by R. A. McGee
“‘Killing’ might not accurately describe it. Apparently Hector had some of his guys abduct his father. They killed him, then chopped him up and put him in a barrel. No one found him until the spring when the ground thawed and some joggers saw a fifty-five-gallon drum sticking out of the ground.”
“The ground’s too hard to dig into during the winter. His guys must have gotten lazy,” Porter said.
“I guess so. Dad was a criminal too, so it was an easy match on the DNA.”
“What was his dad up to?”
“He was a mid-level guy in some organization or another. His bosses weren’t happy that Hector killed him. The cops couldn’t pin it on Hector, but everyone heard what happened, since Hector couldn’t keep his mouth shut,” Rivera said.
“That explains the Florida move.”
“How does that explain the Florida move?” Rivera said.
“Payback, right? I assume that Hector’s father was part of the stronger gang: probably bigger, better, and more established. They’d just kill a guy for killing one of their members, like a show of power.”
“Sure—don’t mess with us,” Rivera said.
“Exactly. In this case, it’s a family business. No one wants to get in the middle of that; that’s a messy situation. Combined with the thought that Hector’s gang wouldn’t want to war with the original gangsters, then it makes sense. Rather than kill Hector and make a bigger mess, they just exile him to Florida. Out of sight, out of mind, and both parties move on. It’s gotta be better than open war,” Porter said.
“Feels like you’re reaching.”
“Maybe, but think about it. Hector must have left New York with both gangs’ blessings, or someone would have killed him before he left. Hell, someone would have got him down here if they really wanted to. He isn’t exactly laying low,” Porter said.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter why. He’s here and he’s a problem,” Rivera said.
“He might not be for too much longer,” Porter said. “I’m going to talk to him, see if he’ll tell me what he did with Danny.”
“Does it involve another kidnapping? No more kidnappings, Porter.”
“I’m working on making man-napping happen,” Porter said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Man-nap? I think it fits better… never mind. Let me take a look at all this and see what I come up with,” Porter said as he gestured to the file on the table.
Christina Rivera pushed the rest of the papers over to Porter, and he collected them in the file. She leaned against the chair back and looked at Porter as he shuffled through the papers. “I called Sheriff Rae’s office anonymously and told them where to find Abel.”
“I figured you would,” Porter said. “I’m not mad.”
“I don’t care if you are. I just can’t let someone die tied up in a field. That’s not what cops do.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Porter said. “I was never a cop.”
“Well, I’m not sure it’s in the handbook for federal agents, either.” She picked at a piece of pizza. “You know this is pretty far out of my comfort zone, right?”
“What, dinner with a big brown guy? Mixed guys are people, too.”
Rivera cracked a rare smile. “Shut up, stupid. You know exactly what I mean. The kidnap—”
Porter raised his eyebrows.
“— abduction. How about abduction? I’m not saying man-napping, that’s so dumb.”
“If it’s the best I can get, I’ll take it.”
“The abduction is a bit much for me. It’s all a little vigilante. Not really my speed.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. That’s why I’m not mad you told someone about Abel Quintana. You have to do whatever lets you sleep at night.”
“How do you sleep?” Rivera said.
“It’s not the best. I think I have sleep apnea. I may need one of those sleep studies.”
Rivera gave Porter an exasperated look. “You know what I mean.”
Porter knew what she meant and decided to be honest.
“I sleep like a baby. Better than a baby—I sleep like the dead. I don’t lose one minute of shut-eye over those people, or waste one second thinking about what I do to them. Abel Quintana isn’t even on my mind.”
“There’s a ‘them’?”
“Quite a few of ‘them’ if I’m being straight with you. Be honest with me, Rivera, we all know when someone is a shitbag. You feel it. You just know it.”
Rivera nodded.
“A while back, I decided to make things hard on those types of people. If I run into one while I’m poking around at something, I don’t mind making their life hard for them. Abel let a little girl be abducted. I don’t feel the least bit bad for smacking him around and tying him up. He’s lucky he talked when he did, or things would have gotten worse for him.”
Rivera shifted in her chair and leaned across the table to Porter. “It’s just… I’m a cop. As corny as it sounds, I’m supposed to help people. That didn’t feel like helping people.”
“Depends on how you look at it. Think you’ll be helping Miss Leona when we let her put her baby to rest?” Porter said.
“Danny’s grandmother?”
“I saw the old lady break down. I mean, all the way down. How do you think she’s sleeping at night?” Porter said. “I care more about that than some asshole like Abel Quintana.”
Rivera didn’t say anything, just sat picking at a piece of pizza. Porter went back to looking through the file.
“It says here that one of the cars linked to Hector is an old Hyundai. Doesn’t seem like the kind of car a shot-caller would drive.”
“It’s not his; it belongs to one of his baby mamas. He drives the Caprice with the big rims,” Rivera said, pointing to a printout of vehicle descriptions.
“Could you imagine putting more money into a set of wheels than a car?”
