Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4) (22 page)
Read Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4) Online
Authors: Michael Kerr
Arnie
was sitting up in bed watching Fox News when Logan knocked at the door and walked in. He’d waited a couple of days before going to the hospital. There was no longer a guard on Arnie; no need for one.
“Being shot in the head must be good for you,” Logan said. “You’ve lost at least thirty pounds. Is that because you’re not eating Ric’s hotdogs every day, or because the hospital food is junk?”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Logan,” Arnie said slowly, finding it difficult to speak clearly. “Margie told me everythin’. You turned up like a blessin’ and took care of her while I was out of it.”
“It needed to be done. I was glad to help out. But don’t get mixed up in any more bad shit. Just get your ass down to Florida as soon as you can walk, and look after Margie.”
“And what will you do?”
“Get the hell out of New York City on the next Greyhound. I’d almost forgotten how crowded and noisy the dump is.”
“Keep in touch,” Arnie said and held out his hand.
Logan shook it slowly and firmly, and said, “Be safe, my friend,” before leaving the room.
Margie was waiting in the corridor. She hugged Logan and said, “I’m going to miss you, and I know that Della will.”
“I’ve got your cell numbers,” Logan said. “I’ll check in once in a while, just to make sure that Arnie is behaving himself.”
“You do that.”
There were tears in Margie’s eyes as a man she cared for almost as much as Arnie turned and walked away.
Logan phoned The Puzzle Palace and asked to speak to a detective that he knew and trusted. He was given confirmation that Lieutenant Travis Reynolds and Detective Dave Ellery had quit their jobs.
His next stop was a coffee shop at the depot at Penn Station. Half an hour later he was on his way, thinking that he may send Fallon’s tapes to the District Attorney’s office after all, and also wondering what the hell he would do with the best part of a hundred thousand dollars in his rucksack, that he didn’t have any real use for. He felt relaxed and refreshed. He was on his way south, heading down to Georgia, and then maybe on to Florida, to spend winter in the sun.
Next to Johnson’s pond on Staten Island, not far from The Blue Heron Motel, Murray Baylis was leaning back with his arms aching as he reeled in the old flathead that had outwitted him for so long. This time he had it for sure. He brought it to the bank and looked at Scout, who sniffed the air and could smell the giant catfish.
“We got him, boy,” Murray said. “Took me a lot of line, hooks and patience, but now he’s got a date with the freezer, if he’ll fit in it.”
Scout whined and looked sad, as bloodhounds generally do.
Murray rested for a minute, then reached down to the gaping mouth of the old fish, removed the hook and gently pushed the five-footer away with his boot, to watch it swim off and vanish in deeper water.
“You’re right,” he said, scratching Scout behind the ear. “Sometimes when you get what you think you want, you realize you didn’t really want it at all.”
Twenty miles to the northwest of Murray, Logan was thinking that all he wanted was to see new places and enjoy each day as it arrived. He had no real plan, and that suited him just fine as he put his head back and let the engine noise of the bus lull him to sleep.
I write the type of original, action-packed, violent crime thrillers that I know I would enjoy reading if they were written by such authors as: Lee Child, David Baldacci, Simon Kernick, Harlan Coben, Michael Billingham and their ilk.
Over twenty years in the Prison Service proved great research into the minds of criminals, and especially into the dark world that serial killers - of who I have met quite a few - frequent.
I live in a cottage a mile from the nearest main road in the Yorkshire Wolds, enjoy photography, the wildlife, and of course creating new characters to place in dilemmas that my mind dreams up.
What makes a good read? Believable protagonists that you care about, set in a story that stirs all of your emotions.
If you like your crime fiction fast-paced, then I believe that the books I have already uploaded on Amazon/Kindle will keep you turning the pages.
Connect With Michael Kerr and discover other great titles.
DI Matt Barnes Series
The Joe Logan Series
Other Crime Thrillers
Science Fiction / Horror
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE STRANGE KIND
Children’s Fiction
Adventures in Otherworld
PART ONE – THE CHALICE OF HOPE
He
was tall, just a tad under six-four, but as thin as the proverbial rail. The faded leather jerkin he wore was at least three sizes too big for him, open over a plaid shirt that was held together by sweat, dirt and food stains, as were the blue jeans that hung loose and low on his bony hips; the bottoms gathered in concertina folds over scuffed, tan engineer boots. The only clean items he possessed were a pair of soft calfskin gloves on his long, lean hands.
