Due Recompense: Justice In Its Rawest Form

by Jason Trevor

  “I’ve been trying. He’s not answering,”

  “Try again!”

  ◆◆◆

  Joe’s phone rang again, for the fifth time in 30 minutes. He glimpsed at the screen in his Escalade. Blocked number. It was Detective Sims, once again. He didn’t want to act guilty, but now that he had William on his payroll, he would rather let William do the talking for him, at least when it came to anyone with HPD. Whatever “credible threat” they knew of could be relayed via William, and Joe was perfectly capable of handling himself.

  ◆◆◆

  The fire had grown too large and forced William to retreat to safety in the street. Sections of Joe’s roof were on fire and tongues of flame danced in and out of view through the windows on one end of the house. A fire department pumper roared down the street with a ladder truck and ambulance close behind. Firefighters climbed out, shrugging their bunker gear over their shoulders and donning their Nomex hoods and air packs. Detective Le walked over to one of them.

  “Is anyone in the house?” the man asked Le.

  “We don’t think so. One guy lives alone here and his car is gone, so we don’t think he’s home,”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. We’ve been trying to call, but there’s no answer,”

  “So he could be in the house asleep or injured?”

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it. I don’t think this guy sleeps much,” The firefighter nodded and keyed a radio on his shoulder.

  “Possible occupant in the structure. We have a possible occupant in the structure,” then he turned to help two men who had pulled a hose from the engine and were stretching it toward the house. Two others pulled a supply hose out and began dragging it down the street toward a hydrant. The bedroom windows near the fire burst into the yard, with flames lapping out behind them.

  Moments later the yard and the sky were filled with huge billows of steam as the firefighters doused the side of the house. Two more sprayed the flames inside of the broken windows with another hose. Smoke was beginning to seep around the front door and gather under the large porch eave.

  William, watching from the other side of the street, saw a familiar black Escalade approach the back of the fire truck. He ran over to it.

  “Joe! Joe! Your place is burning, man!” As he came close to the driver’s door, his wind whooshed out of him and he was knocked over backward by the door being flung open. Joe jumped out and ran for the smoky porch. Le and Sims headed him off at his front walk.

  “You can’t go in there!” ordered Sims.

  “Stop me,” retorted Joe as he shoved Cody aside and sweep-kicked his foot so that he fell. Johnny Le circled around the scrambling Sims and tried to grab Joe’s arm.

  “Don’t be stupid. You can be killed,” Dances of orange light were now visible in the sidelight window next to the front door.

  Joe didn’t answer. He grabbed Le by the wrist and in one smooth motion twisted him to face away, with the arm in a painful hammerlock. He kicked Le in the small of the back as he let go, so hard that he stumbled forward on top of Sims, who was trying to stand back up. The two collapsed into a tangle of arms and legs on the lawn. As Joe continued his charge to the door, he saw two firefighters in full gear approaching from behind. One was carrying a breaching axe. He was glad. Joe had breached a few doors before. They stepped onto the porch just as Joe whirled on them.

  “You ain’t going in,” one shouted flatly through his mask.

  Joe snatched the axe from him and turned to the door. With two adrenaline-driven blows, he broke the deadbolt and the latch, then kicked the door open.

  “No!” shouted the other firefighter, but it was too late. The inflow of fresh oxygen caused a flash of fire in their faces. Joe sucked in a deep breath to hold, dove in the door onto his hands and knees, and scrambled around the corner to his left. The two firefighters looked at each other in disbelief, then charged in behind him.

  William, Marge, and Billy watched incredulously from the street in front of their house. Sims and Le, now on their feet again, backed slowly away from the flames. Two wide-eyed EMT’s, gaping at the spectacle from near the ambulance, began walking toward the house.

  Seconds passed like hours. Besides the firefighters who were actively attacking the flames, everyone stared at the open front door intently and helplessly. Flames danced around the inside of the door and smoke poured out. The sidelight cracked from the heat.

  “Good God,” breathed William.

  Joe suddenly stumbled out the door with a fire fighter’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him. The other firefighter followed on their heels as a tongue of flame rushed out behind them and stung the back of Joe’s shaved head. He had the faded old photo of Rebecca and his kids clutched to his chest under one arm, and he fell onto his front walk halfway to the street, catching himself with his free hand. He propped himself up on his knees and the free hand, coughing mightily as the EMT’s bent down over him. He gagged, vomited, and keeled over onto his side, but never released the picture frame from his grip, holding it flat to his chest.

