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I read the veterinarian’s emergency contact number by my headlights as I stopped in the clinic’s empty parking lot. I punched in the number and handed the phone to Doraleen.
“Dr. Willsey? It’s Doraleen Rice… Yes, ma’am. Race Car, a white Persian… Something terrible happened to Race Car. We’re parked at your clinic. Can you come down and help her? Someone cut off her ears and tail. Thanks. We’ll be waiting.”
She handed the phone back to me. “Ten minutes.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and twisted where she could reach Race Car in Tank’s lap. She stroked the cat’s back. “There’s a bench on the front porch. I’ll take Race Car and wait with her up there.”
“You’ll get blood on your dress, Momma Dora. I’ll hold her. I’m already bloody.”
Doraleen opened the passenger door and spoke over her shoulder to Tank. “She’ll feel safer in my lap. I don’t mind the blood.”
I followed both of them to the bench and waited until they sat. “When the vet gets here, I’d like to go back to your street and see if I can locate the place where… that is, the crime scene. Look for evidence.”
Doraleen patted Tank’s knee. “I’m safe with Tank. You go on. If it rains, it might wash away clues.”
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I parked at the curb in front of Doraleen’s house. I pulled on rubber gloves and took a Maglite. Blood drops marked a faint trail on the concrete. The trail led down the sidewalk to Doraleen’s next door neighbor. Four more drops and a blood smear clustered on the pavement. I sniffed the air and followed a scent until I knelt on the sidewalk near a plumbago hedge. I sniffed again. Shining the Maglite under the hedge, I spied an empty tuna can. That’s how the SOB had attracted Race Car. Any cat within smelling distance would come to him, even one who was nervous around strangers.
I played the beam back and forth under the hedge. A white scrap of fur lay in the mulch. I pulled an evidence bag from my pocket and picked up the white object. A cat’s ear. My stomach felt like a fist-sized rock. Oh, God, that poor cat. I bagged the ear and found the tail and the other ear nearby. Bagged them too. I wasn’t sure what I would do with them. When I found the SOB who did this, maybe I’d make him eat them.
I bagged the tuna can. Maybe I could pull a fingerprint off it.
As I set the evidence bags in the van, a light rain began to fall.
Chapter 5
Al Rice took another swig of Irish whiskey, swished it around in his mouth, and stared at the stripper dancing on the stage behind the bar at the Orange Peel Gentlemen’s Club. What was her name? Brandy. Yeah, it’s Brandy. Or maybe Amber. What difference does it make? This might be his last drink in his entire life. He’d never see Jasmine again—even if her name was Jennifer now. Tomorrow would be two weeks since Moffett had smashed Al’s left hand to smithereens. Moffett had threatened to send Teddy to do even worse if he didn’t pay. Teddy, now he was one bad dude. Always playing with that creepy-looking knife. A warrior’s weapon, Teddy called it.
And Rice hadn’t paid. Two hundred thousand dollars, by God. Moffett might as well demand that Rice pay off the national debt. That was just as likely. What did it matter… it was too late. It was always too late for Al. Too late for something. Too late for anything.
The surgeon who repaired Al’s crushed hand had given him a prescription for forty Oxycodone pills for the pain. “Take one every six hours, if needed,” he’d said. That was supposed to last ten days. Al filled the prescription and gobbled three pills as soon as he got back to his car. He’d taken eight pills the first day.
Then Cinnamon, another stripper at the Orange Peel, slipped him a note that she wanted to score some Oxycodone. After her shift, Rice met her in the parking lot and sold her the rest of the pills for money and a blow job. The BJ wasn’t even good. He was too high to enjoy it. At least the money was good. For the last few days, he’d drunk his way through the cash while he watched Jasmine and the other strippers. Who says you need Oxycodone for pain? Irish whiskey is almost as good. Rice’s biggest pain was that Jasmine or Jennifer or whatever-the-heck her name was—wouldn’t give him the time of day. And why change her name? He had just gotten used to calling her Jasmine.
He took another drink and set the glass on the bar too hard. He waved at the bartender with his right hand. He raised his voice above the music. “Billy! I’ll have another.”
