Fast and Easy (11 page)

“I’m not going to kill anybody.” Don couldn’t hide his anger, adding finality to his comment. “Yet.”

“Don’t go off half cocked, son.” Gentry pulled out his notebook. “You want to find out who’s got an agenda, you talk to the wakadoos on the street.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” Don took several bills from his wallet and threw them on the table before he stood up. “Dinner’s on me.”

Wisely, Gentry didn’t follow him out of the restaurant. Don didn’t want to be bothered. He planned to find the prick foolish enough to threaten his woman. More important, he wanted to be with Carmen to make damn sure no one gave her any trouble.

He got in his car and headed for her apartment. She’d had time to get home and he wanted to ask her about the wall art in the men’s room. Doubt made him ease his foot off the gas pedal. The woman would resent his attempt to baby her and would be pissed off if he fired questions at her.

No babe in the woods, Carmen could smell trouble and take a man out before he had time to spit. Still, he had no plans to ignore his need to protect her. Maybe a quick cruise by her place, just to make sure. Hell, if he didn’t ease his mind, he’d spend the night thinking the worse.

She lived not too far from the downtown district, one of those older places near the Plaza, but not yet called ritzy by land speculators. He didn’t like the idea of her having a ground floor apartment. Too many windows with flimsy locks on them. Damn, he had to stop second guessing her decisions. She had never asked for his opinion.

He slowed the car and coasted past her building, trying to see lights in her windows. Too many shrubs to be sure if he saw her lights or the neighbors. He unclipped his cell phone and punched in her number.

Parking a few yards away from her building, he waited impatiently for her to answer. Relief flooded through his high-strung nerves when he heard her voice. Damn it! Her voice mail! He redialed and listened to her brisk recorded message again.

Still holding his phone in his fist, he thought over his options. Go to the door and surprise her, or go home and worry his ass off until he saw for himself she was okay.

He got out of his car and quietly closed the door.

After a look in the narrow walkway between the apartment buildings, he located Carmen’s widows and looked into the dimly lit living room. The coffee table was clean, no keys and no phone. She wasn’t home.

With his mind on Carmen’s safety, Don walked toward the front of the building, his phone pressed to his ear. He stopped short. He didn’t recognize the heavyset man trying the door handle. Not wanting to roust a guy if he lived in the building, he stayed in the shadows, giving the man time to go inside. After a couple minutes of observing the guy’s attempts at the door, Don decided to move on him. When the man peered around the column of the small entry porch, the hair bristled on the back of Don’s neck.

“Hey, buddy.” Don moved quickly to stand in front of the stranger and block his escape. “I’m looking for a Jane Smith who lives on the first floor. Is she home?”

Suspicion radiated from the heavyset man’s eyes as he answered in a swaggering attitude. “How the fuck would I know?”

“What do you know?” Don kept an eye on the man’s hands. “Let’s see some identification. Now!”

The glow from the overhead light bounced off the man’s sweating forehead. He stepped to the side and tried a bluff. “Get out of my way, son-of-a-bitch, or I’ll call the law.”

“I am the law.” Don motioned to the wall behind the man. “Kiss that stucco, and I mean now.”

In an attempt to escape, the man tried to push Don aside, but found it impossible while caught in a headlock with his face scraping the wall. He screamed his indignation, kicking his legs out behind him.

“Think you’re pretty tough, lawman?” Don heard spit hit the wall. “We’ll, we ain’t through with you.”

“Rave on, prick.” Don leaned on his prisoner, patting him down, remaining calm and resisting the urge to plant his foot in the asshole’s crotch. “You carrying any needles, pipes, drugs or knives?”

“If I had any, you’d know it, pig.”

“Is that a threat?” Don snapped his cuffs on the talkative prowler. “You have a name? I hate to keep calling you sweetheart.”

The comment sent the man into an instant fight mode. His efforts to turn around only gained him another face scrubbing on the rough wall. “Lockard. Frank Lockard, you son-of-a-bitch.”

Don reached into Lockard’s right pants pocket, finding nothing but a little change and a snuff can. “That stuff will kill you.” He patted the other pockets of the filthy cargo pants, hesitating before sliding his hand in a back pocket. He figured he’d found a needle, but it turned out to be a dull pencil.

