The Swamp Killers

by Sarah M. Chen

  Settle took another baby step, then felt a jab in his side at the same time he heard a voice. “Nice and easy, Special Agent. Drop your weapon and do it now.”

  Somehow, Pistol had maneuvered into position to get the drop on him. Settle froze, running through the options in his head.

  “I said to drop your weapon. Or I’ll drop you.”

  Settle was about to let go, when a car horn blared. Pistol flinched and Settle didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Pistol’s arm and pivoted, then swung his other hand, the one holding his gun, into Pistol’s face. The weapon smashed squarely into his nose, knocking him backward.

  Settle ignored the pain in his back, lowered his shoulder, and rammed into Pistol, driving the assassin down to the ground, landing all two hundred ninety-five pounds of special agent right on top. Just like he used to sack the quarterback when he played defensive end for the Tulane Green Wave, back in the day.

  As if someone had pulled his plug, Pistol stopped moving. He emitted a few groans, then lay quiet underneath Settle’s bulk. Motionless.

  In the background, the car horn still blared. JoJo had found a way to communicate from the car, after all. Settle was able to grab Piston’s gun as he slid off the man. He looked unconscious, but Settle wasn’t about to take any chances. Settle rolled Pistol over to cuff him, and as he did, he found the back of the hitman’s skull caved in. A sharp rock protruded from the ground, now covered with blood and brains.

  Pistol wouldn’t be going anywhere now, except straight to Hell.

  The car horn switched from a steady blare to a series of staccato bursts, some kind of street junkie Morse code perhaps, and Settle figured it was a victory acknowledgement from JoJo. But a moment later, Settle heard a car tearing up the gravel driveway, and he just managed to get a glimpse of Milici’s Escalade sending up a cloud of dust as it turned on to the county road.

  Good news: JoJo’s horn blowing had saved Settle’s life. Bad news: Milici was in the wind.

  Settle figured there were worse trade-offs.

  He pulled his phone out, called 9-1-1, and reported the incident. Then he sat on the ground near Pistol’s body and waited for the responders, resigned to spending the rest of the day cleaning up this royal mess.

  He made a mental note to hit an ATM when he got a chance to withdraw some cash for JoJo.

  He’d earned it.

  Back to TOC

  Meatloaf Special

  Wendy Tyson

  Legend says Jackie Oasis had a hand in bringing down the infamous Atlanta-based Duplass crime family. I call bullshit. He was a crooked judge, nothing more. Don’t legitimize him with a revisionist’s history lesson. Don’t credit him with anything more than a raging thirst for revenge.

  This is the true story of Jackie Oasis. Believe what you want.

  Jackie Oasis had been a fan of “meat and threes” since the days he used to follow his father, Len Oasis, to the firehouse for pickup poker games. Len had been a six-foot-three burly man with a thick head of wiry, salt-colored hair and a lopsided frown. His size meant he stood out even when he wanted to fade into the woodwork. A mill operator by trade, the elder Oasis had greeted life with slumped shoulders and a mannerly nod, grateful for any handout. He’d believed in seeking pleasure from the simple things. An honest card game. A fresh pack of Pall Malls. A meatloaf special.

  On the other hand, Jackie’s slight five-foot-four frame was more suited to slinking in the shadows. He saluted life with his middle finger, and back when he’d had a family, he’d preferred an evening with a hundred-dollar whore over movie nights. But meatloaf? That he liked. So much so that he’d amused himself those past fourteen days by seeking out every BBQ joint and diner that offered the special. And in and around Atlanta, that meant two squares a day, every day.

  Jackie may have lost the genetic lottery when it came to brawn, but he’d won out in the brains department. Len died at fifty-two, his wife six months later. They’d left behind a fully paid for ranch-style home and a small pile of stock in a newish company called Microsoft. Jackie traded the stock and the house for four years at State followed by three years in law school. He was appointed to the bench by the time he was thirty-four.

  “Judge,” Sally said now, all seven gold teeth flashing in the sun, “let me guess, you’ll have the special.”

