Tanner scooped up an old rum bottle from the gutter and, without looking, tossed it hard and high down the alleyway.
The bottle spun end over end and smashed apart against the back wall, showering the three men with broken glass while making them instinctively look in that direction.
By the time they realized that Tanner was running toward them, he was close enough to use the shotgun. He fired one barrel at the bodyguard and shredded the man’s face. The bodyguard fell to the ground screaming, while the drug dealer, a punky-looking dude with blond cornrows, reached under his Cowboys jersey for a gun.
Tanner blasted him in the chest and he fell against the pimp and dragged the man to the ground, where they both settled beside the screaming bodyguard.
The pimp went for the automatic that his bodyguard had dropped. Tanner gripped the shotgun like a bat and swung for a home run. It would have likely only been a triple, but it killed the pimp all the same. The bodyguard was next and after two hard whacks with the shotgun, the man stopped his screaming.
Tanner didn’t know if the drug dealer was dead or not, but the man felt limp when he kicked him in the ribs. After patting him down, Tanner came away with a bag of coke, six hundred in cash and a Ruger, while the pimp had over five grand in small bills.
The keys were still in the Mercedes and Tanner backed it out of the alley, rolling over the pimp’s legs in the process, then headed for the highway.
4
Straight Out Of Hell
In Las Vegas, Albert Rossetti looked at his right-hand man, Ramone, with disgust.
Rossetti sat behind his desk in a special chair big enough to hold his bulk.
“He killed them both?”
“Yeah.”
“You said he would, I know. All right, send Aldo and his crew.”
“Four men?”
“What? Four’s not enough? Who do you think this guy is? Rambo?”
“No, Tanner is more dangerous.”
“Hell, I figured the Mexicans would keep him locked up for life. How the hell did he get out?”
Ramone took a seat on the corner of the desk. He was a slim man with a dusky complexion and dead eyes. When he moved, it was always with grace.
“I don’t know, but four men won’t do it. He’ll keep coming, and unless he’s stopped he’ll kill both of us.”
“Put out the word, five G’s to whoever bags him, and that includes Aldo and his boys.”
Ramone nodded in agreement. “That’s a start, but ten G’s and a thousand-dollar finder’s fee would bring out the hustlers and make Tanner’s life miserable.”
Rossetti thought about that for a moment, then searched Ramone’s eyes.
“This Tanner, do you think he’ll make it to Vegas?”
“I do. It’s why I’m not going after him. If I have to face him, I’d rather do it on home turf.”
Rossetti ran the back of his hand against the graying stubble of his fat face.
“Aldo will kill him. Him and his boys took out that Jamaican crew singlehandedly last year, and they were outnumbered three-to-one.”
“Tanner’s not Jamaican.”
“Where’s he from?”
Ramone’s lips curled in a sneer.
“Tanner came straight out of hell.”
As Tanner drove along US 77 headed north, he thought about the events that had landed him inside a Mexican prison.
Tanner was a hit man, a hired killer, or as he liked to think of himself, a trained assassin. He had never failed at an assignment.
A member of the Conglomerate had hired him. The Conglomerate was an alliance between the criminal underworld and certain corporate empires.
As the world became a global marketplace, traditional Western corporate tactics and practices were revealed to be ineffective in some sectors of the world.
Dictators and warlords weren’t dissuaded from committing blatant acts of theft because they were threatened with legal action, and would sometimes confiscate whole industries in the guise of nationalization.
In earlier times, Western governments would step in and remedy situations with embargoes or the withholding of foreign aid. However, those threats grew less ominous over time and the government often demanded more for their aid than would have been lost without it.
Enter the Conglomerate, a partnership formed to protect corporate profit across the world, by fighting fire with napalm. The Mafia and other organized crime factors became aligned with big business and would act as their enforcers.
While a Harvard Business School graduate might not know how to deal with thugs and extortionists, his criminal partners certainly did, and would do so, ensuring that the profit pipeline kept flowing.
Frank Richards, a corporate member of the Conglomerate, hired Tanner to kill Albert Rossetti, because Rossetti had been holding back a percentage of the take of his illegal activities.
In the old system, organized crime would bleed a business dry by demanding ever increasing “protection payments.” Under the new system, though, everyone contributed a percentage of their income.
No casino control commission in the world would allow a man like Albert Rossetti to have ownership of a casino. However, he could profit from one owned by a corporation he was aligned with, by acting as that entity’s strong-arm enforcer and running the hooker and drug trade.
Also, if needed, a respectable corporate member could provide an alibi, while a messy and expensive divorce could simply evaporate when an executive’s estranged spouse suffered an “accident.”
Rossetti was part of the Conglomerate in Vegas and hid behind the facade of respectability his corporate partners enjoyed, to the enrichment of both.
Tanner had been paid well to get the job done and paid up front in full, it was the only way he worked. His reputation was such that once money changed hands, you knew the target was dead.
Rossetti discovered that it was Tanner who was coming after him when a friend of Tanner’s betrayed him.
