The Devil Wears Tank Tops

by Destiny Ford

  I stared at what used to be a glass covered entrance, and started to bite my nails. This was a problem. Kory Greer was inside his building with people I was almost certain were murderers. Did he know them? Did he need to be saved from them? It had certainly seemed like he was terrified of them at the protest.

  I looked around my Jeep for a weapon. All I had was pepper spray and my fire extinguisher. Considering what I thought had happened the last time the two guys had been in a sugar factory, I thought the extinguisher might actually be useful. The guys had guns though, and guns were faster than my pressurized nitrogen. But I also had the element of surprise.

  I was debating the merits of going in, extinguisher firing, when another car pulled up. Sleek, black, and sexy, it also had dark, tinted windows and chrome trim. I loved cars the same way I loved Frosted Paradise doughnuts, so I was certain the car that had just cruised in was a Maybach. It purred in the way only extremely expensive cars do, and rolled to a silent stop in front of the building. It cost more than most houses, and looked like drivable money.

  A man in a white shirt, black suit, and dark sunglasses stepped out of the driver’s seat. He opened the back door, and another man, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit and blood red shirt, stepped out. He was balding, and probably in his sixties. His gaze went toward the side of the building where Kory’s Ferrari was parked, then he nodded to the driver and they both walked up the steps of the building. They paused momentarily, looking from the black truck to the shattered glass doors, before going inside.

  Now I was even more confused. I’d never seen the man—or car—around town before…and I would have definitely noticed the car. But he walked into the building like he was supposed to be there. Did he know about the two guys inside? Did I need to warn him and his driver? I mulled it over, going back and forth before intuition took over, and told me that with the way the older guy had driven up, and then walked inside, he’d been there before. The guy acted like he owned the place. He knew Kory was here, and had stopped briefly as he walked by the black truck like he was expecting it—and the men’s—presence.

  As much as I wanted to help Kory, I knew it was far safer for me to wait in the car like Hawke had told me to do. There’d be enough people who needed rescuing by the time Hawke arrived; I didn’t need to add to it. I kept my gaze locked on the building, windows down as I strained to hear any noise that might come from inside. My commitment to stay in the car lasted a total of three minutes. Long enough for another car to pull up, and me to see a bewildered John Wilson step out of his rusting, white Toyota.

  “Shit,” I muttered, unbuttoning my seat belt. I was hoping to get John’s attention before he went inside, but I didn’t get out of the car fast enough. By the time I was out of the clearing, John was gone.

  I wasn’t sure where the two scary guys were, or anyone else for that matter, but I couldn’t stay outside and do nothing. John, at least, was innocent in all of this. That, I was sure of. I had to help him.

  During my attempt to stop John, I’d left the fire extinguisher in the car, but I had my pepper spray, and palmed it, prepared to use it at a moment’s notice.

  I crept up to the side of the building and peeked through the former glass door. I couldn’t see anyone in the hallway. I slowly stepped through the door, being careful about where I put my feet. I didn’t want crunching glass to alert people to my presence.

  I moved to the first room on my right. The door was closed, so I pressed my ear against it, listening for movement. I didn’t hear anyone inside, so I slowly pressed the door open, looking in. It was empty. I inched quietly down the hall, my ear tuned for any errant noise, and finally heard a voice coming from somewhere ahead of me. I pressed myself against the wall as I moved, trying to be stealthy.

  I came to a large room with double doors. One of the doors was open, and I peeked around the corner inside. I took a quick inventory of the space. Machines lined the expansive area, and boxes of cookies with the Saints and Sinners logo were stacked in the corner on pallets from floor to ceiling. Kory and John were both tied to chairs and facing the older guy and his driver. The Caucasian and Hispanic guys stood to the side, and appeared to be enforcers, keeping Kory and John in line.

  “I was given a card with information that I needed to come here if I wanted help with the hemp oil,” John said. “Why am I being held hostage?”

