American Justice

by J K Ellem

  “What are you looking at?” the man snarled at Shaw, turning to face him, his hand still clamped firmly on the woman, fingers digging in, twisting her elbow at the joint.

  Shaw smiled. He looked up at the TV screen then back to the man. He motioned with his hand, holding the coffee towards the TV. “I’m looking at a picture of your face on the news.”

  At first, the man holding Jessie’s arm seemed confused.

  Words scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Plane crash in Wyoming, over 200 men, women, and children dead. But it wasn’t the words that got Shaw’s attention. It was the face that now filled the screen. A man’s face, like a mug-shot, the type of photo that’s kept in someone’s employee file. A thick head of dark curly hair, olive skin, and dark beady eyes stared out from the TV screen.

  Jessie turned and glanced back at the TV screen. Freddy frowned, turned, and looked up over his shoulder too but the image had changed back to the newscaster again.

  Shaw didn’t wait. Speed was his friend now, not politeness. It was all academic. What was important for Shaw was the aerodynamics of coffee superheated to over 100 degrees and how the black liquid would perform in the air, across two feet, the exact distance between Shaw’s hand holding the coffee cup and the man’s face.

  Economy of effort, the shortest distance between two points, was a straight line, so Shaw drove his hand holding the coffee cup in a diagonal straight line at the man’s face, flicking his wrist at the last moment, tipping the entire contents of the boiling liquid square in his face, with minimal residual splash for Shaw or the man’s companion. It was important to not harm the woman, just the man.

  The man screamed, his face on fire with raw, burning pain.

  With her arm suddenly free, Jessie peeled away and Shaw stepped in, delivering a straight punch to the man’s stomach. It was a hard, brutal punch, aimed to exit the man’s torso six inches past his spine and out his back. It had the desired effect. The man buckled forward, all the air punched out of his lungs; his head and shoulders rolled down and forward, set up perfectly for the vicious knee Shaw drove up into his face with full hip extension. The sound of breaking nasal cartilage, shattering cheekbone, and fracturing eye socket sounded like music to Shaw.

  Jessie just looked on. It felt like a volcano had erupted next to her. The man, the stranger she had seen get off the semi, had unleashed a torrent of movement on her captor.

  Shaw had to mentally pull himself back, his mind a blur, the words 200 men, women, and children dead, engulfing his brain.

  The man had collapsed in a heap, shattered, burned, whimpering.

  Jessie looked wide-eyed at Shaw, then at the man on the ground. Her brain snapped. She stepped up and kicked the curled body on the ground. “Fucking bastard,” she screamed. Shaw pulled her back. There was no point. The man was down and almost out for the count.

  Behind the counter, Freddy didn’t move an inch. He couldn’t; it had happened so fast. He stared at Shaw and for some reason he raised his hands, like it was the right thing to do.

  “Put your hands down,” Shaw said.

  Freddy nodded nervously. He reached for the phone to call the cops.

  Shaw glared at him. “Put the phone down.”

  Freddy did as he was told.

  “Bastard kidnapped me!” Jessie turned to Shaw. “Held a knife at my throat. Made me drive all the way from Salt Lake City.”

  Shaw ignored her. The man on the ground was squirming around in a puddle of coffee, moaning from his injuries.

  Shaw looked around then started searching up and down between the aisles until he found what he was looking for. He came back and hauled the man to his feet. He turned to Jessie. “That your car?” he demanded.

  “What? Where?”

  “Is that your car; do you have the keys?” Shaw was getting impatient.

  Jessie looked at Shaw like he was from Mars. “Eh, yes, that’s my car.”

  “Good. You’re driving. Let’s go.”

  “We need gas!”

  Jessie looked on in amazement as Shaw hauled the man with him toward the doors then outside.

  Moments later the VW Golf drove off. Freddy stared after it. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. “What the…?”