Zack Marshall was twenty-three, but looked a dozen years older, with a lantern-jaw and pock-marked and emaciated face that would have terrified babies. He was downright ugly, with eyes that were deep-set in their orbits, too close together, and as black as tar. He had the overall look of a banjo-playing retard from some swampy bayou in Louisiana, but did not possess the skill to play any musical instrument, although he was far from stupid, just dirt-poor and mean, due to a disadvantaged upbringing and the environment he had found himself trapped in, which had shaped his resentful outlook against those that were living on what was still called the right side of the tracks in Kelso, Georgia.
After parking the stolen Taurus on the back lot of Big Jake’s Bargain Cars, Zack fired-up a Winston and thought through his simple plan: a plan that was not wholly his own, but a sure-fire way to turn his current situation round and get out of a deepening hole. He’d worked part-time for Jake three years back, but the piece of shit had fired him after only a couple of months, saying that he was a liability with two left hands and a bad attitude. Okay, so maybe he was a tad clumsy and didn’t talk more than he needed to, but he had a sharp mind, like that of a crow, took notice of routines and procedures, and usually saw any opportunity when it presented itself to him.
Zack got out of the car, dropped the cigarette butt onto the hard-packed earth and ground it in with the sole of his boot, before limping across to an open bay – due to his right leg being an inch shorter than his left – to where a mechanic was standing in a pit and working on the underside of a late model Toyota.
“Hey, Charlie, how’re you doin’?” Zack shouted, to be heard above the rock station that a radio standing on an oil drum in a corner was pounding out, as he squatted down with his forearms on his thighs.
Charlie Danton squinted through the gap between the car and the oil-soaked floor. “Yo, Zack, I’m doin’ just fine. What brings you round here?”
Zack said nothing, just reached into the right side pocket of his jerkin and withdrew a small MP-25 that held six .25 ACP rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber. It was in a chrome finish with an imitation mother-of-pearl handle. The diminutive weapon was a ‘junk gun’; a Saturday night special that Zack had picked up off an ex-con in a Macon bar, way back, and for just fifty dollars.
Charlie didn’t have time to do more than wonder why he was looking into the muzzle of a handgun, before a slug drilled through his left eye, and a second took a front tooth out before plowing through the soft tissue of his tongue and into the top of his spine in his neck.
Zack nodded to himself as Charlie fell back into the shadowy pit.
Game on
, he thought as he stood up and stuffed the gun back in his pocket. He had stepped over a line: all doubt about doing this was now negated. Everyone thought about doing things that they would never actually do, and up until pulling the trigger, he had considered setting this idea aside. Trouble was, he was in a hole deeper than the concrete-lined pit in the ground that Charlie’s body now lay in.
Millie Daniels was all set to go to the bank on Main Street with that day’s takings. Most folk in that part of the county paid their monthly installments or deposit on a car with cash, not with plastic or checks. And the last Friday of every month brought the lion’s share of the money in.
The bookwork was done; the bills banded up and packed neatly in a large leather bag. Millie hit the intercom and told Jake that she was ready to go and pay it in. He always took her to the small, one-teller First National location in his powder-blue Cadillac, even though the bank was less than a minute’s walk away.
Jake McKenna was fifty-five, heavyset, with a year-round tan, thick, collar-length silver hair and an honest-to-goodness demeanor that promoted trust in him from both friends and strangers alike. He was a fair man, and knew that in a small town like Kelso he needed regular customers and repeat business, so didn’t take advantage of people that were in the main short of cash in these hard times.
Getting up from behind his desk, Jake fished in his pants’ pocket for his car keys as he walked across the office and through the open door and along the twenty-foot long corridor to where Millie was all ready to go.
As Jake smiled at Millie and hefted the bag up from where it stood next to her computer, a young man that he knew appeared through the door that led back to the workshop.