Billy leaned across the bar. “Pay for the drinks you already drank, Al. You can’t run a tab forever.”
“How much I owe you?”
“$48.50.”
Rice belched. “$48.50. Sure thing, sure thing. I have it here… somewhere.” He patted his jacket pockets, then his pants. He stood up from the barstool. Stuffing his right hand into his left front pants pocket, he began to twist around, then tilted and took a staggering step to regain his balance.
A man two stools down peeled his eyes away from the stripper, regarded Rice from the corner of his eye, and carried his drink to an empty table.
Rice lurched into another man at the bar. “Whoa. Sorry, sorry.” He grabbed the bar. “Let’s see… Aha. Here we go.” He tried again, managed to pull a credit card from his pocket, and tossed it on the bar.
The other man frowned, dropped a few bills on the bar, and walked out.
“Al, you’re running off my customers.” Billy stuck the credit card in a terminal. He punched a few keys, studied the screen for a moment, and scoffed. He slid the card back across the bar. “Declined, Al.”
Rice drained the last of the Irish whiskey. Better enjoy it; it might be the last drink I’ll have. Ever. He reached in another pocket, found another credit card, and pushed it across the bar. “Try this one.”
The bartender stuck the card in the terminal. “Declined. You got any cash, Al? You owe me $48.50.”
“$48.50,” Rice repeated.
The previous night Rice had drunk himself into oblivion at that same bar. He had awoken this morning in his car with no memory of how he got there. Now he wouldn’t get enough alcohol to dull the pain of the real world again. How could he enjoy his last night on earth?
He lifted his left hand. “See this cast?” He had trouble saying “cast.” It sounded more like “cash.”
Billy shouted above the music. “No, but I’d like to see cash.”
“No, no, no. Not cash. I said, ‘See this cast.’” He waved the cast.
“Yeah, I seen it lots of times. What about it?”
Rice slid back onto the barstool. “It was a pres… a present.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“A present… from Monster Moffett.” Rice held the cast in front of his face and studied it with bloodshot eyes. “You know good ol’ Monster, don’t you, Billy?”
“I seen him around a few times.”
“He’s gonna kill me tomorrow, y’know. That’s why I’m here to enjoy the girls tonight.”
“Yeah, right, and I’m gonna be elected president.” The bartender shook a finger at Rice. “Listen, Al. Your troubles with Monster Moffett don’t mean squat to me. I got troubles of my own. You gonna pay your tab or what?”
“Sure, sure, sure…” Rice slid his hand into his shirt pocket and fished out a clump of crushed bills. He dropped them on the bar and tried to smooth them out with his right hand. “Oops.” He pinned a bill under his cast and pressed it out. “Too goddamn dark in here to see what kind this is, Billy. You got a light?”
“If you weren’t drunk, you could see.” Billy pulled a penlight from his shirt pocket. It was a twenty.
“How much I owe you?” asked Rice.
“$48.50.”
Forty… eight fitty,” Rice repeated. “I thought that was it.” He pushed the twenty across the bar. He pinned another bill under his cast. “Let’s see what this one is.”
Billy shined the penlight again.
It was another twenty, which Rice laid carefully on the first bill. He pulled another bill out.
A five, and Rice lined it up on the two twenties. “Her
e you go. Let’s call it even.” He tried to pick up the remaining bills. “I need something to tip the dancers, Billy.”
The bartender grabbed Rice’s wrist. “You owe me $48.50, not $45. How much more you got there?” He pried the bills from Rice’s fist and counted them. “Four more bucks.” He grabbed the bills off the bar. “I’ll keep the extra fifty cents as a tip. Sheesh.”
Rice nodded. “Okay… Okay… So my tab’s paid. How about my other drink?”
“Go home, Al.” The bartender walked away.
“You gonna call me a cab?”
The bartender stopped at the far end of the bar. “And just how do you intend to pay for a cab?”
Rice found that uproariously funny. “Just kidding, Billy. Just kidding. I don’t need a cab; I have my car. Don’t matter none. Got no home to go to. Oops, Momma wouldn’t like that. Lemme rephrase: It doesn’t matter, because I have no home to which I could go.” He guffawed. “No home to which I could go.”
