Rum Runner - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 9)

by J. A. Konrath

  “You’re a shithead,” I said.

  “I second that,” Phin added. “I also second that you’re weak, and you’re a coward. Everyone here knows my wife would kick your ass. She already did it once. She’d do it again. You needed over a hundred guys to take out one female cop. That’s how scared you are. Hey, you, with the hairy vest! Del Ray! Is this guy really the one you want running the show? I thought you were the General. Why is shithead here giving the orders?”

  T-NAIL

  The question Phineas asked hung in the air. T-Nail wasn’t shamed by it. Words meant nothing to him. Jacqueline could whine until he cut her lips off, and T-Nail didn’t care.

  But something was going on with his men. Rather than feeling their fear and allegiance, T-Nail sensed doubt in their ranks. That Del Ray didn’t refute the husband’s accusation added to the traitorous vibe.

  Dissention wouldn’t be a good thing. And, truth told, the siege probably had taken a toll on the soldiers. There had been casualties. They were tired.

  What they needed was something to cheer their spirits. A good leader knew when to use the stick, and when to use the carrot.

  Now was a good time for the carrot.

  “You men have done an admirable job, and you deserve a reward. Before we kill this bitch, let’s run a train on her.”

  That got the cheers he was hoping for earlier.

  He held up a hand for silence. His men immediately quieted down.

  “But first,” T-Nail said, “let’s show her what it means to be a C-Note. Form the circle. Let’s see how she handles a rum runner.”

  JACK

  I knew what running a train meant.

  Gang rape.

  But the rum runner comment eluded me.

  It didn’t really matter. I was going to find out soon enough.

  I was dragged across the floor, then shoved forward. The gangbangers surrounded me and Phin.

  “You want to be a leader, Del?” T-Nail shouted. “Lead the men in this.”

  The man with the scalps on his vest—the one Phin had shot in the ear—approached me. He didn’t look overtly hostile. But he didn’t look concerned for my well-being, either.

  “What’s a rum runner?” I asked him.

  “You know what blooding into a gang means?”

  “Beating a new member up to see if he can take it.”

  “Rum runner is that, but harder. Beat you until you can’t even stand up.”

  “You ever stop to think that maybe your little club is a bit dysfunctional?” I asked.

  Del Ray sucker-punched me in the jaw.

  I fell onto all fours as the men cheered. I was only a few inches away from my husband.

  “I didn’t say it before,” I told him. “But I’m saying it now. And I mean it. This is what I want. I’d rather they beat me to death than watch it happen to you. Ya-aburnee, Phin.”

  Phin’s eyes teared-up, but his face was iron.

  “No,” he said.

  “No?”

  “Not today,” Phin said. “You’re the hero, Jack. You’ve always been the hero. And you aren’t going to die first, because you aren’t allowed to die today. You. Will. Not. Die.” He winked. “Now go and beat the shit out of them, honey.”

  I was pulled away from him as the bangers hauled me back up to my feet.

  He called me honey.

  Phin called me honey.

  One simple little word, uttered sincerely by the man I loved, and a tiny little bit of my hope had returned.

  I twisted my arms, a standard judo escape, and rolled backward, away from the guys who’d grabbed me. Then I pointed at the man with the scalps on his vest.

  “You. Fuzzy. You dropped something.”

  I pivoted, swiveling my hips, bringing my leg around in a reverse kick and connecting solidly with his face.

  “It’s your fucking teeth,” I said. “Now who else wants some?”

  Two men came at me. They were bigger. Stronger. Younger. But untrained. They left so many vulnerable spots open as they advanced, I had time to pick and choose. The first I uppercut in the jaw with the heel of my hand, the second I kneed in the groin, then chopped in the back of the neck as he fell.

  Three down. A hundred or so to go.

  Another man approached. A real big guy. Moving on the balls of his feet, his fists up like he’d spent some time in the gym. He came at me on my left, threw a quick roundhouse, then followed up with a jab that tagged me on the shoulder. I backed away.