  Jackie nodded. “No bread this time, Sally. I need to cut back.”

  Sally flashed a shy smile. “I think you look just fine.”

  Sally was younger than him in years, but those years had been unkind. Drugs or alcohol had stolen her looks, and meth or poor oral hygiene, her teeth. If he softened his gaze in the right light, he could glimpse the pretty young thing she’d been way back. He smiled back at her. Neither of them was pretty or young anymore, but what was the harm in pretending?

  Jackie chugged his Coke while watching Sally sashay to the counter. He enjoyed the banter with the waitresses as much as he enjoyed the meatloaf.

  Jackie’s burner buzzed. He glanced at the device. He’d received a text—a flower emoji.

  Jackie waved Sally over. He slid a twenty across the counter. “Got to go, Sally.”

  She looked disappointed. “Want your special wrapped up?”

  Jackie shook his head. “I like it hot. Anyway, if my day goes well, I’ll treat myself to a double tonight.”

  Belize Garcia Devers pushed aside her iced tea. It tasted like piss anyway. She threw five bucks on the pockmarked Linoleum table and grabbed her purse. The old man was leaving. She pulled her hoodie over her head and put on her sunglasses. She counted to sixty before slipping out of the booth, her heart racing and her breath caught in her throat. At the door, the haggard-looking waitress thanked her. Belize nodded and hurried out of the Danby Diner, taking her nerve and her bag with her.

  Ollie’s Fine Florals stood on the corner of Peach Street and Ruby Avenue. A high-strung establishment in a neighborhood of high-strung homes and high-strung ladies, Ollie’s was marked by a small gold sign above a marble entryway. Jackie pulled his rented Toyota up to the curb and jammed the car in park.

  It’d taken Jackie and his men ten days to nail Olivia Duplass’s schedule.

  Up at seven. Trainer in her home at nine. Two days a week she played tennis, followed by lunch at the country club. The other days a driver took her to the family’s downtown offices. Twice a week—Tuesday and Friday—she drove alone to Ollie’s Fine Florals to pick up her arrangement of bloody Gloriosa. An ugly fucking flower, if there ever was one, Jackie thought. And expensive. But she bought twenty-four blooms and brought them home personally.

  “They remind her of her late husband,” the flower shop clerk had told him.

  Jackie had followed Olivia to the flower shop his first week in town and went in as she was leaving. Commenting on the look of the flowers, Jackie had asked the clerk how much it would cost to have a similar arrangement made for his wife.

  “They need to be imported from South America.” The clerk, a young redhead barely through puberty, nodded toward the front door through which Olivia Duplass had just exited. “Pricey. That woman who just left? The Gloriosa was the last flower her late husband bought her before his death.”

  Fitting, Jackie had thought at the time. Now two weeks later, he watched as the lovely head of the Duplass family breezed over the marble threshold. The lady had traded tennis whites for a slim-fitting scarlet sheath dress and a sheer scarlet, orange, and pink scarf. Jackie had to admit she was an attractive lady for her age. A little heavy on the makeup, a little too statuesque for his taste, but not bad.

  Too bad she had to die.

  He fingered the gun on the console next to him, thinking about how good it would be to finally blow her brains out. He’d been waiting eight long years, since the court found him guilty of a “cash for kids” detention center scheme, an arrangement he’d wanted nothing to do with. As the juvenile court judge, he’d had the final say over which kids went home and which kids went to
foster care or juvie—or worse. He’d relished that position, viewed it as a stepping-stone to a regional appointment. And then Olivia came along. Reminded him of Ana. That was all it took. Divert kids to our centers, she’d told him. She paid him, of course…but the threat had been made, too. A single photograph found under his robe in the judge’s chamber. Red slash of a mouth. Red slash of a skirt. Those glassy, hollow eyes.

  So every third or fourth kid went to juvie. So what? They were all guilty as hell anyway. They needed juvie. Needed the structure and discipline and reminder that their shit sure as hell did stink.

  Unlike his daughter Tiffany’s. She had been everything her mother wasn’t. Beautiful. Smart. Kind. And she’d loved Jackie. Even after the trial. Even after he was sent to prison. Even after.

