“Screw jurisdiction! We’re the federal government! We can do whatever we want!”
The chief of staff said, “Maybe it would be better to let them have their election . . . and lose.”
The president leaned forward with a frown.
“Can we do that?” he asked.
“You just said it yourself, sir. We’re the federal government. We can do what we want.”
The attorney general said, “The Justice Department can send observers to make sure the election is conducted fairly and to guard against voter suppression and voter fraud.”
“And there can be organized demonstrations to protest the election,” the chief of staff added. “That ought to keep turnout down.”
“But I thought we just said we’d guard against voter suppression—” The president stopped short, then said, “Ah, I understand. Never mind. It’s not voter suppression when we do it, now is it, boys?”
All three men smiled.
“There are other things we can do as well to influence the outcome,” the attorney general said. “And it’s certainly true that it’s an even bigger win for us if they hold their election and then fail. We can spin that as a triumph for equal rights.”
“Do it,” the president said decisively. “Do whatever you need to do, just make sure those people come off like the racist yokels they are.”
“One thing,” the chief of staff said. “There are quite a few Hispanics and blacks living in Shady Hills who actually support the idea of turning the place into its own town. If people see them on the news, they’re going to start asking how we can portray this as a racist effort.”
“Well, that’s easily taken care of, isn’t it?” the president asked. “Just make sure nobody ever sees them on the news.”
“I’ll do my best, sir, but it’s not like we completely control the media in this country. Almost, maybe, but not quite.”
The president leaned back in the big chair and folded his hands on his stomach.
“Well, perhaps that’s something we should work on another day, gentlemen,” he said.
Ryan opened his cell phone and said, “What is it?”
“You’re still in Washington.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Do you think we’re not keeping an eye on you?” the voice asked angrily. “You’re here, and that bastard Stark is still down there in Texas causing problems for us.”
“John Howard Stark will be dealt with in the proper way, at the proper time,” Ryan said.
“And who decides how and when that is?”
“You know the answer to that,” Ryan said. “I do.”
Silence came over the phone for a few seconds before the man on the other end of the connection heaved an exasperated sigh.
“I swear, if you hadn’t gotten results for us so many times in the past—”
“But I always do, don’t I?”
“Yes,” the man admitted. “You do.”
“This time won’t be any different. But I have to admit, I’m sort of enjoying watching the show down there in Texas. It must be driving you and your friends crazy to see a bunch of people refusing to knuckle under like that. Don’t they know they’re supposed to be good, proper American sheep and do whatever their betters tell them to do?”
“You let us worry about the political end of it,” the man snapped. “You just take care of the job you’ve been hired to do.”
“I’ve never let you down before,” Ryan said. “I won’t this time, either.”
He broke the connection without saying good-bye because he was annoyed by the call. He didn’t like being doubted or having his methods questioned.
Of course, the caller had a point, Ryan thought. To be fair, he had been dragging his feet on this Stark job, and he wasn’t sure why that was the case. He had no fondness for John Howard Stark. All he had to do was glance at his maimed right hand to remind him of why he hated the former rancher.
But you had to sort of admire the man, Ryan realized. Stark, despite having served in Vietnam, wasn’t a lifelong military man, wasn’t a trained commando. Bigger, stronger, faster than the average man, maybe, but when you got right down to it, still a common man, not a superhero.
Yet he’d had the audacity to challenge the cartel once before and, after that, the Mexican army during that trouble at the Alamo. Now he was up in the cartel’s face again, making a nuisance of himself. A deadly nuisance, if what Ryan read in the papers and on the Internet was true. Ryan still had some contacts south of the border, even though he didn’t work for the drug smugglers anymore, and he wondered who was running things along the Rio Grande now. Whoever it was had to be getting mighty tired of hearing about John Howard Stark.
The thought suddenly occurred to Ryan that he ought to reach out to the cartel. Maybe he could get a bonus from them for killing Stark and still collect his fee from his regular employers. It was an intriguing idea. Double-dipping, so to speak.
He set the phone on the nightstand beside the bed and then reached over to slap the delectably bare rump of the young woman sleeping beside him. She stirred a little, then asked in a voice thick with drowsiness, “Is it time to go to work?”
“It’s the middle of the morning, my dear,” Ryan said. “You were late for work two hours ago.”
She bolted upright and yelled, “Oh, my God! Why did you let me sleep so late? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Because you looked so adorable lying there.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Don’t worry. They found some cute young thing to fill in for you on the morning show, and they didn’t say anything about you not showing up. They just said you had the day off.”
“Was it that little bitch Carly? I’ll bet it was her! She’s been after my job for six months! I’ll claw her eyes out! Damn it to hell, Simon—”
He shut her up by closing his hand around her jaw. Not tight enough to cause any pain, but plenty firm enough to let her know that he wanted her to stop yammering at him. He leaned closer to her and whispered into her ear. At the same time he began to caress her, and despite his grip on her jaw, she responded to his touch as she always did.
