Due Recompense: Justice In Its Rawest Form

by Jason Trevor

  “Damn honky just ran them over!” he fumed, thinking about the earlier spectacle. “Can’t think about that now. Gots to find a crash pad,” he reminded himself to stay focused on his problem. “Someplace Homes won’t go,” He walked a little further and thought some more. Joey’s place hadn’t looked so bad. They said a bomb went off in there, but it looked okay from the outside, besides a tarp on the roof. That was it. Bullet doubled back on his path down Tuam, towards Tierwester.

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  The Super Beetle groaned and sputtered as Joe bounced out of the hotel onto the freeway, then around the corner to the Walmart parking lot for Joe to think.

  “If I was a bloodthirsty, gang-banging thug without a friend left in the world and no place to go, where would I hide?” Joe mused. “The YMCA? Nah. They would make him give up the nickel-plated hand cannon that I saw him run off with. He’s probably blacklisted from the place just for being a Blood Brother. I doubt he has enough cash in his pockets to go to one of the no-tell motels around there. All of the dives that the gang used are shredded, for the most part. Except… He wouldn’t be that dumb, would he? Actually, these guys are all pretty talented at making bad decisions. He sure might. Worth checking,” Joe murmured as he leaned forward, jammed a .40 caliber pistol into the back of his belt, and headed for Third Ward once again.

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  “How do you suppose Danton got into Joey Freeman’s house, to begin with?” mused Sims to Le as he smoothed his tie. He sipped coffee in the break room on the homicide deck as Johnny slurped a Red Bull.

  “He probably just kicked the door in. The place is a rickety old shack built in the forties. It wouldn’t have been hard to do, and no one around there would have noticed the noise. What’s it to you?”

  “I can’t put my finger on why. I just want to know. Everything the guy does is methodical and planned. He’s surgical and precise. Each decision has this intense rationale behind it. How he got in that door may have some connection to the other stuff he’s been doing. My gut’s telling me that there’s more to see at that house. It’s only a few minutes from here. I’m going to go back and look around. You coming?”

  “Suit yourself. I’m going to stay here and watch for the warrant to come in from Lemond on his antics this morning while I type a daily from yesterday,”

  “I won’t be long. I’m not even that sure of what I am looking for, so I should be quick,”

  “Be careful,”

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  Joe sat in his ugly little bug and stared at the house from down the street. There were clear signs of motion, but something just didn’t smell right. His senses tingled and he gripped the wheel, staring. It was the only place left for Bullet to hide out, crime scene tape or not. He wondered if Sergeant Detective Sims was thinking the same thing, or if he thought Joe was thinking the same thing. Le and the stranger had probably already given statements to the judge for a warrant. This was his only chance.

  “Every situation is fluid,” he reminded himself. “Let’s do this,”

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  Cody stood on the stained and cracked three-foot by three-foot square of concrete outside the back door and stared at the knob. The dirty window in the door was cracked, but not broken. That had not been the method of entry. The door frame was in sad shape but not broken or splintered, nor were there fresh kick marks on the door. It had not been kicked in. There were no pry marks on the frame by the knob or scratches on the lock. Like he’d told Le, the entry to this house had been patient and methodical. Shrugging, Sims tried the door and found it locked. Sighing, he trudged through the tall weeds and grass around to the front, stopping to look up and down the street on his way. He saw a few ragged and tired-looking sedans, none less than 20 years old. There was a dusty pickup with a flat tire and a disgusting old Beetle. No military vehicles. No tactical Suburban. No Escalade, Charger, or Ram pickup. That would be way too easy, he sighed. Something still felt wrong about those cars, though.

  Turning toward the front porch, something immediately caught his eye. The seal on the door was cut. Someone had been there who shouldn’t have. Or they were still there. Sims had checked out the only set of keys from the property room. No one else had checked them out since CSU processed the place and sealed the door. He peered up and down the street, wishing he could put his finger on what was wrong with the cars. Or why he was even here. He pulled out his Glock 9mm, chambered it, and approached the door with his pistol in the ready position.

