Bulldog stepped closer and kicked the dead man in the head. As expected, the head moved limply. He was definitely dead.
“You’re not bulletproof, Frank. One day your stupidity is going to get you killed, or maybe get the rest of us killed.”
“Anytime you don’t want to roll with me, just let me know.”
“You’re too lucky, and too good, to bail on. If you could just stop THINKING about things.”
“I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work too well. And you can’t stay drunk forever.”
An ear-splitting scream rang out from below them.
The two men stared at each other as another scream rang out, followed by gasps and pleas in Spanish to stop.
“Oh shit. Wilson found a woman.”
“Sounds like it. Somebody must have had a whore or two in for the night.”
Bulldog stared out the window at the other end of the room at the black Mexican night sprinkled with stars.
“I wanted to get in and out.”
“I did too, Bulldog, but…”
“The longer we stay the bigger the risk is always.”
“Mexican cops aren’t coming in here.”
“I know, but….” he stopped as another ear-piercing scream broke the silence.
Bulldog shifted the Armalite semi-auto rifle he favored for close-in work in his hands and said, “I hate this fucking shit. I hate that fucking animal. Somebody ought to.”
“Are you going to do it,” Frank asked, staring at the floor as he visualized the huge Wilson and some poor black haired bitch that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Before it was over she would be praying she’d been shot in the initial attack.
“No. I don’t think a full clip would stop that psycho. I don’t think he’s human. I couldn’t stop him. But you could.”
He thought about it, but knew he’d do nothing.
“I’d have to kill him to stop him. He’s had my back… had your back…too many times. Put himself in the way of bullets saving our asses. I can’t.”
Bulldog convulsively squeezed the stock of the Armalite in times to the screams and whimpers.
“Then I’m going to find a damn radio and turn it up full blast and listen to some music until he runs down, breaks her, and we can get out of here.”
The woman lasted a long time. Bulldog and two of the other members of the crew found radios and turned on bouncy Mexican ballads that almost drowned out her screams. Once a Mexican cop car turned the corner and stopped in front of the square. The two cops inside listened to the screams. But they had to know who lived there. And the sight of the two men carrying automatic weapons standing in the doorway staring back at them convinced them to start up the cruiser and quietly slip away.
The other residents of the square sat in dark rooms and breathed quietly, holding children tightly to smother any cries that might attract attention. And prayed that the morning light would come.
CHAPTER SIX: UNCLE SAM HAS HIS EYE ON YOU
November 7, 2005
Monday, 10 A.M.
“You have the most incredibly self-satisfied smirk on your face, did you know that?”
I looked back at Cheryl and she was grinning.
“Actually, I wasn’t aware of it. Must have been thinking about something…nice.”
“Really nice.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come right out and say something? Or ask something?”
“Me?”
She gave me an innocent look.
“No. I just couldn’t help noticing you’ve been….in a good mood the last few days.”
It was almost charming. She was so nakedly hinting that I had to pretend not to understand what she was getting at.
“You know, if I wanted to, I could take that the wrong way. Like I’ve been in a bad mood for a long time.”
The smile slipped.
“You have. It’s good to see you smiling.”
And then she added.
“Except for that time a few months ago – before that shooting.”
She had never met or seen Aline. She’d been out sick for nearly five days with that variant of killer flue that put a good chunk of the courthouse at home fighting sniffles and making regular visits to the bathroom while going at both ends. And toward the end of Aline’s visit, I’d deliberately kept Aline away from the courthouse. But Cheryl had to have known something. Everybody must have. I really had felt like a different man for that enchanted two weeks.
But I’d never said a word about it to her. And sometimes I felt like it had been killing her for the entire time. But Aline was my business. Now and forever.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay. But…you’ve been down for a long time, Bill. It’s just that…it’s good to see you more like your old self. Before…”
“Yeah, I know Cheryl. It’s been a long year.”
It had only been close to eight months, but it seemed a lifetime ago that I’d walked into the bedroom that April night and Debbie had A-bombed my life with four words. And even now I wasn’t sure to be relieved that the suspense was finally over and I could go on, or to grieve for what I had lost.
I walked into my office and pulled the blinds up and let the cool November light flood the room. The winter in Florida, and Northeast Florida in particular, is a strange beast. There would be days when the mercury would hit the 80s and with the moist heat hitting you in the face, it would feel like summertime reborn.
And then the next night or two the mercury might drop into the 30s and if there was a fire going north or south of us in the usually tinder-dry forests of southern Georgia or Central Florida, you could smell the wood smoke on cold breezes. That’s why, no matter what the doctors say, anyone who lives in this part of the state knows this is when younger people get colds they can’t shake for weeks, and seniors start coughing and wind up in coffins. Doctors say the plunging temperatures don’t make you sick, but what do they know? They’re only doctors.
