Warpath

by Ryan Sayles

  I lowered the gun, but didn’t put it away just yet. I looked out the window, but all I saw was the iron of the fire escape. I craned my neck, checking up and down.

  Nobody.

  The lock on the window wasn’t just jimmied or forced, it was destroyed. Whoever did this, and I hoped I found the fucker, wasn’t too smooth. Just a brute force punk burglar, I figured.

  I thought about that for a minute. Was that all it was? Or was my gut reaction out in the living room right? Could Sal or Max have sent someone to do this?

  If so, why didn’t they finish the job? Why’d they run?

  The mess in my bedroom solved the mystery for me. I searched through my stuff as I put it back in order. Not much had been taken, but the little thief got some spare cash I kept in the top drawer of my nightstand and a little bit of jewelry. All of my jewelry, actually, because I didn’t really have a whole lot to begin with. Not my thing. The little fuck could have it for all I care, but it pissed me off that someone had invaded my home.

  This was a straight up rip-off.

  I knew I could find out who it was. Too many people in this neighborhood didn’t mind their own business. Maybe until I heard from Max, that’s exactly what I’d do. Solve my little burglary problem. Not like I’d call the cops about it. I didn’t want to be in the system, not as a suspect but not as a victim or a witness, either. Besides, like they care. I don’t sit around like my cousins bitching about the “fuckin’ cops” all day long, but I sure as hell ain’t calling them if I don’t have to.

  I was almost done picking up the mess my little piece of shit visitor made when I found my mother’s notebook. It was part way under the bed, hidden by a handful of my panties, a couple pairs of which were missing. The composition notebook was full of her feelings of love for the doc. For some reason, she didn’t take it with her when she took off with him. Maybe she didn’t need them anymore. She had the real thing.

  I tossed it onto the bed while I finished picking things up. When the room was back to normal, I looked at the notebook sitting there on the bed. I thought about reading some of her thoughts about love instead of the shitty novel I was trying to get through. That could be my night. A deli sandwich, a bottle of Peroni’s, and Ma’s lovelorn, inscrutable love journal.

  Not tonight. Fuck that.

  I put the notebook back in the dresser, unopened and unread. Then I went into the kitchen and got a hammer and a few nails out of utility drawer. Thieves might be able to force a window lock, but let them pop it open with four good nails holding it in.

  Yeah, summer was coming, and I’d probably pull those nails out myself soon enough, but until then, it solved at least one problem in my life.

  FOUR

  Cameron

  Leo showed up smiling silently at my door. He handed over a manila envelope, never saying a word. It’s Leo, what are you gonna do? I couldn’t be insulted.

  “Hey, Leo.” I tried to be friendly and not hurt that Mikey didn’t come himself. Leo stared back at me like a mute and held out the envelope. I took it and left him in my doorway, the door open as my invitation inside. He took the offer and stepped in, lighting a cigarette as he entered.

  The metal click of his Zippo closed in sync with my tearing of the envelope. Inside I found my first assignment.

  There was a picture of a guy about my age but older by a few, a little heavier, less hair. But the thing that stood out to me in the long lens snapshot was his outfit, or I should say his uniform. He was a cop.

  “Fucked up, ain’t it?”

  I had to look up and see if someone else had entered the room. Nope, it was Leo. He sat on my couch and smiled that pasted-on smile as he let smoke ooze out his nose. Leo had a dead tooth that I could never not look at. It sat there, all brown and conspicuous in the line of otherwise white teeth.

  “A cop, yeah,” I said. “Not gonna be easy.”

  “I mean the whole goddamn mess. Florida. The cutbacks. Everything.”

  He sat still waiting to hear my opinion on the matter, flinging a leg over the arm of my couch as he settled in for a good long stay, it looked like, even though he didn’t take off his jacket.

  “Yeah, I mean...” Leo caught me off guard. I’d about exhausted my thoughts on the matter. What else could I say beyond, “Fucked up is right.”

  “Gotta trim the dead branches, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I guess I sorta followed him. Dead branches, dead leaves... whatever. Really, I wanted to study up on this cop in the envelope and not worry too much about the larger problem. Guys in Florida? What did I care? If it gave me my shot at bigger things, then let them flip sides, go to the cops, the feds—whoever. Let them start to kill each other in the streets if that’s what they want to do.

  When I thought about it, I realized that’s what we were doing. And I was being asked to pull the trigger.

  The cop’s name was Arnold Harbin. Nine-year veteran of the force after four years in the Army. I had an address, a work schedule and a list of his last five meetings with one of our guys, his usual contact. Next one was a week from Tuesday.

  What I didn’t have was any reason why they wanted this guy taken out.

  “So, what’d this guy do?”

  Leo had gone silent again.

  “Seriously, Leo,” I said. “He must have screwed up something.”

  “It matter?” More smoke came slowly out of him. He didn’t seem to exhale as much as open his mouth and let the smoke drift out on its own schedule.

  “I don’t know. I just kinda wanna know why.”

  “Everything’s in the report.”

  “The only things in here are his address and his work schedule. I don’t even know what he was doing for us. Why was he on the payroll?”

  “Why are any of them?”

