Ash Vengeance

by Samson Weld

  He could always sneak up behind his house and snipe him from afar during one of his weekly orgies.

  Ash checked all of the secret cameras he’d placed around Osorio’s house. He zoomed in on the cars parked out front, and then through the back windows and French doors. The feeds were surprisingly clear. Men and scantily clad women moved round inside, including a guest having sex with two women in the hot tub.

  The wanton debauchery was disturbing enough, but it showed a lack of concern on Osorio’s part. If he was still throwing his Friday night romps, then Ash still needed to up his game to knock Osorio back on his heels. Before Ash killed him.

  Lots of options, but few would give him the satisfaction he so desperately needed.

  Ash looked at the printout lying atop the desk. It was a long list of times and dates, with the top few marked through with a red Sharpie. The next line was Dave Collins and he couldn’t mark that through as done.

  He’d either go into hiding, or Osorio would provide him a bodyguard. Either way, Ash had to move on.

  He quickly reviewed the rest of the list. He had plans to kill Osorio’s pimp and shoot up his chop shop, but mostly he wanted to get to the last men that were with Osorio on that fateful day in East LA, five years back: Consuelo Gomez and Alberto Rojas.

  Glancing at the map, he located the pins showing where those two lived. Consuelo owned a condo in a luxury high-rise in Uptown, where Osorio also owned the penthouse in the building. Rojas lived about a mile away from the ranch in a very nice single family home. It would be a lot easier to get to Rojas, but Consuelo was definitely the softer target.

  Halfway down the page was a line, and below it Plan B. Ash frowned. He didn’t want to use Plan B. It was less direct, less straightforward. Involving the Russians could get messy really fast. But why should they be let off the hook? Osorio would still be a street pusher back in East LA if it wasn’t for Pyotr Sokolov and the Russian mob.

  Maybe he could cause problems between Osorio and the Russians, just to put more heat on him?

  Anything to cause Osorio grief was good. The more the better.

  Ash looked over the next few steps in his plan. He’d revise as needed, depending on how well they went. For the moment, he was sticking to his original plan.

  Chapter 17

  That hot shower was just what she needed. Bellucci turned off the water and carefully stepped out, steam enveloping her. She froze when her boyfriend’s whispering voice drifted to her through the closed master bath door.

  Who on earth is he talking to at six in the morning?

  Six o’clock Dallas time, but seven back in New York. Her blood went cold, stomach turning sour. Surely, Rocco wouldn’t call her?

  Bellucci quickly wrapped a towel around her body and paused to calm herself down. She was trembling. Rage? Humiliation? Chaos ruled her mind for a moment, but deep breaths helped. Finally, she stepped out of the bathroom while using another towel to dry her shoulder-length blond hair.

  Her boyfriend sat on the bed, bare feet not quite touching the carpeted floor. All he wore was flannel pajama bottoms while he faked a yawn and scratched at his hairy chest. Her insides tingled inside even after seven years together.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  Rocco looked like a deer in headlights for a split second before his face became perfectly neutral.

  “No one. I just woke up,” he said, though avoided her eyes. “Are you done in the shower? I have a job interview at eight, and it’s in downtown.”

  His phone sat on the nightstand, the screen still lit up. She frowned when it faded to black.

  He’d been unemployed after being laid off eight weeks back, while they still lived in New York. Companies were downscaling to maximize profits and mostly getting rid of middle managers. Today’s interview was only his third since being let go, and the first since they arrived in Dallas.

  “It’s Saturday,” she said.

  He shrugged. “You’re working today, and probably tomorrow.”

  It was good that he had a job interview. Bellucci had a bad feeling that if he’d had a job, he wouldn’t have followed her to Dallas. She was pretty sure he had a girlfriend on the side back home in NYC. He was touchy about his employment situation, so it was best to change the subject.

  And then her eyes returned to his phone.

  “I distinctly heard you speaking when I got out of the shower.”

  Rocco hung up immediately after she turned off the water and that was suspicious. Why lie about it?

