The Avenged

by Charles Prandy

  “I know he would. I’ve seen people who tried to cross him get killed. Seen it with my own eyes.”

  “Like RoRo?” Turtle asked.

  Tim shook his head.

  I thought about Melvin Johnson, the kid who had been shot and killed near his house and who had access to a storage facility in Maryland where Charlie and I had found crates full of weapons. Could he have been working for the judge, too?

  “What about Melvin Johnson, better known in the streets as Gimmick?”

  “Yeah,” Tim responded, “Nathan paid a visit to him. And when Nathan pays you a visit, usually you don’t live to tell about it.”

  “Goddamn him,” I said under my breath. “So where is he now? How do we find the judge?”

  “He went north to Rhode Island. He has a house on the beach. He said he’d contact me soon but didn’t say when.”

  “Rhode Island?” I said.

  “Smart move. Who would look for him in Rhode Island?” Angela asked.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Tim asked.

  I nodded to Turtle and Turtle tossed me a small tape recorder. I waved the recorder in Tim’s face.

  “We have your statement on tape. You’re going to stay here with Turtle until this gets figured out and then I’m guessing the Feds will want to have a word with you.”

  “You mean you’re not going to kill me?”

  “No. Unfortunately, I still need you to help clear my name.”

  One hundred four

  THINGS HAD BEEN MOVING fast for the former Judge Frank Peters, but it was nothing that he couldn’t handle. His old life was now a thing of the past. Twenty-plus years on the bench and ten before that as an attorney seemed like a distant memory. He had hated being a judge, but the perks of the position had outweighed his misery, and it allowed him to run his business with the authority he wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t been a judge.

  No more 9 a.m. calls for all to rise whenever he entered his courtroom. No more having to read tedious legal briefs that he couldn’t care less about, and no more sitting in boredom, listening to arrogant attorneys arguing points of law. The old ways were a thing of the past. Now it was time for him to live his new life.

  A cool breeze from the Atlantic Ocean blew by his face as he stood at the edge of his deck, staring at the lowering sun getting ready to touch the horizon of the massive sea in Barrington, Rhode Island. Normally in November, temperatures would already be in the thirties, but a recent warm front had caused the surrounding area to almost feel spring-like, with temperatures hovering close to sixty. The once-clear sky was beginning to fill with grey rain clouds. Behind him was his beautiful four bedroom Colonial beach house which, like many things he owned, wasn’t in his name and couldn’t be traced back to him. He took a sip of Scotch and then puffed on a Cuban cigar. Life couldn’t be any more perfect.

  It’d been two days since he found out that detective Jacob Hayden was still alive. He had to admit that even he was a little shocked by the news and couldn’t believe the detective’s resilience. If the detective wasn’t such a square, Frank would have offered him a job. He was the kind of man that Frank needed; someone focused and persistent, not like the losers currently working for him. If he wasn’t so emotionally invested in Nathan and Polenski, he would have shot them himself when he found out that the detective was still alive, contrasting his point that business and relationships don’t mix.

  He’d known the two of them since they were teenagers. He had guided Polenski’s career in the police department and taken Nathan under his wing as his right-hand man. He trusted them more than he trusted anyone else, but he was starting to think that maybe they were becoming more of a liability than an asset.

  He puffed on the cigar again.

  So many things were going through his head, so many decisions that he’d need to make in the coming weeks, beginning with Carmen.

  What to do with her? Could he trust her? Maybe she can be trusted, maybe she can’t. He never would have guessed in a million years that she was a pawn in a plot to assassinate him. Now at least he knows why Faraji and Stephen were killed. He would have been next if it weren’t for Carmen. She threw everything away for him. That must count for something? Maybe she could be trusted. He hoped so. He’d fallen in love with her after the first few weeks they’d been together. No woman had ever had an effect on him like she did.

  What really scared him was that he had nearly let himself fall into a trap. He should have seen it coming, but didn’t. He was a man who prided himself on seeing things from all angles, but he had missed this one, and it almost cost him his life. If he had a four-leaf clover, he’d pick off the petals and recite the rhyme, “she loves me, she loves me not,” and whichever was the last petal he believed would be the truth. But he didn’t have a four-leaf clover.

  Maybe he could do what Two Face does in the Batman stories and let a coin decide her fate. Heads, she lives, or tails, she dies. Could it really be that simple? In his sixty years of life, he had never felt more betrayed and loved at the same time. Maybe she really does love me? She could have easily not said anything and let the plan play itself out. But she didn’t. She gave up her past life for me. She does love me.

  He turned around and looked as she sat in a recliner chair, wearing blue jeans and a brown sweater, reading a book. She noticed that he had turned around, so she smiled at him. Frank smiled back. The breeze from the beach blew part of her hair across her face. She pulled it back behind her ear and then blew him a kiss. He reached out and grabbed it and placed his hand over his heart. He loved her and he believed that she loved him back.

  He turned back to face the beach and reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. He tossed it in the air, caught it and put it on the back of his other hand. Heads she loves me, tails she doesn’t. He believed she did but wanted to check with fate and get its opinion. He removed his hand from over top of the quarter and saw what fate thought of his love.

