by Nick James
‘You should see what it’s doing to Bennett Hinz,’ Bobby thought. “Well, I’m not sure if my involvement would help or hinder, but if you think I can be of any assistance please let me know.”
“Oh, you are so sweet.”
“Yeah, that’s me. I had better get back to work. I’ve got a meeting this evening,” he said.
“Okay, thank you for calling and I’m so sorry for the other night. I don’t know what in the hell got into me.”
“Almost three bottles of wine,” he said.
“Next time stop me at one. One glass,” she said. “Good luck with your meeting tonight, hope to see you very soon.”
“Thanks, I’ll call you in a day or two.”
“I’ll be waiting, naked, by the door,” she giggled and hung up.
Bobby thought about the phone call for a moment. Then made his way back to the file room.
“I was beginning to wonder if it was something I said,” Dorsey joked. “Be right back I’ve got to deliver these partnership files to the powers that be. Back in five,” he said and hurried out the door.
Bobby sat at the reading desk staring at the stack of Montcreff files in front of him. But he was unable to concentrate. He pushed away from the reading desk, walked out of the file room and headed for the elevator. “Back in a few minutes, Marci,” he said then stepped onto the elevator and the doors closed before she could respond.
He pressed the button for the second floor, and stepped off the elevator into the skyway system. The news stand was just a minute’s walk away, and he thought a candy bar would be just the thing to spark his energy.
Chapter Forty-Six
He was debating the benefits of a Milky Way versus a Snickers bar as he wound his way through the pedestrian traffic. He could see the newsstand up ahead. He’d be there in just a minute and he was thinking he’d maybe buy one of each and compare the benefits. A woman suddenly brushed past him, then just as suddenly turned and planted herself directly in front of him.
She was blonde, painfully thin with ruddy skin, and bloodshot eyes that were underlined by dark bags, maybe in her mid-forties. Her worn jeans appeared a couple of sizes too large and even though it was summer, she wore a faded, long-sleeve sweater that had seen better days. “Oh, shit, sorry about that. I’m in such a hurry and I ended up going the wrong way. Stupid me. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, not a problem,” Bobby said, visibly recoiling from her breath that seemed a combination of alcohol and spoiled meat. He stepped to the side in an effort to get past her.
“You just come with us, Custer. Don’t be stupid and try to act the hero,” a voice said from behind him. The voice in his ear had an unfortunate familiar ring, the same gravelly voice from the phone call. The blonde in front of him gave a sinister grin exposing damaged teeth, two of which were missing. She flared her bloodshot eyes and nodded as an encouragement, excited about whatever was going to take place.
The three of them were like a large rock in a stream as people flowed past on either side. For just a half-second, Bobby thought about running, but a hand suddenly wrapped firmly around his bicep and led him down the skyway to an unmarked door and a staircase. The blonde held the door open as the gravelly voiced guy pulled him down the stairs. For the first time, he realized there was a second man following immediately behind. He had the body of a weightlifter, heavy and solid in a fireplug sort of way, with a face that seemed to contradict intelligence.
The blonde was a few steps behind, locking the door, then hurrying down the stairs to catch up. She called, “Reggie, Reggie wait up. You promised. Remember? I did just what you asked, you promised me. Reggie, wait.”
The gravelly voiced guy she called Reggie shouted over his shoulder, “Shut up, bitch. You’ll get it when I’m good and ready.”
“But you promised, said I would…”
“Shut her up, Clint,” he said just as they reached the bottom step and a door that led out to the street level.
“…Get a rock all to myself if I stopped…”
The smack was loud and followed by a high-pitched yelp. Bobby automatically turned back and glanced up the stairs just in time to see the blonde land on her back and then slide down four or five steps before she stopped. Her head bounced off a couple of steps. Once she stopped, she quickly sat up. A slight trickle of blood dripped out of her right nostril and her bloodshot eyes looked teary.
“Reggie, Reggie…” she pleaded.
