Extreme Justice: A Ben Kincaid Novel of Suspense bk-7

by William Bernhardt

  “I want the penknife!” Armstrong was spitting, screaming. He seemed to have lost all semblance of sanity. “Do you hear me? I want the fucking penknife!”

  “I don’t have it,” Ben whispered.

  Armstrong began moving wildly about, flinging his arms around. He fired a shot into the air. He grabbed Ben by his shirt, shaking him brutally.

  Ben cast a wary eye on either side of him. Here, beneath the railing, it would be a simple thing to fall off the catwalk. And it was a long way to the ground.

  “Don’t think this helps you. Don’t think you’ll get away with this. I’m going to kill you and all your friends. And I’m going to enjoy it. And then I’m going to go to your office, tear the place apart, find the knife, and kill everyone there. And anyone else who gets in my way.”

  Ben bit down on his lower lip. The gun was in Armstrong’s hand, pressed against Ben’s forehead. He couldn’t allow this to happen, couldn’t let this maniac slaughter all his friends, his coworkers.

  Armstrong’s eyes burned down into Ben’s. “And I’m going to start with you!” Before Ben could react, Armstrong lifted him into the air by his shirt collar and tossed him backwards. Ben skittered across the catwalk, coming dangerously close to the edge. He clutched at the guardrail, trying to keep himself from falling.

  “What’s the matter, Kincaid? Scared of heights?” Ben saw the shadow before he knew what was happening, then saw the swift boot impact on his stomach. He bent over, spitting blood, clutching his stomach.

  “Move your hands,” Armstrong grunted. “Move ’em or lose ’em.” The boot thudded down into Ben’s gut. All of a sudden, the world around Ben seemed to turn a brilliant white. He felt something crack inside—a rib? He couldn’t be sure, but whatever it was, it burned like fire inside him.

  Ben tried to scramble away. It was a mistake; he was woozy on his feet, could barely keep any sense of equilibrium. He saw the ground beneath him wobbling, rushing up to him …

  “Sayonara, Kincaid.”

  In the nanosecond that he saw Armstrong rushing toward him, his brain flashed on a thousand images, a million memories. He saw his father, his mother, his sister. And Ellen. He saw Christina and Mike, telling him he needed to learn to defend himself. He saw Sensai Papadopoulos, trying to teach him the simplest maneuver. Trying to teach him …

  Armstrong came at him at full speed, arms extended. Just before impact, Ben ducked and spun around, showing Armstrong his back. Armstrong’s arms flew over his head; Ben grabbed them and flipped with all his might.

  And it worked. For once, it actually worked. Armstrong flew over Ben, thrust forward by the speed of his own momentum. He skittered down the catwalk, careening dangerously toward the precipice. He almost spilled over the edge; at the last minute, he dropped his gun and used that hand to grab the guardrail. The gun fell silently down, down, to the ground far below.

  Ben saw his opportunity and bolted. He lurched toward the other end of the catwalk, back toward Mike and Tyrone. Every step hurt; now both of his ankles were complaining. He ignored them. He had to keep going. He had to move forward.

  He had almost made it to the end of the catwalk when he felt strong hands clamp down on his shoulders. “I don’t need a gun to take care of you.”

  Armstrong grabbed Ben by the collar and slung him back against the guardrail. Ben came down hard on his sore ankle and screamed out as the pain rippled through his aching body. He felt himself wobbling, losing his footing.

  Armstrong brought his fist around and smacked Ben hard in the face—right on the nose still damaged from their last encounter. Ben knew he was losing consciousness. He knew he was about to pass out, and that as soon as he did, he couldn’t possibly keep himself from tumbling off the catwalk.

  Ben saw the fist coming around again. He tried to push away, but he was trapped, pinned against the guardrail with nowhere to go but down. He closed his eyes.

  The fist thudded into his face. His head exploded, leaving him all but senseless. He could feel unconsciousness creeping up on him like a dark shroud. He knew the next blow would knock his feet right out from under him. After that, it would only take a gentle push.