  He looked at Carmen and then looked back at the quarter. He put it back in his pocket and then walked behind Carmen and rubbed her shoulders. He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You really do love me.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I know.”

  Fate doesn’t lie.

  One hundred five

  THE WIND PICKED UP and the temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees since night had fallen. It took Angela and me close to eight hours to drive north to the small beach town in Barrington, Rhode Island. We learned that the judge’s house was off of Nayatt Road, a two-lane road that paralleled Barrington Beach. Clever, I thought. This is one place that I never would have guessed the judge would use as a hideout. No one from the south travels north to the beach in the winter, especially to a place known for its frigid temperatures at this time of year, like Rhode Island.

  The eight-hour trip gave us plenty of time to talk and plan the best way to take down the judge. Angela wanted to hit them hard; rush them in a blaze of glory and take down anyone and everyone who was in the house. I started to get the feeling that Angela had a death wish and that maybe she wanted to die in a gunfight.

  I thought it better to take them down one at a time when they weren’t together. They’d be more vulnerable that way. Tim Johnson confirmed that both Lieutenant Polenski and Nathan Hunt had left with the judge, so I knew that trying to take all three down at the same time would be a suicide mission. Even though Angela was able to catch Polenski off guard at the funeral, Polenski was in excellent physical shape, a good fighter and a better shooter. We needed to be smart if we wanted to get out of this alive.

  But I also realized that trying to take them down one at a time would be difficult at best, especially given the fact that we were in an area that we weren’t familiar with. I doubted that, with their heightened security, the judge and his men would chance being apart from each other for very long, even though they probably weren’t expecting us to track them to Rhode Island. Angela and I
had gone back and forth about what we should do, and we decided that they were most vulnerable when they slept and that that was the best time to hit them where it counts.

  Sprinkles of rain began falling on the rental car that was parked on a side road about a quarter mile from the judge’s beach home. I looked at the clock and it had just turned to twelve a.m. Stroke of midnight. What kinds of crazy things happened at the stroke of midnight?

  “We drove by the house three times and all the lights were off. Either they’re not home or they’re asleep. Either way, I say we make our move now,” Angela said.

  I was hesitant. I wanted to wait longer, to stake out the house until I was sure the time was right. Being a homicide detective, I’d done dozens of stakeouts, and the one thing I truly learned was that patience was a virtue, if ever there was a meaning to a saying. But I also realized that this may be our only chance to catch them off guard. I nodded my head and then Angela pushed a button on the side door and the trunk popped open. She got out and when she returned, she had an arsenal of loaded weapons. She handed me two black Ruger 380 pistols with mounted lasers, a sawed-off Remington shotgun and a nine-inch Bowie hunting knife.

  After we checked our weapons, Angela turned to me. “Last chance to back out.”

  I didn’t hesitate to answer, didn’t need to think of the response. “Let’s go. Tonight we get our revenge.”

  Ten minutes later, we were standing behind trees, looking at the dark house. The property was large. I estimated the house sat on a half-acre of land, not including the beach behind the house. The sound of waves crashing against the shore was clear from where we stood. I smelled the salty sea in the air. There was a black iron rod fence along the front of the property that tapered off once it got to the wooded area of the yard where Angela and I stood. A U-shaped cobblestone driveway was in front of the house, empty of any cars. The property, along with the house, was dark.

  “We’ll try the back door again like we did in D.C.,” I whispered.

  The sounds of the sea were more prominent when we reached the back of the house. I wondered if we had just traveled eight hours to find out that we were on a wild goose chase and that the judge was already gone. Angela picked the lock in a matter of seconds and the back door clicked and opened. We hunched over low when we entered the dark house with our weapons aimed. No sooner than I took my second step, a light flicked on and a familiar voice was already waiting for us.

  “Well, well, well, Detective Hayden. We meet again.”

  One hundred six

  WE WERE OUTNUMBERED AND outgunned. Judge Frank Peters stood in front of Nathan Hunt, Lieutenant Polenski and another bull-looking man with a head the size of a cinderblock who had weapons trained on us. I quickly realized that the slightest inappropriate move would surely end our lives.

  “So I guess you and your little girlfriend thought you could just sneak into my house and do away with me? Is that it?” Frank said.

  Angela glanced at me and before she could put the thought into her head, Frank had already interrupted it, waving his pointer finger in the air. “Ah, ah, ah. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You see, I want to spend some time with the two of you before these guys put bullets between your eyes. But if you move the wrong way, that’ll be the end of it. So I’m only going to say this once and then you’ll have two seconds to decide what you’re going to do. If you do nothing, they’ll shoot you. If you raise your weapons, they’ll shoot you. And, in case you’re wearing Kevlar vests, they won’t aim for the body like that dipshit did in D.C. So, let’s see how this will play out. Drop your weapons. The clock starts now.”

  I didn’t have time to think about it. I dropped the shotgun that was in my hands and also the two Ruger pistols that were holstered to each leg. I slowly pulled from the back of my pants the hunting knife and heard it clink as it fell onto the floor. Apparently, Angela wasn’t going to try and shoot it out in a gun battle like I thought, because she did the same.

