Warriors (Gutter Dogs Book 5)

by Carey Lewis

  She could wait for them to leave, didn’t think they were buying a ticket anywhere, but maybe something bad was going to happen - like the Black Knight was waiting for someone to come in on a bus. No, the bus station wasn’t good. It was too in the open. If Lex came by her house and saw she wasn’t there, he’d go looking at the station. It was a stupid idea to begin with.

  What she should have done was steal her mom’s car. Take it and just drive until she ran out of gas then get a bus ticket wherever that was to get even further. They’d eventually find the abandoned car or her mom would report it stolen, but by then it would be too late, she’d be gone on a bus somewhere. That was the way to go, she wouldn’t have to wait, she could just leave now.

  So Kenzie walked all the way back home, carrying her little backpack, seeing the sun starting to come up and early risers starting their day, seeing the exercise freaks going on their runs. Saw the car with the giant dent in the hood parked across the street from her house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Man, your phone keeps ringing. This private number wants to get a hold of you something bad,” Lex said, holding Jamal’s phone in the passenger seat. “You owe money to someone?”

  “Haven’t paid off the car yet.”

  “This ain’t department issue?”

  “Why I was getting so upset about the dent your friend was making in the hood.”

  “Shit, there it goes again,” Lex said, showing the phone in case he didn’t believe him. Jamal knew who it was.

  “Feel free to answer it. Tell them they got the wrong number.”

  “I’d just get you in more trouble. They tend not to like me.”

  “Can’t imagine that.”

  “You lease the car or take out a loan? Always heard leasing’s the bad way to go.”

  “Lease many cars do you?”

  “Funny thing is, I got a good credit score. The bad guy with good credit, bet you never thought about that before. Shit, there it goes again. You mind?”

  “Please do.”

  Lex accepted the call, “Who’s this?”

  “I can see why they don’t like you,” Jamal said.

  “Who’s there? Hello? Fucking dickless goon, you call back at a reasonable hour,” and then he hung up. “These guys got no soul. Them and meter-maids. No soul to them.”

  They were sitting in front of Kenzie’s dark house, no sign of life inside. The whole street was dark and quiet, just a few lights turned on. They were sitting there, all five of them packed into the Dodge Charger with the giant dent in the hood, Jamal swore it was touching the engine block. Lex was in the front seat, the AR-15 vertical between his legs. Kevin was the unfortunate one to be in the middle of the backseat, flanked by Dax and Max - Max taking up half the space.

  The guy who’s car Lex stole was still in the trunk back at the parking lot. Jamal asked if they were going to leave him in there, Lex said “they got one of those kidnapping levers in there? The ones you hit the thing, the trunk pops open?”

  “Don’t you think he would’ve used it by now?” Jamal asked.

  “Let him figure it out. If he don’t, this works out, you can come back and unwrap him like a present.” Jamal wondered if the guy in the trunk was still alive.

  So the five of them packed into Jamal’s car because Lex didn’t want to separate and they drove to Kenzie’s house, even though Jamal told Lex repeatedly that he had her in a safe place that wasn’t here. Lex was seeing through his lie, wanted to make sure Kenzie wasn’t home first before he was brought to some seedy location.

  Truthfully though, Lex didn’t even think about Kenzie until Jamal brought her up. For some reason he believed Zax when he said she went home because she didn’t like war movies. At the time, he didn’t remember Kenzie ever watching a war movie, then forgot about it. He had more important things to do.

  Now Jamal hoped what he thought about Kenzie was true - that she was going to run. What he was trying to do was buy time to make sure everyone lived, even Lex. He didn’t have a safe house to take Lex to, just thought he’d think of something while driving around. Lex made him go to Kenzie’s and he hoped to God she decided to run a long time ago.

  “You want me to go knock on the door?” Jamal asked.

  “So you can get them to call your buddies?”

  “You want to go then?”

  “Have you guys run on me?”

  “Can send Dax?”

