Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set

by Gordon Carroll

  Baldy lived in trailer 19. Three trailers down from the east entrance on the north side of the street. It was dark inside, with no porch light, but there were curtains on the windows. Tweakers love to set up house in trailers and hotel rooms. There’s less overhead and fewer nosey neighbors with property values to worry about.

  I heard a door open behind me, and a big, bald guy with glasses and a sack lunch came out of one of the adobe shacks. He saw me and nodded in my direction. I nodded back. Nice enough fellow. The guy started to get in his pickup but stopped and looked at me again.

  “You looking for Anna?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m looking for Jimmy Ballantine.” Baldy’s real name.

  He pursed his lips as though giving it some thought. “Used to be a Ray Ballantine lived there three or four years ago. I don’t remember no Jimmy Ballantine though.” He thought some more, rubbing his chin with spade shaped fingers. “I do seem to remember him talking about having a son once; never seen him around here though. Ray died two years ago. Miss Anna Poulton lives there now. She’s a widower and a sweet old lady. She don’t get out of bed this early though. You need to talk to her you’d best come back after ten.”

  I sighed. “No, just looking for Jimmy. Thanks for the help.” I waved and walked back to my car. Bald Guy waved back and got in his truck. The old dog didn’t even raise his head this time. Some guard dog. So much for my tweakerville theory. Nice bald guys and sweet old ladies. Sheesh.

  My house was about fifteen minutes away so I went home and started loading up my cooler again.

  29

  Max

  Max stood on the highest point of the hogback, watching as the sun crept above the flat plane of the east, conquering darkness as it continued its slow, steady climb; unrelenting, unstoppable, magnificent in its power and glory. The gray shade of night that paled the land blossomed with color as the morning star raised its head high, burning away the dark thoughts of the Gray Wolf that weighed heavy on Max. The new heat warmed his blood and his spirit.

  The Alpha had stopped him from attacking his prey. Max could have accepted this if the Alpha had destroyed the prey himself, as was his right as the leader. But to let the prey go unharmed was too much.

  Max’s hunt drive was satiated once he actually found the man hiding under the porch, but his prey drive and fight drive were left unsatisfied, leaving him tense and unfulfilled. The experience brought back his feelings and memories of the Gray Wolf and that had driven him to the hunt.

  As soon as the Alpha let him out of the car at the garage, Max escaped into the last of the night’s darkness. He searched hard for sign of coyote spore but found none. He hunted, outran and killed three rabbits and a possum.

  It didn’t help. Nothing did, until the splendor of the Sun’s heat shined upon his face, dissipating the gloom of despair that threatened to crush him.

  In the primitive way canines think and reason, Max found himself questioning again the Alpha’s place in the rank structure of their pack. He thought of the weaknesses he saw in the Alpha; his lack of speed, and vision and hearing. The Alpha seemed incapable of tracking as Max did, of smelling the path and ways taken by other animals. The Alpha’s teeth were useless in battle.

  But then Max remembered the way the Alpha killed the bear and fought the men. The weapons he used and the raw strength in his arms and hands. And the way the Alpha could read him.

  Max also wondered at the strange feelings he was experiencing toward the Alpha. Feelings he didn’t understand. This uncommon urge to surrender to him, to obey and accept him as the Alpha.

  A sound. The Alpha calling for him. Far away but Max could easily hear him. If he barked or howled in response would the Alpha be able to hear it? Max didn’t think he would and that knowledge burned inside him.

  Only the strong could lead. And Max was the strongest member of the pack.

  He turned and headed to the house.

  30

  Gil

  I loaded the cooler into the Escalade. I’d have to let my usual morning routine slide if I was to have any chance of tailing the boys today.

  Pilgrim bounded out the doggy door and jumped up on me. I wrestled around with him for awhile then found his Kong toy and tossed it as far as I could. It hit and bounced in about nine different directions doing a good job of imitating a rabbit’s flight path. Pilgrim caught hold of it before it came to a stop and ran it back to me. He dropped it and backed away, smiling hugely and waiting for the game to begin anew. I tossed it far, in a different direction and he was off again.