“Drop the bag on the floor and step back away from it,” Zack said, pointing the gun at Jake’s chest. His hand was shaking, but not enough to worry him. He couldn’t miss at such short range.
“Have you been drinking, Zack?” Jake asked, gripping the handle of the bag tighter. “Put that gun down and walk away now and I’ll forget that you’ve hung one on and lost your senses.”
“I reckon it’s way too late for that, McKenna,” Zack said. “Charlie’s dead, and I’ll end up the same way if I don’t have that money. I’m in too deep to pass on this, so drop the fuckin’ bag.”
Jake just shook his head. Thought that the small handgun would not even be loaded. And he was only one step away from being close enough to swing the bag up and knock Zack on his ass.
Zack saw the stubborn look and the intention in Jake’s eyes. He pulled the trigger twice and watched as the expression on Jake’s face changed from self-assurance to one of disbelief as he sank to his knees with two red florets of blood forming within an inch of each other on the left side of his chest. A .25 didn’t have the size or heavy-duty ammunition necessary to blow a person backwards, but it sure as hell got the job done.
Jake let go of the bag as his knees crashed onto the thin layer of vinyl that covered the concrete floor. He knew that he had been shot, but let instincts take over and got to his feet and charged at Zack, confident that he could overpower and disarm him.
Zack didn’t think, just reacted. He took a step forward, pressed the short barrel of the pistol up against Jake’s forehead and squeezed the trigger.
Jake felt a second of searing pain in the center of his brain, and then nothing. He was already dead as he slumped to his knees again, and then toppled forward; his head slamming onto the floor with the dull thud of a melon being dropped onto hard ground.
Millie had collapsed. She was sitting like an abandoned marionette with her back up against the front of the desk. All she could do was stare at the ribbon of bright red blood that was running across Jake’s forehead from a dime-sized hole, to drip onto the grey vinyl. He appeared to be looking at her, and his wide open eyes were hypnotic, even though they were now unseeing.
Zack didn’t particularly want to kill Millie. She had always been pleasant towards him when he’d worked for Jake. But she was a witness. He swung the gun round and aimed it at her face and used his last two rounds. Millie’s head was jerked to the left as the first slug shattered her cheekbone, to ricochet and exit just in front of her ear. The second slug hit her in the right temple, where the skull is much thinner, and finished the job. Her legs kicked like a dreaming dog’s for a few seconds, and then she joined the uncountable masses that had gone before her. No big deal. A lot of people were born every day, and a lot died. It all leveled out.
Zack picked up the bag and made his way back through to the workshop. He placed the bag next to the steps at the rear of the pit and went down to relieve what had been Charlie Danton of his car keys and grease-smeared Atlanta Falcons baseball cap.
Within just five minutes of arriving, Zack was heading out of town again on a quiet county road, driving Charlie’s old plum-colored Impala and wearing the mechanic’s cap with the long bill pulled down, so that if any oncoming driver took any notice, they would not see his features.
Patting the bag that was on the passenger seat next to him, Zack smiled. All he had to do now was dump the car, get rid of the gun, and make his way home through the woods east of the Chattahoochee River to the cabin he lived at on the banks of Turtle Creek.
After sinking the Impala in a swampy holler, and digging out a deep hole in soft ground to put the gun and ball cap in and cover with a thirty-pound boulder, life suddenly looked a much rosier proposition to Zack as he made his way almost two miles along deer trails to the cabin.
He placed the blocks of banded bills on a scratched-up old table that had stood in the parlor for over seventy years, pulled up a chair next to it and started to count his blood money. There was just over fourteen thousand dollars, which may not be a lot to rich folks, but was a small fortune to Zack. Not that he would be able to keep all of it. He had got into arrears with a firm of loan sharks in LaGrange and owed them seven big ones. He no longer gambled, but needed to pay them back. He had a deadline less than twelve hours from now. Failure to meet it, even over such a small amount, would result in him having his legs broken with baseball bats, for starters, and he would still owe them the seven grand, plus more interest.
After brewing coffee, Zack took the bag out back, set a fire going and sipped the strong, black java from a tin mug as he watched the last piece of evidence turn to ashes.