  “Man, you’re crazy,” said one of the EMT’s, restraining himself from calling Joe an idiot. The other one slapped out a burning ember on Joe’s shoulder.

  Joe rolled partway to his stomach and drew one knee under his body, trying to get up. The two EMTs helped him to his feet and threw his free arm around one’s shoulders. The other one tried to put Joe’s other arm around his shoulders.

  “You’ve got to let go of that picture so I can help you,”

  “Not a chance,” wheezed Joe.

  Chapter 13

  Joe, William, Cody Sims, and Johnny Le sat around the breakfast table in William’s and Margie’s house. Joe had a heavy medical blanket over his shoulders and stared dismally at the photo lying flat on the table in front of him. He had narrowly managed to convince the EMTs not to transport him to the hospital. A steaming cup of coffee sat untouched within arm’s reach.

  “You are one lucky sonofabitch,” admonished Sims.

  “I don’t believe in luck,” murmured Joe.

  “Not another word,” William told him. Then he turned to Cody. “You talk to me, not him,” he growled.

  “Fine,” said Sims exasperatedly, “Your client shot off a gang member’s foot. The fire department says this looks like arson, pending the investigator’s findings. Those guys are after him. He put himself in a major line of fire,”

  “Do you have proof that the house fire and shooting are related?”

  “Not yet,”

  “Do you have proof that Mr. Danton was involved in this gang shooting?”

  “We have a witness,” Sims half-lied. William could tell he was being lied to.

  “I think that’s bullshit, and how would these gang creeps even know who Joe is or where he lives?” Le and Sims looked at each other uncomfortably. “Spit it out, detective. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I lost my notebook in an altercation today. We think they found it,”

  “You what??? You gave them Joe’s name and address?”

  Cody needed to divert the conversation, and quickly. “Let’s discuss your son lying to us about Joe’s whereabouts. That’s a crime, and we’re missing a lot of pieces to the puzzle here,”

  “Did you just threaten my son?”

  “Not really, but he could go to juvie, just based on the statement he gave us with you present,”

  William jumped to his feet. “I did you a favor by making him give a statement. Don’t you dare try to turn that into leverage. Get the hell out of my house,” he said levelly through pursed lips. “Both of you. You know where the door is,”

  After they had left, William sank into the chair across from Joe and stared. “Did you shoot off a guy’s foot?” Joe snapped out of the trance that his photo had been holding him in.

  “Nah, just a couple of toes. I also fed him a light bulb,”

  “You fed him what?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Friggin’ cops ga
ve them my name and address! I’m on my own here, or else you and all of my other neighbors are in danger,”

  “I somehow doubt that, but then again, they had the balls to come set your house on fire in broad daylight. Where are you going to stay? You are welcome to our older son’s bedroom. He lives on campus, so the room still looks like a high-schooler’s,”

  “Thanks, but I’ll get a hotel,”

  “Sure, but I need to know the whole story here. I can’t defend you otherwise,”

  “Let me get a room, a shower, and a meal. I’ll call you after and you can meet me at the hotel. I don’t want to talk here,” he motioned over his shoulder toward the steps.

  William looked at the top of the stairs just in time to see Billy duck out of view. Joe’s back had been to him. How had he noticed the boy there? This guy sure didn’t miss much. Combat veterans were definitely an unusual breed.

  “He’s already been put in enough of a tight spot by all this. He doesn’t need to know the rest,” Joe sighed.

  William nodded. “I’ll be waiting for a phone call,”

  ◆◆◆

  There was a pretty nice hotel across the freeway from Joe’s warehouse. His room on the fifth floor had a balcony with a pleasant breeze and a view of the nighttime traffic drifting by, which was preferable to the view of the Wal-Mart Super Center on the other side of the hotel. He and William stood side by side out there, facing the freeway and sipping on hotel coffee.

