K-9 Outlaw: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 1

by Charles Wendt

  Braxton Greene finished the set with his rendition of “Down by the River”. No one clapped, but the briefly quiet speakers allowed Shep to hear the big diesel in the parking lot behind him. He turned and strode to look out the parking lot window. He immediately recognized Rebel’s truck and his eyes narrowed. It hadn’t been Rebel’s fault, but Jessie and his boys had been one of his top crews.

  They would be hard to replace. It was a dubious business that would quickly fall apart if people didn’t follow through with what they were supposed to. Foot soldiers were easy to recruit, but lieutenants were harder to come by. Trust and respect couldn’t be developed overnight with the up and comers. Jessie had been tough and reliable, and Shep had been considering promoting Grover to his own crew. Right now the roster felt thin facing growing demand.

  Both doors of the truck opened, and Shep looked down fondly at the little blond. His eyes softened and a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He turned around again to close the balcony shutters. Braxton was done for the night, and he didn’t want to risk the upcoming conversation being overheard. He settled into his desk chair and waited, feeling a stirring.

  He waited quite a few minutes. It took Rebel a while to navigate the layers of bouncers, henchmen really, between his abode and the general public. Having the girl in tow sped the process a little as he wasn’t to be outright refused, but they would want to gawk at her or have a feel so it went far from quickly. Eventually came the soft tap on the door.

  “Enter,” he grunted.

  Rebel opened the door and pushed the blond girl before him. The desk faced the parking lot window so they moved around to their left to stand before it and Shep, standing by the two chairs.

  Shep looked her up and down slowly, lingering briefly on her face. The tight faded jeans were cute as was the black Harley tank top. Both were clean and fresh looking, but the girl’s hair was frazzled and grimy and her skin bore an oily sheen. He noted the tattoo of a fawn on her forearm and recognition came to him. It was like she was wearing a name tag.

  “Bambi,” he said “you’re back again. Sit down, please. Both of you.”

  It wasn’t a matter of being polite, although Shep wasn’t particularly looking to be inhospitable at the moment. He was always up to listen to a good deal or proposal. But even though his men would have searched him a couple of times for any gun or knife, sitting while the others stood made you vulnerable. They could rush and tackle you or make a kick at your head and it would be really hard to block it or spring out of the way sitting back in a chair. He always wanted to get them settled on to their asses as quickly as possible. Shep had no need for “you stand while I sit” power plays. His power was undisputed. That was evident as they sat and remained quiet, waiting for him to bid them speak. Shep kept them waiting a little bit to highlight that dynamic of their relationship and let its meaning sink in.

  “Okay, Rebel. What the fuck now?”

  “Need some more boys. Fouche has my money at his house and gone off fishing. Ain’t gettin nother shot like this.”

  “How do you know?” asked Shep skeptically. He shifted in his chair as his underwear put the bind on his slowly expanding member.

  “Buck told me. Man been running hard all week. Had to deal with the dog guy and the missing chick. Hasn’t had time to hide my money away.”

  “How many boys? What’s the plan?”

  “Only two. Don’t want to hurt nobody this time. Just want to keep her down and crying while I search around. Could take a while. And that Evelyn woman is sure mean. Wanna go t’night before the sheriff comes back.”

  Shep paused before replying to think it over. It sounded reasonable, but he had two concerns. One, Fouche was law enforcement and the law could be pretty forceful with taking care of their own. Second, the Department of Justice was very aggressive concerning possible civil rights issues. If anything went too far, it could all blow back on to him, even if race had absolutely nothing to do with it.

  “That could still bring down a ton of shit that we don’t need for your little bag of cash.”

  Rebel’s head and right shoulder made a small shrug to the side.

  “With the cash he’s looking at corruption charges. Don’t hurt no one badly or break shit up much, I suspect he’ll stay real quiet. Need two special dudes who won’t get bored and want to dip their wicks or tag the whole house.”