  8

  “Are you crazy?” Jessie was behind the wheel. Shaw was in the passenger seat giving directions and her kidnapper was in the trunk of the car, the sound of kicking and moaning could be clearly heard above the whine of the engine. Jessie had managed to pump a few gallons in to her car while Shaw threw the man into the trunk.

  Jessie glanced quickly at Shaw. “Look, I don’t know who you are or where you’re from, but we need to call the police.”

  “No,” Shaw replied.

  “No? No?” Jessie said incredulously. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She had just been saved from one crazy knife-wielding nut only to be back in her car with another. Kidnapped twice in one day—she couldn’t believe her bad luck.

  “Look Mister, I really appreciate what you did back there, but—”

  “Ben.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Ben.”

  “Whatever.”

  Shaw shook his head. Maybe this was a bad idea, taking the woman with him. But he needed a car and he needed to get away from the gas station fast. The kid behind the counter was probably dialing the cops right now.

  “Your name?” Shaw asked without looking at Jessie, his eyes searching the road ahead, checking every few moments in the side mirror.

  “Jessie.”

  Shaw nodded. “Well Jessie, first we are going to find a quiet place where we can pull over. Then you’re going to tell me everything that has happened to you today. Everything. I want to know how you ended up in a car with a person who is right now the subject of a nation-wide manhunt.”

  “Manhunt? What the hell are you talking about?” The last few minutes had been a blur for Jessie, her mind was still processing what had happened in the gas station.

  Shaw casually took from his jacket pocket three items he had removed from the man. Shaw had body searched him while he was semi-conscious before throwing him in the trunk of the car and found a cell phone, a switch blade knife, and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun with a spare full magazine.

  “Holy shit! He had a gun?” Jessie’s eyes went wide as she glanced at what was in Shaw’s hands.

  “Holy shit indeed,” Shaw said, glancing into the back seat where he had thrown his own rucksack next to Jessie’s roller case that he had pulled out of the trunk. He pocketed the knife, tucked the gun into his belt, and slid the spare magazine into his pocket. The cell phone was new, impossibly thin, a piece of beveled aluminum artwork.

  “He was using that in the back seat. Like he was texting someone the whole time,” Jessie said, still resenting that the man had disabled her phone then threw it out the window.

  A loud bang came from the trunk.

  “Pull over,” Shaw ordered.

  “What?” Jessie searched ahead in the darkness.

  “Pull over now!”

  Jessie swerved onto the shoulder and braked hard, the wheels skidding to a stop in the dirt. She watched as Shaw got out and walked to the rear of the car. The trunk hood went up and she heard a distinct sound like a baseball bat smashing into a watermelon. The trunk slammed back down and Shaw climbed back in.

  “Drive,” he said, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand.

  Jessie nodded and pulled onto the highway again. No more sound came from the trunk.

  A few miles later a glow appeared on the horizon, directly ahead. Then the darkness lit up almost like daylight. On the left another gas station came into view with a large 24-hour restaurant. It was an oasis of bright lights and neon color.

  “Slow down but don’t stop,” Shaw said.

  The speed limit dropped and Jessie eased up on the gas. There were a few cars of various sizes parked and he could see people eating through the windows of the restaurant. On the left, a
cross the highway from the gas station, a pink neon sign glowed in the darkness.

  Perfect. They were maybe five miles from the smaller gas station they had just fled. Not too far, so for Shaw it made sense. Hide in plain sight.

  “Pull in there,” Shaw said, pointing at the small motel across the road.

  The flashing neon sign said “The Pink Poodle Motel” beneath a bright pink neon poodle dog. The neon legs of the poodle flashed intermittently intending to give the impression the dog was walking. But part of the neon tubes were busted, making it more look like a limping three-legged rat.

  Jessie did a tight turn and drove into the entrance.

  The motel was stuck in a time warp: a tired, faded version of its former self.