Tanner would deal with that turncoat all in good time, but the main thing on his mind was killing Rossetti.
He had been paid to perform a service and he would do so or die trying. Tanner didn’t believe in much at all, but he believed in himself. Once he took a job, he would carry it out regardless of time or travail.
Rossetti arranged for Tanner to be driving a vehicle that had drugs hidden in its trunk, then he tipped off the Mexican authorities.
After rounding a curve on Route 281 in Mexico, Tanner found himself facing ten soldiers, and minutes later they “discovered” the heroin in the car.
After a joke of a trial, Tanner was thrown in prison and put to work at hard labor on a building project, which was located on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Matamoros.
Each day the guards would work him and the other prisoners hard for long hours in the hot sun, and Tanner kept his head down and waited for his chance to break free.
In the weeks he was there, he saw two failed attempts at escape and learned from each one what not to do.
As time passed and the building project neared completion, he thought he might have to take a chance on a desperate move, or else risk being locked behind prison walls forever, or perhaps killed.
He’d been cornered by a pair of fellow inmates just days before he escaped. The men had come at him with makeshift blades, as a guard looked the other way.
They were on the work detail at the construction site and Tanner held them off by brandishing a hammer. The conflict ended when another guard came over, but Tanner watched his back even more than usual after that incident.
He had no idea why the men came after him, but he thought that maybe they were paid by Rossetti to kill him.
The construction site was difficult to escape from, but the prison would no doubt have proven to be impossible to leave. Many had tried and never even made it past the first of three razor wire fences.
Then, two days ago, a group of prisoners stabbed a guard and took his rifle. One of the
group proved to be a talented marksman and killed two other guards before he was shot in the hip and disabled. Another inmate grabbed the rifle and began shooting, but all his shots were either high or wide and he was killed.
That last bit Tanner had watched take place through the rearview mirror of a jeep he’d stolen while the guards were fighting off the other escapees. Three bullets slammed into the jeep, but none of the shots was harmful to the vehicle’s performance and Tanner made it into Matamoros, where he ditched the jeep and hid out in a vacant apartment.
He traveled by night through the desert and crossed the border into Texas like a thief.
After robbing a two-bit pot dealer and taking the man’s wallet, weed, cell phone, and shotgun, Tanner had a steak dinner, bought a bottle of wine, and hired a hooker.
He had been enjoying his freedom, but then the two thugs appeared and it was time to go on the run again.
However, Tanner was done with hiding. He had a job to do. He had been hired to kill Albert Rossetti and killing the bastard was exactly what he was going to do.
It was inevitable. He was inevitable, as inevitable as death.
Tanner turned his vehicle onto I-37 North, pressed down hard on the gas, and headed for Vegas.
5
Your Average Porn Star
Lillian Sorrell watched her husband, Dwight, pace about their home office. They lived in a ranch-style house in Spring Valley, Nevada, near Las Vegas.
Something was seriously wrong, Lillian could tell, but she couldn’t get Dwight to open up to her. She decided to try again, walked over, and fell into his arms.
“Talk to me,” she said. She was thirty, a brunette, with large blue eyes and long legs. Lillian had once been a showgirl, but she gave it up to become an RN and was now working toward a medical degree.
Dwight was in commercial real estate, had been for years, but until recently, it had been only one of his occupations. His second business endeavor had been on the darker side of things. He had worked with Tanner as a go-between for clients.
When Rossetti learned that Tanner had been hired to kill him, he had kidnapped Lillian and forced Dwight to turn on his friend. Dwight Sorrell traded Tanner for his wife’s safety while knowing that Tanner would not forgive the betrayal.
Lillian had known nothing about her husband’s underworld connections but agreed to stay with Dwight if he retired from that side of things. Dwight did so, while thinking that Tanner would spend his remaining years rotting away in Mexico. Dwight prayed that no others would come after him.
Although he was Tanner’s go-between for clients, Dwight rarely had knowledge of who the targets were. He was simply a middleman who passed on information from other sources, and those other sources handed over their information in sealed envelopes, such as the one he received that morning. Until that envelope arrived, Dwight had thought that Tanner was still in Mexico.
But Tanner was out, Tanner was coming, and Dwight knew he was a dead man.
Dwight stared back at Lillian. He was a tall, handsome man who had come from a good family and been pulled into criminal activities by an ex-girlfriend. The girlfriend didn’t last, but the lure of easy money did. As one thing led to another, he found himself working for various criminals.
Tanner had been one of his clients and he had known the man through the ex-girlfriend, who had occasionally worked for Tanner as a spotter for targets.
Dwight and Tanner became friends, of a sort, given Tanner’s innate inimical nature. Dwight believed it was because Tanner thought of him as someone non-threatening, but in the end, Dwight had proven nearly lethal.
Rossetti had wanted Dwight to kill Tanner outright by sneaking up on him and blowing his brains out. Dwight told the man he could never do it, and suggested setting Tanner up for the drug bust instead.
