Fallen Stones (7 page)

During his long drive home, Jason realized this was going to be one of the toughest weekends of his life and he and Stephanie would have to do a lot of soul searching before making their final decision.

Suddenly he felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck and felt as if someone was watching him. He looked into the rearview mirror and within a split second took in all of the details of what he believed he saw. For a brief second, Jason was certain he there was a man sitting in the back seat of his car. The man appeared to be in his sixties, rail thin and shirtless. The man had long slashes down his chest forming a series of V-shapes from which blood flowed freely. The man's face was likewise slashed as if with a razor and one of his ears was missing. Jason was certain it was the same tortured man who he thought he had seen in Walt's mirror; but he know was impossible.

Startled he blinked his eyes and just as quickly as it had appeared, the horrific vision in the back seat was gone from sight. Jason felt a steady rough bumping and realized his car was heading off the highway. He quickly brought the car back under control and reluctantly looked again into the rearview mirror, and to his gratitude unspeakable creature was gone.

"Wow." Jason said aloud, "I really have to find some way to relieve some of this stress. It must really be getting to me."

The rest of the way home Jason's eyes darted between the highway and the rearview mirror as if he believed the horrible vision would return. Despite the mild May temperature and the
fact his air conditioning was running full blast, Jason was drenched with a cold sweat beneath his clothing.
 

 

Chapter 3

 

Forty-eight hours earlier...

A darkly clad man hunched silently in the shadows, feeling the tumblers of the lock gradually give way beneath the pressure of his special burglar's lock pick held tightly in his right hand. He had practiced this task many times during the past several weeks, honing his technique for this special moment. Soon he heard the familiar click, indicating the locking mechanism had released and he was clear to go inside. Opening the door ever so slowly, he waited a moment to hear if there was an alarm system present and if so, if it was activated. He was pleased to have his patient anticipation greeted with nothing but wonderful silence. Apparently, there really was no security system to worry about. This wasn't what he would consider the smartest move on the homeowner's part, but perhaps in this area of the country locals didn't deem such countermeasures necessary. Or maybe the owner simply never got around to installing one. And now of course it was much too late for that. Knowing what he did about the owner, the man assumed the owner's arrogance would not have permitted him to install such a system.

He opened the back door of the house and slid quickly into the darkened rear kitchen, shutting the door behind him. He stood silently in the room; his back pressed tightly against the door, feeling the cool glass of the small window panes against the back of his head, the only sound in the kitchen being that of his own shallow breath escaping in barely audible puffs.

He waited, giving his eyes time to adjust to the near total darkness, which was scarcely supplemented by the meager light of the moon coming in through the windows with their curtains drawn tightly shut. Jack thought about how long he had searched to find his enemy; all the years he had planned to exact his revenge. He looked down at his left hand, which he stretched open, palm up, fingers extended, appearing as nothing more than a black-silhouetted form. But in that charcoal shadow, he could see the one missing element of the shape, the place where his ring finger had once been. It was the finger, which had once held his precious wedding ring, but now both the ring and the finger were long gone; taken years ago by his enemy; taken by the rotten black-hearted bastard known as Emerson Washburn.

Jack Moran thought again, of how angry and frustrated he had become a month ago, when after he had finally been released from prison, and had spent six months tracking Emerson Washburn, he finally learned of his location only to hear of the man's recent death. Jack had planned his revenge for so many years while he wasted away in that prison cell. He often thought of how someday he would track down Emerson Washburn and torture him mercilessly. Jack planned on making the man endure the same agony he, himself had suffered at Washburn's own hand so many years earlier, but he intended to make Washburn's suffering a thousand times worse.

But now, since Washburn was already dead, likely rotting away in some lost hole in Hell, Jack would unfortunately never have the opportunity to properly seek his retribution. He had originally heard through his street connections that Washburn was dead and then later heard from a few talkative residents at a local bar how Washburn had apparently committed suicide.

