Tanner freed her by using his knife, and Romina hugged him fiercely.
“Oh, thank God, I thought he might kill me.”
“You’re safe,” Tanner said, as he felt feelings he thought were long dead. It was a need to protect, and he knew that if something had happened to this girl that he would not have forgiven himself for failing her.
After hugging her back, he pried her loose and spoke. “Did he rape you?”
“No, he just kept begging me to take him back. I think he’s high on something, maybe heroin.”
“Your mother is out front with Chaz and Miss Jennings, go see her.”
Romina pointed at Billy, who had made it to his hands and knees, but looked as if he might puke.
“What about him?”
“I’ll stay with him until the police come.”
Romina eased past Billy as if he were toxic, and then she ran down the driveway toward her mother.
Tanner turned off Chaz’s car, killed the lights, and helped Billy over to the chair that Romina had been strapped into.
“Look at me, kid.”
Billy did so, and Tanner could see that he had broken his nose, while the left side of Billy’s face was already beginning to swell.
“I want you to listen to me and I want you to hear me.”
Tanner jammed Billy’s own gun into the boy’s mouth with so much force that it chipped one of the kid’s teeth and cut the roof of his mouth.
“You are going to plead guilty to every charge. You will plead as an adult and you will serve every last day of your sentence. I don’t care what your parents want. I don’t care what your lawyer may say, but you’ll confess to your crimes in writing. You’ll do your time, and you’ll stay away from Romina. If you fail to do what I’m telling you, I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
Billy stared at Tanner with wide eyes and nodded as best as he could, with the gun jammed in his mouth.
Tanner searched the boy’s eyes, then grimaced, while guessing that there was a chance he’d have to kill the little turd someday. If he weren’t so tied in with the Reyes family, Billy would be dead already, kid or not.
Tanner stood and put away the gun, as Billy spit out bits of tooth and gagged on his own blood.
The cops were coming, and Tanner would have to talk to them.
Tim assured Tanner that the fake ID he sent him would pass scrutiny. Tanner was about to put it to the test.
Billy began sobbing and Tanner walked over and sat on the hood of Chaz’s car, just as Tonya appeared. She took one look at Billy and shook her head in disgust.
“You hurt him, good!”
“Yes.”
“Given the chance, I might have killed him,” she said, and Tanner heard the anger in her voice.
“I still might,” Tanner said, and saw Billy flinch.
Tonya walked around until she was standing before Tanner, then she leaned forward and kissed him. Tanner took her in his arms, and to his surprise, she didn’t back away.
“What was that kiss for?”
“For saving the damsel in distress.”
“I fight dragons too.”
Tonya laughed. “I’m sure you do.”
Blue and red lights filled the night. The cops had arrived.
Tonya stepped back as she sent Tanner a smile. “To be continued.”
She then went off to speak to the cops.
“Billy?” Tanner said.
Billy answered in a nasal tone, due to his broken nose, which had already swollen.
“I believe you, man… I saw it in your eyes.”
“If you’re lying, someday they’ll be the last thing you see.”
Tonya returned with two cops and a long night became longer.
216
They’re Coming
SOMEWHERE NORTHWEST OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, SEPTEMBER 1997
Tanner bumped the car slowly along a rutted road then killed the engine, before walking around to the trunk and opening it.
Sheer gazed up at him with wild eyes and held up a hand as if he could block bullets with it. “Don’t kill me!”
Tanner put the gun away, reached down, and dragged Sheer out of the trunk and onto the ground.
Sheer whimpered in pain, because his damaged foot had slammed against the lip of the trunk.
They were down an old unused patch of broken asphalt that at one time must have been a road. It was in a strip of desert two miles from the highway. Tanner shut the trunk and sat on it, as he asked his first question.
“Why does McKay have so many men around?”
“It’s ah, it’s for Parker and you. He was afraid that you would try to kill him.”
Tanner got off the trunk and kicked Sheer in the face hard enough to send him rolling away. If McKay was afraid of Frank Parker, he’d have cops around, but he didn’t want cops around, because they might start asking questions.
“The truth, or I have no use for you.”
Sheer took a minute to recover as he spat out the blood that was filling his mouth. After touching a loose tooth with the tip of his tongue, he answered the question.
“Martillo. He’s part of a Mexican cartel and he’s the one who sent those men to Parker’s ranch.”
“Martillo means hammer. Is that really his name?”
“No, but he sometimes kills with a hammer, and you know how that goes, the name stuck. Now Martillo is pissed that his men are dead, and he blames McKay.”
“How did McKay contact him, and don’t lie.”
“It was me. I knew Martillo from the old days, but he’s moved up inside the cartel. Now I’m not sure what he’ll do, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out and—where’s my duffel bag?”
“I tossed it out at the ranch.”
“Shit, all my stuff was in there, and money too, almost five grand.”
Tanner wasn’t listening anymore, as a thought came to him. “This Martillo, how many men will he send to kill McKay?”
“I don’t know, but it will be a shitload more than the four pawns he sent last time.”
“Pawns?”