  A bullet to her head by her own hand took care of that. “She was ashamed of you,” Louisa had said. “Her father in prison. A judge, no less.” His ex-wife had given him the same look of disgust she generally saved for the bedroom.

  That’s how he found out his beautiful daughter had died.

  Jackie tightened his grip on his Glock. All Olivia Duplass’s fucking fault. She needed to feel the sweet burn of death.

  But not before her daughter felt it first.

  Belize pulled the Dodge Dart into the butcher shop parking area. She knew her car would stand out along Peach Street or Ruby Avenue, so she avoided the roadside parking, but tucked next to the Tahoe she could still watch Judge Oasis and his rented Toyota.

  She knew he would sit in his car and watch Olivia Duplass until she left with that hideous bouquet of flowers and headed back to her mansion.

  She knew he would put his head against his steering wheel and wait ten minutes before driving to said mansion.

  She knew he was too narcissistic to think someone might be following him.

  Nevertheless, she took pains to remain invisible. Not hard when you were one of the Invisible Ones.

  She listened to the judge’s heavy breathing through the device she’d planted in his car while he was eating one of his fucking meatloaf specials. She fingered the outline of the Glock in her purse and stared at the photo in her hand. She followed the lines of a face tenderly with the scarred edge of her thumb. Tears had long since left her, replaced by a burning hot rage that bubbled beneath the surface. Like pus under a zit.

  A sound broke her reverie. The judge on his cell.

  “Have you found Melody?” he was asking.

  Belize heard a faint and crackly “yes.”

  “I’m at the Sun View Inn. Room nineteen. It’ll take you about five or six hours to get here from where you are.”

  Jackie took a deep breath. “And you’re sure she’s there.”

  Chaz laughed. “No way in hell she’d stay at a dump like this. But she’s nearby. Trust me, boss. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  Jackie nodded. Then, realizing Chaz couldn’t see him, he said, “I’ll see you soon.”

  Three hundred miles on the lonely stretch of Route 75 were enough to make Jackie’s skin crawl with anticipation. He could feel her neck under his fingertips, could taste her salty sweat on his tongue. Young and firm and rich and very, very dead.

  He’d waited twelve years for this. First Melody. Then Olivia.

  Justice for the justice. He chuckled to himself. More like a mad laugh, a habit he’d developed in prison. Do you know what they do to judges in prison? The cop who arrested him had asked. Fuck you, he’d said.

  Now he knew exactly what they did to judges in prison.

  Stripped of dignity, stripped of his daughter, he’d focused everything on the person whose fault this was. Olivia Duplass and her fucking blackmail scheme.

  Jackie passed a state trooper going three miles below the speed limit. He waited until the cop was out of radar distance and increased his speed. It’d be dark soon, and they wanted to strike at night. They’d take Melody back to Atlanta—alive—and do the deed in front of Olivia. But not before he got whatever bullshit evidence she had on him. He needed insurance that there’d be no more blackmail. Nothing else the Duplass family could hang over his head.

  He remembered the first time the Duplass family had approached him. It was after hours. A sweet invitation. A private jet to a swanky club. The offer of money—more money than he could make in a year as a judge—if he swung a few kids their way.

  “They’re all delinquents anyway,” the family representative had said. “You’d be doing the world a favor. Stopping crime before it happens.”

  Still he’d said no. The risk of getting caught was too great, the money too little.

  And then the photo just days later. Their way of twisting his arm. After that, he was generous with his discipline, and in return they were generous with his payments. Always made through a third-party vendor. Always wired to the same overseas account.

  He hated doing it, but over time it became second nature. It was that, or…well, the or was unthinkable.

  And now he’d done his time. He would never go back.

  His shoulder itched, and he realized he was breaking out into hives. Nerves. He had too much at stake. Evidence plus revenge, then Mexico.