  I’d just talked to him less than an hour ago. He must have left the protest and come straight here.

  “Don’t worry about the ropes. We just used them to make sure we’d have your undivided attention,” the older man said. “And we’d be glad to help you with the oil, Mr. Wilson. In exchange for a little help from you as well.”

  A confused look crossed John’s face. “What do you need my help with?”

  The guy eyed John speculatively. “I’d like to make you an offer.”

  John gave him a wary look in return.

  “How would you like to have all of the low THC strain hemp oil you could ever need? For free.”

  John’s mouth fell open and if he hadn’t been sitting down already, I was sure he would have staggered. “You’re joking.”

  The bald man shook his head. “No. I’m not. I have access to it, and I can get it to you. But there’s a cost.”

  “What?” John quickly asked.

  “In exchange, you’ll stop speaking out in support of hemp oil. As your daughter gets better, you’ll go on record saying her new medications were a God-send, and they have healed your daughter.”

  John stared at the man blankly. “But medications don’t work. We’ve tried for years. Only the hemp oil will help.”

  The man nodded. “And you’ll have as much as you could ever dream of. But no one will know that except us. To everyone else, you’ll tell them she’s on a new seizure medication combination that’s keeping her healthy. You’ll say how happy you are that you didn’t have to put her on something as untested as marijuana. And you’ll campaign in support of the cause to make marijuana—hemp oil included—illegal in all fifty states once again.”

  John’s eyes went wide, his face stretched with horror. He looked like he might not be breathing. “I can’t do that. Do you have any idea how many people need the oil? It’s not just my daughter being affected. It’s thousands of children! I can’t turn on my friends and watch my daughter get better while their kids get worse and die.” He looked down at the floor and shook his head. When he looked up at the bald guy again, his eyes were shining with tears. “I can’t accept your offer.”

  The bald guy gave him a smile that wasn’t at all reassuring. “You misunderstand, John.” The bald guy gestured toward the enforcers. “The hemp oil was an attempt to be nice, but I could accomplish the same outcome other ways.” The enforcers each took one of John’s arms. “A pro-pot activist being murdered by drug dealers would make a great story for my cause.”

  John looked stunned, and couldn’t even respond. Kory responded for him. “You’re an evil man,” Kory said, his face bright red with anger. “You gave me a contract to make cookies. You never told me the ingredients included marijuana! Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through since I found out? I was producing something that made people ill, and I didn’t even know it!” His voice got louder with each sentence he spoke. “You wanted people to get sick so you could use the cookies as an example of how dangerous pot is. You’re trying to stop people like John from using hemp oil to keep their kids alive. You’re the definition of wicked.”

  The bald guy gave Kory a bored look. “Your sugar factory was going under, Mr. Greer. You came to Brigham Smith, desperate for investors. We gave you the machines, tools, and licenses you needed to branch out into food production. Then we gave you the cookie ingredients—including sugar from your own sugar factory—and a staff to make them. You were also given an extremely generous amount of money for your compliance. All you had to do was let us use your building, stay out of our business, and keep quiet about where the
cookies were being produced. You accepted without a second thought.” He was the picture of arrogance as he stepped forward, looking down on Kory, a distasteful expression on his face. “Unfortunately, you didn’t ask about the ingredients at the time, Mr. Greer. In fact, you seemed rather thrilled to have the offer at all. You couldn’t wait to sign the contract. You didn’t even have your attorney look it over.”

  “Because I thought I was dealing with someone respectable!” Kory yelled.

  “You were. And we were dealing with someone stupid, which was exactly what we’d hoped for.”

  Kory’s face went even redder. “I hope you die a horrible death for what you’ve done.”

  The man smiled slowly. “Well, I can guarantee that of the two of us, you’ll die first.”

