The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

  He could have sworn the metallic voice had a trace of irony in it. He imagined Beth and Meghan high-fiving each other and snickering. He wouldn’t put it past them to program Werner to respond in that manner.

  ‘Maximus, Chicago. Pick pocket. Thief. Gangbanger.’

  ‘You should’ve said so in the first place.’

  The twins had played around with the software program.

  The program spoke to him a few seconds later, reciting the lifter’s rap sheet. He hadn’t done time; he had been arrested a couple of times but had been let off each time due to lack of evidence. For the last few years, he hadn’t fallen afoul of the law.

  He is good.

  He commanded Werner to dig out intel on Aristo Churchey and what came back filled more than an hour of his drive.

  The gangster had a hand in every conceivable criminal activity in Chicago and while he had been questioned several times by the cops, he had been released every time.

  Good lawyers and good organization.

  Churchey presented himself as a construction baron and built low cost housing for the poor. He ran a hospital and several private schools. He donated large sums to charity and yet the links to crime didn’t disappear.

  Werner recited a long list of killings that Churchey was alleged to have ordered.

  A reporter who was investigating him, a couple of cops, a DEA agent, several politicians, other gangbangers.

  ‘Approach him with care.’ The program told him.

  A smile tugged Zeb’s lips and disappeared swiftly.

  I just want some answers.

  Chapter 7

  ‘You got nothing else?’ Churchey sifted through the photographs Maximus had printed and then turned his cold eyes on the lifter.

  ‘No, sir. I couldn’t get close enough to him to pick his wallet.’ Maximus knew the gang boss liked the Sir, though he never showed it.

  ‘He just went inside the house, came out and drove away?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Maximus was in Churchey’s mansion, surrounded by gun toting goons.

  He could see a swimming pool through the glass doors; several women frolicking in it. He felt the gangster’s eyes on him and he dragged his gaze back.

  ‘You seem different.’

  Maximus controlled the surge of fear in him and put on his game face. ‘Just tired. It was a long drive and I haven’t slept well.’

  Churchey pinned him down for a few more seconds, nodded, and rose. Two goons stepped forward and escorted him out and watched him till he drove away.

  Maximus wiped the sweat on his palms against his thigh once he was clear of the mansion and the tightly wound spring in him began to relax. He was expecting to be plugged the moment Churchey pinned those eyes on him.

  ‘I gotta get one of them PhDs in lying. I didn’t know I was that good,’ he mumbled and grinned widely and winked at a blonde in a red convertible.

  Hot dang. Life was good. That was twice he’d come close to being killed and he’d walked away both times.

  ‘I wonder what that dude’s up to?’

  Churchey looked at the pictures one last time, threw them on the table and stretched and yawned.

  A buxom girl came to him and brought him a drink. He slapped her on her ass, watched it jiggle while he considered his next actions.

  The dude wasn’t of interest to him. He had been paid to have him followed and Maximus had delivered.

  Churchey was interested in maximizing his profit, but first he had to know how badly the East Europeans wanted this dude.

  He snapped his fingers and the girl brought a cell phone. He recited a number and she punched it and held the phone against his ear.

  Aristo Churchey didn’t hold phones, didn’t dial them. He had people who did that.

  A guttural voice came on when the phone had rung three times. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I got him.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Ajdan asked Churchey after skimming through the pictures and the video.

  Churchey shrugged his shoulders. The East Europeans had subcontracted the trace to Churchey and he had delivered. The ‘who,’ and ‘why,’ of the dude didn’t matter to him.

  Ajdan looked at the man in the pictures again, but it wasn’t anyone he had come across before.

  Ajdan and his buddies had operated in Kosovo and Serbia, as well as a few other Balkan states. When they relocated to the States, they had hooked up with Boiler and Big G, along with a few other gangs.

  They were choosy about their kills and steered clear of cop killing.

  ‘Could he be a cop?’

