[JC Bannister 01.0] The Fixer, Season 1

by Rex Carpenter

  The man sitting next to him punched him in the temple. Hard. His head bounced off the window and then slumped forward on his chest. As he faded out of consciousness, he heard Humberto say, “Cállate.”

  Shut up.

  A smile started on JC’s face, and then went away as he blacked out.

  Chapter 39

  Open Up

  The General was dropped off at the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire. The team headed back to their rooms at the Glendale Embassy Suites. Theo was still the driver. Voice dialed his phone. Spoke in Armenian again. Hung up. Translated.

  “A few of my cousins will be waiting for us at the hotel. Armed discretely. A few more waiting a couple blocks away. Thought it might be a good idea,” he said. Looked at Joan. “Right?”

  She nodded. Smiled inwardly. Theo was in line. Next immediate problem for her was Duke. He’d been quiet and sullen since JC was taken. Joan guessed as to why. Real issue was how to deal with it. How would JC? She smiled. Honest. Straightforward. Firmly. Hopefully with humor.

  “You’re pissed, aren’t you, Duke?” Joan said.

  Duke was silent.

  “You think we should have gone after them. Gotten JC back quick as we could.”

  “You’re damn right we should have!” Duke yelled. “Now he’s God knows where getting tortured by those Bolivian rent-a-thugs.”

  “We grab the guns, play shoot-em-up-bang-bang in the streets of L.A., how long do you think it would take LAPD to be on our ass? We got lucky last time we got chased down. The bad guys all died. This time, if we’re doing the chasing, who’s to say we wouldn’t wind up in the Mexican desert, covered in motor oil and drinking ipecac syrup? Or locked up by the LAPD?”

  Duke was quiet. Joan knew he understood. Realized what was bothering him was the inaction. The waiting. Only a few years her junior, Duke was still young, both in life and in this business. Guys like him usually felt that doing equaled action. It was a dangerous way of thinking. One Joan used to share. Times like this, the itch for action over planning still came back and affected her.

  “What did JC say to me before he was taken?” she asked Duke.

  “Trust the team,” he said.

  “Before that.”

  “Something about a bit,” Duke said.

  Theo glanced at her. “Yeah, what’s up with that?”

  Joan smiled. “When I first started working with JC I was very gung-ho. Always trying to prove myself. Convince him he made the right choice bringing me on board. Show him I was just as good as the boys. I kept over-reacting. Killing people when just a beating would suffice. Using a rocket launcher when a sniper rifle would do. Stuff like that. He used to tell me I was like a horse that had the bit between her teeth. Always trying to take control of the situation. Take over. Be the one out in front when it was better to play the back. It took me some time, but I learned to tone things down. Learned the art of subtlety.”

  “Then what was the whole ‘take the bit’ thing about? He wants you to go all out? Why didn’t we?” Duke asked.

  “JC and I talked about it after I cooled down. We came up with a few codes to use. Times like this. I say ‘I’ve got the bit’ means I’m in charge. I’ll follow his training and do things smart. But when the time comes? He gives me permission to unleash myself.”

  She looked back out of the window. Tried to calm her own fears for JC. Her worries about what would happen if they were too late.

  “We’ll be smart about it. Find JC as fast as we can with every resource we have. And once he’s safe?”

  She turned back around. Smiling.

  “We’ll kill every single one of those sonsabitches who took him.”

  *****

  JC came back to the world slowly. He did his best not to move, hoping he could trick Humberto and the boys into thinking he was still out. Kept his eyes closed. Didn’t swing his head around trying to clear it. Just let it clear on its own. First thing he noticed was the air. Not humid and damp. Dry. Good. Meant he was somewhere east of the Hollywood Hills. With any luck Humberto had really screwed up and brought him somewhere in Glendale, Theo’s field of influence.

  Or he’d been out far longer than he knew and he was down in San Diego. Or Mexico.

