Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1

by Larry A Winters

  “There’s a gym in South Philly,” she said, surprising him. “He’s known to conduct business out of a backroom.”

  “You know the name of the gym?”

  “Sure. Carlo’s a narcissistic fuck-tard. He named the place Vital Fitness.”

  “Do you know the address?”

  “I do,” she said. “And I’m going to give it to you. But you’re going to owe me a favor. Don’t forget that.”

  Leary tried not to think about the favor he owed Lorena Torres—or about her breathy voice in his ear—as he drove to South Philly. Normally he wouldn’t visit the area without a quick stop at Jim’s for a cheesesteak, and glancing at the clock on the dash, he saw that it was lunchtime. But he had no appetite today. He fought traffic on South Street, watching the mix of people exploring its boutique shops, bars, clubs, and restaurants, as tension built up in his chest. Finally, traffic let up and he turned off the busy street to head for Carlo Vitale’s gym.

  Vital Fitness was located in the heart of South Philly’s Italian neighborhood. Cruising past the place, he drew hard glares from two heavily muscled men standing outside. He had no doubt that they recognized his unmarked sedan for the police car that it was, and decided there was no point in being subtle. He found street parking and walked back to the gym with his badge in his hand.

  “Help you?” one of the men said. His neck was distractingly thick, laced with veins so fat they looked ready to burst. His friend had a slightly more humanoid appearance, but not by much. The building behind them was old but solid-looking, built of faded brick. Blocky letters fastened to the edifice spelled Vital Fitness, and below that, in smaller lettering, Your Neighborhood Gym. Leary looked past the two men to the glass doors leading into the building.

  “I’m here to talk to Carlo.”

  “Who’s that?” the thick-necked man said without missing a beat.

  “Your boss, I assume.”

  “My boss is Mack Biondi. He owns the gym. You interested in a membership?”

  “He could use one,” the other guy said. His gaze crawled over Leary’s body with evident distaste. “What’s up, Skinny? Don’t cops lift?”

  Since becoming an officer of the law, Leary had been called plenty of nasty epithets, but Skinny was a new one. Hell, as far as he was concerned, it was a compliment. “Usually we’re busy doing less important stuff like helping people and saving lives. My name is Leary, by the way.”

  “What do you think we do in there?” the man said, jerking his thumb at the building behind him. “We’re saving people every day, from themselves.”

  “Unhealthy lifestyles,” Thick-neck said.

  Leary almost asked the man how rampant steroid abuse fit into a healthy lifestyle, but what was the point? “Tell you what. Take me back to see Carlo, and I’ll sign up for a trial membership. You can be my personal trainer, get me into shape.”

  Neither man looked amused. “I told you,” Thick-neck said, “I don’t know anyone named Carlo Vitale.”

  Leary nodded. “That’s interesting, since I never said his last name.”

  “You fucking tool,” the second man said to the first. “Fucking rookie mistake right there.”

  “Fuck you,” Thick-neck said.

  Leary tried to step between them and reach the door, but he was blocked by meaty shoulders. “Move out of my way,” Leary said.

  “Or what?” the second man said. “You gonna arrest us?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. You want to be charged with obstructing justice?”

  Thick-neck’s eyes squinted as he processed the threat. His friend cracked his knuckles. The men exchanged a look. Leary could sense they were about to let him through, when the door behind them opened and someone new stepped out. The man was tall and rangy, with wavy gray hair and a porn-star mustache. He wore a track jacket zipped up to his chin, the Vital Fitness logo embroidered over his heart.

  “What’s going on here?” the man said. “No loitering. This is a place of business.”

  Leary was still holding his badge. He raised his hand so it caught the sunlight. “My name is Detective Mark Leary. I’m here to see Carlo Vitale.”

  “I own this gym, not Carlo. Talk to me.”

  “I told him that, boss,” Thick-neck said.

  The man—Mack Biondi, Leary assumed—did not even acknowledge his flunky. “Let’s go inside and talk in my office. I don’t like cops on my street. Bad for business.”

