K-9 Outlaw: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 1

by Charles Wendt

  Come rock me, she thought looking in the mirror. Dixie craved men’s attention, feeling terribly unfulfilled from Buck who wasn’t to be denied. The power of turning them down energized her. That’s what uplifted her, made her feel in control. It’s what fueled her self-esteem.

  She didn’t bother to stand-up the scattered figurines on the end table. She could finish tidying up tomorrow. A scoop of dry food and fresh water in Patsy’s dishes and she was out the door. Upon the sidewalk in the darkness, she could see the flashing yellow light and the orange glow beyond of her daddy’s business.

  Dixie walked near the curb, glancing warily into the black mouths of the alleyways between the buildings as she strode along her way. She took a deep breath trying to calm herself a little. She didn’t use to be as jumpy. The sidewalk ended at Thigpen, so she crossed to the other side of the street, and continued on the well-worn trail of dirt, cigarette butts and pop-tops. Her dad’s land here was undeveloped, now a tangle of briars and scrub trees.

  They’d talked as a family about selling it as a commercial lot, but the legal and surveyor fees with the county would be an expensive hassle and it might develop into competition for her parent’s business. Once, while in 4-H club, she had wanted to fence it and get a trip of goats. Instead, it remained as a place to expand the parking lot although that seemed increasingly unneeded and unnecessary as the years went by. There were a healthy number of parked semis for a weekday evening, and they could still arrange themselves with plenty of separation.

  Her dad always condemned the girls, as parasites taking money away that otherwise might be spent on diner meals or convenience items. But as she grew more savvy in recent years, she began to appreciate that it might be the other way around. Bigger and better facilities weren’t much further away. Truckers stopped here to spend money because of the girls.

  As she reached the corner of the parking lot, she leapt the drainage ditch beside the road. Three more steps, and she was on the cracked asphalt with faded striping, and last year’s dried up grass poking up between rampant cracks. A driver at the back of the lot rolled down his window and waved for her to come over, but she just kept on walking.

  “Can’t afford me, Baby,” she muttered under her breath and then swayed her hips. “I own the place.”

  A number of cars were at the diner, but none she recognized as locals. They mostly came for weekend breakfast or late after the bars had closed. Else they would take in a café or restaurant in town. Dixie paused outside the foggy door, took a breath, and went inside.

  The rush was over, the waitress mainly concerned with keeping glasses full and running tickets and payment back and forth to the register. They pushed dessert, but seldom had takers. Her mom swiped a card at the register, and placed the printed receipt on a tray. Doris looked up, saw her, and began to tear up.

  “Rachel, can you handle things for minute?” she called out, voice nearly cracking.

  “Sure thing, Miss Doris,” Rachel replied while pouring a cup of coffee without looking. She didn’t spill a drop and scooped up the cash in a tray with her other hand.

  Her mom turned from the register and walked back toward the kitchen. Dixie followed until they exited the back, and Doris sat down on the steps leading up to her parent’s apartment. One of the dishwashers in a greasy apron was having a cigarette, but quickly put it out and went back inside. Tears began to flow down her mother’s cheeks.

  “Mom, I’m fine. Nobody hurt me.”

  “I’m so thankful, Dixie. But I hate you seeing your father and me like this.”

  “I know, Mom. But I’m a big girl now. I know you and Dad love me,” said Dixie leaning down toward her Mom and stroking the side of her face with the back of her hand. “Things will be okay.”

  “Then you should know. Things might not be okay. Rebel is desperate, and Buck isn’t smart enough to control him. If it blows up, I’ll be dragged down with them.”

  “Can you get out?”

  “It’s much too late for that, my dear. But you might be able to get out.”

  “Me get out? Why? How?”

  “If this thing unravels, Buck is going to prison for a long time. Chandler’s little department will be done and you’ll lose your job.”

  “Then I’ll just come back and work for you,” she said dismissively with her hand.

