Rage Factor

by Chris Rogers

  Louis Boggs. She’d heard the name somewhere. Dixie nudged a gingham curtain aside to look out at the night sky. The world looked beautiful at this early hour, especially through the tapestry of pine and pecan trees that encircled her home. Wishing life could be as peaceful as it felt, she fastened the balloon string to the curtain tieback. “When can we do this?”

  “Just a minute.” Brew’s voice became muffled, as if he’d placed his hand over the phone. Then he came back. “Ski says she’ll take you to where Loser bunks down, but no promise he’ll be around tonight. Meet her at the Diamond Shamrock on Memorial, just east of the park.”

  “It’ll take me twenty minutes.”

  “She’ll be there.”

  Dixie grabbed some clothes from the bedroom closet and clumped back into the kitchen, pulling them on and cursing the bulky cast that refused to slide through any but the widest jeans. She had split the seams on a pair of her older ones, but they must be in the laundry. She grabbed some scissors and cut her way into these.

  Fifteen minutes later, she turned off the 610 Loop onto Memorial Drive. Worrying about Brenda had kept her awake late into the night. If the Avenging Angels had stopped with one victim, Coombs, Dixie would simply forget it, bury her concerns, and move on. And maybe they had stopped there. She wished she believed they had. She hoped it was only her own fertile imagination inventing the connection between the Coombs reprisal and the disappearance of Patricia Carrera.

  If Brenda would just talk to her, tell her the venting of anger had taken its course, Dixie would stop worrying. Brenda Benson had a soft heart but a strong survival attitude. She’d realize the chances of getting caught for the Coombs assault were low, with the Houston police as angry as anyone else about the jury’s decision. But a continuing crusade was certain disaster. HPD didn’t like civilians trying to do their job. If a pattern of vigilantism became apparent, they’d step up the investigation—and even if Brenda were only guilty by association, it would cost the prosecutor her job and reputation.

  Dixie stopped for a signal light and spied the green glow of the Diamond Shamrock sign several blocks ahead. Glancing at her watch, she decided right now might be the one time she’d catch Brenda at home. The prosecutor would be pissed, being awakened at this hour, but Dixie could handle pissed. She punched the number on her cell phone.

  After the third ring, the answering machine picked up. Her friend was either a heavy sleeper or keeping strange hours. Dixie left a message. Turning into the Diamond Shamrock station, she powered the phone off and began searching the darkness for a willowy young woman with platinum hair, delicate features, and deadly hands. In a sheath at the small of her back, Ski carried a set of stilettos. Dixie had seen the target she used for practice, the bull’s-eye mushy from being punctured with a consistently tight grouping. Ski wasn’t her real name, of course. All the Gypsy Filchers used street names.

  Ski emerged from a narrow shadow flanking the old building, dressed in her usual black turtleneck and black jeans. She moved like a cat, swift and graceful, sliding into the passenger seat of the Targa, carrying a small grocery sack, folded over at the top.

  “Dumb choice of wheels, Flannigan. You think Loser’s going to talk when you climb out of a rolling red money pit smelling like law?”

  Good point. Dixie had grown so comfortable tooling around in the Targa, not having to worry about the clutch, she hadn’t considered how it would look to a homeless. “How far are we going? Maybe we can park it somewhere and walk.” Dixie had brought her cane.

  The girl nodded. “Drive around the comer to the Skylane Apartments. Park at the curb.”

  Dixie eased back onto Memorial Drive, glad to hear a note of cooperation in Ski’s voice. Chronologically, the girl was roughly Sarina’s age, but in street years at least a decade older. College had never been an option, high school probably just a nuisance. Dixie wondered if introducing the two girls might awaken Sarina’s awareness of how good she had it.

  The Skylane Apartments were vintage 1980s, new for the neighborhood, actually. This end of Memorial Drive had been gentrified many times over. The building provided covered parking, by extending the second floor out farther than the first, but no guard or gate. Dixie found a spot where she could pull the Targa well off the street. She followed Ski, with her grocery sack, into the parking area. It smelled of motor oil and trapped exhaust fumes.

  Ski switched on a penlight and focused it into the backseat of the first car they came to.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for Loser.” Ski swept the slender beam into a car on the other side of them.

