Gus did as told. “I’m bait again… really?”
Nick chuckled as he slid across and onto the driveway behind Gus. “Hit the lights, Payaso, you big whiney.”
Gus turned on the headlights, flooding Mona’s house front while gazing at it with a look of curiosity. He heard Nick whisper testing into his com unit. “Loud and clear, Muerto.”
Nick picked up speed, vaulting the wooden fence divider. When he reached the back door, he moved to a position where he could see inside. It was busted inwards, hanging by one hinge. With his night vision ocular, Nick approached the house while keeping sight of the inner area of the rear entrance beyond the door. Slipping inside the damaged door, he loosened his 9mm silenced Berretta in its holster, but took out his stun-gun. Nick wanted to see who he had inside Mona’s house before doing anything permanent.
“Shut off the lights,” Nick whispered.
He moved silently to a position where he could see the inside front part of the house, using his night vision ocular to examine every approach and room on the way. He smiled. A huge bearded hulk of a man watched the outside through a corner of the curtain with a sawed off shotgun in hand. Nick moved behind the distracted Blackbeard without his notice. For the second time in a couple of days, Blackbeard received the dance electric. As thorough as Rachel had been the day before, Nick applied the blue arc with grinning appreciation while watching Blackbeard hit the floor, his shotgun clattering to the floor beside him. Nick crouched into a position next to Blackbeard covering any approach from the rest of the house, his Berretta at the ready. Silence only accompanied the small snorts and movements from Blackbeard with his captor waiting patiently for any reaction within the house. After five full minutes, Nick straightened.
“Clear, Gus. I’m opening the front door now.” Nick unlocked, and opened the front door.
Gus came in and locked the door behind him. “Damn, Nick… you’ve got the big fish. Nice catch. I bet you gave him an exciting introduction to reality.”
Nick shook his head. “Nope. Blackbeard will be getting his intro to a separate reality shortly. He altered my plan a bit by breaking in to slaughter Mona and everyone with her, but I can make this work easily. BB will be telling us everything he knows about his supplier, his operation, and the people he’s paid off to be able to deal drugs in broad daylight. I’m really interested in his answers. Once we have them, we’ll see if Paul would like to get some DEA people intrigued with this backwoods operation.”
Gus picked up Blackbeard’s sawed off shotgun with a gloved hand. “He planned to execute Mona, Rachel, and Jean if they came back to the house? Good God, Nick! How do you get the clout to do something like that? I mean… hell… even the police would be forced into some kind of action.”
Nick plastic tied Blackbeard’s hands behind his back. He then pulled the man’s pants down to his ankles. “I figure BB planned to use the shotgun and surprise to cart them off somewhere else where he could exact his revenge. He probably has a killing ground somewhere nearby. Mona disappears, and everything else with her becomes someone else’s problem. Instead of that simple, but very effective plan, BB has me to deal with.”
Gus watched the cold blooded killer surface as Nick finished his chore and straightened. “There’s no use in pretending, brother. I’m going to make BB pay for his intentions while finding out everything I want to know. There will be no Muerto masks or video clips. By the time I get done with him, BB will wish he’d never been born, and that’s only if he does tell me what I want to know. This may be a good time for you to go sit in the car after you help me get BB into a chair.”
“Rachel’s my sister, and Jean’s my niece,” Gus replied without looking away from Nick’s steady gaze. “I’ll keep watch, but I don’t move out of here until we take BB away for burial.”
Nick grinned as he took a black plastic garbage bag from his equipment bag. “We’re not going to bury him, Gus. His buddies know where he is right now. We need to make him into a mystery.”
“Oh boy… I don’t like the sound of that. What is it you have planned for him, Muerto?”
“Do you know your history, Payaso? What famous happening still exists as a monument in Charleston, my friend?”
Gus’s eyes widened. “Tell me you don’t mean Fort Sumter. You don’t really plan on-”
“Exactly, Payaso! It’s so good to know another American who understands the basics of history. I see doubt and anxiety creeping into your features, brother. We’ll keep it simple. I will leave BB’s carcass at the gate as if he’s sleeping peacefully in front of a national monument. The toads next door at his place will be lost. First, they’ll wonder where he is. Then they’ll hear about it, and they’ll think ‘wow, man, Blackbeard went nuts’.”
