[JC Bannister 01.0] The Fixer, Season 1

by Rex Carpenter

  So he stood up. Hobbled his way to the door. The knocking increased in intensity.

  “I’m coming, Guy, I’m coming,” he said loudly.

  Opened the door.

  Detective Joseph Campbell kicked the door open as soon as JC turned the handle. JC fell backwards. Campbell stepped inside quickly, shutting the door behind him. His gun was already drawn and pointed at JC.

  The team had guns in the room. But with his recent injuries and Campbell standing over him, gun in hand and a yellow-toothed grin in place, JC felt it better to stay put. Not charge into a bedroom, try to grab a weapon and shoot an L.A. cop.

  “What the hell are you doing here, soup man?” JC said, tired and in pain.

  Campbell kicked at him. Connected with JC’s still bruised legs. He wanted to yell out in pain but kept it inside. Didn’t want to give Campbell the satisfaction.

  “I’m here to arrest you. Now stand up.”

  JC stood up slowly. He needed more time. Stall. Maybe a solution would present itself.

  “Hey, Detective, what’s this all about?”

  “Shut up.”

  That didn’t work, JC thought. Next?

  “All right, all right. At least let me get some clothes on. I can’t get processed looking like this.” He was wearing gym shorts and a black t-shirt.

  “You’re not naked, so you’re fine. Turn around.” Campbell holstered his gun. Took his cuffs from their holster on the back of his belt.

  For about half a second, JC thought about fighting with the man. His gun was holstered, he was distracted. Were it not America and were he not in such pain from the torture yesterday, he probably would have. But he was in absolutely terrible shape. Even against a man like Campbell there was no guarantee he would win. Plus, he was in America. Although never a good idea to pick a fight with police personnel in nearly any part of the world, in America it was a game-ender unless absolutely, positively necessary.

  JC couldn’t see the necessity here. So he waited. Turned around. Put his hands dutifully behind his back. Let Campbell lace him up. Walked out the door with him. Waited for the elevator. In silence. JC had no idea why he was being arrested. No idea how Campbell found him in a place where virtually nobody knew he was going to be. But he didn’t worry. The type of man Campbell was, JC figured sooner or later the BHPD detective would start shooting his mouth off. Start bragging. Start telling anyone who would listen how smart he was.

  Sure enough, they weren’t three minutes away from the hotel before Campbell started in.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? You and your high-dollar lawyer. Getting you out from under me like that.”

  JC said nothing. Shrugged his shoulders. It had gotten under Campbell’s skin once, might as well try it again.

  “Well, it ain’t gonna happen again. This time, you’re all mine. Nobody knows I’ve got you yet. And once they do, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.”

  JC looked away from him. Out the window. Saw a diner pass by. Realized he hadn’t had breakfast yet. Shrugged again.

  The back of Campbell’s right hand smacked JC hard on the ear. JC’s head whipped around, eyes blazing. Stared hard at the man.

  “Got your attention now, don’t I, boy?” Campbell said, eyes back on the road. “Maybe you’ll start listening now. ‘Stead of shrugging your shoulders like some half-witted teenage punk.”

  “Okay,” JC said. “I’ve got a question for you. How come you’ve had such a hard-on for me since the moment I landed in L.A.?”

  Campbell smiled. Drove in silence for a minute. JC didn’t look away.

  “Maybe I just don’t like killers,” the detective said. “People with lots of money who think they can get away with anything they want,” Campbell said.

  “No. That’s not it,” JC said. He knew the type of cop Campbell was. Only time he cared about a dead body was when it inconvenienced him. Rich people? Jealousy was the best way to describe Campbell’s feelings towards them. Mixed with greed. All added up to corruption whenever he felt he could get away with it.

  After what looked like twenty years on the force, he probably got away with it quite a bit.

  Campbell smiled. “You’re right. It’s not.” Kept driving. Looked over at JC. “Naww, I knew your old man. We served together in Germany. That righteous prick got me kicked out of the Army. Saw your name come up on the Meier investigation, thought I’d do my part. Get back at the man who damn near ruined my life.”