  Homeless. Naturally, he wouldn’t be in one of the apartments. An abandoned car would be a good home, if your only other option was a concrete doorway. But none of these cars, Fords, Chevys, Toyotas mostly, looked abandoned.

  Ski moved on, shining the penlight into each vehicle.

  “Why here?” Dixie asked. “Does he know someone who lets him sleep in their backseat?”

  “Shhh. If he hears us, hell run.”

  It took ten minutes to finish combing the parking lot, with no sign of Loser Boggs. When Ski headed back toward the Porsche, Dixie asked, “So what do we do now?”

  “Go to the next set of apartments. This is his neighborhood.”

  Dixie didn’t have to ask why this neighborhood. Street people typically found an area that suited them and stayed close. Maybe he’d grown up here, either on the lower income side, which would indicate homelessness due to poverty or drugs or general laziness, or the high income side, which would suggest mental illness. Not that poor people didn’t sometimes have loose screws, but schizophrenia was one thing money couldn’t cure, and it produced a tidal wave of homeless after the government cutbacks on mental health facilities.

  The next apartment complex was definitely upscale—Mercurys, Accords, the occasional Cadillac.

  “What does he do,” Dixie asked, “break into a different car every night?”

  “He doesn’t break in, just tries all the doors until he finds one unlocked.”

  Moving with her feline grace, Ski went through the same drill, sliding between the cars and focusing the penlight into one backseat, then another. They’d searched two-thirds of the lot when the narrow beam fell on a mound of curly brown hair. Ski waved Dixie back, then opened the Buick’s rear door.

  “Loser?” She spoke softly, like a mother waking a child. “It’s Ski. Can we talk?”

  The mound of hair sat up. The car’s interior light came on, and Dixie caught a glimpse of curly beard beneath a long, downturned nose.

  “Ski?” the single word sounded both surprised and agreeable.

  “I brought a friend, Loser. Can we all talk?”

  “Friend? Where?”

  “She’s right here.” Ski opened the door wider. “I brought some milk and Strawberry Newtons.”

  “Newtons.” He scooted to make room. “Come in, Ski. Bring the Newtons.”

  “I want my friend to come, too, Loser. Is that all right with you?” Ski had made no move to get into the car. She waved Dixie closer.

  “Your friend?” He sounded skeptical as his gaze swept toward Dixie, the moisture of his eyes reflecting the orange light of a nearby sodium vapor lamp.

  “She can be your friend, too. I brought lots of Newtons.”

  “Okay.”

  He scooted to the far side of the velour-covered seat. Ski got in and handed Loser the paper sack. Dixie leaned her cane against the car and slid in beside her. Loser Boggs wore three tattered sweaters, only the bottom one fully buttoned, and a pair of corduroy pants that looked as if another pair might be hiding beneath them. His collar-length brown hair appeared clean, and his beard soft. He opened the bag eagerly.

  Dixie had questioned skittish witnesses before. She knew not to move fast, though she wanted to start shooting questions at him. Ski had done such a good job so far, Dixie decided to let her continue.

  As he popped an entire Strawberry Newton into h
is mouth, then turned his attention to opening the milk, Dixie glanced at her watch, wondering how soon the Buick’s owner would be needing the car. The sun wouldn’t be up for several hours.

  Ski looked at Dixie, and when she nodded, turned back to Loser. “You told me you saw something scary in the park on Monday.”

  He fished another cookie out of the package, started to pop it in his mouth, then seemed to realize he wasn’t the only one in the car, and offered it to Ski.

  “Thank you. Loser, what was it you saw in the park?”

  He studied the mouth of the milk carton. “Nothing.”

  “But you said—”

  “Heard something scary.” He gulped the milk. “Saw some people, then heard them.”

  His words were hesitant, but clear and well formed.

  “What exactly did you hear?” Dixie asked carefully.

  He darted a suspicious look from Dixie to Ski.

  “It’s okay,” Ski murmured. “She’s a friend.”

  He finished chewing another cookie, eyeing Dixie the whole time.

  “Heard someone getting hit.”

  “How could you tell? Screams, shouts … blows—?”