“And what of his friends?”
“I’m afraid they’re going to be so heartbroken over the loss of their leader, they’ll pull the pin on the heartbreak grenade. They’ll decide to have a wake right next door for poor old Blackbeard, get some good drugs, play some good sounds they have, and unfortunately for them – overdo it and die. The cops will find our group of grieving gangsters at their final rest. We, of course, will be doing book signings, and keeping Mona with us until this blows over.”
“What about Pettinger?”
“We’ll have to study her for the time being. Besides, I need to hear about Nancy from Grace and Timmy at a neutral spot. I’m not blasting into a DOJ setup with guns blazing. Bring one of those plain kitchen chairs here. Put it inside the garbage bag.”
Gus brought the chair, put it inside the bag, and helped Nick put Blackbeard on it with his bound hands over the back. Nick went to work with the duct tape, making certain their captive would not be moving a muscle. By the time he finished Blackbeard’s head was lolling from side to side as he regained consciousness. As his beady, reddened eyes blinked, and focused, Nick added duct tape over Blackbeard’s mouth. The eyes widened. Muscles tensed from his feet to the top of his head. Nick and Gus watched the transformation with grim, smiling appreciation. When the chair began jumping to Blackbeard’s frenzied attempts to break free, Nick zapped his groin area. The violent reaction sent the chair over backwards.
“Gee, Gus, I think BB isn’t happy with his circumstances. I should have held the poor guy’s chair so he wouldn’t pitch backward, but I might have received a slight residual shock. We can’t have that.”
“There definitely would have been enough residual to probably knock you on your ass,” Gus replied while helping Nick get the chair righted again. “You dinged him that time until I thought his hair would catch fire.”
Nick went into the kitchen. He returned with a glass of water, and threw it in Blackbeard’s face. Gustoff Banning spluttered and choked his way into consciousness, the duct tape hampering his attempts to draw breath. The kitchen chair bounced perceptively in response to his agonized waking.
“Rough waking. Maybe if you took the duct tape off his mouth,” Gus suggested.
“Now why didn’t I think of that? Sorry, Gustoff. Here.” Nick tore the duct tape off the man’s mouth with attitude. “There you go, buddy.”
Banning’s eyes wildly took in his surroundings, and the two figures in front of him. He wasn’t stupid. He had done this and worse to people for no other reason than enjoyment. Gustoff saw in Nick’s eyes nothing he did or said would ever get him free again. Without a bargaining ploy, he knew all he had left was either bluster to entice his captors into making a mistake, or giving them something worthwhile for a quick death. Blackbeard gambled all in and lost.
“You pussies! Afraid to take a man on one on one? Undo me, and I’ll fight you both at the same time. Both you cunts can even have knives! I’ll still maim you chicken-shit cocksuckers, cut your nuts off, and shove them down your fucking throats!”
It was many moments before either Gus or Nick could speak. Nick waved a hand at Banning in pleading fashion. “No…no more. Oh my, you’re a real treasure. Let’s see. You threaten a pregnant woman,
who toasts your marshmallows, and leaves you sobbing for mercy at her feet. Then you send a truck out to ram a grandma, mom, and young pre-teen daughter to death, and you’re calling us pussies? Oh Gustoff… you idiot… I know you’ve had other victims in similar circumstances. The trouble with you is when they offered anything you wanted for a nice death, you refused and tortured them anyway. I know cockroaches like you inside out. If you had been smart, you would have begged to tell me anything I wanted to know, in return for which I’d send you to the great beyond with a minimum of pain. I’m really happy you didn’t. My partner here is going to show you something. After he finishes the video demonstration, I think you might have a change of heart. See… I’m not like you. I’m goal oriented.”
