“Benjamin,” Alex said in that matter-of-fact tone they all knew so well.
“Yes, sir?” Benny responded.
“I want you to take Jordan, and the ladies, to my plane. Valentino will escort you.”
Jordan frowned. “But I wanna wait on my mother,” he said with a whine in his voice. He knew he sounded like some kid, but he couldn’t help it. He loved Alex and Benny and Faye and Lucinda. He loved them to death. But Kari was his world.
She was Alex’s world too, but he also had a responsibility to keep Jordan safe. He looked the fourteen-year-old in his troubled eyes. “You will do as I tell you to do,” he said firmly. “Go with your Uncle Benny.”
Jordan didn’t like it. Everybody could see that. But he was first and last an obedient young man. Kari wouldn’t have it any other way. His face was scrunched-up with disappointment, but he complied. “Yes, sir,” he said.
But as Jordan was about to leave, Alex pulled him back, hugging him, and whispered in his ear. “Which police officer planted those drugs in your mother’s car?” he asked him.
Jordan looked around. When he saw JimBob, his eyes blazed. “Him,” he said, “and his chief. But I don’t see the chief.”
Alex nodded. “Okay,” he said, patting Jordan on the arm. “Go with Benjamin.”
And although Benny didn’t like leaving Kari any more than Jordan did, he knew Alex was in charge of this train. He did as Alex had instructed. He gathered up Jordan and Faye and Lucinda and followed Tino out of the station.
Alex kept the local lawyers around, not because he felt they were of any use whatsoever – they were actually useless. But he wanted them to bear witness to what was happening in that station should it become necessary. He was praying it didn’t become necessary. He didn’t want to subject Kari to any more torture than she’d already been subjected to. But his heart was troubled.
And when Kari finally came out of the stockade, or wherever they held her, his heart began to pound. Not a scratch appeared to be on her. She wasn’t physically harmed. But Alex knew her truth would be, as it always was, in her big, brown eyes. And, to his great relief, he didn’t see pain there, or sadness like he saw in Jordan’s eyes. He saw anger. Hard, cold anger. Which was exactly what he wanted to see. They had taken her through hell, and she didn’t like it at all, and she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
And to prove he had read her right, Kari didn’t run to Alex the way she normally did when she saw him. She didn’t throw herself into his arms. She wasn’t about to let those clowns see her weakness. She, instead, acknowledged his presence, he acknowledged hers, and then they both headed out of that place.
It wasn’t until they were on the sidewalk, heading for her Rolls Royce waiting for them, did they say a word to each other. Two SUVs, packed with local men hired for security in case something went down, were also parked and ready.
“Where’s Jordan?” were her very first words.
“Released and heading for my plane,” Alex said.
Kari nodded. She was relieved.
“Did they harm you?” Alex asked her.
“Physically? No,” she said. “But they beat up Jordan. I heard him screaming. It was the most helpless moment of my life.”
“They roughed him up,” Alex said, to put it mildly, “but he’s okay. We’ll get him checked out when we get to Florida. But he’ll be alright.”
Kari exhaled. She was always worried more about Jordan than about herself. And when they got into her Rolls, and Alex’s security detail closed the door behind them, it all came crashing down. The fear she had felt when they planted those drugs in her trunk. The agony she felt for her son. It all crashed. And Kari broke down. She leaned her shaking body against Alex. And Alex pulled her onto his lap, and he held her with both hands.
“Get us away from this fucking place,” he ordered the driver who would drive the Rolls on to Florida after he dropped them off at the airport. And he didn’t hesitate. He sped away from that hellish place.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As soon as Kari climbed the steps of that plane and walked inside, Jordan was waiting at the door near the cockpit.
But instead of mother and son embracing, Kari’s face dropped and her hands went to her son’s battered face. “Oh, my baby!” she cried. “Those bastards did that to you?”
“It’s okay, Ma,” Jordan said. “I’m good.”
But Kari knew better than that. “He needs a doctor, Alex!” Kari insisted. “Why didn’t you get him a local doctor?”
“I’m alright, Ma. I don’t need any doctor. I’m good! Are you okay?”
“Come here,” Kari said as she took Jordan by the hand and all but dragged him into Alex’s huge bedroom aboard his plane, and then into his en suite bathroom.
Faye, who was sitting on the plane with Benny and Lucinda, smiled. “You might as well call a doctor, Alex,” she said. “I know Kari. She’s not going to rest until that boy has been thoroughly checked out.”
“I concur,” Lucinda said.
“As do I,” said Benny. “She will get off this plane and take him to a doctor herself if you aren’t careful.”
But Alex was ahead of them. “I’ve already considered that possibility,” he said.
“A doctor’s on his way?” Faye asked.
“Yes, but not here. I’m not allowing them to spend another second in this town.” Then he went over to the cockpit. “How long before takeoff?” he asked his pilot.
“Ten minutes, sir,” responded his pilot at the controls.
“Okay,” Alex said and took off, too: to check on Kari and Jordan in his bedroom.
Lucinda smiled and shook her head. “He is such a man! Where’s my Prince Charming?” she asked.
