Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set

by Gordon Carroll

  “What kind of game? Gambling? Some kind of new slot machine?”

  “I don’t know… maybe. Some kind of video game or something. I heard him talking once to Mr. Pink about it, saying the game was going to sweep the market. That’s all I know.”

  “Market? What kind of market?”

  He shook his head, obviously scared. “I don’t know, dude. I swear.”

  “Who is this girl I’ve got here?”

  “Some chick we picked up for some fun, that’s all. She was hitch-hiking, dude.” Like that was an excuse for raping her.

  “I’ll kill him,” said Tom. “I’ll kill him.”

  “Wouldn’t do any good,” I said. “He doesn’t know anything else.”

  “He deserves to die.”

  “Yeah, I suppose he does.” I looked back down at Pimples’ pleading eyes. “What did you and the others do to his daughter?”

  “Nothing. She was never here, dude. Mr. Black took her with him.” He switched his eyes quickly from me to Tom and back to me without moving his neck. “I swear, dude. I swear.”

  Tom’s voice was choked with rage. “You said you were raping her. A two-year old girl.” He was shouting now.

  I de-cocked the .45 and brought it down on top of Pimples’ head. He slumped, unconscious. It was the only way I could think of to keep Tom from shooting him.

  “He deserves to die,” said Tom, repeating his earlier threat.

  “Forget him. We have to get this girl to a hospital.”

  Tom nodded, still pointing the Ruger at Pimples’ head. I wasn’t worried. Tom wasn’t the type that could kill a helpless man.

  I went down the stairs, my gun leading the way. Everyone in the living room was still dead or unconscious. I tried not to look at the mess Max left in the corner. The body shuddered and a few wet moans came from what used to be the boy’s face. I didn’t know if he would live or not — it might be best for him if he didn’t. But if he did, he wouldn’t be winning any beauty contest, that’s for sure. Tom and Max followed me out to the car.

  35

  Max

  Max sat in the far back while the Alpha and the new man sat in the front. The female human lay across the seats, unconscious. She had the bad smell on her. Not the fear smell. No, it was the smell of the rotting drugs — like the man he found hiding under the porch. Max could smell other humans on her as well. The man he’d attacked mated with her — he could smell his spore. It had the bad smell too.

  Max didn’t think the woman would live. It was more than just her smell. He could feel something not right about her. As though her heat were wrong. She felt confused, scrambled. Max didn’t understand the feeling, but he didn’t like it.

  The man next to the Alpha had many complex scents to him. There was fear, but there was rage too. And sadness. He seemed very weak and Max had to wonder why the Alpha should waste any time on him.

  The Alpha himself was hurt. There was blood, the scent rich and bright and full of tingling power. But he did not seem weak now. He exuded a strange aura of strength and confidence, a sense of purpose that would not be deterred.

  This was worthy of the Alpha. Max could respect this.

  What a strange animal the Alpha was.

  36

  Gil

  Jared Darling met me at Aurora South Hospital. He was none too happy.

  The Hispanic girl turned out to be a runaway from St. Louis headed for California. She didn’t get too far. She showed signs of extreme sexual abuse, whether forced or just the price of the drugs she consumed, the doctors couldn’t tell yet. She had lapsed into a coma.

  My nurse, a hefty old bat with a disposition worse than my secretary Yolanda’s, was happily at work scrubbing out my wounds. The bullet creased my neck, dug into the meat of my right trapezius, punched out the other side, slipped back inside at the shoulder and lodged just under the skin at the top of my bicep. Before Broom Hilda, the battle axe, started in with her brush, a petite brunette that looked way too young to be a doctor had come in and jabbed a needle under the weird lump that rode my bicep. It hurt, but I couldn’t let on that it hurt. Not in front of a little slip of a thing like her. Instead I did what Oliver Queen, The Green Arrow would do. I smiled.

