“I got it,” Mike said, collecting himself.
“Good luck, Mike. This is the last time we’ll talk.”
They stood and embraced. After Mike was gone, Tommy sat in silence, energizing himself by going through the plan in his mind. He thought about Moses, his son, his new life, his disease. He felt at peace, despite the underlying, agonizing grief. He worked to hold it in check until his work was done.
A short time later, another knock sounded at the door. It alarmed him since he hadn’t heard the footsteps on the stairs that announced his visitors. He got up silently and peered through the peephole in the door. When he opened it, he stared in shock at Molletier.
“Sensei, what the hell happened to you? Were you out driving around again?” he tried to joke. He opened the door wider and helped the man in. “How the hell did you get here? I didn’t hear a car outside.”
“It’s not important. I appear when I need to appear. I’m healing, but still pretty sore.” Molletier gave him scant details about what had happened, how Lukas had gone to rescue him, how he made him vow to not involve Tommy or disturb his grief that night.
Tommy shook his head angrily throughout the story, looking Molletier over. His face was completely black and blue, with splotches of yellow, green, and purple in some areas. His nose was clearly broken, a deep, scabbed-over gash at the bridge of it. His lips were split in several places, and he still had welts on his forehead and cheekbones. His black eye patch was the only unscathed part of his face. “Jesus, shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”
“Sick of the hospital. I have Asian medicine. Better than your American hospitals.”
“You sure nothing’s broke?”
“Nose, some teeth. Can’t do much about those. This will heal, the cancer will not. I’m almost done with this body, with this life. I have only one purpose now.”
Tommy felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. He felt like he was back where he’d been with Moses, just before they were supposed to execute their plan to take out the priest. Many times he’d regretted not calling everything off at that stage, thinking Moses would still be alive, before he remembered the man’s advancing disease. It’s how he wanted to go.
“Look, Sensei. Why don’t we just call this off? Carson will eventually get his. We have enough on our plates.”
The anger on the man’s broken, distorted face made his answer clear even before he spoke. “No. This must be done. You can stand down. I will avenge myself and Bobby alone if I must.”
“Okay, okay. That was a test, I’m sorry. I had to make sure. One more thing. Three times now you’ve ignored our plans and gone off alone. We can’t have that this time. It’s just a few of us, and if we don’t all do exactly what we say, it will fall apart, and we’re all screwed.”
“I understand the plan.”
“No, no. None of that ‘I understand the plan’ routine. I’ve heard that before, too many times. Sensei, I need your word of honor, as a man, on your reputation, that you will do this exactly as we planned it out together. There’s a lot more at stake this time. It has to go right.”
“You have my word. My word is as good as my life. How much time do you figure until they find him?”
“He’s on leave, and he’s kind of a loner, so hopefully not until sometime late the next day. Alright, then. This is the last time we’ll talk. What’s next for you? I did some work with the witness protection program. I know how to make people disappear if that’s what they want. You interested in the Florida Keys?”
Molletier shook his head. “I will go to Korea immediately. Back to my home. Everything is arranged. It is there that I wish to die. I want to see my homeland one more time.”
“Alright, then. Tomorrow night is it. We won’t get a chance to say goodbye. I wish you luck, Sensei. Thank you for everything you’ve done for Bobby, and for me.”
They both stood, slowly and painfully, and Tommy showed him out.
Shortly after, he heard footsteps on the stairs. He rose and unlocked the deadbolts once more to let Lukas in. Whitey followed behind him and jumped immediately onto Tommy’s lap.
“How’s the franken-bike coming along?”
“Good as gold. Well, maybe copper. Maybe rusted iron. It’s ugly, but it’s done. I’ve been scrounging parts from everywhere within two hundred miles. Using the disguises, of course.”
“You’re good to go then?” Tommy asked, petting the affectionate dog.
“I’m all set. You sure he won’t bring anyone or set you up?”
