Gabriel's Revenge (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 2) (28 page)

“They is payin you, ain’t they?” the man mumbled as he reached down with his spoon for another bite.

Another string of unintelligible words escaped the woman’s mouth as she held up her hands in defeat.

A loud round of laughter from a table three booths down suddenly drowned out her words. A large man with a shaved head punched one of his seatmates in the shoulder in fun at the joke. The second man stopped smiling as he started rubbing his shoulder with a grimace while the third man pointed with renewed hilarity.

The old man stopped gumming his food as he stared for a few moments at the large man, seeming to size him up. Satisfied, he continued eating his soup, finally scooping the last of the liquid into his mouth.

A nervous breath escaped the woman before she said, “You okray? We gro now?”

Nodding his head, the man reached over for his cane, and slowly pulled himself up from the table. The Asian woman quickly grabbed onto his left arm, but the old man looked at her and shook his head imperceptibly. Nodding, the woman went around the old man and grabbed his right arm while shifting something under her coat to her right side.

“You’re a pain in the ass sometimes,”
she whispered to the old man in clear English.

A small smile passed the stooped old man’s lips for a moment before he started forward in slow, halting steps.

Approaching the booth with the three loud men, the large one sitting on the outside of the booth finished another joke and the table again erupted in laughter. As the old man passed, the cane in his left hand came down hard on the giant’s foot.

A howl escaped the man’s lips as he quickly unfolded himself from the booth, “Who in the hell do you think you are!”

The stooped old man had backed up a step in apparent fear as he grabbed the bottom of the cane with his right hand. Seeing the opening he had been looking for, he lunged forward quickly, hooking the cane behind the ankle of the man and giving it a jerk.

A look of confusion passed across the giant’s face as he toppled over backwards and landed hard on his back. The old man quickly stood up to his full height and jumped forward, tucking his feet back as his knees harshly pounded into the other man’s chest.

Whipping out a gun in one hand, he stuck it under the man’s nose as his other hand flashed a badge in front of the prone man’s eyes.

“My name is Gabriel Celtic, Mr. Ames. It would seem that Allen Vanguard has requested your return to southern Indiana.”

The man’s startled seatmates started to get out of their seats to help their friend until they heard the
click
.

“You might wanna stay there boys,” Abby said with a wry smile while steadily holding her gun on them. Pushing back her scarf and revealing her long dark hair, “This has nothing to do with you…yet!”

Both men nodded meekly as they looked down at their plates, trying to ignore their friend’s plight.

“Adam Ames,” Gabriel said as he fitted the immobilized prisoner with handcuffs, “you are under arrest for skipping out on your bail and missing your court appointment last month. You have the right to remain silent…”

Chapter 2

September 14, 1999

“Why is it again that we have become bounty hunters?” I asked Abby as I rubbed a hotspot on the back of my neck. The Interstate droned past under the SUV as we headed home from Gary, Indiana. We had finally tracked down the elusive Mr. Ames in the greasy diner earlier in the day. Although it was slightly gratifying to find and apprehend these missing felons, I didn’t enjoy these long drives at all.

Abby and I had started a private detective agency a year ago, and so far I was happy with the work…except for the money thing. Worrying about how much to charge, and sometimes how to get the money out of your customers when it was owed was a headache I had not counted on.

“For the money, baby,” Abby exclaimed with a smile, looking up from the paperwork she had been working on in her lap. “If we don’t have any other cases, we gotta do
something
! Besides…that was fun!”

I disliked this type of work. Not that it was beneath me, I just didn’t like hunting down and transporting people just because I needed money. Besides, the capture earlier
could
have easily gone in another direction, and I worried more than a little about Abby…my daughter. (1)

Not knowing I even had a daughter at the time, I met Abby on a plane coming back from South America last year. Somehow finding out my location, she had made the trip to Peru just to meet me on the ride home. I
thought
she was just a nice young woman helping out an old man. She had kept the pertinent details of our relationship from me until later when we had gotten to know each other.

I have to admit however, that even before I knew she was my daughter, I had come to respect her insight and strength. After the initial shock of discovering I had fathered her while in Vietnam, it was an easy jump to acceptance of the facts. Not that I claim any special parenting abilities, mind you.

Smiling now at Abby, “I have a feeling that we will have a
real
case waiting for us when we get back.”

“Oh yeah,” she said as she looked back down at her papers again. “Is this one of your intuitions speaking…one of your visions?”

“No,” I laughed, “just a hunch.”

I would often have dreams that gave me clues to a big case when I was working one.  They had been long absent since Abby and I had broken our last murder case. A monk in the Catholic Church had taken it upon himself to weed out the sinners of the various parishes he would be assigned.

The weeding out was of the permanent nature!
(1)

I
was
disturbed by a couple of dreams that I had experienced lately though. Nothing to do with the mysterious room I usually visited when I had a vision, but of an old girlfriend from high school. I hadn’t thought much about her in years before the dreams started coming, especially since I had met and married Betty.

My lovely Betty had been murdered over two years ago now, and I still missed her daily.
(2)
But I had finally come somewhat to terms with her death last year, and even though I still missed her, I now knew that I could keep on living without her.

