Outside the Law

by Phillip Thompson

  He felt John come up behind him. “It’s Rick Munny,” he said over his shoulder.

  “One of the dealers who got ripped off recently? You know him?” John said.

  He stood, hands on hips. “Yep. Well, I don’t know him personally, but I did talk to him the other day, after I read through the Pritchard file. Pritchard named him—and that sorry-ass snitch Burton—in his statement. I pressed him at his apartment, and he told me he knew Pritchard got robbed, but not much else.”

  John looked at the body. “Well, he ain’t going to say shit now. Shot his eyes out. Interesting. Think it’s the same guy who did Pritchard?”

  He surveyed the gloom of the trees, which blocked out nearly all sunlight and cast the area in a weird greenish-yellow tint. “Hard to tell. Two shots like before, medium caliber. Doesn’t look like any exit wounds, but I ain’t touching him before the coroner gets here.” He pointed. “Near water—that’s McCrary Creek through there, runs into the Lux closer to town. You notice the tire tracks?”

  John nodded. “Two vehicles, looks like.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” he said.

  He started walking back toward the deputy, and John fell into step beside him.

  “These two guys just happened across him, which I think is bullshit,” John said.

  “Why?”

  “That little road there is damn near impossible to see if you’re driving.”

  He stopped in the gravel. “They’re probably out here shooting squirrels. And probably are worried about not having hunting licenses. But press them anyway. I’m going to visit Burton again and make sure he’s not holding out on me. And make sure I get Freddie Mac’s report the minute it’s complete. I want to know if Munny’s car keys are on him.”

  John nodded. “You got it, boss.

  MOLLY

  She made her way down the corridor as quickly as she could after a lunchtime workout in the gym on the third floor. She preferred to work out in the morning, before the small weight room filled up with testosterone. The early morning gave her plenty of time to get a decent circuit with the weights and a good workout on the bike and still have time to shower, dress and be at her desk before most of the other agents came in.

  But she was having a day. Thanks to the ankle-biting yap dog in the apartment across the hall, she’d barely slept. Ergo—she said the word always with sarcasm—she didn’t hear the alarm. Already late, the car in front of her at the gas pump was apparently being driven by the world’s stupidest human. At the gym, she realized she had forgotten to throw clean socks in her bag. And, twenty minutes ago, she’d stepped out of the shower to discover a broken hair dryer.

  So she scowled and marched to her desk with wet hair, her shoulders hunched, silently daring one of the men to say something—anything—so she could shoot him.

  She flung her gear under her desk, powered up her computer, and willed the coffee machine to make her cup as fast as mechanically possible.

  Halfway through her first of several cups, she came across an item in the morning mail that made her forget her bad luck so far. A suspected drug dealer, Richard R. Munny, had been found in some woods in east Mississippi with his eyes shot out. She pulled up Google Maps and confirmed her thought—second dead drug dealer in as many weeks in that general area. The report stated that Munny had been shot with what appeared to be pelletized shot from a handgun. Close range, no sign of struggle. Tire tracks indicated two vehicles at the scene. She pushed her cup to the side of the desk, adrenaline momentarily replacing caffeine.

  Snake shot again. Is somebody sending a message?

  Intrigue gripped her, but concern, too. She had thought little of the first case, the guy fished out of a creek. But this one got her attention. She read the report again. Munny’s vehicle was found at his apartment in its assigned parking place. She drummed her fingers on the desk.

  Why two vehicles at the scene? Two hitters? No, that doesn’t make sense. Did Munny drive to the meet? Then how did his truck get back to his apartment?

  She moved her mug to one side and fished through the stack of file folders she kept on the left corner of her desk. Each one was labeled in green ink according to subject on the tab. She found the one labeled “Snake Shot Killer” and pulled it out.

  She licked her thumb and opened the folder, setting aside the area maps she’d printed a few days earlier. Printouts of newspaper articles went in another stack until she found the single piece of paper with dates down the left-hand side. She made a note to check with the DEA liaison agent—she rolled her eyes at that fictitious title—when he came in.

  HACK

  He chose one of his blue suits. Not that the color—or even the fact that it was a suit—mattered in these parts, he mused as he finished the Windsor knot at his throat. But a profession, regardless of the legality or morality of that profession, required a certain code. Even if these rednecks didn’t appreciate it. He smiled at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He knew he had to include himself in the similar category of “hillbilly.” But he also chose to consider himself enlightened. Transformed.

  The cities he hated had played a large part in his transformation. In the cities, you could either disappear or become a beacon—or both. He discovered this curious duality in Cincinnati the hard way—two years in an Ohio penitentiary hard—and honed it in Lexington and Nashville until it became a part of his methodology: first a beacon, then a ghost. He practiced it like a musician until he mastered it, knew every note and chord, every tempo and key change as if he had been born with it. His performances had been flawless, with the single exception of Knoxville. He frowned at the mirror. A single exception, a misjudgment of the girl’s resiliency. A matter, he reminded himself, that could—should—have vanished like wood smoke on an evening breeze were it not for the incompetence of the men assigned to him. Men he had not requested or selected.