  The main building resembled a prison block. It was a long, squat affair of cinderblock that had been last painted back in the 1960s, maybe yellow Shaw guessed. Heat, windblown grit, and a layer of neglect gave it a smudgy charcoal finish. There was an office at the front and an uneven spread of crumbling asphalt on the right with faded yellow parking lines.

  Each of the twelve rooms had its own assigned parking space. Each room had an ancient air conditioner cut into the front window and a standard brown door that Shaw knew his grandmother could take off the hinges with one modest kick. Threadbare orange curtains completed the look. At one time there had been garden beds, but any form of vegetation they now contained looked like a nuclear blast had rolled through the area, reducing anything green to a brown, brittle husk.

  Two rooms closest to the office looked occupied, a dusty late model SUV was parked outside one and a big Harley Davidson bike tilted on its stand outside the other; a slit of light shone between the orange curtains of both rooms.

  Shaw made Jessie drive to the end of the row and park outside the farthest room. He told her to back into the parking space then kill the engine and the lights.

  They sat in silence amongst the shadows and watched. All that was needed to complete the creepy scene was Norman Bates coming out of the front office to offer them a room for the night.

  The rooms seemed to be allocated in sequence starting with the one closest to the office. That made sense. Less distance for the maid to travel with her cleaning cart. Shaw doubted the rooms were cleaned daily, only when the tenants checked out. That suited him for what he had in mind. The last thing he wanted was to shock the hired help.

  Jessie turned to Shaw. Most of his face was in shadow. “What now?”

  “Just stay here.”

  Jessie grabbed his arm as he was about to open the door. “Am I a hostage too?” she asked.

  Shaw’s expression softened as he looked at her. Maybe he had been too harsh but he’d had to act and he’d done so without hesitation. From what he managed to deduce within a few minutes of being in the gas station was enough. He just needed confirmation.

  “Look Jessie, I’m sorry about what happened to you. But I need answers. I need your help.”

  Jessie held Shaw’s gaze for a few seconds. She saw an element of truth and honesty in his eyes and felt safe.

  She let go of his arm, “Okay,’ she whispered, unsure why a warm feeling was seeping through her.

  Shaw climbed out and walked slowly back to the front office.

  9

  Twenty minutes after the call was dispatched, Police Officer Beth Rimes pulled off the highway into the gas station. Another squad car was already near the entrance of the store, and in the brightly lit interior she could see two officers milling around the counter.

  Davis and Taylor had obviously gotten the jump on her. They must have been closer when they got the call. It had been called in as a “Crisis Intervention.” In other words, just a minor squabble between individuals, usually a neighbor’s barking dog or a minor spat in the drive-thru because the fries were cold, the burger had too much ketchup, or “free refills” didn’t involve one cup shared among a family of four.

  Whatever.

  Beth slid her police SUV in next to the cruiser. She sat for a second watching through the windshield, contemplating if she should go inside. The police radio squawked and pinged inside the cabin, and she listened for a while to the background chatter between the dispatcher and other police. But there was nothing major, just a DUI three miles back east along the highway and a domestic disturbance at a trailer park farther west.

  She was off shift in another hour, and as they say “three’s a crowd.” She put the SUV in reverse then saw that the attendant on shift was Freddy Monk and she knew Davis and Taylor would give the kid a hard time. Freddy was three years younger than the two junior police officers and they went to the same school together but Freddy dropped out early.

  She knew Freddy and his mom, Sally, both locals. Sally worked at the truck-stop farther along the highway. They were decent people. Freddy’s father was a drunk who walked out on them when Freddy was just five years old. It had a profound effect on the kid who had been bullied at school ever since. Beth knew it was one of the reasons he had dropped out so early, and she knew Davis and Taylor had picked on him back in high school. Some things never change. Bullies could always spot the weak and vulnerable and as adults became children dressed in older skin.

  Sally often worked double shifts just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. She doted on her only child and worked her fingers to the bone to provide for them. Sally was saving every dime she could to put Freddy back in school and through college. Working for three years as an attendant at a gas station held no future for her son.

