Hard Case IV: A Violent Life (John Harding Series Book 4)

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  Lynn took off her jacket, and did one of those weird contortionist magic things where a woman removes her bra without removing her blouse. She undid the first few buttons so while walking, Lynn’s breasts would be nearly popping free. After tousling her long blonde hair, Lynn checked her face in the visor mirror, and gestured at her skin tight jeans she had on while posing for Clint.

  “How do I look, babe?”

  “Oh Mama… you look damn good. Pass her the flash, Cheese. If those clowns don’t take the bait, they’re gay.”

  Lynn patted Clint’s cheek, and accepted the flash-bang from me. “Thanks.”

  She exited the Toyota, and gripped the flash-bang amidst her bunched up jacket at her side. Without hesitation, Lynn launched into a sultry walk toward Nevil, walking the sidewalk where she would be in immediate sight of the white van’s occupants.

  * * *

  Lynn cursed herself at how easily John had zinged her. Clint and Jesse were right, she could dish it out, but she couldn’t take it. That would have to change. The guys were going to get tired of her playing the diva card. If she needed an example of give and take, John illustrated the perfect balance necessary if a person dished like she did. Returning her concentration to what she wanted to do, Lynn made sure her approach was one of easy confidence rather than forced pimping. She smiled as both the driver and passenger took the bait with gestures both erotic and insulting. Lynn paused on the sidewalk, turning slightly with hands on hips, allowing the driver and passenger to ogle her performance. With only a slight hesitation, Lynn walked toward the driver’s side window. She grinned as the driver rolled down his window. Lynn let her jacket drop away while leaning in the window.

  “Hey baby… you lookin’ to play, chica?”

  Lynn gestured enticingly with her free hand toward herself. “I’m bored, cowboy. Anyone in for a little party to pass the time on a dull day?”

  The driver looked over with a snicker toward his passenger, and Lynn popped the flash-bang in amidst the seats before hitting the ground with her hands covering ears.

  * * *

  “Man, she’s good,” I said as we watched the explosion inside the van. Clint had us fronting the van in seconds. Lynn was already up ripping the door open. I grabbed the driver and tossed him head first into the walk. After dragging the passenger across the front and out the driver’s side, I planted him into the sidewalk too. Lynn and Clint had them plastic tied, immobile, and very unhappy a moment later.

  Then it was time to take care of the back passengers in the panel van. Weapons in hand, Clint and I pulled open the back access doors, all three of us ready for anything. All we had were two more munchkins writhing around on the van’s floor. Unfortunately, none of them were Reyes. We bound the two in the back, and I threw their compatriots in the back with them. Clint retrieved a cooler and first aid kit from the Toyota. He and I then then arranged our captives against the van’s driver’s side wall in an upright position. Naturally, blood trickled out of a number of orifices. No neighbors we could determine rushed out to find out what happened. Once Lynn was satisfied we wouldn’t be interrupted by nosy civilians or wailing sirens, she joined us for an up close and personal inspection of our captives. She grinned after only a few moments, pointing at the third from the right.

  “That’s my bitch. He’s already prepped.” Lynn pinched his cheek. “He’s going to be my good little man, and tell us everything we want to know. That’s right, isn’t it, my little man?”

  Lynn was right. That guy stared at us in abject terror. He was bleeding from his ears, and nose. He looked ready to start bawling for his mama. It’s a weird axiom about these so called soldiers of whatever they’ve linked themselves to. Some don’t say much or attempt a façade of resistance if only to gain some bargaining power. Others know what they can take and what they can’t take. They simply ask what their inquisitors want to know.

  Then there’s guys like the one Lynn honed in on. He was scared shitless. Up until this time, he probably hurt people in unimaginable ways, but finding himself on the other end was not acceptable. He began talking tough about rights, and what did we think we were doing kidnapping them. Lynn did a butterfly knife magical appearance, and severed his nose in half with a quick flick in a manner reminiscent of the movie ‘Chinatown’ from long ago with Jack Nicholson. He screamed until Clint pistol whipped him into silence. My only thought being I was grateful this wasn’t a vehicle Lucas could torture me with for dirtying. I cleaned him up while patching his nose.

