Savage Reckoning

by C. Hoyt Caldwell

  The young man laughed.

  “Now, judging by that head of yours, Ima guess your jaw is like china, the wedding dishes not the country. One tap with a fist and you’ll go down like a cut-through oak tree.”

  “That what you think?”

  “It is.”

  The young man moved in front of Kenny. “Fire away, fat man.”

  Kenny smiled and made a show of it. He balled his hand into a tight fist, spit on it, and took a fighter’s stance. “Ima catch you just to the left of your chin. You’re gonna hear a snap and then this awful pain is gonna start in your ears. You’re gonna think your eardrum’s been busted, but it ain’t. That’s just what happens when your jaw breaks. It’s the damnedest thing.” Kenny reared back.

  The young man defiantly jutted his chin out.

  Kenny smiled and kicked the stranger in the groin, sending him tumbling to the floor in the fetal position.

  Dani covered her mouth as she let a laugh slip out.

  A grin spread across Kenny’s face as he watched Dani’s reaction. “He’ll be all right. I only kicked hard enough to teach his firstborn a lesson.”

  A line of young men, matching the bulk of the stranger writhing in pain, moved quickly through the crowd toward their fallen teammate. “Well, shit,” Kenny said. “I didn’t expect they made more his size.”

  “What the fuck?” one of the ball players yelled.

  Another one advanced on Kenny, but was quickly felled when Step moved in and sent a boot to the back of his knee.

  The patrons in the crowded bar formed a circle for the anticipated rumble.

  “I got this, Step,” Kenny said. “I still got time left on my date.”

  “Your timeline’s been pushed up, partner.”

  Randle watched from his vantage point just behind the crowd and shook his head. “Fucking slopers.” He made his way through the crowd with his badge raised above his head. Stepping into the small clearing, he said, “Police.”

  All eyes turned toward him.

  Randle looked toward Dani and winked. “You boys got some beef on you. You play sports?”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the strangers said nervously.

  “College or pros?”

  “College.”

  “Scholarships?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The one on the floor holding his berries is some kind of Sam,” Kenny said.

  Randle rolled his eyes. “I can handle this, friend.”

  Kenny nodded.

  “I think y’all better pick up your boys there and leave here with your scholarships intact. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The gaggle of scholarship football players gathered up their wounded and meekly exited the dance club. The crowd, disappointed that a brawl had been ended before it started, dispersed and went back to drinking and dancing. Randle slowly slinked back to his position in the corner of the club.

  As the murmuring of the other patrons grew louder, Step sat at Dani and Kenny’s table.

  “It ain’t fair, Step,” Kenny said. “I still got some more time.”

  “Sit down, Kenny.”

  Dani peered over in Randle’s direction to see if he was paying attention. Her fellow Baptist Flats police officer smiled and nodded in response.

  “C’mon, Step.”

  “Kenny!”

  The chubby closeout king took his seat at the table.

  Still standing, Dani said, “You boys need to work something out?”

  “It’s worked out,” Step said, kicking out her chair.

  She hesitated and then sat down. “This is quite the treat, being under the attention of two handsome men.”

  “You ain’t gotta go on with the act,” Step said. “You come here to pry into our knowledge of the shooting in your town the other night.”

  She sat stiffly.

  “Them boys that was gunned down, they ain’t worth the time you’re putting into this investigation.”

  “You knew them?” Dani asked.

  “No,” Step answered.

  The deputy studied his face. “Then how do you know they ain’t worth the time?”

  Step leaned forward. “Let’s just say I’m familiar with their type.”

  “What type would that be?”

  “The type that gets killed in front of a shithole bar in a two-bit hick town.”

  Dani narrowed her glare.

  “Don’t go on about her town like that. Step don’t mean no offense,” Kenny said. “We spend more than half our weeks in shithole bars in two-bit hick towns.”

  “The point is,” Step said, “them boys is dead. They most likely deserved it. You need to get off it and get on with that Laura Farrow business.”