  “Oh, really? I guess I was talking to myself,” he said. “I’m still groggy, so didn’t realize.”

  Her anger flared. Rocco knew she was a homicide detective, so was an expert at detecting lies. He was lying. She suppressed her raging emotions, body trembling as her hands curled into fists. Opening her mouth, she immediately snapped it shut. This was not the time to confront his infidelity. Their relationship was suffering from the strain of a sudden move to an unfamiliar city.

  Let him find a job, while we both get settled in, and then we can discuss our issues rationally. Maybe.

  They were both Italian-Americans, and Rocco had a quick temper. Hell, she barely contained her own most of the time.

  “Let me put my face on first,” she said, turning back to the bathroom.

  Bellucci had a good complexion and therefore didn’t require much in the makeup department. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and then surrendered the bathroom to Rocco. They did so without a single word spoken between them.

  She grabbed a package of blueberry pop tarts and headed for her car. She ate them cold most days, and preferred them that way. Rocco was still in the shower when she left.

  “I can’t believe he’s still speaking to that woman,” she muttered as she hurried to her new car.

  The white Ford 500 sedan was her first car. She had never needed one back in the city. Dallas didn’t have the amazing subway and bus system she enjoyed in New York City. But they did live just a block from a DART stop, Bellucci could get to work without the car if necessary. Rocco didn’t ask for the car today, so she took it.

  He can take the damn train to his job interview.

  The Ford still had that new car smell. She felt a little thrill every time she got behind the wheel. It had tan leather seats and rode like a dream.

  She paused to look back at the apartment. The North Dallas complex was considered expensive by Dallas standards, but was still cheap by her New York sensibilities. Indeed, she might be able to buy a condo in Dallas. A single family home was more work than she cared to deal with.

  “Maybe I can live in my car,” she said, smiling.

  Traffic proved heavy on Central Expressway, but it moved a lot faster than New York rush hour traffic. She shook her head every time she passed through downtown Dallas. It was so tiny. Just a handful of office towers, all within a one and half square mile area.

  “We’re not in New York City anymore, Toto,” she said, patting the steering wheel. “Rocco would kill me if I named this car Toto, but…”

  Thoughts of Rocco and the state of their relationship flooded back in, ruining her mood yet again. To think she’d thought the move to Dallas would bring them closer together. Instead, he resented being taken away from the city he loved. Bellucci missed the city, too, but was really starting to warm up to Dallas. It was a different kind of good.

  Like usual, she arrived at work early. She still gave herself too much time to get to work. Her partner wasn’t so generous. He usually arrived a few minutes late. Start time was more of a suggestion than a hard target for Cagle.

  Bellucci grabbed a cup of coffee and fired up her computer. The other homicide detectives started arriving, calling out greetings. Around eight-thirty, the captain informed her that Cagle had the weekend off. So she was on her own.

  “He couldn’t have told me that yesterday?” she said, and the captain just shrugged.

  Chapter 18

  A young staff officer came in shortly
after that and headed straight to her.

  “You Detective Anna Bellucci?”

  “All my life,” she answered with a wink. “Except for the detective part.”

  He blinked at her for a second and then smiled. “Funny. Here’s the information you requested on Charlie Cox and Mateo Osorio.”

  “What about Hector Corredor and David Collins?”

  “We’re still working on those,” he said.

  She accepted the two thick folders and thanked the officer. Charlie Cox first. It didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know: African-American, thirty-nine years old, six foot tall, with known associates including Mateo Osorio.

  Indeed, he’d followed Osorio from California to continue working for him in Dallas. Unmarried. No known offspring. He did have a long rap sheet from both LA and Dallas, all assault charges which Osorio’s lawyers had managed to beat.

  Setting that folder aside, Bellucci opened Osorio’s file. She pulled him up on her computer at the same time. His file proved much thicker and more interesting, in a bad sort of way.