  “We won’t be open. Your dad’s medical bills are drowning us. There are environmental and VDOT upgrades we are supposed to make. The place is falling apart. It’s old and wasn’t well built to begin with. The only thing to fix it is a bulldozer,” her mother declared with eyes now dry.

  “Okay, but I can’t just walk down the road by myself and have it lead anywhere good.”

  “Not by yourself. You haven’t met him, but in room three is a young man named Kelton Jager and he is leaving tomorrow morning. I sent him to rescue you, although I know now that Buck interfered with that. But he went. He tried. He has a good heart and a brighter future than anything that will ever be had here.”

  Dixie smiled, and caressed the back of her jeans with her palms. Timing was good. She looked the part.

  Extending a hand to her mom she helped her up, and they both walked back through the kitchen into the diner. Dixie made for the front door, but not before hearing one of the regular truckers.

  “Doris, what’s yours and Ed’s secret for staying together so long?”

  Her mom’s response came quick as a whip, before the door closed behind her.

  “Thirty years of marriage and I’ve never once had to lower a toilet seat.”

  Rough laughter howled along the barstools.

  Dixie licked the corners of her mouth, wishing she was able to freshen her makeup. It was too far to walk home and back again for a quick application of lipstick. Instead she slowly meandered down the chipped sidewalk in front of the motel doors facing the road, picking her words. She didn’t hesitate at the moment, tapping gently at the door as soon as she arrived and smiled.

  A quick darkening of the spyhole, and the door opened. She was so startled by the black muzzle below; she didn’t look at him at first.

  “Ma’am, may I help you?”

  He was a handsome man, although plainly dressed in his brown shirt and pants like some farm laborer. But he smelled clean, hair still dripping and his face freshly shaved. She reckoned he was about her age, but his eyes seemed older.

  “I’m Dixie. Doris is my mom. She said you tried to help me out. Can I come in?” she said cocking her head to one side with a smile.

  “Uh, okay,” said Kelton blinking. “I guess.”

  He stepped aside to open the door as wide as it would go, giving her a clear path around Azrael who hadn’t been gracious enough to back away.

  She kept her eyes on the dog as she came through the entrance, “Does he bite?”

  “Oh, yes. He loves to bite people,” he replied instantly, like a reflex. It was a favorite line in the K-9 world.

  She could tell he’d used that line before, but as Dixie looked at the dog she realized it was only partly a joke and shivered slightly. She regathered herself as he closed the door, and then sat on the bed. There was only one chair in the room so it wasn’t particularly forward. As he turned back around and saw her there, he stopped dead in his tracks. Azrael came up to his side, and sat down at attention without command.

  She lay back on the bed, using her elbows to work her head back to the pillow and the battered wall. The dog looked back and forth from her to him, and then again. Kelton stood there, his mouth slightly open. Dixie bent her knees, and then let them fall apart until the tight denim resisted, framing her view of him with the V formed by her pulled up legs. The side of his neck quivered and his hand went to massage the base of his throat.

  “Do you bite, Kelton?” and then in a softer voice, “I sure don’t.”

  He walked around the end of the bed, to sit on the left side where there was more room. Kelton used a hand for support, elbow locked like a pillar, to keep him
self upright with lots of daylight between them. His breathing was shallow, the chest working up and down in a quiet panting. Even in the poor light of the room, she could see the glimmer along his hairline.

  “I’m really grateful you rescued me from Rebel’s pit. It was hell down there.”

  “He had you in a pit?” Kelton asked suspiciously.

  “It was under a big shelving unit in the middle of the garage. There was this metal trapdoor and a ladder.”

  “What did he want with you? Did he hurt you?”

  “No he didn’t hurt me. He was sure hard on the other women, but he knew I was too good for him,” she said smiling. She pulled back the unzipped leather jacket to show her cleavage.

  “What other women?”

  “But I was still glad to get out of there. It was dark and dirty, and I felt so scared. I’m so glad you came for me.”