  Churchey glanced at the pictures again and shook his head. ‘Doesn’t look like one. He’s not from the Chicago P.D. for sure. I checked. In any case, a cop wouldn’t drive around in that SUV. Those wheels don’t come cheap.’

  Boiler frowned, his thick eyebrows forming a bridge across his forehead. ‘Who the hell is he?’

  He was still in Chicago, attending to business. Product needed to be sold, women needed to be brought in and put to work in their 'houses.'

  Ajdan shrugged. He didn’t know. They were in the same café they had met, with the same large men hanging about.

  ‘Can you find out?’

  ‘With just a photograph to go on?’ Ajdan considered. ‘Can’t be done unless the dude is a well-known person.’

  ‘You have the SUV’s plates.’

  Boiler flipped through the pictures and held one up that showed the numerals clearly.

  ‘That’ll help.’ Ajdan pocketed the picture. ‘Why can’t you find out yourself? You’ve got contacts in the DMV.’

  Boiler shook his head. ‘Big G doesn’t want our footprints on this.’

  Ajdan didn’t reply, instead brought out a list from a pocket. A list that made Boiler’s eyes gleam.

  ‘How many names?’

  ‘Fifteen. All of them fit the profile.’

  Boiler gripped his shoulder hard and left without a word. Now he could go hunting.

  ‘It isn’t Cezar?’ Big G surveyed the underling in front of him.

  The underling shook his head. He was new; the previous guy had his jaw broken by Big G.

  ‘So why’s he at the Parker place?’

  The underling wisely didn’t answer. He had been told speaking less was a good way to surviving long, around Big G.

  The gang boss flexed his massive shoulders and popped his knuckles as he paced his small cell.

  Why would anyone visit the Parker home after so long? Any friends he had, would have been done visiting by now.

  ‘Boiler is finding out?’

  The underling nodded.

  Big G relaxed. Boiler would find out.

  A flick of his fingers and the underling scurried away. Big G lay on his bunk and dreamed red. Dreams filled with images of Cezar, his body mutilated by Boiler.

  Churchey spent the day running his business, taking a contract to kill a nosey politician and bribing a few cops.

  He inspected a new batch of girls and supervised the renovation of a nightclub. He met a few Cubans and negotiated a large crack deal and when it was eight p.m., headed back to the mansion.

  The guard hurried across to his limo and when he saw Churchey, his head bobbed and he opened the gates.

  The previous guard had let in Churchey’s limo without verifying the passengers. His body was now rotting in a landfill site.

  A flunky brought Churchey a glass of water, another brought him a freshly-laundered towel and a third took his cell phone.

  Churchey climbed the stairs, undressed, tossed his clothes on the bed and headed to the Jacuzzi in the bathroom.

  It had been set to the desired temperature, a change of clothes was neatly arranged on a hanger, fluffy towels and a bathrobe hung nearby.

  Churchey lowered his body, laid back with a sigh and reached out for a glass of wine. The first sip went down like a slow fire and he closed his eyes. All that killing, bribing, dealing led to this.

  He idly considered which w
oman would share his bed that night when a draught of cool air blew over him.

  He opened his eyes and the wine glass slipped in the water.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ He shouted at the man in front of him. He yelled loudly for his guards.

  No footsteps came pounding, the bathroom door stubbornly stayed shut. He shouted again, controlled the flicker of fear in him. No reply from outside.

  The brown-haired man watched him in silence; his quiet manner enraged Churchey and he gripped the sides of the Jacuzzi to raise himself.

  The stranger knocked his hands away, Churchey fell back in the water with a splash.

  Churchey had crawled up the gang ladder in Chicago. Some dude wasn’t going to get the better of him.

  Dude?

  A cold chill raced through him when he recognized the stranger from Maximus’s pictures.

  His hand darted to a panel in the sidewall, beneath which lay a handgun, spare magazines, and a hunting knife.

  His hand didn’t reach the wall, it was lazily slapped away.