  “So you want to go out on your little raid with men who have been well satisfied?” sneered Shep.

  “That’s why I brought the payment,” said Rebel spreading face up palms.

  Bambi shrunk down into her chair and Shep felt his member harden at her meekness. There was a knock at the door.

  Shep called annoyed, “Enter!”

  The door opened quickly followed by confident steps which rapidly faltered when Braxton Greene realized that Shep wasn’t alone.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to bring you your half of the tips,” he explained.

  Braxton held out his hand, with the handful of bills and lose change. Shep looked down at it, trying to come up with a figure. Probably around a pathetic thirty bucks.

  “Fifty-fifty split was what our deal was, right?” Braxton tried to clarify, stuttering slightly with uncertainty.

  “I saw Neil Young play once. Way back in California when he played guitar for Buffalo-Springfield. My parents took me. I don’t think I was even ten years old,” Shep grew quieter as he reminisced and then in a bold assertive tone, “My half is the paper half.”

  Braxton handed over the bills without making eye contact and backpedaled to the door, “Sorry to have interrupted. I appreciate getting to play.”

  “Don’t be late tomorrow night, Braxton,” replied Shep and turned back toward Rebel and Bambi.

  “Alright, I will take her here and now,” decreed Shep. “Then we’ll show her to the boys. They’ll hold off on an old nigger grandma when they got a smoking hot blond to come back to. That way you can go and do the job tonight. Else you might not get away until morning when it will be too late. I’ll keep her here while you all are away. May even play again if you take long enough. When the boys finish, you take her back. Deal?”

  Rebel rose from his chair and nodded, “I’m down with that.”

  “Where you going then?” asked Shep confused.

  Rebel gestured over his shoulder with a thumb.

  “Downstairs to meet the boys, I guess.”

  “We’ll go pick out a pair after I’m through. Sit down,” ordered Shep.

  He turned toward Bambi and leered. There were many ways to wield power. This one just happened to be his favorite.

  CHAPTER—16

  Azrael and Kelton hustled south on Lowland Road, making pretty good time for boots and a rucksack. They kept a steady rhythmic pace without interruption, covering most of the four and half miles in just over forty-five minutes. There was no traffic at this late hour, no reason to duck off the road into the brush and lose time hiding from sight. The clouds were broken and the fuller than not moon provided plenty of illumination on the dark rural road.

  Kelton had briefly considered taking a left on Thigpen Road to cut over on Coalson Street instead of going down Main. He recalled the iPhone map application saying it was five minutes faster when he had planned the trip for Doris the first time. But it was a residential street and that could mean problems from other dogs. Even with the late hour, versus the early morning timing of last time, the risk didn’t seem to justify the gain.

  He moved at the “Ranger Quick Step”, a technique from academy days for long road marches during field exercises. Running with equipment was particularly strenuous, especially over rough terrain. By walking quickly for fifty steps and then doing a slow lumbering jog for fifty steps, one covered much more ground than by walking alone. The intermittent nature of the run steps allowed the pace to be kept up over longer distances, and counting the walk steps coaxed people back to the run when they would otherwise be inclined to contin
ue walking.

  But despite the urgency he felt at getting to Rebel’s garage, Kelton knew he needed to restrain himself. It wasn’t a race, with the goal of getting there the fastest only to collapse over the finish line with all energy reserves exhausted; it was to get there quickly in a state of being able to mount a rescue. That might mean being able to fight. So, as they passed the place on the road where Chandler and Buck had apprehended them, he slowed to a walk. Whatever had happened in that pit had happened by now. He couldn’t save these two women from that. But he could save them from the pit overall, and the best chances of that were him arriving on scene with breath and brains at the ready.

