by John Etzil
No. There was no way I was giving up killing bad people.
46
Debbie and I made an early dinner and left a dish for Catherine in the fridge. She was napping on the couch when we left to head over to the Red Barn, where Debbie was bartending tonight. Saber and Buddy seemed to have felt Catherine’s need for companionship, as they rarely left her side. Buddy was a little less diligent then Saber, often getting caught up in puppy play before retreating back to Catherine, dropping his favorite toy of the moment, and plopping down next to her.
I dropped Debbie off in the parking lot of the Red Barn and ran a quick errand in Richmondville. When I returned, she was already behind the bar and, as expected, working her happy hour audience. Most of the stools at the bar were taken, and another five or seven tables held food and drink for the relaxed crowd.
My Debbie was masterful at working the crowd and building her tip jar. She was always quick to smile at their silly jokes that she’d heard many times. She held constant eye contact with those almond-shaped green eyes that left more than one tipsy fan with a gigantic crush on her and lighter in the pocket than he should have been.
My favorite was loose blouse night, where she would bend over and retrieve a frosted mug from one of the freezers that sat under the bar. Everyone within ten barstools would stop what they were doing and ogle her cleavage. I’d actually, honest to God, witnessed eyes widening and mouths opening when she did that. If she was feeling especially frisky, she’d pretend that she couldn’t locate a mug and hunt around for a few seconds before straightening up. More than one patron would fidget in their stools when she did that.
My second favorite was tight T-shirt night. She’d turn sideways, raise her arms over her head, and fix her ponytail. If she was feeling particularly evil, she’d take her time and close her eyes so the guys at the bar could stare at her without the fear of being caught. More than a few of them could be seen elbowing their neighbors to draw their attention to Debbie’s profile.
Tonight was tight T-shirt night, but there was no posing, or even lighthearted banter, from Debbie. Something was wrong. When she had a second to talk, she came over to me and told me what. “I messed up, big-time.”
“What? How?”
“Remember the tracking device implanted in Catherine?”
“Of course.” It took me a second, then it hit me. “Oh crap, where is it?”
“When we left the house in Peru with the bodies in the SUV, we were in such a rush that I forgot to take it out of my bag. I found it in there about ten minutes ago. I smashed it right away, but who knows if the signal was transmitted from Eminence? Or here?”
“Oh shit!”
47
Cosmo threw the burner cell phone across the room and cursed at it. “All my fucking guys are MIA.” He turned to Amare. “Get the big boy crew together and have the Yukon gassed up and ready to roll. We’re going on a road trip. If you want something done right, ya gotta do it yourself.”
Amare got up from the couch and made a few phone calls, typed out a few text messages, and reported back. “All set, boss, should be good to go in thirty.”
Cosmo studied his laptop, and a broad grin covered his wide face. “Well, I’ll be damned. Looks like old LoJack Larry uploaded the new software.” He turned the laptop so Amare could see the map, with its little flashing icons indicating the positions of all his women who had tracking devises implanted. “That one there”—he held a fat pinky on a blinking dollar sign—“that one’s Catherine. Pack our bags, and let’s go get this bitch.”
“Bags,” in Cosmo’s parlance, meant weapons. Amare went into the next room and opened a closet that in a normal home would be used for hanging up the coats of visiting friends and storing umbrellas and extra rain gear. This closet was filled with weapons. He took out the Mossberg shotgun, checked to make sure that it was loaded, and laid it on the table. He grabbed a duffle bag from the floor of the closest and unzipped it. It was filled with a smorgasbord of handguns of all types. Sig Sauers, Glocks, Rugers, Colts—just about every big manufacturer had representation in Cosmo’s arsenal. They all had two things in common: all were .45-calibers, and none had serial numbers.
Amare counted out enough ammo for a small war and loaded everything into a separate duffel bag, which he placed on the floor by the front door. He nodded to Cosmo. “Good to go, boss man.”
They went outside, where Cosmo’s men were waiting for him. He nodded gruffly to them, and they piled into the big SUV. Amare drove and Cosmo sat in the front passenger seat, using his open laptop for directions. “We’re heading north. New Jersey Turnpike. Garden State Parkway. New York Thruway.”
“Got it.” Amare threw the vehicle into drive and pulled away from the curb.
Four hours later, they arrived in Summit. Cosmo had Amare drive up and down Route 10 a few times, past the Red Barn, to get a better feel of the layout of the small town. “Pretty quiet up here in redneck land. This place is a freaking dive.”
“I know, right? This place gives me the creeps. Let’s make this shit quick so we can get the hell out of Hicksville.” Cosmo pointed to Charlotte Valley Road. “Park on that street next to the parking lot and kill the engine. Stay away from that streetlight.”
Amare turned off Route 10 and pulled over to the side. Cosmo turned around to face the men. All five of them, scrunched in like oversized sardines, sat with their sunglassed heads brushing against the roof of the big SUV.
“Here’s the deal. Colin and Tremont, you keep watch outside in the parking lot. If anyone comes, tell them the Red Barn is closed. If they give you any shit, shoot their asses and toss them in the shrubs behind the place. The rest of you guys, come with me. Once inside, Samir, you lock the door and stand guard. Nobody leaves or comes in. Jayden, you turn off all the neon beer signs in the windows. Everyone else, follow my lead. You all square?”