  Dani’s heart thumped a little harder. “You got an interest in Laura Farrow?”

  “I got an interest in your interest in Laura Farrow,” Step said.

  Dani didn’t respond. She just shifted her gaze from Step to Kenny and back.

  “We ain’t gotta go there yet, Step. Let’s settle into another round of beers and ease into this missing girls business.” Kenny turned to find the waitress.

  Dani fixated on Step. “You’re the skinny man.”

  “Skinny man?”

  Kenny panicked. “Now hold on. Just because he’s skinny don’t mean he’s fit. I may be cursed with girth, but I am blessed with plenty of other fine qualities—”

  Dani leaned in toward Step and worked hard to control her temper. “There’s another one?”

  Step slowly nodded.

  “You took her?”

  Leaning away, Step said, “No, but I’m gonna find her.”

  “Who is she? What’s her name?”

  “Sarah,” Kenny started, but stopped when he got a hand to the back of his head from Step.

  “We don’t know nothing about your lady friend,” the skinny closeout king said. “Far as I can tell, most cops in these parts ain’t been too keen on the subject of missing girls.”

  “Listen to me,” Dani said, sounding rushed. “We don’t have time to play around. Every hour that passes for this girl puts her farther and farther out of reach, do you hear me?”

  Step pitched a cigarette into his mouth. “You really care about finding this girl?”

  “I do…Of course I do.”

  Two streams of smoke ejected from his nostrils. “Ima put that claim to the test.”

  “I’m not interested in your test. I’m interested in finding this girl.”

  “Those fellas in your town, Kenny shot the one and I run the other one down in my truck.”

  Dani sat silently as her mind unfolded every move she should make to arrest Step and Kenny.

  “Holy shit, Step! What in the name of baby Jesus are you doing?” Kenny stuck up his hands in disgust. “I just can’t figure you out. First you’re afraid Ima spill the beans about what we done, and then you come right out and say it like you was confessing to nothing more than a bad habit.”

  “She said she cares about finding the girl. Now she can prove it.”

  Sternly, Dani asked, “How does your confession play into your little test, Step Crawford?”

  “Kenny and me know who took her. We don’t know why, and we don’t know where, but we know who. You take us in and put us under arrest, the girl stays missing. Simple as that.”

  “You need to let the authorities handle the missing girl.”

  Step laughed. “You ain’t stupid, so quit acting like it. There’s only one authority in these mountains that counts.”

  Remembering her interrogation of Trace Connor, Dani faked a smile and nodded. “I know all about Boss.”

  Step huffed out a cloud of smoke. “You’re one rung below the top. Boss don’t do nothing but push parts into place. You want the Pikes. In particular, you want Harley Pike.”

  Dani hesitated. “I don’t have the authority to cut a deal…”

  “No deals,” Step said. “Me and Kenny will find the girl and take care of the Pi
ke situation. When that’s done, we’ll turn ourselves in.”

  “Hold on,” Kenny said. “I ain’t admitted to nothing. As far as pretty little Dani knows, I cross kids and call out bingo.”

  “Shut up, Kenny! She knows you’re full of shit.”

  Dani looked at the chubby closeout king and nodded. “He’s right.”

  Kenny’s cheeks flushed. “Well, I was just trying to impress you because you’re so darned pretty. I don’t cross kids, and I ain’t never called out bingo. Can’t stand the game to tell you the truth—”

  “That’s the deal,” Step said, cutting his partner off. “You’ll get the lost girl back, and you’ll get to arrest us.”

  Dani considered his offer. “I’ll agree if you tell me why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you set up this date and confess to the shooting? You don’t need me.”

  Step took a deep drag on his cigarette and then let smoke roar out of his tight lips. “Why? Because I was hired to close you and your uncle out. I ain’t got the first clue how you pissed the Pikes off, but they ain’t the kind to close out cops on a whim. I figure we might be able to help each other out.”

  Dani mulled over this new information. “I take it ‘close out’ means…”

  “It means what you think it means.”