The single word he whispered to her was the same one his father had shouted at him when he was growing up in El Paso, an angry bellow that usually was followed by a slap, or if his mother tried to intervene, a beating for her. Ryan had grown to hate that word, but that hatred hadn’t stopped him from adopting it as a nickname later in life, a highly appropriate nickname considering his line of work and how very, very quiet graves were.
“Silencio.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Most news stories are true “nine-day wonders,” fading from the public consciousness after a while. Nine days is just an approximation, of course. A story can disappear in two or three days or hang around for months, especially if there are new developments in it.
The election to determine whether or not Shady Hills would incorporate as a town had “legs,” as old-time journalists would say. It might not have been on the front page every day, and sometimes it was relegated to the second or even third segment of the newscasts, but it was always there somewhere, usually with a sentence or two cleverly designed to make the public think the only motivations of the residents were racism, greed, and intolerance . . . without ever coming right out and saying that, of course.
Stark was getting tired of it. He was ready for September 7, which was a Saturday, to arrive, so the election would be over with, one way or the other.
Every day, buses full of protesters arrived at the park. They didn’t try to come in. Shady Hills was private property, after all. Not that they really cared about that, but these were professionals. They knew exactly how much they could get away with. So the buses parked on the side of the highway and the protesters got out with their signs and started trooping up and down the road, staying off the shoulders so they couldn’t be accused of trying to block traffic. They carried their signs a
nd shouted slogans and bellowed through bullhorns. They didn’t try to stop anybody from entering or leaving the park.
The first day it happened, Jack Kasek called the sheriff’s department. A cruiser with a couple of deputies came out, sat there for a little while, then turned around and headed back to Devil’s Pass. More complaints got the same results. A car came out, the deputies watched for ten or fifteen minutes, and then they left without doing anything.
Accompanied by Stark and Hallie, Jack went to see the sheriff. George Lozano kept them waiting for half an hour; then they were shown into his office.
“Sheriff, you’ve got to do something about those blasted protesters!” Jack began.
Lozano held up a hand to stop him.
“Are you talking about the people exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and expression?” he asked.
“You know good and well what I’m talking about!”
With a blandly neutral expression on his face, Lozano shook his head.
“My department has responded to your calls and checked out the situation, Mr. Kasek,” he said. “As far as I know, the people who are demonstrating outside your retirement park—on publicly held right-of-way, I might add, not private property—aren’t breaking any laws.”
“They’re a nuisance,” Hallie said. “They’re creating a public safety hazard.”
“Not in my judgment, they aren’t.”
“Someone’s going to get hurt out there.”
“If they do, we’ll take appropriate action against whoever starts the trouble.” Lozano paused, then added with heavy emphasis, “Whoever that might be.”
Jack Kasek let out a disgusted snort.
“So if we do anything to try to get rid of them, you’ll arrest us,” he said. “Is that what you’re telling us, Sheriff?”
“I’ll arrest anybody who breaks the law.”
Stark said, “I don’t remember that fella who attacked me and Fred Gomez being arrested.”
“You’ll have to take that up with Chief Feasco and the district attorney, Mr. Stark,” Lozano said. “That incident didn’t occur in my jurisdiction.”
“We’re wasting our time here, aren’t we?” Hallie asked.
Lozano leaned forward in the chair behind his desk and clasped his hands together.
“Look, I sympathize with you people, I really do. If you incorporate and have your own police force, that’s that much more territory I don’t have to cover with limited man power and a limited budget. I hope you win your election. But I can’t do anything about those protesters as long as they’re not breaking the law.” The sheriff sat back and shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to get used to them.”
“Nobody could get used to vermin like that,” Jack snapped.
Hallie took hold of his arm.
“Come on, Jack,” she urged him. “We’re not going to do any good here.”
Jack looked back over his shoulder as he and Stark and Hallie left Lozano’s office.
“Someday we’ll have a real sheriff in this county again!” he said.
Once they were outside, Jack, still incensed, said, “John Howard, how about we run you for sheriff in the next election?”
Stark gave a curt laugh.
“For starters, Jack, I don’t have any law enforcement experience and don’t know a blasted thing about being sheriff. And don’t forget, you wanted me to run for mayor of Shady Hills once it’s a real town. I think that’s a big enough job for me, assuming that I get it.”
“Why wouldn’t you? Nobody would vote against John Howard Stark!”
“Sure they would. There are bound to be people out there who don’t like me, even in Shady Hills. And the incorporation question has to pass first.”
“It will,” Jack said with equal confidence. “Unless they somehow manage to steal the election.”
“With that bunch we’re going up against, I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
There had been news coverage all along, of course—satellite trucks parked beside the highway with the buses that brought in the protesters, field reporters with their microphones and cameramen, print journalists from all over the country writing stories on their laptops and tablets and emailing them in.
