Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4) (8 page)

Stopping, paralyzed by the gruesome sight, Della stared down at the body of the big black man.  Blood covered the front of the deceased man’s shirt, and more had run out of his mouth to run in lines down his cheeks onto his neck, to be absorbed by his collar.  And the dark-brown eyes were wide open and seemed to glare up at her, full of unrighteous condemnation.

“Move,” Logan said firmly from the doorway just a few feet above her.  “Don’t look at him.”

The voice broke the spell.  Della looked up and saw Logan almost filling the doorway.  He was beckoning her with his left hand, and holding a gun in his right.  Two seconds later she was next to him. He guided her to the side of the doorframe, out of the line of fire.

“Go out the front door,” Logan said.  “Your car is parked about six up on the other side of the street.  There’s a young guy by the name of Benny in the passenger seat.  Tell him who you are, and that I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Della said nothing, just followed his instructions and left the house.

Logan waited until she had closed the door behind her, and then called out to the man in the basement, “Slide your gun across the floor to where I can see it, then walk into view with your hands behind your head.”

“How do I know that you won’t shoot me?” Frankie said as he slid his gun across the floor and drew Lennox’s from his belt.

“Did you pull the trigger on Arnie Newman?”

“No.”

“Then all I want from you are some answers.”

Frankie walked across to where he could be seen from the top of the steps.  His arms were held high, and he knew that the steep angle would hide the top of his head and his hands from Logan’s view, due to the low ceiling.  He would shoot the man where he stood, then go and take care of the woman and whoever else was waiting outside.

Dusty
was getting impatient.  He had expected a call and an update.  Time was passing and pressing.  Max would soon be back on to him, wanting to know if the woman had been lifted yet.

He picked up his cell from the top of the long, mahogany coffee table, scrolled down the contact list and called Lennox.  It rang but there was no answer.  He pressed
END
and tried Frankie’s number, and let it ring and ring.

“Best answer it,” Logan said to Frankie.  “Slow and easy, and put it on speaker.”

Frankie lowered his left hand, took the cell from his coat pocket, accepted the call and hit the speaker button.

“Yeah, boss.” He said.

“You and that piece of shit partner you work with are seriously pissing me off, Frankie,” Dusty said.  “Bring me up to speed.  What the fuck is happening?”

“Tell him,” Logan said.

“Who the hell is that?” Dusty asked.

“Logan.  He turned up at the house in Tuckahoe,” Frankie said.  “The broad was hiding in the basement.  Lennox is dead, and Logan has a gun on me.”

There was absolute silence for a few seconds.  And then Dusty said, “Can you hear me, Logan?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Good.  What I want you to do is give Frankie everything you found at Newman’s house.  Do that and we can all get on with our lives.  There’s no need for this to go any further.”

“Arnie is in a coma and will probably die,” Logan said.  “And your inept, trigger-happy goons shot and killed his wife’s brother and her sister-in-law. So I reckon that there’s a long way to go before this is done with.”

As Logan talked, Frankie took his chance, brought his gun hand down and bent at the knees so that he could see up the stairs and take a shot.

The sound of the gunshot in the confined space was deafening.  Frankie dropped the gun as the bullet exploded into his right shoulder, tearing through muscle and shattering his clavicle; the force of it spinning him around and backwards.  He thudded into the back wall and collapsed to his knees as the side of his head smacked against the unyielding cinderblocks.

Logan bounded down the steps, over the corpse of Lennox, to kick the pistol away from where it lay next to the now seriously wounded man.  Being shot in the shoulder at close range is a big deal.  You don’t shrug it off and fight on.  That only happens in action movies.

As Frankie’s face drained of color, the right side of his coat turned crimson.  He was in shock and positive that the big man now standing over him was about to finish him off.

Dusty kept the line open and waited.  He knew that either Logan or Frankie had taken a bullet.

“Frankie went for broke,” Logan said as he plucked the cell up from where it had dropped. “Thought I wouldn’t guess that he’d taken the other imbecile’s gun.”

“Is he dead?” Dusty asked.