Gus played the video of Big Texas Son’s journey into darkness for Blackbeard. It was enough to demonstrate how fearful an ending he would have after the info extraction. Nick watched Banning’s acceptance of reality with less pleasure than he admitted. Rachel was the love of his life, a thread so incongruous to what he was, she remained a mysterious ingredient to his own psych. Rachel made him believe he could care. Jean reinforced the feeling with depth he thought untouchable prior to their meeting. Nick watched Gustoff’s viewing with an anticipation of doing exactly that to his captive. That Blackbeard represented an already attempted murder ploy of two people he cared most about, highlighted his innermost struggles. Until he found Rachel, nothing on earth evoked more than a slight whimsical memory. With Rachel, Jean, and Deke the dog, reality shifted in every part of Nick’s life on a day to day basis. Knowing the man in front of him missed killing his new reality by seconds made Nick deal with yet another decision. He knew Gus wondered what he would decide too, no matter what Gustoff said.
“How’d you like the movie, BB?” Nick decided. “Want to go out with a smile on your face, or screaming for a few hours while watching me pour bleach on your exposed intestines. There is a plus to going the hard way. Hell won’t look so bad when you arrive. You will tell me everything you know either way.”
Gustoff was done. “You did that shit in the clip?”
“More than once,” Nick replied. “I have the technique down to a science. I overdid the bleach a couple times, and the first guy I practiced on passed out too quickly. Time’s a wastin’, BB. What’ll it be?”
“What do you want to know?”
“That’s the spirit.”
* * *
At first when people saw the huge bearded man sitting against the flagpole at Patriot’s Point, they figured some homeless guy decided to camp there for the night. Because of Blackbeard’s size, no one approached him until the police were called. The first designation of death by the coroner called to the scene was suicide or accidental drug overdose, because of the syringe still clutched in Gustoff Banning’s hand. Nick and Gus watched the discovery and recovery of Banning’s body with detached interest.
They returned to Mona’s house after Banning’s body was taken away. The second part of Nick’s neighborhood cleanup program would take place late in the evening. For now he and Gus worked on whatever mess they had made earlier, along with wiping down any sign of Banning’s presence from his ill-fated visit. Nick then called Rachel.
“Hi Hon. Guess who was waiting for Gus and I at Mona’s house.”
“Blackbeard.”
“Yep. Plan A has been completed in my neighborhood revamping project. We’ll complete Plan B tonight. You three can see some of the sights safely now, but I’d stay away from Patriot’s Point where one of the ferryboat’s take tourists to Fort Sumter. If you have time to keep track of the news about a mystery man found near the flagpole this morning, jot some notes for me. I’ll call you later.”
“I love you. We’re going with you to the book signing. Mona has never been to one.”
“I love you too. It would be great for the three of you to come along. As always there will be transportation away if the book signing gets boring,” Nick replied. “Cassie’s arriving tonight. She’ll be staying at the same hotel as we are. If she stops by, tell her Gus and I stayed to make some repairs on Mona’s house, but we’ll see her tomorrow morning. She really shouldn’t have any publishing agent type stuff to talk over with me. This will be more of a monitoring visit by her own description.”
“Be careful… okay?”
“Always. We’ll be done tonight. Then we can enjoy the rest of our Charleston stop together. How’s Dagger and Quinn?”
“Dagger’s chomping at the bit to be with you and Gus of course, while Quinn’s been reminding me of his presence nearly every second.” Rachel turned away, walking into the bedroom out of hearing range with Deke following close behind. “I need you with me. You know what my pregnancy’s done to my hormones and… you know… other needs.”
Nick smiled, remembering his earlier thoughts about Rachel, Jean, and Deke. “I have a vivid imagination, babe. I will do my best to make up for this unfortunate absence.”
“I will hold you to that. Bye for now. Wake me no matter what time you get back, okay?”
“You bet I will. I love pregnant women, especially you,” Nick joked.
“I better be the only pregnant woman you love.”
“Your will, my destiny,” Nick answered, getting only a giggle as Rachel hung up.
* * *
Jean waited anxiously outside the bedroom. “I know that was Dad. Everything’s okay, right? I heard my secret identity mentioned. Did he ask about me?”