  “Oh dear… I think my little man thought he could get his way if he showed us his outrage at being detained. That’s not the case cutie. We want to know where Diego Reyes is, and we want to know right now. If I start a countdown on you, I’ll cut a significant piece off of you without even blinking an eye.”

  “Please! We don’t know! This is all a mistake. I-”

  Lynn held up clippers used to snip the end off of a cigar in front of him with a grin. “I’m going to snip a joint off with each answer I don’t like, my little man. Here’s a sample.”

  He screamed for mercy, but Lynn held up the first joint on his right hand pinky finger a second after her quick snip. “See, we don’t play. Eventually, when I get done with your fingers and toes, I’m going to do your dick in sections with something bigger… or smaller.”

  Lynn dropped the finger joint into a baggie I held for her. I deposited it in the cooler. We might need to bargain a bit more nicely later, depending on what this Reyes problem turned out to be. I made sure the kid saw me save his finger joint. He looked to be the youngest of the four. The other three were showing us their snarly, gangbanger faces, while staring daggers at their companion. Any one of them could have been made to cooperate, but Lynn knew time was of the essence.

  The man blurted out an address for a house on Edgerly Street without hesitation. I stuck the other idiots with a happy juice syringe. We had the only guy we needed to make our way to Diego. Lynn cupped the sobbing man’s chin. “Guess what? We have a job for you. I want you to call Diego up, and tell him you have Celia Gomez. Ask him what he wants to do now.”

  “Yes! I can do that… I can!”

  I freed him and bandaged his finger. I allowed him to hold an ice pack on his nose with the damaged hand. Clint handed him a cell-phone the kid had in his pocket. “Don’t speak English unless that’s the language you usually speak. Put it on speaker.”

  “We…we speak Spanish on the phone.” Our new buddy connected, told Diego what we rehearsed in detail, and waited. Diego ordered him to drive the van up to Vista Point on Skyline Blvd with her in an hour – then disconnected.

  I grabbed him up by the front of his clothes, and held our informant very close, shaking him gently within the closed confines of the van. “What’s your name?”

  “Miguel… Miguel Romero.”

  “Are you related to Diego?”

  “No… but one of the guys I was with is his cousin.”

  “Diego doesn’t know this area. How does he know to order you to Vista Point?”

  “We have used the trails up there to ditch people before. We told him about them when he asked if we had a place to deposit bodies.” Miguel’s features showed resignation. That was good. “No one goes up there very often, especially at night. If we go off trail even for a hundred yards, we will be unobserved.”

  I pushed him back into his spot against the van wall. “What the hell is Diego doing up here in Oakland anyway? You do know he murdered three families in LA, right Miguel?”

  Miguel sat still, head lowered, hands at his sides. “Yes… we know. It is part of the revolution. We will take back what has been stolen from us.”

  “What about all the people like Joe and Celia Gomez? Ah… forget it. Does the name Victoria Lydia Voltaire mean anything to you?” I saw immediately it did. So did Lynn and Clint.

  “She… she will be part of our great undertaking. Diego could not take a chance of Gomez reporting him. I…I told him it was a bad idea to atten
d the game.”

  No bravado, threats, or beat downs followed this new spider web extending out from Voltaire. The three of us Murderers’ Row monsters considered the revolution angle without humor for a few moments of quiet time. Miguel began getting worried, as well he should.

  “Please… I have been cooperative. I have done everything you have asked of me.”

  Lynn patted his cheek. “Yeah, you have. Shut up until I tell you to speak. Fucking revolution, my ass! When Lucas hears about this, there will be blood. Riding the damn Middle East soul train to get back what our ancestors stole from the Indians? What a bunch of idiots. I’m glad I have a different last name now. I used to think a French last name like Dostiene was pussy. Now, a slew of morons are busily making my Montoya last name at birth a traitorous label.”

  “Gee… thanks Hon,” Clint said. “It’s French/Canadian by the way, dear.”

