The Bleeding Edge

by William W. Johnstone

  Hallie threw her arms around Stark and hugged him.

  “We did it, John Howard,” she said. “We won. Shady Hills is a town now.”

  “That it is,” Stark agreed. He wasn’t sure how much real difference the election’s outcome would make, but it was a symbolic victory, for sure, and a first step in the right direction to restoring law and order in the area.

  “So, don’t you think you could unbend enough to share a victory kiss with me?” Hallie asked as she looked up into his face.

  Stark wasn’t sure it was a good idea . . . but how the hell could a man refuse a suggestion like that one?

  Good idea or not, he kissed her.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  No one paid any attention to the man standing toward the back of the crowd. Despite being very fit, he looked old enough that he might be retired. As the people around him whooped and cheered at the announcement of the election results, he was more restrained. But he smiled and applauded, just so no one would notice a lack of reaction and think it odd. People tended to remember things that were odd.

  From where he was standing, from time to time he caught a glimpse of John Howard Stark through gaps in the crowd. His smile widened as he saw Stark kissing a tall blond woman who looked considerably younger than him.

  “Why, John Howard, you old dog,” Ryan murmured to himself. “I guess you’re not in mourning for your wife anymore.”

  In fairness, it had been several years since Stark’s wife died, and anyway, Stark’s personal life was Ryan’s business only to the extent that it might affect the job that had brought him back here to Texas. If he could use Stark’s relationship with the woman to help him accomplish his goal, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

  But what, exactly, was his goal? Over the past few days Ryan had been forced to ask himself that question. He knew what he’d been paid to do, of course: kill John Howard Stark.

  So why hadn’t he done it before now? Ryan couldn’t answer that, unless it was simply that he was curious to see what Stark would do next. The man was unpredictable, a wild card, just the sort of loose cannon that Ryan’s employers hated.

  But a game with a wild card—or two—in it was the most interesting and exciting kind, wasn’t it?

  Ryan smiled and clapped softly and bided his time.

  “What is it?” the president asked in a surly voice. He was in his residence quarters now, not downstairs in the Oval Office, but when the word had come that the attorney general wanted to see him, the president had said to send him on up. His children were all grown, and the first lady had long ago stopped giving a damn whether he spent his evenings with her or not.

  “We just got word from Texas,” the AG said. “Stark and his friends won their election. That trailer park of theirs is now a separate town, along with some of the surrounding area. I’m not sure exactly what the boundaries are—”

  “That doesn’t matter, does it?” the president interrupted him. “What’s important is that they won. Didn’t you have people there to watch for voting irregularities?”

  “Of course I did,” the attorney general said, sounding a little put out. “And there were ACLU lawyers all over the place, too. Those Texans did everything exactly the way they were supposed to. There was one minor incident where some people who wanted to vote were turned away—”

  “There you go,” the president said excitedly. “That’s voter suppression. Disenfranchisement! File a lawsuit!”

  “But their registration cards were phonies, and crude ones at that,” the attorney general went on. “A suit on their behalf wouldn’t stand up in court.”

  The president frowned.

  “I must say, I’m a little disappointed in you,” he told the AG. “When you’re trying to bring about the proper outcome of an election, you can’t take halfway measures. You have to be professional and competent about it.”

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t find enough corpses to vote on short notice,” the Attorney General snapped.

  The president pulled in a deep breath and drew himself up straighter. He glared and said, “I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.”

  “I apologize for my tone, sir,” the AG forced out through tight lips. “But we can’t just completely run roughshod over the election process. People still have to believe that we have some respect for the rule of law.”

  “I suppose so,” the president agreed with a frustrated sigh, “but it’s damned inconvenient. What do we do now?”

  “I’ll talk to my people who were there and go over every detail of the election. Maybe we can find something to justify filing a suit to overturn the results . . . but from what I’ve heard so far, I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Didn’t the national committee have protesters there? They were supposed to coordinate that.”

  “Of course, and the Black Panthers were on hand, too. But those are tough old birds down there in Texas, sir. They don’t frighten easily.”

  “And that fellow Stark must be the toughest one of all.” The president looked sharply at the AG. “I thought you were handling that as well.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” the attorney general responded instantly.

  “I mean—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

  This time the president got it. He said, “Oh. Yes. Of course. I don’t know what I’m talking about, either. Not a clue.”

  “Just don’t say that where the media can hear it, sir, and you’ll be all right.”

  The president frowned. He wasn’t sure if the AG was making fun of him or not. He brushed that aside and said, “You know, I wonder if we’re blowing this up to be more important than it really is. So some trailer park in Texas votes to become a town. So what? Would people even have noticed if we hadn’t sent in observers and if there hadn’t been protests?”

  “They would have noticed, because Stark is involved,” the AG said. “If we hadn’t stepped in to put our spin on it right from the start, the media would have built him up to be even more of a folk hero. This way we made him look more like a radical, a right-wing extremist.”