  Until I saw the scalpel. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “This,” she said, and sliced a clean line across the top of the lump. Apparently she was too new to know it took a little longer than five seconds for Novocain to go to work. She squeezed the sides of the lump and the mashed bullet plopped out into a curved metal pan she held beneath it. It made a hollow “tunk” sound. She held the bullet up between gloved fingers, little smudges of my blood staining the latex a dark red.

  “Souvenir?” she asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “I’ve got plenty.”

  She looked me over and shook her head. “All those scars. Maybe you should invest in a bulletproof vest.” Everyone’s a comic.

  Darling walked in right then and took the pan from the doctor’s hands. “That’s evidence,” he said. Then came Broom Hilda with her brush, and even Darling looked a bit green around the gills.

  The back of my neck wasn’t so bad. The bullet had broken the skin and taken a little meat with it, but the cleaning went pretty smoothly. It was the tunnels that really hurt. Pieces of shirt had been punched into my flesh with the bullet and Hilda used an instrument that looked frighteningly like a gun cleaning bore brush to scrub out the wound.

  The tiny brunette doctor came back in, tossed on a couple of stitches and handed me a prescription for pain killers and antibiotics. She smiled at me and left the room.

  “There’s a bunch of dead people back at that house,” said Sergeant Darling, his belly stretching the material around the single buttoned button of his suit coat.

  “Sorry about that.” I winced as I put my shirt back on. “They were all kidnappers, rapists, and probably involved in Shane Franklin’s murder. Besides, they were trying to kill me.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to call me before you got into anything? Isn’t that what I said to you?”

  “I’m sorry, there just wasn’t time.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. “What’s the story with the guy and gal in the waiting room?”

  “It’s their son that got murdered. The same people kidnapped the man and his two year old daughter. I got him away but the girl wasn’t there.”

  “She dead?”

  I winced. “I hope not. Someone else has her. Someone higher up than those slobs at the house.”

  Jared rubbed his bald head with long, plump fingers that reminded me of an episode of The Office where they alluded to a made up disease called Hot Dog Fingers. “I’m going to need everything you’ve got. No holding back, and I mean it, Gil. This isn’t going to be easy to clean up.”

  I shook my head to the negative. “I can’t do it, Jared. Whoever is pulling the strings still has their daughter. If things get too hot he might kill her and cut his losses. I can’t take that chance.”

  “We could call in the FBI.”

  I gave him my most withering look, usually reserved for defense lawyers and dullards. “Oh, great idea. Why not just kill her yourself?”

  He nodded. “It was just a thought.”

  “Can you keep it low profile, for a couple of days at least?” I asked.

  “Maybe — they were nobodies — that makes it easier. But if the media gets wind of the kidnapping, all bets are off.”

  “One more thing,” I said. “The Franklins need to be protected.”

  “That goes against your low profile gig, doesn’t it?”

  “Can’t be helped. Whoever’s doing this might decide it’s safer to take the whole family out.”

  “Done,” said Jared. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  So I told him. And I hardly left anything out.

  37

  While the police took Tom down to the station to make a statement I drove Lisa home. She
started to reach for Max in the backseat, but I stopped her with a touch.

  “He’s not a nice dog,” I said.

  “Really?” She continued reaching and rubbed his head. I held my breath. Max let his tongue loll out of his mouth, rolled over and gave her his stomach. She scratched his belly and chest. I let my breath out and continued to drive.

  She remained quiet for the first half of the trip. After that she began to talk. “Tom told me what you did back there. It was very brave.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that so I just kept quiet.

  “I guess you’ve gotten into a lot more than you bargained for.”

  I smiled. “You’d be surprised how often that happens to me.”

  She was quiet for a few more minutes. We were on I-70 westbound before she spoke again.

  “Why are you still helping us? Shane’s dead, you found him. You’ve fulfilled your obligation.”

  “I told you, once I take a case I’m in until it’s done.” I looked at her. “Even if you fire me.”