“Nah. The last thing that asshole wants is for anyone to know he’s a closet gay. His ego is too big, and that’s gonna be his downfall. What’s your plan for after this?”
“I’m staying here. This is my home. If it gets too hot, I’ll bug out, I have places I can go. Tass and I want to get married.”
“You didn’t...” Tommy began.
“None of the Eagles know. None of them. Not even her.”
“Okay, then. You know that your uncle is looking down on you. Remember, all you know is that you built me a bike. I wanted to ride again.”
“Well, that’s all you really told me anyway, Tommy. What about you? You leaving after this?” Lukas asked.
“I’ll get away if I can. Somewhere nice, to die alone. If they do arrest me, I’ll lawyer up and drag it out for a long time. The doc figures I have less than a year anyway, and that’s being optimistic.
“I’m telling you, and I told the others, I’ll take the fall for this. What’re they gonna do, give me the death sentence? I’ll probably go into hiding—someplace nice. I have options. I have a lot of contacts from when I was on the job, all over the country.”
They embraced for a long time. Lukas pulled away and went through the door, leaving Tommy to his thoughts and plans.
32 The Setup
Tommy sat on the motorcycle, peering through the night with binoculars. The bike’s engine purred almost inaudible at low idle. Its muffler was packed to quiet it, and its lights were disconnected. He swiveled to check the darkest, furthest corner of the parking lot, where Mike’s jacked-up pickup truck was parked. Mike sat behind the wheel, and even from that distance, Tommy could sense his nervousness. Stay cool, buddy. Don’t blow it.
He tilted the binoculars lower. There was only darkness under the pickup. He knew that Molletier was lying prone under it, watching and waiting for the signal. He’s got to be hurting, lying under there in his condition. He scanned the rest of the parking lot and club. Pretty empty, good. No witnesses. He checked his watch. Almost midnight.
He mentally calculated the distance from the back of the pickup, across the empty lot adjacent to the club’s parking lot, to the empty warehouse on the other side. Just like the warehouse you hurt my son in, Carson. All we need now is you, the star of the show.
He beat back the waves of nausea, pain, and cold that wracked his body, determined to execute the plan with precision. Finally, he saw Carson’s Porsche approach from a distance, its lights off. It came to a stop, and he knew Carson was assessing the situation. Mike gave a small wave to him from the cab of the pickup. Tommy ducked down further, hoping his bike wasn’t visible. They had tested all of this out, but somehow the light from the parking lot seemed brighter, and there was less cloud cover to obscure the moon. Can’t help anything now. It’s show time.
Carson’s vehicle crept forward, slowly approaching and then stopping until it was fully in the parking lot, exposed. He knew Carson had to be making his final decision at this point. His dick and his ego will win over his brain.
The Porsche drove over to Mike’s pickup and parked, leaving an empty space between them. Tommy watched as Carson exited and walked over to Mike’s open driver-side window and they began a conversation.
Movement in the direction Carson’s car had come from caught his eye. He saw a police car approaching from the road. Jesus, no. He turned back to Carson and Mike and saw that Carson was now crouched next to Mike’s truck. Mike must have laid down in the
front seat, out of sight. Tommy’s heart was racing, as he knew everyone else’s must have been.
I can’t afford a fucking heart attack right now. He turned back to the cruiser and watched as it entered the parking lot. He ran the scenarios through his mind, wondering if Carson had set up a search of the club or whether he was onto their plan and set up a takedown of them. Neither would be a desirable outcome.
He briefly considered how he might pull the plug on the plan and get everyone away safely, but there was no option. In their confidence, they hadn’t formulated a bail-out scenario. If they were going down, they were all going down together. I got to pull this off, for Bobby.
The cruiser was now circling the building, a relief to Tommy. Just a routine patrol, checking things out. One lap and he’ll move on.
But as the cruiser came around the building, instead of leaving it stopped, facing them all but fortunately not from a position where it could see Carson. Tommy could see the glow of a phone lighting up inside the police car. The officer was making a call. For several long, agonizing minutes he watched as the officer carried on a casual conversation with someone, laughing periodically.
