by Jason Trevor
“Once you knew the truth, you had no choice. I get that,”
“The good news for you is that he couldn’t say in the statement that he specifically knew that you weren’t home earlier in the day, but the bribe paints you in an awfully bad light. So, what do we do from here?”
“Bill, I don’t have many friends. Certainly not any close ones. Oh, I have several military buddies and the loyalty and comradery that comes with it. I’ll charge the gates of hell arm-in-arm with those guys, but that relationship has its own unique framework. It’s not a conventional friendship like most people think of. You and I may not be especially close, but I do consider you one of a very small number of friends,”
“You pushed that a few steps back by asking my son to risk his freedom for you,”
“I understand and I don’t know if there is a way to make that up to you, but let me at least try to get you to see a point,”
“I’m listening, but you’ll forgive a healthy sense of skepticism,”
“I deserve that. Thank you for humoring me. When I graduated from high school, my parents couldn’t afford to pay for my college, and I had frittered every penny I earned away on hot rods and computers. I had applied to seven colleges and had been accepted to every one of them, but I couldn’t afford to go, so I went to work. I drove for a courier service during the day, delivered pizza in the evenings, and hustled pool at night to pay for a 450 square foot apartment and a 1989 Camaro. I was a hothead, and way too talented at hustling pool for my own good. I narrowly escaped a few pool halls with my hide intact,”
“What does this have to do with Billy?”
“Bear with me and I’ll get there. Let me know when you need a refill on that coffee. One night I took a guy’s rent money in a game of 9-ball and he was waiting for me in the parking lot with his friends. I came out of it with a fractured skull and a few broken ribs. I broke his arm, dislocated his kneecap, and cracked his sternum. I put one of his friends in the ICU, and the other one ran off into the night crying. I went from the hospital to jail. No one bailed me out. When I went to court, a public defender halfway argued self-defense for me. The judge told me that he would give me deferred adjudication if I enlisted in the military. My life was going nowhere fast, so I jumped at it. I had heard that the Air Force had the shortest basic training, so I chose that branch. During basic, my flight’s TI challenged us that anyone who could take him down would be immediately graduated from basic training and proceed to tech school. I made sure that I was always on dorm guard duty overnight, and waited for a surprise inspection. When he pounded on that door, I threw it open and shoved him down the flight of steps behind him, then I dove down after him,”
“Ballsy,”
“Stupid. It took about ten seconds for him to have me at the bottom of the next flight of stairs, face down with his knee in the small of my back,”
“Did you end up in the brig?”
“No. They didn’t call it the brig there. They called it corrective custody, but instead of turning me over, he made me go out for special operations forces because of my nerve,”
“Like a Navy SEAL?”
“Tactical air combat patrol. A TACP is kinda like a Navy SEAL who is afraid of water and heights. No swimming. No jumping out of airplanes. Just kicking ass. Mainly tagging along with Army and Marine infantry units on joint operations. Hundreds of guys try out for special ops every year. Only a handful make it. I was one of them,”
“Nice work,”
“Yeah, but shitty duty. I’m not allowed to tell you many details, but I’m one of the few American servicemen who saw combat during the peacetime after the cold war and before 9/11. Let’s just say that not all of the ‘bloodless’ revolutions in Eastern Europe after the fall of the iron curtain were completely bloodless,”
“I’m sorry to hear that,”
“Don’t be. The broken road behind us in our lives is what built us into the people we are today. I wouldn’t trade my military training or experiences for anything. Even the awful ones. I would do it again in service to my country if asked, no hesitation. Anyway, my stint got cut short after I broke my ankle on a helicopter skid in a dirty hellhole with no name. That was just over 3 years before 9/11. I tried to re-up in September of 2001, but they wouldn’t take me back because of the pins in my ankle. By then I was married and had 2 kids, too. Have a look,” He walked slowly to the small photograph and straightened it. William followed and looked on. It was a very pretty girl in high-waisted jeans, a flowery sleeveless white blouse, and sandals. She was sitting on the hood of an old blue Camaro with a baby in her arms and a toddler at her knee.
Joe continued. “That’s Rebecca and Jameson. The baby is Becky, named after her mother,”
“They are a beautiful family,”
“They were. A few days after that photo was taken I was working late, so she and the kids went to the Piggly Wiggly to get me some Cookie Dough Blue Bell and surprise me when I got home from work. They also got sprinkles and chocolate syrup for Jamie. On their way back here, some waste-of-a-life from a trailer park down the highway was plastered on muscle relaxers and beer and was just leaving the convenience store from another beer run. She bashed Becca’s car so hard that the first responders said Jameson was killed instantly. Rebecca died in my arms in the ER six hours later. Becky lived in the PICU just long enough for the sun to come up, then she took her last breath,” He paused and struggled to collect himself. William could tell that this was a story Joe visited very, very rarely.
“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear that,”
“It gets better. The woman who killed them had a suspended license from a previous DWI and she wasn’t insured. She got a public defender to say that Rebecca had been driving recklessly. A young mother with a spotless driving record and 2 babies in the car was supposedly driving recklessly.”