  He drove his body forward with a guttural curse, to ram his head in the stranger’s middle and crush him in a bear hug.

  His ears rang when another lazy slap struck him on the face. He fell back in the water, but he wasn’t done. He surged upward suddenly, reaching out for the dude.

  The stranger waited till the last second and instead of ducking away from the blow, grabbed Churchey’s hands, dragged him out of the bath and dumped him on the floor.

  Churchey dove at his legs, fell back when a knee caught him in the face.

  His nose burst, blood streamed down his cheeks, over his chest, formed dark round shapes on the polished floor.

  Churchey stared at the drops for a second. He couldn’t recall when he had last shed blood.

  The thought brought a red mist down; he uncoiled his body and struck faster than a snake, aiming at the stranger’s groin.

  His hand met empty air, the next moment it was caught in a steel grip, twisted, turned so far back that Churchey’s tendons and joints screamed in agony.

  He howled when something snapped and blacked out for a few seconds and when he came to, his body felt as if on fire.

  He ran his eyes dully, rested them on his right arm which lay at an unnatural angle, moved them up with great effort to see the dude crouch beside him.

  ‘What’s your interest in me?’

  Boiler was with two hitters in Buckeystown, Maryland, two days later.

  He had sifted through the photographs of the fifteen men, some of them with their women, had put aside five, compared the remaining with those of Cezar and his wife.

  He thought the ten looked like a good match, given that he didn’t have any recent pictures of the traitor. His men nodded in assent when he handed out the photographs. Yeah, those ten looked likely.

  He read the dossiers of the ten men that Ajdan had provided. The time window was good, the backstories looked good.

  He randomly picked one photograph, that of Dirk Beatty, catering business owner.

  Dirk Beatty would have the privilege of being the first to meet Boiler.

  He picked his men and cut through Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and entered Maryland.

  They stopped in small towns for fueling up, ate in family run bars and restaurants, smiled politely at residents who looked their way, and did their best to disguise the silent menace they exuded.

  Buckeystown had less than a thousand residents, one gas station, several motels and eateries, most of which were scattered around the single road, Buckeystown Pike, that ran through the town.

  Boiler stopped at the gas station, filled their tank and when he went inside to pay, a white-haired woman behind the counter smiled brightly at him and tried to make small talk.

  Small talk wasn’t Boiler’s forte. He replied in a series of grunts and monosyllables.

  Come far?

  Grunt.

  Going far?

  Grunt.

  Nice day for a drive.

  Uh huh.

  That’s a nice SUV you have. Is it new?

  For a second Boiler thought of shooting her; instead he gave her his trademark grimace and left quickly.

  He had wanted to ask directions to the catering business, but her inquisitiveness put him off.

  He hadn’t noticed any CCTV cameras in the store and their SUV had local plates, but it was a small town.

  It ran on gossip. He had already given her enough material to fill several hours.

  He nodded at her wave as he drove off. The gas station was right on the Pike; he followed it for a mile and came to another crossroad, around which were a convenience store, a cafe of some kind, a garage, another store, a few homes and then signs of life thinned out.

  Boiler was still thinking of the old woman and missed reading the signs on the various stores till a shout from the rear alerted him.

  ‘It’s right there,’ one of his hitters yelled and pointed at the cafe that was receding in the distance.

  Boiler looked ahead; there seemed to be a bend in the Pike. He went around it, checked for traffic, made a U-turn and headed back to the junction.

  Buckey’s Cakes and Catering was right on the junction, next to the convenience store.

  It was a white-walled building that had a small seating area, had a few cars parked outside, and saw relatively high traffic, for the area.

  Dirk Beatty had a cafe attached to his catering business. Boiler thought about it for a while, figuring out the implications on what he was planning to do.

  There were none. The cafe made sense. Small towns with populations similar to Buckeystown, wouldn’t have enough demand for a catering business to stand on its own.

  Their first problem became obvious. There was no place to conceal themselves, observe Beatty’s business, and follow him.