“Not yet.”

“What do you want, Logan?”

“The name of the guy that ordered the hit on Arnie, and of the one that pulled the trigger.”

“No one wanted him whacked.  Newman overreacted, killed one guy and wounded the other, who managed to get a shot off.  We just wanted whatever he had on―”

“On Fallon,” Logan said.

“I’m not about to start naming names.”

“I don’t need you to.  I’m sure that Frankie will give me all the information I need.”

“To do what?”

“To finish what Fallon started.”

“You must be stupid, Logan.  You’re just one man.  You can’t take us on.  We’ll find you and kill you.”

“Good luck with that,” Logan said and ended the call.

Kneeling next to the hired killer, Logan pressed the muzzle of his gun into the depression beneath his left ear and used his other hand to grip Frankie’s injured shoulder and squeeze hard.

Frankie bellowed in pain as shattered bone and flesh were compressed together.  His bladder voided and he began to tremble like Jell-O in a strong breeze, or a man suffering from late-stage Parkinson’s disease.

“I’ve got your cell, Frankie, and will retrieve your dead buddy’s before I leave.  But we need to talk first.  I want to know everything that you do, starting with details of the guy that you were just shooting the shit with.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Frankie asked in a low and pain-filled voice.

“Not if I believe what you tell me,” Logan said.

Frankie talked.  Told Logan everything that he knew about Dusty Quaid, Jack Trask and other guys that worked for Max Dalton, who he said was Patrick Fallon’s right-hand man.

When Frankie was through biting the hand that fed him by squealing to Logan, he slumped onto his side and knew that if he didn’t die where he lay, then he was on the clock. Dusty would put a contract out on him for running off at the mouth.  He was definitely a ‘dead man walking’, or in his case, lying on damp concrete with a slug in his shoulder.

It got worse.

Logan almost casually swung the gun down to point at Frankie’s left leg, and shot him in the kneecap.  The joint disintegrated.  If he survived the grievous wounds that had been inflicted on him, then he would at very least have a severe limp for the remainder of his days, if they could save the lower leg, which looked to be partially detached.  Exit wounds were always big, ragged and messy.

Logan went over to where the broom handle was lying next to the boiler, returned with it and carefully wiped it on Frankie’s jacket, then told him to grasp hold of it.  When he did, Logan turned away and walked back to the staircase, now in possession of the dead guy’s gun.

“You can’t leave me here like this,” Frankie murmured.  “I’ll bleed out.”

“I hope that you do,” Logan said without looking back.  “I suggest you drag yourself upstairs.  There’s a phone in the kitchen.  But who’re you going to call?”

Benny watched as the woman left the house and paused to look up and down the street.  He got out of the car and raised his hand.  She saw him and started jogging, angling across to where the Taurus was parked.

“You must be Della,” Benny said.  “Where’s Logan?”

“He said that he’d be out in a few minutes,” Della said.  “He’s talking to one of the men that broke in.”

“What went down?”

Della told him.

“Jesus!  You stabbed one of them with a broom handle?”

“Yes, I had no choice.  But the other one was about to shoot me when Joe turned up.”

“He’s not the kind of guy you want to be on the wrong side of,” Benny said.

“True.  He can be the best friend you could wish for, or a really mean, vicious bastard if need be.  I’ve known him for a long time.  I feel safe with him around.”

“You think he can deal with the people that are after us?”

“Definitely.  He was a soldier, then a cop for a long time.  Nothing seems to faze or frighten him.  He’s a rock, Benny.”

Benny was glad that he’d stayed.  His first impulse when Logan got out of the car and vanished was to just take the old Taurus and head for Chicago, but that would’ve meant spending every day waiting to be shot in the head, or worse, being tortured first by Jack Trask.  Bad people held grudges that ate at them like malignant growths until they had obtained retribution, and also the satisfaction that making people suffer mentally and physically gave them.  And Trask was probably as bad as someone could get.  He was an evil piece of work with no belief in the sanctity of life; just a heartless fucker lacking empathy, who just used and abused anyone for both money and the personal pleasure he got from doing it.  If Logan could take care of Trask, then Benny could go back to his life.  What life?  He didn’t have one worth spit.  He was a nonentity, just taking up space, not contributing to any worthwhile cause.  He didn’t work, had no real interests, ambitions or friends.  He had acquaintances, and they were all as pathetic as him, getting high, and getting by the best way that they could.