  Lex smiled, said “Dax ain’t got no pointed interest for anyone in this car. He’d run too,” then he took a moment, thinking. Jamal knew Lex didn’t have a plan either. Just the two of them making it up as they went along.

  “What do her parents know? You tell them it was me you were looking for? She tell them I did it?”

  “I don’t know what she told them,” Jamal said, watching Lex think, his hand gripping the .45 he stole from his dad.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Told them I was taking their daughter someplace safe, just in case.”

  “But you didn’t say shit about me?”

  “Why worry them more than I have to. Told them Zax got himself shot, we don’t know what it’s about so we’d like to take their daughter someplace safe.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Detective Learner.”

  “He your partner?”

  “Was. Had a falling out.”

  It brought a smile to Lex’s face. “You going this one solo Jamal? It’s a little cliche isn’t it? You get kicked off the force too?”

  “It’s coming.”

  “They give you twenty-four hours to bring in the bad guy or they take your shield?”

  “More like a game of tag. They catch me and I’m done.”

  “Cop gone rogue huh? Shit’s like a movie, you’re going all Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. What was the black one’s name? His partner?”

  “Danny Glover.”

  “Didn’t like him much in the second Predator movie, don’t know what else he’s been in. I mean the character name.”

  “Roger Murtaugh.”

  “Shit, that’s it. Riggs and Murtaugh. Learner, he’s the Murtaugh?”

  “He’s white. I’d rather have you as Murtaugh, sit you on a toilet full of dynamite.”

  It got Lex to laugh a little bit. “Yeah, you’re the Mel Gibson one. Learner the one plays by the rules huh?”

  “Wife makes him watch makeover shows.”

  Lex laughed harder, “yeah, that’s too perfect.”

  “I go up there, to the parents, I’m just going to scare the shit out of them. They think I have their daughter and she’s safe.”

  “Your point?”

  “You don’t want them to call my friends, that’s what they’re going to do when they find she isn’t with me, you understand? Why would I go asking if their daughter is home when I’m supposed to be the one has her?”

  “Good point, why aren’t you with Kenzie right now?”

  “Looking for you stupid. Put her someplace safe and try to get you off the streets, get my job back.”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do Jamal. I’m going to give this rifle to Max and he’s going to watch you and Kevin while me and Dax go ask the parents. Now I’m going to warn you, Max ain’t very good with this gun. It’s not that he can’t aim, it’s just he fires off when he don’t mean to. Got a heavy trigger finger. He gets startled and it goes.”

  “I already told you she isn’t here.”

  “And I already told you I don’t believe you. So I’m going to put you in the backseat with Kevin, Max here’s going to take the rifle. Everyone out.”

  They all got out of the car and Lex gave Max the rifle and he sat in the front seat. Jamal climbed into the back behind him.

  “They show me any little hint they know about any little thing, I’m going to start shooting. Sure you don’t want to say something?”

  Jamal nodded.

  Lex waved the gun to Dax to start walking in front of him, saying “part of me
is begging you to try something.”

  “You shoot him, you don’t get Kenzie,” Jamal said.

  “Kenzie’s in there, I come back and shoot you.”

  Jamal really hoped he was right about her.

  Dax led the way across the street, nervous with Lex behind him pointing a gun at the small of his back.

  “We can still get out of this you know, we keep our stories straight,” Lex said.

  “How’s that?”

  “We tell them the Boppers did it, all of it. We saw it was them, then the Black Knights told us to finish it off. Maybe say they’d kill your brother if we didn’t play.”

  “Haven’t seen my brother,” Dax said, walking up the cement path to the front of the house. “Kenzie didn’t see anything.”

  “No?”

  “We were both there Lex, you see her?”

  “So the pig’s lying?”

  “He’s buying time just like you are.”

  Dax reached up and hit the doorbell, heard it dong inside the house. They waited.

  “You afraid she’s going to be here?”

  “Afraid what you might do if she is,” Dax hit the doorbell again, waited, saw a light turn on upstairs.