  Next thing he smelled was dirt. Not earth. More like dirtiness. The smell of a place that hadn’t been cleaned in some time. Abandoned. The air around him felt large. Not closed in. Perhaps a warehouse. Garage. Or even an old office building. No smell of food or rotting things. Ruled out farms or restaurants. Oil? Gasoline? He was about at the end of what he could figure out. Stopped focusing on smells. That’s when he realized he was sitting in a hard-backed chair. Hands zip-tied together. Tried to move them. Couldn’t. Which meant they were zip-tied to the chair as well. Tried wriggling them slightly. Couldn’t.

  Great.

  Stale wind blew across his chest. No shirt. Window open somewhere, hopefully. Slit his eyes open. Could see his legs. No pants. Underwear still on. Thank God for small favors, he thought.

  He heard footsteps walking toward him. Stopped next to him. Kept his eyes closed. The slap rocked his head to the right. Lit his cheek on fire. Popped his eyes open. Stared into the face of a man he’d never seen before. Thin. Emaciated. Skeletal. Hispanic. Tiny dark eyes sunken deep into their sockets. Wisps of a mustache. Could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. Looked to be about five eight or so. Hard to tell when sitting down, looking up at a hunched over skeleton covered in skin.

  The man turned away. Motioned his hand to others JC couldn’t see as he walked out of view. Three of the thugs from the kidnapping came over. Stood around JC. He figured what was coming next.

  “Rodrigo doesn’t speak much, but he understand ways to open up a man,” JC heard Humberto say. Heard his heavy footsteps. Saw him move forward and stand behind the thugs ready to pummel JC. “He’ll be in charge of things for the time being.”

  JC nodded. “Anyway I can convince you not to do this?” he said.

  Humberto looked at him. Shrugged his shoulders. Turned up his hands.

  “No.”

  The three men started punching JC as Humberto walked away to sit on a folding chair.

  Chapter 40

  I Have an Offer for You

  “I can’t do it. Not from here,” Duke said.

  They were at their hotel in Glendale. Duke was doing his level best to hack into the camera system of Los Angeles County and track the van as it moved away from the pancake house where JC was taken. It was proving to be a far more difficult task than he imagined.

  “I mean, on TV and movies you see people hacking into gigantic computer systems with their cellphones. Doesn’t work like that. This laptop Theo found for me is top notch, but even though I can access my servers and run scripts from elsewhere, it’s going to take too long. Hours, maybe days to get this done. I need a way in,” he continued.

  “A backdoor?” Joan said.

  “Back door, front door, open window, anything I can get. And I need it now.”

  “How about your lady friend?” Theo said. “Garcia? That hot cop from the BHPD?”

  Duke and Joan looked at each other.

  “How good is your game, son?” Joan said.

  Duke smiled. “Let’s find out.”

  Joan knew it would work. Duke was a handsome man. Bit too tall for her taste, but handsome nonetheless. The one thing the boy lacked was confidence. She’d seen flashes of it in him before. Stress-induced, usually. When he needed to step up to the plate, for whatever reason, he typically knocked it out of the park.

  Duke had his phone up to his ear. Ringing. Looking at Joan. Suddenly his eyes dropped, he turned away and walked toward the window. His whole body and demeanor changed. Started speaking in a different language. Low. Joan couldn’t understand, but it sounded like honey. She smiled.

  It would work.

  *****

  “This was a mistake,” Theo said.

  It was late afternoon and they were stuck in traffic. D
uke had tried to get Karen to come to them. His idea was to have them go into a local police station over in the valley, have Karen flash her badge and gain them access. Although Duke hadn’t spelled out what he needed, Garcia was able to fill in the blanks between what he told her and what she knew had happened earlier in the day. It was all over the news.

  Her answer had been a conditional yes. Three conditions, Duke had said. First, she comes along. An arrest like this would make her career. Two, they needed to come to her. She only had enough pull to do what they needed done in her own station house. The third condition? Duke had smiled and refused to say what it was.

  Theo had chosen to drive through Glendale and then through Los Angeles, down Sunset Strip, Hollywood Boulevard and eventually Santa Monica Boulevard. Gave them choices and different ways to go if traffic got bad. Duke had taken a look at Google and convinced him to go through Burbank and over Cahuenga, similar to the path they took when being chased by the Bolivian hit squad.