He heard voices and peeked up to see two men exiting the bar. What now. They walked to a car facing Mike’s truck, where Carson was clearly in view of them. If they hadn’t been so absorbed in each other, they would’ve surely seen Carson crouching next to it. Tommy watched and listened as they flirted, each wanting the same thing, both tentative. For chrissake, somebody make a move. They began making out, and then he heard the door locks pop. Both men got into the car.
When the driver started it and turned on his headlights, Carson was briefly illuminated until the driver turned to leave the lot. Adrenaline surged as Tommy checked to make sure Carson was watching the departing car, and not looking in his direction.
He checked back to where the police car had been, and the cop was now gone. Carson stood back up, and he and Mike were back in conversation. Keep him occupied, Mike. Just a few more minutes.
Tommy took one more visual sweep of the area, and everything looked good. He picked up the binoculars again and focused in on Carson’s feet. All set; now or never. He withdrew a laser pointer from his jacket pocket and pointed it beneath the truck. He pressed the button to give two flashes of light, then picked the binoculars back up from his neck strap.
Tommy noticed a shift of movement and looked above the binoculars. Carson seemed to catch the laser’s beam from the corner of his eye and was looking his way. Oh, shit. He looked back through the binoculars at Carson’s feet, just long enough to see Molletier’s hands extend from below the truck and snap a cuff onto one of his ankles. Mike immediately started the truck and backed up, exposing a long length of stainless steel cable attached to the cuff on Carson’s ankle and leading to the darkness of the abandoned lot next to the parking area. Molletier, now exposed, began to rise from his prone position, smiling at Carson.
Carson looked at him, then down in surprise at his leg, and tried to run. The cable stretched taut between his foot and the other end at the back frame of Tommy’s bike. Tommy felt a tug as Carson tumbled to the pavement. Fish on the line.
Tommy turned back to the bike, revved the throttle, and popped the clutch. The bike lurched and then stalled. In a panic, he pushed the starter button, looking back toward Carson. He’d regained his feet and was yanking at Mike’s door, trying to open it, but Mike had thankfully raised the window and locked it.
Tommy continued to try to start the bike, and then heard the death groan of the starter motor as the battery died. He looked back—Carson was now straining to reach for his own car door. That’s where his phone and gun are. Tommy felt the bike being tugged backward by Carson’s sheer strength and jammed it into gear to try to stop it. Damn it. We’re fucked.
Something suddenly clicked in his addled, diseased mind. Something from long ago, back in his own riding days as a happy teenager mounting his own barely running Triumph to go into town in search of girls to impress. His leg followed the muscle memory and slid down the side frame of the bike, and he found the kickstart lever exactly where it should be. He flipped it out with his foot, and with all of the strength he could summon, he rose up and then threw his entire weight down onto the lever, simultaneously pulling in the clutch and twisting the throttle at just the right moment.
The bike burst to life with a muted roar, and he looked back once more to see Carson turning in his direction to see what the noise was, his hand having just reached the door to his Porsche. Tommy popped the clutch again and twisted the throttle, this time pulling the bike up into a wheelie and on its way across the vacant lot.
The front wheel came back down, and the large man behind him was suddenly yanked into the air, then slammed down to the parking lot. His body was dragged behind Tommy’s bike across the trash-strewn lot toward the warehouse, twisting and rolling. Adios, motherfucker. This one’s for Bobby. Enjoy the ride, roadkill.
33 Revenge
Tommy pulled the sputtering bike into the warehouse and quickly hopped off. Despite the cold sweat dripping from his head through to his feet, he was careful not to remove his helmet, heavy jacket, or gloves.
He walked the length of the steel cable attached to the rear of the motorcycle until the other end appeared. He peered through the dark to assess how much of Carson was left, and whether he was still alive.
