Final Target

by Jack Young

  “There’s a Safeway and a Starbucks there.”

  Davy moved his hands around showing a space of about a foot between his hands. “There’s an open space between them and that Car Quest next door. Plenty of room for Paden to get a few shots off. We already scouted the place out.”

  “It gonna give him enough time?”

  Davy nodded. “We timed that, too. I walked in front of his line of sight as if going into the station.”

  Big John looked at Paden. “What if you miss?”

  Paden pointed to Davy. “He wants to get Brady’s ass as much as I do, so he’ll do a sort of drive by as I shoot. We time it right and we both’ll shoot the fucker at the same time.”

  Big John smiled at this. “And how close will you be, Davy?”

  “Close enough to not miss. Look, Big John, you want him gone or what? Have I ever failed on a hit?”

  “Well, there was that Sullivan thing.”

  “Yeah, but I still got the job done.”

  “It got messy.”

  “Yeah, but no heat came our way. Hits aren’t always gonna be clean. Just make sure heat doesn’t rise from it. You taught me that.”

  “This hit alone is risky, kid, but how you’re doing it is riskier.”

  “You worried?”

  “For you, yeah. A little bit. It’s like you’re not thinking this through as clearly as you usually do.”

  Paden jumped in. “We did think this through. We scouted out my location and timed things three times. We got this.”

  Big John rubbed his temples. “You couldn’t just go to his house, kid?”

  “No.” Davy pointed around. “You know his house is twice as big as yours. You have two guys hanging around and he has twenty or thirty at his place.”

  “I’d prefer the cops don’t get involved right away is all.”

  “We ain’t comin’ here afterwards, big man. In fact, when it’s done, Paden is leaving town for good and you won’t see me for a long, long time, if at all. This is a big hit and I don’t need the heat following me, so I sure as hell ain’t bringing it your way.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Big John held up his hands realizing he wasn’t changing Davy’s mind. “How are you getting Sean to the station? What’s he gonna get arrested for?”

  Paden chin-pointed to his truck. “We got the guns we used at the farm. We’re gonna plant them on him.”

  “He’ll beat that charge, you know.” Big John said.

  “That’s fine.” Paden said. “We just need to get him to the station.”

  “Could be hours before he gets picked up. How you gonna know when he does?”

  “We’ll need a police scanner.” Davy said. “You got any extras?”

  “Yeah.” Big John went downstairs to his basement and was back a moment later. “Here. These two work the best. Now, how you gonna plant the guns on him. That part I still can’t seem to get. He’ll be looking for you guys.”

  Davy smiled. “You want him gone, right?”

  “Fuck yeah. Why do you keep asking that?”

  “Just need a little assistance from you is all.”

  “Ok. How?”

  “You seeing him today?”

  “In about an hour.”

  “Go to your meeting and have one of these other guys out front plant the guns. Make sure they do before contacting us.”

  “Just like that? You trust one of these guys will get it done?”

  “You want it done, so they won’t fuck it up.”

  Big John nodded in agreement. “How you tippin’ off the cops?”

  Paden held up a cell phone. “Got this burner from Davy’s shed. I’ll call in a hit and run with the description of the vehicle you text me he’s riding in.” Paden handed Big John a slip of paper with the phone’s number on it. “Text the make, model, and plate numbers. You meeting him at his house?”

  “No. At a club. Al’s.”

  “Okay. Text Davy when he leaves. I’ll call 911 then. Hopefully, a patrol car is nearby.” Paden thought it over for a moment. “No. I’ll call it in as a shooting hit and run. A drive by. That might get the cops a reason to move quicker.”

  Big John looked at Davy. “I like this guy. How come we’re just now working together?”

  Davy shrugged. “I don’t know.” He handed Big John something wrapped in a big cloth and grocery bag. “Here. You want us to do this. Just make sure these get planted.”

  Big John grabbed whatever was in the wrappings and felt it up with his big hands. “The guns?”