  Chapter 27

  Bullet stood in the kitchen as quietly as he could, clutching the huge, shiny pistol to his chest and trying not to breathe.

  “HPD! Who’s in here?” came a disembodied voice immediately after the opening of the door that had startled Bullet to his feet. If it was Johnny Le, he could probably talk his way out of a jam, but this was an only slightly familiar voice that he couldn’t quite place.

  “Come on out! You’ve got no business here!” the voice continued. Bullet listened to the floorboards creak as the person grew closer.

  Fuck it. He lifted the pistol to the end of two outstretched arms with the iron sights right in his line of vision, then stepped into the entryway.

  “Don’t move, po-po,” he growled as best as he was able to with his frightened adolescent voice. It was one of the guys from the police station a few days ago.

  “Hey, man. Just relax,” said Sims as soon as he saw the huge .45. “I’m going to need you to lower that weapon so I can help you,” he started to lift his pistol.

  “Shut the fuck up and drop that gun,” barked Bullet. “I’ll pop one big-assed hole in you if you keep raising it,”

  “I can’t release my weapon. Now let’s-“

  “I said shut up! I gots the drop on you right now, so I’ll do the talking and you do what the nigga tells you to. The crew don’t call me ‘Bullet’ ‘cause of the shape of my head, dumbass. Now lose the piece,”

  “Listen, I told you the other night about what happened to Tony and the others,”

  “You don’t say his name! Now shut up, clear the gun, and put the hardware down unless you want to die right fucking now!”

  “Alright,” Cody surrendered. “I’m going to set my gun on the floor. Just watch me,” he released the clip and it clattered between his feet, then he slowly bent down and laid his Glock on the scratched and swollen faux hardwood. “My name is Sergeant Detective Cody Sims, if you don’t remember, and I can help you,” he said as he did it.

  “Nigga didn’t ask for you help, and I don’t give a shit who you are. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me.”

  “Right now all I can hear is the muzzle of an ACP pointed at me. I’ll be able to hear you better if that gun is pointed somewhere else and we just talk like men,”

  “Tough shit... Yeah, tough shit, like this tough neighborhood. People tell you in elementary school, “Don’t join a gang!” and it’s all over the TV, “Be the change!”. Then you parents get shot in a drive-by for being the change. Then CPS try to split up you and your brother, the only family you got left, so you both run away. You got to survive somehow, and around here that means having a crew to look after you, long as you can look after them. You get a new family. You get protected. You learn stuff, like how to shoot, and find out you’re good at it. You get a street name and street cred. Everyone has a job to do, and everyone knows that they belong because they contribute, and everyone knows that they are going to get looked out for by each other. Life starts to look good for the orphan brothers, right?” Bullet’s nostrils flared rapidly and his upper lip got wet as his eyes became shiny with tears. His arms tensed on the pistol as his anger grew and he leveled it straighter at Sims.

  “Then the nice, smart, older brother who always had the answers and always looked out for you shoots a camel jock in a liquor store. He ain’t never killed nobody in his life before that. He did it to earn his cred with the Brothers. It change a nigga. You shoot someone, you watch someone die, a piece of you go with them. It mad
e me wanna be a kid at home with Momma and Daddy again, but not Tony,” He wiped a tear from his left eye with the back of his hand, but kept a solid grip on the .45 with his right.

  “No, big brother suddenly decides he’s a big man ‘cause he can shoot somebody a few feet off. I show him that I can shoot a beer can off of a three-story roof from two blocks off. ‘That’s shooting’ I tell him. He say ‘Naw, that beer can din’t die. Shooting’s when you use the gun for what it’s made to do!’ and he won’t hear nuthin’ else from me about it. He shoot a second guy. Then a third. I stopped countin’ after the fourth. He just like to kill. I stand back and still ask him when I need help from a big brother and we stick together where we crash, but I know one day he gonna cap the wrong person and fill the whole ‘hood with the po-po. I’s wrong. Instead, he shoot fucking Rambo’s best friend. Next thing…” Bullet choked on the words as a sob pushed its way out and he wiped his lip and his cheeks with the back of his hand, still keeping the polished ACP leveled at Cody.