“Oh, Jesus, why don’t you just shut the hell up, bitch?” Reggie said, then reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a small something wrapped in cellophane.
Crack. Bobby had seen enough of it when he was serving time to know what it was. Reggie handed the packet, not much larger than a small pearl, to the weightlifter. “Give her that so she shuts the hell up.”
The weightlifter took the small packet and tossed it in her general direction. She scrambled up a couple of steps on her knees and grabbed it while the two of them dragged Bobby out the door and onto the street.
A white, windowless van with a carrier rack on top was parked opposite the door with its lights flashing. Reggie quickly glanced up and down the sidewalk, then pulled Bobby toward the van and opened the sliding side door.
Bobby figured this was his one and only chance, so he pushed Reggie, turned, took one step, and felt the wind knocked out of him when the weightlifter shot a solid fist into his solar plexus. He half-coughed, then attempted to gulp in air. Reggie pushed him into the open van door. The weightlifter jumped in immediately after Bobby and effortlessly shoved him across the floor and to the side. Reggie slid the door closed, then climbed into the front seat and the van pulled out into traffic.
“Nice of you to join us,” Reggie said from the front.
Bobby was still taking in deep breaths and could only grunt.
“Better check him, Clint,” Reggie said.
Large, solid hands proceeded to search Bobby, patting him down from head to toe. His wallet was pulled out of a back pocket, Clint extracted whatever cash there was, then threw the wallet back at Bobby. He pulled the cellphone out of Bobby’s front pocket, turned it on, then off again, and flung it back in Bobby’s general direction.
“He’s clean, nothing.”
“Dumb fuck.” Reggie chuckled and shook his head, then turned in the passenger seat and looked down at Bobby lying on the floor. “Thought you might enjoy seeing your asshole friend, Dalton. Oh, sorry, where are my manners? I never introduced myself. I’m Reggie Montcreff, and you can just sit there looking stupid and shut the hell up until we get where we’re going.”
The drive seemed to take forever. At one point the driver said “Oh, oh,” and glanced over at Reggie in the passenger seat. Both men stared at their side view mirrors. “Shit, he’s turning around, Reggie. He’s coming back after us. Son of a bitch,” he said and suddenly a police siren sounded and seemed to be growing closer by the second.
“Just pull over and act natural,” Reggie said. He hauled a fairly large pistol from behind his back and chambered a round.
“Oh shit, he’s coming right up our ass.”
“Pull over to the damn curb,” Reggie commanded.
“Oh Christ, we are so screwed,” the driver said as the siren suddenly shot past them and kept on going until they could no longer hear it.
“Thank God,” the driver said. “I was beginning to think that bitch dropped a dime on us.”
“Not very likely. Right about now she’s having trouble knowing up from down. Besides, she ever talked to the cops they’d just lock her up and throw away the key.”
They pulled onto what must have been an interstate based on the speed and the occasional vehicle passing them. However, Bobby had no idea which interstate they were on. Eventually they exited, slowed as they drove up a rise, and waited at the top, presumably for a light to change. They took a left, drove for a couple of minutes and slowed, made a right hand turn and then another right. They came to a stop a few seconds
later. The driver put the vehicle in reverse and backed up ten or fifteen feet. He turned the engine off and looked over at Reggie. “Home sweet home.”
“Yeah, Clint bring our guest in. I gotta hit the head.”
With that, Reggie and the driver bailed out of the van. Clint reached up, slid the side door open. Summer heat and humidity rolled into the van and over Bobby. “Get your ass out here, dip shit. Time to meet your maker.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The brick building they parked behind looked like any suburban one story office-warehouse affair except they seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. There were three overhead doors with docks that trucks could back up to. Next to each dock was a metal staircase leading up to a rear entrance. Bobby noticed the bay they had backed up to was the only one with a dumpster next to it which suggested the other two units were unoccupied. Reggie and the driver were already climbing up the stairs and entering the building.