  She looked back, her eyes red from crying. Her hand rested in her lap. She twisted the ring. “Tom and I have… been… having problems. They say the loss of a child often destroys a marriage. Now I’ve lost two. I don’t know if we can make it through this.”

  “We’ll get Amber back.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I’ll get her back. I give you my word.”

  “Tom cheated on me. At least, I think he did. He denies it, but I know something happened. There was a girl where he works. She’s young, pretty.” Tears streaked down her cheeks.

  “I don’t know Tom well, but I can see he loves you.”

  She wiped at her cheeks. “Does he? I don’t know anymore. I don’t even know if I care. I just want my baby back.” She looked down at her lap. “Tammy told me about your wife and daughter.”

  That caught me like a punch to the throat.

  Lisa went on. “You didn’t have anyone to turn to. No one to share the hurt. That makes me very sad for you. I feel like that now. Tom’s there, but it’s like he isn’t.”

  “It was hard, still is. But Lisa, this isn’t about me, it’s about you and Tom. And the two of you will work it out.”

  “I’m not so sure I want it to work out.”

  “That’s grief talking.”

  “No — no it’s not. I was feeling this way before all this started. I know it’s terrible, but I can’t help it. Tom’s the only man I’ve ever been with, but I don’t know if I love him anymore. And now my son’s dead. My son and maybe my little baby girl.”

  Again I didn’t know what to say.

  It was three o’clock; rush hour was just getting into full swing. The sun burned through the early afternoon clouds, sending searchlight-like shafts across the sky. I looked at her again, sitting there with her hands in her lap, so vulnerable, a wrong word or gesture might shatter what remained of the façade she was trying to keep up.

  “Tom is a good man,” I started.

  She broke in. “I know that. I don’t care.” Her voice and face were hard, but then she softened. “Could I ask you a very personal question? Please?”

  I didn’t know where she was going with this and it scared me. “Yes.”

  “How do you go on? How do you survive? After they died, how could you? I don’t know that I can.”

  I didn’t want to answer. I don’t like thinking about it, even now after all this time. But she was hurting and maybe I could help. “I can’t give you any easy answers because there aren’t any. You survive and go on because you have to, because there’s no choice. For you even more so than me. You have other children, a husband, people that need and depend on you. And I think them needing you will help you live through this. There will be times when you don’t think you can. Times when you don’t think you want to. That’s when you have to get tough — mean — hard — and just push ahead — because the only other option is worse.”

  She looked at me intently making me feel self-conscious. She touched the WWJD bracelet on my wrist.

  “Did this help?” she asked. “Your faith in God?”

  I sighed. “Yes, eventually, but not at first. Not for a long time. Not until it was almost too late. I hated God. I blamed Him for their deaths. I went to war against Him. And it almost killed me.”

  She was crying again, quietly, her shoulders trembling. “I feel like that. Why? Why did He take them from me? Shane was such a good boy… so good and kind. If you had only known him… known him as I did. His heart was so good. And Amber… Amber is just a baby. Why would He take them? Is it because of me? Am I a bad mother? A bad wife?”

  My heart was breaking for her. My eyes burned. The road blurred before me and I had to blink fast to clear my vision. “No — no, this didn’t happen because of you, Lisa. It didn’t”

  Her hands clenched into fists, tight and white knuckled. “Then why? Why?”

  Why do bad things happen to good people? The eternal question. Why would a good God allow bad things to happen? It was the question that almost destroyed me after my family’s murder. I gave her the best answer I could. The same one my father-in-law gave me to end my war with God. “Before my wife and I decided to have a baby, we knew there would be bad days. We knew that our child would be hard to take care of sometimes. That she would cry, dirty her diaper, break things. We even knew there was the possibility she could…” I had to stop for a second, clear my throat, “…could get hurt or die or maybe worse, turn out bad herself. We could have decided to buy a doll and forego any chance of those bad and difficult things happening. So, knowing all those terrible possibilities, why not forget the baby and go with the doll? Because a doll can’t appreciate love. And what parents want more than anything is to be able to share, and shower and pour out the love and beauty and wonder of all that’s been given to us. To give all your best and all the best that is in you to them.