  Duke had been wrong. They were stuck and every minute, every ticking second kept them from finding JC any quicker.

  Joan tried not to fidget. Tried not to yell. Tried not to grab Theo’s Glock 23 from his shoulder holster and start firing it in the air, hoping to clear traffic. This was L.A., she reminded herself, not some third world country where that might actually work. Only thing that would cut this traffic is a siren.

  “Pull over,” Joan said.

  Theo did as ordered, pulling into the parking entrance to the Hollywood & Highland Center, home of the Dolby Theater, Academy Awards and Mann’s Chinese Theater.

  “Call Karen. Have her grab a laptop and meet us here,” Joan told Duke.

  Duke was dialing before she finished.

  “Tell her to come alone. And to use her sirens if she has to. We’re running out of time.”

  *****

  JC couldn’t see through his left eye. It was swollen completely shut. A function of the three sluggers all being right handed. He thought he had all his teeth still, although one or two of his molars felt a little loose. He’d swallowed enough blood to almost make himself sick. His nose was broken. He wondered if it could be broken more than once at the same time because it was incredibly swollen. Impossible to breathe through yet blood still flowed down his face.

  His tormenters were taking a well-deserved break. It wasn’t easy beating on someone for hours. JC knew this from experience. Although he’d had a bit of personal motivation with George Ziccardi, he’d done this kind of work before. If all the torturer was bringing to the table was his strength and cruelty, it wasn’t easy to continue to beat on a person.

  Unfortunately, he had taught Humberto this same thing. The man walked over, talked briefly to the three winded men. They all nodded and walked out of his line of sight. JC relaxed a bit.

  Until three more guys from the kidnapping walked into view.

  JC groaned. The three came over, undid the zip tie holding his hands to the chair, leaving the zip tie holding his hands together in place. Picked him up. Walked him backwards. Raised his hands over his head. Attached them to some kind of hook. JC heard the sound of a lift operating. Felt his arms stretch out over his head. Felt the zip tie cut into his wrists as it bore the weight of his body. Felt his toes rise just off the floor. The winch stopped.

  Just like Ziccardi, JC thought.

  Laughed. Gallows humor.

  Humberto came over. “Funny?”

  JC tried to stop laughing, but the stress relief that came from the laughter wouldn’t let him. Only slow down a bit.

  “Tell me, Humberto,” he said through his laughter. “How much did you pay those two losers to burn down my cousin’s garage up in Philly?”

  Humberto slowly shook his head. “I heard about some of my countrymen getting into some trouble up in Philadelphia. Shame. Good help is so hard to find these days.”

  “Was it you?” JC pressed.

  “You know me, JC. You know my style. Look around. Does the situation you’re in compare to the one in Philadelphia?”

  JC knew Humberto had a point. Two guys sitting in a car on the side of a street in Philadelphia just observing were a far cry from the action plan he found himself in the middle of. Next question.

  “Well, I know you were behind those hitters that tried to take me out a few days ago in Beverly Hills.”

  Humberto sighed. “What you know and what you think you know are two very different things, amigo.” He stared into JC’s eyes. “Why would we try to kill you one day and a few days later kidnap you?”

  It made sense. If Humberto or the man who hired him had been behind the previous attempts, there would be no reason to deny it. He was out of questions. JC had no idea how long he was going to live. But he figured he’d get in whatever licks he could. Although seemingly helpless, he still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

  JC forced himself to start laughing again.

  “I’ll ask you again,” Humberto said, “what’s so funny?”

  “You, Berto.”

  “Me? How am I funny?”

  “Just thinking about how you’re going to look when I get through with you.”

  One of the men obviously understood English enough because he and Humberto laughed together. The other two joined in a beat too late. Their faces betrayed their lack of understanding.

  “Through with me?” Humberto said. “You have big dreams, man.”

  JC’s laughter had mostly stopped. “Come here,” he whispered. “I have an offer for you, Humberto.”