It had been cold the night before and I could still feel Myra’s warm skin against mine. We had opened the windows and shivered in the night air. I had blankets but we’d lain against each other and stroked the goosebumps away. The heat and the cold made me so damned hard that I had been afraid for a while that I’d damaged my equipment. But I was just way, way out of any kind of ammunition for lovemaking.
She had left late that night to be sure that she could sleep and get into work at a decent hour. She and I were both working now and we’d decided without having to discuss it that what was happening between us was for us alone. It would be hard enough to keep down the rumors. Courthouses are always cyclones of swirling gossip – who is doing what and to whom and why they’re not doing it to so-and-so anymore.
As I stood there looking out at Jacksonville, I still couldn’t make myself completely believe that what had happened wasn’t just the fevered fantasy of a 13-year-old boy jerking off to the vision of huge, soft pillowy breasts on some make-believe pictures in a men’s magazine.
I could remember virtually every instant from the night on the beach when I saw her breasts for the first time. I remember the taste and feel of her soft breasts in my mouth. I remembered the emotions I’d felt when I learned who she really was. I could still summon up the sensation of what it felt like to be inside her.
I remembered the feel of my cock sliding into her hot naked interior. As good as the beach was, it wasn’t the same as sliding in and out of her, skin against skin. Debbie and I had been married so long that until Heather McDonald and Meagan Whitcomb, I had forgotten what doing it in a condom felt like. It was, I realized, as I’d heard, like taking a shower in a raincoat. It didn’t feel quite real.
I wasn’t going to ask Myra, because it had been her first impulse to slide the condom onto me at the beach. And I’d realized lying on the sand next to her after climaxing, that of course using a condom was second nature to her. Had to be. The only people who could feel safe having sex in t
oday’s world without a condom were the young, celibate, stupid and long-married and faithful.
Myra was not young, stupid, long married and there was no way she could be celibate. She was used to being with men that she couldn’t be sure of because guys will lie to get inside a woman, especially a woman who looked like her. So I was prepared to let it go and just enjoy the simple act of sex with a fantasy made real, when she reached over long after Debbie left that Saturday morning, held my cock upright and without a word slid down onto it.
She rested her soft pillows on my chest and bent down to kiss me. She didn’t move so my brain was still functioning.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m tested every month, Bill. I’m not going to take chances with my health. And I make – anyone I’m with- use a condom because I have things to do with my life. I don’t want to die for a few minutes pleasure.”
“I – I hadn’t thought about it until -a few months ago – but I’m getting myself tested every month too. I – never even thought about…but now I have to. I’m clean.”
She kissed me again and then with a devilish grin raised herself a little and slammed down against me with her breasts and vagina. It took me a moment to get my thoughts straight again.”
“I wish….I wish we’d done this…the first time. On the beach. I knew you wouldn’t be careless. But….it was habit. I…always do that. The first time.”
I looked into her emerald eyes and I could not tamp down the thought, “with all the guys that you fuck, all the guys who pound their dicks into your pussy, all the guys that you suck off…”
I felt like a jealous teenager again but for a moment I could not restrain the monster. I did not like being single. I did not like holding a woman in my arms, feeling her naked body and knowing that – not years ago – but days or nights previously, another man had been where I was. It was so stupid, but I couldn’t help what I was feeling.
The worst of it was…I couldn’t ask her. I couldn’t ask and I didn’t know that I wanted to know the answer to that question.
In a little while, it didn’t matter.
I shook my head to clear the thoughts and memories out of my head. So it wasn’t perfect. So I had jealousies and insecurities and there were questions and mysteries surrounding the woman who called herself Myra Martinez. The only really perfect time I’d ever known in my life was the time I had spent with Debbie when we were having our kids and they were growing.
And now I realize that hadn’t been perfect either.
But I was smiling now and I was looking forward to the days and nights to come. It was enough.
Dave Brandon called me about 15 minutes later to let me know that he was sitting in on the discovery session that Macon and another of his lawyers was having with Wilbur Bell at St. Vincent’s. He would keep track of the questions and follow anything he thought was significant.
“How is he looking?”
I asked every time. I had the sinking fear that Bell was not going to make it to trial and I wanted every possible edge I could get going into Sutton’s trial.
“Rough. Had a bad night. But he’s a tough old bird.”
“How’s the security?”
“Knight has an officer on duty around the clock in eight hour shifts. They tell me guys are competing for the spots. It’s easy overtime duty. Only approved visitors and hospital staff are allowed in. They seem to be on the ball.”
The Sheriff had seemed to let bygones be bygones and was working with us on providing security, but he balked at taking officers away from street duties so we’d compromised by allowing officers to do it on their own time for the overtime pay. By the time the trial drew around, if Bell held out that long, he was going to ring up a significant bill for this security.
But the Big Man always kept money that had been in various places on hand for emergencies. That’s one of the things I admired about him. He knew that we were about justice, not budgets, and he found the money. Always. And if he didn’t, I did. And he would always back me up.