Things got worse when the Black Panthers showed up.
Stark didn’t know about it until Hallie knocked on his door one afternoon a few days before the election.
“You won’t believe what’s happening now, John Howard,” she told him.
“Oh, in this day and age, I’ll believe just about anything,” Stark said dryly.
“The Black Panthers are out there at the gate, demanding to be allowed in so they can pass out anti-incorporation literature to the residents.”
Stark stared at her for a second, then gave a little shake of his head.
“You’re right, I didn’t see that one coming,” he said. “What does this have to do with the Black Panthers? The only black people in this mess are the ones on our side, like Nick.”
“I know that and you know that, but they say they’re trying to demonstrate solidarity with their Hispanic brothers. ‘Racism toward one is racism toward all,’ one of their signs said.”
Stark thought about it for a moment, then said, “Somebody sent them here.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Several senators from the president’s party have had ties with the Black Panthers in the past. I think the White House called them and got word to the organization through them that it might be a good thing to show up here.”
“Because the president doesn’t want to come out against us himself. He’s still a mite leery from everything that happened in the last administration. He doesn’t want to come across as being that extreme in his views.”
Hallie nodded.
“That’s the way it looks to me.”
“Are the guards at the gate letting them in?”
“Not so far. Nick Medford happened to be up there, and when I drove in I saw that he was in a real jawing match with the leader of the group. Half a dozen news cameras were getting the whole thing.”
Stark smiled and said, “That didn’t work out too well for them. I’m sure they would’ve rather had some white fella yelling at them. Would’ve looked better for their cause that way.”
“Oh, they’ll spin it the way they want it, one way or another.”
Stark didn’t doubt that.
“If they try to force their way in, there’ll be trouble.”
“I know. I already called the sheriff’s department on my cell phone, but I don’t think we can look for much help from Lozano.”
“Nope,” Stark agreed. “You go on over to your dad’s place, Hallie. I’ll drive up to the gate and see what’s going on.”
“Forget it. I’m coming with you. You’re still my client, after all.”
“I’m not facing any charges right now,” Stark pointed out.
“You have me on retainer.”
That was the first Stark had heard about it, but he supposed it wasn’t a bad idea. He just didn’t want Hallie anywhere near the gate if a fight broke out.
Arguing with her would be a waste of time, though. He said, “Come on, we’ll take my pickup. At least it’s got some actual metal in it, instead of that little plastic foreign car of yours.”
“Don’t be jingoistic, John Howard,” she scolded him, but with a smile.
As they drove toward the front of the park, Hallie went on, “Did you know the Justice Department has investigators in the area?”
“First I’ve heard of it.”
“They say there have been reports of voter registration irregularities. My hunch is that they’ll claim some of the people here in the park aren’t properly registered to vote.”
“We know better, don’t we?”
“Of course, but there’s no telling what they’ll dig up . . . or manufacture.”
“You’re saying our own Justice Department would be capable of voter fraud?”
> “There were plenty of accusations of fraud and voter suppression a couple of elections ago, with a ton of evidence supporting them, including video, and the Justice Department refused to act on them. If they’ll rape the law one way, they’ll rape it another.”
“Pretty harsh talk,” Stark said.
“The truth is sometimes harsh.”
Stark couldn’t argue with that.
“And of course the ACLU is keeping every motel and restaurant in Devil’s Pass in business right now,” Hallie went on. “This is going to be one of the most closely watched elections in a long time.”
“Good,” Stark said. “That way the whole world will see that everything is being done legal and proper.”
Stark turned a corner and they came in sight of the gate to the retirement park. Several cars and pickups belonging to the volunteers on guard duty were parked near the gate, inside the park.
The gate itself was packed with a roiling knot of people, Stark saw as alarm welled up inside him. Fists were flying as the crowd surged back and forth.
From the looks of it, a good old-fashioned riot had broken out at the entrance to Shady Hills.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Oh, my God!” Hallie exclaimed as Stark sent the pickup racing closer to the fight. He jammed on the brakes just before he reached the battling mob and flung his door open.
“Stay here!” he told Hallie as he got out. He didn’t know if it would do any good or not, but he didn’t have time to wait and see if she did what he said.
As Stark ran toward the riot he spotted Nick Medford trying to trade punches with two men at the same time. The Black Panther members were all dressed the same, in dark jeans and black T-shirts, so it wasn’t difficult to spot them. As Stark reached them, Nick went down, and the two men started kicking him.
Stark grabbed one man’s shoulder and hauled him around. The man just had time to let out a startled curse before Stark’s fist crashed into his nose and flattened it with a crunch of cartilage. The man howled in pain as he flew backward, tripped, and fell.
Meanwhile Nick caught hold of the other man’s foot and heaved, upending him. As the second Black Panther crashed to the ground, Nick leaped on top of him and started hammering punches down into his face.
The Bleeding Edge Page 17