  “I regard the name and room number of this hotel as privileged, you know. I paid with a business card and used an assumed name. I can’t have Detective Dumbass handing it out again to someone who wants me dead,”

  “I don’t think he’s a dumbass, he just dropped it during a fight. He wouldn’t deliberately endanger you, and he’s a pretty good detective if he has you on his radar. That said, no one will be learning about your whereabouts from me. How many crimes have you committed that I may have to defend you on? Start at the beginning,”

  “The beginning? Well, I was born in the old Houston Heights Hospital, but it’s been shuttered for a while now,”

  “Come on, smartass,”

  “I hear someone is renovating it to re-open…”

  “I have to be at the office in the morning,”

  “Fine. Someone shot my friend, Foster, and took his truck a few weeks ago,”

  “That’s a great place to start,”

  “I found out about it because I had a meeting scheduled with Foster the next morning. It turned into a meeting with Detective Sims because he was at their house interviewing Ellie, Foster’s wife,”

  “How sad,”

  “Horrible. She’s the one who found his body. They let on that it happened in front of an old drugstore in Midtown that just re-opened as an ice cream parlor, so I went over there to look around,”

  “Curious, I’m sure,”

  “Something like that. I noticed that the ice cream parlor had really badass surveillance cameras, so I went back that night and stole the recorder. I covered it up like it was a random burglary, but I don’t think HPD is buying that. Too many softer targets on the block,”

  “Those people didn’t do anything to you, Joe,”

  “Well, I hope to God they were insured. The recorder had excellent footage of the whole crime. I can tell you every detail of the man who shot Foster, right down to the Blood Brothers tattoo on his neck,”

  “So you went and found one of them and shot him in the foot?”

  “That’s not all. I gave him a message to deliver to the whole crew,”

  “Something about adding light bulbs to their diet?”

  Joe laughed. “No, that was to keep him from screaming until I was long gone. The message was that they are going to die. All of them. And I meant it. If you want to resign as my lawyer, I’ll understand,”

  “I disapprove of your methods, but I believe you are righteous. I also think you are damned good at keeping a low profile and not likely to get caught. Are there any other felonies that I should know about? Have you shot anyone else or killed anyone?”

  “Not yet. I own a few guns from questionable sources with questionable backgrounds, and the police wouldn’t be too happy to learn that I own them. Some grenades, too,”

  “Grenades?”

  “Yes, grenades. And a minigun mounted in a truck, if you know what that is,”

  “I’m guessing that ‘mini’ is a misnomer,”

  “Well, the Mythbusters tried to cut a tree in half with one once, and it set the tree on fire. They are usually the deciding factor on a battlefield,”

  “These are city streets, not a battlefield. Would having any of these guns with ‘questionable backgrounds’ help the police solve some open cases? If so, you could be denying someone the very justice that you want so desperately to serve,”

  “They’re not that kind of questionable. It’s more along the lines of them having been relieved of ownership by third-world dictators, but I don’t know many specifics. I trust my guy that I get them from,”

  “Are the arson investigators or the insurance adjusters or anyone else going to find them in your house?”

  “They’re not in my house. They’re somewhere safe,” Joe faintly nodded across the freeway toward the dark warehouses, but William didn’t notice.

  “You understand that, as your lawyer, I have to advise against whatever it sounds like your next planned course of action is,”

  “Of course, but now that the detective is focusing on me, it’s that much less likely that he will catch Foster’s killer. Taking every last one of those animals off of the street is now the central focus of my life,”

  “That’s going to burn you up,”

  “It will keep me warm once winter comes,”

  “If you live that long,”

  “Do you think there is a resale shop open anywhere in Houston at this hour?”

  Chapter 14

  Bone and Tony milled around the bus stop at Live Oak and Holman, sharing a Hennessey. Biggie sat on the bench by the sign, with his lame foot stretched out in front of him. The Caprice and Monte Carlo sat in the parking lot behind them, with the windows down and subwoofers blaring an online hip-hop station. Two more guys sat on the hood of the Monte Carlo, playing dominoes and passing a joint back and forth. It was a busy night. Bone and Tony had already moved six dime bags and five quarters, plus a bag of rock, and it wasn’t even midnight yet. Normally by now Johnny Le would have stopped by, pretending not to know what was going on, and shuffled them off to another street corner. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to bother them tonight. That would be his death sentence. Tony glared at the splint on his hand and wrist, courtesy of the Riverside Hospital a few blocks away.

  “Motherfuckin’ po-po better not show up around here tonight. Nigga gonna die if he does,”

  “Get over it, nigga. You done punched a light pole. Shit hurts,”

  “It’ll hurt when I bust him in the head with this cast,” he hefted it with his left hand.