Sheer explained about Martillo’s code talk and then began rambling about the first time he’d met him. He was trying to buy time to delay what he knew was coming.
Tanner asked a question and cut him off. “When will Martillo come?”
“Any day now; it’s why I got out of there. I tried to talk sense into Andy, but he won’t take Martillo seriously, and Martillo’s no joke.”
“You’re right,” Tanner said, while wondering if the sheriff’s deputy parked outside the Parker Ranch would be enough to turn Martillo away once he killed McKay.
He doubted it. What’s the death of one cop after you’ve just slaughtered over a dozen men?
Sheer was just able to say the words, “No, don’t—” before Tanner shot him twice in the head and left him to rot in the desert.
He had to get back to the Parker Ranch before it was too late. As he drove along, he did something he hadn’t done since he was a child.
He prayed.
217
No Appeals
The Taco Queen in the neighboring town of Culver looked as if it had been closed for years. Graffiti and gang signs marred its formerly white exterior.
With Romina back home and safe, Tanner decided to have a look at what was reportedly the hangout of the motorcycle gang Javier belonged to.
After leaving the pickup truck in the parking lot of a diner, Tanner walked across desert scrubland and approached the old Taco Queen building from the rear.
No one was in the area except those passing by in cars on the road in front. The back door of the Taco Queen had been kicked in long ago, so Tanner entered and looked around.
The place was a mess, and food containers and pizza cartons littered the floor. There was one area near the boarded-up front windows that was cleared of debris and had a table and chairs set up inside it.
Tanner looked down at the tabletop and saw magazines that were abou
t guns, drug paraphernalia, and motorcycles. All of them had beautiful women showing lots of skin on every cover. Sex sells.
There was a denim vest draped over one of the chairs, it had a patch that showed a grinning skull and the words Diablo Boys. Rich Harvey had been right; the club’s name did contain the word Diablo.
The building had a large storage area inside that had once been a freezer, but all the components had been removed when the place shut down. Anything of value, such as the copper tubing, had been stripped by someone and sold as scrap metal.
There was a large, crude bulls-eye spray-painted on the rear wall of the freezer, and over a hundred rounds had perforated it, while 9mm shell casings decorated the floor. Tanner marveled at the stupidity.
Granted, the sheet metal comprising the rear wall was thin, but the cinder block behind it wasn’t. The wall could have easily sent a ricocheting round back toward the person who fired it. Add to that the fact that the building had steel frame construction, and the gang’s firing range could be a death trap if a bullet struck one of the steel girders.
A rumbling noise reached Tanner’s ears. The Diablo Boys had returned. Earlier, Tanner had looked inside an empty storage closet that was on the left side, near where the counter once stood. That was where he decided to go, so that he could listen in on them and maybe discover what was going on.
Before stepping into the storage closet, he watched as five motorcycles drove around to the rear and parked. Javier Reyes was riding on the last bike. He was the only one that wasn’t wearing a T-shirt or jacket with the gang’s insignia.
Tanner also saw that the boy wasn’t wearing his helmet, but had it strapped down behind him. Apparently, he only carried it around so that his mother wouldn’t worry, but he kept it off to appear more macho in front of the gang.
Tanner stepped inside the closet and left the door cracked just enough to see out, as the first of the men walked inside, past his position, and plopped into a seat at the head of the table. The guy had a name stitched over the pocket of his vest which Tanner at first thought said Jeff, but then he squinted and could see that it read, Jefe', as in boss. How original.
The other men followed and took seats, all but Javier, who Tanner assumed was made to stand because he wasn’t yet a member.
The other four men all looked alike, mid to late-thirties, with faded denim clothes, worn boots, and scruffy beards, but the one at the head of the table, Jefe', was a head taller than the others and the most muscular.
Jefe' gazed around the large room with contempt on his face. “Look at this shithole. How much longer do we have to stay here, Javier?”
Javier mumbled something that Tanner couldn’t make out, nor could the gang’s leader, as his next words indicated.
“Speak up! What excuse do you have now?”
“I said it’s that guy, Tanner. He ran off the Harvey brothers and even took my mother to see Willis.”
Tanner raised an eyebrow at the mention of Willis’s name and wondered if maybe he was involved somehow.
“What happened?” Jefe' asked.
“Nothing. My mother still blames Willis for everything.”
“Good, but you have to make your move soon, son, and didn’t you say that Tanner dude was still there?”
“Yeah, the asshole wants to move in as far as I can tell.”
“It don’t matter. He was there when you rigged that knife to fall and he won’t be able to stop this either.”
Javier nodded, but shuffled his feet. “Isn’t there some other way?”
Jefe' stood. When he walked over to Javier, Tanner saw the boy flinch, but Jefe' smiled and placed a muscular arm across Javier’s shoulders, then he spoke to him in a fatherly manner.
“I know it won’t be easy, but once it’s done, you’re in. You’ll be one of us and everything gets made new. Then we can leave this shithole behind and start making some fat dollars, you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“Do it tonight and it’ll all work out, you’ll see.”
Javier reached in his pocket and removed a small bottle that held a yellowish powder.