Before I let him go, I said, “How is it going, Dave? With….?”
He’d moved into a fairly cheap little motel for the last few days. I had nicely asked him out when I knew that Myra would be spending a lot of time in my cramped little condo.
He was silent for a moment.
“The kids…the younger ones…cry the few times I’ve seen them. Jerry won’t talk to me. Just walked away from me. Darlene….she hasn’t spoken one word to me. Since that night. She sent me an email two days ago saying she’s talked to somebody at Martin, Devon about getting a divorce.”
Another long silence.
“So that’s how it’s going.”
“But she hasn’t filed papers yet, has she?”
“No. Not yet.”
“It hasn’t been two weeks yet, Dave. It’s going to take some time. Even if she files divorce papers, you’re talking months. And if you fight it, longer. You have time on your side. She loves you. She’s just hurt. The longer she has to get over it, the more chance there is that she’ll change her mind.”
“It took you guys nearly six months, didn’t it? And the time didn’t do you any good, did it?”
“No, Dave, the time didn’t help us. But we were in a lot worse shape than you guys. You’ve got one screw-up to make up for. The odds are in your favor.”
“I never had any luck with gambling.”
“Have you been back to the gym? I talked to the owner and they’ll give you a temporary pass for a few weeks.”
“No.”
“It might…lift your spirits.”
“I – uh – it could get complicated.”
“She’s not going to carry you off and rape and ravage you, Dave,” I said, referring to the pretty, dark haired teacher that had taken an obvious, immediate liking to him the night we went to the gym together to get his mind off his troubles.
“She scares me.”
“I really don’t think she’s going to throw you down on the floor of the gym and have her way with you.”
“It’s not funny, Bill.”
“I know, and I’m just teasing. But you can’t run away every time you meet an attractive woman that is interested in you. There’s no law against flirting…and just maybe it’ll get back to Darlene that somebody is interested.”
“That’s what scares me.”
“Well, just keep me informed on what happens with Bell, and do me a favor and go back to the gym.”
“You know that you’re the absolute last human being on earth that most people would go to for marriage advice?”
“Yeah, I know.”
I dived back into work, unable to keep stray thoughts about Debbie and our weekend conversation out of my head. I’d done everything I could to walk away, to move on. I’d found other women, rediscovered sex, set her and the kids up financially for life. And I did wish her well. As God is my judge, and I could put my hand on a Bible, I wanted her to be happy. Not with another man, but that was coming.
And still, she kept intruding into my life, bringing back memories that I wanted to forget and regrets that were useless.
The phone beeped at me and I picked it up.
“You have a call Mr. Maitland.”
“Who?”
“He said his name is Jeremy Prentice. He’s an attorney with the Justice Department, out of Washington.”
“He say what it’s about?”
“No sir, just that he needed to speak with you, and no one else.”
I punched in the line and said, “Hi. Mr. Prentice? What can I do for you?”
He had an accent that came from somewhere in New England. Not Massachusetts. Maybe Maine.
“Mr. Maitland. Just wanted to introduce myself. I’ll probably be down at some time in the future and I wanted to give you a heads up.”
“You’re with Justice, my secretary said.”
“Yeah. The title is Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, but those are just titles. I�
��m one of the people that heads up racketeering and drug prosecutions across the country. Primarily international drug trafficking.”
“Are you Homeland? I had heard that Homeland Security was incorporating most of the strictly drug trafficking duties into the overall national security program.”
“Not officially. I can walk into their offices and talk to them and vice versa. And we share Intel, but on paper and in reality we are doing different jobs. They just overlap sometimes.”
“Don’t you think you should be talking to my boss, Mr. Edwards? I’m just an Assistant.”
“No, I’ll talk with him of course and if things head your way, we’ll liaison with him as head of your office, but you’re the man I need to talk to.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the Angel of Death.”
“PR. Seriously, why?”
“You’ve heard what’s happening nationally in the Carlos Mendoza case. We’re looking at the best venue for the case and the fact that Florida is a death penalty state gives us options to squeeze Mendoza when we get a conviction. He could be a very valuable asset.”
“Okay, but I may not get the case.”
“False modesty doesn’t become you, Maitland. Of course you’re going to get the case if it comes to Jacksonville. And that reputation will ensure a huge amount of publicity for the case which will help drive home the point that no scum bag drug dealer is big enough to defy the government of the United States. No matter how many prosecutors or prosecutors’ families they slaughter.
“If it comes to Jacksonville, we want you to try the case. And fry this son of a bitch.”
I waited for a moment.
“Why do I get the impression that this isn’t just another drug trafficking case to you?”
“Frank Gray, the prosecutor whose family was wiped out in Idaho, is a friend of mine. We went to college together. I’d had dinner with his wife and children a couple of times. Frank is still on medical leave, trying to pull his head back together and rebuild his life. I honestly don’t know that he’s going to be able to do it. I don’t think I could, if it was my wife and kids.
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