than a thousand but received several hundred visitors a year due to its location in the Blue Mountains and its promise of an outdoors experience.

  Zeb entered a diner on Main Street, dodged a backpacking couple and seated himself next to a large window through which sunlight streamed and bathed the eatery in a golden glow.

  He ate leisurely, watching the world pass by; backpackers, cyclists, families - the town attracted all kinds of visitors.

  The waitress bustled across, refilled his cup, attempted to make small talk and drifted away at his polite smile and lack of response.

  Hank’s home was two streets to the north of Main Street, on the east side of Laurel Creek which wended through the town.

  Zeb drove through the near empty street, noted the large homes set back from sidewalks, and finally spotted the large white house in front of which there was a flagpole, with a flag fluttering in the light breeze.

  Zeb scanned ahead and behind; a few cars parked on the street, a few more on driveways of a few homes.

  He parked in front of a house that bore a ‘For Sale’ sign and walked to the Parker residence.

  Ribbons of yellow tape still partly surrounded the house. He ducked under the tape and circled the house casually, taking photographs on his phone.

  From behind the cover of the trunk of a tree, he surveyed the surroundings. The nearest neighbor was to his right, several hundreds of yards away, separated by a lush lawn, green undergrowth, and several trees. The street was visible and so were a few cars.

  No one came out to watch him. He was too far to notice if any curtains twitched. He shrugged mentally and went to the back of the house, tried the back door and found it locked.

  He walked on, found a locked kitchen window that yielded to the sharp blade of his knife and swung open easily.

  He stepped inside and the smell of unmaintained house came to him. It was quiet; there was not even the click or hum of appliances.

  He walked through the large kitchen that could seat ten, through a hallway that branched out into a games room, a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and then opened into the living room.

  Couches and rugs dotted the living room, a mantelpiece brimmed with photographs and trophies.

  Shooting trophies, family pictures, baby pictures, Hank in uniform, Hank and Emily with their arms around each other, Hank tossing young Cody in the air.

  At the back, almost hidden behind family pictures, Zeb found one picture of Hank with his unit.

  There were ten men in the photograph, all of them uniformed, cradling their guns casually, all smiling.

  They were young and had the air of invincibility that youth carried. They had lost that look soon and only some of them were alive now.

  His eyes didn’t linger on a brown-haired young man at the back who was smiling widely at the camera. That smile didn’t exist anymore.

  He extracted the photograph and slipped it inside his jacket.

  The living room opened into an equally large dining room. He didn’t look in its direction. He went up the stairs and surveyed more bedrooms and bathrooms, looked out the windows and saw a large back yard in which a swing hung motionless.

  An inflated pool lay in a corner, its surface covered by leaves and branches and dead insects.

  He went to the largest bedroom and started searching.

  Three hours later he had nothing. In the movies, the cops always found clues. There was always an ‘ah-ha moment,’ though no one said that anymore.

  There was no such moment in Hank’s home.

  There were papers, diaries, journals, bank statements, computers, invoices, bills, letters, but not one of them conveyed any threat to Hank or his family.

  Zeb searched the other bedrooms but knew he was lingering, postponing. He went to the landing, took a breath and walked down to the living room and then to the dining room.

  The dining table could seat eight and was laid out neatly with the chairs tucked in deep, napkins and cutlery arranged in the center.

  The air hung thick and heavy and he thought he detected the familiar coppery smell. It’s my imagination. The killings were more than four months back.

  The floor was dark hardwood and felt like oak when he ran his fingers over it. He went to the head of the table that faced the living room, rested his arms lightly on the chair and pictured it.

  Hank, at the head of the table, Cody and Petals next to him, Emily at the end.

  He would have ladled food in their plates, cracked jokes, laughed loudly, kissed the tops of their heads. Just another night in the Parker family.

  Except it wasn’t.

  He bent down finally and ran his eyes along the floor. The traces of blood were impossible to detect since the house had been cleaned professionally.

  Hank and Emily had no surviving family on either side; however, their family lawyer had arranged for the home to be cleaned and was now dealing with their estate.

  He closed his eyes and brought up the crime scene pictures in his mind. He went to the spots where the blood splotches would have been. The hardwood floor gleamed back at him.

  He pushed the table to one end, arranged the chairs in the center and sat in the central one.

  They made Hank watch. Just like I was made to…

  He closed his eyes tightly and willed the thought and the accompanying images to disappear.

  Back into the white box in his mind, which would slam back into rows and rows of white boxes, indistinguishable from one another.

  The thought refused, the images resisted. They had been denied for so long, they wanted to escape.

  No. You can’t.

  Alone in the empty home where his friend and his family had been murdered, Zeb summoned the fog to come rescue him, drown him in its welcoming greyness.

  It roiled and approached reluctantly.

  He recalled the breathing exercise he had been taught by old men in far corners of the world.

  He stood there for several minutes, unmoving, till the fog cleared his mind, disappeared slowly, till his breathing slowed and his pulse returned to normal.

  He unclenched his fists and detected the slightest tremble in his fingers. He wiped his forehead. His palms came away damp.