  “You’ve boxed,” I said.

  “Got a little training.”

  “You any good?”

  “Good enough to beat your ass, bitch.”

  I kicked him in the chin and knocked him down. “Better go train some more, bitch.”

  Then it was three guys at once. The first came in low, lunging for the tackle. Smart. I wouldn’t stand a chance if the fight went to the ground. I danced away from it like a matador, and got tapped in the chin. I whipped around, extending my arm and connecting with a backhand, then bunched up my shoulders and arms to weather a flurry of punches. When I saw an opening, I jabbed, then grabbed him by the ears and introduced his face to my knee.

  By the way he yelled, his face didn’t like the meeting.

  Movement, peripherally. I ducked on reflex, and knuckles met the top of my head. My head won, and the guy backed off, screaming and staring at a hand that wasn’t bent in the proper direction.

  I got pushed in the back, and fell forward, onto the floor. Caught another glimpse of Phin.

  He looked proud.

  And then they were all over me, and the kicking began.

  There was no way to defend against that. No way to block. No way to fight back. I tucked my head into my arms, curled up into a ball, and waited for them to stomp me to death.

  And I was okay with that.

  Not just because of ya-aburnee. But because of something my friend and ex-partner, Herb Benedict, said to me twenty years ago when I first encountered T-Nail.

  The day you’re no longer afraid is the day you’ll die.

  That day was today. Because I wasn’t afraid. Val and Lund would take care of Sam. And if there was a heaven, the man I loved was going to find me.

  But not if I found him first.

  PHIN

  Jack held her own for a while, and watching her, Phin had never loved anyone more. But there was only so much one person could do against a mob.

  Then she went down, and they went at her like hyenas after zebra scraps.

  Phin strained against the nails, and the pain finally hit. And it hit hard. Like charley horses, everywhere. Phin was able to pull for two seconds, then his body gave out.

  They kept kicking Jack.

  “Get up!” he yelled at her

  Phin wasn’t the hero. Jack was the hero. She needed to save the day, like she always did. That was her thing, not his. Phin couldn’t even save those poor people at the Walmart. His best efforts just weren’t good enough.

  He tried to get up once more, pushing against the floor with his knees, trying to pry the nails out of the wood.

  The wood was too strong. The pain won again.

  “Get up!”

  If it had been his wife nailed to the floor, she would have found a way out. She’d save him. That’s what heroes did.

  “GODDAMN IT, GET UP!”

  That was when Phin realized he was no longer yelling at his wife.

  He was yelling at himself.

  No. He wasn’t the hero.

  But he sure as hell was going to help the hero.

  Phin strained with more resolve than he ever thought he was capable of, and the nail heads dug trenches through his calf muscles, and then he pushed on his elbows and leveraged his forearms off the floor, turning the pain into strength and tearing his hands free. His feet stayed nailed, but Phin found a nearby length of rebar and wedged it under each shin, prying his shoes off the floor.

  Then, somehow, he was stumbling toward the melee, howling like
a berserker.

  Phin didn’t have Jack’s fighting skills. But who needed skills when you were swinging a heavy iron bar?

  He lost count of the skulls he cracked, and the mob sensed the danger and backed away, and then he was reaching down for Jack, trying to grab her hand to pull her up.

  But she refused to untuck from the fetal position.

  JACK

  The kicking stopped. Then a hand was in my face.

  A blood-covered hand.

  I went to bite it. If I was dying, I was dying with this asshole’s finger in my stomach.

  And then I saw the wedding ring.

  Phin.

  “I thought your lazy ass was sitting this one out,” I said, looking up at him.

  “No way. You and me against the world. Remember?”

  “I still hate that song.”

  I stood, and almost fell over. They’d beaten me up pretty good. Rum runner was an apt name for the ritual.

  Phin looked even worse than I felt. He had blood on him, well, everywhere. But he still managed a smile for me.