  Frank smiled and looked back to his guys. “There, you see, even the wild can be tamed.”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a smartphone, punched in a code and read a text. “Judge, Detective Hayden knows where you’re at. Should be there in a few hours. Tim.” Frank looked at me. “Technology’s the best, isn’t it?”

  I scrunched my eyebrows and immediately thought about Turtle. Did he double-cross me? Was Tim Johnson able to get away? The answer didn’t matter anymore because I knew I’d be dead soon.

  We were in a room with walls that were covered with expensive-looking wood paneling, hardwood floors, leather sofas, glass end tables and wood beams crossing the ceiling. Everyone appeared tense except for Frank, who stood with a grin on his face and a cigar in his right hand. He wasn’t wearing a suit like the past few times that I had seen him. He was wearing a red and blue flannel button-up shirt and blue jeans. The shirt outlined the broadness of his chest and arms, which I hadn’t noticed before.

  Frank took a puff from his cigar and then a dark-haired Hispanic-looking woman came into the room. She stood next to Frank and hugged his arm and then looked at Angela with eyes that appeared to say, I’m sorry. From Angela’s description of her, I knew this was Carmen, her ex-lover who was supposed to help her take down the judge. Frank’s smile broadened and then he winked at Angela.

  “Guess she wanted a real man after all,” he said to her. To Carmen, he said, “go ahead and grab the weapons.”

  Carmen carefully walked over to me first and grabbed my weapons and put them on the sofa. Then she walked to Angela, bent down and grabbed her weapons from the floor. When she stood up, she stared at Angela, leaned over and kissed her on the lips. Angela backed away and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Don’t you ever touch me,” Angela hissed.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Frank said, “I’ll make sure she won’t be able to anymore. You can’t touch someone when they’re six feet belowground.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Angela demanded.

  “You sure you want to tempt me?” Frank laughed.

  “So what are you going to do with us?” I cut in.

  “Don’t you worry about that. Just know that this time, your guardian angel won’t be able to save your black ass.”

  The men behind him laughed, but I obviously didn’t find the comment funny.

  “So, before I allow my guys to kill you, why don’t we have a little chat.”

  He motioned for us to move to the couch.

  “No need to be uptight about this.”

  “I’ll stand,” I said.

  “Me too,” Angela said as well.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He grabbed a barstool from the nearby kitchen and casually sat, as if he were about to chat it up with old friends. He inhaled his cigar and then blew the smoke away.

  “You’ve got some balls, I have to admit,” he said to me. “And you’ve also caused me some problems. You and your lady friend.” He smiled as he puffed again. “You probably thought because I wore a robe to work every day that you were just going to be able to push me around and I’d give in. Is that it?”

  I didn’t answer. I wanted so badly to lash out at the man, but the guns aimed in our direction made the argument against it pretty easy.

  “So now the cat’s got your tongue, is that it? You drove all this way to see me and now you don’t want to chitchat. Okay, I’m fine with that. But the look in your eye tells me something different, detective. If I were a betting man, I’d say that you want to take a swing at me. Am I right? At least give me that much.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’d like to knock your head off.”

  “So, you do have some balls after all. You’re a man after my own heart.”

  He stood up from the barstool and rubbed his chin as if he were in thought. “Contrary to what you may think of me, I am a pretty fair man. So here’s what I’m going to propose.” He pushed the barstool back with his foot. “I’m going to let you take a
swing at me. If you knock me out, I’ll let you live and kill only your friend.”

  I was caught off guard by the judge’s proposition, and my face showed it.

  “I see you pondering the proposition. Just to show you that I mean what I say, let me take off my shirt.”

  He stepped back and pulled his flannel shirt off, revealing his hard and muscular body. When he put up his guard in a fighting position, his biceps looked like two rocks had been sewed into his arms.

  “Come on. Don’t chicken out on me,” he taunted. “I’ll give you one swing.”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t want to be a part of this charade that he was putting on. I knew that the minute I raised my hand, I’d receive a bullet in the head.

  “Oh, come on, don’t be a pussy.” He lowered his guard and stuck out his chin. “Here, I’ll make it even easier for you.”

  I fought back the urge with all my might. Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to strike that son of a bitch right across the face. But I knew that he wouldn’t let me live, regardless of what he said.

  He was starting to get irritated that I wouldn’t swing. He moved closer to me, taunting me even more, but I didn’t budge. Finally, he stood right in front of me and I could smell the tobacco on his breath.

  “I would love to have been there when Nathan killed your wife. You know what he told me? He said that he snapped her neck like he was breaking a twig. Was she that fragile? Did you used to have to give it to her gentle because she could break?”

  I’d never felt hatred towards a man until now. I fought back the tears that were forming in my eyes because I didn’t want to give him the gratification of defeating me.

  He stepped back and put up his guard again. “One last time, detective. Free shot for your life.”

  I didn’t move. But he did. He struck me across the face with a powerful blow that knocked me down.

  “Enough games,” he said. “I gave you a chance. Maybe we aren’t cut from the same cloth, you pussy.”