“Priorities,” Rivera said, checking her watch. “I’m gonna take off. You good?”
“Very. Thanks for all this,” Porter said, tapping his finger on the file.
“Sure. I’ll get with Ruas in the morning and see if he has anything else on the Acres.”
“Just let me know.”
Rivera stood up and got her purse together. “I will.”
Porter glanced at the giant pie. Seventy-five percent of it was untouched. “You want to take this home? I’m not going to eat it.”
“I won’t either.”
“You have a son, right? Don’t young men eat a lot? I know I did.”
“Actually, that’s nice of you to think of him. Surprising,” Rivera said.
“What? I’m not always an asshole.”
“That remains to be seen. In any event, Kevin’s only eight. He isn’t a bottomless pit yet.”
“It’ll happen,” Porter said with a knowing look.
Rivera nodded, shouldered her purse, and headed to the exit. Porter watched her go.
Twenty-Three
Porter looked over the information in the file Rivera had brought him. When he was a federal agent, the thing that made his life easiest was all the databases he had access to. He could find out almost anything, from when a person had left the country last to their parents’ addresses.
Rivera’s file wasn’t as exhaustive, but it was damn close.
The tattooed blonde from behind the counter came out to take the pizza and box it up. Moments later, she was back, giving Porter his leftovers and wishing him a good night. Porter noticed a tone in her voice that hadn’t been there when he ordered. Taped face-down to the top of his box was a piece of paper.
It looks like dinner with your girlfriend didn’t go so good. If you want, give me a call sometime. I’m sure I like pizza more than she does. - Ashley
Her number was on the bottom of the slip. Porter smiled.
He pulled the file together and stood to leave, adjusting the pistol in his waistband. Grabbing the box, he
headed to the front door, giving Ashley a little wave on the way out. She smiled.
Stepping into the humid night, Porter looked left and right down the road. It paid to make sure there wasn’t anything crazy going on. Porter remembered seeing enormous brawls on this street; it was best to not get sucked into one of those. Tonight everything was clear.
Porter fired up his truck and backed out, pulling onto Seventh Avenue and stopping in the middle of the road. A homeless man sat in the doorway of a closed head shop, a dirty-looking black dog with him. Porter waved him over and waited while the man slowly stood up and limped to the Yukon.
“You’re really homeless,” Porter said.
“What kind of question is that?”
“It wasn’t a question, it was a statement,” Porter said.
“What kind of statement is that?” the man said.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Porter said. “I just noticed that you seem like you’re actually living on the streets.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Your beard is filthy. The thing that bothers me about the average panhandler that hangs out at intersections and asks for money: If life is so tough and you’re on the streets, how is your shirt clean? How are you clean-shaven every time I drive past you? Once in a while I would understand a clean shave, but your beard should be in some state of growth.”
“It looks like your beard is in some state of growth,” the man said.
Porter smiled. “Got me there. You like pizza?”
“Of course I like pizza. What am I, an alien?”
Porter handed the man the box, making sure to grab the note taped to the top. “It’s sausage and pepperoni.”
The man took the box warily and opened it up. Satisfied that it was pizza and not a bomb, he looked up at Porter. “Thanks.”
“Be safe tonight.” Porter pulled away, following a familiar route back to his side of town.
Lost in thought, he arrived at his neighborhood in short order. As he pulled onto his street, an out-of-place car stood out to him. It was several houses down, on the opposite side of the street. His neighbors had all been the same since he’d moved in. He knew their cars, as well as the cars of their frequent visitors.
The Hyundai didn’t belong.
Porter slowed as he drove past and took a quick look in the passenger seat. It was Tattoo from the Acres. Then everything clicked. The Hyundai was on the list of cars that Rivera had given him.
Hector’s guys were coming for him.
Twenty-Four
Porter continued rolling to his house, his mind working furiously.
They must have taken my plate down the day I was in the Acres. Not too tough to get someone’s address from their plate. Abel Quintana must have talked. They know he told me Hector took Danny. Now they want to shut me up.
There were at least three guys in the car, and Porter hadn’t been able to see into the driver’s side rear of the car. There had to be four guys.
Definitely four guys.
Porter was working through his options. He could call the cops. They’d take twenty minutes to show up, then walk up to the car and identify everyone. Someone in the car was bound to have a warrant. The cops would take that guy and send the rest on their way. Then at some other random and inopportune time, the rest of them would come after Porter again. Maybe with more people next time.
Not a good plan.
He could park the Yukon and go into his house. Grab a bigger gun, go out the back and circle behind the car.
Then what? Shoot them all?
He was sure a jury would agree that was cold-blooded murder. Going to prison didn’t sound too appealing.
Not a good plan. I could just go into the house. And wait. Then it’s their move. If they come in, it’ll be self-defense.
Not a great plan, but the best plan, given the circumstances. It would have to do.