For some reason, the regional newspaper chose not to mention anything about Washburn's suicide, but simply stated he had been found dead in his bathtub. Anyone reading it might assume a heart attack or stroke, but not suicide. He wondered if Washburn had managed to gain control of several important local officials with the power to control such things. Jack didn't know for certain and didn't particularly care, but it sounded like something Washburn might do. As far as Jack was concerned, dead was dead and the once great Emerson Washburn was now as dead as anyone could be. However, he was frustrated he had missed his opportunity to be the bringer of that death.

“Suicide was too good for that rotten pig,” Jack had thought to himself. “He saved himself from the Hell on earth I planned to bring down on him.” Perhaps the ghosts of the people Washburn had killed in his sordid past had come back to haunt him, and had driven him mad.  That thought brought a slight smile to Jack's silhouetted face. Ironically, Jack had no idea how close to the truth his statement had been.

Jack turned slightly to look out through the kitchen door window, out onto the huge rear deck making sure the five-gallon can of gasoline he bought with him was readily available.  He could see in-ground swimming pool he had walked around to access the deck.  Jack placed the lock pick into his jacket pocket and felt for the lighter, which he had put there to use later. Then he reached around to touch the thirty-eight-caliber revolver he had loaded and tucked into his jeans at the small of his back. He didn't actually believe he would need the weapon but it never hurt to be prepared, and if he suddenly did need it, the weapon would be easily accessible.

Jack had heard that Washburn had left his old life of crime in New Jersey behind him and had retired to a new quiet life in Pennsylvania. Jack was shocked to see the isolated and serene atmosphere the former gangster had chosen. Then he thought "No wonder he had killed himself. Such an environment would drive any self-respecting city boy crazy." He suppressed a laugh.

He also wondered how the man could survive alone without his entourage of goons to watch his back or how Washburn could live without hurting someone at least once a week. He had experienced Washburn's propensity for incredible violence first-hand, and understood just how much the man enjoyed inflicting pain. Jack was not at all surprised when, throughout the years, he also heard stories of other horrendous acts Washburn had committed, which were even more deplorable than what Washburn had done to him.

For over twelve long years, Jack Moran had dreamed of capturing and binding the man so he was helpless and then yanking out his fingernails one at a time. Next, he would use a tin shear to systematically remove each of the bastard's fingers, one knuckle joint at a time. Then he would have started on Washburn's toes. He had planned to keep the man alive for as long as possible, making the torture seem endless, until Washburn finally succumbed to his trauma and blood loss.  But now, that dream was never to be realized. But that didn't mean Jack couldn't still exact some form of revenge. And that was exactly why Jack Moran had broken into Washburn's home this very evening; for a little bit of R and R: revenge and retribution. Also, he had to retrieve something of his own; something very precious to him.

Standing in the darkness he thought back to the night when it had all happened, that unforgettable night when he had been overpowered and knocked unconscious by several of Washburn's goons. Although he was not a large or powerful man, Jack always prided himself on being able to hold his own in any type of physical altercation. But on the night Washburn's men took him, Jack had been caught off guard and never had the opportunity to even attempt to defend himself.

Jack Moran was not a career criminal or even a petty thief at the time he unfortunately crossed paths with Emerson Washburn. He had however, been a compulsive gambler and a chronic liar, two undesirable vices which when combined always seemed to bring with them very negative consequences.  But no matter how unsavory or distasteful, neither of these traits was considered illegal in the eyes of the law.

Unfortunately, for John “Jack” Michael Moran II, his inalienable right to gamble had become much more than the occasional legal vice, it had instead become a compulsion, an addiction. As a result, Jack found himself expanding his gambling activities beyond those legal games of chance and into the dark underworld of illegal gambling. Even more unfortunate for Jack, when it came to gambling, his propensity for good luck fell far short of his compulsive need to gamble. That was how he found himself owing over fifty large to a bookie representing the interests of one Camden, New Jersey businessman of sorts by the name of Emerson Washburn.