  Turning I saw Max standing about ten feet away, staring at me. I didn’t like the look in his eyes.

  I’ve dealt with my share of rank dogs before. Rank in K9 lingo refers to the natural drive in a dog to advance his position in the pack. Different dogs, different drives. My old dog Samson, a hundred pound German Shepherd, used to try and take control of the pack from me every six months like clockwork. I would usually see the signs and take care of it before it got out of hand. The signs were things like, obeying commands slower than usual. I’d give him a platz and he’d look up at me from the side of his eyes and slowly go to the ground, as though saying, well, okay, but only because I want to anyway. If I didn’t catch it right away it would get worse. He might grumble with a small growl or a curl of his upper lip before obeying. If I still didn’t catch the clues, which actually only happened twice, but that was twice too many, the fight would be on.

  The correct and less painful way to handle a dog exhibiting rank behavior is to put him in muzzle, then work him hard in obedience, making him heel, sit, lay, stay, over and over again at different paces and switching up commands from verbal to hand and back to verbal again, correcting him with a sharp snap of the leash if he doesn’t obey instantly, until the dog reaches the point of frustration and tries to attack you. If the dog is really exhibiting rank behavior it usually doesn’t take long. Once the dog attacks, you take hold of him by the sides of his jowls and flip him over your hip in what is called an alpha roll. You throw the dog onto his back, straddle him and scream in his face as loud as you can — nine — nine — fooey — nine — until he looks away and his tail curls up between his legs. This is a sign of absolute submission and the exercise is over. If you continue to push past this point the dog might easily go into survival mode and then you have created a problem.

  The real trouble comes in when you don’t recognize the signs of a dog going rank. Once when I was on a track with Samson, looking for two burglars that fled on foot when the homeowner surprised them, he started to mark a bush. Handlers don’t let their K9s leave a track to mark… pee… because this is a distraction and can throw the dog off. I snapped the lead as a correction and said fooey, not knowing that Samson was going to choose that particular time to take control of the pack. The signs had been there for days but I’d missed them or been too busy to pay attention, as I should have. Bad move on my part. Samson launched like a missile. He caught me with a full mouth bite on my left forearm, his canines punching through my heavy jacket, uniform shirt and long sleeve turtleneck t-shirt, and into my arm with enough force to numb my nerves completely. That arm was dead to me — useless. I managed to grab hold of the very back of his left jowl with my right hand and spun into his attack, using his own momentum to flip him over onto his back. I landed on top of him with all my weight and shoved my forearm as deep into his mouth as I could. There was no pain at this point, although there was plenty of pain later, and I concentrated all my will on keeping him trapped under me, and not letting go of his mouth. I screamed into his face, fear helping put force behind my words.

  My cover officer, a skinny rookie named Brad Gosling, didn’t know what to do. He ran around us waving his gun, trying to get a bead on Samson screaming, “What should I do?” He was screaming so loud and Samson was growling so loud he couldn’t hear me yell for him to cover us in case the bad guys saw what was going on and decided to shoot us. Of course I was trying to yel
l this while at the same time screaming — nine — nine — fooey — nine — at the top of my lungs. The numbness was starting to wear off and pain to set in and only the fact that I was wearing so many clothes saved me from having the bone in my arm crushed. That dog could bite. Eventually Samson submitted, released my arm, and looked away, and none too soon. Exhausted, shocky and ready to throw up, I managed to calm the rookie down and keep him from shooting either Samson or me, and to cover us. I put Samson back in my cruiser, my damaged limb hanging like cold meat at my side, and that was that.

  Needless to say we didn’t catch the burglars that night. And it was my fault. I should have seen the signs.

