Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  While Marco still seems a bit wary, I can see in Blaine’s eyes that he’s decided I’m not a threat. His head moves forward a beat before he lifts his foot to make his move on me.

  I pull both triggers at the same moment.

  I’m naturally right-handed, but I have worked hard to be ambidextrous when it comes to things like weapons, as that ability could—and has—saved my life. So both darts fly true and hit their targets in almost identical spots mid-torso, just below the ribs.

  Blaine goes down first because he was already in motion. He tries to stand up again, but can’t even get both feet under him before he slams back onto the carpet with an expulsion of air.

  The moment the dart hits Marco, he looks down at it, as if not understanding what just happened. When his mind catches up, he tries to grab the cylinder, but it’s already too late and a moment later he joins his friend on the floor.

  I lower my weapons and walk over to them.

  “What did…you…do…to us?” Marco asks, his words coming out in a labored staccato.

  What I’ve done is inject them with something we call the little helper. Unlike Beta-Somnol, which would knock out Marco and Blaine for hours, the little helper puts them in a state of paralysis without causing unconsciousness. The length of time this lasts depends on the dose. In their case, they should be able to move their fingers and toes in about six hours. The rest will come back slowly after that.

  I pluck out the darts, then walk back to the maintenance closet where I left my bag. Both men try to shout to me, but it’s more of a panicked whisper. Though the little helper does not prevent victims from talking, it does weaken the ability to put any force into a voice.

  After putting the guns and used darts in the bag, I walk down the other hallway, out of earshot from my new friends, and say into my comm, “They’re down. How we looking outside?”

  “Nice and quiet,” Jar says.

  “Give me a few minutes to get them in place before you make the call.”

  “Just say the word.”

  I have to smile. Just say the word is not a phrase Jar would have used even six months ago.

  When we’d come up with the plan for tonight, my biggest concern was moving the drugged bodies. But in the hour I spent waiting for Marco and Blaine to arrive, I did a little poking around and discovered a furniture dolly in the storage room.

  I maneuver Blaine onto it first. He’s the larger of the two, and I always like getting difficult things out of the way first. I tie him down with a couple of bungee cords that were also in the storage room. It’s not that he might put up a fight; I only want to avoid him accidentally rolling off and forcing me to load his ass back on. I then transport him, his bag, and my bag to the Camelot banquet hall.

  His eyes dart back and forth the entire trip, his breaths coming in panicked bursts. Occasionally he whispers to himself things like, “What am…” and “I need…” and “How can I…” Never once do I hear a full thought.

  The Camelot room is lit only by the dim glow from one of the outside floodlights, seeping through a row of high windows along the north wall. Except for the two chairs sitting next to each other near the dance floor, the room is empty. I have a feeling the chairs are normally used by a bride and groom, as they are large and heavy wooden things, adorned with carvings of horses and knights and dragons. I place Blaine in the one on the left, setting his forearms on the chair’s arms.

  Marco is more talkative on his trip. He starts off with threats like “You’re…making a big…mistake,” and “You’re going…to pay…big…for this.” But as we’re wheeling down the hallway, his tactic changes. “If you let…us…go now, we’ll…leave…this place…alone.” Then, “Hey…you need…anything? TV? Computer? I can…get…you whatever you…want…if you…look…the other way.”

  When we enter the Camelot room, he changes from bargaining with me to asking, “What are you…bringing us…in here…for?” and “What are you…going…to do…to us?”

  I put him in the second chair, then return to the hallway, close the door, and toggle on my comm.

  “Ready to go here,” I say.

  “Any problems?” Jar asks.

  “Not a one.”

  “I’ll make the call.”

  “Copy.”

  Inside the room, I can hear Marco and Blaine talking, their tones desperate. When I walk back in, they immediately shut up.

  I open my bag, which is sitting on the floor behind the chairs, and extract twelve heavy-duty zip ties and a roll of duct tape.