“Come on, get a move on. I don’t feel like standing out here and getting sunburned,” Clint said, then grabbed Bobby’s ankle, yanked him out of the van, and shoved him forward.
Bobby gave a quick look around in an attempt to get his bearings, not that it did much good. Both sides and the rear of the building were bordered by a large corn field which narrowed their location down to about two-thirds of the entire state. They climbed the metal staircase and stepped inside to a fairly large, empty warehouse area.
Once inside, the building’s cool air-conditioning felt like a cold wave compared to the oppressive heat and heavy humidity out in the parking lot. The cold air felt almost icy on the sweat running down Bobby’s back from just the minute or two of exposure to the steamy summer day.
“Up ahead in the office area,” Clint said and shoved him forward once more. Bobby gave a disgusted look over his shoulder and Clint shoved him again, this time much harder. “Don’t like it? What do you plan to do about it, fuck stick? Just move your ass up there. Come on, get going.”
They walked across the empty warehouse area of sheetrocked walls primed white and twelve or maybe fourteen foot ceilings with fluorescent lights. The floor was prefab concrete and their footsteps made a hollow echo in the cavernous room. Bobby headed toward the door with the window in it marked office.
“Open the door and head into the first room on the right. Your buddy’s in there,” Clint chuckled.
Bobby pulled the door open and stepped into a hallway with a dropped ceiling. The hall stretched out maybe fifty feet, ending in what looked like a reception area. There were four doors on either side of the hallway. The first one on the right stood open and as he approached he could hear a hoarse voice half-crying. “Please, please, I promise. I won’t tell anyone, honest. I promise.”
He stepped into the dimly lit room. Both Reggie and the driver were in there and flashed evil grins.
The driver lifted a small spoon to his nose, grinned, inhaled the contents, and groaned “Oh man, that’s good, real good.”
Bobby took a step or two back, more or less recoiling in horror at the sight immediately in front of him.
He could smell Bishop Dalton from where he stood. Dalton was seated in a heavy wooden chair that had solid arms. As Bobby looked closer, he noted Dalton’s arms and legs were bound to the chair with plastic tie clasps. His head hung down, slowly moving from side to side as he groaned. He appeared to have soiled himself and vomited on the floor, more than once from the look of things, and the stench. A bloody stub was on his right hand where his ring finger used to be. His left ear looked to have been sliced in half.
“Hey, Bishop, buddy. Is that any way to welcome a guest? Where the hell are your manners?” Reggie said, then slapped Dalton across the side of his head. “Fucking look, asshole,” he shouted. The driver handed Reggie the small spoon, heaped with powder. He took it, inhaled, and groaned out a loud, “Oh, Jesus.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Dalton half-raised his head. Both eyes were purple and almost swollen shut. His nose was swollen, with a long gash running down the bridge. Blood was crusted around his nostrils, over his swollen lips, and down his chin. Both cheekbones were were black and blue. A long dark bruise ran along the left side of his jawline. His chest and arms looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to them.
“Custer,” he half-gasped, only it came out sounding like ‘Cuther’. “Help me, make em stop, please.” His head wobbled from side to side, then dropped down and rested on his bruised chest.
“To your pal,” the driver said, laughing. Then he raised the spoon, inhaled up the opposite nostril, and groaned.
“Bastard thought he was pretty hot shit when he got in touch with us. I don’t know what you were thinking, sending him to us, but you can kind of see how well it worked out,” Reggie chuckled.
“I told you, I didn’t send him. I interviewed him and in short order decided I didn’t want to hire him. What do you think you’re doing here? Does your father even know about this?”
Clint and the driver both shot a look at Reggie at the mention of his father. “What do you know about my old man?” Reggie growled.
“I know he’s a very prudent business man and he wouldn’t stand for this unless there was a very good reason. I’m not sure what you want from me, but I don’t do anything unless your father gives me the go-ahead.”
