“On it, Boss. I will get someone out there as soon as I can track down Joseph in Denver,” Tony replied.
“Thanks, Tony,” JJ replied as he ended the call.
JJ continued driving toward Denver, munching on his chips like nothing was wrong while Lynne sat quietly in the passenger seat, nitpicking at her snack food.
“Penny for your thoughts?” JJ asked with a smile.
Lynne shifted in her seat. “Do you ever think you’re a bad person for doing what you do and then meet someone like psycho Michael Myers back there and think, damn, I’m not that bad a person?” she asked.
JJ laughed. “All the time. But really, I am not a bad person. I’ve never killed anyone in cold blood over being fucked out of money or anything. I try to renegotiate terms and shit to avoid unnecessary bodily harm. I give a lot of my dopers second chances to pay me off, and they usually come through.”
“I’ve killed people,” Lynne murmured.
JJ thought back to that one night in the holler all of them years ago. “Lynne, that one time doesn’t count.”
“I’ve killed more than him, JJ,” Lynne replied softly. “I have killed a lot more than him.”
As the hours passed, they grew closer to the Denver city limits. JJ watched the guy in his rearview mirror the entire drive letting the silence between Lynne and him be filled with the radio. JJ’s phone rang, and he hit the button on his radio.
“Talk to me, Tony,” JJ said as he maneuvered the car to take the next exit.
“My guy is following you both. Get him alone. He will take care of the rest,” Tony said.
“On it already,” JJ replied, taking the exit and sliding into the rest stop.
JJ pulled the Bentley into one of the first parking spots he could find. The white Ford that the guy from the gas station was driving putted past them and parked further on down the parking lot as to not draw any attention. JJ acted like he didn’t see the truck and stretched his muscles out after standing from the car.
“Come on, Princess. Let’s go potty,” JJ teased.
Lynne rolled her eyes as she hopped out of the car, stretched, and walked to the women’s bathroom. The parking lot was empty except for JJ’s car and the white Ford. JJ wrapped his arm around Lynne’s shoulders as they walked to the restroom door for the women. He held the door open at her side and put his finger to his lips. He moved throughout the bathroom, kicking each stall door open before being satisfied that no one was in there. He walked back over to Lynne and raised his arm in a motioning manner for her to enter.
“Pick one and don’t be long,” he informed.
He stepped outside of the restroom and waited in front of the door to make sure no one could get in past him. He watched out of the corner of his eye as he stared straight ahead and saw the guy get out from his truck, shutting the door behind him. JJ did a quick survey with his peripheral. Out of one of his eyes, he saw the guy Tony called in creeping up the exit to the rest stop. From his other eye, he saw the guy from the gas station taking note that he was still wearing the same clothes he had been in when JJ left the station. It didn’t look like he had a weapon on him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying concealed. The guy disappeared into the men’s restroom and the car parked off down the hill out of view. JJ motioned with his hand, and a tall man in a black suit appeared from within the car and shut the door behind him. He made his way up to JJ, and quietly, they both walked up to the men’s restroom and entered together.
The guy from the gas station held a rubber band in his teeth, tying off his vein while plunging a needle that looked as if it were filled with heroin into his system. The guy dropped the rubber band from his teeth and took the needle from his arm, smacking the spot he had dosed himself up with. JJ glanced at the counter in the men’s room to see there was some sort of powder that was snorted off of it. It didn’t look like meth or coke but kind of like salt.
“Why are you following me?” JJ asked as his back up man stood quietly with his arms crossed.
The guy didn’t even answer. He just lunged at JJ with a needle in one hand and a knife in the other. The quiet bodyguard stepped in front of JJ quickly and, with two swift movements, had the psycho druggy pinned to the ground.
“I will ask you one more time,” JJ stated calmly. “Why are you following me?”
The guy began to laugh. “You fucked up, ese.”
“Oh, so you’re Hispanic. Do you need to hear it in Spanish then? Or did you understand the question, puta?” JJ asked.
