Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4)

by Michael Kerr

  ALLEGIANCE

  A Joe Logan Thriller

  -4-

  By

  Michael Kerr

  Copyright © 2014 Michael Kerr

  Discover other Titles by Michael Kerr at MichaelKerr.org

  Also By Michael Kerr

  DI Matt Barnes Series

  A REASON TO KILL

  LETHAL INTENT

  A NEED TO KILL

  CHOSEN TO KILL

  The Joe Logan Series

  AFTERMATH

  ATONEMENT

  ABSOLUTION

  Other Crime Thrillers

  DEADLY REPRISAL

  DEADLY REQUITAL

  BLACK ROCK BAY

  A HUNGER WITHIN

  THE SNAKE PIT

  A DEADLY STATE OF MIND

  TAKEN BY FORCE

  Science Fiction / Horror

  WAITING

  CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE STRANGE KIND

  Children’s Fiction

  Adventures in Otherworld

  PART ONE – THE CHALICE OF HOPE

  PART TWO – THE FAIRY CROWN

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this Author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  “Yeah, I suppose I’m a loner at heart. The bottom line is that no bonds tie me to life. I reckon that if I died tomorrow the only things I’d really miss would be the freedom of the open road and good strong coffee.”

  ~ Joe Logan

  PROLOGUE

  It was a rainy evening in Brooklyn. He was lifted just twenty feet from the stoop of the Brownstone row house he had lived at in a two-room hovel on the third floor for a little over twelve months. Before that, Benny Cole had been incarcerated for a year at the complex in the East River between Queens and the mainland Bronx, which since 1932 has been a prison known as Rikers Island.

  The black, late model Buick Regal pulled up next to Benny, spraying surface water onto his chinos, soaking them and his sneakers. The tinted window slid down and a voice he recognized said, “Walk around the car and get in the rear seat. Do it now.”

  Three or four thoughts coalesced in Benny’s mind. He did not want to get in the vehicle, because he knew that the driver was a fixer for a guy that could afford to make all problems go away, permanently. But running was not an option. They would find him, unless he could quit the city and head for somewhere like Alaska or Mexico, change his identity and keep a very low profile for the rest of his life, always looking over his shoulder. He swallowed hard and just stood in place with the urge to run growing stronger by the second.

  A hand grasped him by the shoulder, and fingers like steel pincers bit into his right shoulder, causing him to cry out in surprise and pain.

  “You deaf, or just stupid? Do what you’re fuckin’ told and get in the car,” Milo Searle said, guiding Benny across the sidewalk and opening the rear door of the Buick with his free hand. “And if you’re packing anything, take it out nice and slow and toss it on the seat.”

  “I’m not,” Benny muttered before climbing in the car.

  Milo got in beside Benny. Patted him down, removed his cell phone and, satisfied that he was not armed, told him to buckle up.

  “Whadya want with me?” Benny said as the car pulled away from the curb.

  Milo’s fist shot out like a jackhammer and thudded into Benny’s ribs. He was driven into the door, and the side of his face smacked into the tinted glass of the window.

  “You did some legwork for us a while back,” Jack Trask said as he drove north toward the river. “We checked you out, and so we know all about you, son. You happen to be connected to someone we need to speak to. You’re going to make a call, arrange a meet, and make five hundred bucks. How does that sound?”

  “Who do you think I know?” Benny said as he massaged his sore cheekbone and hoped that none of his ribs were broken.

  Milo checked the contact list in Benny’s cell. There were just letters and phone numbers. “A N,” he said. “When we get where we’re goin’, you give him a call and convince him to get his ass to where we’ll be waitin’. Fuck up and I’ll break all your fingers and then shoot you in the head. Okay?”

  Benny nodded. These were wise guys, connected and deadly. He had followed a guy for Trask once. Just tailed him for four days and made a note of everywhere he went. Within forty-eight hours after being paid off, the guy’s head had been found in a dumpster in Little Italy. He had been some kind of union official who couldn’t be bought, so got whacked.

  Jack drove across the river by way of the Brooklyn Bridge and headed north on F.D. Roosevelt Drive. It was forty minutes later ‒ after cutting across to the Hudson River on surface streets ‒ that he parked next to a loading dock on a long-abandoned pier that had been scheduled for redevelopment for over a decade. It was now a place where rats roamed, gays met for casual sex, and a few junkies called home: a perfect venue to kill someone.

  “I need a cigarette,” Benny said after Jack had told him what to say when he made the call.

  “So get out and have one,” Jack said.

  Benny released the seat belt and climbed out. Milo got out the same side and stood under the crumbling cement overhang of the dock with him, out of the light but persistent downfall of rain.

  Benny lit up and took three deep drags off the Winston.

  “Okay,” Milo said, handing him his cell back. “Make the call.”

  Benny swallowed hard, took another pull on the cigarette and then dropped it and heard it fizz as it was extinguished on the pot-holed ground. He made the call and waited for it to be answered. After a half dozen rings it was.

  “Yeah, Benny. Whadya want?”