“Dalton said he spoke to him just the other day.”
“Yeah, he told me the same thing. I must have a hundred calls into Morris, but he hasn’t called me back. I figure he will when he’s ready.”
“Why’d you call him?”
“Are you paying any attention? I’m his attorney for Christ’s sake. I’ve been reviewing his files for months. I’ve come across a few things we need to address, potential liabilities on some properties, nothing earth shattering, but I think he should be protected. Plus, I wanted his advice on a property matter and…Hey, what the hell is going on here? Where is he? Your father?”
Reggie studied him for a long moment before he finally said, “That’s what you’re going to tell us.”
“Me? You got a hearing problem? I just told you I’ve been trying to reach him for weeks. I called, and no one answered. I kept getting dumped into voice mail. Now I call and I get a recording that says his phone is out of service. I just figured he maybe took a vacation or something. He certainly doesn’t have to check in with me.”
“Oh, really? The name Luis Morales mean anything to you?”
“No, should it?” he said and hoped the fear wasn’t apparent in his voice.
“I think you owned a house they were living in. Bastards burned it down if I remember correctly.”
“That was a woman by the same last name, Camilla. She cost me a lot of money. Had the cops checking me out, again. Not the sort of attention I needed. Your father gave me advice on how to deal with the situation. Why won’t you tell me where he is? Is he okay? Is he sick?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“No! Look, I told you, I’m his attorney.”
“Attorney? You can’t practice. You’re disbarred you lying bastard.”
“But no one knows his account better than me. I can tell any idiot how to file something if that’s what’s needed. Look, if he’s sick and it’s serious, cancer or something, I should know so I can start protecting his assets. God, between the feds and the state he’ll owe millions in probate.”
“That why you sent Dalton?”
“I’m going to tell you again. I did not send him. I don’t even know the bastard.”
“That’s not what he said. He was pretty adamant he was working on your behalf. Told us he wanted to help make things right with you and the old man. Said…”
“He was lying. I interviewed him for a position. In short order I determined he wasn’t going to get the job. Come on, I threw him out of my office when he showed up. I don’t know what else I can do to try and convince you he was lying.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I suppose you
won’t mind if we just kill the bastard,” Reggie said and gave a nod to the driver. He walked over to an empty desk pushed into the corner and picked up what looked like a length of pipe. Bobby was immediately reminded of Morris Montcreff sitting in the chair about to plead for his life when Bobby shot him. The driver walked back to Reggie and handed him the pipe.
“That isn’t necessary. Come on, look I think we can work something out here. Get whatever it is you want. Don’t hurt him, let me take him out of here. He won’t say anything and we, you and I, can work something out.”
“Oh, so you mean we can make a deal? You’ll help us out.”
“Yeah, I can help,” Bobby said.
Reggie seemed to think for a moment, then smiled, shook his head and said, “Nah, he’ll talk. He’s a talker, and dumb as a box of rocks.”
“He’s about to be disbarred, then he’s got a court case in just a week or so. They’re gonna lock the bastard up for four or five years. He won’t be a problem.”
“Oh, really? That’s great,” Reggie said. “No worries. Well that is unless he makes some sort of plea bargain and squeals.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t say anything to…”
“You gonna squeal, Bishop?” Reggie said grabbing a fistful of hair and yanking Dalton’s head up.
“…anyone. I can get him to keep quiet. You’ve made your point.”
“Made my point? You got no fucking idea.”
“Think about your father. What would he do? He wouldn’t be…”
“You know, you’re right. What would the old man do, Clint?”
“He wouldn’t be listening to no bullshit,” Clint said, then eyed Bobby and gave a slight nod in his direction.
“Jerry?” Reggie looked at the driver.
Jerry nervously licked his lips, then said, “Way too much bullshit.”
“There you have it, Custer. Seems like everyone ’s in agreement. Humph. Custer? Name seems appropriate, you any relation?”
