Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (29 page)

I turned in time to see my booted savior smash the heel of her hand into the nose of another biker. Blood and mucus splattered. He went to his knees, holding his face, moaning in pain. The tattooed blonde from the bar wheeled again, her back to me, ready to strike the next assailant. A surprise. One of Jock’s people. A gun fired. One of Jock’s men put a bullet into the ceiling. The room went quiet, people stopped where they were. For a second there was no movement in the room.

The shooter, Jock’s buddy, had moved toward us in the second that the action took. The biker who had grabbed me from behind was writhing on the floor, moaning, his boot bloody, a bullet hole on the top above his instep. The one from the table lay on the floor in a fetal position holding his broken arm against his crotch, blood streaming from his nose.

“Let’s move,” said the shooter, backing toward the door. I picked up my pistol and trained it on the crowd. The three other men were moving
toward the front of the bar, each with a pistol trained on the room, pointing in different directions, their fields of fire covering everybody in the place. The blonde moved with us, staying close, eyes darting.

We reached the front door. Logan was in the driver’s seat of his car, a pistol pointed at the rear seat. Jock had pushed Baggett into the back and restrained his hands behind him with flex cuffs. Logan was making sure he didn’t move. Jock was standing by the car watching the entrance to the bar, his weapon pointing toward it. He’d propped the door open with a brick. The six of us came out, slowly, one giving cover to the next guy backing out of the building. One of them had a machine pistol. He pointed it into the building, aimed high, and let off a quick burst.

“Where’s your car, Fred?” Jock shouted.

“Right here, boss. The Mercury,” said the man with the machine pistol.

“Give me that Uzi, and you guys get the hell out of here. I’ll call you when we get moving.”

Fred tossed the gun to Jock and he and the others got in the car. Jock let off another burst of gun fire into the bar’s ceiling. “That ought to keep them on their toes until we’re gone.”

The blonde was standing next to me. “Aren’t you going with them?” I asked.

“I’m not with them.” She smiled.

The slight southern accent, the smile. Suddenly my brain kicked into gear, overriding my sense of confused wonder. “J.D.? Get in the car.” I pushed her into the front seat.

The Mercury left, its tires squealing as they sought purchase on the asphalt of the road. I got into the front-passenger seat, squeezing J.D. between Logan and me. We followed the Mercury. Jock poked the machine pistol out the window and fired another burst into the ranks of bikes parked next to the road.

“That seemed to work out nicely,” said Logan. “Did you guys make any new friends tonight? Other than Blondie here.”

“Watch your mouth, Logan,” J.D. said, and took her sunglasses off.

He turned, squinted at her in the faint light from the dash. “J.D.?”

“Yeah. Watch the road.”

“Hey,” he said. “Nice tats.”

“They wash off.” She pulled at the top of her blouse, an unconscious attempt to cover her breasts.

Jock picked up the phone and dialed a number. “You guys go on home. I appreciate the backup. I owe you.”

He was quiet for a moment, then, “I’ll tell him.” He hung up, looked at me. “Fred said to tell you the one that came after you with the knife was Baggett’s bodyguard. There’s some sort of rule that if you’re the bodyguard and your boss gets wacked, you die too. I guess he figured he had nothing to lose.”

“He was right,” said Baggett. “He’s a dead man.”

“You may as well be,” said Jock. “After you get through talking to us, I don’t think they’ll want you to be their leader anymore.”

“Where’re we going?” asked Logan.

“We’re going to drop J.D. off.” I turned toward her. “Where’s your car?”

“About a mile from here. I parked it and walked in.”

“Show me.”

She gave Logan directions and we soon pulled up behind a gray Toyota Camry parked in a strip mall lot. “I want to go with you,” she said.

“Get out. Let’s talk,” I said.

We walked the few steps to the passenger side of her car. Stopped. Stood silently for a moment. I exploded. “What the hell were you doing in that bar?”

She pulled the blonde wig off her head, opened the car door, and threw it and her hat into the passenger seat. “Saving your ass,” she said over her shoulder. She retrieved a man’s dress shirt, pulled it on, buttoned it up, and turned back to me.

“You did that and I appreciate it. But you can’t be here. You’re a cop.”

“Not any more. I quit.”