“Behind the Prince Charming you declared was your Prince Charming yesterday,” said Faye.
“And behind the one you declared was your Prince Charming the day before that,” said Benny.
“And behind,” Faye began saying, but Lucinda cut her off.
“Alright already,” she said and Faye and Benny laughed. Lucinda smiled. “I get the point!”
Alex, however, got a rush of emotion himself when he went into his bedroom, and around to his bathroom, and saw Kari, with Jordan sitting on the edge of the tub, cleaning his bruises. It was all she could do on this plane, Alex knew, but at least she was doing something. He never dreamed he’d want to have children again after the fiasco he had with the two he had fathered, but he would love for Kari to be the mother of any child of his. She knew how it was done.
He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms. Jordan looked at him and smiled. “Thanks for rescuing us,” he said.
Alex smiled too. “I had to,” he said, “before your mother took control.”
Jordan laughed. Even Kari managed to smile. “Whatever, Alex!” she said.
“A doctor has been contacted. He’ll meet the plane in North Carolina.”
Kari nodded. “Thank you,” she said.
“Although I don’t need a doctor,” said Jordan.
“You know that, and I know that. But your mother doesn’t know that. And, as you know, your mother is never wrong.”
“Please don’t tell her that, Mister D,” Jordan insisted, and Kari laughed.
Alex smiled, too.
“Since a doctor is going to look after me soon,” Jordan asked his mother, “can I be relieved of your exam?”
“Boy, go on,” Kari said and allowed him to get up. “But if you start getting a bad headache, don’t come running to me!”
“I won’t,” Jordan said with a smile and was about to hurry out of that bathroom. But then he looked at his mother, and his smile was gone. “But for real, Ma,” he said, “they didn’t hurt you or anything? They didn’t . . .”
Jordan couldn’t finish his sentence, and Alex stared at Kari too.
Kari knew what Jordan meant, and she exhaled. “Physically? No,” she said to her son. “They didn’t lay a hand on me like that. But they d
on’t always go for the physical. People like that want to break you down mentally. That’s the victory for them. But you can’t let them have that victory. Not ever. You can’t ever let them break you down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jordan said with all sincerity, and then left out of the bathroom.
Alex smiled. “I see they lost that battle with you,” he said.
“Damn right they did,” Kari said as she turned on the bath water. And she frowned. “They had to,” she added.
Alex walked over to her, and he turned her to him. He placed his hands on either side of her small shoulders. “Good,” he said. “And you were right what you said to Jordan. Never let those bastards win.”
Kari nodded. She and Alex had that same kind of rough mentality. But what was unspoken was the fact that they couldn’t do anything about it. Whatever way Alex got them out, either through bribes or coercion, they had to be grateful just to be out. All those blacks they saw in those holding cells weren’t so fortunate at all. Kari knew that.
And when Alex went in to give her a passionate kiss on her lips, she turned away from him. “Let me clean up first,” she said. “Please. I feel so dirty. I feel so unclean!”
Alex understood what she meant. And he nodded his head. “Of course,” he said. “You take a good bath and I’ll check on Jordan.”
She smiled. Alex was always understanding. And then he left.
But as soon as he left, she felt cold again. And alone. And sad. But she couldn’t allow feelings to overtake her. “Fuck them,” she said out loud, and began removing the clothes she planned to burn.
“Where’s Alex?”
Kari had just gotten out of the shower onboard Alex’s plane, and the plane was taxing to the terminal. “And where are we?” she added, as she bent down and looked out of one of the side windows.
Benny looked at Kari. She looked gorgeous, he thought, even though she was wearing a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt. “North Carolina,” he said as he glanced down the length of her.
“And don’t ask us which town,” Lucinda added, “because we haven’t a clue.”
They were sitting around a table, with Benny and Jordan as partners, and Faye and Lucinda as partners, playing cards. The boys against the girls. But Kari wasn’t settled enough to be that normal. She went to Jordan and sat beside him. “Where’s Alex?” she asked Jordan specifically.
“I thought he was on the plane,” Jordan responded, “but Uncle Benny said he wasn’t.”
Kari looked at Benny. Benny threw in another card. “That’s why we’re landing in North Carolina. He’s going to meet up with us here.”
But that didn’t tell Kari anything. Where was he? Why didn’t he get on the plane with them? He got on with her, when they first arrived at the airstrip in Virginia. But now they were telling her he didn’t stay onboard? It was too much to even digest. And she couldn’t. Not right now. She just couldn’t! She was still too antsy and traumatized.
“Why don’t you play my hand, Kare,” Faye said, “and try to get your mind off of what you guys went through. It’ll do you a world of good.”
But Kari shook her head. “Thanks, Faye, but I’m okay,” she said like she believed it, although none of them did.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Chief Duncan heard the knocks on the door of his small Virginia home, but he looked through the peephole before answering. He didn’t like visitors and his men knew it. Who the fuck would be disturbing him that time of night anyway?
But when he saw who it was, he frowned. Didn’t his men say that plane had already left? He opened the door. “You got your blacks,” he said. “What more you want?”
Alex, dressed casually in jeans and a black bomber jacket, with gloves and a baseball cap on also, did not become exasperated. He kept his cool. “May I come in?” he asked.