  When I get boosted higher in the ranks, I’m gonna slap that stupid grin off his face. Maybe do him a favor and knock that dead tooth out of his mouth.

  “Okay, don’t tell me. I just thought maybe it could help me do the job better.”

  Leo hauled himself off my couch. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  He gave me a wave behind his back as he left without another word. Didn’t even close the door behind him.

  I walked over and kicked it closed with my toe, then sat down to read up on Arnold Harbin.

  It was a toss-up—do it at home or do it at work. At work the whole thing could go down as an in-the-line-of-duty thing. He’d get a hero’s burial and there would be way less heat on me because they’d think it was some crackhead or pissed off ex-con getting back at the cop who busted him.

  But did it send the right message? Part of this operation was reasserting our muscle, right? Letting people know we were still in business, even if the management has changed a bit. If this guy Harbin dies and no one knows it’s because he crossed the family, then there’s no lesson learned for the rest of them.

  Kinda why it would be nice to know how he crossed us. It’d be great to make the hit some sort of message about the way he fucked up. The way snitches end up with their tongues cut out or guys skimming off the top with sticky fingers show up dead with those digits removed and long gone down some sewer somewhere.

  Not that I wanted to get into anything so involved, or bloody. In my other two hits I’d done my damnedest to get in and get out. A bullet or two and I’m gone. I don’t need to be hanging around doing butcher’s work.

  And if you do it once, they expect it going forward. These early jobs become your M.O. If the big man wants a job done a certain way, he’ll call you up.

  “Get me that Cameron kid, the one who cuts off their balls and stuffs them in their cheeks like a squirrel eating peanuts. We need this guy to know he can’t keep eating from the company feedbag, capisce?”

  Shit like that. I don’t want to be the balls in the mouth guy.

  So, okay, I decided—it’s a home job. Hit him where he’s vulnerable. And invading the sanctity of a man’s home sends a message. He’s less likely t
o be armed, too. I mean, he’s a cop. I catch him at work and he’s definitely got a gun on him. Taser too. A Kevlar vest.

  So, yeah. Home it was.

  I checked the clock. 8:16. I could do it that same night. Pack my bag and get in the car and be done with it in time to come home and catch The Tonight Show.

  Kinda quick, I thought. Don’t want to jump the gun. It may need planning.

  Then again, if I come back quick with a job well done it’s gonna look good. I show up the next day to Mikey and say, “What else you got?”

  That’s gotta instill confidence.

  I sat and thought about it, the pros and cons. I smelled Leo’s smoke in my couch cushions. Bastard. At the very least I needed to get out and grab something to eat. I’d have time to think, time to plan.

  I took the envelope, dug my gun out of the side table—a Springfield XD-S. I never liked wearing a holster so I like something small enough to conceal. It holds seven in the clip so unless Officer Harbin is a cat with nine lives, I had my first gold star coming from Mikey in the morning.

  If I decided to do it that night. A burger, a beer and my mind would be made.

  Back to TOC

  Here’s a sample from John Shepphird’s Kill the Shill.

  Chapter 1

  The heavyset jailer was different. Jane had never seen the woman before. She led her from the exercise yard of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility and through corridors she’d never been. They went up flights of stairs, and Jane wondered if this hulking guard had confused her with another inmate. She led her into the small anteroom, mumbled “wait here,” and closed the door.

  It smelled like disinfectant. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Jane paced for what seemed like an eternity. She called out, but nobody came.

  The room fell into darkness.

  The masked man came in from the other door. A pillow case was yanked over her head, and Jane screamed. He slammed her to the concrete floor. He was strong, pulled her arms back and drove a knee into her vertebrae.

  The next sensation was the pillow case pulled tight at the nape of her neck. Something slipped over her head then cinched around her throat—a noose of some kind, cutting into her windpipe.

  She screamed and fought with all her might. His hand reached around to muffle her, so she bit hard. He tried to free his fingers locked in her teeth, punching her head, so she bit even harder.

  Something cracked in her mouth.

  She heard him grunt, knew it hurt him, and bit even harder.

  She bucked, rolled, tried to pull off the pillow case but the snug garrote made it impossible. Next came the kicks to her ribs. It knocked the wind out of her. She gagged, gasped for air, and was certain she was going to die. She felt him tighten the garrote around her neck again, then she heard the door slam, and Jane was alone.

  Her cry of anguish came from somewhere deep, a dark and primal place she’d never been before. By the time the staff came to her rescue she was shivering, adrenaline spent, teeth clattering. They consoled her, snipped off the band around her neck and removed the bloody pillow case.

  Only then did Jane realize the noose was a flex-cuff. On television she’d seen cops use these plastic strips in lieu of handcuffs—zip-ties impossible to loosen. She figured the prison guards probably have drawers of these things, as common as ballpoint pens or the mace they carry on their belts.

  Jane got the picture—no need to smuggle this murder weapon into the jail.

  She swallowed through the mucus and it hurt like hell. An inch tighter would have been certain strangulation.

  Chapter 2

  Eyes bugged out, jaw gaping in rigor mortis, lips peeled back exposing blackened gums; Cooper’s death-face still haunted her. This was the man she’d loved. The horrible image was what Jane saw when she closed her eyes at night.