  “My father’s dead, Campbell,” JC said. “He died three years ago.”

  Campbell looked over at him. “Hell, I know that,” the detective said, grinning, then back to the road. “Think that cancels out his debts? No way. That summabitch owed me. And today, I’m going to collect.”

  JC wanted Campbell to talk. Figured the man wanted to get this off his chest, so he might as well let him. Interrogation 101. Sales 101. Get the person talking, then direct the conversation to where you wanted it to go. No matter how much JC didn’t want to hear Campbell’s tale of misguided woe, he needed it to get the man’s mouth moving. So he prodded.

  “What’d he do? Kick you out because he caught you with some big-boned German fräulein who wasn’t actually a woman?”

  Campbell’s punch at JC’s head was so forceful, the man veered into oncoming traffic. JC saw it coming. Instinctively tried to dodge it. Then stopped. Better to have the man get some satisfaction and keep driving than to stop and beat the hell out of him. Because he could.

  The blow caught JC mostly on the forehead. Smarted, but he knew it hurt Campbell’s hand more than his own head. Campbell tried not to show it.

  “Mouth off like that again, I’m stopping the car. I’ve got an old PR-24 baton in the back that’ll tune you right up.”

  JC nodded. Wasn’t about to agree verbally to anything the detective said. Waited.

  “No, I was a private,” Campbell continued. “Me and a buddy in the medical unit saw a way to make some extra cash. I had fallen in love and gotten married to a nice German girl. She had family in Bosnia and everybody was so poor there. One of her uncles was a doctor who needed medical supplies. The Army disposes of medicine once it’s past its expiration date. Just throws it away. Well, my friend and I saw these boxes of medicine that could still be used being wasted. Thought it could help my uncle-in-law. So we took them. Your dad found out, court-martialed us. My wife left me. I had nothing. Couldn’t get a job. Then a buddy of mine helped me get into the LAPD. Saved my life. After your old man ruined it.”

  JC was half listening. He hadn’t been in L.A. very long, but he was usually pretty good with directions. He was starting to realize they were not going to the Beverly Hills PD station house. In fact, if he was correct, they were heading in the exact opposite direction.

  He started thinking about how to get out of the situation when two things happened simultaneously. Campbell’s reverie triggered a memory of the events he was describing. JC had been about ten years old when they were stationed in Germany, but it had been a big enough scandal even he had remembered it to this day. The second thing — he managed to glance in the side mirror of Campbell’s Dodge Charger and saw Theo sitting behind the wheel of a mid-sized sedan about two cars behind them.

  JC smiled.

  Campbell was still talking.

  “If your lawyer hadn’t weaseled you out of my interrogation room and that brown bitch Garcia hadn’t let her panties get all wet about that skinny bastard Duke, then you’d be sweating it out down in L.A. County Jail right now. Doesn’t matter. She’s up shit creek for helping you guys out and will be lucky to escape jail time. As is, this’ll work out better for all involved. You get down to lockup, I’ve got a special present waiting for you. Big bull of a house boy we use for stuff like this from time to time. We say jump, he says how high? We say, beat that summabitch, he starts to swinging. We say kill him, he says, ‘Yes, massa.’” Campbell chuckled. “The way it oughta be.” Smiled. “Killian the killer. Biggest black man
you’ve ever seen. Probably gonna be your last, too.”

  JC’s head was swimming. He needed to start asking questions. Fast.

  “Hold on,” JC said, trying to both slow things down and sort them out, “Garcia’s under investigation?”

  “Yup,” Campbell said with a grin. “Seems like a laptop from our unit was used to hack into all kinds of computer systems. I saw her leaving with one yesterday and then she disappeared for a few hours. Shows up at a crime scene over in the valley. Claimed her laptop got stolen, but the sergeant didn’t believe her after I had a few words with him. Seems she got too close to your little band of misfits.” Paused. “Serves her right. Thinking she’s on a level with the likes of me.”