  Kelton repeated, “What other women?”

  “Huh?” she said with pursed lips.

  “The other women that were being held in the pit with you. Are they still being held there?”

  Dixie pulled her legs together and up underneath herself as she sat up on her side of the bed with eyes narrowing in confusion.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But you’re here with me now.”

  Kelton sprung from the bed into the chair, and knelt forward to grab his boots. Azrael stood and began to wag his tail excitedly.

  “How many other women?” he asked gathering some stray equipment into his pack.

  Dixie folded her arms across her chest, “Two. Just a couple of local skanks. Nobody important.”

  Kelton stood and then donned his backpack.

  “Where you going?” she said bewildered.

  He took a quick, but thorough, look around the room carefully eyeing the nightstand and the electrical outlets. A couple of strides and he checked the sink, finding nothing.

  “Come on!” she implored.

  He knelt by Azrael, checking the vest, it’s attached light, and the collar before rubbing him on the shoulders and standing.

  “Please don’t go,” she pleaded.

  “It was nice meeting you,” he replied firmly and then raced through the door with his dog.

  She collapsed backward on the pillow, with one leg hanging off the side of the bed. She exhaled, and half-heartedly slapped at the mattress a few times while stomping the opposite foot. Dixie turned to look at the clock on the nightstand and saw he’d left the room key. Then she curled up and began to cry.

  CHAPTER—15

  Inside the Outlaw Saloon, Shep Primrose sat at the scarred wooden desk in the middle of his oblong mezzanine hayloft office, comparing inventory reports to sales receipts. He faced a window, where the old hayloft doors used to be, that looked out over the covered porch into the parking lot. The rectangular sign hanging from the beam above split the view. Behind him and opposite that window was a balcony of sorts where the floor of the old hayloft had been cut away. This allowed him to survey the bar below or relax in a chair to enjoy the small stage without mixing with the clientele. The open shudders were full length to be able to block out the noise or meet people to discuss nefarious plans without being overhead. Some discussions were heated. One short-side opened to a spiral staircase going down, or if one wanted to among the rafters and beams. The other led to a small private bathroom, with just a commode and a sink that tied into the old dairy-waste septic tank.

  His bed was in the corner. An old G.I. footlocker that he’d won in a card game during his brief stint in the air force sat at its end. The only other furniture was a couple of chairs for visitors and a venerable filing cabinet. A couple of torn and sun faded Baja 1000 posters, the off road Mexican desert motor race, decorated the walls. An old pilot’s survival knife stood vertically near the stack of receipts, its pointed embedded in the wood. He stabbed the desktop when frustrated. The desk bore many knife wounds.

  It smelled in there, even to him. Washing clothes and bedding was a trip to a laundromat in town, and not an easy thing to do on a motorbike. It also looked stupid to be riding a chopper with a plastic basket bungeed on the back. Once every couple of months sufficed if he remembered. His type of women wasn’t around long enough to tend to such things for him. Deodorant cost too much money. And the stink wafting upward from the saloon floor, stale beer and biker funk, never went away no matter how hard the staff cleaned. And they didn’t really clean all that hard. The local health department never bothered to come visit them. Their expanding clientele didn’t seem overly sensitive to the issue.

  Shep wasn’t an educated business person or a forensic accountant, but he wasn’t stupid. Not stupid-stupid anyway. He compared the items rung up on the cash register to the money in the till every night. Some hard words and the slamming of a billy-club on the bar top, while the bouncers barred the wait staff from leaving through the doors, usually made sure those two things were pretty close together. Or ended up pretty close together on the occasional night when the first count seemed off for unexplained reasons.

  But the inventory check was never coming together right. Word would come they were out of something, like bacon, and he would arrange for more. But when he looked back at how many pounds he had ordered, and how many items containing bacon were sold, it was coming up to a ½ pound per order. That was one hell of a BLT. Or a cheeseburger with more pork than beef. And it wasn’t just bacon, but everything. Even beer and booze. And he couldn’t control it like the register cash. Performing inventory and counting everything took way too long to do regularly.