Abby had been very instrumental in bringing me to that point.

“Hunches are good!” Abby said while looking over her shoulder at the prisoner we had handcuffed in the back seat. “I’ll take one of your hunches any day!”

Looking into the rearview mirror, I spotted our prisoner; a trickle of dried blood had run down his forehead onto his nose. Having attached his handcuffs to a special steel ring we had installed in the back seat, he had worked for the first hour to get out of them. Failing that, he had decided it would be a good idea to beat his head against the steel mesh divider we had installed between the front and back seats.

He had finally calmed down after almost knocking himself out, drawing blood in the process.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said when he caught me looking back at him.

“We will be back home in an hour,” I said as I again concentrated on the road ahead, “You can hold it that long.”

“I’m gonna piss myself in like five minutes!” he puffed out loudly, “You better pull off!”

“Everything’s vinyl back there Adam…go for it!”

Looking up in the mirror again I saw a confused look cross his face, surprised I guess by my cavalier attitude. Anytime you could avoid releasing a secured prisoner, you were better off.

Seeming to give up on the idea, and apparently not that bad off after all, he finally leaned back in his seat. Time would tell if he tried something else before we got back to Allenville.

I hated bounty hunting.

Chapter 3

March 5, 1999

Cairo, Egypt 

Lieutenant Botros pulled up to the bazaar in his faded blue Nasr automobile. Turning the key to shut off the motor, the car continued to rattle and sputter for several moments before finally dying. By the time it stopped however, the officer was several feet away as he walked toward his men.

Seeing the Lieutenant approach, a private whispered to him,
“another American.”
Lifting the yellow tape erected to keep others away from the crime scene, Botros nodded, feigning boredom as he proceeded toward the body sprawled on the ground.

Noticing the owner of the bazaar standing off to the side of the path, the policeman changed directions, making his way over to him instead of the body.

“Good morning Omar,” he yelled in his native language as he flashed his best fake smile. “Sorry to hear about yet another murder in your fine establishment.” Stopping directly in front of the man now, “I’m afraid we will have to maintain the crime scene for several hours until we can get to the bottom of this. It is indeed unfortunate that your business will be hampered in such a way. ”

Placing his hand on the officer’s shoulder, Omar gently turned Botros so that they were facing away from the crowd.

Handing him an envelope, he uttered, “250 pounds as usual…for you and your fine men, Lieutenant.”

Pocketing the envelope with a smile, the policeman assured him that he would handle the situation.

Turning to his men, he yelled, “Just another accident men, call the funeral house and let’s get him ready to transport back to his home country!”

Turning back to Omar, “These Americans, such a careless people.”

Returning to his car, he removed two hundred pounds and placed them into his pocket…he would split the rest with his men later.

As the car sputtered back to life, Botros smiled as he shifted it into gear.

It has indeed been a good day.

Chapter 4

September 14, 1999

I turned on the kitchen light as we piled into the house carrying our equipment. It had been a long couple of days, and we were both exhausted.

“I’ll take care of the costumes if you get the weapons,” Abby mumbled tiredly. I nodded and grabbed up the guns to deposit into the safe. I figured that cleaning them could wait until the morning.

Abby took the clothes we used for our disguises and deposited them into the washing machine, everything except my ratty gray wig. She lovingly deposited this on the head of a plaster bust of Caesar, patting it playfully with a smile before reentering the kitchen.

“I’m beat!” she exclaimed as she came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to bed.”

I reached around her shoulder with one arm and gave her a quick hug.

“Ok kid, see ya in the morning.”

I had invited Abby to live at the house with me when we had started our business. She had happily accepted, setting herself up in the unused downstairs bedroom. Having been apart for most of
her
life, we both still relished any time that we could spend together.

Her sometime guest and boyfriend, Nathan Stafford, was not here tonight, as we had not known when we would return. When he was here however, he was a welcome addition to the family. The old house hadn’t known this much activity in years.

Heading into the office from where we ran the agency, I contemplated making a pot of coffee. Looking at the clock, I realized that it was almost 10:00, and decided against it. Not that I ever had trouble sleeping after drinking coffee late, I just didn’t have the energy to make it.

Deciding quickly to just go to bed, I began to turn toward the stairs when the phone started screaming at me.

What the hell?

I couldn’t imagine who would be calling this late at night, and was not happy as I retraced my steps back to the desk.

“Celtic,” I almost yelled as I picked up the receiver.

There was silence for a long few moments, and I was contemplating hanging up when I heard a soft voice say, “Gabe?”

“I’m sorry to call so late, but I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

I glanced down at the answering machine, noticing finally the fast blinking indicator. Since Abby usually took care of returning calls, I very seldom paid it any attention.

“Anyway,” the voice continued, “I’ve been trying to contact you because I believe I may be in need of your services…if you have time that is.”

There was something very familiar about the voice but I couldn’t place it. Normally I may have let the person talk until I could figure it out, but I was majorly tired and had very little patience left for the day.

“Who is this?” I finally asked, a little too gruffly.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” A nervous giggle crossed the phone line. “I guess I was just assuming you would know who it was. This is May… May Lassiter.”