“Yeah, right, sure. No way,”
“Exactly. The DA was afraid that a vehicular homicide or intoxication manslaughter charge would be hard to try with that kind of reasonable doubt, so he let her plead out on her second offense of DWI. What did they give her for that second offense? Thirty days in county, one year of driver’s license suspension, and court costs. For killing my family.”
“That’s insane,”
“It ain’t justice, that’s for sure. Our justice system is here to protect the innocent people from the malicious and irresponsible people, and it failed.”
“Did you try to sue?”
“I hired a contingency lawyer who had a private detective on staff. They investigated her up one side and down the other. She didn’t have a pot to piss in. You’re a lawyer. No assets to take and no insurance…“
“…no sense in a lawsuit,” William finished for him.
“I have thrown myself into my company ever since. Rebecca and I started it in that room right down the hall, and I still run it from there. They died a few years before you moved in, so you would never have known,” Joe took another minute to choke and catch his breath. William smoothed his forehead and sighed. He could tell Joe needed a breather.
“More coffee?” William prompted.
“Sure,” Joe straightened the picture again and headed for the kitchen, with William in tow. “The Air Force put my life on track. It made me a patriot and a believer in doing what is right. Starting a family made me want to be the best provider, the best husband, and the best father I could possibly be. I’m never second-best at anything, William. And when I come to a crossroads in my life, I consider what is the right thing to do and always choose the high road. Besides my company and this house full of meaningless stuff, all I have left is my integrity. No one can ever take that from me, and I won’t allow it to be compromised for any reason. Those exact words are in my business’ mission statement,”
“Not to be harsh, but why did you ask my son to compromise his?”
“Because one of those few friends that I have in the world was murdered eighteen days ago. By a stranger. In cold bl
ood. For his truck. Foster Shayne was a good man. He never said or did a dishonest thing in his life. His wife and kids are straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and now they have to spend the rest of their lives wearing the same yoke that I do. I won’t let the justice system fail them the way it failed me. I have the skills and the motivation to see it through, and very little to lose in the process,” William stared for a minute and pondered. Joe went on, “I saw Billy in the driveway when I pulled up and had to think fast. I didn’t want him to tell anyone that I had been gone and figured $100 was cheap insurance on that. If I had thought it through a little more, I would have just hung out and chatted him up a little, maybe weaving a suggestion into the conversation that I had been there all day and he just hadn’t seen me, instead of coming straight out and asking him to lie,”
“I see. I’m curious, why didn’t you focus this urgent need for justice on the woman who killed your wife and kids? Or did you?”
“I never got the chance. Six months after she got out of jail, she took her boyfriend’s car out for a drunken joyride, suspended license and all. She wrapped the car around a tree and was killed instantly because she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and the wheel in the car had been replaced with one that didn’t have an airbag. She enjoyed the mercy of a quick death. Too bad Rebecca and Becky didn’t. Jamie never even made it out of diapers,” He frowned with seething frustration.
William stroked his five o’clock shadow and stared at Joe for a long time. “How many people have you told that story to?”
“Three, including you, and I just had to watch a young widow bury one the other day. You are now a member of a very small fraternity,”
“That leaves two,” William closed his eyes, took a long, slow breath in through his nose, and then whooshed it out through the corners of pursed lips. Then he stared at Joe some more. This man spent every day of his life sitting on a lot of pain, and the only way he knew to deal with it was to seek justice where it had been denied. It was hard to argue with, even as a member of the Texas bar and a sworn officer of the court. William made a snap decision. “Do you have a checkbook here, Joe?”
“Huh? Yeah. In the office,”
“My retainer is five thousand dollars, billing at five hundred per hour plus expenses, rebill when you hit a thousand. If you hire me, this whole conversation becomes privileged. Even if I quit or you fire me tomorrow, what you just told me is still protected by privilege. Let’s keep that fraternity limited to members of your choosing. Go cut me a check right now. Never involve my family again, and you have yourself a lawyer,”
Chapter 10
“We’ve got to get Biggie to talk!” Cody pressured. “Danton’s alibi was bought and paid for. The kid recanted!” He and Johnny stood in the office of Le’s lieutenant, Franks. Cody paced anxiously while Le looked on with his arms folded.
“Let me be clear on this,” sighed Lieutenant Franks. “A suspect in the carjacking homicide a few weeks ago has been shot, and you want him to cooperate in a case against the guy who shot him?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think he’s the trigger man. If we can make him feel safe on the carjacking, he may give us the vigilante. Then Danton may have info on catching the carjacking shooter. We don’t know how he found Biggie,”
“He could have just gotten lucky,” interjected Le. “And if he didn’t, any info he has will probably be fruit from a poison tree. Vigilantes aren’t known to look out for people’s civil rights,”
“But if we can parlay information from him into a useful lead on the carjacking, we can argue inevitable discovery. Besides that, we all know he isn’t done. This could turn into a bloodbath if we don’t reign him in quickly,”
“There’s your compelling argument. If there’s a way to get out in front of this guy, we need to find it. Third Ward has enough crime. We don’t need someone on a personal vendetta turning it into a war zone,” He turned to Johnny Le. “Do you think you can convince Biggie to talk to us?”