  “What’s that…for?” Marco asks as I step back where they can see me.

  I set the tape and all but four of the ties in his lap. It’s as good a table as any. I zip-tie each of his wrists to an arm of the chair, and then do the same with his ankles to the chair’s legs. Four more ties and Blaine’s also secured in place.

  I use a few more ties on their arms, closer to their elbows, then grab the tape. Once again, I start with Marco, wrapping the tape around his chest to secure him to the back of the chair, and then do the same to Blaine.

  Taking a step back, I examine my handiwork.

  The tape is overkill but I knew that going in. It’s more for show than anything else, a kind of psychological weapon meant to convey to Marco and Blaine how really screwed they are. And by the looks on their faces, it’s working.

  After putting the roll of tape away, I carry my bag over to the door, where I can pick it up on my way out. From a covered recess built into the wall near the exit, I remove a remote controller and walk back to the chairs.

  “Look, we didn’t mean…anything,” Marco said, exerting a bit more control over his voice now. “We were just going…to take a…look around, that’s all. We…shouldn’t have come. We’re sorry…all right? Come on…please. Just…let us go.”

  “Why can’t I move…my arms?” Blaine asks. “What…did you do to me?”

  I turn my back to them and push one of the buttons on the remote.

  A motor hums to life.

  “What the hell…is…is that?” Marco asks.

  In answer to his question, a large screen begins descending from the ceiling. Once it stops, it hangs four meters in front of them.

  Another push of the remote and a projector hidden in a faux ceiling beam lights up the screen.

  I imagine the system is meant for showing montages of a happy couple’s life together or something similar. Tonight’s show will be a little less romantic but equally satisfying.

  I move behind the chairs again and click my mic three times, letting Jar know the projector is on.

  A moment passes before an image appears on the screen. It’s a static shot of a dark space, with details hard to make out beyond a few shadowy forms. Then Jar switches the input from visible light to night vision, and the room comes into focus.

  Marco gasps when he realizes what he’s looking at.

  Blaine remains clueless. “I don’t get…it. It’s…a room. So what?”

  “Look,” Marco hisses.

  Blaine is quiet for a second, then says, “Oh…crap.”

  Oh, crap, indeed.

  What they are looking at is the storage room they rented at a facility in the city of Orange, where they keep all their ill-gotten goods, and where, I suspect, they’ve done most of their planning.

  Superimposed in the top right corner of the image is the time, indicating this is a live shot. Whether Marco and Blaine notice this or not, I don’t know. But they’ll figure it out soon enough.

  I click my mic once. A query, which Jar has no problem interpreting.

  “Two minutes out.”

  I click again, this time to let her know I understand.

  “Why are you…showing us…this?” Marco asks. “We-we don’t know…what this…is.”

  I almost blow it and laugh. I mean, it’s funny because a moment ago Marco all but said, That’s our place. He may be the smarter of the two but he’s no Stephen Hawking.

  Seconds go by without any
change to the image.

  Marco again says he doesn’t know what he’s looking at, but his tone is half-hearted at best. After another thirty seconds, he says, “Okay…yes…it’s ours, okay. We’re…we’re sorry.”

  “Yeah, man,” Blaine jumps in. “We’re…sorry.”

  “All of that…you can…have it,” Marco offers. “Just let us…go.”

  “Pulling up now,” Jar informs me.

  Marco’s and Blaine’s pleas continue, their voices growing more and more desperate.

  I’m not going to lie. I’m really enjoying this.

  “Switching back to visual light mode,” Jar warns me.

  The picture on the screen reverts to the dim image we first saw.

  “What’s happening?” Blaine asks. “Why is it…dark?”

  Over the Camelot banquet room’s speakers come the muted sounds of footsteps. Blaine hasn’t heard them because he’s been blathering, but I’m betting Marco has.

  The steps go silent, and for a moment all is quiet. Then, at the same time we hear the screech of the metal roll-up door being opened, light floods into the storage space.