“Of course,” Rachel answered while roughing up Deke’s head. “Yes, he mentioned you too, dog. We need to turn on the news, paying particular attention to anything about a mystery corpse found at Patriot’s Point.”
“Yes!” Jean pumped her fist, ran into the main TV viewing area, swiping the remote from Mona’s side. “Sorry, Grandma, we need to check the news. We’ll watch the rest of the movie tomorrow.”
With Deke halfway in her lap and Rachel next to her, Jean blinked through channels until she found a woman in mid-sentence reciting something about Patriot’s Point. A stark photo of Gustoff Banning against the flagpole was discreetly on display behind the newswoman. She made reference to the discovery, along with what facts observers were willing to share at the time, noting the mystery man’s identity was being withheld pending next of kin notification. The video clip obtained for viewing, showed a closer profile of the bearded man, which evoked a gasp from Mona, and a giggle from Jean.
“That…that’s Blackbeard,” Mona whispered. She listened to the newswoman’s stating of police and coroner’s initial theory of suicide or accidental drug overdose with open mouthed amazement. “Why in the world would he commit suicide? I mean sure… I’m happy as hell the bastard’s dead, but-”
Jean reached over and patted Mona’s hand. “Don’t worry about it, Grandma. It looks like part of your neighborhood troubles are over.”
Mona clutched Jean’s hand, but leaned around her to meet Rachel’s smiling demeanor. “You were talking to Nick. He told you to turn on the news. What the hell’s going on here, Rachel? How can this all be happening?”
Rachel reached over to cover Mona’s hand with Deke getting into the act by laying his chin on the human hands. “It’s okay to react like you’re doing with us, Mona, but you need to get a grip on your reaction. This isn’t a game where we blurt out anything that comes to mind amidst strangers or the media in particular. Like the woman’s saying, it was probably a suicide or accidental drug overdose.”
“But-”
“But nothing, Grandma,” Jean stated. “Don’t take this so hard. When we had bad people after us, I found out sometimes no one can help us… at least no one in police departments and those stupid government agencies. Blackbeard would have killed you… and us. Now he’s dead. Well… that’s just too bad.”
“Good God, girl, you’re only nine,” Mona remarked with dawning realization. “We can’t condone murder!”
Jean stood, with Deke jumping down at her side. She stared into her Grandma’s f
ace with a shrug. “My Mom, Deke, and I wouldn’t be alive if we’d depended on the police. Some things don’t work, Grandma. When things don’t work with dangerous stuff that will kill us, we have to depend on someone. We depend on Dad. Without him training us, you’d be dead. He taught us how to survive. He cares about us. Because of us, he cares about you.”
“Jean’s dead on right, Mona,” Rachel agreed. “We all have to express remorse if asked about Blackbeard’s death. We’ll play that card anytime it’s needed. Jean and I love you, but please don’t assume we’ll allow you to mess with Nick. If you want us in your life, you’ll have to accept some difficult facts. Now would be the time to blurt out anything you have a problem with. Later will not only be unacceptable, it will be dangerous.”
Mona embraced the feeling of relief Blackbeard’s death clip had brought to the surface. She met Rachel’s eyes without hesitation. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“That’s real good, Mona,” Rachel replied. “You won’t regret it. Remember this though: Jean, Deke, and I don’t play games regarding Nick. If you want us out of your life, say so. We want you in our lives, but we’re with Nick… period.”
“Oh yeah,” Jean said, reinforcing Rachel’s statement. “Anyone messing with Dad, messes with me, Mom, and Deke.”
Mona allowed a slow smile of acceptance to spread across her features. “Understood.”
Chapter Seven
The Fixers
“How’d the troops take the news?”
“Very well. I knew Rachel and Jean would be coming undone without something to do, so I put them on the news watch. They’ll check the main gist of anything reported. Plus, it was a great way to let Mona in on reality without any straight forward comments. She looks steady, but the troops will ease her into the facts of life in case she starts blurting out touchy-feely crap about her former neighbor who wanted to kill her.”
Cold Blooded III: Sins and Sanctions (Nick McCarty Assassin Series Book 3) Page 13