  He actually smelled the grease, oil and exhaust fume soot before fully seeing the mailbox with the address. It was a big mailbox that handled a volume of correspondence larger than most households, with the dings and knocks of rural living. Immediately, he led Azrael into the shrubby cedar trees for cover and listened a spell. Azrael listed too, and scented with nose stretching into the air, but gave no indications that anything was amiss. In truth, it was hard to listen. The frogs singing along the soggy soil of the drainage ditches were almost deafening.

  Kelton removed his pack, and placed it at the base of one of the larger trees. He wished he had a chem-light to put on the pack, but he wasn’t as well equipped with expendables as he’d been in the warzone. A chem-light was a plastic tube containing two different solutions separated by a membrane. Bending the tube and giving it a gentle shake broke the membrane and mixed the chemicals, resulting in light that he could use to mark where his pack was and be sure of finding it again in a hurry. Azrael’s nose would work just as well.

  Kelton put on his yellow lens shooting goggles and bionic ears, and then did the same for Azrael with his doggles and mutt-muffs. Azrael would need to use his nose to spot trouble. Kelton didn’t want to hurt his ears with a gunshot. He clipped Azrael’s short leash to the ring on the back of his harness and drew his pistol. The tritium night sight glowed as it should and he validated a round was in the chamber. They crept forward slowly until they could see the north side of the garage. He kneeled on the pine needles just inside the thicket, perhaps twenty feet from the wall. Azrael downed himself alongside.

  There was no window on this “short side” of the rectangular building, and not much to see but an old rusty fuel tank labeled “No. 2 Diesel” supported six feet off the ground on four narrow legs. For refueling tractors, he guessed. He scanned and listened, adjusting the knobs on the electronic hearing protection, but detecting no sign of activity other than singing frogs and the buzz of a mercury-vapor security lamp on the front of the building. He couldn’t see the fixture, but its blue-white halo glowed over the roof. Kelton returned the pistol to holster, and unbuttoned his right breast pocket for a small pair of binoculars. Off to the left, beyond the building, he could see the outlines of scrap cars in some type of junkyard. Behind the building to the right, vegetation had grown up through a garden of old tires at the base of the railroad bed. He decided to shift to his left for a better view.

  They fell back into the thicket again until they couldn’t see the garage wall, and then shifted using the security light visible through the trees to keep their bearings. This time Kelton approached the edge of the wood line crawling on his belly, Azrael again right beside him. Again he scanned with the binoculars, now being able to see the front of the building with its pair of garage entrances and an office off to the far side, well-lit by the security light over its door. He could also see the gravel drive and a little around the far corner, not seeing any parked vehicle that appeared to be in-service.

  “Okay, Azrael. Let’s go and see if anyone is home,” he whispered. He put away the binoculars and again drew his sidearm.

  They fell back into the woods once more, half circled back to the original location, and then dashed to the wall to kneel in the moon shadow of the diesel fuel tank. He waited here listening again, knowing that his approach from the woods would be the most likely time to have been seen. Nothing.

  He decided to check the back first, as it was the only side he hadn’t yet an inkling. He kneeled at the corner, firmly placing his left knee and right foot in position, before leaning out to take a peak over the barrel of his ready gun. This exposed only his right eye and shoulder, while the rest of his body, and his dog, were protected by the building’s concrete. It was blackness, full in the shadows of the trees and building itself. Overhead a powerline showed as a dark line against the sparkling heavens peeking between clouds. He picked a spot, a door about a third of the way down the wall whose frame was silhouetted by the distant sky over the junkyard and dashed for it. It was a steel door, of heavy commercial manufacture designed to take hard knocks in a shop environment. He tried the knob, but it didn’t move.

  He took a step further down the wall, paused, and then took a step back. Transferring the end of the leash to his gun hand, he then used the end of his sleeve to give the doorknob a superficial wipe. Kelton noted he needed to add a lot of forensic technique research to his internet reading. Or maybe his Audible App for reading books while they walked. This was different from what he did in the military. He considered putting on his gloves, but they were heavy and stiff.