Just sitting in the car waiting for Logan had given Benny time to reflect on what he had become, and he didn’t need a mirror to know that it wasn’t a pretty sight.  He despised what he was: a young man without pride, one step up from the dispossessed that lived on the streets and were a part of the underbelly of a society that reviled them for their worthlessness.  Maybe this could be one of those life-changing moments that you either grab with both hands and make the most of, or shy away from and then always wonder with regret whether you could have prospered from it.  He wanted to change direction, and wanting to improve your lot was a start.  He would see this through with Logan, and if the guy was as good as he seemed to be and they survived, he determined to stop being a complete prick and get a life.  He had no particular skills, but had helped out as a short-order cook for pocket money when he had been at high school.  He would wash dishes and sweep floors if need be, to get his foot on the ladder.  The fact that he had not been gunned down or drowned in the Hudson was a wake up call.  If he could somehow get out from under the deep pile of shit he was in, then he would become a person that had more peace of mind and maybe even a future to care about.

“You okay?” Della said, climbing into the front passenger seat as Benny got in the rear.

“Uh, yeah, I was just thinkin’ that today really is the first day of the rest of my life.  I need to like myself more than I do now.  I’ve lived on the edge for a long time, without realizing how fucked-up and stupid I was being.”

“We all need to revaluate our priorities from time to time,” Della said.  “Tonight has been a wake-up call for me, too.  Since my husband died I’ve just been going through the motions, letting the days come and go without appreciating that once they’re gone, they’re gone.  You don’t get to live one second again.”

Benny nodded.  What Della said gave him even more determination to climb out of the personal sewer he had steeped himself in for so long.

Logan seemed to materialize from nowhere, to open the driver’s door and get in.  He started the car and drove off without saying a word.

“Well?” Della said after two minutes of silence, apart from engine noise.  “Are you going to tell us what happened in there?”

“I spoke to the guy and got some information.”

“Elaborate,” Della demanded when nothing more was forthcoming and she was becoming frustrated by his reticence to talk.

“He had his partner’s gun.  I had to shoot him in the shoulder,” Logan said.  “I talked to his boss on the phone, then got as much from him as he knew.  His name is Frankie Baker, and the one that you took out was Lennox Washington.  They were just muscle hired by an ex-Navy SEAL by the name of Dusty Quaid, who in turn does a lot of heavy shit for Patrick Fallon’s right-hand man, Max Dalton.  Frankie gave me some addresses as well as names.”

“Are you going to tell the police what you know?” Della asked.

“Hell, no,” Logan said.  “They’d throw both of us in cells while they investigated what happened in the basement.  I wiped Arnie’s throwaway gun and swapped it with the one that Washington had.  It’ll look as if Baker used the broom handle on him but took two bullets in return.”

“Two?” Della asked.

“Yeah, I put one in Baker’s kneecap before I left.  If he manages to make it up the stairs he’ll be able to use your landline to call for help. But my guess is he’ll probably bleed out.”

Della hoped that he did.  The two men had broken into her home to do her harm, and so they fully deserved what had happened to them.

“Are you goin’ to play vigilante and make a run at Dalton and the others?” Benny asked from out of the gloom of the car’s rear seat.

“Do bears shit in the woods?” Logan said, happy to use the hackneyed saying.

“Who will you start with, Trask?”

“No.  Arnie managed to shoot him at the pier.  He’s in a private clinic on the Upper East Side that’s owned by Fallon.  They’ll expect me to turn up there, because Trask is a soft target, and he pulled the trigger on Arnie.”

“So where are we goin’ now?”

“Back to the motel,” Logan said.  “With a pit stop on the way for coffee.”