  “Why would they build him up? They’re supposed to be on our side.”

  “They are,” the AG said, “but they still have to deliver ratings, too. In the end, they’ll always go for a big story, no matter what it is. It’s up to us to control the way it’s presented.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” The president sighed, then brightened. “But if Stark were to go away—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the attorney general said again.

  But they both knew what the president was talking about . . . and it couldn’t happen soon enough to suit them.

  Like any businessman, Tomás Beredo, a.k.a. Señor Espantoso, had a lot to keep up with. The cartel’s drug smuggling operation in this area consumed most of his time, of course, but there were also guns to be bought and sold, along with the recruitment of new soldiers, not only along the border but also in the major cities throughout Texas. Human resources, the Americans call this, Beredo had reflected wryly more than once. He was good at taking human beings and getting what he wanted out of them. Human resources, indeed.

  And if those resources became used up and had to be discarded . . . well, that was the way of business, eh? There were always more resources.

  On top of that, the cartel did a brisk business in taking illegal immigrants across the border. At one time, most of the coyotes had been independent operators, but now they all worked for the cartel. Sure, it was penny-ante stuff compared to the billions of dollars raked in from drugs, but it helped from the recruitment standpoint. Take a man’s wife and children across the border so they could be with him, and he would be more agreeable when the cartel needed a favor in the future.

  Beredo had seen the American movie called The Godfather. He had even paraphrased a line of dialogue from it once, telling a rival at a tense meeting, “Leave the gun.
Take the enchilada.” Mobsters had been amateurs compared to his organization, but they had laid useful groundwork.

  So with all that going on, it was difficult for him to keep track of everything that went on in his area of operations.

  It was hard to miss the news about that damned retirement park, though. The story was all over the TV and the newspapers. SHADY HILLS WINS ELECTION, BECOMES TOWN. It was annoying.

  It became even more so when Gabir Patel said smugly, “I thought you were going to make those old people run away so you can take our drugs through there.”

  Our drugs, thought Beredo. At that moment, it was all he could do not to take out a gun and put a bullet through the head of the arrogant Lebanese. For some reason, though, the hombres in Mexico City, the leaders of the cartel, insisted that their partnership with Hezbollah be made to work. So Beredo resisted the impulse and summoned one of his bodyguards instead.

  “Bring me Ignacio Montez,” he ordered. The bodyguard went away to carry out the command. Beredo went on to Patel, “My hope was that the Americans would tear themselves apart, as they always do, and that they would be responsible for their own defeat. This time that didn’t happen.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Send them a message. By now they probably think that we’ve forgotten them.” Beredo smiled. “Soon they will know that the cartel never forgets.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  There was still plenty of work to be done, so the organizers of the effort to turn Shady Hills into a town met at the community center on Sunday afternoon, the day after the election.

  “The first thing we’ve got to do is call another election,” Jack Kasek said. “Shady Hills needs a mayor and a city council. We’ve got a candidate for mayor already.” He looked at Stark. “How about councilmen? How many do we need?”

  “Four is enough,” Hallie said. “Since the mayor votes, too, that ensures there won’t be any ties.”

  “So we run John Howard for mayor and four of us for city council. Not me, though. Since I own the property, that might be perceived as a conflict of interest.”

  Hallie smiled and said, “I was about to point that out, Jack. I’m glad you thought of it yourself.”

  Kasek shrugged and said, “You don’t actually live here, Hallie, or I’d suggest that you run.”

  “No, thanks. I’m content just to be an advisor and provide legal counsel. You can nominate my dad, though.”

  “What?” Alton said, looking around. “Me? Run for city council? I don’t think so. I’m not a politician.”

  “Do I look like one of those to you?” Stark drawled.

  “Well, no, but . . .” Alton looked around the table. “How about Fred?”

  “Wait a minute,” Fred Gomez said. “How would it look to have the mayor and one of the city councilmen living next door to each other?”

  “There’s no law against it,” Hallie said.

  “But it might be better to have folks from different parts of the park represented,” Stark suggested. “Nick, how about you?”

  “So I can be the black guy?” Nick shook his head. “I’ve got news for you, John Howard. They’re still gonna call us racists whether I run or not.”

  “I know that. I want you to run because I think you’d be good at the job.”

  Nick laughed and said, “How can I say no to that? Sure, I’ll run.”

  They threw out the names of several other residents, discussed them briefly, and soon had a slate of candidates, provided, of course, that the ones who weren’t there actually agreed to run. Stark knew all of them and had a hunch that they would.

  “How much time do we have to allow before the election?” Jack asked.

  “I’ll look into it,” Hallie said. “I think a couple of weeks would be enough, though. We need to have a city government in place as soon as possible. There’s business that needs to be conducted.”

  “Like hiring a chief of police,” Fred said.

  “I’ve got some thoughts about that,” Stark said. “I guess I’d better be elected first before I start making suggestions, though. Who knows? I might not win.”