  “Let’s fight until we can’t fight anymore,” he said. “Then keep fighting.”

  “The odds are terrible.”

  “You want to bet the odds? Or bet on us? What do you say, honey?”

  I put up my fists. “My money is on us.”

  T-NAIL

  This really hadn’t turned out the way T-Nail had hoped.

  Rather than get aroused, the men were even more uneasy than before. What the hell had happened to the youth of today? In T-Nail’s time, gangbangers were tough. A few cracked skulls and this crew seemed ready to give up.

  Fuck it. Time to show the kids how it got done.

  He pushed the joystick on the Gyro, extending to his full height. Then he gripped his nail gun and rolled into battle.

  DEL RAY

  We only found one of his four missing teeth. And it was broken in half, probably not salvageable.

  Looking around, he saw several of his men, down and bleeding.

  Looking behind him, he saw the forest fire in the distance, closing in fast.

  Enough was enough. He was getting his crew out of here.

  “C-Notes!” he called, waving his hands. “C-Notes! It’s time to—”

  “Time to what?” T-Nail said.

  Del had been so preoccupied he hadn’t noticed the OG sneak up behind him.

  “We’re cutting out,” Del said. “We spilled enough blood for your little revenge fantasy.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to the council. Laying it all out for them. I got a hundred witnesses who will all be happy to talk about what a shit job you’ve done.”

  “Here’s something else for them to witness.”

  He raised his weapon and buried a nail in Del Ray’s forehead.

  HERB

  Get out of the way, you assholes!” Harry laid on the horn. Then someone screamed and bounced off the front windshield.

  “Not my fault,” McGlade said. “I honked.”

  Herb sat in the passenger seat, viewing the scene with total awe. The forest fire had arrived, kicking up the Indian summer weather to regular summer temperatures, lighting up the trees around them. Gangbangers were everywhere, running this way and that way, on the roads and in the woods, some of them grabbing and climbing the Crimebago, trying to get inside. It was like…

  “It’s like an episode of The Walking Dead,” Herb said, in awe.

  “They’re blocking my driveway. My house is still a few hundred meters away. I can’t get through without running people over.”

  Herb was actually startled by McGlade’s sudden humanity.

  “If someone gets stuck in an axel it could blow the transmission,” Harry finished.

  He threw the RV into park, and hopped out of the driver’s seat.

  “Where are you going?” Herb asked.

  “To the tank.”

  Then the side door jerked open, and a gangbanger launched himself into the vehicle, tackling McGlade against Homeboy’s cage, all three crashing to the floor.

  Herb already had his gun in hand. He swung it, clipping the hood on the side of the face, knocking him back outside.

  Four more piled in.

  Herb managed to hold onto his gun, but he got pinned against the refrigerator and couldn’t aim. McGlade began to wail, and Herb thought they were tearing him apart until he realized Harry was yelling about everyone tracking mud on his carpeting.

  More guys came inside. Herb always wondered how he’d fare in a zombie apocalypse, and now he had his answer. He would fail miserably.

  On a positive note, at least he wouldn’t be eaten alive.

  “HOMEBOY!”

  All movement stopped, and every eye zeroed in on the parrot. Free of his cage, Homeboy had somehow managed to climb the drapery covering the outside window, and he now roosted on the curtain rod.

  “What the fuck is that thing?” somebody said.

  “That’s my parrot, Homeboy!” Harry announced, proud as any daddy. “And he’s going to save the day!”

  “HARRY!” Homeboy squawked.

  And then the bird stretched out its featherless wings and leapt into the air—

  —plummeting like a rock. He landed on the kitchen counter, where they’d tossed the baggie of cocaine taken from Chester, and immediately tore it to pieces.

  A moment later the bird went rigid, and fell off the counter onto the floor.

  “Dude, I think your parrot just OD’ed.”