  At the most inopportune moment, my phone started playing “Forever in Blue Jeans.” I muttered a curse—a really bad one—as I fumbled to shut off the ring. I did it, but not fast enough. I had about five seconds before the enforcers found me to realize Neil—and Spence—might have just gotten me killed. At least the last song I listened to would be a good one.

  The two guys tied me up in a chair, and put me next to Kory and John. “My, my,” the old guy said, coming over to me. “If it isn’t the intrepid reporter who was so helpful in our cause.”

  I’d heard the entire conversation and wasn’t pleased with what I’d learned. At all. I held his eyes with a stony gaze. “If I’d known I was being helpful, I wouldn’t have written the story.”

  “We know,” the bald guy said. “That’s why we gave you incentive. The threats helped push you to find out the truth.”

  The realization that Brigham Smith used me to push their cause and convince the public that marijuana was dangerous made me spitting mad. If he’d been close enough, I would have kicked him in his fancy, suit-covered shin—at the very least. “Who are you?” I knew he was part of the Brigham Smith Group, but I wanted to know the name of the man who was threatening me and holding me against my will.

  “Isaac Handler.”

  Of course he was.

  He gave a slow smile in response. I wanted to punch him.

  “So you own Makhai, LLC, and the Saints and Sinners Cookies?” I asked.

  He regarded me with interest. “I was the name behind them both, yes. But Makhai was started by Brigham Smith.”

  “Clever name,” I said. “And appropriate since the Brigham Smith Group is two-faced.”

  He smiled without any hint of humor. “The Makhai were also known for their ability to attract fellow spirits of war, and make them even more formidable. We were using the Saints and Sinners Cookies to build our outraged army.”

  They were delusional is what they were. “If that was your goal, why did you keep threatening me even after the article came out?”

  “Misdirection, Ms. Saxee. It insured you’d continue pursuing the marijuana story, and help to keep the dangers of pot relevant in the media. Every step of this process was planned. We knew once the story was published in Branson, it would be picked up throughout Utah. After that, it would move nationally, and we’d have a bigger base to support our cause and help us fight against drug legalization. Exposure is key, but exposure by carefully calculated manipulation works far better. You helped us achieve that.”

  I felt anger tightening my stomach. “But you lied about the cookies,” I said, righteous indignation showing through. Nothing made me madder than a liar. “You put quadruple doses of pot in them! You made people think marijuana is a lot worse than it really is.”

  He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “It was an end to a means. Things have to be done for the greater good.”

  The greater good was one of the dumbest, and most dangerous, arguments I’d ever heard. A lot of horrible things had been done in the name of doing what was best for the masses. A small set of opinions shouldn’t be able to make that choice for everyone. “Things like murder?” I asked.

  “Well…” he said, mulling it over, “that’s a rather strong word. We like to think of it as housekeeping.”

  I’d never seen such a sweet looking old man turn an idea into something so vile. “The bodies found all over the state with their arms and legs cut off, including Juan Carlotta’s body in the sugar factory were ‘housekeeping’ to you?” I wasn’t sure how Brigham Smith had been connected to them, but I knew they were.

  “Ah, yes. That was an unfortunate incident. One my men are still recovering from.” He gestured towards the two enforcers. They stared straight ahead with stony expressions. “They learned their lesson, though. Don’t chop off body parts with an ax in the presence of sugar dust.”

  My eyes went wide. “The ax caused the spark?”

  He nodded. “Pity. We’d planned to retrofit two sections of Mr. Greer’s sugar factory for our cookie production. The cookie campaign could have been so much bigger, maybe even nationwide instead of just across Utah, if we’d been producing out of two spaces instead of one.”

  My mouth gaped. He’d ordered the deaths of six men, and was only concerned with how the fire had slowed down his production and ultimate plan to end all drug legalization, regardless of the cost.

  “Was Juan Carlotta working for you?”