  Damn it, she thought as she put the SUV back in park and climbed out.

  Inside the store Freddy was giving a statement to Davis who at least was taking notes. Taylor on the other hand was staring at the candy display in front of the console, deciding what he could take without paying. Taylor was like that. As an officer of the law you got all kinds of discounts, but Taylor seemed to think carrying a badge and a gun entitled him to all sorts of free stuff. Taylor strutted like a peacock, whereas Davis walked with caution. Taylor was too casual, too laid back, too dismissive of human nature. Davis had understated alertness when he walked into a situation, knowing a mother could pull a knife, or a son could pull a gun.

  Taylor looked up as Beth walked in, his hand hovering over a Snickers bar. He quickly withdrew his hand as he noticed Beth frowning at him. Taylor was big, over six feet with muscular evidence of hours spent pumping iron, twenty something with blond hair and chiseled features. The inside of his cruiser was littered with energy drinks and junk food wrappers. All that sweat and effort for nothing, Beth thought as she eyed him. “What have we got?”

  Taylor had a look of perpetual boredom, nothing really mattered in policing unless he got to use his gun. Beth had a more subtle approach, an understanding that came from being a cop for twenty-five years. A simple argument between lovers could escalate into a homicide; a busted tail light could end up with a gun being pulled out from under the seat.

  “Just a lovers’ tiff,” Taylor replied, looking down at his boss. “Freddy reckons some guy came in, saw his girlfriend with another guy, and went berserk. That’s all.”

  Beth walked over to where Davis and Freddy were standing. A puddle of what looked like black coffee was pooled on the floor, a wet floor sign next to it.

  “So what happened?” she asked Davis. Davis was thin with short dark hair and intelligent eyes. People liked him because, unlike Taylor, he listened, observed, and noted things. He, like Beth, was a keen observer of human behavior. Davis relayed what Freddy had described to him, with the occasional animated interruption from Freddy. “That’s right,” Freddy said. “The man just went crazy. Pummeled the guy then hauled him out.”

  Beth was listening to Freddy but her eyes were on the TV screen high on the wall behind the counter. The airwaves were filled with nothing but the plane crash. Terrible, she thought. She had been listening to the chatter on her police radio. People in shock, people in disbelief. Even though it had happened miles away, nea
rer to Salt Lake City, and not in the patch of the world she patrolled, it still occupied everyone.

  “You sure you didn’t try one of your one-liners on her Freddy?” Taylor asked, a smug look on his face. “You know, tried to ask her out and her boyfriend took offense?”

  “Knock it off, Taylor,” Beth said.

  “Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Freddy replied. “This other guy just walked in and, before ya know it, he was into the first guy.”

  Beth looked at Freddy. He was just a typical hormonal teenager with a lopsided grin, who snickered a lot. But he still was a good kid, a little immature for his age, but he didn’t get mixed up in anything bad. Maybe in three years he’d catch-up to the age on his birth certificate.

  Beth nodded to the closed-circuit television camera in the corner. “That thing working?”

  Freddy glanced behind him. “Yep. Got it all on video,” he replied with a snicker. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  10

  As Jessie watched Shaw go, she was tempted to start the car and get the hell out of that place. But how would she explain a body in the trunk? Maybe Shaw had killed the man when they pulled over. He seemed good-natured and unassuming but also capable of extreme violence.

  Maybe the police wouldn’t understand. Maybe they would arrest her and throw her ass in jail once they found the body in the trunk of her car. Despite all that, she had a feeling Shaw was a man in control, knew what to do no matter the situation. While it didn’t alleviate all her fears, she certainly preferred him to the last passenger she had in her car.

  Shaw walked slowly, his eyes focused on any signs of movement from the drawn curtains of the two rooms. He paused. The Harley’s engine felt cold to the touch. But the hood of the SUV was just barely warm, the heat maybe an hour old in the cool night air.