Porter pushed the garage door opener before he got all the way into the driveway. As the door rolled up, he slammed the Yukon’s shifter into park. By the time he turned the truck off and grabbed the garage door opener from his visor, the door was all the way open. He hopped out, careful not to look at the men parked down the street, and pushed the door-close button as soon as he stepped into the garage. The big door roared to life. Porter waited near the back wall with the interior garage light turned off, pistol drawn and by his side. When the garage door fully closed, he twisted the handle of the big metal door, locking it from the inside.
Porter stepped into his house and locked the interior garage door behind him. The lights were off, and he was selective about which ones he turned on. There was no reason to give his assailants any more information than he had to.
He walked to the front door and checked the lock. The door was metal, with a reinforced door jamb. No way the Acres boys were getting in that way.
Porter checked the large sliding glass door that went to the backyard. It wasn’t much different from an average sliding glass door, except for some minor upgrades Porter had given it. He had installed a pair of flip-down latches to the outermost door. When they were down, there was no way to get the door opened, whether it was locked or unlocked. Porter glanced over and ensured the latches were in place. Porter had also applied a protective film to the glass. The film wasn’t bulletproof, but it did keep the glass together if it shattered. It would be tough to get through the window in the sliding glass door.
Porter’s bathroom was the only door left.
Looking from the front yard, Porter’s bedroom was on the right side of the house, nearest the street. Behind it was the bathroom, which had a door that led out to the backyard. Porter never used the door, preferring to come and go to the backyard through the big slider near the kitchen.
Porter hadn’t fortified this door the way he had some of the others in his house. He’d added a deadbolt, but other than that it was stock. He planned to do more to reinforce it one day, but the task had slipped away from him. This door would be the easiest place for the Acres boys to make entry. And it was a choke point that would funnel them through the long bathroom and into Porter’s bedroom.
This was the best thing for Porter. Their numbers were irrelevant if they were stacked in a single-file line. And when they came, he’d be ready.
Walking over to the gun safe in the corner of his room, Porter punched a familiar code. The door popped open and he reached in and grabbed his AR-15. Porter had a silencer attached to the barrel of the rifle. The technical name for it was a suppressor, as the device didn’t silence anything. Shots weren’t movie-quiet, but the silencer took the edge off of the rifle’s loud report. Porter found this appealing if he had to shoot in the confines of his house. Hearing damage was not on his to-do list.
Porter considered his fields of fire. His rifle’s round would penetrate through an intermediate barrier like drywall less than his pistol or shotgun; that was science. Still, if he took a shot and missed his target, his round would end up somewhere. Porter didn’t want to be the one to put his neighbors in danger, so he’d be careful if he could.
Behind Porter's house was a conservation area, a swamp full of cypress trees that couldn’t be cut down. There was nothing back there for miles. Porter wanted to be sure that all his shots went out of the rear of his house.
He couldn’t help where the Acres boys’ rounds went.
He grabbed several extra magazines from a shelf in the safe. Overkill, to be sure. There wasn’t much chance that he would need all these rounds, but with four thugs coming into his house, he wasn’t taking any chances.
He closed his gun safe, then sat in a chair in the corner of his room. His back was to the wall, and he could see the door in his bathroom through the reflection in the bathroom mirror. When they came for him, he would know. He would be ready.
The problem with waiting for trouble was the waiting. Porter sat in the chair for two hours and heard nothing. No furtive sounds of hood rats creeping around his house, no noise as one of
them chambered a round into a shotgun. The house was silent as a tomb.
I hope it’s not mine, Porter thought. His eyes were heavy.
In a tense situation like this, there was a tendency to get an adrenaline dump. The problem is, the body can only keep that level of preparedness going for so long. Porter’s body wanted to relax.
Glancing at his phone, Porter saw that it was three a.m. Okay, this is getting a little silly.
He thought the guys would have made their move. Either they were extremely patient, or they’d left. Porter wanted to know which it was.
Exiting his bedroom in the darkness wasn’t a problem. He was familiar with his home and there was no need to activate the flashlight on his rifle. When he got to the guest room on the far left of the house, he moved the blinds a bit and strained to see if he could still make out the car down the street. His view was blocked by a neighbor’s palm tree.
Damn.
On his way back across the house, he stopped in the guest bathroom to relieve himself, but didn’t flush the toilet. He wasn’t an ‘if it’s yellow let it mellow’ type of guy, but in this case if there was someone out there, he didn’t want them to hear anything. He moved back to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the counter. As he passed the big sliding glass door, he saw a shadow in his backyard.
Then the shooting started.
Twenty-Five
The slider shattered as rounds came through the window. As expected, the protective film kept the window from shattering everywhere but did little to stop the incoming fire. Porter felt something bite into his left arm.
Shit.
He had his rifle but didn’t return fire. He needed these guys to come through the choke point in his bathroom. If he shot back now, they would scatter, and he’d have gotten shot for nothing.
Running through the open space of the living room, he made it back to his room and his corner chair. His rifle had a sling on it, so he didn’t have to worry about holding onto it as he moved. Getting back to his chair, he did a quick assessment of his arm.