  He put the thought aside. He would not make that mistake again. Since that incident, he had been even more meticulous about selection. And more wary.

  Today, he would be a beacon. He took his jacket from the closet and inspected it.

  He had one man, Dee, working for him, a man he had selected himself after careful due diligence. Dee was greedy and not very bright, but he was steady.

  His phone pinged from the bed. He stared at the glowing screen, bemused by the unexpected noise. The caller ID read “Brinks.”

  “Yes, Mr. Brinks,” he said as he punched the button. He listened as Brad Brinks told him of his wife’s arrest, his admonitions to her to keep her big mouth shut, and his assurance that Cheryl had said nothing to Sheriff Harper.

  “And I suppose I am to simply take you at your word on this?” he said when Brinks finished speaking.

  Silence. Then, “Mr. Hack, I swear ’fore God, she didn’t say a goddamn thing. I’d’a knowed it if she did.”

  “Well, if she did, I will soon know,” he said. “And our next conversation will most assuredly not be as pleasant as this one.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand. Uh…”

  “Yes?”

  “You got all the information you need from us?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “I ’pologize,” Brinks said.

  “You thought that if I had, you and the missus would be off the hook, is that it?”

  Brinks sighed. Hack could imagine the cringing man at the other end. “Something like that. I mean, we done what you asked and found out where he lives and who he associates with and all that.”

  He pulled his jacket on, let Brinks sweat for another moment. “Mr. Brinks,” he said as he stepped toward the door, “I’m done with you and your drunken wife when I say I’m done. Is that clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “In the meantime, you will be at my disposal and do exactly what I say, or you and your wife will disappear from the face of the earth as if you never existed.”

  “Yessir.”

  He punched off the call.

 
; Twenty minutes later, he slid into the booth Dee had chosen at the highway café not far from Aberdeen, a tiny town about a half hour north of Lowndes County, near the Tombigbee River. He fought to contain a grimace as his trousers slid across the cheap vinyl bench seat. Dee sipped coffee from a mug and wore a mask of nonchalance. The menu sat unopened on the table between them. Before he could speak, a skinny waitress appeared with a pot and another mug. He nodded, and she filled the mug, topped off Dee’s and said she’d be back when they’d had a minute to look at the menu. He nodded again. She spun, her sneakers squeaking on the vinyl floor, and retreated to the kitchen.

  Dee surveyed him from across the top of his mug. “Nice suit,” he said.

  He stared back at Dee: jeans, black hoodie, diamond earring in his left ear. He never understood the compulsion for black males to dress so stereotypically. But he never offered sartorial advice. He preferred to simply be an example, a beacon.

  “What do you have on our sheriff?” he said to Dee.

  Dee shrugged. “Lives out near the state line. Divorced. No girlfriend, but he was banging some stripper for a while. She took off about a year ago. He sounds like one mean cat. Shoots people ’bout like you do. One guy in a bar last year, another guy in a parking lot before that. Plus a murder suspect.”

  “The parking lot—that was Kenny Jenkins, one of Brooks’s employees,” he said.

  “You say so. Dude in the bar was some local psycho redneck badass ’round town. Guy name O. W. Banks. He shot the murder suspect in both legs in the dude’s apartment after his deputy—longtime buddy of his—took a bullet to the side of the head.”

  “Longtime buddy, you say.”

  Dee sipped his coffee. “Yeah, apparently they was in the Marine Corps or some shit together. Couple badass loyal dudes, you know? The deputy just showed up one day after Harper got elected. Big sumbitch from Chicago. Seems like they hardly go anywhere without covering each other’s backs.”

  He nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, his father shot himself,” Dee said.

  “I knew about that,” he said.

  Dee’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Brad Brinks and I had a conversation,” he said. “A few days back. Never hurts to corroborate information.”

  Dee shrugged. “Apparently, the old man was an asshole anyway, but the story was he killed a man—a black man—long time ago and never did time for it. Some reporter got ahold of the story and ran it in the paper, so your sheriff was about to arrest his father for murder. Till the old man blew his own head off.”

  He couldn’t help but shake his head. “Go on,” he said as he signaled the waitress for a refill on his coffee.

  “He also had a big case ’round about this time. Some kid got killed in what turned out to be a deal gone bad. Kid was the son of a friend of his, which I thought was unusual.”

  The waitress came and went. “How so?” he said when she was out of earshot.

  “The kid—Clifford Raines—was black. As was the kid’s momma. But apparently his momma and this Harper dude go way back. High school. Good friends. Rumor is maybe more than friends.”

  “Interesting. Do you have a name?”

  Dee nodded. “Rhonda Raines. Has a job at the courthouse.”

  He filed away all this information, especially the item regarding the Raines woman. “Have you made contact with our person in the area?”

  Dee nodded, opened the menu. “Yeah, told him what was up. He’d already heard most of it.” Dee glanced at him, then back down at the menu. “The part about Pritchard and Munny getting shot.”