  “Next thing…” he sniffed hard and tried to continue. “Next thing, your family is dying all over again. Motherfucker is shooting feet and legs off. Blowing people up. Bustin’ people up with brass knuckles and baseball bats. Drive-by’s right in front of the police station. Running people over with goddamn giant army trucks! My family! These niggas ain’t perfect, but they all I gots in the world! What do I have left now? Tony’s in the hospital and I got no idea if he gonna die ‘cause I can’t go see him. Most of my crew is dead and the rest are fucking vegetables and shit. I got no wheres to go! No one to go to!” Tears were streaming down his cheeks, but he made sure to wipe them clear enough to keep a steady shot at the detective.

  “And what did the fucking po-po do when a fucking white guy show up and start to fucking massacre niggas in Third Ward? NOTHING! YOU DID NOTHING, YOU RACIST FUCKS AND HE JUST KEPT ON KILLING NIGGAS!” Bullet was screaming now.

  “Whoa!” Cody interjected. “We’ve been chasing this guy all along, since he first attacked Biggie. There’s a one-hundred-man task force hunting him! We’re looking for YOU right now so that we can protect you from him,”

  “Bullshit! Hundred white cops looking for the white guy who’s killing niggas in the ghetto? Naw. I let you take me? Nigga’s under eighteen. You’ll just stick me in the system again and make me a kennel kid. Fuck that. I’m going to shoot a fucking cop so I can die inside and start killing like Tony did. Imma kill every five-oh that I see for the rest of my life, starting with you. Imma take your nice, clean Glock there, your wallet, your badge, and Imma disappear way ‘fore anyone finds you, with your cash and your credit cards to give me a head start,” he paused to consider what he had just said. “Yeah, that’s the plan. Soon as Tony springs from hospital, we goin’ be on the road and rule the whole goddamn world, not just this shitty little ghetto. Shoot anybody who try to stop us in they ignorant head,” his tears were dry, now that he had a plan.

  “If you shoot me now, all the attention will go on you instead of him. Think this through!”

  “I have. Your turn to die, pig,” He locked his right elbow, tightened his grip on the pistol, and cupped his left hand under the butt while lining up the iron sights with Cody’s forehead.

  Two excruciatingly loud indoor pistol reports rang out in the house, bouncing off of the walls and floor, deafening Sims. He flinched, and a third report blasted through the house. A body crashed to the floor. Realizing it wasn’t himself, Cody stood up straight and looked around to assess the situation. Bullet lay on the floor, with two tightly grouped entry holes centered on his torso, and a third in his forehead. He lay in a growing pool of blood from the wounds. His upper lip, the rims of his nose, and the bags under his eye sockets were still wet. His eyes gleamed, wide open, but did not blink, and his chest did not rise and fall with breath. His death had been instant.

  “The sob story actually made me feel sorry for him, so he got the mercy of a quick death instead of a slow and painful one like the others,” The voice over the detective’s left shoulder was unmistakably Danton’s.

  Cody looked over his shoulder and slowly turned around to face Joe, who stood just inside the doorway. Danton had not lowered the gun. It was now trained on him.

  “You just killed a minor,”

  “I just drowned another rat in a bucket of piss. I also saved your ass. You owe me. Even if you won’t let me call in the solid right now, I’ve got the drop on you and I’m leaving.”

  “Somebody heard the shots and called 911, Danton. The cavalry is on the way. Just give up and surrender,”

  “Nice try. People around here ignore shots. They don’t call the police, and I don’t hear any sirens, do you?”