  “Yep.” Davy looked around. “Look, Big John. One way or the other you’re probably not gonna see me after this. If you do, it might be years.”

  “What are you saying, kid?”

  “I’m either not making it out of this alive or I need to go away. I just want to thank you. For everything.”

  “Don’t get all sappy on me now.”

  “I just wanted you to know.” He looked over at Paden. “You ready, man?”

  “Yeah.” Paden shook Big John’s hand. “Thanks, John.”

  “I should be thanking the two of you for this.”

  Both Paden and Davy turned to leave. Paden looked back at Big John. “Well, it isn’t over yet. Make sure those guns get planted.”

  Two hours had passed since they met with Big John and Paden was beginning to wonder if the meeting with Brady took place and the guns were planted. Davy noticed this agitation. “Relax. He’ll get it done.”

  “It’s been over two hours.”

  “I know, but these things take time.”

  They were sitting in Paden’s truck in the Safeway parking lot. Davy was in the driver’s seat to allow Paden to exit in a hurry to his spot which he already set up. Being in the driver’s seat would just slow him down. He reached into the backseat and pulled up a plastic grocery bag. “You want one these sandwiches I bought?”

  “What kind?”

  “Um…There’s a club, turkey, and a ham. They all have American cheese with lettuce.”

  “I’ll take the ham.”

  “I bought some water, too.” Paden handed the water and sandwich to Davy. He kept the club for himself. They weren’t big sandwiches, but they would be enough to ease the grumbling in their bellies. It also seemed to help with the nerves Paden was feeling. “You know I grew up here, too.” Paden’s mouth was full when he said this. “Over on Midland. There’s a Town Pump there where I used to live with my grandmother. This store,” He pointed to the Safeway. “It wasn’t here when I took off for the Army. There was a little diner here. Me and Grandma ate there sometimes. The old couple running it died while I was away and their kids sold it.”

  “It had a KISS pinball machine, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I kind of remember that place. It had good food.”

  “Besides the store you work in, we’ve always had a Safeway though. It used to be smaller and over on Grove back in the day. It was closer to Grandma’s house then and I’d go there just about everyday for her.”

  “The cop shop’s always been there though.” Davy pointed to the police station with his bottle of water.

  “Yeah. As far back as I can remember. The diner was here first, Grandma said. Station came over from downtown because it needed more room. That was in ’69 I think she said. She thought the move was to be closer to the diner where they could get the best doughnuts in town.”

  Davy laughed a little. “They’ve upgraded to lattes and scones from Starbucks these days. Everytime I go in there, some cops are getting a latte and some kind of pastry. Another reason I work at the other store; less cops come in there.”

  “This town has sure grown over the years. More so in the last twenty since I came back. There was only twenty cops back then. Now, they seemed to have tripled.”

  “You grew up with that cop Thompson? He seemed to know you and you both look the same age.”

  “Yeah. Kind of. I went to the high school on the west end. He must’ve went to the one down the street
from here.”

  “You had to know of him from playing sports, right?”

  “I didn’t play in high school.”

  “What? Big ass dude like you?”

  Paden shrugged and took a drink of water. “Grandma got real sick when I was fifteen. I didn’t have time for sports then because I ended up getting a job to help her out. She was working until she got sick. Then I lived by myself senior year. My loser of an uncle put her in a home and since I was eighteen early on in my senior year, he let me stay there rent free. Gave me a thousand bucks, too.”

  “He paid for the home your grandma was in and only gave you a thousand bucks?” Davy shook his head. “I got a rich uncle, too. He has a cabin on Flathead Lake. I used to go there every summer. Did your uncle stick around?”

