That was how she wound up in Billings, Montana, where she found work within a matter of weeks and was starting over. The kids liked their school and she enjoyed her new job and friends.
But ten days ago, Simone came out of her rented house and discovered red roses scattered across the hood of her car. Haney himself appeared shortly thereafter and Simone was about to lose her mind. That was when an old friend named Carrie mentioned Spenser to her.
They had been on the phone at the time, and Simone thought it strange that her friend insisted on telling her about Spenser in person. Carrie had business near Billings a few days later and met Simone for lunch.
After searching every face in the restaurant to make certain that Haney hadn’t followed her, Simone sat across from her friend, while keeping an eye on the entrance.
“So, what’s the deal with this Spenser Hawke?”
“He’s sort of a bodyguard.”
Simone’s shoulders drooped. She had tried bodyguards in the past. Haney wasn’t intimidated by them. He had even paid some guys to beat up one of the men she had hired.
“A bodyguard won’t help, Carrie. Darrell Haney doesn’t scare, and I don’t have the kind of money where I can pay someone to watch me night and day.”
“Spenser isn’t your average bodyguard,” Carrie said, then she lowered her voice. “He’ll make Haney disappear.”
Simone’s hand flew to her mouth. “You mean he’ll… he’ll kill him?”
“Yes. When there’s nowhere else to turn—call Spenser.”
Simone broke eye contact just as the waitress brought their salads and drinks. After the woman left, Simone nodded her head.
“I’ll do it. I’ll hire him, but Carrie, how much does he charge? After everything Haney has put me through, the lawyers, the move, starting over, I’m practically broke until I sell my old house.”
“We used him when George was having that trouble with his business partner, remember?”
Simone searched her memory and came up with a name. “Carl Brown, right? The bastard that embezzled from the business and ran off?”
“That’s him, and Simone, he took everything, borrowed more, and left us holding the bag. You want to talk about being in debt; we owed nearly a million. We were about to sell our home and drain the kids’ college funds to pay back our creditors. That’s when George heard about Spenser from a friend. After we hired him, Spenser tracked down Carl in a week and got back all of our money.”
“What did that cost you?”
Carrie grinned. “Not one penny. Spenser took his payment from what Carl had when he tracked him down and gave us back the money we lost. Carl had embezzled from his other partners as well, so I suspect that Spenser made out all right.”
Simone looked thoughtful for a moment, then whispered to Carrie. “Darrell Haney is a drug dealer; I bet he has money hidden somewhere.”
Carrie nodded in agreement, reached into her purse, and handed Simone a business card.
Simone read the card.
SPENSER HAWKE: WHEN THERE’S NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN—CALL ME!
“Yes, just call the number written on the back and leave a message stating my name. After Spenser calls me and checks that you’re legit, he’ll contact you.”
“What’s he look like? He’s not scary, is he?”
Carrie laughed. “Oh honey, he’s gorgeous, but… there is one thing.”
Spenser adjusted his eye patch as he waited for Darrell Haney to show. The forty-something Spenser had lost his left eye years ago but was still deadlier than most men were with two eyes.
Still, he found that he had to compensate for his missing eye and had developed different tricks to do so. One of those tricks was about to come in handy, because unbeknownst to Spenser, Darrell Haney was sneaking up on his blind side.
Darrell Haney moved as quietly as he could through the trees at the rear of Simone Owens’ home. Darrell had seen Simone enter the house earlier without her kids and assumed she was alone. He was hopeful she had finally come to her senses and gotten rid of the brats, so that the two of them could be together.
But no, Simone was simply playing hard to get again. After scouting out the area, Darrell had spotted the bearded guy with the eye patch. He was smaller than the brutes she had hired in the past, not much bigger than Darrell was really. Once he got by him, Darrell had plans for Simone.
No more foreplay.