  JC guessed whatever evidence against Garcia was thin to non-existent. The laptop was the only link, and if it was destroyed she was probably in bigger danger than if it showed up in the right place at the right time. He needed to get in touch with his team. He checked the mirror again. They were still a few cars behind. But it didn’t look like there was any way to communicate with them. Something clicked in his head.

  “Campbell, who told you where I was?”

  The detective smiled. “C.I. of mine. Highly placed. Feeds me info from time to time. Always right. Always useful. Told me where you were. Told me to pick you up after ten a.m. I couldn’t wait, though. Figured thirty minutes here or there wouldn’t matter, so I got you a little early.”

  JC checked to see if Theo was still there. He was. Time to make his play.

  “You’re full of crap, Campbell,” JC said, half turning to face the corrupt cop. “You never heard of your CI until the day I showed up at LAX. My guess? He called you that morning. You probably don’t even know his name.” Campbell looked pissed but JC kept going. “Garcia coming under the microscope for something over in the valley? She’s just a good cop doing her job. Something you should try once in a while. After twenty years on the force you’re not even half the police she is, you washed up old hack.” Campbell tried talking over him but JC wasn’t about to let him. He just yelled over the detective until Campbell shut up. “And I remember that thing in Germany, you miserable liar. You were selling antiquated medicine to the Bosnian black market. They were desperate for anything they could get their hands on and instead of helping them, you were selling them stuff that could have killed them. And lining your pockets while doing it. My old man talked about it for years after. You were a joke, a punchline he used when talking to the troops, he said. ‘Yeah, the guy may be a screw-up,’ he’d say, ‘but he’s nothing compared to ol’ Campbell.’ And then he’d always shake his head and laugh. You hear that? For years, my old man laughed at you. Damn near every day.”

  Campbell’s head was about to explode.

  “He may have been a sonofabitch to deal with, that’s true. Lord knows he was. But he was an honorable man and the fact that you dishonored the Army, the United States, risked making people sick, or worse, killing them, just to get a few extra bucks to pacify that fat, pimply faced whore that picked you up in some dive bar on the Rhine stuck in his craw more than anything else he ever saw in the Army. And you think you’re going to get revenge on me? For some honorable and righteous thing that he did?” JC was yelling at this point, letting his false anger and indignation take hold and turn into the real thing. “Bullshit! Bullshit, soup-boy!”

  Campbell awkwardly tried to reach for his service pistol that was holstered on his right hip. JC didn’t know if he was going to shoot him or pistol-whip him but decided he didn’t want to find out. Still handcuffed, sitting on his hands, but with no seat-belt holding him in, JC pulled his knees up, swiveled in the bucket seat as best he could and bronco-kicked Campbell right in the side of the head. Campbell’s head smashed against the side window, cracking it but not breaking it. The force of JC’s kick knocked him out cold, as he hoped.

  There was still the matter of stopping the vehicle. JC quickly wiggled, jerked and humped his way over the front seats into the back seat as the Charger, now driven by an unconscious man, accelerating and drifting to the left. JC didn’t know what they would hit first; another speeding car, a parked vehicle, a tree or a building. He just knew the safest spot for him was in the back seat. He hoped his team was close behind. If they weren’t and Campbell came to before they pulled him out, he was done.

  The engine of the undercover police car revved as Campbell’s foot involuntarily pressed the pedal down, the muscles of his leg slack, turning his foot into a lead weight. JC guessed they were probably going about fifty. The windows of the car shattered all around them as the vehicle slammed into something solid. There was no screech of metal, just a solid whump that was loud enough to sound like an explosion. The driver’s side airbag deployed, protecting Campbell more than JC had hoped it would. Still, it might provide some cover for both of them. Easier for Campbell to explain falling asleep at the wheel than having to explain illegally arresting someone and having said someone kick you in the head and escape. If Campbell was the type of cop JC calculated he was, he’d more than likely go that route. Go about getting revenge on JC another way. JC had no desire to see what road that led him down. Better to head it off while he still could.