  They advanced rapidly toward the far corner, finding another locked backdoor just before getting there. It was a narrower door, not designed for carrying equipment or car parts through. More a personnel back entrance. To the right of it was a clothes line, a pair of posts with wide arms, winding back and forth a half dozen times. He reached out and felt with his hands, not wanting to turn on a light. There were several pair of heavy duty wool work socks pinned up. Behind it, several garbage bags were piled up in a heap. They didn’t readily smell like old food, but the weather had been mild.

  On the far building short side was a gravel parking area, and the security light allowed him to see impressions in the rain softened ground and gravel from a dual rear axle truck. The junkyard beyond was quiet and unmoving, but shadows danced as swaying tree branches caught the ample moonlight. His suspicion of nobody being home was growing. They approached the corner to the front and paused for one last look and listen before stepping out into the light. Still nothing.

  The front office window was plate glass, perhaps three by six feet. The security light overhead made it reflective, so he paused at the edge to place his left eye close to the glass. His floppy hat brim allowed him to see inside for a quick glance, and he noted nothing but office furniture. The wooden office door, with small panes of glass and many generations of paint, was to the right of the window. He tightly gripped the shiny brass knob and tried to turn it. It was locked tight, and he wiped it like the other. There was also a deadbolt, and both brass faces sported telltale scratches among the tarnish of being operable and in use.

  The two of them slowly walked down to the garage bay doors with the heavy metal panels and tinted windows. Inside was quite dark, and even with the moon over his shoulder he couldn’t see much. The security light down by the office just made glare off the glass. He holstered and dropped the leash, cupping his hands around his eyes. There seemed to be some stuff between the two bays as Dixie had said, but he couldn’t say for sure what it was. Azrael continued to stretch out scenting with his muzzle, but gave no indication of anyone about. He walked slowly down to the other bay, Azrael following dragging the leash, but the view in its window brought no new information.

  He felt vulnerable under the light and continued back to the woods, rather than ponder his next move in the open. Was Dixie playing him? He’d never been hit on like that before. But was it an act? Of course it was an act. A homeless wanderer living out of backpack is hardly the typical desire for young pretty blonds. And wouldn’t Buck have freed the other women at the same time as Dixie rather than leave them with Rebel?

  Did Buck send Dixie to his room? Was Buck trying to set him up for breaking and entering? Surely Buck realized that his Braxton Greene story didn’t hold water and th
at was why he’d leaned on him with the shooting witnesses. Maybe Buck didn’t realize he was planning to just leave town and not come back? If it was a ploy against him and his dog, why did Buck feel the need? Kelton considered it irresistibly curious.

  The doors were all locked tight, and Kelton suspected there wasn’t any additional security given that someone lived here as evidenced by the laundry. This junkyard didn’t even have a dog. He holstered his gun, and used his flashlight to find a stout piece of wood. In the copse of trees, it wasn’t hard. Then he marched back to the building, his grip about the club strong with resolve. Azrael again followed at the heel, dragging his leash behind.

  He smashed the rectangular office window, with a wild blow. The shattering silenced the frogs and sprayed glass in all directions to including some back upon them. Thank goodness for eye protection. Next he turned to the frame, clearing away the shards with a back and forth sideways motion. The frogs resumed their chorus. Kelton didn’t pause in his quick work, being thorough but not wanting to dally. He tossed the branch aside, Azrael’s eyes following it with some hope.

  “We’ll play soon,” he promised. “Platz.”

  Azrael lay down flat on the ground.

  Then he put on his rappelling gloves and climbed through the window, being careful of his right index finger where the leather tip had been cut away for better trigger control. He used the flashlight on his phone, the tactical flashlight was much too bright for indoors, while he was still straddling the windowsill. He kicked away a rickety magazine rack for a good landing spot and swung over inside. Stray glass crunched under the thick soles of Kelton’s boots. His electronic earmuffs heard nothing but the frogs in the distance and Azrael’s panting.