  Back to business. “How many guys will Diego bring with him, Miguel?”

  “Ah… ah… three – he has three guys with him at all times. I don’t even know their names. They seem to do what he wants without him even mentioning anything.”

  I called Lucas. “Take Joe Gomez, have him pick up his son from school, and then take them to our office for safety. Meet us up at Vista Point on Skyline Blvd. This new gig we’ve been following has taken a turn for the worse.”

  Lucas didn’t waste any words. “See you there, John.”

  “I’ll be Celia,” Lynn said. “Maybe we’re right at the start of this Mideast/Mexico plot, Cheese. We’ll shut these suckers down before they know what hit them.”

  “We’re a step ahead,” Clint agreed. “Diego came up directly from his hidey hole in Mexico, so we should be able to get some fresh information about this shit. Anyone else thinking those decades of Terrance Brannigan’s chaos empire planted some bad seeds along the way? He still has blooms sprouting up even after death, keyed into our area. That asshole wanted as much crap coming our way as he could get.”

  Yeah, he did. We had to kill Brannigan with the look of a natural death. It seemed we should have let Lynn have him first. “I believe you have it exactly right, Clint. That son-of-a-bitch funded God only knows how many of these movements. I’d bet money he’s directly responsible for the Mexican/Mideast plots we’re seeing now. I know you two carry an armory with you in the Toyota. Let’s lock and load. We’ll head up to Vista Point and have Miguel point out the killing fields he knows about. If he hesitates for a second, Lynn, you can remind him of his position in our anti-revolution.”

  The clippers in Lynn’s hand started making music like Maracas. “Oh yes… just hesitate for a split second, Miguel, and the parts will fly off of you like we stuck you in a blender.”

  She owned Miguel. He cringed up against the van wall as if trying to become part of it. “Show me your tablet! I…I will map out every location I know of!”

  We readied ourselves for a battle, putting on armor, and attaching whatever we could carry for weapons other than the handheld kind. Most of it was nonlethal, because we wanted this Diego asshole alive. I drove while Miguel enlightened Clint and Lynn as to the spots inside the Russian Ridge Preserve near Vista Point used in the ‘Revolution’s’ new killing fields. I listened, my hands working over the van steering wheel in somewhat of a helpless diversion.

  Politicians in the United States made it nearly impossible to enforce the myriad laws on the books passed to protect us against an invasion of illegally occupying peoples. They groveled at the feet of noncitizens, handing over rights, hardworking citizens’ money, free medical care, educational benefits not even available to citizens, and using them as illegal voters to sway an American election in favor of the perpetrators. My milk of human kindness dried up to dust when it came to sabotaging our own nation, because people of other nations could not, or would not, overhaul their own systems of government. That we are a nation made up of all creeds, colors, religious backgrounds, and political viewpoints means very little when we allow the subversion of the laws actually protecting our diversity of background. The Founding Fathers meant us to be a shining light and melting pot of many into one – Americans.

  We have now allowed politicians buying votes with promises to obliterate our nation’s founding principals in favor of prancing idiots, hiding illegally behind our flag, while destroying us from the inside out. I grinned. It seemed monumentally stupid for the citizens of the most prosperous and productive nation on the face of the earth to succumb to European socialism. It fails each and every time it is tried, right up to now. Not satisfied with a failed socialist doctrine, the Europeans bend over and embrace the Mideast terrorist threats to join them in their stone-age Islamic law idiocy. Here we are, following their suicidal example. I took a deep breath, exhaling in a cleansing fashion. We would face off with these forces trying to wipe out everything being an American means, but there wasn’t much question, we’d be battling our own authorities and citizens at times to do it. Game on.

  “I see you twisting that steering wheel into submission, Cheese,” Lynn noted. “Anything you’d care to share?”

  “Nothing you don’t already know Lynn. We’re in a thankless battle for the soul of a nation its own citizens abuse on a daily basis.”

  “Damn, Cheese… I thought I was getting down at the mouth about all this, and here you are getting ready to tie your white hanky to a pole for surrender. What the hell?”