Today was the day that Darrell planned to enter the house and take Simone off with him. He had a nice spot all set for her in the basement of a private home two miles away. Between the steel cage and the chain he would place around her ankle, he’d never have to worry about being separated from Simone ever again.
Darrell ducked down as the bearded man glanced his way, and when the guy turned his head again, Darrell crept closer.
Darrell smiled. Simone couldn’t have been serious about staying separated, because if she was, she never would have hired a guy with only one eye to guard her. She must have known that all Darrell would have to do is sneak up on the guy’s blind side, and then she’d be his.
When Darrell was ten feet away from the man, he stood, and began easing his gun from his waistband. Eye patch was looking the wrong way with his good eye, and soon that one would close forever.
Spenser was looking in the opposite direction of Darrell’s approach, but he watched the deranged drug dealer creep ever closer. He was looking into one of the small round mirrors he had fastened in strategic spots, along the trunks of different trees.
Darrell’s movements were observed in two of the mirrors, and when Spenser saw the dirtbag reach for the gun in his waistband, he spun around and fired.
The weapon was a Taser. Its prongs sank into Darrell’s skinny chest and sent a shock through him. The gun slipped from Darrell’s hand even as he fell to the ground. Spenser walked toward him while removing zip ties from his pocket. When he had Darrell handled, Spenser took out his phone and dialed.
Amy answered on the first ring. “You got him?”
“We got him. He wouldn’t have come close enough if you hadn’t fooled him.”
“I’ll be right there,” Amy said.
When she emerged from the home, she was removing the brown wig she wore to make herself look like Simone.
Amy was thirty-eight, had grown-up in Hollywood, and early in her career she had worked as a makeup artist and wardrobe person. The skills ran in the family, as Amy was the fourth generation to work in the film business. Her great-grandmother had slapped pancake makeup on Charlie Chaplin and other silent film stars.
The good-looking Amy had gone on to be a screenwriter, and showed much promise, but that ended when she became the target of a madman.
That was when she was introduced to Spenser. He made the madman vanish from Amy’s life while he stayed in it. The two of them became lovers, and on occasion, Amy helped Spenser set his traps, as she did by pretending to be Simone.
With the wig removed, Amy’s own raven hair shined in the sun, and she walked over and stared down at Darrell.
“You’ll never bother Simone again; do you hear that, you lunatic?”
Darrell opened his mouth to reply, and Spenser stuck a rag in it, before smiling at Amy.
“You were great, honey. When I saw you leave Simone’s car and walk inside the house I thought you were her. Had I not known better, I would have been fooled like Darrell was, you really mimicked her mannerisms well.”
Amy kissed Spenser on the lips, then stared down at Darrell. “Do you need help with him?”
“No, you just go see Simone and tell her that everything is all right.”
“She’ll be relieved.”
“They always are, and if they could handle people like Darrell on their own I’d be out of work.”
“No, you wouldn’t; you’d find something to do, and you can always help out at the store.”
“Speaking of the store, how soon do you have to get back?”
“There’s no rush with
Deedee and my brother there, why?”
“I thought we’d take a—”
Darrell kicked out with his feet suddenly. Spenser leapt out of the way easily and shook a finger at him.
“That’s a no-no.”
Spenser took a small leather case from an inside pocket of his jacket and removed a syringe from it. The syringe held a powerful sedative. Spenser obtained it from a friend, an anesthesiologist who was also a former client. Spenser jabbed the needle into Darrell’s neck, and after mumbling for a moment behind the gag, Darrell’s eyes closed.
“As I was saying, I thought we could take a little vacation, anywhere you want to go.”
Amy smiled brightly. “Aren’t you romantic. Why don’t we go south?”
Spenser grinned. “I know what that means, New Orleans, and yeah, I could go for some gumbo.”
Amy kissed Spenser again, but this time it was longer and more soulful.
“I’ll see you back at the hotel, and you be careful with that one there; he’s a snake.”
“I’ll be careful, and thanks again for the help.”