  CHAPTER ONE

  He drove his old Mustang GT up the ramp and out into the rain and headed west. His home was over a dozen miles from Manhattan; a small detached house that had belonged to his late parents. It was situated on a tree-lined street in the village of Tuckahoe in the town of Eastchester.

  After driving for twenty minutes the pay-as-you-go cell in his glove box rang and he leaned over, popped the lid, withdrew the phone and accepted the call.

  “I’m in deep shit,” Benny said. “I got somethin’ for you that I know you want, but it’ll cost you double what you usually pay.”

  “Enlighten me as to what you term ‘deep shit’, Benny.”

  “I’ve been tailed for a couple of days. When I got to my apartment this evenin’ it’d been trashed. I heard somebody comin’ up the stairs, so did a bunk out the back, down the fire escape.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “No.”

  “So how do you know it wasn’t some other junkie lookin’ for your stash?”

  “Like I said, I was being tailed. I spotted the same black Buick with tinted windows at least a half dozen times.”

  “You get the plate number?”

  “It was a New Jersey plate, but I only got a glimpse of it. FTE, or maybe FIE, but I didn’t get the number.”

  “Okay. You said you had somethin’ for me.”

  “Not on the phone. I need the cash, now, and then a lift to Grand Centr
al. I plan to be on a train headin’ west in a couple of hours.”

  “This better be worth it, Benny. Tell me where you are, and keep out of sight till I get there. And don’t use your cell again, switch it off.”

  He parked on the pier under the rusted remains of a corrugated iron roof just a hundred feet from the drop-off into the Hudson River. The rain was heavier now; a downpour that drummed loudly on the roof above him. He waited with the engine running and the high beams on, but the visibility was poor and there was no sign of Benny. He began to have a bad feeling about this meet, but recalling the fear in Benny’s voice he decided that the guy was on the level and believed that he was being followed. Paranoia was part of an addict’s mindset.

  The figure walked into view, and although indistinct in the murk, he had the round-shouldered shape and the slight limp that pegged him as being Benny Cole.

  When Benny reached a point where the roof shielded him from the rain, he stopped next to a girder, lit a cigarette and waited. He had been told not to go to the car. He took a drag, then raised a hand and beckoned. This was serious shit. The two enforcers were out of sight, but were armed. Searle had a pump-action shotgun with a sawn off barrel, and Trask had a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. Benny knew that he had lured the man to his death, but was too preoccupied with saving his own skin to feel guilty about it. He was positive that he would also be killed, and was waiting for the right time to make a break for it.

  Jesus, what was Benny playing at? Putting the Mustang in Drive, he drove towards him at walking pace, to stop again just twenty feet away, roll down the window and shout, “Get in, you dumb shit.”

  Benny didn’t move, but had a look of desperation in his eyes: a look that was like a warning beacon burning sun-bright on a hilltop at night.

  Intuition cut in. He put the car in reverse, heard two explosions as he hit the accelerator, and felt the back of the vehicle sink down as the rear tires were torn to shreds. This was a hit. He had been duped into meeting Benny. He shifted gear back to Drive, and then drew his Glock from the holster on his hip as he attempted to quit the scene.

  Milo moved to the side and blew out the front offside tire. The Mustang was going nowhere.

  “We need to talk,” Jack shouted from deep shadow at the driver’s side. “Get out of the car and clasp your hands behind your head.”

  He didn’t. He could see the stocky guy leveling the shotgun at the window on the passenger side, so raised the Glock and shot three times through the glass before dropping into the foot well just a second before the windshield disintegrated.

  Milo stutter-stepped backwards three paces as two of the three slugs hit him. The first was a flesh wound to his left side, but the second drilled through his aorta, to be compressed as it connected with a vertebra and severed his spinal cord.

  Benny watched it go down. Just stood flat-footed, his mouth hanging open as muzzle flashes and the tinkle of broken glass pierced the night. He saw Milo go back on his heels, and then drop the shotgun and sag to his knees, before the top half of his body slumped down and his face slammed on to the wet concrete.

  He ran. Just turned on his heel and bolted towards the edge of the pier, zigzagging as he heard more shots and expected to feel a hot lance of pain in his back. With no hesitation whatsoever, Benny leaped out, off the pier, to plummet down thirty feet and hit the murky, polluted surface feet first, to sink into the ice-cold water, unknowingly missing the submerged, pointed top of a rotted wood piling by less than a foot. He could just as easily have been skewered, to drown like a human kebab. Fate, luck or whatever chaos ruled the universe had spared him, for the time being.

  The air in his lungs caused him to rise slowly through the blackness. His head broke the surface and he looked around him as he took several gulps of air. Without any conscious thought he swam back to the pier, to go under it and pause to hang on to a support post that was slimy with algae and crustaceans. Benny felt safe for the time being. Milo Searle was seriously wounded or dead, and Jack Trask would not enter the river on the off chance that he would be able to seek him out and shoot him. In fact Trask would in all probability believe that he had drowned.