  He heard Duke’s voice calling for him before he saw him. The big man’s head appeared on the passenger side of the car, heading to the front seat. JC called to him. Duke came back to the rear of the vehicle. Opened the door.

  “Do you still have Karen’s laptop?” JC said. He was almost yelling, although he didn’t know it at the time.

  “What? Yeah, we still got it,” Duke said. “Come on, we gotta get outta here.”

  “No,” JC said. “Go get the laptop. We need to stash it in this car.”

  Duke looked confused. JC had no time for him to work out the hows and whys of his order.

  “Do it. Now!”

  Duke disappeared. JC tried his best to wriggle his way out of the now open door. It wasn’t working very well. He needed help, but he was still trying, his hands, legs and arms getting cut from the shattered glass.

  Duke came back with the laptop. “Good,” JC said, “now shove it under the front seat. I’ll explain later.”

  Duke opened the front passenger door, shoved the laptop underneath it so it couldn’t be seen, closed the door and helped JC out of the car.

  Now free of the smashed vehicle, JC could see they were in a fairly deserted industrial area of the city. Luckily nobody seemed to have seen the accident. Or if they had, they weren’t bothering to offer assistance. Campbell’s Charger had slammed into a tree head on. JC was glad he had made it into the back seat. If he hadn’t, he very likely would have been ejected through the front windshield due to the lack of seatbelt.

  Duke supported JC as he hobbled his way back to the car. Theo was driving. Joan was in the back seat. Duke opened the door for JC, helped him in, and then jumped into the front passenger seat. Theo took off as soon as the doors were closed.

  “Guys, we’ve got a problem,” JC said.

  “You heard?” Joan asked. Her face was impassive. Frozen.

  The hair on the back of JC’s neck rose up. Something was wrong. He couldn’t see Duke’s face but he could see the right side of Theo’s. The man looked more serious than he’d ever seen him.

  “Yeah, I heard,” JC continued, hesitantly. “Campbell just told me. Karen’s being held for questioning about the situation we had over in the valley. They think she’s involved. I’m hoping that laptop stuffed under his seat and a few well-placed phone calls will put any suspicion off of her and onto him. We need to get ahold of Jacob Meier as soon as we can.”

  Duke turned. Put his elbow over the seat back. “That’s not it.” Turned back around. Switched on the radio.

  JC looked over at Joan. He knew her very well. Could see the emotions on her face when most people saw nothing. Right now, she was bouncing between anger, fear, hatred, depression and sadness. JC could tell none of it was directed at him. “What is it, Joan?”


  She was silent. Shook her head. The announcer’s voice on the radio began to filter into JC’s hearing. It was somber.

  “… we’re going live to our reporter again in a second. If you’re just tuning in, please stay tuned for live updates on the situation as it continues to evolve. We regret to inform you once again that Senator Catherine Marcus has been shot and killed. We repeat, Senator Catherine Marcus has been assassinated.”

  Chapter 44

  Mrs. Marcus

  Senator Marcus sat to the left of the woman introducing her on the rough plywood dais. Built late the night before, it raised the senator up just enough above the crowd so that she could be easily seen. And photographed. The chair was uncomfortable. White plastic garden chair. Easily stackable. She had the same kind at her house for when they had barbecues. Or unexpected guests. She tried to look at her watch to see what time it was. Discretely of course. Slowly. She couldn’t find a way to do it without being seen so she gave up. It didn’t matter.

  She tried to shift in the chair to make herself slightly more comfortable. Nothing changed. The plastic legs of the chair flexed with her movement, moving the seat. The flexing legs and moving seat refused to allow her body to actually change position in the chair. Were she to try and move enough to improve her comfort, it would be noticed. One of the local staff would overreact. Or a picture would be taken and shown on the news the next day. Worse still, a video. It really didn’t matter.

  Everything hurt. The over-the-counter pain medication she had taken this morning had already worn off. Even though she tripled the dosage it was still effective for less than an hour. Then her body went back to the combination of pervasive dull percussion waves of pain and the feeling like every nerve and synapse were having wooden matches extinguished on them. Repeatedly.