  He’d never run a bar and grill before, and could tell he was missing something. Losses were getting to the point he was considering looking for someone with experience to be the manager. Once he learned a bit more and put some new practices in place, he reckoned he could always fire them. Or not if it freed up his time for other pursuits. Putting up a help wanted sign in the door though was probably not going to bring him the type of help he was looking for. Of course that wouldn’t help if the problem was really his boys helping themselves a bit too often. He’d have to think some more on how best to address the issue.

  He turned off the desk lamp, stood and wandered out to the balcony. Spotlights with colored lenses were mounted on the rough dusty beams, illuminating the tiny stage and making him very difficult to see for the crowd below. Shep moved slowly nonetheless, not wanting to make a big motion that might attract attention. He studied the happenings, and pondered again how to improve. Too bad there wasn’t a local community college where he could take a class.

  Braxton Greene gave a passable imitation of Neil Young on the tiny stage, but none of the black leather and blue denim patrons seemed to pay his act much mind. At least he only played for tips. That didn’t bode well for him. Bikers had pretty tight wallets most the time. A couple of weathered and tired waitresses, moving hurriedly through the tightly packed tables, ran trays of hot sandwiches with fries from the kitchen behind the stage to the middle of the floor.

  It had been a good move to get rid of the pool table in the center floor a few years ago. After riding all day people wanted to eat as well as drink and there were a lot less in the way of furniture breaking fights. The change encouraged the local idlers elsewhere and brought a new kind of clientele, the mainstream bikers. The type of rider not just looking to go on an interstate trip, but to embrace the whole biker cultural experience. It gave them something to connect to. At a typical gas station or road house, they were the odd ones without a car or truck. Here, they were part of an open road community. The saloon’s reputation was growing in a positive way and, especially during summer, some larger riding clubs up and down the east coast doing multiday rides planned their itineraries to stop here. Legitimate business was growing, and that was a good thing.

  The increasing crowds brought good cover for his boys, the Lowland Outlaws. He wasn’t really in the drug business per say, but rather in the transportation business. The drug manufacturers in Mexico needed to move their pr
oducts north to the big cities like Baltimore. And the money needed to find its way from the dealers back to the manufacturers. Everyone along the chain, including Shep, got a cut.

  When crossing the border there was school of thought, that to minimize exposure to risk of discovery, a single large shipment with key confidantes, be it drugs or cash, was the best way to go. But once through the border, it was far better to keep all the eggs out of a single basket. Breaking it down into parcels made distribution much easier too. It made for more tracking, but computers and tracking tags made that easy. At least for people other than Shep.

  His gang was part of a network usually connecting up north around the District of Columbia, and ranging south to the outskirts of Atlanta. Their packages were small and light, perfect for the saddlebags of a bike, and moved with a low profile. The large number of small packages made it impossible for the DEA to try and interdict them all. In the event of a nosy police car, riders could block while the package sped away. Using a group instead of a couple of guys made “self-deals” and “skimming” less of a problem as too many were in on it, and all types of cheap GPS trackers and anti-tampering seals available these days helped with that too. Security wasn’t a problem either, as no one wanted to mess with a half dozen biker dudes by themselves and things were always rolling on before whoever it was could get their own group together. It worked well. Some of the guys in the group he didn’t even have to pay. They just rode along in ignorance for the sense of belonging, enjoying their “I’m a tough biker” fantasy with no idea of the cargo the group was carrying.

  On the drug side, it was usually heroin and cocaine, but Shep cared little about what was in the packages. He was a mover, not a user or a pusher. Sometimes the boys did a little human trafficking on the side, passing the girl off riding behind as just another biker bitch. This didn’t concern him either unless they disrespected him by denying free service when they came through. That was a different type of profit that wouldn’t need a legitimate business to launder.