  Pulling himself up on to a crossbeam with difficulty, due to his sodden clothing weighing heavily, Benny decided to stay put until he felt it safe to climb back up to the top of the pier. He could see a rusted steel ladder bracketed to the timberwork just fifteen-feet from where he was sitting, shivering, and wishing that the cigarettes in his coat pocket had not turned to mush.

  “Throw the gun out, now, or I’ll turn the car into a fucking colander,” Jack said, loosing off another two shots at the Mustang to make the point, before shaking the brass out of the cylinder and using a speedloader to replace the spent shells in seconds.

  He pushed the driver’s door open and tossed the Glock out, then got up on to his knees to sit on the seat, twist around and climb out with his hands behind his head.

  Trask approached to within a dozen feet of him and kept the .38 pointed at his chest, rock steady and said, “You have something that Mr. Fallon wants, Newman. Hand it over or tell me where it is, and you get out easy. Make me work for it and you’ll be begging for a bullet before I’m through.”

  He took a deep breath. “Go fuck yourself, Trask. Shoot me and a flash drive with enough to bring Fallon down will be handed to the DA.”

  Trask chuckled. “Nice try. If you had enough you’d have already done that. What you have is supposition; just a few unconfirmed allegations from lowlife that would never repeat what they knew in a courtroom. But you just didn’t have the sense to quit. You could at worst embarrass Mr. Fallon.”

  Timing. Nearly everything in life came down to timing. Before exiting the car he had drawn his backup pistol from its ankle holster. The small Ruger LC9 was easily held concealed behind his head as he stepped out to face Trask. And as Fallon’s muscle talked, he dropped to his left knee, simultaneously bringing the gun out in front of him and firing four rounds at the big man’s torso.

  Trask was taken completely by surprise. He fired one shot as he saw the muzzle flashes and felt the impact of at least three slugs, and threw himself sideways and rolled behind one of the steel girders that supported the overhanging roof.

  There was a few seconds of near silence following what had been like a western gunfight. Trask knew that he was badly wounded, but was able to get to his feet and take a quick look around the girder. Saw that Newman was lying on his back, unmoving, with his arms outstretched at his sides. Approaching the Mustang warily, he kicked away the small pistol that was twelve inches from the right hand of what he could see was now a corpse. It had been a lucky head shot. There was a lot of blood, and the guy’s eyes were open and rolled back in their sockets.

  Grunting in pain, Trask searched the car. All he found worth taking was a cell phone from the glove box. He then checked the dead man’s coat and pants, came up with a second phone and wallet, and pocketed them.

  Milo was dead. He emptied his now late partner’s pockets, walked over to the large, open doorway that led into a huge storage room, and got behind the wheel of the Buick. His shirt was saturated with blood, and so as he drove he made a call. He needed urgent medical attention, but would not be calling in at a hospital emergency department, where as a matter of course they would report the fact that he had suffered gunshot wounds. He was in pain, but was able to soak it up and ignore it. Maybe he was bleeding out. But there was no sense of fear or panic. He had not been scared of anything in his life, and was not afraid to die: but given the choice would rather live.

  The fingers of the supine man’s right hand twitched, and his eyelids blinked as he took shallow, ragged breaths. He was now conscious, but couldn’t recall where he was, how long he had been lying on the ground, or what had happened to him. All he did know was that his head hurt like hell.

  He felt nauseous and kept passing out. And the last time he came round he saw a figure moving toward him: a young, too-thin man, soaking wet a
nd shivering. As the man knelt down next to him, he slipped into the black again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Logan had been in Baltimore for almost a month, and was now sensing a pressure that he recognized for the restlessness that was in some way a driving force within him. He felt a growing need to move on. It was always the same. He was beginning to feel in a rut, seeing the same faces every day and becoming a part of a small section of the mainly Polish community in the South Baltimore waterfront district of Curtis Bay.

  “You okay, Logan?” Alexsy Bukowski said as he served the tall man black coffee at a small corner table of the New Polonia Bar on Pennington Avenue, just north of the Beltway.

  “I’m fine, Al,” Logan said. “But I’ll be leaving Baltimore at the weekend.”

  Alexsy raised his thick, wiry eyebrows and sighed. “I’m gonna miss you,” he said. “You’re a good friend to have on side in times of trouble.”

  Logan smiled. He had been traveling east from Arizona since the end of July, heading for The Big City, which was how he always thought of New York City, being as how it was the most populous metropolis in the US. There had been no rush. He’d stopped off on the way in a dozen towns and cities, including Amarillo, Tulsa, St Louis and Chicago. And he had offloaded most of the remaining money ‒ that had once belonged to Jerry Brandon, a now deceased lowlife in Charleston ‒ to various charities. The cash had been like a lead weight in his rucksack. He’d kept a small amount, and then walked into a hospice for kids in Topeka and put the stack of bills on the counter. He liked to think that even bad money could be used to do some good.

  Stepping off a Greyhound in Baltimore, Logan had found a small diner alongside the Inner Harbor; ate a cheeseburger and drank a full pot of coffee, black. He even played tourist and visited the National Aquarium. He liked sharks and dolphins.