“You’re sure it’s painless?”
“Absolutely, and there’s no way to tie it back to you. Hey, you don’t want us to have to do it, do you?”
Javier shook his head vigorously.
Jefe' took Javier by the shoulders and turned to speak to the other bikers. “Look at this guy. He’s making moves like a man. The next time we see him, he’ll be one of us.”
The men cheered Javier and told him he was taking control of his life the way a man should, and then Jefe' slapped him on the back.
“Go home, act like everything’s cool, and do what you got to do. I have faith in you, son. You’re the future of the Diablo Boys.”
Javier said goodbye, and seconds later, Tanner heard his bike start up, and then the sound faded as he rode off.
Jefe' returned to the table and the man at his right asked a question.
“Do you think he’ll really do it?”
“Yeah, I do. He did everything else I asked. The little shit wants to be one of us and he knows that this is the only way that happens.”
“That’s one dumb motherfucker,” one of the other men said. “Once we move in there, I’m gonna get real friendly with his sister. The girl is fine. I bet I can turn her out and have her doing blowjobs for twenty bucks, or maybe I’ll just make her my bitch.”
The other men laughed along with their friend, but the laughter died when Tanner stepped from the closet and shot the man in the back of the head. He killed a second man by the time the other two reacted. They dived beneath the table while reaching for their guns.
Tanner sent two shots through the tabletop to kill the third man, before Jefe' could clear his weapon, then Tanner told Jefe' that he wanted to see his hands.
As Jefe' raised his hands up, Tanner saw a wet spot spread across the tough guy’s jeans.
“What is Javier supposed to do tonight?”
“You’re… you’re Tanner, aren’t you?”
Tanner fired a bullet that hit Jefe' in the left shoulder.
“Answer my question.”
Jefe' did answer the question, and several more after that, before Tanner left the leader of the Diablo Boys with a bullet in his head. He was tired of playing bodyguard and it felt good to kill.
Killing was something he had always understood. It was final. It offered no appeals, no plea-bargaining, and no second chances, and second chances were something that Tanner normally didn’t grant. The gifting of one to Romina’s crazed ex-boyfriend had put him in a bad mood.
He was determined to keep the Reyes family safe, and after learning the truth about Javier, he now knew that the real threat had been coming from within all along, and that Willis must have just been a convenient scapegoat.
Tanner wondered if Javier was a cancer that could be treated, or if he had to be cut out with a knife.
In either event, the Reyes family was in for grief, but at least two of them would still be alive when it was all over. That was more than could be said for the Parkers.
Tanner strode back to the pickup truck he’d left at the diner, ditched the gun in a dumpster, and drove back toward the ranch. As he did so, thoughts of the past filled his mind once more.
218
Massacre
THE MCKAY RANCH, SEPTEMBER 1997
The big red tractor-trailer came to a halt just past the driveway, and the two ranch hands stationed there, men that McKay had turned into guards, assumed the driver would get out and ask them for directions.
When the driver did approach, he held a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun with a sound suppressor attached. He emptied the entire thirty-round magazine into the two men and watched as they fell to the ground dead.
With the guards at the entrance eliminated, the man unlatched the rear doors of the truck and swung them open, so that twenty of the forty men aboard could get out and head for the ranch. Ea
ch man held his own MP5.
With half of his cargo delivered, the driver got back in the truck and moved along the three miles separating the McKay Ranch from the Parker Ranch. He drove with the rear doors still opened and secured, as the remaining men in the back held onto straps fastened to the wall. They sat atop crude benches made from wooden planks.
Once they’d arrived at the entrance to the Parker Ranch, the driver eased the truck around the police car and slowed to park. When the men at the rear of the truck spotted the cop inside the cruiser, they opened up on him, shredding both the man and the vehicle with over a hundred rounds.
The silenced guns worked so efficiently that death was delivered in an eerie muffled violence, which sounded something like a hundred people all spitting at once. If not for the discordant sounds of breaking glass and rending metal accompanied by the officer’s screams, the death and destruction would have seemed surreal.
The remaining twenty men disembarked and joined the driver, who was already headed down the Parker’s driveway.
The driver’s name was Martillo, and tonight his cargo was death.
The four men standing guard on McKay’s porch died before they could ever give voice to warn the other men on the property, but no warning was needed, as bullets shredded everything in sight. Only the dead could have missed the fact that they were under attack.
Martillo’s men spread out and kept firing, as they reloaded their weapons repeatedly. The attack was so devastating that McKay’s men only got off five shots and caused only one injury.
In less than a minute, the home resembled a cheese grater, as over a thousand rounds perforated the structure to pass through furniture, inner walls, and people.
By the time Martillo’s men had finished reloading for the fourth time, the baffles inside the sound suppressors began to fail, and the volume of the shots grew much louder.
McKay had stood up behind his desk at the beginning of the assault and wondered what was causing the screams and odd sounds he was hearing. Then several of Martillo’s men reached the side of the home. When their silenced rounds entered McKay’s office, he finally realized he was under attack.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 68