“You missed a very important meeting with Martinez,” the guy jabbered. “He sends his regards. He won’t be able to make the next meeting… or well, you won’t be able to.”
JJ nodded at the bodyguard, and he quickly snapped the guy’s neck. JJ pulled his cellphone from his pocket and called Tony.
“Hey, Boss, did my guy get the job done?” Tony asked.
“We have a huge problem. What exactly did you tell the courier when we rescheduled the meeting with the Martinez family?” JJ prodded.
“He was standing right beside me,” Tony replied quietly.
“Fuck, Tony! You know better than to do business calls in front of people with me!” JJ scolded. “Martinez sent a goon. They knew exactly where I would be and what stops I make on my way through Colorado. How the fuck do they know that?” JJ hollered.
“I don’t know, Boss. But I will find out,” Tony stammered.
“Yes, you’re going to find out because if you don’t fix this shit, your head is on the chopping block. Do you understand me? I now have hired guns chasing me, and they’re not even the good ones. They’re drug riddled, fucking bath salt snorting mother fuckers!” JJ yelled. “I want a tip line from the police that tells me of every area from here to West Virginia where gas stations, motels, etc. there have been any employees turning up dead. I want them all. That mother fucker was planted there who knows how many other gas stations had someone planted there for Russian fucking Roulette as I rolled through.”
“Yes, Sir, right away, Sir,” Tony clamored.
JJ hung his phone up and looked over at the guy Tony had called in.
“Get rid of him,” JJ said as he pulled a stack of hundreds from his wallet and handed it to him. “Burn the fucking rest stop down if you have to.”
The guy nodded as JJ left the restroom. Lynne stood calmly by the side of the car as JJ walked over to it.
“Everything ok?” Lynne asked.
“No, everything is not ok. I may have to take a detour instead of my usual route,” JJ replied. “We may be going through Oklahoma instead of Kansas and cutting up through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky to get home.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lynne replied. “Or we could hop a flight.”
“That’s a paper trail, Lynne. We don’t need to draw attention at this point,” JJ huffed.
JJ pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
“Thomas… I need you to get Mr. Brubaker to Oklahoma on the next flight,” JJ rambled off into the phone. “I also need one of my cars fetched and dropped and this one taken back in its place concealed. I don’t want anyone knowing I changed vehicles, understood?” JJ demanded. “Good. Thank you, Thomas.”
JJ hung his phone up and got into the passenger seat of his car. He sent a text message off to someone and waited for Lynne to climb in the passenger seat. He glanced up to her, still standing beside the car.
“Get in,” JJ demanded.
“What did you do to that guy in there, JJ?” Lynne asked.
“I had him dealt with,” JJ replied.
“Dealt with how? Did you have him killed?” Lynne demanded.
“What the fuck does it matter to you, Lynne? You’ve killed people over them owing you money!” JJ hissed. “Yes, he is dead. Yes, he was killed by someone else. Yes, he would have killed us if we hadn’t killed him first. Yes, he killed the clerk at the gas station he followed us from. Yes, he would have killed anyone to get them out of the way to do what he was fucking tol
d to do.”
“Who was he?” Lynne asked.
“Some random druggy that the Martinez family hired after I rescheduled our meeting for today,” JJ replied.
“Who are the Martinez family?” Lynne asked.
“They’re a huge Hispanic Mafia family that I was getting a contract drawn up with back in California. I was handing over California to them to run and operate for me,” JJ replied.
“Why?” Lynne asked. “Why were you giving up California to another mafia family?”
“Because California isn’t my life. Everybody is California dreaming. Not me. I wanted to hit either NOLA again or make my way back to the holler. But I was leaving California behind,” JJ spat.
“But why?!” Lynne demanded.
“Because I ain’t no damn mafia mobster boss,” JJ shouted. “It’s not who I am! Sure, I can have people killed and gutted and threaten all I want, but it's not what’s in my heart!”
“You’re not your dad, right?” Lynne asked.