  “Afraid of that myself,” Lex said. Dax could tell he was smiling.

  The porch light flickered on and Kenzie’s mom opened the door, bleary eyed in her nightgown, squinting to look at them.

  “Sorry to bother you Mrs. Sandoval, we’re wondering if Kenzie might be home,” Lex said. He couldn’t help himself, he always sucked up to his friends parents. He thought he was charming, but his act was obnoxious to most.

  “She’s in bed like the rest of the world.”

  “Oh, she’s supposed to be up right now. We’re all going camping, didn’t she tell you?”

  “Why would she go camping with you?” she asked.

  Dax remembered the night in the park, Kenzie told everyone she and Zax broke up. He figured she must’ve told her parents the same thing, her mom now wondering why her dead ex-boyfriend’s friends were here to take her camping.

  “We thought it would do her good to get her mind off things. With Zax.”

  “I’ll go get her,” she said and went back up the stairs.

  Lex and Dax waited, Dax said “they broke up before you shot him. Why she wasn’t there.”

  “Because of the war movie?”

  “He wanted to do bum stuff she says.”

  “She wouldn’t do it? Thought she was the type.”

  They watched her mom come back down, staring at a piece of paper in her hand.

  “Mrs. Sandoval?” Lex said.

  They watched Kenzie’s mom go back up the stairs and down a hall.

  “What’s that paper say?” Lex asked.

  “I don’t know, I been standing here with you.”

  They waited, looking up the stairs, finally seeing Mrs. Sandoval march down, fire in her eyes, waving the piece of paper in the air.

  “What the hell does this mean?” shoving the paper in their faces, making Dax back into Lex, feeling the barrel of the gun in his back. “She wants us to be safe? Safe from what? From you?”

  “What’re you—”

  “What the hell is this? What did you do?” and now she was clubbing at Dax with her fists, the note balled in her hand. Her husband came running down the stairs and grabbed her by the shoulders. Lex reached out and grabbed the note from her hand.

  “Leaving to keep you safe?” he said, reading it as Kenzie’s mom started cursing them, trying to escape the grasp of her husband.

  Dax watched Lex, watch the thoughts form in his mind. Looked back when he heard Kenzie’s dad say he called the cops about their little girl, looked back to Lex and saw his brow furrow, saw the panic and rage come into his eyes.

  He was about to grab Lex when he heard the gunshots.

  He was going to have to be a hero.

  Jamal chose to sit behind the passenger seat where Max was, where he had the rifle resting between the seats, pointed at the back. They watched as Lex and Dax crossed the street, watched as Max watched them.

  He saw the tip of the barrel sticking out between the seats, about an inch. If he could just slide over a bit, get right behind the seat it would block the barrel coming at him. He doubted Max could turn all the way around with how fat he was.

  The problem was Kevin, sitting there in front of the muzzle, not seeming to mind, not seeing the danger, telling Jamal that Max ate his entire pizza.

  “Your pizza sucks,” Max said.

  “Then why’d you eat it all?”

  “It’s still pizza.”

  “That comes out of my pay, you know that?” Kevin turned to Jamal, said “an entire pizza he eats, doesn’t even share.”

  Jamal kept his hand low on his lap, used his fingers to tell Kevin to slide to the other side of the seat, close to the door. He looked up to see Max glaring at Kevin, said “I got a blood sugar problem.”

  That’s when Jamal saw Kenzie. Standing on the sidewalk staring at the car. Knew he was going to have to be a hero.

  He looked over to the house and saw her mom standing there, talking to Lex and Dax.

  “Tell me something Max. Was it you or Lex shot that boy at the canal?”

  “Rex?”

  Now Jamal knew who the blood belonged to. “Yeah.”

  “We both shot him. I’m going to shoot this one too he keeps making fun of me.”

  Jamal didn’t want Max to look forward and see Kenzie. He also didn’t want Lex to walk back to the car, not just yet. He needed to think, he wasn’t ready for this.