  This pleased him. His role of ghost assassin continued to make its presence felt. The waitress returned as a smile crept across his face; she mistook its source. He and Dee ordered in single syllables and were again left to themselves.

  “He said people are getting pissed off and a little shaky,” Dee said. “First, somebody’s ripping off the dealers, then the dealers are getting shot. Everybody knows Munny got his eyeballs shot out. They think that’s pretty fucked up. They the ones getting ripped off, then they get shot. They know it’s some kind of punishment. But they don’t know shit else. Don’t know who’s ripping them off and no idea who’s running around shooting motherfuckers in the eyes.”

  The waitress returned with their plates. Dee dove into scrambled eggs and toast. He pushed his own plate aside and hooked a finger through his mug. “He say anything else?”

  Dee mumbled a “yeah” and nodded. “Him and another dude meeting for a sale down near Columbus in a couple of nights.”

  “Good,” he said. “Make arrangements to accompany them. He tried the coffee, set the mug back down.

  Dee stopped chewing and stared. “What’s up with that?” he asked.

  “Here’s what it is, Dee,” he said. “You’re going to tell this guy that we are going to be taking a much higher level of interest in the operation in east Mississippi. You’re also going to find us a base—a quiet, run-of-the-mill house that we can operate out of. And you’re going to watch these redneck dealers and see what is going on out there that gets them robbed. And you’re not going to ask me a lot of questions.”

  Dee drained his coffee and nodded. “I’ll get on it.”

  COLT

  One thing about Freddie Mac Baldwin—he was efficient. Munny hadn’t been dead a day and a half, and only discovered sixteen hours ago, and he was reading the coroner’s report.

  He skimmed the part about cause of death—it was pretty obvious to him what brought about Rick Munny’s demise—and noted the body had been lying in the woods less than a day, time of death about twenty-four hours prior to discovery. That put Munny shot where he was found day before yesterday.

  The personal effects sheet had what he was looking for: the list of personal effects did not list car keys. In fact, there was no listing of any kind of keys. ID, wallet, cigarette lighter, small tactical knife, loose change.

  “John,” he called from his desk.

  When John stuck his head in the door, he picked up the report. “You got the Pritchard report handy?”

  John nodded, disappeared, and returned in less than a minute with the manila folder.

  He took the folder and flipped through the pages. “Pritchard’s personal effects don’t include keys, either,” he said.

  John shrugged.

  He shook his head. “Two sets of tracks at the Munny scene. Why?”

  John pulled a chair to the desk and sat. “I see,” he said. “One would presume Munny would have gotten there under his own power.”

  “Right. And if he didn’t, why were there two vehicles there? Do me a favor. Check his DMV record, check his vehicle, then his residence.”

  “You think somebody drove his car away from the scene?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Possible. But it would mean more than one person involved.” He had an idea. “See if you can do the same with Pritchard.”

  John rose, and he handed him the reports. “I’m going to see Burton and see what he knows. Call me when you get something.”

  “Will do,” John said. He lingered over the desk.

  “You got something else?”

  John looked nervous as a cat. “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “You and Rhonda. Were y’all ever a, you know, thing?”

  He jerked his head up. “A thing?”

  John put his hands up. “Hey, man, I don’t mean nothing. We been square on this ever since me and Rhonda started dating. But it’s just, you know, y’all obviously been friends forever, and I know y’all are close.”

  He glared at John. “No,” he said slowly. “We were not a thing. You’re right, we’re close. Always have been. So don’t make me come after you, ahite?” He grinned, hoping it would change the subject.

  John stepped back. Finally, a smile crept across his face. “Yeah, man, I hear you. OK.” He turned and left the office.

  He pulled out his cell and texted B
urton, checked his watch, and then headed out to his car.

  Fifteen minutes later, he killed the engine and cut off his headlights in a Mexican restaurant parking lot just off Highway 45, near the back entrance, then texted Burton, who was inside, if the presence of his car in the lot was any indication.

  Burton rounded the darkened corner of the building about two minutes later, green neon light reflecting off his John Lennon glasses, making him look like some kind of hippie alien.

  He slid out of the car and quick-stepped to catch Burton near the side of the building, up against the white-painted brick wall. Burton jumped, not expecting the onrush, as he grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him against the wall.

  “Shit, Sheriff, what’s going on?” Burton asked, eyes wide behind the lenses.

  “I ask the questions in this relationship, Jimbo, and you provide the answers,” he said, his face inches from Burton’s. “That’s what an informant does. He informs. You, on the other hand, ain’t told me shit.”

  Burton tried to wriggle free, so he shoved the hippie alien harder, pinning him to the wall.

  “The fuck, Harper?”

  “I asked you if you knew anything dealers getting ripped off, and you told me a lie.”

  “I did not.”

  “Oh, so it’s just a coincidence that your name is in a report with two other dope dealers, both of whom are now dead.”

  Burton froze, terrified. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. What the hell you talking about?”

  “I pulled Robert Pritchard out of the Lux a few days ago. Turns out he had a record. And his list of known associates includes your sorry ass and another dealer named Rick Munny.”