They nodded and grunted their understanding, and the big Yukon creaked and elevated six inches when they climbed out. They walked around to the back of the vehicle and lined up single file. Amare handed out the weapons.
They walked along the back tree line of the almost-empty gravel parking lot. Colin and Tremont hung in the shadows, and the other five continued to the main entrance to the Red Barn. Amare reached out and pulled open the door. Cosmo stepped inside, his sawed-off shotgun leading the way, and the others followed close behind.
48
Catherine dialed Debbie’s number for the third time in ten minutes. Her call went to voicemail. Again. After four unreturned texts and three calls going to voicemail, she decided to call information and get the phone number of the Red Barn. She dialed that number, and it just rang and rang. She sat down on the couch, her mind racing. During this whole ordeal, Debbie had never been more than a text or phone call away. The fact that she couldn’t reach her forced Catherine’s imagination to run wild down a dark path. What if Cosmo had come to the Red Barn? She knew enough about him and his street cred fanaticism to know that it would get ugly fast. The full implications of the tracking device that Cosmo had implanted inside of her had hit home when Debbie explained what had happened in Peru. She’d known all along that Cosmo was a bad man, but he’d been there for her when she’d needed him most, and he really wasn’t bad to her. She’d caught drips and drabs of his business dealings when she’d walked into rooms unannounced, causing conversations to awkwardly stop, but she wrote them off to the cost of doing business in a tough environment like Camden.
She thought of Frankie, smiled, and sent a short text to her. Deciding that a walk would be good for her nerves, she grabbed Saber’s leash, clipped it on the muscular dog, and exited the safety of Jack’s log cabin.
The young Marine, dressed in fatigue shorts and combat boots, ran up the last hill of East Road toward Eminence. He was nearing the little hamlet, his turnaround point, when he noticed a woman walking with a dog along the side of the gravel road. The half dozen or so homes he’d encountered on his run from West Kill Road to E
minence were mostly vacation homes. City folk, most from New York, coming here on summer weekends to escape the heat and nonstop rat race of the urban jungle.
This woman didn’t look like your average summer vacationer. Dressed in a loose T-shirt and jeans that were a size too big for her frailness, he sensed something through her body language that raised his alert level. Something was off. If he had to guess, he’d venture that she was anxious about something.
The dog on the end of the short black leash was a Doberman pinscher, who spotted the Marine over his shoulder just as he trotted around a bend in the road. The Doberman stopped and turned around to face the Marine. The woman, off in another world, didn’t hear him approaching, so he slowed to a walk when he got close to her. After a few seconds of diligent observation from the Doberman, the woman tugged on his leash. “Come on, Saber.”
He didn’t move, and she turned around and jumped when she saw the Marine.
“Good evening, ma’am. My apologies if I startled you,” the Marine offered.
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m not used to the peacefulness of the country yet. I didn’t expect to see another person.”
“Where are you from?”
“New Jersey.”
The Marine nodded to the Doberman. “That’s Saber, Sheriff Lamburt’s dog, correct?”
“Yes. You know him?”
“He’s a great dog.”
“I meant Jack.”
“Oh, yeah. I haven’t seen him in a while, but Sheriff Lamburt and I go back a long way. How is he?”
“Well…” She looked down, and the Marine knew something was wrong. “He’s okay, but I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“You try the Red Barn? He used to date one of the bartenders.”
“Yes. My sister.”
“Debbie’s your sister? Wow, small world.”
She frowned. “They left a while ago, and I haven’t been able to reach them. I got into a little trouble, and they helped me out. Now I’m worried about their safety.”
The Marine studied her and saw the deep concern etched in her face. “Come on. Let’s go back to Jack’s house. You can explain everything to me on the way.”
He led the way and she talked nonstop, explaining the whole situation to him. When they arrived at Jack’s driveway, they saw the blue BMW parked in Debbie’s spot. “Whose car is that?”
“Oh, that’s Frankie’s, an old friend of Jack’s. She’s the one who drove me home from the hospital and stayed with me until they got back.”
When they got up to the front porch, the front door swung open. Buddy came roaring out, toy in mouth, and ran circles around first Saber and Catherine, then the Marine. Frankie stood in the doorway, one hand behind her back, her serious gaze going from Catherine to the Marine. “Who’s that?”
“A friend of Jack and Debbie’s. I ran into him when I was walking Saber, and I explained everything to him. He wants to help.”
Frankie studied the young Marine, a look of skepticism on her face. “Why do you want to help?”
“I owe Jack Lamburt big-time, ma’am. My name’s Harold. Harold Morris.”
“What’s your ex-girlfriend’s name?”
“You mean Mary Sue?”
“So you’re Harold.” She smiled knowingly at him. “You’re right, Harold Morris, you do owe him big-time.” She pulled the Sig Sauer from behind her back and stuck it in her belt, stepping to the side to let them in. “Come inside, we’ve got work to do.”