The chief hesitated, but he figured Drakos could need his help again. And at the end of that help, more money might be involved. So he stepped aside and allowed Alex to walk in.
That was his first mistake.
Alex walked in calmly the way a man invited in should have, and he closed the door behind himself. But that was the beginning and the end of his civility. Because, as soon as that door was closed, Alex turned around to the chief. And he leaned back, balled up his fist, and knocked the shit out of him.
The chief was shocked, and his legs were wobbly. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“What am I doing?” Alex responded. “You arrested my woman, and let your men fuck over my boy, and you want to know what I’m doing? This is what I’m doing,” Alex said angrily and punched the chief again, and again, and again.
The chief’s knees buckled, but he did not fall. He, instead, ran for the kitchen. That was the closest he could get to a weapon. But Alex was right behind him, and just as the chief was about to grab a butcher’s knife from the butcher block on the drainboard, Alex grabbed the chief and, with herculean strength, lifted him up on that same drainboard and slid him across that countertop like a whale on a slippery slide. The chief slid so fast and so far that he hit his head on the wall at the end of the counter, causing him to feel it to the marrow of his bones.
He thought Alex was through with him, as the pain ripped through his body. But that was his second mistake.
“Why are you doing this to me?” the chief had the nerve to ask. “We had a deal!”
“A deal?” Alex asked. “You mean that deal I was forced to make to get you to do what you should have done from the beginning and never have arrested them? That deal?”
Alex clenched his teeth. “This is what I think about your motherfucking deal,” he said as he grabbed the chief from that countertop and, with one hand holding him up, he punched the shit out of him with his second hand. He punched him drunk. He punched him until he was bleeding profusely from every orifice in his face.
And when the chief was nothing more than wobbly legs being held up by the catch of his collar, Alex let that collar go. The chief fell down, onto his knees, and then he fell over.
But Alex thought about Kari and Jordan and the terror that man had subjected them to. He thought about what would have been their fate had they not known somebody like him with power to grease that fucker’s fat palms to get them out of there. He thought about how Kari might have spent the rest of her life in prison over his bullshit. And the more he thought, the angrier he became. And he grabbed Chief Duncan up again.
But this time it was the chief who was about to endure bullshit. It was the chief who was about to endure terror. Alex slammed the chief’s back against the refrigerator, pulled out a loaded magnum with a silencer on the end, and placed it to the chief’s head. The chief’s big, bloodshot eyes widened, and he stared in disbelief at that gun.
“This is for every black man you framed,” Alex said. “This is for every human being you took inside of your jail cells and perverted the cause of justice. This is for Jordan Grant,” Alex continued in a voice so upset it was cracking, “who would never harm anybody, but now was going to look at every white man with suspicion and hate because of your sorry ass!”
Alex knew he needed to calm down. But he couldn’t. “You tried and convicted all of those innocent people,” he said. “All of those poor, powerless, innocent people. Now I’m trying and convicting you. And your sentence, Chief Motherfucker, is death!”
And Alex pulled the trigger and put a bullet right through that chief’s skull.
The chief’s eyes batted uncontrollably, and he began fighting for breath, but then he gave it all up. Alex felt him go limp, and then, this time, he let him fall.
And then he went through that house, found his briefcase filled with all that money, and took it with him. Nobody remotely related to that asshole was living off of a dime of Alex’s money. He also grabbed the butcher’s knife the chief had tried to grab himself.
He left out the same way he came: through the front door.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The honky-tonk on Brandle
n Street was overflowing with drunks and sluts and everybody else in between. Kenny Chesney blared over the stereo, singing Get Along, and more than a handful were trying to out-sing the singer:
“Met a man wearin’ a t-shirt,
said ‘Virginia is for lovers.’
Had a Bible in his left hand
and a bottle in the other.”
JimBob, whose real name was Willie Brown, was paying his bar tab and nudging a woman who was sitting at the bar to go home with him tonight. But she grinned her toothless smile and said he was too cheat to waste her time with. JimBob smiled, too, because he knew it was true, and left.
Further back, at a table alone, Alex wasn’t recognizable. He wore the same jeans and black jacket he wore at the chief’s house, but this time he wore his baseball cap further down on his forehead. He didn’t fit in, but that only made people ignore him even more. Which was exactly what he was going for.
After JimBob left out of the bar, he drank the last of his beer, sat the mug on the table, dropped a twenty-dollar tip down, and left too.
Outside was dark and quiet although the music was still blaring over the speakers. But it was blaring with a muffled sound. It could be heard clearly right where Alex stood, but not so clearly where JimBob stood, who was over in the parking lot, standing outside his old Dodge Neon, fumbling with his keys.
He wasn’t drunk, but he was close. Would probably flunk a breathalyzer, he thought to himself as he continued to fumble with his keys. But who the shit was going to do anything about it? “I’m the fucking police!” he said out loud. Then he finally got his car door open.
And as soon as he sat in that car, closed the door and rolled down the window, he was about to crank up to leave. But a hand reached into his car and stopped him.
Alex Drakos_His Dangerous Affair Page 10