  Marco lets out a shocked curse under his breath as several police officers, weapons drawn, move into the room.

  “What are…they doing there?” Blaine asks. “How did they…find out?”

  “I swear to God…if you say…another word…” Marco says.

  “What? What…did I…say?”

  On the screen, the cops continue until they reach the back.

  “Clear,” one of them shouts.

  “Clear,” another says.

  The men lower their weapons and begin looking around. It doesn’t take long before one of them approaches the table in the back corner.

  We have a special camera focused down on it and Jar switches to that one now.

  On the table is the notebook Marco used to work out the details of his and Blaine’s activities. He’s been pretty diligent about ripping pages out and getting rid of them once a job is done, but success has bred laziness, and the notes for the last few jobs are still in the book. He is cryptic in his writing, so it will take a bit of work to figure out what the notebook contains, but I have every confidence the police will succeed.

  There’s something else on the table, too. Something Jar and I added just before we came here. It’s a printout of a map, a small section of Santa Ana that features El Palacio Banquet Center. Written in pencil right next to the center’s name is today’s date.

  “Got something here,” the cop at the table says.

  Another officer comes over, probably the man in charge, and the first guy points at the map without touching. The newly arrived cop looks at it for a moment, then touches his mic.

  “This is Sergeant Yates. We have a possible location on the burglar suspects.”

  Our map might have been a little on the nose, but it has done the trick. The sergeant’s reporting of it is my cue.

  I tap the remote again, turning off the projector and sending the screen back into the ceiling. I then walk toward the door without looking back at Marco and Blaine.

  “Hey! Hey! Where…are you going?” Marco calls. “You’ve got to…get us out…of here! Whatever you want! I swear…I’ll give you…anything!”

  I don’t react. I simply put the remote back where I found it, head to the exit, and grab my bag.

  “You son of a…bitch! We…. You’d…better watch your back…because we will…find you!”

  When I enter the hall, I’m tempted to close the door behind me, as a symbol of how little his words mean to me. But I want to keep things easy for the cops so I leave it open. The moment the police see it, I’m sure they’ll check the room.

  I also leave open the door I use to exit the building. Then I walk two blocks to where Jar waits in the van we rented for the job.

  “Any news?” I ask as I climb into the driver’s seat.

  “Four units inbound,” she says. “ETA three minutes.”

  I start the engine. “I guess we should get going.”

  We’re eastbound on W. Santa Clara Avenue, almost to the I-5 freeway, when a pair of Santa Ana police department cruisers race past us in the other direction, emergency lights flashing, sirens off.

  Some days are really good.

  Chapter Two

  And some days aren’t.

  Technically it’s not really a new day. We finished at El Palacio Banquet Experience around sixteen hours ago, at 1:30 a.m. It’s now 5:13 p.m., and Jar and I are in the living room of my Redondo Beach townhouse, watching the local news.

  All day I’ve been feeling pretty satisfied. Taking down a pair of lowlifes like Marco and Blaine has a way of doing that. The inflation of my ego never lasts long, but today it sticks around for even less time.

  Your first thought might be that Marco and Blaine have somehow escaped or avoided blame for their activities. That’s not the case. They’re locked up, and probably won’t be breathing free air again for a while. We’ve left a few clues at the storage locker that will ensure they receive credit for every single thing they’ve done.

  My mood has more to do with something a reporter just said on the news.

  “According to a source, the two men had entered the business with plans of vandalizing the facility. Before this could be achieved, they were thwarted by an unnamed individual wearing a stocking mask, who incapacitated them and left them tied up for police to find.”

  If he had stopped there, I could’ve lived with it. It is what happened, and it would be hard to hide that for long. It’s what he says next that has elevated my blood pressure.