Rossetti agreed to the plan, Dwight planted the drugs, and when Tanner drove toward Rossetti’s supposed location in Mexico, it was Dwight who made certain Tanner was arrested.
“Tanner broke out of prison,” Dwight told his wife, and then waited to let the implications of those words sink in. It didn’t take long.
Lillian got a horrified look on her face and began pacing as her husband had done earlier.
“We have to run, hide somewhere.”
Dwight hung his head. “No, that would just put you in danger. Tanner would find us, and you might get killed along with me.”
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving you.”
“I want you to go to your mother’s while I stay here and face him, but with any luck, Rossetti will kill him before he gets to me.”
“I’ll go to my mother’s, so you don’t have to worry about me, but then I want you to hide somewhere too.”
Dwight shook his head. “No, because then Tanner might find you first and use you to lure me into the open. You can run from Tanner, but you can’t hide from the man. I knew that when I helped to frame him, but I was between a rock and a hard place, and I thought I could outsmart him. I was wrong and now I’m about to pay for it.”
Lillian hugged him again, as she pressed her face against his chest.
“Rossetti will stop him. Rossetti will stop Tanner and then you’ll be safe.”
Dwight kissed the top of his wife’s head, knowing that Tanner would not be stopped, and that a showdown was imminent.
Sara left the coroner's office in the hospital basement where the dead pimp was, with Special Agent Jake Garner following behind her down the hallway.
She could feel Garner’s eyes on her. The man wanted her and made no pretense otherwise. She assumed he thought his attention was flattering, but Sara just thought the man was a pig.
As they stepped onto the elevator, Garner stood beside her. He was a handsome man whose lips curved in a perpetual smile, as if life were one big party, as if sorrow didn’t exist. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and his track record with women rivaled that of your average porn star.
Women flowed toward Garner the way the surf moved toward the shore. Sara was one of the rare ones that resisted his charms and she assumed Garner thought she would give in to him someday, and that it was just a matter of time.
“Does that look like Tanner’s work?” Garner asked her.
“Yes, but the linen truck cinches it, even if he did wipe it for prints. Tanner likely killed them for their weapons, vehicle, and money. By now, he’s probably dumped the Mercedes and moved on to something else.”
“Why don’t we just head to Vegas and stay near Rossetti? If that’s where Tanner is headed, then that’s where we should be.”
Sara nodded in agreement. “You’re right, but I was hoping to intercept him.”
“So, Sara, just how rich are you?”
She gave him a startled look. “What do you mean?”
“That’s a designer suit you’re wearing, and unless you’re on the take or have a sugar daddy, you’ve got some bucks. Hell, those shoes alone cost nearly a grand.”
Sara smirked at him. “You seem to know a lot about women’s fashion.”
“No, I just know women.”
The elevator reached the lobby. When they stepped off, Sara noticed the other women nearby gazing at Garner as if he were a movie star.
As they walked past the reception desk, the young woman that had greeted them on their arrival called Garner over and pressed something into his hand. They then exchanged a few words, and Sara saw the woman pout in disappointment.
Garner smiled at the receptionist and stuck the object she’d given him into his pocket.
Once they were back in their rental, Sara asked a question.
“Did that woman give you her phone number?”
“Yes.”
“And why the sad look?”
“I explained to her that I wouldn’t be in town long enough to hook up.”
“But you’re keeping her number, just in case?”
“That’s right, and she also gave me a souvenir to remember her by.”
“What souvenir?”
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Garner reached into his pocket and took out the pair of panties the girl had given him, with her number written in black magic marker atop the red lace.
Sara made a face of disgust, started the car, and drove toward the airport, as Garner tucked the panties away for safekeeping.
6
Those Meddling Kids
Tanner stopped for the night at a crappy motel outside Las Cruces, New Mexico.
The place was an absolute shithole, but it would do for the night and there was only one other car parked in the lot.
The desk clerk was drunk and getting drunker, but he accepted Tanner’s cash with a smile and went back to watching a ball game.
Normally, Tanner would have driven straight to Vegas to do the deed he was hired to do. But ten weeks of hard, backbreaking labor under the hot Mexican sun, while subsisting on prison rations, had left him in less than peak condition. He decided to grab some sleep before moving on.
He woke early, at first light. The night before, he had dumped the pimp’s Mercedes in the parking lot of a diner a mile away, before walking back to the motel.
He needed to get his hands on another car before the other guests stirred, because it was their car he planned to steal.
He could tell by the sounds coming through the thin walls that they were a couple, an energetic couple, judging by the hours of on-again, off-again sex they had engaged in.
Tanner was about to leave after wiping down the room, when he heard a vehicle roll to a stop outside his door, even though the driver had cut the engine.
Tanner peeked past an outer edge of the curtain on the room’s only window and watched as three men exited a large, white pickup truck, while leaving their doors open to aid in a quick exit.
The men were all heavyset, but also had the look of hard men. They each wore faded jeans with denim jackets and boots. One of them was sporting a cowboy hat.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 3