  Humberto shook his head. “You have nothing I want.”

  “You sure, buddy? Come here. I don’t want these guys to hear.”

  Humberto, stepped forward. Stood very close to JC. Leaned his ear close to JC’s mouth. Heard only JC’s weak chuckle. Then heard the sound of dripping water.

  JC urinated in his own boxers. The dark yellow liquid soaked through, running down the legs of his underwear and dripping onto Humberto’s expensive shoes and woolen slacks. Humberto looked down, stepping back in disgust. Looked back up to see JC laughing. Humberto swung back a massive fist and punched JC in the side of the face, spinning him around on the chain that hang from the ceiling. The first time the man had personally punched him since they kidnapped him. When JC came back around, he spat a mouthful of blood at Humberto’s face, hitting his chest, ruining the man’s white dress shirt and blue tie.

  Humberto stepped back as JC continued to spin, laughing. The Bolivian indicated to his three countrymen. They stepped forward and began pummeling JC’s body with fists and blows.

  “Enough!”

  The voice cut through the pain that lit JC’s head on fire. The three men beating on him stopped instantly.

  “I told you to soften him up.” Quieter. “I didn’t tell you to beat him into a coma.” An older man’s voice. JC couldn’t see the speaker. The voice was familiar. But it sounded strange. Distant.

  JC struggled to regain his breath. No matter how tiring it was to give someone a beating, it was even more winding to receive one. He could hear Humberto speaking in Spanish, but if there were responses coming from the listener, he couldn’t hear them.

  JC knew passable Spanish from high school and his time in Bolivia. With his ears ringing and his brain clouded by the torture he had been subjected to, the synapses weren’t firing how they should be. Decided to stop waiting. Make a play.

  “Lo siento, señor… lo siento por… mi… aparein… appea… no recuerdo…”

  “English, please,” the older man said. “Your Spanish hurts my ears.”

  JC smiled, but nobody in the warehouse could tell that’s what it was.

  “I apologize, sir, for my appearance. If I had known you were coming, I would have made myself more presentable.”

  JC started to laugh but ended up coughing and spitting up blood.

  “Perhaps,” he continued, “my associate could find you a chair? Maybe a refreshing drink? Some tequila? Don Julio Respado? Olmeca Altos? Zafiro Anejo?” Laughter
turned into more hacking and coughing.

  “Your associates? Your appearance? I think our good friend Humberto hit you too much around the head and neck, JC.” The speaker paused. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Yes, señor. In my office. I apologize again for my appearance. My friends will be here shortly to rectify the situation,” JC said. Chuckled.

  Humberto and the one thug who understood English looked at each other, confused.

  “Señor,” JC continued, playing it up, “if you could move a little more in front of me so I could see you more clearly? My left eye isn’t what it used to be.”

  JC heard shuffling. Watched as one of the men put the hard-backed chair he had been sitting in earlier in front of him. About ten feet away. Outside of spitting or pissing distance, considering his condition. Waited for the man he was speaking with to sit down. Another thug brought over a large smart phone. Large enough to be considered a tablet. The phone was active. JC sighed. Deflated a bit.

  The scene on the phone was one he was very familiar with. Luxurious den. Brick fireplace with a dark wooden mantle above it. Fire burning inside it. Always was, regardless of the weather. Two ancient side-by-side double barreled shotguns mounted over the fireplace, forming an “X,” although he could only see one of the weapon’s stocks. Out of view of the phone’s camera were overstuffed leather sofas and armchairs. Free-standing lamps that cast warm yellow light discretely in the room, carefully designed and modified to never shine in the occupant’s eyes. Windows opened to the warm air outside. Jasmine, bougainvillea and hyacinth just outside the windows filled the room with their beautiful scents, which mixed with the cigarette and cigar smoke that invariably emanated from the room to produce a lasting, enticing aroma. JC involuntarily breathed in, expecting to smell the old memory.

  He smelled blood, dirt, oil and piss.

  “One more question,” the voice continued from the phone, Skype bringing it in clearly over the thousands of miles. “Do you know who I am?”