“Doubt it. I doubt I’ll even talk to him. The Blood Brothers will be keeping him out of sight and trying to patch up his foot,”
“Can you try without getting yourself killed?”
“I know a couple of them, but we’re not exactly friends. Barely on speaking terms is more like it,”
“Try,”
◆◆◆
The Suburban was a three-quarter-ton model and more than ten years old. This made some upgrade parts harder to find than Joe had expected, but the truck was surprisingly easy to work on. The supercharged seven-liter engine from Jasper had bolted right up to a rugged electronically controlled Monster transmission with a manual valve body and the set had stabbed into the truck with almost no effort. Joe was certain that this truck would sound ferocious with straight-pipe exhaust, but what he needed was a discrete truck. Dual exhaust with two mufflers per side would have to do. The new Holley powertrain computer and gauge set was a plug-and-play affair that left his steering wheel buttons available to be reassigned to other, less conventional tasks via a homemade multiplexer. Paddle shifters had also been an easy bolt-on. It had taken some hunting to find a set of performance brakes with 8-lug rotors, but he had managed to run down a cool 6-piston set from Wilwood with chunky sixteen-inch rotors. Wheels had been as much of a challenge, but Rickson Truck delivered where no one else could. Run-flat tires in the size he needed had also been difficult, but they were out there. The Dunlops that could run with no air in them had been expensive, but that didn’t bother Joe. What bothered him was the uniqueness of them. They would be almost as good as a fingerprint for matching a set of tire tracks to this truck.
There was no way to climb into the gun turret from the driver’s seat without removing the passenger seat and console. The truck wasn’t for commuting anyway, so out they went. The vacancy also created a perfect place for nitrous oxide tanks and a tank to operate an airbag suspension.
Speaking of suspension, the entire front end of the truck had been a wreck. He’d had to pay a Honduran kid to come in and cobble together a whole new suspension and steering system. Joe had given up on finding airbags strong enough to support the heavily armored truck and the gun turret inside while still lowering it down to handle better and reduce airflow underneath. The kid knew his stuff though and had delivered. Oscar, he’d said his name was. His English wasn’t so good, but Joe had managed to glean from him that the auto shop he’d been working for in The Heights recently closed down and he needed work badly. It was amazing to see how fast the little guy could tear down a truck. It made Joe wonder if that auto shop had been a chop shop, but he wasn’t prying when the help was this cheap, this talented, and didn’t ask questions. Oscar had tried to plead for help with his sister’s boyfriend, who had gotten into some kind of trouble. Joe wanted no part of such familiarity and made that much very clear, very quickly.
Today’s mail to the warehouse had brought a registration sticker and insurance card for a company in Barbados that barely even existed on paper. No eyebrows had been raised because they also owned the warehouse.
At the moment, Joe was under the truck bolting on the last of a few unconventional “accouterments” so that he could install the body kit that had arrived by freight the day before. Front and rear scoops, combined with running boards and fender flares, should be the final touch to keep air from getting under the truck to slow it down or flip it over. He’d considered taking it over to the track in Sealy on Grudge Night, where he often raced his Charger, to see how fast the truck was, but that would draw a lot of attention to it that he didn’t need, even 75 miles away. Finishing a peculiar mechanism of springs, steel boxes, and electric actuators wired to the multiplexer behind the dash, Joe slid out from under the truck, lowered the floor jack under the differential, and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from a nearby cooler.
The knock on the door was so timid that Joe almost didn’t hear it. The police would not have been subtle. Maybe it was the renters from next door, but they hardly knew J
oe, except that he was never there. They also weren’t exactly the quiet type. He strolled to the door, consumed by curiosity but slowed by caution.
“Who is it?” he asked while peering through the peephole in the door.
“Oscar. Can I really please talk with you?” Joe scowled and threw the door open.
“I thought I was clear. We aren’t friends. We don’t know each other. I paid you more dinero than you asked for because I needed your skills and I needed discretion. You savvy ‘discretion’?”
“Si! I no tell anybody I work for you. I want to know if you can help my friend Jefe. He still in jail!”
“First, Jefe isn’t a name-“
“He name Gabriel-“
“I don’t care if ‘he name’ Pancho Villa. Second, if he got caught stripping cars, maybe he should re-think his career. Goodbye, Oscar,” He started to close the door, and then thought for a minute. Oscar obviously hadn’t gotten the message.
“Por favor! I no know what to do!”
“Not my problem, but I’ll hire you again for just this afternoon. Get in here. Bolt on that body kit in the crates there. Also, drag that plastic barrel about a hundred feet into the field out back and fill it with water with the hose by the door outside,” Joe had a great way to make sure Oscar never told anyone that they knew each other.
“Si, si. I do. Who is Pancho Villa?”
◆◆◆
Cody parked his car by the curb and watched Johnny Le through binoculars from a few blocks away. He was leaning on a light post with his left hand, his right hand on his hip, and talking to a group of guys who had been milling around a street corner. All of them bore Blood Brothers tattoos on their necks. They didn’t look happy to see him but weren’t making any dangerous moves yet.