  “Grunts. The kind when someone’s face is in a pillow, Dad going after him with a strap, sayin’, ‘Don’t cry or you’ll get ten more whacks just as hard.’”

  He popped another cookie in his mouth. Dixie noticed he no longer looked anxious, just suspicious.

  “You said you saw them…?”

  “Between the trees. Walking in the park.”

  “Men? Women?”

  “One of them was small, a woman, I think. All dressed in dark clothes—except this one guy.”

  “Guy? You could tell?”

  “White shirt, suit pants. Like he’d taken off his jacket after work, loosened his tie. Like that. The others all wore jeans, dark jackets, and those knitted caps that fit down over your ears.” He looked at Ski and smiled. “I don’t like hats.”

  “You have nice hair,” she said, smiling back.

  “You have nice hair.” He offered her another cookie, but she hadn’t even tasted the first one.

  Something about Loser Boggs’ smile triggered a memory, and Dixie figured she’d probably had him on a docket at one time or another. Trespassing, maybe.

  “How many people were there?”

  “Four.”

  “And only one was a woman?”

  “Didn’t say that. Dark. Hair covered with those knitted caps?” He shrugged. “One might’ve been a woman, or a short man. Maybe all men. Maybe all women.”

  “Except the one in suit pants.”

  He nodded and scarfed up another cookie.

  “Did you see his face?”

  “Nope. Had a bag over his head.”

  Shit! It had to ye been Coombs. Dixie wanted to ask Loser if he saw someone being taken into the woods with a bag over his head, why he hadn’t done anything. But she knew. Street survival meant keeping your eyes and your mouth shut.

  They talked while Loser finished the cookies and milk, but she learned nothing else of value. Brenda was taller than Dixie’s five-foot-two, but not a lot taller. She might be the one Loser guessed to be a female. But Regan was fairly small, too. Clarissa was tall—not as tall as her husband, who had suggested his wife carry a gun. Clarissa wouldn’t be a victims’ rights volunteer if she didn’t believe victims needed protection, and her husband obviously shared her beliefs. Dixie recalled Clarissa’s loud accusations at the Suds Club, claiming Brenda’s protection methods hadn’t worked. Had she and her gun-toting husband decided to follow their protective instincts a step further?

  Dixie also recalled Lowell Foxworth’s statement that his wife had hardened after their daughter’s hospitalization. Grace Foxworth had to be nearly six feet tall. Dressed in jeans and a dark jacket, and viewed from a distance, she’d pass for a man. And as much as Dixie had liked Lowell, he obviously carried an enormous hatred for the man who destroyed his family.

  Having started poking around for her friend’s sake, Dixie realized she was now just as concerned about the Foxworths, the Thomases, and Regan Salles. What worried her almost as much as the police catching up with them was their own potential for self-destruction. Decent people couldn’t live easy with lawlessness and brutality, especially the vicious sort of assault issued on Coombs. Anger and guilt would surely start to eat at one or another of the Avenging Angels, until they turned on each other. She truly hoped their vengeance had run its course.

  By the time she arrived home, the sky had lightened. In an hour Dixie’s clock radio would signal time to get dressed and pick up Sarina. She entered the house silently. In the dim glow of a nightlight, Parker’s sailboat snapshot caught her attention. She picked it up. She liked the idea of a romantic moonlight sail. She liked even more that he had arranged it to not interfere with her job.

  At times Parker’s caring made her feel so damn good. So why at other times did it made her feel smothered, manipulated, forced to choose between doing what made her feel good and what she knew was right?

  Stripping her clothes off as she walked, Dixie gimped softly into the bedroom and drew back the curtains to glance out. The first ribbons of melon-colored sunlight wouldn’t show for another half hour or so. And today was only Thursday. She could wait until after their moonlight sail to decide what to do about the weekend. She slipped under the covers and snuggled against Parker’s broad, warm back.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Sid Carlson flexed his fingers around the monkey wrench and concentrated on the noises outside the trunk. Since the car stopped rolling, five, ten minutes ago, he’d heard low voices, doors banging, scuffling sounds like something being dragged. Now somebody was fartin around with the trunk lock. Sid hoped it was John, ’cause he was going to take the little fucker’s head off.