  Boiler turned around in his vehicle, surveyed the two men with him, pointed silently at the one who looked the most presentable.

  The hitter would enter Beatty’s restaurant just before closing time, stay there, make small talk till Beatty closed and when he drove home, Boiler would make his move.

  Their second problem became apparent when the hitter entered the restaurant. Beatty and his wife, Jane, had their home in the same building.

  The upper story was their residence; the ground floor was the business.

  Then they got lucky. The hitter said he lived in Frederick which was just six miles away but was interested in buying a home away from the city.

  Buckeystown looked good to him on the map, that was enough for him to drive out and have a look. He liked what he had seen so far.

  Dirk Beatty agreed with him and extolled the virtues of his hometown. He looked the hitter up and down. ‘I’m heading to Frederick tomorrow, myself. I’m running low on sugar and flour, without which cakes ain’t going to get baked here.’

  He turned, greeted a customer, turned back to the hitter. ‘Why don’t you meet me here in the morning? I’ll show you the best parts of this town in the daylight, before I leave for Frederick. Maybe that’ll help you make a decision.’

  The hitter was flummoxed momentarily; he wasn’t used to small town hospitality. For a moment, he wondered if Beatty had made him, but the man’s wide smile and warm eyes dispelled his fears.

  He accepted Beatty’s offer. They agreed on a time to meet, shook hands and the hitter left with a large slice of cake that Beatty thrust toward him.

  Boiler listened silently to his download. ‘You sure he didn’t make you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The hitter’s voice came thickly through a mouthful of cake.

  ‘Anyone hear you?’

  The hitter shook his head.

  Boiler turned the key and drove away, satisfied. Dirk Beatty had handed himself to them. The grab couldn’t have been planned better.

  The grab was easy to execute the next day.

  The hitter drove to Beatty’s store at the agreed time to find the store owner and his wife waiting for him.
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  Beatty and the hitter greeted each other, introductions to the wife were made, Beatty made a follow me motion with his hand and climbed into a red pickup truck that had seen better days.

  ‘It’s her.’ The hitter said breathlessly when he climbed into their SUV.

  Boiler nodded, waited as the pickup coughed once, belched smoke, and trundled away.

  He wasn’t worried about Beatty or his wife recognizing the hitter. His men had joined the gang after Cezar’s disappearance.

  They drove away, just the two vehicles on the street, one carrying helpful neighbors, another carrying grim violence.

  Boiler waited for a stretch of road that he’d noticed while driving in, about a hundred yards of asphalt lined with thick growth on either side.

  He looked far ahead when they reached that stretch.

  Other than the pickup truck ahead, there wasn’t anything else to see. The ribbon they were on disappeared into blue sky in the distance.

  He revved their SUV and rammed the truck from behind. Its rear buckled under the impact and it slid sideways.

  Beatty tried to control it, but a second impact drove the pickup off the road, into the undergrowth.

  Boiler saw Beatty trying to wrestle with the wheel, and then with the door.

  He didn’t give the store owner or his woman a chance to get out. He smashed into the vehicle again, pushed it deep through grass, bushes, and stunted trees, till the truck stalled and silence fell.

  Boiler emerged swiftly from his SUV, didn’t spare a glance at the front of his vehicle, motioned at his two men.

  One of them went back to the road and sought cover. He would keep watch.

  The other accompanied Boiler. They split when they approached the vehicle.

  Boiler dragged the dazed Beatty out, the second hitter slapped his wife when she started screaming, grabbed her by the waist and threw her out. He slapped her again to subdue her, shoved her to the ground beside her husband.

  They cuffed their captives’ hands, slapping them occasionally to cow them into submission.

  Beatty and his wife didn’t offer much resistance. They were still in shock, which was compounded by the repeated blows rained on them.

  Boiler paused before taping Beatty’s mouth, looked into the man’s eyes.

  ‘Hello, Cezar, where’s our money?’