  “You want us to come with?” Thick-neck said.

  Once again, Biondi disregarded the man as if he hadn’t heard him. He opened the door and gestured for Leary to enter. Leary looked at the two meatheads and shrugged, then followed Biondi inside.

  Vital Fitness was old-school, a classic, bare-bones gym. Biondi led him past racks of free weights, a few resistance machines, even fewer cardio machines, and six or seven men of similar build as the guys they’d left outside. Not a woman in sight. The springy mats under his shoes took his mind back to high school, as did the odors of sweat and rubber. But his reflection in the mirror-covered walls was not that of a teenager. It was a man who trailed Biondi through the room, and one who wasn’t getting any younger. He tried not to think about that as he pursued Biondi through a door, down a dank hallway lined with lockers, and finally through another door marked Office.

  The office was larger than Leary expected. In addition to a desk, computer, and file cabinet, there was a couch, a few extra chairs, a widescreen TV, and a mini-fridge. Biondi opened the mini-fridge and pulled out a Red Bull. He didn’t offer Leary one. He dropped into the chair behind his desk, popped the tab on the can, and took a sip. Droplets fizzed in his mustache. “What do you want, Detective?”

  There was no uncertainty in the man’s pale brown eyes, much less any fear. Leary had a feeling he’d find a lengthy resume if he ran Biondi’s rap sheet, and probably a few prison tats if he removed the track jacket.

  “Let me guess,” Leary said, sitting down in the chair across the desk from Biondi. “This place wasn’t always called Vital Fitness.”

  Biondi made a face, as if Leary were wasting his time and he didn’t appreciate it. But he said, “Used to be called Philly Iron.”

  “But the owner of Philly Iron got himself into some trouble, right? Had to turn to some unorthodox loans to keep the place afloat?”

  Biondi shrugged. “Running a small business is hard. Especially a gym. Lots of competition, big chains, you know.” He looked about as sympathetic as he sounded.

  “And of course,” Leary said, “he couldn’t keep up with his payments on those loans, and eventually, ownership of Philly Iron changed hands.”

  “I bought the place. Fair and square. Arms-length transaction.”

  “Uh-huh. And you changed the name to Vital Fitness because...?”

  “I thought it had a nice ring to it.” Biondi leaned forward over his desk. His face seemed to harden. “I’m a busy man, Detective, so I will ask you again. What do you want?”

  “And I already told you. I want to talk to Carlo.”

  “Carlo’s not available.”

  “He needs to make himself available.”

  Biondi took another swig of Red Bull. “You want to tell me why?”

  “Not really.” Leary pulled out a business card and held it out to Biondi. When the man made no move to take it, Leary placed it on the desk surface in front of him and tapped it with a finger. “Carlo can meet with me voluntarily, on his own terms, or I can get a warrant and have him brought into the Roundhouse in handcuffs. Up to him.”

  The reference to police headquarters had the desired effect. Biondi drained his Red Bull and tossed it across the room, where it bounced off the rim of a small trashcan in the corner. “I’ll give him the message.”

  Leary rose from his chair. “I appreciate your cooperation.”

  21

  In the courthouse restroom, Nash’s body crushed Jessie against the edge of the counter as he struggled to undress her one-handed. She had both hands free, and
reaching down, she grabbed at her clothing and did what she could to slow his progress. He pressed the gun more firmly against the back of her head. A warning. Cold air swept the backs of her thighs as he forced her nylons down. She gripped her underwear, reaching blindly with her face in the bowl of the sink, and tried to hold her underwear up. Nash swatted her hands away.

  She knew, with calm certainty, that she was seconds away from being raped.

  “Don’t stop fighting, baby.” His lips brushed her ear as he spoke. “I like it this way.”

  She grabbed for her underwear again, but this time her flailing hands brushed his erection. She heard Nash’s sudden intake of breath. Repulsed, every instinct in her screamed to yank her hands away. But a cold voice in her mind whispered a different idea. She scooped his testicles into her hand and squeezed as hard as she could. The sensation of his soft balls crushing between her fingers sickened her, but she didn’t let go. She squeezed harder.