  “The fuck is that?” asked Cornbread of Toad, the guys sitting on the car. Toad swiveled his head to look. He was looking up the street at a Suburban that had just rounded the corner and parked at the curb. It was messed up. The wheels were big with low-pro tires, but they looked like ones a white guy would put on his car, and the truck was different colors at the top and bottom. A white guy stepped out of the truck onto the curb of the dark street. They couldn’t see him, but they couldn’t miss his jacket. It was light-colored in the dark, with sleeves that only went as far as his forearms, and had shoulder pads so thick that he looked like he was shrugging.

  “Miami Vice is here!” laughed Tony. “Hey, Homes! Get yo’ ugly-ass truck fixed. People laugh at you while they kick your ass for driving that buster around here,” He turned to Bone. “Maybe we should kick his ass and take that truck. It’s a Chevy, and Jefe pays big scratch for those,”

  “Jefe’s in jail, dumbass. Five-oh raided his shop. We gots to sell rides to Slim now,” pointe
d out Biggie.

  The man, who had been walking toward them across the dark street, stopped short at hearing Jefe’s name, then continued. Just before he stepped into the glow of a streetlight, he slipped the old sport coat off of his shoulders and threw it to the curb in a ball. When he reached the light, they could see a leather shoulder-holster with the butts of two pistols facing them at either side of the man’s rib cage. They could also now see that he was wearing brass knuckles on his left hand and carrying a Louisville Slugger in the other. Biggie squinted at him, then snatched his glasses from his shirt collar and scrambled to get them on his face so he could see better.

  “That’s him!” shouted Biggie, sliding to the end of the bench toward Bone and Tony, away from the man. “That’s the white motherfucker what shot me!”

  Cornbread and Toad stood up and headed toward Tony and Bone, who were suddenly sharp and facing the man. Biggie stared nervously. Now that Joe was identified, this was it. When he was just over ten feet out and still closing, he finally spoke but didn’t slow his steady approach toward Tony.

  “You killed my friend. You set my house on fire,”

  “Fuck you, nigga! Think you gonna shoot a nigga in the foot and not have to pay?” cursed Tony. Joe acted as if Tony hadn’t even spoken. He just held the bat at its midpoint at waist level and kept advancing on them.

  Tony squared up and puffed out his chest with his elbows spread. He expected a nose-to-nose confrontation and exchange of words. Joe was having none of it. As soon as he was inside of arm’s reach from Tony, he cold-cocked his right arm up and slapped Tony in the jaw with the bat. Tony went down as Toad charged from Joe’s right. Joe recoiled the bat alongside his forearm and buried his elbow and the end of the handle of the bat into Toad’s neck. He choked and grabbed his neck as he stumbled back a step.

  “Kill him! What are you doing?” shouted Biggie from the periphery.

  Bone grabbed the bat with both hands. Joe swung a wide roundhouse with his left and landed the brass knuckles on Bone’s right temple, followed by a push-kick to the gut to put in some distance. As Bone released the bat and stumbled back, Joe twirled it in his fingers to adjust his grip and swing it up toward Cornbread’s approach, but pulled the uppercut and faked Cornbread out, instead heel-stomping his forward knee and hyperextending it, then he completed the swing of the bat to the underside of Cornbread’s chin. He tipped his head backward and fell to the ground. Toad and Tony had recovered and were charging back in. Joe side-stepped to the right so that they both passed in front of him. Toad was closer. He hitched the bat up to both hands and executed a full home run swing into Toad’s kidneys. The bat rebounded, and Joe used the momentum to swing a wide arc with it down toward Tony’s left shoulder. Tony twisted and threw up the hard splint in defense as the bat cracked squarely on it. The splint buckled and split. The bat broke in two over Tony’s forearm. Joe snapped a quick defensive low kick at Tony’s crotch, followed by a sudden recoil and then a higher snap-kick at his solar plexus. Neither one connected, but Joe had not intended them to. As Tony swatted at the low kicks and tried to push in closer to land a punch, Joe dropped the bat handle, simultaneously swinging a high axe kick that crashed down hard and broke Tony’s collarbone. He fell on top of Toad. Cornbread ran at him again, with Bone on his heels. Joe dropped to one knee and swirled a violent sweeping kick at Cornbread’s feet, throwing them into the air and Cornbread went down again. Bone bent down to swing at Joe’s head and almost connected it, but a powerful upward side kick lifted him off of the ground and he tripped over the scrambling Cornbread as he landed.