  Mateo Rodolfo Osorio, birth date unknown, but estimated at thirty-five. Birthplace also unknown, but thought to be a rural village in central Mexico. His family moved to Tijuana when he was just a child. He’d only been arrested a few times, mostly for assault and battery, but was a suspect in a couple dozen murders. Pretty much everything revolved around drugs and prostitution.

  He forced his ex-girlfriends into prostitution? What a dirtbag. Then she got to the list she really wanted.

  Let’s see who might want to kill this asshole?

  Not surprisingly, the list of people who might want revenge against him was a mile long. It mostly included the family members of past murder victims. The list was fifteen years old, in fact. So she concentrated on more recent victims.

  “Cagle thinks this is business,” she whispered, running a finger down the list. “But I think it’s very, very personal.”

  About four years back, the location of victims switched from Los Angeles to Dallas. Most of his victims were other dealers and petty criminals. One name stood out, though. From five years back in LA.

  Ashley Wexler.

  No, it couldn’t be. A woman wouldn’t be killing all these men. But then she noticed that Ashley had a wife and two children killed by Osorio.

  “Well, hmmm.”

  She still didn’t think a woman would seek revenge the same way as a man would, and the murders were all extremely violent and personal. Face-to-face kind of killing. It didn’t get more personal, or physical, than that. Especially Charlie Cox’s killing. Bellucci did a search of Ashley Wexler.

  Nothing came up in the Dallas PD database. So she checked the LAPD database. She got a hit.

  “Ah, Ashley is a he,” she said when his five-year-old picture popped up. It looked vaguely familiar. “I bet he grew up fighting with a name like that. That ole boy named Sue syndrome.”

  Mr. Wexler wasn’t in the system as a criminal, but as a victim. Innocent bystander, in fact. Apparently, his vehicle wound up between Osorio and another in the middle of a drug deal gone south.

  Osorio, Consuelo Gomez, Charlie Cox, Hector Corredor, and an Alberto Rojas were suspected of shooting the Uzi submachine guns which were responsible for killing Mr. Wexler’s wife and two sons. In fact, Wexler had then spent four months in the hospital and a rehab facility recovering from his wounds. Charlie and Hector had both been murdered in the last week.

  Bellucci already knew Dave Collins was Osorio’s accountant back in LA, but how Mr. Wexler found out, she couldn’t say. He was apparently a pretty good detective. If he was the vigilante.

  “What does Mr. Wexler do for a living?” She performed a bit more research. “Nothing?”

  He had an accounting degree and his employment record before all this happened didn’t tell her much.

  She spent the next hour trying to find out everything she could on Ashley Wexler. Mostly, she wanted to know where he lived now. His last known address was a single family home in Anaheim, California, which he’d sold three years back. Bellucci could not find anything on his whereabouts since.

  “Looks like he liquidated all of his assets after he sold his home,” she said, staring at the monitor. A few minutes later. “Damn, he received a couple million in life insurance. Yeah, that’ll help a man disappear.”

  So she was back to following the money. He stopped using his credit cards when he vanished. He even closed his checking and savings accounts. That money had to go somewhere, and she ultimately found it.

  “Fort Worth. Bingo,” Bellucci said, a big smile on her face as she leaned back. He’d opened checking and savings accounts at a Fort Worth bank three years ago. “Welcome to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Mr. Wexler. Now what have you been up to these past three years?”

  It took a while to get access to his bank records. They had to get a judge involved, but she got a printout of every single transaction shortly after lunch. Bellucci went through it with a fine-tooth comb. The printout was astonishingly short. Mr. Wexler didn’t use his Visa bank card very often and had never even ordered checks.

  Her eyes locked on two transactions. Both on the same day that Dave Collins was attacked. One was at a store in Rockwall. The other at the same Baylor Hospital ER that Dave Collins went to after being attacked.

  Bellucci called the ER. The person on the other end answered her questions without hesitation, despite there being a law against revealing that information. Got to love people. Even better, she learned that Mr. Wexler was indeed treated for a cut on his left forearm. No facial injuries recorded.

  “I think I found our vigilante.”