49
I saw him burst through the door out of the corner of my eye, and I knew right away what was happening. Cosmo. He was tall and thick, half-muscle, half-fat. And he waved a sawed-off shotgun in the air.
BOOM! He fired a blast into the ceiling, and everybody in the place jumped and screamed. One of Cosmo’s men went over and unplugged the jukebox, and it was quiet for a split second before the shock wore off and the screaming started.
“Everyone on the ground, now!”
We all lay down where we were, forced to look up at the dominant positions of our captors. One of the men locked the door and stood guard next to it, waving his semiautomatic pistol at us. Another went over and yanked too hard on the neon sign strings, shutting them off and tearing the strings in the process. The others found corners to watch us from.
There were five of them, all dressed identically in dark clothes and sunglasses. Most had beards and short or no hair. They were all armed.
I calculated my chances if I drew my Glock 17 and opened fire, but the numbers were just a little too much. In the movies, yeah, no sweat. If Jack Reacher were here, all five would already be dead, stacked neatly in the corner while the beautiful big-titted barmaids took turns flashing the male patrons while they topped off their ice-cold frosted mugs with imported beer in between back rubs and hand jobs. Drinks would be on the house, and everyone, even the old white folks, would be good dancers. Burgers cooked perfectly with just the right amount of ketchup and salt and the perfect complement of crispy fries would be delivered at a perfect one hundred and twelve degrees to the giddy eaters.
But Reacher wasn’t here, and I didn’t feel like taking a chance on killing any innocents, so I sat tight. I looked around the room at the usual Red Barn customers, folks that I’d known for a while and become friendly with. Frances was there, as she was every night. She never left her barstool, and Cosmo probably thought that the little old granny hadn’t heard him or wasn’t worth shooting, because he ignored her and her lack of hostage listening etiquette.
Drunken Bobby, who still believed that he had a chance with my Debbie, lay on the floor with an Old Milwaukee in his hand. Mary Sue, college student and part-time waitress, put her tray down on a table and sat on the floor Indian-style. She looked at me, and I nodded to her. Max and Gus, the two happy old men with the sparkling eyes of youth, who, according to Frances, were great lovers, were kneeling down and pocketing pool balls. Rodney, the third-shift correction officer at the Summit Shock Camp who stopped in a few times a week before he went to work, sat on the floor and shook his head and cursed at them under his breath. Boy, did he pick a bad day to visit us.
They were all folks I was responsible for protecting. And I had gotten them involved in this instead. Maybe Frankie and her prediction of messing up had come true. I had no plans of giving up on my life’s mission, but if I was responsible for an innocent person getting hurt, a person whose only crime was knowing me, then it was time that I packed up and left this town.
Cosmo didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. He belted out, in a loud, deep voice that would have made James Earl Jones envious, “Which one of you motherfuckers has Catherine?”
50
Frankie turned onto Route 10 and drove by the Red Barn on the light side of the thirty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. All of the neon beer signs were out. She noticed two big shadowy figures lurking near the far side of the parking lot, and when she looked inside, she caught sight of another big figure, dressed in black and wearing shades, with his back by the entrance. She nodded acknowledgment to Catherine’s concern. “Yep, they’re here.”
A half mile down the road, she pulled a U-turn and headed back toward the Red Barn. Before she reached it, she pulled over to the side of the road, and she and Harold got out. Catherine slid into the driver’s seat, and Frankie gave her last-minute words of encouragement to their visibly shaking decoy. “Just do exactly as we planned, and everything will work out. Don’t think about the outcome, just focus on the process.”
“Right,” Catherine said. “Focus on the process.”
“Give us thirty seconds, then go.” Frankie and Harold disappeared into the woods.
Half a minute later, Catherine put the car in drive, pulled out onto Route 10, and headed towards the parking lot of the Red Barn.
She parked at the far end of the lot, near the lone streetlamp, with the driver’s-side door facing the Red Barn. She swung open her door and threw her legs out. She wore a short skirt, high heels, and a loose-fit
ting white blouse that would help hide her recent breast reduction operation, all borrowed from Debbie’s closet.
She played with her smartphone while the shadowy figures in the parking lot eyed her. She continued pretend-texting until one of the men walked over to her. The bigger of the two stayed behind at his post, not out of discipline, but out of laziness.
“Catherine? Is that you?”
Catherine looked up from her phone and smiled. “Oh, hi, Colin. Hey, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing here? We came here to find you.”
“Find me? What are you talking about?”
Colin reached down and grabbed her by the elbow. “Come with me, crazy bitch.” He walked her to the front door and gestured to Tremont. “Look what I found. You stay here while I take her inside. I’ll be right out.”
Tremont nodded his understanding.
Frankie withdrew one of her Boker throwing knives, and as soon as the entrance door closed behind Colin, she flung it with the accuracy achieved by thousands of practice throws, sinking the knife handle-deep into the left side of Tremont’s back. He reacted as if he’d been tased, his entire body tightening into one rigid piece.
Frankie was on him in a second. She jumped on his back, landing just to the right of the knife. She wrapped one arm around his meaty neck and clamped her free hand over his mouth.