  “I think that’s why God made us. So that He could pour out all His love on us. So He could share what He is, with us. He could have created dolls and saved Himself and us a lot of heartache and pain. But if He had, both He and us would have missed out on something that is worth all the risk, all the pain, all the hurt. We would not be able to experience love, either by receiving it, or giving it. So, in order for there to be real, true love, God had to give us free choice. The ability to choose to love: ourselves, each other, even Him. Or to not love. And when people choose to not love we hurt each other.

  “God didn’t do this, Lisa. Not to you and not to Shane and not to Amber. Evil men did this. Save your anger for them.”

  I reached over and took her hand. She gripped my fingers tight. And then she crumbled, the cries coming in big racking sobs that shook her whole body. She cried the rest of the way home.

  38

  Lisa’s sister, Trudy, was at the Franklin house when we arrived. I spotted an unmarked car up the street. Two young plain-clothes cops sat inside eyeing me. I didn’t recognize either one. I followed Lisa into the house. She went to her bedroom, still crying softly.

  Trudy gave me a look and I said, “Tom’s okay, but Lisa’s pretty shaken by the whole thing.” I am nothing if not the king of understatements.

  “I understand,” said Trudy.

  I left, stopped by my house to put on a new shirt, wincing from the bullet wound. I took a couple of extra-strength aspirin and drove to Colorado Springs; to Ballard’s Rentals. It was nicer than I pictured. A large building with a brick façade and a beautifully manicured lawn and hedges. A row of tulips lined both sides of the walk up to the front door. They smelled good. Springy.

  A petite young woman was sitting behind the counter. “Hi, I’m Kendra, can I help you?” Once again her bubbly voice reminded me of Sally Fields from The Flying Nun.

  “Hi, Kendra. I called about the limo with the cracked windshield.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember. How sweet of you to want to take responsibility for an accident like that. Most people would try and ge
t out of it, but here you are.”

  I held out my hands, smiling, ignoring the twinge of pain across my shoulder and bicep. “Here I am.” I pointed toward a door that looked like it led to a garage. “Is it back there?”

  “Yes, did you want to see it?” Her smile was as big as Marie Osmond’s.

  “If you don’t mind. I want to make sure it’s the same car.”

  “Oh sure. Absolutely.” She got up and came around the counter. She was all of five feet tall and maybe eighty-five pounds, with long, straight, brown hair. She was wearing blue shorts that ended just above the knees and a pretty, red, short sleeve blouse.

  I opened the door for her.

  “Thank yew,” she said with that Sally field voice and Marie Osmond smile. There were seven limos in the garage. The one with the cracked windshield sat at the end of the first line.

  The plates were the same, so was the crack. I ran a finger along the thin edge, tracing its jagged, lightning bolt like line from the driver’s side, half-way across the windshield. “Yep, looks like it.” I turned to her. “You know, I’ve never seen the inside of one of these. Would you mind?”

  “Not at all. It’s unlocked, feel free.”

  I did just that. I looked around, scanning the inside for any clue. I was hoping for a business card or a receipt, anything to tie to Mr. Spock and his boys. I ran my hand along the back edge of the cushion, digging into the crease. I did the same to all the seats. I checked the bar; the TV’s, the phone, the ashtrays. Nothing. Clean as a whistle. Except for the parking slip I’d seen, but been unable to make out that first day. I went to the dashboard and there it was, pushed low into the corner to the far left, on the inside of the windshield. I stepped out of the limo, holding the ticket.

  “What’s that?”

  “A parking pass for the Micro Corp building.”

  “You’re not really here about the windshield, are you?” asked Kendra.