  “Fine, you’ve got me dead to rights. For now. I’ve noticed that these shitty thugs are the only ones you’ll shoot. You go to a lot of trouble to make sure that no one else gets hurt, and that seems to include me. I’ll bet if we were reversed right now, you wouldn’t even try to escape. You’d just go quietly and leave it up to your high-dollar lawyer to crap in my coffee,”

  “You’re right, I would go quietly, but our roles are never going to be reversed. I have amazing respect for the police, but you wouldn’t believe the warlords and guerilla armies I’ve faced who didn’t play by rules, and they completely outclassed any police department. You’ll never corner me,”

  “Forgive me if I continue to try,”

  Joe paused pensively for a few seconds. “When I was 16, I stole my daddy’s aluminum john-boat and took off for Lake Sommerville because I had seen Paul Hogan dynamite fishing in a movie and I wanted to try it. The Corps of Engineers was quite unhappy with me and that boat is probably still docked at the bottom of the lake. My butt learned a new level of pain from my old man’s anger and I had to mow a lot of lawns to pay for the replacement boat,”

  “I just heard a story from the kid, and now another from you. What’s that one got to do with anything?”

  “It means that I blew up a boat that I was standing in with dynamite, and I’m still here. I’m going to be here, as long as I want. No one else controls my fate but me. Not you, not my lawyer, and not these thugs. I make my choices and I own them, but on my terms. Save the Houston taxpayers some money and just give up now,”

  “Well, I can’t do that. The best way to save tax dollars is for you to give up now. So, where do we go from here?”

  “As I said, you owe me a solid and I have the drop on you. I go somewhere that you will never find me. You go back to 1200 Travis and tell everyone that I saved your life and took off in my Suburban before you could nab me, or some other bullshit that they will buy,”

  “I can’t accept that as long as bodies are still dropping,” the detective said flatly.

  “The bodies are done dropping. Don’t you have a roster of the Blood Brothers? I do, and Bullet was the last one,”

  “Fine,” Cody sighed. “I’ll give you five minutes, and not a second more before I walk out that front door. You leave through the back, and don’t let any neighbors see you leave. It’s a Saturday and a lot of them will be home,” he hesitated and sighed. “I need to know something before you go, Danton. Tell me the truth, man-to-man and off the record. What makes you think that you are different from these guys? You act all self-righteous and proud that you are killing them, but you are just as cold and brutal as they are. What’s the difference between you and them?”

  Joe stared, incredulous that the detective didn’t get it. “You said it yourself. I fight the righteous fight. I’m never proud to take a life, but I fight for good. I fight for the innocent people who are abused by the corrupt. I fight for the weak who are bullied by the strong. I fight for integrity when it’s in the shadow of deception. I fight for God, family, and country. I’ll even fight for you when you are in a situation that is beyond hope. I fight when the good of the many outweighs my personal welfare. These guys were nothing. Trash. They fought to enrich themselves at the expense of others and to swell their egos in front of each
other, with no thought for whomever they hurt. That’s the difference,” He paused and stared hard into the detective’s eyes, pushing his feelings as deep into the man’s soul as he could. Sims blinked at the burn of Joe’s eyes eating into him.

  “Five minutes is more than twice what I need. Thank you, and I mean that. Take care of yourself, Detective Sims. You are a good man, and I think you fight the good fight, too. It’s just a shame that you and I ended up on opposite sides this time. I think we could like each other,” Joe flung himself through the house and out the back door in a flash.

  “I think we could like each other, too,” Cody said to the empty house as he picked up his pistol, reloaded it, and re-holstered it. Then he huffed and buried his wrists into his hips as he strolled back toward the front door, debating what he would tell Le, Franks, Lakefield, and worst of all, Lemond. At least he would be getting a clean warrant for the craziness with that giant truck this morning and…

  “Hey!” Sims shouted to no one. “How did he get here? How’s he leaving? He told me to say he ran off in the Suburban, but it’s not out there. THAT’S IT! He’s got new wheels! Screw your five minutes, Danton,” Cody darted out the front door and looked up and down the street. Nothing had changed. Not one car had come or gone. There was no sign of Danton. “What the hell?” he gasped in confused frustration.

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