  Belize followed the judge from about a half mile behind. She watched him slow for the trooper, then speed up again. Sneaky asshole. She couldn’t afford to speed. She might be invisible to most of the world—a plain Hispanic girl from Texas, not too young, not too curvy, not too smart—but she was a cop magnet. She’d worn her white suburban college student outfit today. Hoodie, jeans, Vans, a touch of makeup, a backpack of books and other items.

  It wasn’t all a lie.

  The good thing about what the judge had done is that it’d forced her to get her shit together. No more weed. A job. Some online courses. She supposed she should thank him. She smiled. That’ll be the fucking day.

  The Sun View Inn advertised itself with a pale blue sign with a bright yellow sun. The inn offered neither sun nor a view. Set against the backdrop of the swamp, it was as dark and dank as its surroundings. Jackie bypassed the vine-covered door marked Office and drove around to the back where Chaz and Keith were waiting.

  Chaz opened the door before Jackie knocked and led his boss inside. The interior of the motel was as promising as the outside. Mildew-y smell, burned gray carpet, two cardboard double beds covered with shiny yellow-and-orange floral polyester.

  “Why here?” Jackie asked.

  Chaz shrugged. “Forty a night and nobody bothers us.” He shrugged toward one of the rooms. “I heard screaming earlier. With a crazy-ass neighbor like that, we’ll fit right in.”

  Jackie nodded, too tense to smile. He studied his man, taking in the slight shake of his left hand and the reddish coloring of his neck above the collar of his shirt. Chaz was nervous. Chaz had been on the judge’s payroll since before prison, and he’d done most of the legwork on the Duplass family during the dozen years of incarceration. His bald head and dark beard gave him a threatening appearance, but he was the brains of the duo, and as good at sleuthing as any PI Jackie had met. Confrontation was not his thing, though—and Jackie was worried he’d fold if things got too hot.

  In most instances, Keith was as useful as an extra appendix, but when it came to strength and obedience, he was indispensable. Short and stocky, with the enveloping scent of Italian hoagie wafting in his wake, Keith looked the part of goon. That was fine by Jackie. Today he needed a goon.

  “Where is she?” Jackie asked.

  The two exchanged a look.

  “Melody, you idiots, not the crazy-ass neighbor. Near here? You do fucking know where she is.”

  “The Manchester Inn.” Chaz grabbed a set of keys off a grimy nightstand. “Let’s go.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Chaz studied his boss for a beat too long. “Nothing. We’re ready.”

  “Let’s take my car,” Jackie said. In case you two motherfuckers screw things up. He kept that part to himsel
f.

  Ana had started out as a good kid. All passing marks in grade school. No trouble in town. It wasn’t until her fourteenth birthday, the year their father got deported and their mother died, that things went to hell. Scared and angry, Ana decided she would make her own rules. She ignored their aunt, stopped going to school, and hung out with the wrong people.

  But always, always, Ana felt she needed to look after her baby sister.

  Belize rubbed her eyes. She’d followed the judge from that shithole to the Manchester Inn and listened to his conversation with the men he’d brought along. She heard the room where he was headed, knew the name of his target. Melody. The name of a girl who will grow up on high-thread-count sheets and fly to Caribbean islands for spring break. Belize instantly hated her.

  Belize pulled her car into a rear spot in the lot, next to a dumpster. She opened her backpack and pulled out some clothes and a makeup kit.

  Show time.

  Jackie knocked on the door to room four twenty-eight.

  “Already?” came a confused voice from the other side. “Timmy?”

  Chaz held up a hand to stop Jackie’s questioning look. He grunted. The door swung open. Keith took advantage and pushed hard against the surface, opening it the rest of the way and knocking Melody down in the process.

  “What the hell?” The girl on the ground was all blue eyes and fair skin. Her peach-colored silk pajamas had ridden up when she fell, and Jackie got a glimpse of more pale skin, the slight rosy rise of one breast.

  “Get up,” Jackie barked.

  His men acted quickly. They locked the door, grabbed Melody by the arms, pinned her against the bedframe. The Manchester Inn was a step above—okay, a few staircases above—the Sun View, but it wasn’t the Plaza. Jackie glanced around, searching for threats. Searching for exits.