  Nash howled. He staggered backward and the gun came away from her head. She let go of his balls and took two half-steps toward Rais’s body, thinking of the gun in the dead deputy’s hand. But the nylons and underwear around her knees tripped her. From the corner of her eye, she saw Nash’s furious scowl. She dropped to the floor and rolled to Rais, ripping his gun from his hands. On her back, she aimed the gun at Nash.

  It was a 9mm semi-automatic, similar to the one she kept in a closet in her apartment. Aiming down its sights wasn’t exactly second nature, but it wasn’t alien, either. And Nash wasn’t very far away. She pulled the trigger just as Nash aimed his own gun at her. Blood bloomed across his chest. Her finger spasmed, pulling the trigger again and again. The bathroom filled with noise and smoke. She dropped the weapon and lay on the floor next to Rais’s body, momentarily deafened and blinded by the ringing in her ears and the tears in her eyes.

  A voice in her head, her own voice, said, Get up. You’re not out of danger yet. There are other men. Worse men.

  She managed to rise on trembling legs, pull up her nylons and pull down her skirt. She fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. In the mirror over the counter, she looked like a stranger—makeup a mess, hair in disarray, eyes splotchy. She looked away, but what she saw on the floor was worse. Nash’s eyes stared up at her, as dead as all of the other corpses she’d seen today. Only his corpse was different, because she had killed him.

  The smell in the room was horrible, a mash-up of vomit and blood and gunpowder. And shit—Nash must have defecated as he died. She started toward the door, eager to get away from this carnage, into the hallway and back to the relative safety of the courtroom.

  First she found her bag, which had fallen to the floor near the sinks during the chaos. She picked up Rais’s gun from where she’d dropped it on the floor. She took Nash’s gun, too, ripping it from his stiffening fingers. She put Nash’s gun in her bag but kept Rais’s in her hand, ready to fire.

  Then she grabbed the counter and threw up into the leftmost sink.

  Staggering into the courtroom, she became a target again as the deputies turned their guns on her. As soon as they realized it was her, they lowered their weapons, and Kenny Rodriguez rushed forward. He held her as if she were about to fall down, and maybe she was. Her brain seemed fuzzy, and she wondered if she was in shock. He tried to take the gun from her hand. She let him, but only because she knew she had another in her bag.

  “Jesus,” Rodriguez said, “the barrel’s hot. What happened? Where’s Rais? Did you find Tuck?”

  Jessie shook her head, trying to clear the fog in her mind. “Rais and I were attacked. In the men’s room. It was Tyrone Nash. Rais is dead. Nash, too.” Rodriguez looked confused, so she said, “He tried to rape me and I shot him with Rais’s gun.”

  “We didn’t hear anything in here.” He looked suddenly embarrassed, then added, “Not just because of my ear. No one heard anything.”

  “I know.” She tried to sound reassuring. That no one had heard the sounds of the fight didn’t surprise her, and shouldn’t have surprised Rodriguez, either. Soundproofing technology had been implemented in the construction of the courthouse to minimize disruptions and distractions during trials. “Help me find Reggie.”

  “After what you’ve been through? Let’s just wait it out. Help is on the way.”

  “It won’t be here soon enough. Not for Reggie.”

  “Reggie’s a fucking convict, Jessie. Fuck him. Erlinger is dead. Rais is dead. Fucking Reggie’s gonna have to look after himself, because we’ve already lost enough.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. You’re a deputy sheriff. It’s your job to protect the people in this courthouse, including convicts. I’m the prosecutor who put Reggie on my witness list and had him transported here today, so he’s my responsibility, too. We need to find him.”

  Rodriguez’s gaze dropped, and he spoke so softly she could barely hear him. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  22

  Kurt Garrett sat alone behind the witness stand in an empty courtroom on the sixth floor, surfing the Web on his iPhone. He had stopped patrolling the empty corridors when it became obvious he was the only one here. Now he swiped his finger at the screen, impatiently scrolling past repetitive hyperbole. What the press had dubbed the Crisis at the Criminal Justice Center sounded a hell of a lot more exciting on the screen of his phone than it felt in real life.