“What?”

“I gave the chief my gun and badge and a letter of resignation late this afternoon.”

“Why?”

“I needed to color outside the lines.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“There’s some evil in the world that can’t be handled by the rules.”

“Talk to me, J.D. You’re not making much sense.”

“Have you heard about Jube Smith?”

“No.”

“I tried to call you several times. Went straight to your voice mail.

“Sorry. My battery died.”

“Logan didn’t answer his phone, and I didn’t have a number for Jock.”

She was shaken, talking rapidly as if hearing the words pouring from her mouth would ease the pain I saw in her face.

“J.D.,” I said, sharply. “What’s the problem?”

“That bastard Baggett killed Jube and his wife, and the law can’t touch him.”

My heart sagged. Poor Jube. A man driven beyond his level of tolerance who’d tried to do the right thing and was killed because of it.

“What happened?” My voice sounded tired in my own ears, and I guess I was tired. Tired of death. Tired of the death merchants. Tired of the twisted people who inhabited a subterranean world that most people did not know existed. It was like another dimension, existing side by side with the one we knew, and as imperfect as ours was, the other was many magnitudes worse. A place where death was dealt without thought or even purpose.

“I was at the north end of the key checking out a car that had been broken into at the Northside Drive beach access when the chief called. Said there had been a murder in Cortez, and I needed to get over there and talk to a Detective David Sims. He said that some boat captain told him that you were involved with Jube. I tried to call, but I guess your battery had died.”

“It’s okay, J.D. What else?

“I’ve been a homicide cop for a long time. Seen a lot of bad stuff. This was the worst.”

“Tell me.”

“The lady who lives next door to Jube heard a motorcycle pull up and stop. Thirty minutes later she heard a gunshot and saw a man run from the house and leave on the bike. She got the tag number. It was one of those vanity plates that said ‘DBAG.’”

“Baggett’s?”

“Yes. Sims ran the plate.”

“Then you’ve got him.”

“No. He called it in stolen. From a cell phone. The call came in from the east side of the county just about the time the bike appeared at Jube’s.”

“Could be legit.”

“And he could have had someone else make the call. Give him some sort of alibi.”

“You don’t buy it,” I said.

“Not for a minute.” She took a deep breath, shuddered a little.

“There’s more. Did you know that Jube’s wife had ovarian cancer?”

“Yes.”

“She was near death. Maybe a day or two. Not long. She was just skin and bones. She was tied to the bed. Naked and gagged. Her throat was cut. There were cigarette burns on her stomach and thighs. And cuts. He sliced her before he killed her. All up and down her torso. The ME’s preliminary thinking is that the burns and cuts were premortem. Her heart was still pumping blood when the bastard stuck a cigarette to her and sliced her like a raw carrot.”

“How do you know it was a cigarette that burned her? Did he leave it at the scene?”

“Yes, but it was a filter tip, and he tore off the tip and took it with him. No DNA.”

“Why leave the cigarette?”

“I think it was to show that he was smarter than we are. That there was no evidence. No way to tie him to the murder.”

“What about the knife?”

“One of a set from Jube’s kitchen.”

“Jube?”

“He was tied to a chair, facing the bed. Gagged. Shot in the head. He had to watch and listen to Baggett torture his wife.”

J.D. painted a scene from hell. I hoped Jube didn’t have to see his wife defiled. “Maybe Jube was dead before it took place,” I said.

“That doesn’t match with the timeline. Baggett was in the house for thirty minutes before the shot was fired, and he left immediately afterward.”

“Did you talk to the boat captain?”

“Yeah. It was the one we had lunch with. Nestor Cobol. Nice guy. Said Jube worked for him and that you’d gotten him the job. I remember Jube mentioning that at lunch.”

“Goddamnit,” I said.

“Baggett did it. I know that in my gut.”

“But you can’t prove it.”

“Not in a million years. He was careful. No prints, no DNA, nothing to tie him to the scene.”

“I suspect he’ll talk to Jock.”

“That’s what I was hoping for. Can I come along?”

“This might get rough.”

“I’ve seen rough before.”

“What about your car?”

“I’ll get a ride up here in the morning and pick it up.”

“Okay.”