  “Everybody stand back!” Harry ordered. Incredibly, they did. Perhaps seeing a naked parrot overdose on cocaine was just strange enough that continuing the attack became an afterthought.

  McGlade gently picked Homeboy up, rested him on the couch, and put his fingers on his tiny, chest, beginning compressions.

  “Stay with me, buddy.” Harry said. “You’re too young to die.”

  Then he leaned over and gave Homeboy the breath of life.

  “That’s just wrong,” somebody said.

  Herb had to agree.

  McGlade’s life-saving measures proved too aggressive, and Homeboy inflated like the world’s ugliest balloon.

  Then the dead parrot farted.

  That was Herb’s cue to get the hell out of there. The gangbangers who’d pinned him were transfixed on The Harry and Homeboy CPR Show, and Herb pushed his way to the front of the Crimebago.

  “Hang in there, Homeboy! I’m charging the defibrillator!”

  Herb was happy he wasn’t there to see it.

  “Clear!” McGlade yelled.

  A collective groan filled the vehicle.

  And so did an odor not dissimilar to roasted chicken.

  Herb pushed out the driver’s door. There were still gangbangers everywhere, and many seemed to be converging on the Crimebago. Even more concerning, the forest fire had gotten dangerously close.

  It looked like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.

  Herb hurried to the tank they’d towed for four hundred plus miles. He tried to remember how it worked, vaguely recalled Harry pointing to the top, and saw the valve handle.

  He reached up and gave it a tug.

  Six jets of water sprayed out of the nozzles on the sides with ten tons of pressure. Originally used as a street cleaner, the water tank also worked tremendously well for crowd control. The nearby gangbangers were knocked over. The ones further out didn’t want to get wet, and stayed clear. And all the nearby flames sizzled and died out.

  Secret weapon for the win.

  Herb adjusted his grip on the SIG and went back around to the side door. He fired into the air, and everyone turned to look.

  “Out! Now!”

  One by one, the gangbangers filed out of the Crimebago. Herb climbed back inside and saw Harry still leaning over his expired parrot.

  Homeboy appeared both squashed and burned. Apparently McGlade had pressed too hard on the paddles.

  “I’m sorry about Homeboy, Harry.”


  “At least he died doing what he loved. Illegal narcotics.”

  “We need to go get Jack.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Herb followed Harry back to the cockpit, and McGlade started up the vehicle and hit the gas.

  “I miss the little guy already,” Harry said.

  “Why?”

  “Yeah, he was pretty awful, wasn’t he?”

  “He was the worst,” Herb agreed.

  “But let us not dwell on what he was or wasn’t. Instead, let him be an example of the perils of meth addiction.”

  “He overdosed on coke.”

  Harry’s shoulders slumped. “I hated that parrot.”

  The forest fire licked at the dirt driveway on either side, but the water tank kept it at bay, shooting hundreds of gallons of water in every direction, including in front of them.

  And that’s when the Crimebago got stuck in the mud.

  JACK

  Almost all of the gangbangers had taken off. I don’t think Phin and I had scared them off with our fighting prowess, which had devolved to blindly swinging at anyone who came near. A careful, dedicated person with serious intent could have flattened us both without much trouble.

  But intent seemed to be lacking. Maybe it had something to do with seeing T-Nail shoot their General in the head with a nail gun. That wasn’t the best way to inspire loyalty in your troops.

  For his part, T-Nail hadn’t given up. But his tricked-out wheelchair continued to slow down. When he got within three meters of us, it stopped completely.

  “Let’s get around him, get away,” I said to Phin.

  Phin responded by collapsing next to my feet.

  “I’m done, honey. Adrenaline wore off. I can’t move.”

  “Don’t be a baby,” I said, reaching to help Phin up.

  I collapsed right next to him. Since my whole body throbbed equally, I had to take visual inventory of my injuries using the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut.

  Left arm, broken.

  Right ankle, broken.

  Left leg, something pulled or torn.