  I laughed, as did Clint and Lynn. Yeah, that’ll happen. I’ll go belly up and let a bunch of ass-wipe invaders piss all over my country. I don’t think so. Murderers’ Row doesn’t play that tune. When I turn to root hog or die, I’ll have the deadliest people on earth at my side, and God take the hindmost. “No surrender. No mercy, and no damn compromise. Let the cuttin’ begin.”

  “Oh, hell yeah! Anyone who can take a whoopin’ like the Rattler gave you, and still break his jaw with the last of the match weighing against you, ain’t one to wave the white flag. I wanted to make sure we were still on the same page.”

  “Wait a minute!” Miguel straightened up. “You…you’re John Harding? Shit! I saw that fight with the Rattler! Damn John… I’m your man! That fight was awesome!

  Clint and Lynn enjoyed Miguel’s insight with gusto, while I contemplated a kid who probably was a legal citizen, descending into the darkness of playing a traitor to his own nation. “Miguel. Were you born here?”

  That question brought silence.

  “Yes!” Miguel stated it with emphasis. “My Dad was a Marine like you. I watched the fight with him! He loves the fact you have the Marine’s Hymn as your theme!”

  Jesus… God in heaven… how does a kid with a background like Miguel sell out his own nation? My features even from a side view in the back must have revealed some of what was going on inside of me. Lynn’s hand gripped my shoulder.

  “It is what it is, John. This nation is filled with sometimes indecipherable signals amongst its peoples. We’ll save Miguel here. If he tries to screw us over, there may be a lot less pieces, but we’ll save him.”

  “No!” Miguel straightened to his knees. “I… I joined the East 7th Locos when I was a kid. It meant protection. Diego recruited the four of us because he has something special happening on the docks… you know… the Port of Oakland.”

  Chapter Nine

  Rescue Row

  I caught a glimpse of my partners trading wry looks over the mention of a certain port in our city. I was familiar with the East 7th Locos. They were part of the Nortenos, an offshoot of the Nuestra Familia. We already knew of one Port of Oakland plot. I believe we’d found the transporters. “Do you know who Diego claims he’s with?”

  “Mexican Mafia. He wants to end the war between the Suenos and Nortenos for a takeover after the ‘Revolution’ hits in the months ahead.”

  “With your Dad a Marine, why the hell would you get into something like this? I bet your Dad doesn’t believe you’d ever do anything to screw the country he served.”

  To his cre
dit, Miguel took a moment before going on. “I knew it was stupid from the beginning. I was going to buy street cred by being part of it. The Locos talk this shit all the time about Mexico gaining everything back through the cartels. I figured Diego wanted to scare Gomez into keeping his mouth shut. This morning I found out different.”

  I planned to save this kid, but I needed to know how deep he was in this. “Have you helped get rid of some bodies at Vista Point?”

  “Three. I do what I’m told. I don’t deny it. They were ‘bangers looking to spread into our territory. There ain’t no way out of this shit, John. I don’t do what I’m told, I end up in Vista Point too.”

  “I can tell John has it in mind to save your sorry ass,” Lynn said. “Do what you’re told today for us. Once we get the Gomez family safe, and Diego in our hands, we’ll drop you off over at Highland Hospital, and see if they can get this piece reattached. Which of these trails do you figure Diego will want to head down?”

  “The three I’ve done are buried off the Ridge Trail, about five hundred yards away from Vista Point. I’ve never worked with Diego. We’ve never done anything like this in daylight. Very few hike down the trails… but still… it’s just dumb.”

  “He needs to get Joe Gomez here first,” Clint replied. “He can’t be killing the only bait he has. Don’t worry, I’ve already texted Joe. He’s at our office with his wife. He’ll play along if Diego calls him before this Vista Point gathering.”

  “Are you out of high school yet?” I know a place he could be relatively safe.

  “I graduated last June.”

  “I think you need a stint in the armed forces. Pick one. I’ll help you get in once the finger heals. It’s the only way to put space between you and the Locos. We’ll watch after your family until they forget about you. If they try anything, we’ll erase the Locos from this dimension.”