  He went to the kitchen, drew water from the tap and drank steadily till the cold liquid filled him and brought back the man the world knew.

  He went back to the dining room, rearranged the table and when he pushed the chairs in place, something sharp poked his chest.

  He felt inside his jacket and fingered the sharp edges of the photograph he had pocketed.

  I’ve got your back, boy. Hank, from a million years away, from a distant land.

  The beast came to life, filled him and turned his eyes bleak.

  They’re dead, Hank. They don’t know it yet.

  Chapter 6

  Maximus yawned lustily, scrunched lower in his car, glanced once at the feed on his car’s dashboard, saw nothing that was of interest and yawned again.

  Maximus had spotted the dude the moment the dull black SUV entered the Parker’s street.

  Damascus had pickup trucks, sedans, SUVs, vehicles of all kinds, but after hanging around in the town for a week, Maximus recognized most of the neighborhood residents’ rides. The tourists – they didn’t visit this part of town. The restaurants and hotels were closer to Main Street.

  Maximus was a gifted lifter, a pickpocket, who made his living by relieving men and women – he was an equal opportunity thief – of their wallets and purses.

  He was proud of his skill. He has a way of getting close to his marks, sometimes befriending them, without their ever suspecting him.

/>   He could fade into the scenery if he wished to. He became furniture and didn’t rate a first glance, let alone a second one.

  His light brown skin and average features rendered him anonymous. His clothing and gait made him invisible. He could dress like a stockbroker if needed, or sprawl on the sidewalk like a drunk if that was what it took.

  One time he had dined on the same table as his mark, a big time hood in Chicago, had laughed at his crude jokes and had snapped several photographs of the mark on his phone.

  He had grown up in Fuller Park, had fallen in with a gang who stole cars, mugged passersby and broke into properties.

  Maximus was smarter than his buddies, realized it was just a short hop away from bigger and more violent crimes. He wanted none of that.

  He had discovered a long time back that he had light fingers; he broke away from the gang and pursued a solo career as a lifter.

  It had paid off handsomely. He had his own pad, his own wheels, a bright yellow Mustang which was a babe magnet; it was the best investment he had made.

  Life was going well for Maximus, till he lifted from the wrong guy.

  The wrong guy turned out to be the most powerful hood in Chicago, a lean, mean, ebony-skinned man who trapped Maximus’s straying hand with ease, looked at him with lizard eyes and dragged him to a bar.

  He threw the lifter’s ass in a seat, clicked his fingers and a knife was produced by his goons. He grabbed Maximus’s hand and brought the knife down without a word.

  The lifter closed his eyes and screamed, opened them dazedly when he heard chuckles and looked down to see the knife buried millimeters from his fingers.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lizard Eyes rasped.

  Maximus spilled out everything, and when he had finished, silence fell in the bar.

  Lizard Eyes looked back at his hand as if tempted to sever it from his body, but when he raised those coal grey eyes, he had a proposition for Maximus.

  Maximus would take contracts from him. Maximus agreed. He would have agreed to anything. He had a fond attachment to his extremities and any proposition that meant they stayed attached was a good one.

  The contracts came. A businessman’s briefcase, a lawyer’s bag, a cop’s files. Sometimes the work was just shadowing a mark and recording his movements. The money was great. Life was good. Maximus was on top of the world.

  Damascus was one such contract from Lizard Eyes. It was an easy one. All that Maximus had to do was keep watch on a house, record whoever came to the house, follow any such person and report back to Lizard Eyes. Simple. No hassle.

  Maximus rented an inconspicuous Ford for his watch, parked himself on the street just up from the house and kept watch.

  Nothing happened for three days and then the dude turned up in the SUV.

  Maximus had rigged his phone to feed into the Ford’s display console; he had duct taped the phone to the window.

  The phone looked out and fed to the display. Maximus pushed his seat back, brought a newspaper to his face, punched a hole through it and watched the display.

  Hands free surveillance. Risk free surveillance. It was money in the bank.

  Till it wasn’t.

  The dude had disappeared inside the house, hours ago. There was no sign of him, no shadow crossed the window.

  Maximus stifled a yawn and made to settle more comfortably, when he froze.

  The passenger door opened and the dude slipped in smoothly, as if he was made of liquid.

  The dude turned his head toward Maximus and brown eyes rested on him.

  Lizard Eyes made Maximus’s skin crawl.

  This dude’s look made it want to separate itself from his body and flee.

  Zeb had spotted the Ford on his second pass on the street. It was parked between a pickup truck and a minivan and had a good sightline to the Parker home.

  He hadn’t given it any thought initially, but the faint movement from inside it had snagged his attention.

  Damascus wasn’t a town where folks idled in their cars. Residents had jobs to go to, visitors had places to go.

  He had driven past, and from the shadows of an upper bedroom, he had extracted a cable camera – a tubular device with a lens at one end and phone jack at the other – and had observed the Ford.

  Watching the house. Black or brown-skinned man, young. Short hair, clean shaven, neatly dressed. Pretending to read a newspaper. Not looking at the house. Decent tradecraft.