About a year earlier, Jack's wife Christina to whom he had been married for seventeen years and their only child, a lovely fifteen-year-old beauty named Samantha died in a tragic automobile accident. Prior to the accident, Jack had been attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings regularly, trying to get his head straight and was doing quite well at fighting his addiction. He always wore his wedding ring proudly, affirming a new commitment to staying away from gambling of any type and rededicating himself to his wife and daughter. His ring became more than just a symbol of his love and his marriage; it became a talisman, and a source of strength, which he used to battle the war raging daily inside of him.

However, once his loving wife and daughter were taken from him, he fell into an uncontrollable downward spiral of drinking, followed by reckless gambling. He still treasured the ring, what it symbolized for him, and always would. But it no longer seemed to hold any of its original power, real or imagined, to help him fight his inner demons. The accident left him a broken, empty husk of a man and killed any desire to refrain from acting on his impulses. Jack fell off the gambling wagon in a big way and headed full speed down the road to self-destruction. Before long, he was over fifty thousand dollars in debt to Emerson Washburn.

Washburn was a large and powerful man who had come to Camden as a young man without a penny to his name. Washburn had scraped and clawed his way up from the streets to a position of power in local New Jersey back-alley gambling activities. Rumor had it that Washburn was also into extortion, prostitution, pornography, drugs and other such vices. He made a very lucrative living with his small, close-knit group of thugs and yet still managed somehow to operate below the radar of the police as well as the major New Jersey crime syndicates.

Washburn understood his own limitations and always made sure not to step on the wrong toes or to allow his business to grow bigger than it absolutely needed to be. The bad thing about this philosophy was it kept him from making a lot more money. However, the good thing about it was his low-key operation permitted him to not be of interest to the police, which in turn kept him out of jail; or the mob, which kept him alive. Although many people in the business knew and feared Washburn, he understood and accepted his place in the pecking order of the New Jersey crime families and prided himself on knowing how to make a lot of money while still keeping a low profile.

He occasionally did a favor for and when necessary, paid fees to competing crime syndicates, just to kept them all happy and off his back. A shrewd businessman, Washburn understood he had to keep his ego and greed in check and never cross the syndicate bosses. This was because no matter how powerful he thought he might be, they could easily crush him like an insect in a heartbeat, and they would not hesitate to do so.

Another negative aspect of running such a limited size operation was he had to do some of the muscle work himself. This was not to suggest Washburn didn't enjoy doing that sort of thing, but it did take him away from the more important duties of running his enterprises. As a result, he always had a few of his crew who specialized in doing whatever was necessary to convince anyone who was late with a payment how important it was to not keep Mr. Washburn waiting for his money.

However, whenever someone was in debt to the tune of say fifty thousand or more as Jack Moran had been, Washburn often found it critical that he take care of such situations personally. It was a matter of his need to command respect; and not just the respect of the person who might be behind in his payment, but also the respect of his crew. Washburn wanted his boys to know he was not opposed to getting his own hands dirty. Washburn did not like asking someone to do something he would not be willing to do himself.

That was how one night, almost thirteen years earlier, Jack Moran had been brought before him, bleeding and beaten, pleading for his life, swearing on the departed souls of his wife and daughter he would find a way to pay Washburn back and would do so quickly. Washburn had no desire to kill the man, since it was impossible to get money from a corpse. Likewise, he knew crippling the man would hinder his ability to earn a living and pay back the debt as well. However, he did think the insolent actions of this Jack Moran could not be ignored and the man needed to be taught a lesson.

His boys has roughed the man up a bit, and Jack had been crying and pleading for another chance, but Washburn felt something more meaningful was needed to drive home the fact that he would not tolerate any more impudent actions on the man's part. When the word spread on the street, it would also serve to remind others of what would most definitely happen to them, should they likewise cross Emerson Washburn.