  Kenny sipped from Dani’s expensive beer, red-faced. “You should have told me, Step. I didn’t know, Ms. Dani. I swear to the heavens.”

  “He didn’t know,” Step said.

  Dani leaned back and tried to settle her thoughts. “This girl, Sarah, you know she’s alive?”

  “I know Harley and Boss. They don’t do nothing without profit in mind. There’s no profit in taking a girl and killing her.”

  Dani looked toward Randle. He was watching their table with great interest.

  Step turned to his cousin and then back to Dani. “Your partner ain’t what he seems.”

  “He ain’t my partner,” Dani said. “Mostly he’s a useless ass with a badge.”

  “Then I take that back,” Step said with a smile. “He is what he seems. He’s also my cousin.”

  Dani had to work to prevent her mouth from dropping open. She clenched her jaw and shook her head.

  Kenny chuckled. “Boy’s going to be mad you showed him out for what he really is, Step.”

  The skinny closeout king shrugged. “He’ll get over it, but we’ll keep him in the dark for now, because we need him ignorant.” He stared at Dani. “We got a deal?”

  Dani twisted her glass of beer around absentmindedly as she weighed her options. Finally she sighed heavily and said, “We do.”

  “Good,” Step said, almost feeling hopeful. He leaned in. “The one thing we got working in our favor is ol’ Harley is off on one of his trips. That leaves his sister, Bonnie, in charge. It’ll be a good deal easier to get her to move off-script. We just gotta fuck things up for her. You understand? We do that, we’ll find that girl.”

  “Okay,” Dani said, “I’ll bite, but how do we fuck things up for her?”

  “You’re going to make an arrest.” He tamped out his cigarette on the table. “Cousin Terry over there is going to come to me with news of your arrest. I’m gonna pass that news along to Boss, most likely I’ll bring Terry with me to give the news a little extra spice. Boss will go bull-fuck nuts and pass the news up to Bonnie. Kenny and me will follow the shit storm all the way to the girl.” Step stood.

  “And just who am I arresting?” Dani asked.

  “Sarah’s daddy, a dead fella, meat-cutter by the name of Billy Campbell. Kenny will take you to him.” Before walking away, Step tapped his partner on the shoulder. “You’re back on the clock, Kenny. Use the time wisely.”

  Chapter 46

  When Bones didn’t show up at his house, Step tried to drink the worry away, but he couldn’t shake the image of the last time he’d seen her. She’d been beaten near to death, and he was more than sure she got nothing but minimal care from Boss’s doctor at the clinic. Before he took his third sip of whiskey, he was sitting behind the steering wheel of his truck headed to Bones’s house.

  When he couldn’t find her in the run-down shack she called home, he went to the only other place she would go besides his house: The Rat’s Tail. He pushed his way through the pack of salivating crackers to the manager’s office. The fat man behind the desk looked almost pleased to see him.

  “You gotta get your girl outta here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Locked her in the dressing room toilet. She looks like someone kicked her half dead. Can’t have that kind of thing dancing in my club.” The fat man struggled to stand and with great difficulty, he squeezed around the desk and headed for the door. “She looks like she was stitched up by a one-armed blind man.”

  Step followed the fat man to the dressing room. Two chubby dancers with more cellulite than sense stood near the bathroom and assured a weeping Bones on the other side of the door that everything was going to be all right.

  “What the hell you doing?” the fat man shouted. “Get your flabby asses out on the floor and get me some lap dance money, before I cut you loose.”

  Step waited impatiently while the fat man fiddled with his jumble of keys. “Ain’t never seen a bathroom door that locks from the outside.”

  “That’s because you don’t work with a bunch of gals with drinking and drug problems. I put the lock on the other side, and I won’t never get them out of there.” He found the key and put it to use.

  Bones was curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Blood trickled from the haphazard stitching over her left eye. Step knelt next to her and examined her swollen face. Painkillers and an open bottle lay next to her on the grime-covered concrete.