We walked back to Logan’s car. J.D. got in the front seat, scooted over to give me room. “J.D.’s going with us,” I said. “I’ll explain later.” There was no objection.

“Where’re we going?” Logan asked.

“Sun City.” I said.

“Why Sun City?”

“That’s where K-Dawg lives now.”

“I know that. Are we going to visit him at this time of the night? Maggie will kill us.”

“Do you remember that camp the Dawg has way up on the Little Manatee River?”

“Yeah. I think we did some drinking up there a time or two. Maybe more.”

“I called him today. We’ll pick up the key at his house and then take this piece of shit up there and have a nice little conversation. Don’t miss your turn.”

We picked up the key from K-Dawg, drove east on Sun City Boulevard, turned south on Highway 301, and after a few miles turned right onto a dirt track that ran along the northern edge of the river. An old citrus grove stretched north from the water, its trees empty of fruit. We drove for a mile or so and came to a small clearing that opened onto the river and was bordered on three sides by ancient grapefruit trees. The camp was little more than an old travel trailer set up on concrete blocks. It had a propane stove, a portable toilet, a small generator for powering lights, and bunks for four people. It sat near the river, which was more like a creek this close to its headwaters. A cleared area behind the trailer provided parking for three or four cars.

Jock dragged Baggett from the backseat, dropping him on the ground, his feet still in the car. “Get up, asshole,” he said.

“I hope you’ve got your insurance paid up,” Baggett said, “because some very bad people are going to be coming after you.”

“Let me tell you something, Dirtbag,” Jock said. “You have no idea what kind of bad people I deal with every day. Compared to them, those shitheads who work for you are kind of like Little Leaguers who think they can play in the majors. They wouldn’t last the first inning.”

Baggett was on his feet. He spit onto the ground. Jock kicked him in the back of his knee, throwing the biker onto the ground again, face first, no way to stop his momentum with his hands cuffed behind him. Jock kicked him in the ribs, twice. “Don’t be spitting on my buddy’s dirt.”

Baggett got up slowly, his face contorted in pain and defiance and rage. He stared at Jock, a long hard stare that had certainly put fear into
lesser men. Jock slapped him with his open hand. “Don’t even think about it, asshole,” he said. “You’ve got a long night ahead of you.” He slapped him again. “Get into the house.”

I thought I saw a momentary change in the face of the biker leader, the rage giving way to a hint of fear, maybe for the first time beginning to understand that there were people in the world who were as savage as he. He’d always been the bad guy, spreading fear, causing pain and death. It had no meaning to him. But now, he was the victim, the one upon whom the pain and fear were inflicted. He didn’t like it, but here he was.

I’d seen Jock work before. He was a man of refinement who found joy in simple things like friendship or golf or the bonhomie of a favorite bar. But when necessary he could play the brute, a malicious and inhuman savage who gave no quarter. It always diminished him, depressed him, worried him that the streak of brutality was a part of him. Afterward, he would withdraw from everybody and drink too much, trying to chase the demons back into the night. He said he needed that ritual to help recover his soul. He never talked about it, except to me. I knew how much a night like this cost him, and I knew the only reason he would ever uncage the beast was to protect his country, or his best friend.

Once inside, Jock tied Baggett to a chair, pulled a small digital tape recorder from the bag he’d brought from the car, and set it on the table next to the biker. He pulled out a twenty-four-inch pair of bolt clippers “Know what this is, asshole?”

Baggett nodded, his face paling a bit. No bravado now. A man who had met his match and then some, a man now scared for his life.

Jock grinned, malevolence shooting from his eyes. “I’m only going to ask you a question once. If you don’t answer it, or you lie, I’m going to cut off one of your fingers. When I finish with your fingers, I’ll take off your dick. Do we understand each other?”

Baggett nodded. Jock’s rough treatment had softened him, made him aware that this man holding the bolt clippers was capable of cutting him up in little pieces, one digit at a time.

“I’m going to switch on this recorder. If I have to cut off a body part, I’ll turn it off so that nobody has to hear you scream and whimper like a little girl. You got it?”

Baggett nodded.

“Why are you trying to kill my buddies, Royal and Hamilton?”

“I don’t know. I’m being paid to do it. I don’t ask why.”