  Hearing a key slide into the lock, Sid gripped the wrench tighter, bracing his feet against the floor of the trunk. He’d hunkered himself into a ball, legs folded under him, ready to spring as soon as the lid opened. His knees hurt like hell from being bent double; he just hoped they wouldn’t freeze up when he needed them.

  In the darkness, he’d felt around with his fingers until he located the seam where the trunk lid joined the body, and now he stared at that spot, braced for the thinnest sliver of light to show. Wouldn’t actually be light, of course, unless the sonofabitch parked under a street lamp, but Sid was watching for the slightest change from absolute blackness.

  The lock clicked. A slip of gray showed through the crack. Sid unfolded, pushing up the lid with his back and swinging the monkey wrench in one swift motion.

  He missed—FUCK!—and swung again, connecting this time and hearing a muffled curse as he fell headfirst to the ground, cracking his chin, getting a whiff of exhaust fumes. The wrench flew from his hand, clinked across the pavement, landing somewhere to his right. He tried to scramble after it, but one of the cocksuckers grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back, trying to pull him to his feet.

  Sid wrapped an arm around the fuckers knees and heaved, pulling the sonofabitch down, hearing his tailbone strike the ground with a whump and him shrieking like a goddamn woman. The fucker would scream a hell of a lot harder before Sid got through. He snaked up on top, pinned the fucker to the ground, and sat on his stomach. Then Sid shot out a fist, a hammer blow to the fucker’s nose. Blood spurted in Sid’s face.

  Hot damn! Nothing he liked better’n a good fight.

  He reared back again, ready to loosen a few teeth with the next punch, but somebody grabbed his arm, somebody else kicked him in the head. He felt the boot heel flatten his ear, snapping his neck hard and making a popping sound inside his head. Then someone grabbed his other arm, lifting him up, dragging him across the concrete, ankles bumping over a threshold.

  He blinked in the sudden dim light. Saw a clutter of boxes marked Bacardi, Budweiser, Chardonnay, Chivas, a storeroom, maybe, smelling of dust and rat turds, the boxes alphabetical. Stupid way
to warehouse liquor, in Sid’s mind. Smarter to shove all the hooch in one corner, all the beer in another, get rid of the fuckin wine. Sour damn crap nobody but women and queers drank, anyway.

  And then he saw Gary, and Sid’s stomach curled in on itself like a clam drying in its shell.

  The fuckers had tied Gary to a wooden pallet loaded with boxes in the center of the room, Gary naked except for the rope looped around his neck, lashing his wrists and connecting him to the pallet. Gary was on his knees, slumped over a case of Miller Lite, a single shop light hanging overhead, the big guy’s eyes wide open but not seeing, cheeks streaked with dirt, mouth working with no words coming out. Sid knew Gary was reliving The Nightmare.

  “Cut him loose,” Sid said quietly. Not yelling or anything, but real reasonable, ’cause he wanted it done now, RIGHT NOW, without any flak, and then they could do what the hell they wanted with him as long as Gary was out of it. “Cut him loose and I won’t give you no more trouble.”

  “Trouble?” A squeaky voice, hell, it was a woman, sounding like she had a cold. Or a nose bleed. “We’re the ones dishing out trouble, little man.”

  They had peeled off Sid’s leather jacket and shirt, tied his hands behind him, and now the one Sid’d hit, the woman, was pulling off Sid’s clothes. Her face was bloody. Sid wished it’d been that little cocksucker John he’d hit, but he wasn’t sorry about the woman. Seeing the blank terror in Gary’s eyes, Sid wished he’d shoved the cunt’s fuckin nose bone straight into her brain.

  His muscles twitched with rage that had bunched up inside him. He looked at Gary, laying there like a bitch dog ready to be mounted, and felt sick and helpless.

  “Gary can’t take being tied up,” he said. “Cut him loose.”

  “You seem more worried about your good-looking friend than about yourself.” A low voice in his ear, sexy. Another goddamn woman? “Are you and Gary asshole buddies, Sid? Is that why you’re so worried about him?”

  Shit! It wasn’t like that, never had been like that He loved Gary, that’s all. In school, Sid’d been a snot-nosed runt, and Gary had taken care of him, saved his puny ass from being beaten to a pulp more times than Sid could count.