  I was seeing those signs again. This time in Max’s eyes. I’d been lucky with Samson back then. If I hadn’t been wearing the coat, or if I hadn’t been able to flip him over — any one of a dozen things — and it would have gone much worse for me. After all we train these dogs to take out the biggest and baddest of the crooks, why should we think we could handle them if they go after us? Our training helps, that and the fact that usually when a dog first goes rank he still holds some measure of respect for the old alpha and might hold back just a little. But with Max I didn’t think that would be the case.

  So, what to do? Should I bring it on, try and make him attack so I could get it over with? Or was I wrong about him? Was this just his personality? Maybe he would always question my authority a little but never try and assume command of the pack. If that were the case I could seriously hurt our relationship and perhaps his confidence and spirit by forcing him to the breaking point.

  There was another possibility, one I didn’t like to contemplate. Some animals simply will not accept a beta or secondary position. Not ever. No matter what. They will die before they submit to anything or anyone. I’ve seen it in K9s. Very rare, thank goodness, but it does happen. Sometimes handlers will keep trying with them, thinking they have what it takes to tame the beast. But it never works. Never. Because it isn’t how strong or how good the handler is that is the problem. It’s the dog itself.

  An absolute alpha dog. If the dog will not submit, no handler will be able to get the dog to perform acceptably as a K9. Because whenever the dog decides he doesn’t want to listen to the handler he will attack him. And this becomes a greater danger and liability than it is an asset to the handler.

  I hoped Max was not that type of dog.

  But that look in his eyes scared me.

  I nodded toward the car. “Hop in.”

  Max stared for another second. Then he jumped in.

  A trickle of sweat tickled down my back.

  Pilgrim barked right next to me and I jumped. I looked down at him, the Kong lying at my feet. “Thanks, pal. You just about proved Yolanda right and gave me a heart attack.” I picked up the Kong and sent it sailing. Once he got it I motioned toward the house and said “Inside.” Pilgrim’s workdays were coming to an end. He served me long and well and it was time for him to start taking it easy. I hoped Max would help make that possible.

  31

  I drove back to Pimple’s house in Aurora and parked down the street under a shady cottonwood. The place looked as deserted as it did last night. I had made a quick pass by Gauges on the way to see if Baldy’s car was still in the driveway. It wasn’t.

  Of course I had no way of knowing if Pimples had come back home or not. If he wasn’t in there I was wasting time, of which I didn’t have a lot. Hmm.

  I called a dispatcher friend of mine at the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and had her cross check the address for a phone number. She found one for a Shelly Burbank born in sixty-one at that location and gave me the number. I called and let it ring about twenty times. No answer. Hmm again. Could be nobody was home. On the other hand maybe Shelly or her son were real heavy sleepers. I had a choice to make. I could sit here all day waiting for Pimples to show, or I could take a more direct approach. Not much of a choice really. I hate sitting around.

  There weren’t many people out and about at this time of the morning. Not in this neighborhood. The hole in the front door went all the way through. I phoned inside again and this time I could hear the phone ring. Still no answer. I tried the doorknob. It was locked. I carry a three-piece lock pick set with me but I didn’t think I’d need it. I reached inside the hole and found the deadbolt latch and the knob lock and turned them both. I was inside in under fifteen seconds.

  The place was trashed, big surprise, but not as bad as I would have thought from the outside. I checked through the rooms. The master bedroom, obviously Pimple’s mother’s room, was well kept with a picture of who I took to be her, baby Pimples, and daddy Pimples from better days, on a dresser. The bed was made, with the sheets and comforter turned down. I looked from her bedroom into the hallway leading to the trashy living room, and felt sad for her. I doubted the woman in the photograph on the dresser ever thought back then that her little baby would turn out to be a drugged-out kidnapper of little children, or that she would end up living in a nasty house in a nasty neighborhood with no way out.

  Pimple’s room squatted across the hall. It was exactly the opposite of his mother’s room. I searched through his bed stand, his dresser, under his bed, his closet, through the clothes littered about the floor and hanging on doors. Thank goodness for gloves.