  “I know she’s your girl,” the fat man said, “but she ain’t welcome back here, Step. Not until she can manage herself more professional.”

  Step scooped her up like she was a distraught toddler. “She ain’t coming back.”

  Chapter 47

  Dani pulled her coat in tight as she stood staring at the frozen body of Billy Campbell. Ice crystals had formed on his eyelashes and at the corners of his mouth. The matted hair around the bullet wound on his head was stiff as straw.

  “He done that his own self,” Kenny said, pointing at the extra hole in his head. “On account of he didn’t feel altogether right about selling his daughter to Boss.”

  Dani turned to him.

  “I just didn’t want you to think we done this, me and Step.”

  “Why did I need to see this?” Dani asked.

  Kenny shrugged. “I guess Step is thinking it’d be better if you took the body so’s it won’t be found.”

  She fixed her eyes back on the frozen meat-cutter. “Where am I supposed to keep him?”

  Kenny considered her question. “Someplace cold so he won’t thaw out too much. He’ll kick up a smell if he gets too warm.”

  “I don’t have any place to keep him. I live in a motel.”

  The chubby closeout king mulled over the situation. “S’pose we could cut him up and stick him in the ice machine.”

  Dani turned to him, horrified.

  Kenny grew concerned by her expression. “I ain’t saying I’m set on the idea.” He squatted next to the body. “Too bad you ain’t in the restaurant business.”

  “Why is that?”

  “ ’Cause then you’d have you a walk-in.”

  An image of Rafe and Ruby came to her in an instant. It would be a tough sell, but it was her only option.

  As she bent over in her tight dress to help Kenny lift Billy, she hated herself for completely abandoning her law enforcement responsibilities. She shouldn’t be helping a killer remove a dead body from a freezer in order to scam an organized crime syndicate in the mountains. She should be slapping handcuffs on Kenny and calling in backup. She should be doing things by the book.

  “You’re strong for a little gal,” Kenny said as they carried the body out of the f
reezer.

  “I’m a lot of things for a little gal.”

  “That’s a fact. How’d you like our date, anyway?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Our date?”

  “I mean, I ain’t in line for a kiss or nothing, I know that much, but if I called on you again, you reckon you’d be up for another get-together? We didn’t even get to do no dancing.”

  They maneuvered the stiff body through a doorway.

  “Got a lead on some pills that can help things.”

  Her cocked eyebrow arched higher. “Dancing pills?”

  He chuckled. “Not upright dancing, no.”

  She chuckled back. “You talking about ED pills?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No, ma’am, I’m talking about pecker pills.”

  She stopped suddenly. “Kenny Fable, are you that dented in the head?”

  “Wha’cha mean?”

  “You don’t come out with a proposition like that, not on a regular date and certainly not on a date that ends up with the illegal transportation of a dead body.”

  “I’m just saying I can make it interesting. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  She shook her head, and they continued through the hallway to the back door. “A woman likes to be cared about before she hops into bed with a man.”

  “Don’t know a better way to show a woman how much I care about her than putting it to her as good as I can. Them pills will make me care a whole lot more.”

  “Putting it to a woman shows more about how much you care about your pecker than it does the woman.”

  He considered her point. “I s’pose there’s something to that, but I can’t see that it don’t show my fondness for both.”

  They made it to her car and laid the body on the ground. Stretching her back, Dani said, “You want to know how to bed a woman, Kenny?”

  “I wouldn’t be opposed to knowing,” he said as he removed his hat and examined the bill.

  “Show her you’re interested in her happiness.”

  “I aim to make her happy with the sex stuff.”

  She waved him off and opened the trunk of her car. “You aim to uncork your bottle is all you aim to do. Do stuff for her. Clean her car, pick up her dry cleaning, fix her broken washing machine. Do something for her without expecting anything in return. When she sees you’re a man more concerned about making her life better than you are about sticking your dick in her, she’ll rock your world.”