  “No, he left us.” Paden looked out his window into the sky. “Grandma didn’t stay there long. It was the middle of November when she went in and two weeks before I graduated, she died. She left my uncle the house and no sooner did he find out the house was his than he put it on the market. Me? I joined the Army the day after graduation and left for basic two weeks later and stayed away the entire four years I was in.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “It was the only place I knew as home. I didn’t feel like staying in the Army for twenty years either. Came home and did some odd things. Became a private investigator for a bit.”

  “Evan’s Investigations. I remember seeing that in the paper. You still do that?”

  “Like I said before, I just usually tracked someone down or delivered shit. That’s how I was hooked up with Lanny Clark. He hired me to look for someone. I was also working at one of his clubs during this case and it got complicated. One night I killed those two guys in self-defense. He was impressed, I guess, with how I handled myself that he offered me more work as one of his bouncers at his clubs. He sent me to Target thinking it was a quick thing; something he didn’t have time to do himself.”

  “I got sent there to whack someone, but from what I’ve been hearing it was the wrong guy.”

  “Big John said this all probably came down from Brady. Why?”

  “I’m not sure. Things have soured for the two personally over the last year. Sean brought a personal issue to me to take care of and I couldn’t do it. He knocked up a teenage girl.”

  “He want you to take her to get an abortion?”

  “No.” Davy gave Paden a hard look.

  “Damn.” Paden shook his head. “And you wouldn’t do it. What happened?”

  “Big John told off Sean. Said it was a personal issue and we don’t do that.”

  “I’m guessing that wasn’t the end of it.”

  “No. She died in a car wreck with her sister and nephew not long after Big John talked to Brady.”

  “Were you involved with the sister?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t too serious, but fuck it still hurts.”

  “The boy. Was he yours?”

  “No, but it was still a fucked up thing.”

  Paden stared at Davy and saw the determined look. “Well, all the more reason to cut this fucker down for good.”

  Just then, Davy’s phone pinged. He showed Paden his phone. “Big John. The meeting’s over.”

  Paden took the phone and dialed 911. The responder answered on the second ring. “911. What’s your emergency?”

  Paden tried his best panic-stricken voice. “Oh my God! Someone just started shooting some cars! I think some people were shot!”

  He could hear the responder clicking at a keyboard before she replied. “Sir, where was this?”

  “I’m not sure. I was driving by this club or diner called Al’s.”

  “Ok. What else can you tell us?”

  Paden disconnected the call. “I’m sure they’ll try and call back.”

  Davy nodded. “Probably. This is a disposable phone anyway. I’ll ditch later.”

  A few moments passed, but soon the police scanner went off describing a drive by shooting. Davy turned up the scanner as they listened to the events unfold. It sounded like a traffic stop occurred. The cop on the radio reported he and another set of cops were bringing in three men from the suspected vehicle and to make matters worse, they had a couple of unregistered pistols in the Suburban with them. Their ETA was just under ten minutes.

  Paden grabbed the case with the rifle he would be using and opened the passenger door. “There’s our cue.”

  “Hey, Paden.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s finish this and grab some beers at my uncle’s place on the lake.”

  “Sounds good.” They shook hands and Paden took off running.

  33.

  Orrin sat in a chair opposite Joe while Jacobs stood in one of the corners behind him. “Why’d you run, Orrin?”

  Orrin shrugged and remained silent. He looked a hell of lot like his older brother, with longer hair and without the cold look of a killer Davy had. Joe decided to quit messing around and get to the heart of the matter. “You seen your brother, Davy, recently?”

  Another shrug. The kid was trying to be tough. Joe saw this act before. In his experience, those trying to act tough were putting on a show and were actually scared. Orrin was no different. Davy and Paden were tough guys. There was a naturalness to the way they acted. Not Orrin. His right leg wouldn’t stop shaking.

  Joe tried another tactic. “You’re not in trouble, Orrin. We just want to talk to you about your brother.”

  Orrin didn’t look up and was pretending to pick at something stuck to the table. “I haven’t seen him. You check where he lives?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The grocery store where he works?”

  “Yep.”

  “What about the girl he’s been seeing?”