  “How do you both shoot him?” Jamal asked, seeing the mom gone, just Lex and Dax standing in the doorway.

  Saw Max smile, looked around the seat to see him, the gun barrel coming a little further into the back. “Safety was on. Lex came over to take it off.”

  Saw Kenzie’s mom beating on Dax, Dax covering himself from her blows, saw them back up and Lex take a paper out of her hand.

  “You sure the safety’s not on now?”

  Max tilted the gun to the side, looked down at it. It was his chance.

  “No, we’re good,” Max said.

  Jamal grabbed the barrel, pulled it toward him to pin it against the side of the front seat. The gun fired into the cushion between him and Kevin. Pop pop pop pop. Jamal’s hand felt like it was on fire, the barrel heated up quickly.

  Kevin opened the door and fell to the ground, quickly got to his feet and ran away. Jamal opened his door, kept his hand on the gun as it fired, each shot burning his hand.

  He heard screaming and gunshots, but not from here, from the house. He fell out of the car, letting go of the barrel, quickly shut the door. He saw Max swing his weight around, open the passenger side door and Jamal quickly shut it on him, hoping he trapped a hand. He looked up and saw Kenzie run away, dropping her backpack on the ground as she ran. Then he saw Lex sprint across the street, running down the sidewalk after her. Then went her dad, yelling her name as he chased them.

  Then he heard a whir, looked up to see Max was taking the time to roll down the automatic window. Jamal couldn’t believe it. He saw the barrel of the gun poking out as it rolled down, knew Max would only have one hand on it.

  He jumped up and grabbed the barrel with both hands and yanked as hard as he could. It came with Jamal but only so far as the ammo clip which got stuck on the window. He looked inside, saw the surprise on Max’s face, then shoved the gun back in, connected the butt of the gun hard against Max’s jaw.

  But the window was still rolling down, Max was that determined, so Jamal pulled the gun again, getting it out of the car and pointed the barrel inside on Max. He looked at the screaming, saw Kenzie’s mom kneeling over Dax, laying in a red pool on the porch.

  No, Jamal wasn’t a hero.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Bulldog?”

  “Yeah, hey, been wanting to talk to you about something.”

  “Where are you?”

&n
bsp; “At the park, hoping I can find something useful.”

  Bulldog had left the strip club, leaving Mick inside with the stripper/ waitress/ prostitute and stole another car, thinking he had awhile before it was reported. He drove it back to the park where the Summit was and parked it, his Jeep being only a twenty minute walk away. He was looking with a flashlight through the mud and grass, hoping to find a clue. A clue to what, he wasn’t sure, but was sure he’d know the clue when he found it.

  “There’s something wrong with Jamal,” The Boss told him, “I need you to find him.”

  “So you want me to leave the park?”

  “You’re looking for clues?”

  “Yeah.”

  “To what?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Are there cops still around?”

  Bulldog looked up, his phone against his ear. Saw the park was pretty much empty, just a couple of uniformed cops standing around. There was a light shining on the rock platform where Cyrus had been shot, a couple of cops up there shooting the breeze.

  “A couple.”

  “Maybe you should go ask them for clues.”

  Bulldog was surprised. “Didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  “Neither is you being in the park, can you look for Jamal?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “What was the other thing?”

  “I had to let Mick go.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  “Right now he’s fine but he doesn’t know yet. I drugged him and left him at a strip club. He’s taken care of.”

  “I trust your judgment. As long as it’s not something that’s going to come back on us.”

  “I’ll talk to him when he’s more in the mood for it. What do you want Jamal for?”

  “Bulldog, stop playing detective and get it done.”

  And the line went dead. Bulldog turned his flashlight off, waved at the two cops up on the rocks, yelled, “you find my dog let me know. Little white one.” He was surprised when one of the cops gave him the middle finger in return. Then Bulldog went on the twenty minute walk back to his Jeep with no idea how he was going to track down Jamal.