“No, I am not my dad. I have never been my dad. My mom made sure I would have a heart,” JJ spat. “I’m not ruthless like him.”
“But yet, you closed the mines on hundreds of families,” Lynne replied heatedly.
“And I plan to bring more jobs to Sycamore than that mine could have dealt out,” JJ replied.
“With your strip club, right?” Lynne scowled. “Because all of us women there are just mud crickets. We were born and bred for them poles.”
JJ began to get really agitated for the bombardment of questions. “Either get in Lynne or hitchhike to the nearest airline.”
“I think I will take my chances with strangers,” Lynne declared. “There are less likely chances of there being two serial killers in the same car that way.”
Lynne began to walk on down the road toward the interstate when JJ jumped out of his car.
“What do you want from me, Lynne?” JJ demanded. “Why are you here? Why did you fly three thousand miles across the country to just yell at me? What the fuck do you want?!”
“I want the guy that laid beneath the stars with me back. I want the guy that cared about the people around him back. You’re not him!” she fired back.
“I’m not him! You’re one to talk about people changing. You just sat here and told me that you’ve personally killed people over fucking you over in business. I ain’t never once killed someone that owed me money. I’ve only killed those that were out to kill the people I care about or me,” JJ spat. “You think I would have given two shits about that fucking heroin addict in that bathroom had it not been for you being in the car with me and him knowing what you look like and where the fuck you live? Hell, I’m an open book. Everyone knows at any given moment where the fuck I am. But that in there didn’t need to find its way back to Sycamore, and it damn sure didn’t need to follow you anywhere else. So, I took care of the problem.”
“You’re always trying to take care of me, JJ,” Lynne replied, throwing her hands up in the air, frustrated. “I can take care of myself.”
“You shouldn’t have to, Lynne,” JJ shouted, slamming the door of his car shut. “That’s the whole point! You’re not supposed to have the weight of the world crashing down on your shoulders alone.”
“What makes you so sure I do it alone,” Lynne shouted back.
“Because you’re sitting here with me livid with how your life turned out after having to take over the life that you never wanted from your daddy,” JJ replied. “The teaching degree, the white picket fence. The kids, the husband. You still don’t have that.”
“How would you know?” Lynne asked. “You haven’t even been back to the holler in seven years. Did you think I would just sit around and wait for you to come back so we can live out this gangster lifestyle?”
“I know you’re not sitting around and waiting,” JJ replied, walking right up to her and bending down to speak to her face. “But if you had moved on, you wouldn’t be here right now. When I took those cuffs off, you would have run to the nearest airline and flew back home.”
“I don’t care about you anymore, JJ,” Lynne replied.
“If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be standing in the middle of this parking lot crying and arguing with me,” he abated softly.
JJ held out his hand. “Come with me.”
Lynne hesitated before walking back toward JJ. She brushed past him without taking his hand and hopped in the car. He balled his hand into a fist as anger coursed through him. She was just as frustrating now as she was back when they were teenagers. He cracked his neck to the side, popping the tension in his neck, and exhaled, turning to walk back to the car. He hopped in the car and pulled up google maps on his phone.
“What are you doing?” Lynne asked, watching him plug in where they were and where they wanted to go.
“I have to take an alternate way I haven’t driven. I normally take Kansas to Indiana, Illinois, and then West Virginia. I’ve only been to Oklahoma once,” JJ replied.
“Normally?” Lynne asked, confused. “You haven’t been back home since you left.”
“That you knew of,” JJ replied. “I’ve come in a few times without anyone knowing. It was just a brief stay in a motel in Beckley, a drive through the holler, and then back off to California.”
“What did you do or see while in town?” Lynne asked curiously.
“Just looked at the mine, drove down to my house, and the creek. Then, I left,” JJ answered as he hit the button to finalize his route.
“Why didn’t you ever stop in and say hi?” she asked.
JJ looked her in the eye. “I figured you’d already moved on, so what would be the point?”
“Even if I moved on, we can still be friends, can’t we?” she implored. “I mean, is it we’re together, or we don’t talk at all?”