“It’s my pleasure. I don’t know where people like Simone and I would be if you didn’t do what you do. Goodbye baby, I’ll be waiting for you.”
Spenser watched Amy until she drove off in Simone’s car. Afterwards, he went in search of Darrell’s vehicle.
He found the van parked on the street behind Simone’s house and drove it back to park it in the driveway. After dragging Darrell by his collar, he picked him up and dropped him into the back of the van.
Twenty minutes later, he was at the rundown home Darrell had bought. He had followed him there on a previous occasion. This time he went inside, and he found the cell that Darrell had fashioned for Simone in the basement.
It was a welded wire dog kennel. The type normally used outdoors to keep large dogs in. It stood six-feet high, was four-feet wide and eight-feet deep.
Spenser saw where Darrell had done spot welding to reinforce the original wire welds and had bolted the kennel to the basement floor.
If the heavy padlock on the kennel’s door failed, Simone would have still had to deal with the ankle iron attached to the chain that had its other end bolted into the brick wall behind the cage.
Darrell had supplied the cage with a thin mattress, a blanket, and a bucket for waste. Had Simone ever been locked inside the cage, Spenser had no doubt that someday she would have died within it. Simone had contacted him none too soon.
He took a few pictures of it to show Amy and Simone, then waited for Darrell to regain consciousness. While he waited, he located the thirty-two thousand and change Darrell had hidden in a chest freezer. It was jammed down inside a box of frozen fried chicken.
The money was more than enough compensation and would easily pay for the trip to New Orleans as well. While Darrell was still out cold, Spenser went through his pockets. That’s when he came across the drawing of Tanner on the wanted poster.
Spenser knew Tanner years ago when Tanner was living under the name of Xavier Zane. He recognized him immediately.
“One million dollars, dead or alive.”
Spenser placed the poster in his pocket. New Orleans would have to wait.
Since he had found the money without his assistance, Darrell was no longer needed. Spenser took a second syringe from the leather case. Two minutes after he was injected with the fluid from the second syringe, Darrell’s heart stopped beating.
An hour later, Darrell’s body was settled at the bottom of a pre-dug grave and Spenser was headed back to Amy.
“One million dollars,” he whispered.
Yeah, New Orleans would have to wait. Spenser had new plans.
401
Huh, Now Will You Look At That
Tanner followed Jack Rockford to a bar on the other side of the city where Rockford met with a woman Tanner assumed was the man’s girlfriend.
That is, unless Rockford’s wife, who the helpful Trisha claimed was “a sweetie” was also a nineteen-year-old with huge chest implants.
Tanner sat on a stool at the bar and kept an eye on Rockford and his girl by looking at them in the mirror. He was unaware that he was being watched as well.
It was the bartender, a man named Eddie. Eddie had one of the drawings of Tanner sitting beneath the bar. There was a shotgun there also, but Eddie wasn’t a brave man and knew himself well enough to know he could never shoot anyone in cold blood.
However, there was such a thing as a finder’s fee, and luckily, Eddie knew just who to call.
In Enid, Oklahoma, Georgie Macateer looked at his phone as he sat in a booth at a different bar, a bar named McGinty’s. His cousin Eddie worked as a bartender in Oklahoma City and had surreptitiously taken a picture of a guy he swore was Tanner.
Georgie was a slim guy in his fifties with a full head of curly brown hair. He had never married, loved to gamble, and had essentially taken over his old man’s gang when his father went to prison for life back in the 1980’s. Georgie’s father was dead now, but the gang lived on, and Georgie made a comfortable living while his men did most of the work.
Georgie brought the picture up on his phone. It showed a guy seated on a stool at the bar in Oklahoma City. The man was turned sideways. It could be Tanner or a hundred other guys, but Georgie knew his cousin wasn’t a flake. He held up his phone for the other men in the booth to look at the picture.
“My cousin Eddie says that the guy in this picture is Tanner. If that’s true, we’re looking at a million dollars.”