  On the seventh floor, directly above his head, people were fighting for their lives. But he couldn’t hear a sound, and the bulletproof JusticeGuard monstrosities in the stairwell meant he couldn’t get close. Down here on six, he might as well be in a whole different building. But he knew he could still be a useful asset to Security, and after his quick thinking with the elevators had saved God knew how many lives, they knew it too.

  So he wasn’t surprised when his phone vibrated and the website he’d been skimming vanished from the screen, replaced by an incoming call from his fellow deputy sheriffs. Garrett tapped the screen and brought the phone to his ear. “Garrett.”

  “Hey, man. It’s Sean. I’m down here in the sub-basement, watching the holding cells.”

  Garrett rose from the witness chair and began to pace the empty courtroom. “You hear any news?”

  “Just that the captain’s too paralyzed to make a decision, and the cops outside aren’t doing dick squat either.”

  Garrett walked into the hallway, then down the hall to a window that afforded a view of the police presence below. He understood their hesitation to take action. “There are killers on seven with guns—one of them already tried to kill people and came close to succeeding. If the cops make a direct assault, those men are liable to start killing civilians. It could be a bloodbath up there.”

  “Yeah, but just sitting here like this? Doing nothing? It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Sit tight, Sean. I’m sure there are people much smarter than us who are thinking very hard about the best way to handle this situation.” Garrett doubted this was the case, but he sensed that it was a sentiment Sean wanted to hear and believe. The truth was, Garrett didn’t think there were many people in the Sheriff’s Office or the Police Department—or anywhere else, for that matter—that were smarter than him. Equally smart? Sure. But smarter? That was just a line of bullshit that people in positions of power told people over whom they wanted to maintain control. Leave it all to me, kid. I’m smarter than you. Garrett wasn’t fooled. Maybe he was arrogant, and had too high an opinion of himself—he was sure there were people who would tell him that—but Garrett didn’t believe he was the intellectual inferior of any person, no matter what his or her title might imply.

  “I guess you’re right,” Sean said. “All the manpower on this thing, they must know what they’re doing.” Garrett heard the sound of a commotion in the background on Sean’s end of the line, and the man said, “Hold on a sec, Kurt.”

  “What’s going on?” Garrett came away from the window.

&
nbsp; “Someone got attacked on seven. A lawyer. Listen, I gotta go.”

  “Wait—”

  The call disconnected. Garrett looked at the screen of his phone, which had returned to the news article he had been looking at when Sean called. Shit. An attack? Now? Sitting here in the peace and quiet of the sixth floor, he hadn’t expected that. He paced restlessly, waiting for Sean to call him back. He needed to know what was going on.

  He needed to get involved.

  23

  Back in his car, pulling away from the curb and leaving Vital Fitness behind, Leary felt his cell phone vibrate. He saw Chancey’s name on the screen and answered. “Lieutenant?”

  “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but it doesn’t seem right to keep it from you while you’re out there working this case,” Chancey said.

  Leary wove through traffic, one hand on the wheel and the other holding the phone to his face. “Tell me what, sir?”

  “Look, I’ve read your file. I know this case is personal for you, that you have a relationship with Jessica Black that is more than simply professional.”

  Leary felt his jaw tighten. It seemed Jacoby had been right. No matter how hard he worked, no matter whom he struggled to impress, his relationship with Jessie—if you could even call it that—was a red flag on his record that would impact his whole career if he didn’t do something to undo the damage. “That’s in the past, Lieutenant. Our relationship now is strictly professional. You can ask her—”

  “Mark,” Chancey cut him off. “Just listen to me for a minute.”

  Chancey’s use of his first name was somehow more frightening than his implication that Leary had crossed a line with Jessie. In his experience, men like Chancey only used first names as infrequently as possible. If his jaw had tightened before, it now threatened to crack his teeth. “Is she alive?” He barely managed to get the words out.