  I hadn’t been able to piece that together. “For a time. We have several runners who move the pot for us. Unfortunately, a handful of them knew too much about our operations. We couldn’t have them exposing the Brigham Smith Group as the proprietors of the cookies. We had to get rid of them. Cutting off their arms as a calling card and depositing the bodies around the state made it easy enough to set the deaths up to look like a drug deal gone bad.”

  He said “deaths” like it was something that just happened, not murders he’d been responsible for.

  “Why leave him in the sugar factory?” I asked.

  Isaac looked toward Kory. “As a message to Mr. Greer. He had started to suspect something strange was going on after he tried the cookies and got high.”

  I arched a brow in Kory’s direction, surprised he had enough experience with marijuana to know that’s what he was feeling. Kory lifted a shoulder. “I experimented in college.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you suspected when I talked to you?” I asked.

  Kory’s eyes widened. “A dead body was found in my blown up factory two days after I confronted Brigham Smith about the cookies. I got the message.”

  I couldn’t fault him for that. I also had the realization that if Brigham Smith killed their employees for knowing too much—and those employees likely knew far less than me, John, and Kory—there probably wasn’t a good chance we’d be alive much longer. Most people in this situation would have lamented the things they didn’t do during their lives and thought about their regrets. Not me. I got pissed because dying would mean I wouldn’t get to see how the last season of Sons of Anarchy ended. I was not about to let that happen.

  Hawke had said he was ten minutes away. He knew me well enough that he probably assumed I hadn’t stayed in my car. That meant he would have driven—or flown—even faster than usual, and should arrive any moment, if he wasn’t already here. I just had to stall and keep them from the killing us until Hawke made an appearance. “You’ll lose everything when people find out what you’ve done. You broke the law and intoxicated people with drugs that are still considered illegal, even in Utah. You didn’t use hemp oil, you used real marijuana.”

  “A group like ours is breaking the laws for the people who can’t.”

  “That’s convenient. Is that how you convince yourself to sleep at night?”

  “I sleep just fine. I’ll sleep fine tonight, too, when you’re dead.”

  He motioned to his enforcers and they moved to the edge of the room where they uncovered a machine that looked like it had been in storage. The plugged it in, and started it. “Wha…what are you doing?” Kory stuttered out.

  Isaac looked around the room, and brushed his hands together, like he was pleased with a job well-done. “You
should know better than anyone, Kory,” he said. “We’re making sugar dust.”

  As a fine dust started to accumulate in the room, the realization that I was going to die from sweetness didn’t please me, regardless of how much I liked sugar.

  “It just takes a little spark,” he said, reaching in his pocket.

  “Two sugar factory explosions within a few weeks of each other is going to look pretty suspicious.” I said, trying to reason with him. “And it will look even stranger to have the owner, a local reporter, and a supporter of hemp oil legalization in the wreckage.”

  His lips slid into a vile smile. “There’s where you’re wrong, Ms. Saxee. It will make perfect sense when we spin it.”

  I had all the pieces, I could put that particular puzzle together—even if it was a complete lie. I was sure they’d say Kory Greer was making the pot cookies and working with John to try to prove that pot legalization wouldn’t be harmful. I found out they were working together, and came here to confront them both. Something caused a spark, and the factory exploded.

  “You won’t get away with this,” I said. “Enough people know about my suspicions that they’ll keep investigating you.” Spence, Hawke, and Drake to name a few.

  Isaac licked his lips and pulled a shiny, gold lighter out of his pocket. “I wish them luck.”

  I thought I was done for and I’d never get to see what happened to Jax Teller when Isaac Handler fell to the ground. A dark, red spot was blooming on his chest and getting bigger with each passing second. The two enforcers ran over to him, then immediately took off.

  Hawke stepped out from behind a stack of Saints and Sinners boxes. “Are you okay?” he asked, checking me over.

  I breathed in a staggered breath, and managed to nod. He untied me, and then wrapped me in a hug, his arms strong and solid around my body. “I’m not happy you came in here alone. At all.”