  “Rest in hell, Kincaid,” Armstrong growled. Ben felt more than saw the fist rearing back, getting into position for the final death blow …

  “Freeze, you bastard!”

  Armstrong’s arm stopped in midflight.

  Ben recognized the voice, even if he couldn’t make out the speaker. It was Earl. Earl!

  “I got a gun, sucker!”

  Ben felt the impact of heavy footsteps crossing the catwalk. He pried his eyelids open.

  Earl crossed the catwalk, a gun aimed directly at Armstrong’s head. “I’ll blow you to kingdom come if you so much as move. Get your hands up! Move away from Ben!”

  Armstrong took a step back, obeying.

  “Now get off the goddamn catwalk!”

  Armstrong walked away, slowly, eyes to the front.

  Earl caught up to Ben. “How you doin’, Ben?”

  Ben gripped the guardrail. “Tryin’ to hold together,” he gasped. “Tyrone and Mike need help.”

  “Looks to me like you could use some yourself. Let’s—”

  His voice disappeared. When it returned, it was barely a whisper. “Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus in heaven!”

  “What?” Ben saw Earl moving off the catwalk, gun aimed ahead, moving toward Armstrong. “What is it?”

  “I just now saw this son of a bitch’s face. Do you know who this is?” He grabbed the man and shook him by the lapel of his coat. “Do you know who this is?”

  “It’s … Grady Armstrong. Professor Hoodoo’s brother.”

  “Brother, my ass. This is Professor Hoodoo!” Earl shoved him down to the ground; his head banged against the metallic surface. “He’s alive!”

  “What?” Ben tried to stay conscious long enough to understand.

  Earl cocked the gun and pressed it flat against the man’s temple. “Talk, sucker. And you’d better make it good.”

  Armstrong smiled bitterly. “I believe I’ll decline.”

  “I said talk!”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “I said, talk!” Earl pounded his face, once, twice, then again for good measure. “If you want anything to be left of your face come morning, talk! Who died in your apartment? Who burned in the fire?”

  The man on the receiving end of the gun licked his swollen, bleeding lips. “That was my brother. The real Grady. We always resembled one another. Certainly enough to fool people after the body was burned. So I fixed things up so it looked like I died and you did it. Added a grisly little touch with my knife, just to make sure you got the maximum sentence, and as a tribute to my goddamn good-for-nothing daddy. And then I went to Grady’s lonely outpost in Montana and became him. It was easy; he went years without seeing anyone. Then I switched jobs, joined Buxley—as Grady Armstrong—and no one was the wiser.”

  Earl stared at him, gaping. “But why?”

  He shrugged. “Grady and I had a disagreement. The tiny matter of our daddy’s money. Grady got it. I didn’t. Even killing him wouldn’t get me what I wanted. But becoming him would. So that’s what I did.” He paused. “And once I’d decided to become Grady, Professor Hoodoo had to disappear.”

  “I don’t care about that.” Earl lifted the man up and shook him, slamming his head back. “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you do it to me?”

  A sneer crossed Armstrong’s face. “You were never anything but trash, Earl. Bad gumbo scum-of-the-earth trash. You stole my woman. And worse, you stole my music. Said you were tryin’ to preserve it. Bastardize it was more like it. After Lily, my music was the only thing I had, the only thing that mattered. And you stole it, just like you stole Lily. So I took care of you. I fixed you up even worse than killing you would.”

  “Twenty-two years,” Earl whispered. “I did twenty-two years. And you weren’t even dead!”

  “During those twenty-two years, I forgo
t music, hid myself in Grady’s humdrum life. Quit the clubs, the drink, the junk. Tried to become someone I wasn’t, someone I’d never been before. I finally found some peace. I thought I was over hating you—till I heard you’d gotten out, started over, and opened a club—trading on your puny stolen reputation. The hate started boilin’ up inside me all over again. I couldn’t stand the thought of you on the outside, enjoying life. So I began making arrangements to put you back behind bars. Back where you belonged, in a life worse than death.”

  “Twenty-two years,” Earl murmured. “Twenty-two years of my life gone—forever. I lost everything—my friends, my career—and my music. My music!” His hands shook with rage. “You deserve to die.”

