R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 03 - Reckoning (18 page)

He calmly leaned over and put his hands on the cheeks of the owner. “I am truly sorry, but you’re the oldest.”

And he twisted quickly, snapping her neck, killing her instantly.

The other two went into muffled hysterics.

“QUIET,” Jax commanded.

Silence.

“When you talk to the police, you tell them everything. In fact, you tell them I took all the money and you two divide what’s left in the safe. Here’s the important part: say absolutely nothing about the stolen Explorer. You, call your husband and get him to drive you home. I will have a police scanner. The first report of a stolen 2006 Explorer with your license plate, I stop what I’m doing, go to the address on the drivers’ licenses I am taking with me, and I slaughter everyone I find. And if you’re not there, I’m a patient man. Look at your boss.”

Jax grabbed the corpse by the front of the outfit and lifted it; the head rolled around in macabre half-circles, as if on ball bearings.

“Believe me, she felt
nothing
. You, with the skunk-loving daughter? I’ll skin her in front of you and your husband before doing the same to you. So, you can end up stinking animal carcasses or, split up what I would guess is eight or ten thousand dollars back there and pin it on me. You look reasonably intelligent. The decision is yours.”

He then went to the front of the store and fished the keys from the Coach purse and took the licenses of both ladies. He went outside and found the Explorer parked in a spot further from the store than most.

We sat down in the high-ceiling living room with a huge fireplace, cliché light-colored cabin furniture and talked about our next move.

“Here’s the thing,” I told them. “We just don’t know who we can trust. Rule could have half the police department. Hell, sorry, heck, he could have them all by now.”

“We’re screwed,” Manny said.

“I don’t think so. I have a theory. Big surprise, I know. But I have been thinking a lot about this. Not just today or the Judas killings, but way back, ten, twelve years. All the stuff I told you, Manny. Em, you probably know things I don’t, but trust me, I will tell you the whole story one day, okay?”

Melissa nodded.

“If Rule and the rest of them were capable of doing what they did to Jax, Amber, Spence—sorry, Em’s father—then they’d have done it. Why not embody the whole city? The whole country? Obviously there are rules here to this—excuse me, Em—motherfucking game.”

“Fuck, fuck, motherfucker, Goddamn, piss, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Melissa said. “I’m not a child. I’m almost nineteen. With all the things we have to worry about, the last thing you need to be doing is wasting a single brain cell on speaking politely around me. Deal?”

Manny and I looked at each other, eyes wide, eyebrows at our hairlines—with two, identical “well, whaddaya know?” kind of expressions.

“Deal,” I said.

“Si,” Manny said. “
Trato hecho, senorita Em.
”

“Thanks for that, Em,” I said. “Well this has been a goddamned game since day one. But now I’m thinking of it in
literal
terms. Both times I’ve faced down these, these—shit, I can’t say it myself. This is all so crazy.”

“Bad guys,” Manny said. “That’s what I think. It helps. Let’s just agree—we say ‘bad guys’, we know what we’re talking about.”

“Some bad-ass bad guys,” I said. “But I like it. Em?”

“Works for me.” She looked clearly happy to be included.

“Bad guys it is. Okay, every time I’ve faced down these bad guys, it’s always somewhere remote. The mountains. I mean way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere.”

Manny looked confused.

“People,” I said. “No people. Nothing approaching a town much less a city.”

“So you think they can only amass, attack, whatever, away from people?” Manny said.

“That oversimplifies it. There are a lot of people, whether they believe in a god or not, they do—to some degree—believe that everything is interconnected. Energy, right? From Einstein to shit like
The Secret
. Positive energy, negative energy. But when we’re talking about actually affecting tangible events—success, failure,
possession
,
bad guys
—what is the key word? What makes energy positive, for example?”

“Belief,” Manny said.

“Exactly. What if these bad guys can only feed on the weak-minded, or those who have a predisposition to believe in the whacky paranormal crap. More importantly, imagine the energy created by a city full of naysayers. You could pick one here, one there, sure, but maybe that’s why they can’t just march down the city streets, thousands of these bad guys, because no one fucking believes in them—at least not yet.”

“So can I ask something?” Melissa said.

“Of course, honey, ask away.”

“Why, then, would you lead us
away
from the city?”

I laid back in my chair and smiled wide. “A smart one, here, Manolo. Not just a question but the question of the hour.”

“Sorry, Mac,” Melissa said, “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or accusing or anything.”

“It’s a great question, Em,” I said. “Honestly, I was trying to think of a place no one knew about but that was fortified like a castle on steroids.”

We all laughed.

“In all seriousness, we aren’t going to stay here,” I said. “I guess that’s where I’m going with this theory. I’m done taking on these bad guys on their turf. Let them bring the hot sauce
to us
. We need to plan a defense strategy that has the
bad guys
out of their element and
in ours
.”

“But what
is
our territory?” Manny said.

“Funny you should ask that,” I said.

Jax Macaulay—or whatever he had become after the mountaintop; after directing Spencer Grant through his killing spree in his own brother’s precious city, didn’t know either his brother or the city well enough to have a decent plan as to where he should start. Well, he knew where he would start. He didn’t know where they’d gone; that was the more accurate statement. Since learning the inherent weakness in humans he always knew where to begin.

In addition to actually purchasing a police scanner, he also found a car that looked in decent shape but had not been driven in a long time and exchanged the license plates. Fortunately the owner had kept the car’s registration current. He could see in the women’s eyes he left behind that they were unlikely to report the vehicle stolen, at least until an idiot husband demanded the one do it, but that would buy him more than enough time.

It would be nearing nightfall, and he drove to the only address he knew in the city.

Manny didn’t like the plan to leave his partner and the girl behind but he had his part to play and he was more than a little proud that his heritage would contribute to Mac’s plan to end Rule’s intent and dominion over the people of Denver and, further, the world.

He arrived at
Mira’s
just as darkness was descending.

“Manny Rodriguez,” Mira said as he walked in and approached the bar. The place was teeming with neighborhood regulars, most of whom knew Manny but would not show respect because of the choice he had made. He would never be touched or harmed in any way; he was too close to the
Colón family for that ever to happen.

“I need a sit-down with your father, Mira.”

“Oh, mijo. You know how difficult that will be, given all we’ve been through. You are guarded but not trusted, Manolo.”

“This is a matter of life and death for the
neighborhood
, Mira. For the whole city. I would not ask if it were not important, your father should realize that.”

“Give me a few minutes,” she said, and disappeared into the office.

Manny ordered a tequila with a beer back. He needed more courage than flowed in his veins at that moment. More than alcohol could provide him, likely, but the drink would help.

He was halfway through the beer when Mira returned.

“Papa is on his way. He wasn’t thrilled.”

“And that’s putting it nicely I’ll wager.”

“You’d win that bet, mijo. But he has always loved you. My father is an emotional man. As much as he needs you to be gone from this neighborhood—this community—he misses you dearly. This much he cannot hide from his daughter.”

“No one can hide anything from you, Adelmira Colón.”

“I have my ways just as you have yours,” she said.

Twenty minutes later a man the size and shape of a side of beef walked into the bar. All conversation stopped for a moment and then began again, much softer and more muffled than before. Hernando Colón was a King in the Puerto Rican nation of the Calaveras Street projects. His dominion extended throughout “Little ‘Rico” and he was a man who was rightfully feared.