The bartender walked around the bar and grabbed Rice’s arm. “Gimme your keys.”
Rice stared at him.
The bartender searched Rice’s pockets until his found the keys. “I’ll keep these until tomorrow. Come back sober and I’ll give them to you. Like the song says: You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” He frog-marched Rice to the door.
Rice stumbled out the door and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, swaying. He staggered to the wall and leaned on it. Oh, Christ, what would happen to him now? Tomorrow Moffett would send Teddy Ngombo after him. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t face Momma like this. He’d been there a couple of days ago. He couldn’t bear to see that look on her face again. He should’ve showered at Momma’s. He couldn’t remember why he hadn’t. God knows, he needed a bath. He hadn’t bathed in days, ever since his landlord left his clothes in a plastic garbage bag in front of his apartment. He’d tried the door, but the goddamn landlord changed the lock. That was a week ago, but it seemed like forever. He didn’t remember what he did with the clothes.
He slid down the concrete block wall and plunked down on the sidewalk. He belched and then vomited. He leaned to one side and passed out.
To order Day of the Tiger, click here Amazon.com.
McCrary’s Justice
The sixth Carlos McCrary novel, McCrary’s Justice is available in both electronic and print editions on Amazon.com. Free to Kindle Unlimited members.
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The remarkable Carlos McCrary takes readers on a thrill ride in McCrary’s Justice, his most explosive novel yet.
Nebraska farmer Wilbur Jenkins receives three cryptic text messages from his missing daughter, Liz, claiming that she is held captive as a sex slave in Port City, Florida, the sun-splashed metropolis in South Florida. Jenkins grabs the next flight to Port City and begs the cops to find his daughter. But Wilbur Jenkins admits that Liz left home of her own free will, and the text messages came from the cell phone of Antonio Crucero, a mysterious diplomat from the Caribbean island Republic of San Cristobal. How would Liz have gotten access to a diplomat’s phone? Crucero’s diplomatic immunity protects him—and his cellphone—from investigation by U.S. law officers, and he refuses to cooperate with the police.
With no proof of an actual kidnapping and few clues in the text messages, police detective Jorge Castellano sends the distraught father to Carlos McCrary.
Carlos “Chuck” McCrary is a wisecracking private investigator with a special genius for helping people in trouble, like when he cleared Jorge Castellano from a bogus murder charge and saved his life and his career (Double Fake, Double Murder, Carlos McCrary novel book 2). A former Green Beret and police detective, McCrary left the Port City Police so he could do the right thing for people without worrying about trivialities like “due process” and “reasonable cause.”
In the search for Liz Jenkins, McCrary uncovers a cesspool of sexual slavery and drug trafficking that stretches from South Florida to Switzerland to the Caribbean. And Crucero has his fingers all over the operation.
Crucero’s diplomatic status protects him from the reach of U.S. law, but it won’t protect him from Carlos McCrary. McCrary has his own brand of justice and sets out to destroy Crucero any way he can—diplomatic immunity be damned.
One of Crucero’s drug dealers is Alena Cernan, a beautiful, ruthless blonde who leads a gang of Slovenian criminals. During his investigation, McCrary runs afoul of the Slovenian mobsters and has to fight for his life in the swamps of the Everglades where the mobsters’ guns aren’t the only danger.
McCrary goes undercover into the mountain citadel of a Caribbean drug distributor and into the secret headquarters of a merciless South Florida drug cartel.
When the Slovenians kidnap McCrary’s fiancée in revenge, he must invade their heavily-armed stronghold or risk never seeing her again. Facing formidable opposition, McCrary fields a private army of his own trusted friends: Thomas “Tank” Tyler, Hall of Fame NFL defensive lineman, six and a half feet of muscle and courage. Raymond “Snoop” Snopolski, McCrary’s occasional partner who can shoot the eye of a fly at 50 feet. Jorge Castellano, police detective and Iraq war veteran. Kelly Contreras, police detective, and occasional girlfriend of Tank Tyler.