  “He’s got a girl? What’s her name?”

  Orrin shrugged again. “I dunno. Jamie, I think. She works at the store with him.”

  Joe wrote that down in his notebook. “This’ll help us a lot. Thanks.”

  “He in trouble?”

  It was Joe’s turn to shrug. “Just need to talk to him. He might be able to shed some light on some things.”

  “Like that shit at Target?”

  Joe could feel Jacobs adjusting his position behind him. He remained silent and let Joe continue. “What can you tell us about what happened there? Were you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you the other person in the piece of shit car Davy drove off in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What can you tell us about what happened?”

  “Nothing really. He was taking me to the movies, but he said he needed to make a quick stop first.”

  “Did he say anything about this ‘quick stop?’”

  “Just that he had to meet someone at two.”

  “Did he say who?”

  “No. He did grab his gun through.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind?”

  “I dunno. A gun.”

  Joe nodded. “Okay. Then what?”

  “Some van showed up and shot the shit outta the truck Davy was walking towards and then it blew up.”

  “What did Davy do?”

  “I don’t know. I hid down in the car trying to shield myself and then got out of the car as he ran back. He yelled at me to get back in the car.”

  “Where’d you go when you took off?”

  “He took me to Caleb’s. I dunno where he went. He was supposed to work later that day. Maybe he went there.”

  Joe kept writing as the room became quiet. He glanced up periodically and saw Orrin looking down at the table again. It was Jacobs who broke the silence. He was always good at playing the bad cop. “Ok, kid. We got all this. Most was on a video we watched.”

  Orrin looked up. “Then why did you come get me?”

  Jacobs pointed to Joe. “Like my partner said, we just wanna know where your brother is. That’s all. Help us out now.”

  “I did.”

  “Not really. He wasn’t at
home or work. His place looked all cleared out like he was leaving and his boss hasn’t seen him since the day of the shooting. In fact, I talked to a young girl there. Maybe your age. I’m guessing she was this Jamie you mentioned and she said she hadn’t seen him either.”

  “Then, I dunno, man. He doesn’t always check in with me. He could be gone for days before he does sometimes.”

  “He doesn’t have a little get away or anything like that?”

  Joe saw the look in Orrin’s eyes. “He does, doesn’t he? Where?”

  Orrin became quiet again. Jacobs slammed his hands down on the table. The move even startled Joe. “Listen, kid. We need to find your brother. He’s heading down a path that’ll probably get him killed.”

  “But, you’ll arrest him.”

  “He’ll be alive at least.” Joe said. He could see the tears running down Orrin’s cheeks. The room was quiet except for Orrin’s small cries. He tried to regain his composure, but continued crying. This went on for several minutes. So long that Jacobs left the room, was gone for a few minutes, and returned with a box of tissue. “Here, kid. Blow your nose and stop crying.”

  Orrin took some tissue and blew his nose and gave a loud sniff. “Wilson Lake.”

  Joe sat up. “What’s that?”

  “He’s got a cabin along the lake. I dunno how he got it, but he let me use it once to take a girl there.”

  Joe knew the cabins Orrin talked about because he, too, used to do the same thing at his uncle’s cabin when he was in high school. “Which one is his?”

  Orrin squinted his eyes trying to think. Then he pointed with his right forefinger going counter-clockwise. “If you don’t turn left when you hit the Y junction at the lake’s entrance and keep going straight it’s the…” He did the counter-clockwise pointing again. “It’s the seventh one along the lake.”

  Joe knew which one that was. It was next door to the cabin where several teenage girls were held captive by the local science teacher and principal. He and Jacobs were there when the girls escaped. They were aided by Mike Wells, the local high school history teacher, and his friend Tommy Lowe. Lowe took off soon after and Joe still wanted to arrest him for some other deaths that happened that were sort of related to the captors of the girls, but so far he had trouble finding him. He was still determined to bring him in.