There were four other men in the booth; they were part of Georgie’s gang, which had about twenty members. They all made their living with low-level drug dealing and protection rackets.
All four men squinted at the picture, as one of them, a thirtyish thug named Owen, asked a question.
“Why the hell would this Tanner come here?”
Georgie shrugged. “Maybe he’s hiding out. I know I never expected to see him in Oklahoma.”
“You want to go check it out? It’s a three hour round trip.”
Georgie thought about that, then stood up from the booth. “We’ll go. Hell, it’s a million-dollar gamble.”
“Should we call in more guys?”
“Nah, either this Tanner is there or he ain’t, and if he is, we’ll handle him.”
Georgie took off with his men and headed south after Tanner.
Following on their motorcycles were the Tin Horsemen, Scar, Wound, Bruise, and Abrasion. They had overheard the conversation between Georgie and his men and asked if they could tag along.
After considering it for a moment, Georgie told them yes. He figured they would make a good distraction for Tanner. That Tanner would kill the four morons Georgie didn’t doubt for a second.
That meant that he would not only claim Tanner’s bounty, but also rid himself of a minor annoyance. Not bad for one night’s work, not bad.
Alexa was in Oklahoma City. After visiting twelve other motels, she had located the motel where Tanner had stayed at when Derrick and Bobby tried to attack him. She could feel that she was closing in on finding the man but hoped she wouldn’t be too late.
The motel clerk was an old lady and a talker. She told Alexa about the busted door lock on Tanner’s room, and said he was a gentleman for bringing it to her attention and paying for it.
“Normally, the guests just check out and don’t say anything, then the management wants to blame me. But not your fella, he was a good guy and spoke right up.”
Alexa shook her head. “We’re not involved. He’s… more like a friend.”
“A friend, hmm? Well I wish he had gotten friendly with me. It’s too bad he didn’t have a thing for old ladies or I’d have dragged him into one of the rooms.”
Alexa laughed and thanked the woman for her help. She left the office, climbed into her van, and headed for the highway to go north, but at the first traffic light she came to, she felt the urge to drive east instead.
Alexa ignored the feel
ing, and after leaving the city, she headed north, eager to catch up to Tanner. When she had driven another twenty miles, the urge to turn back grew too strong to ignore. When Alexa finally U-turned, she felt as if she had just scratched a mental itch.
Upon her return to the city, she headed deeper into its center. If Tanner was still in Oklahoma City, Alexa wondered what it was that was keeping him there.
She began visiting more motel parking lots, hoping to spot Tanner. When she reached the parking lot of the seventeenth motel she visited, something inside her told her to pull over.
Alexa looked around the parking lot of the motel and saw numerous cars, a young couple with a baby, and an elderly couple returning from dinner, but no Tanner. Still, her “little voice” was telling her to stay put, so Alexa opened a bottle of water, nibbled on a protein bar, and waited.
Behind her and three doors down was Room 32. It was Tanner’s motel room.
Tanner followed Rockford from the bar and to his girlfriend’s apartment. Only an hour after entering the girlfriend’s apartment, Rockford came out with a smile on his handsome face.
Tanner had backed his rental up to the rear of Rockford’s Chevy. He was standing between the two cars and looking into the trunk of his rental when Rockford returned to his car.
“Huh, now will you look at that. If that ain’t the damndest thing. Hey buddy, come take a look at this.”
Rockford hesitated for a moment, but he saw the puzzled expression on Tanner’s face and grew curious about what could be in the trunk. When he walked over and gazed down into it, he saw nothing. However, after Tanner smashed him on the back of the head with a leather sap, Rockford briefly saw stars.
Rockford’s knees buckled, and Tanner guided his torso into the open trunk, then afterwards, he shoved in his legs. After looking around and seeing that none of the three people about had noticed what had just happened, Tanner calmly bound Rockford, covered his mouth with duct tape, and slammed the trunk lid closed.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 127