  Chapter 19

  “I just got a call from Raphael,” Consuelo said. “Kingston is in town for the weekend.”

  Osorio had just hung up with his man in the Dallas PD. Homicide was investigating the killings of Charlie and Hector, and now the attack on Collins. They still didn’t have a suspect, but his man promised they were getting close. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone so he couldn’t speak too in-depth.

  Just dealing with cops grated on his nerves. It helped to have a cop on his payroll, but sometimes it seemed he paid too much for too little. Worse, he had a bad feeling he was being played.

  Osorio shot Consuelo a sharp look. “Kingston? Really?”

  His stomach twisted. The highflying stockbroker had stiffed him on his last visit to Dallas. He’d piled up over sixty thousand dollars in Champagne, coke, and Raphael’s top girls. The twenty bottles of Champagne Krug Vintage Brut he and the hookers consumed came to almost twenty thousand. And it was all on Osorio’s back when the pendejo skipped out without paying.

  Well, actually, he did pay. But the next day the payment was taken back by the credit card company, stating the customer said it was a fraudulent bill.

  “Where is he staying?”

  “At our Belvedere condo, as usual,” his chief lieutenant said. Consuelo graced him with a dark smile. “You want me and Rojas to go pay him a visit?”

  “We’ll make him pay,” Rojas said, grinning just as evilly. “And then we’ll get the money he owes you.”

  “With interest,” Consuelo added.

  He almost gave them the go-ahead. While they were twisting Rod Kingston’s arms, milking him for every sent he owed and then some, Osorio could hit the gym and expend some of the pent up frustration that built up over the past week. A little time on the speed bag, followed by a session on the body bag, would help immensely.

  “No. We’ll all go. I want to speak to Mr. Kingston personally,” Osorio said. “He really needs to understand how disappointed I am in him.”

  The drug lord quickly pulled his suit jacket on. It was a new blue silk suit, just delivered by his tailor earlier that morning. It cost more than some people paid for their cars, but fit perfectly. And it made him feel like a million dollars.

  He picked up the gold-plated Desert Eagle .50 cal off the coffee table, chambered a round, and pushed
it under his waistband. He had concealed holsters for that pistol, but he liked the feel and weight of that weapon under his belt.

  “Let’s roll.”

  Rojas gathered up his men. A few minutes later, twelve well-dressed men climbed into three Cadillac Escalades and drove toward Wylie, and Plano beyond. The Belvedere Tower was about an hour’s drive from his ranch, down in Dallas’s posh Uptown neighborhood.

  Instead of turning on Central Expressway in Plano, Osorio wanted to take Preston Road. It wasn’t that far west of Central. Traffic was light on Preston during the early afternoon and they made excellent time. Osorio spotted the luxury condo tower long before they reached it.

  Driving down into the underground garage, they parked in the penthouse’s two assigned spots, plus the nearest open spot. Everyone took a moment to smooth down their suits and a few took their weapons off safety.

  Osorio felt adrenaline flooding his body. Thoughts of Kingston filled his head, and none of them were good. He’d damn sure better have a good excuse for stiffing him.

  Rojas punched in the access code for the penthouse and up they went. The elevator opened right into the luxury condo. Lively music blared and the squeals and giggles of women could just be heard. Consuelo sent two bodyguards in first, hands inside jackets. When no one attacked them, Osorio led the rest of them into the living room.

  Rod Kingston lay sprawled out on the couch, wearing nothing but boxers. He was only thirty, but obviously didn’t exercise. Osorio sneered at his pasty white, pudgy body.

  Four naked call girls were also present. Two were dancing for him, while another was filling everyone’s glasses with the expensive Champagne Rod always insisted on. The last girl was snuggling up to the smirking stockbroker.

  Osorio pulled his Desert Eagle and shot a .50 cal round into the stereo system. The pistol’s report sounded like a cannon in that enclosed space, sending the girls screaming to the floor. The music stopped, with the girls’ whimpers and sobbing the only sound.