  I was looking for anything belonging to Amber or Tom or Shane. Anything that might have come from the ransacking of the Franklin house. Anything that might point to who Mr. Spock and his goons were or who they were working for.

  Time to get serious. I stripped the sheets from the bed and checked the mattress for slits where Pimples might have slipped something inside to hide — nothing. I checked the ceiling, which was warped drywall — nothing. I checked the floor, moldy beer stained carpet — nothing. I checked the desk, the dresser, the bed stand, looking for loose boards, pried open compartments, things taped beneath drawers or under ledges — nothing. I checked the closet again, this time throwing everything out onto the bedroom floor, and on the far wall, way in the back I found — something. A rectangle of drywall had been crudely cut out and then stuck back on. I removed the cover and found a plain wooden jewelry box inside. It was about a foot long, maybe eight inches tall, and eight inches high. And it was heavy. There was a hasp but no lock. Inside the box I found ten stacks of red, five-dollar poker chips. In each of the ten stacks were twenty chips. That came to a total of a thousand bucks worth of chips. Not exactly a fortune, but for a burnout like Pimples it was a pretty decent pot.

  The chips were standard casino chips made of clay with the casino’s imprint in the center. The imprint read The Mills Casino in Black Hawk. I slipped one into my pocket and put the rest back.

  I put the box in its hiding place and replaced the drywall covering. I threw most of the clothes I’d dumped from the closet back in and made a quick sweep through the house looking for any other clues. I didn’t find any.

  I relocked the doors from the outside, using the hole again, and went back to my car.

  While I waited for the dynamic drug-heads to show up I began searching for info on the Law Firm of Kinsley, Gifford and Vanderzee, via my handy Star Trek communicator — these days commonly referred to as a cell phone — only handier and packed with more apps than even a Tricorder.

  The great thing about the Internet is the incredible amount of information. The bad thing about the Internet is the incredible amount of information. It took me nearly two hours to sort through all kinds of superfluous stuff about the firm. Of course, since I didn’t really know what exactly I was looking for, I could have been wrong about that. So I had to sift through everything until something clicked. And then it did.

  The Law Firm of Kinsley, Gifford and Vanderzee turned out to be the legal counsel on record for a certain gambling establishment known as The Mills Casino and Hotel located in beautiful Black Hawk Colorado. What a coincidence.

  Bingo! Pun intended.

  Clear Creek Canyon was gorgeous as I drove up US 6 towa
rd Black Hawk. The town was known originally as the Town of Mills, because of all the water driven stamp mills that hammered Quartz rock, night and day to get the gold out of it. It’s thought the later name of Black Hawk came from the company in Illinois that shipped up the mining equipment. The company was named Black Hawk after the famous Chief of the Sauk Indians. The stamp mills were basically huge mortar and pestle devices hooked together by a shaft and powered by rushing river water that moved a cam, lifting the incredibly heavy pestle or stamp, and then letting it fall to crush the rock.

  History lesson complete.

  Nowadays Black Hawk is a gambling town just like its sister, Central City. Colorado voted in limited gaming back in 1990 but tried to curb the negative influences that usually accompany gambling like; addiction, prostitution, drugs, organized crime, things like that, by imposing a maximum bet and by limiting the types of games casinos can offer to blackjack, poker and slot machines.

  But hey, gambling’s gambling. And you can make your maximum bet as many times as you want. So… stop people from getting addicted to gambling… what are the odds?

  The organized crime part is what interested me though. Mr. Spock had hinted at mafia or mob involvement — Pimples works for Mr. Spock — Pimples had been in Black Hawk recently — Pimples has a thousand bucks in poker chips from a casino in Black Hawk — Pimples got bonded out from jail by lawyers that represent that same casino in Black Hawk — where gambling be, organized crime shan’t be far away — and last but not least Shane Franklin was mixed up in something that was serious enough for him to be tortured and murdered and for his father and sister to be kidnapped. The casinos raked in over a billion dollars in Colorado last year. I consider that serious money.