The big man’s clothes were mostly stripped from his body, and a great deal of his skin was gone from the half-mile drag through the vacant lots behind the bike. He reminded Tommy of a large side of beef in the meat warehouse, dark red and raw.
Tommy bent down toward the man’s head to listen for any sound or breath. At that moment, a rattle and gurgle emerged from the unrecognizable face, and an arm twitched. “So, you’re still alive, motherfucker. Good. You hear me, bitch?”
He kicked the man in the ribs, eliciting a groan and more gurgling and rattling. “You trying to say something, Carson? Big tough man, aren’t you? Can’t talk? Talk to me, asshole. You always had a lot to say before. Did you like your rough ride? I think I give a better rough ride than you, don’t I?”
Tommy began to worry about time. They’d planned for no wasted time, in case someone called the police about the suspicious activity in the parking lot. He stared down at Carson, who was beginning to make horrendous, inhuman sounds. “Goodbye, human scum. This is from me, and Bobby, and every poor bastard whose life you made miserable. Time to go, Carson. Meet your maker, you miserable son of a bitch.”
He placed his boot on the man’s throat, and stood on it, applying as much weight as he could without losing his balance. When the choking sounds stopped, and he leaned into it further, he heard the soft cracking sounds of vertebrae, like distant twigs being stepped on in a forest.
He bent down and listened again until he was satisfied, then issued another kick to the man’s ribs. It was like kicking an overstuffed bag of garbage. No response.
He produced a key, removed the leg cuff and wound the cable back up, tying it to the motorcycle’s luggage rack. He mounted the bike and drove off.
When he was a block away from the salvage yard, he cut the engine and rolled the bike in. The gate was unlocked, as Lukas had promised it would be. He put the bike under the large sheets of scrap metal that Lukas had shown him, next to the massive car-crushing machine that would dispose of it the next day. He removed all of his clothing, boots, and gear and placed them into the burn barrel, and changed into what had been left for him in the plastic bag under the metal. He picked up the nearby gas can, doused the barrel, and then lit and threw in a match.
His part done, he walked toward the salvage yard exit. The moon was out and seemed to smile down on him. What a nice night.
34 Exit
“Thanks for squeezing me in before office hours, Doc,” Tommy said. His mind was spinning, and he struggled to not allow his exhaustion and grief to overtake him. He didn’t want to tip off the doctor.
Dr.
Carson sat back in his chair. “No problem, but we can only take a few minutes. So, you’re refusing to go with the chemo?”
“That’s right,” Tommy said adamantly. “No more of that. The cure is worse than the disease.”
“The disease is terminal, Tommy.”
“I get that. I don’t want to go out that way. It’s not for me. It’ll disable me, and I have things I still need to do. I might have to travel; I have an undercover work opportunity I’m interested in.”
The comment caused the doctor to raise an eyebrow.
“What are my other options?” Tommy asked. “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
“The best thing I can think of is to try to go back on the original medicine you were on. We had good results with that; your type of cancer reacted to it well. You’ve been off it long enough that the resistance you developed may be gone now.”
“Can you give me enough to get me through a few months?”
“Tommy, you can’t go that long without checking in so that we can monitor your progress. It’s a requirement for the drug.”
“Okay, I can do that,” he lied. “Can you give me a script for a month then, and we’ll see how it goes?” The doctor appeared reluctant, and Tommy added: “I can check in by phone in two weeks.”
“I suppose, Tommy.” The doctor wrote the script, along with one for nausea and one for self-administered steroid injections, and handed them to him.
Tommy thanked him and left the room as quickly as civility would allow. He went directly to his car and got to work, using the skills that decades on the force had taught him about forgery to fill out the two clean pages he had stolen from Dr. Mason’s prescription pad. His disease and treatment, the stuffiness in the car, and above all the grief that he was trying to suppress were building his nausea to a crescendo, and he fought it off. When he had finished, he turned to the passenger seat and asked Molletier if he was ready.
Vigilante Angels Trilogy Page 28