  After the attempt on her life Jane was moved to the prison’s medical ward with twenty-four hour watch. The other inmate’s hacking coughs and the smell of death put Jane on edge. She hated hospitals. She hated herself for being so stupid—for agreeing to be the shill.

  She was expecting her mom in the visitation room but instead a preppy guy in a pin-striped oxford sat behind the glass. He produced identification and held it to the window, “Special Agent Brendan Gallagher, FBI,” he said. “I need your help.”

  Jane thought she was done talking to the cops. “For what?” she asked.

  “To find the woman who burned you.”

  Veronica had indeed burned her—in the third degree. The beautiful Veronica appeared to be the fiancée of a billionaire, but in reality she masterminded a brilliant scam. Only now did Jane see she acted as Veronica’s puppet, a pawn sacrificed, and three million dollars was missing. Jane was accused of murdering the billionaire and even Cooper, Jane’s lover, betrayed her and was found slain. She could even remember the smell of his rotting flesh.

  “I’ve already told the cops everything,” she said, eyeing him with suspicion.

  “Veronica is watching you.”

  That gave Jane pause. Watching?

  “Hear me out,” he said. “I’ve been tracking Veronica for quite some time. She knows all about me. I can’t compromise my cover because her influence runs deep. More than you can imagine.”

  Jane didn’t know what to say. She wondered if Veronica could have had something to do with the attempt on her life. Not offering too many details, she explained how she narrowly escaped the assassination attempt.

  He nodded and asked, “You’ve heard about jailhouse suicides?”

  “I guess.”

  “Death by hanging is most often the MO.”

  Jane read into what he meant. “You’re saying if I died they would have covered it up, claimed I hanged myself?”

  “The Los Angeles Sheriff Department has had its lion share of corruption, especially in the jails.”

  “My lawyer is working on moving me to Central Regional, in Lynwood.”

  “There’s no guarantee you’ll be safe there. Like I said, her influence runs deep.”

  She tried to wrap her mind around it, asked, “She can arrange a murder behind bars?”

  “Draw your own conclusion. Now tell me, where do you think Veronica may have gone?”

  “I’ve told everyone a thousand times,” she said, “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe we can figure it out together.”

  She feared she’d said too much. “My lawyer wouldn’t want me to talk about this.”

  “Every day Veronica slips further away. Help me catch her before she’s gone forever.”

  She really didn’t trust him but ventured, “What do you want to know?”

  He started with many of the same questions the detectives had asked, but he was clearly more focused on Veronica. He cared less about Cooper, the boyfriend who coaxed her into the caper. He asked nothing about Alexander Wolff, the murdered billionaire. Instead he focused on Veronica and Wolff’s bodyguard Buddy.

  “Did Veronica speak of any specific cities or destinations?”

  “Not really.”

  “Buddy?”

  “He rarely said anything.”

  “How about Cooper?”

  The recorded voice sounded informing them they had only three minutes left, so Jane proposed question of her own. “What’s his real name?” she asked. “Cooper must have been an alias.”

  “Didier Boucher,” he said.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “His father passed down the trade to both he and his brother. They ran successful boiler rooms up in Canada, cold calling people in the United States and claiming they’ve won a sweepstakes. But in order for the sucker to claim the prize they needed to first send a fee to, supposedly, cover government taxes. It’s an age-old scam. Nobody wins the grand prize. Everybody gets third place. When it arrives in the mail it’s nothing but an inflatable raft.”

  “A raft?”

  “Worth maybe twenty bucks at Walmart. Technically a boat, but nobody reads the fine print.”r />
  “Cooper did that?”

  “He and his family, among other scams, targeting the elderly mostly. At one time they were flying high, but no longer. His brother gambled most of the fortune away. Cigarettes took their toll on the father, and now he’s in a Quebec City nursing home.”

  “Cooper, I mean Didier, was French?”

  “French Canadian. But you must have known that.”

  “He said he was from Chicago, went to school in Boston or something,” she recalled. Jane reeled at the thought. She knew nothing about this man she had fallen in love with. Everything was a lie. She said, “Since you know Veronica is behind all of this, get me the hell out of here.”

  “I can help you, but it’s not like in the movies where police and FBI work hand-in-hand. Bureaucracy is incredibly inefficient. They took me off Veronica’s case, but I still work it when I get the chance. It’s sort of...my baby.”

  Gorgeous Veronica—she figured he was drawn by her beauty. “If Cooper was French Canadian,” she asked. “Why didn’t he have an accent?”

  “He’s a pro.”

  Jane explained how he could sit in front of the television for hours watching hockey, cursing, kicking furniture, and he always checked his iPhone for scores.

  “That’s good. Those are the details I’m looking for,” he said. “Think back. What about Veronica? Anything stick out?”

  Jane was at a loss, asked, “Do you think she killed Cooper?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s done it before.”

  She’s done it before.

  The phone cut them off, meeting over. He nodded and mouthed “thank you” through the glass, then departed without looking back.

  She worried that she’d said too much.

  Chapter 3