  “This brings to mind the capture of Miles Deveaux, the so-called Valley Heights Rapist, in January. In a press conference last week, Mr. Deveaux’s attorney, Carl Swanson, related a similar story about his client’s capture, and suggested that the masked man was the true criminal and had framed his client. One has to wonder if the two cases might be connected. Or perhaps it’s a case of imitation being the best form of flattery. This is Benjamin Aguilar in Santa Ana, for KCAL News.”

  Carl Swanson’s claim about who’s really responsible for the crimes Deveaux is accused of is bullshit. No one will ever believe him. The DNA evidence alone will snuff out that theory in a hurry if he dares float it in court.

  But the part Benjamin Agular wondered about? That’s true. The two events are connected.

  The fact that someone has noticed isn’t good.

  I should have changed my mask.

  No, what I should have done was never take on another one of my little hobby jobs so close to home. I keep telling myself that, and I keep ignoring it.

  While I should take comfort in knowing there’s no way to connect me to the masked man, it’s hard not to feel unsettled by even tangential connections.

  Things get worse by ten p.m.

  Raul Staggs, a reporter at KTLA, has grabbed on to the story a bit tighter. Under a montage of shots from both the Deveaux case and the arrest this morning of Marco and Blaine, he reiterates what Aguilar reported, then plays clips from an interview he did with Swanson in which the lawyer reveals details of Deveaux’s “imprisonment” at the hands of a masked man. (Full interview to be available on the station’s webpage tomorrow.)

  There are undeniable similarities between what happened to Deveaux and what happened to Marco and Blaine.

  What can I say? I use what works.

  When Staggs finishes his conversation with Swanson, I think the worst of it is over, but I am woefully wrong. His report cuts to a small yard in front of an apartment building. Staggs, in a voice-over, says, “Late this afternoon, we received a tip that there might be another incident connected to the masked vigilante.”

  What connection? I don’t know this house.

  The shot cuts to a different angle on the same yard, this time focused on a girl maybe fifteen years old, sixteen at most.

  I narrow my eyes. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place her.

  Voice-over
again. “Kalee Walsh says she encountered the man last fall.”

  I relax a little. It has to be something she’s made up in hopes of getting her face on TV.

  “My friend Gina and I were in the store, grabbing a soda.”

  “That would be Park’s Mini-Mart?” Staggs asks.

  “Yeah. That’s right.”

  My blood turns cold. This isn’t a made-up story and she’s no fame hound. Well, I mean, she might be, but she’s not lying.

  A new shot, this one featuring Park’s Mini-Mart. It’s one of several stores that occupy the street level of a building not far from the I-10 freeway.

  Staggs’s voice continues over the shot. “You may recall in September of last year, Park’s Mini-Mart was the location where the gang known as the Masked Raiders were finally captured.”

  Yes. Masked Raiders. It’s a stupid name but no one asked me.

  “Kalee Walsh and her friend Gina Rodriguez were inside the store with the store’s owner, Mr. Park, when, according to Kalee, the masked vigilante entered and tasered a member of the Raiders who was also inside.”

  Back to Cali. “When the wires hit him, he dropped to the floor. I’ve never seen someone go down that fast. The guy with the mask—”

  “The masked vigilante,” Staggs says.

  I want to reach through the screen to strangle him. I hate that name almost as much as I hate Masked Raiders.

  “Uh-huh. He told Mr. Park he’d taken care of more of them in the alley, and that Mr. Park should call the police. He told us not to mention that he was there, so we didn’t.”

  “Until now.”

  A nod. “I heard about what happened last night at that wedding place, and that someone in a mask stopped those guys. It sounds a lot like the person who helped us.”

  New shot. Staggs on the sidewalk in front of Park’s Mini-Mart. “I attempted to confirm the story with Mr. Park but he declined to be on camera, and only said he didn’t know what the girl was talking about. Is it possible this is where the masked vigilante got his start? This is Raul Staggs in—”

  I shut off the TV.

  “We should call him,” Jar says. “He is using the wrong nickname.”