  “Earl, don’t!” Ben cried, gathering all the strength he could muster. “Don’t become the murderer he’s tried to make people think you are.”

  “He deserves to die,” Earl repeated.

  “Don’t do it!” Ben shouted. “You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison!”

  “I don’t think so,” Earl said. His voice had a chilling quality. “You explained it to me yourself, Ben. A man can’t be tried twice for the same crime. I’ve already been convicted for the murder of George Armstrong. I’ve done my time. Double jeopardy has … what’s the word?—attached! There ain’t a damn thing they can do to me now.” He cocked the gun.

  “Don’t do it!” Ben shouted, but it was too late. The gun fired at pointblank range, and Professor Hoodoo’s head exploded right before Ben’s eyes.

  “No!” Ben shouted. He tried to push himself to his feet, but the moment he tried, all the pain and dizziness rushed back to the surface. The world began to swim around him, floating in elastic ripples, like a movie shot with a trick focus. He planted his feet, but his weight came down on the sore ankle and suddenly there was nothing between him and the ground. He was a bird, except this bird only flew in one direction: down. He sensed his body leaving the catwalk, tumbling under the guardrail, almost as if he wasn’t inside it anymore. He saw the ground rushing toward him.

  It was the last thing he saw before, mercifully, the dark shroud wrapped him in its cold cold embrace.

  Five

  The Meaning of Jazz

  Chapter 51

  HE HEARD SOMEONE singing:

  Quand il me prend dans ses bras,

  II me parle tout bas

  Je vois la vie en rose …

  It was French, so it must be Christina. He might have known.

  “Ben, can you hear me? It’s Mike.”

  Ben sensed the discomfort in the voice, the tension.

  “I don’t know if you’re getting this, Ben, but the doctors said we should talk to you, so here goes. Hoodoo’s dead. George Armstrong. Whatever you want to call him. He’s history. Dust in the wind.”

  He heard the shuffling of hands, the scraping of a chair.

  “Your buddy Earl told us everything that happened, everything Armstrong said. Turns out it was true. He killed his brother, took his place, and framed Earl. He’d been off in Montana with his brother’s name and his brother’s money for twenty-two years when he got wind of the fact that Earl had been released. He couldn’t stand that. So he got himself transferred to Tulsa, then looked up his old jazz buddy Scat—Lily’s former husband—the one man on earth he knew didn’t like Earl any better than he did.”

  He heard Mike take a deep breath, then continue. “The same hatred George had for Earl extended to Lily Campbell, since she was the one who dumped him to be with Earl. So he killed her and used her as a tool to frame Earl. He delivered the corpse in disguise, just in case he bumped into Earl. I think he was planning to plant it in Earl’s office, but when Earl came back to the club sooner than he expected—thanks to you—he had to ditch the stiff in a hurry. The stage light wasn’t the perfect place, but it was all he could get to without being seen. I don’t know why he took his disguise off in the men’s room; my guess is, once Earl was safely tucked away backstage, he planned to stay for the show. Probably wanted the pleasure of seeing Earl get hauled away by the cops with his own two eyes. After he was spotted by Tyrone Jackson, however, he changed his plans. Worse, he dropped his Buxley penknife.

  “Armstrong came to the club the next day as Grady—at a time when Scat told him Earl wouldn’t be around—to recover it. I understand you caught them in the act of searching, so they acted like they’d been helping clean up, and introduced George to you as Grady. But they were too late—Tyrone had already found the penknife. Those little treasures were only given to the forty Buxley vice presidents. Once Tyrone figured out what it was, George knew it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who the man in the men’s room had been. So he had to kill Tyrone before he put two and two together.”

  Ben heard the sound of knuckles cracking. “You’re probably wondering why Armstrong turned on Scat. Best I’ve been able to figure is that Scat was happy to help George along—till things started getting too hot. He probably didn’t know Grady planned to kill Lily, his ex-wife. And I think you put the fear of God into him when you went over to his place. He probably started talking about getting out or telling what he knew, so George killed him. He needed a second corpse anyway, since the first murder hadn’t put Earl behind bars.