  However, people don’t hang about in cars in this town.

  He had exited the house from the rear, run across the green to the neighboring house, climbed over their fence, and had come up from behind the Ford. He then used the pickup truck as cover and silently slid into the watcher’s car.

  He ignored the startled squawk from the watcher, ran his eyes swiftly over his body and saw no weapons on him. The watcher’s hands were visible and empty.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The watcher didn’t respond. His eyes were wide, his mouth gaped open.

  Zeb removed his Glock from his shoulder holster and placed it on the wide armrest between them.

  ‘This is the hard way. You know the easy one.’

  Maximus spilled. Words came out of him like a river bursting at the banks. Sweat beaded his face and ran down his cheeks, Maximus ignored it. Staying alive was more important. He watched the dude’s face for any response.

  There wasn’t. It seemed to be made of granite.

  ‘You don’t know why this guy wanted me followed?’

  ‘No, sir, I swear– ’

  The dude cut him off with a wave of the gun.

  Maximus stifled a moan. First Lizard Eyes, now this dude.

  He tried to control his breathing and bladder, sat silently and watched the dude. The dude didn’t look back. He was staring straight ahead, seemingly lost in thought.

  Minutes passed, seemed like hours, and whatever little hope Maximus had, started bleeding away. He opened his mouth to plead one last time, shut it with a click when the dude lifted a finger without looking in his direction.

  How in hell did he know I was going to speak?

  The dude sat like that Buddha guy for another fifteen minutes and all the while Maximus’s phone fed a stream, now pointless, from the house to the display.

  ‘Aristo Churchey? That’s his name?’

  Maximus bobbed his head. That was Lizard Eyes.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  Maximus’s eyes grew round. Who hadn’t heard of Aristo?

  ‘Dude, he runs Chicago. Nothing happens in that town that he doesn’t have a hand in. You want some smack, paradise, roach, whatever makes you high - Aristo supplies it. You want babes, he has the best ones in town. You want your man in the City Council? Aristo will arrange it.’

  His voice dropped. ‘You want a rival to disappear? He can do that for you.’

  The brown eyes swung toward him. ‘The cops don’t know about him?’

  Maximus snorted. ‘Sure, they do. But without that evidence thing, there ain’t much they can do. Way I heard it, even the Commissioner is in his pocket.’

  ‘Superintendent.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They have a police superintendent, not a commissioner.’

  Maximus shrugged the titles away. ‘Whatever. Street talk is that Aristo owns that dude.’

  ‘I want to meet him.’

  ‘The cop guy?’ Maximus asked stupidly.

  ‘Aristo.’

  ‘You got a death wish, man?’ Maximus yelled. ‘I’m a goner. You’ll plug me and throw me in some river, but why do you want to die?’

  ‘I won’t kill you.’

  The words took a while to sink into Maximus.

  ‘You won’t?’ He asked slowly, hardly believing what he had heard.

  ‘No.’

  Maximus closed his eyes and thanked the Lord, thanked the dude, thanked his momma and poppa and grabbed the dude’s hand, his free hand, and shook it.

  Air hadn’t felt sweeter; the universe hadn’t
felt more colorful. That babe waiting for him was in for a torrid time.

  He felt the weight of the brown eyes on him and his euphoria receded. ‘What about all this?’ He gestured at the feed in the display unit.

  ‘What was the plan?’

  ‘I was to report back to Aristo, send him your pictures and videos.’

  ‘Stick to your plan.’

  Maximus gave him incredulous. ‘He’ll know about you then, won’t he?’

  The dude didn’t reply.

  ‘He’ll kill you if you approach him. He’ll know you’re in town the moment you are in Chicago.’

  ‘Will he?’

  The dude’s face didn’t change, but Maximus got the impression he was smiling. The man glanced at him one last time, slid out of the Ford and walked away without a backward glance.

  Once Maximus had clicked his mouth shut, he called out of the window. ‘Who’re you, man? Do you have a name?’

  The dude didn’t reply, didn’t look back, as he walked back to his SUV.

  Maximus continued watching him; the way he moved brought to his mind a TV program he had watched a while back.

  A cheetah had stalked a deer in the African wild, creeping slowly through the grass, almost invisible amongst it, barely ruffling the stalks, and then had burst into glorious speed.

  For some reason the dude reminded Maximus of that animal.

  He watched till the man disappeared inside the SUV, its tail lights flared and the vehicle disappeared.

  Maximus powered up his ride and couldn’t resist a grin.

  ‘Aristo baby, you’d better tuck that tail between your hind legs and run as hard and fast as you can.’

  Zeb turned on his laptop, connected it to the vehicle’s WiFi and opened a voice command window to Werner.

  ‘Maximus,’ he spelt the name as he navigated out of Damascus and floored it once he hit the US-58. Chicago was ten hours away if he drove non-stop.

  An electronic voice interrupted his thinking.

  ‘Be precise. Which Maximus do you want? Roman generals, Authors, Bishops, fiction characters?’

  Zeb stared at his laptop for a second.