From South Florida’s golden beaches to a Caribbean vacation paradise, from Coconut Grove to the Florida Everglades, McCrary’s Justice slices like a machete through a treacherous jungle of sexual predators, drug cartels, and new and fearsome enemies. Carlos McCrary maneuvers inside the gangs and outside the law to bring down the criminal enterprise and visit his justice upon its mastermind.
Combining an intricate puzzle of a plot and an exciting pursuit of justice, Dallas Gorham puts Carlos McCrary through his paces and send readers on a white-knuckle ride that circles back to McCrary’s own home, where he must confront the worst nightmare he could imagine.
To order McCrary’s Justice, click here Amazon.com.
A preview of
McCrary’s Justice
Chapter 1
Liz lay still as a corpse in the dim light, watching the fat man’s chest rise and fall. Was he asleep?
Earlier, the springs had screeched in protest, the bed bouncing like a dinghy in a hurricane. The clock on her dresser had flipped over to 1:11, while he hammered away inside her and grunted like a pig.
The massive arm sprawled across her felt like a fallen tree trunk. The thick hair on his forearm chafed her naked skin like steel wool.
Her chest felt as though a steel band had tightened around it. She fought back the tears, trying to overcome her feeling of helplessness. Her clothes were locked away in a closet. She never needed them except to dress for meals. The remainder of the time, she spent imprisoned in her room, languishing naked on the filthy bed, waiting for the next john. Day after day, night after night, men violated her. She wasn’t a prostitute; she was a sex slave. She wiped away an escaped teardrop and swore she wouldn’t be helpless much longer. Soon, very soon, she’d be free… or dead.
Tommy had told her to treat the fat man right. This john was an ambassador from a Latin American country, the Republic of San Something-or-other. But who knew? Tommy lied just for fun.
She’d trembled when Tommy told her the ambassador had returned and the creep asked for her. For an entire night. Again.
“Show him another good time, Liz,” Tommy said, squeezing her breast hard enough to hurt. One more reason to hate Tommy.
She’d almost protested, then remembered the fat man’s phone and kept quiet. Tommy kept his girls away from cellphones, but when the ambassador visited, Tommy let him keep his. He was a big man in more than waistline. She wanted that phone. With a phone, she had a chance. If Tommy caught her, he’d make the other girls watch while he killed her. And she wouldn’t die quickly. She shuddered when she remembered Evelyn. Free or dead.
Tommy had kidnapped six women, addicted them to drugs, and rented them out for sex. He called them Tommy’s Angels. Now there were five. Three weeks ago, they’d wat
ched Evelyn die by Tommy’s order. “Angels, this is what we do if you try to escape.” He’d taunted them while he and three gang members raped and strangled her. “Don’t make the same mistake Evelyn did.”
Ironically, Evelyn’s gruesome death had rekindled Liz’s burning desire for freedom—a desire that drugs and depravity had dulled to the brink of extinction. Since Evelyn’s murder, Liz only pretended to swallow the pills Tommy gave her every day. When he turned away, she spat them out and hid them under her mattress. If all else failed, she’d accumulated enough pills to kill herself.
Tommy called her an angel, but she lived in hell with the devil. She’d rather die.
There was nothing good about “good times” with the fat man. He provided drugs for them both, including blue pills for him. He looked young enough not to need chemical help, but maybe he liked to last extra long. He demanded rough sex in repulsive variations for an endless two hours. The previous times the drugs kept her from realizing how disgusting he was, but when she stopped the drugs, the reality of her situation sank in. She almost wished she had swallowed the last pills instead of palming them. They would have made her pain and humiliation more bearable. The fat weirdo left her sore for days.
She shivered through the night, unable to sleep through the snores of the rancid, sweaty john. He kept the air-conditioning on high and the room was as cold as a meat locker. Still the stench of his sweat polluted the air. She stared at the ceiling in the icy room trying not to breathe the foul air. She dreaded the morning when he would awaken, take another blue pill, and rape her again. He always did.
He tipped her well, but no tip could compensate for her degradation. With no place to spend money in captivity, she stashed the tip money in a plastic bag hidden in the toilet tank. If she escaped this brothel—no, when she escaped—she would have money to get home. The hope of escape gave her a reason to stay alive.
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