  “After Earl offed the Professor, he used your car phone to call 911 and get an ambulance for Tyrone and me and you. Tyrone was beat up something awful, but the doctor says he’ll recover—in time. And I’m fine.” He paused. “You’re the one we’re worried about.”

  The room fell silent, but Ben sensed that Mike had not left the room.

  “The D.A.’s office is going nuts trying to think of some way to charge your buddy Earl, but so far they haven’t thought of a thing. We can’t try the man for committing the same crime to the same person he’s already done time for. We can’t charge him with attempted murder or any other lesser included offense; as you know, double jeopardy bars the main offense and all the lesser includeds. They can’t stand the thought of letting him get away with murder. But even if they did think of a charge to bring against Earl—what jury would convict him when he’s already served twenty-two years for a crime he didn’t commit? They’re inclined to call it self-defense and let it go. In short—I think he’s gonna walk.”

  Another silence permeated the air around them, longer and more awkward than before.

  “I … uh … wanted to say something else. Something about … well, back at the refinery. Sure, I took some bad bumps on the head, but I came around a few minutes later. You—well … you didn’t.”

  He realized that the strange tone in Mike’s voice was not so much discomfort as … guilt.

  “Damn it, I never should have let this happen. How could I let that old creep get the drop on me? It was just so damn dark. I yelled at you for running in there by yourself, and then what did I do? The same idiot thing. I took the threats seriously enough that I didn’t call for backup before I ran in. An incredibly stupid mistake. And now you’re paying the price for it.”

  Ben heard the chair scrape the linoleum a few more times; he heard the heavy intake and outflow of breath.

  “Let’s face it, Ben. You pulled my fat out of the fire and it cost you. I know I make fun of you sometimes, and I know I’ve been bitter about your sister dumping me and the whole thing with your family, but … Jesus.”

  Ben heard the chair scrape again, this time coming closer. “It’s not easy for me to say this kind of stuff. You know that. But I just wanted you to know that whatever the hell I might have said, and however I might have acted, I think you’re pretty damn all right, okay? Even though we do things differently, you’ve got a lot of guts. I consider you a friend, a good one. And I’m not just saying that because you’re … you’re …” His voice faded. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  The voice moved away, circling at the outer edges of the room. “Jesus, I feel like I’ve been talking forever. Can’t we get some music in here or something? Maybe some of that folk crap he likes. Christ, som
e of those songs go on forever.”

  His eyes were so swollen they felt as if they’d been glued shut. Was it the beating or the fall? He couldn’t be sure, and frankly, what did it matter? He wasn’t going anywhere; he didn’t seem to be able to move at all. So why worry about it?

  For the brief moments that he knew anything, he knew he was completely nauseated. Movement would only make it worse. There was a tube taped to his mouth, and he could hear the balloon beside his cheek inflating and deflating with each breath. Another tube was strapped to his wrist, feeding him something cold and sweet. It hurt a little, but at the moment, what didn’t? Frankly, consciousness was not all it was cracked up to be. He decided not to force it, to relax, to let himself go. One moment he was in a Tulsa hospital bed, and then he was somewhere else. But mostly he was nowhere at all.

  “Are you the wife?” There was a stiff impersonal tone. He did not recognize the voice.

  “No. Just a good friend.” That voice was a different matter. Definitely Christina.

  “Does he have any living family?”

  “A mother and a sister. But the mother is out of the country and the sister … well, we don’t know where she is. His mother is rushing here, but she probably won’t arrive today. I’m his emergency contact person.”

  “Very well. I need to discuss his situation with you. I’m afraid there’s been little change. When Mr. Kincaid was brought to St. John’s several days ago, he was in critical condition, and he’s remained there ever since. He is completely comatose. We believe he is entirely unaware of himself and his environment. He does not respond to external stimuli. There is no evidence of language comprehension. A respirator has been helping him breathe. If the respirator were removed … well, we just don’t know.”

  “There must be something you can do.”

  “If so, I’m afraid no one here knows what it would be.”