  “I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” Jack scoffed. “You’ll all be running unopposed.”

  Hallie shook her head and said, “Maybe, but we can’t be sure of that. We’ll have to have a period of open filing, and it needs to be announced right away. Any legal resident of the city can file to run for any of the offices.”

  “Yeah, but who would?” Jack asked.

  “You might be surprised,” Stark said. “There are always people who are ambitious, or who don’t like the way things are going. I’d be surprised if somebody else didn’t run for mayor.”

  “We’ll see. Hallie, can you draft a press release about the filing period?”

  “I’ll have it ready to release first thing in the morning,” Hallie promised.

  Reuben Torres and Antonio Gomez had become good friends in a fairly short amount of time. That wasn’t too surprising, considering that they were both staying at Shady Hills and were the only two young men in their twenties in the park. Reuben was several years older than Antonio and hadn’t known him when they were both in school, but Antonio remembered Reuben, who’d been an all-district running back on the football team as well as president of the student council and salutatorian of his graduating class. They were close enough in age to have similar tastes in music, movies, and video games.

  There was a certain amount of uneasiness at first because Reuben, as a former Border Patrol agent, had been in law enforcement and Antonio had been, at least for a little while, a foot soldier for the cartel. People could change, though, and Reuben knew that. Antonio had put his past behind him and tried to do right.

  On Monday, two days after the election at Shady Hills, Reuben stopped at the Gomez house and asked Antonio if he wanted to go into Devil’s Pass with him.

  “I need to pick up a few things at the MegaMart,” Reuben said.

  “I don’t know,” Antonio said as he looked past his new friend at the SUV parked in front of the mobile home. “That ride of yours looks a little too fast for me.”

  Reuben grinned.

  “I borrowed it from my dad. I used to have a beautiful car, man . . . but I had to sell it. Legal bills, you know.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Reuben said. “So, you comin’ or not?”

  Antonio hesitated. He said, “I haven’t been out of the park since . . . since that business with the murders happened.” He swallowed. “And the heads.”

  Reuben nodded knowingly.

  “Yeah, pretty grim stuff. My dad told me about it. I’m sorry, man. You got put in a bad position.”

  “You don’t think I should have done something different?”

  “Like not getting mixed up with those sleazebags in the first place? Yeah, that would have been the smart thing to do. Once that ship had sailed, though. . . . Hey, you turned out not to be like them after all. That’s gotta count for something.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, you coming to town with me or what?”

  Antonio reached a decision and nodded.

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  The radio in Henry Torres’s SUV was tuned to a news and talk station. Reuben left it there as he and Antonio pulled out of the park and started toward Devil’s Pass.

  As a newscast came on, Antonio reached for the controls, saying, “I’ll see if I can find some good music.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Reuben said. “They’re talking about Shady Hills.”

  The newscaster was saying, “A spokesman for the Justice Department said today that despite some concerns, it appears there were no significant voting irregularities in Saturday’s election to determine whether or not Shady Hills would become an incorporated city. When asked why the federal government was monitoring such a minor local election, the spokesman replied that this administration is always concerned with seeing that the
rights of the people are protected.”

  Antonio said, “Yeah, but they’re the ones our rights need to be protected from!”

  Reuben nodded solemnly in agreement. It was a shame, he thought, but most of the time Antonio’s statement was absolutely correct.

  “Meanwhile, County Judge Steven Oliveros confirmed the results of the election and stated this morning that Shady Hills is now a legal municipality of the state of Texas. He also announced that another election will be held three weeks from this past Saturday to fill the positions of mayor and four city councilmen for what seems to be the most newsworthy little town in the state. Filing is now open for legal residents of Shady Hills above the age of eighteen who want to run, and it will remain open for ten days.”

  “That’s a waste of time, man,” Antonio said. “Nobody’s gonna run against Mr. Stark.”

  “I hope you’re right. He seems like a good man.”

  “The best,” Antonio said. “He saved my life, no doubt about it.”

  They reached Devil’s Pass a few minutes later and parked at the big MegaMart on the outskirts of town. The store was busy, as it always was, but not as busy on a Monday morning as it was during the weekend. Reuben was able to park fairly close to the entrance.

  The two young men came back out about forty-five minutes later. Reuben was carrying several plastic bags containing the clothes he had bought. He had lost weight while he was in prison, and a lot of the things he’d had before no longer fit. His dad had given him the money to buy the new clothes, which bothered him. He was too old to be taking charity from his parents. It was bad enough they were giving him a place to live. But he would pay them back when he got a job, and in order to get a job, he needed to be able to dress decently when he went on interviews.

  As if it would make a lot of difference, considering that he was an ex-con, he thought in those moments when he gave in to bitterness.

  As they walked back to the SUV, Antonio was saying, “You know, if we could both get jobs, maybe we could rent an apartment together, you know, be roommates.” He added with a grin, “We’re a little too young to be retired.”