JJ just stared into her eyes. Those pools of galactic blue always sucked him in, making him forget to breathe. He didn’t answer her. He broke eye contact and started the car.
“We got to get a move on,” he said, changing the subject. “We have a lot of roads to cover, and I have to ditch my car for a different one.”
JJ picked his phone up and dialed Thomas as he backed out of his space and took the road to get back on the interstate. He didn’t use the Bluetooth this time and kept his call to where Lynne couldn’t hear.
“Thomas? I’m in Denver… Yes, I still need the car… Ok, I will be there in...” JJ said as he glanced at the time on his phone. “Thirty minutes… Ok, and is Mr. Brubaker on his way?... Perfect. Thanks, Thomas,” JJ replied and hung the phone up.
JJ turned to Lynne to speak as she stared out of the car at the scenery passing by. What she wanted with him, he had no clue. Holding things against him that she herself has done was something he didn’t expect. Did she expect him to be better than her? That guy needed to die before he could report back to Martinez anything he had learned. It could be bad for everybody if the Martinez family found their way to Sycamore Holler.
“Call your people up. Text them. Something. Tell them to be ready for us in the next few days. Tell them to be on their toes. I don’t know how specific the Martinez family is in finding out where I was heading other than West Virginia. The boys need to be ready,” JJ ordered.
“Don’t tell me how to run the holler,” Lynne hissed back.
“Quit this fucking power trip you have and do what the fuck I said for once,” JJ pleaded. “Please. People could die if they don’t know what to expect.”
“I’ve already texted my people,” Lynne blurted quickly. “They already know to expect us and what to expect to make it there before or after us. As I said, we take care of our own there.” She glared at JJ before looking back out toward the scenery.
“Why are you always such a bitch?” JJ shouted. “You act like you’re hard. You put on this huge front for everyone, but I saw the look in your eyes when that guy was beside the car asking you for money. I saw the look on your face when you realized a hand was hanging
from the dumpster. You might have everyone else fooled, but Lynnelle Brown, you don’t have me fooled.”
“Don’t you ever call me that!” Lynne hissed. “Only my mama was allowed to call me by my full name, and you ain’t her!”
“God, get over yourself! Drop the attitude!” JJ yelled. “If you’re not trying to get in my pants, you’re the biggest bitch in the world. You haven’t changed one damn bit since we were kids.”
Chapter Twelve
JJ pulled his Bentley into a parking spot in front of what looked like a chop shop. He turned the car off and hopped out as some guys emerged from inside. Lynne got out of the car as well but hung back at the car while JJ walked up to the guys.
“Hola, chicos,” JJ spoke. “¿Cómo estás?”
“Bien,” one of them answered. “It’s been a while, JJ. How’s it been, ese?”
“Same old bullshit,” JJ replied with a chuckle as he did a handshake hug. “Thomas said you have what I need, right?”
“Si,” the guy answered. “Pablo, grab the Bentley and bring it inside before some vatos try to strip it in front of the shop.”
“Aprobado, Armando,” Pablo answered, then mumbled under his breath.
“¡Ay, Dios mío! Don’t backtalk me. ¡Rápido! ¡Andalé! ¡Ahora!” Armando shouted, turning to JJ. “Good help is hard to find these days without smart asses like him.”
“I hear you there,” JJ replied. “I have threatened at least five of mine in the past week with feeding them to the fishes to get some respeto out of them.”
JJ stopped short and turned to get Lynne’s attention. “Come inside. You don’t want to be left alone on these streets,” he requested.
“I’ll be fine,” Lynne replied, glaring at him.
“It wasn’t a request, now move your ass!” JJ demanded.
Lynne scowled and rolled her eyes as she huffed, walking up to JJ and through the open door of the garage.
Armando grunted. “Chicas, man. They think they run the world.”
“That is an understatement with her,” JJ sighed.
Them Holler Boys (A Southern Outlaw Series Book 1) Page 15