He wondered what an animal like Lockard would be doing with a pencil. The answer came in a flutter of yellow that thudded to the concrete. Don picked up the note pad and lost his temper.

“What were you going to do with this?” He slapped the pad against the back of Lockard’s head. “Writing your memoirs?”

“I want a lawyer. I got rights.” Lockard continued to struggle against the cuffs and Don’s weight pushing him into the wall. “I’m not the only one doin’ this. I ain’t takin’ the rap for a lousy hundred dollars.”

“You’re going to jail.” Don turned his back to Lockard, leaning against him while he called for backup. His heart hammered crazily against his ribs. Carmen. He gripped the phone in his fingers, trying to stop their trembling.

His lungs would collapse if he didn’t get hold of his rage. Not killing this piece of shit hurt like hell. He had to get rid of him and quick.

A squad car usually patrolled the neighborhood nearby, and Don was in no mood to pamper Lockard when the familiar dark blue sedan pulled up.

He dragged his prisoner to the patrol car, shoving him into the back seat after the officer opened the door. “I’ll take him downtown.?” The officer slammed the door and approached Don. “What’s he done, Genonese?”

“Threatening a police officer.” Don ran for his car, yelling back over his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the paper work. Don’t worry about it.”

Making a u-turn, Don headed for East patrol precinct.

He went against every instinct he had about calling her at the station and punched in the numbers to the sergeant’s desk.

After what Don hoped sounded like a casual inquiry as to Captain. Redstone’s whereabouts, Sergeant Rosen informed him she’d left an hour earlier, saying she planned to make a stop at headquarters downtown.

She might balk, but until this matter cleared up, she would have to put up with him twenty-four hours a day.

* * * *

Carmen wanted to go home and collapse into her bed, not spend time questioning a petty thief drug dealer. She worked her shoulders against a cramp in her neck, and waited for the officer to open the interrogation room door.

She instantly recognized the angry looking man sitting at the table. She remembered his straggly, thinning hair pulled back in a ridiculous ponytail and the teardrop tattooed at the corner of his right eye.

“Remember me?” She sat across from him, calculating the hate in his eyes. “I remember you. How’s the knee?”

The officer that stood at the door stepped forward when the prisoner tried to stand up. “Sit.”

“Yeah, I remember you.” He pointed to the tattoo on his arm. “I got a name. Max Smith.”

“Max Smith, I pulled your name out of the pot as the person responsible for the love notes I’ve been receiving.”

Max grinned, revealing stained and broken teeth. “Now, why would I do that? Send the pig away, and I’ll show you what I think of you.”

Carmen longed to kick him out of his chair. It wouldn’t help and she couldn’t afford the trouble. “Assaulting an officer? Don’t you have enough on your rap sheet?”

“I don’t want to assault you. Just fuck you like a real man does.” He put his cuffed hands on his crotch and shook his dick at her. “You like it in the ass? I’ll even let you suck my cock.”

“Very impressive, Max.” She took the grease stained notes from her pocket and slid them across the table. “You’re not smart enough to think this up on your own.”

He nodded at the notes and snorted over a belly laugh. “I been in here waiting for my hearing. How am I gonna to do shit like that?” He shook his dick again, his whispered statement ominous. “Think a lot of yourself, don’t you? You’re not the only Redstone in town.”

His meaning went through her brain like a shot.

“I’m the only one that can hurt you.” Blood pumped furiously through her heart, and her lungs were squeezed under the pressure. “If the other Redstone is bothered in any way, don’t count on leaving this place.”

Max sneered and spat on the floor. “Ain’t me, but you’d better hurry, cunt.”

She glanced over her shoulder and held onto her temper. “Officer Ramirez.” She maintained a cold outer appearance, but inside she boiled with fury. “You heard all this?”

“Most of it, ma’am.”

“Good.” She rose and walked to the door. “Take this snake back to his pit.”

“When I get out, I’ll let you eat my dick!” Max struggled against Officer Ramirez pulling him from the table. “Better yet, come by my cell and blow me.”

She brushed off his last filthy words, too worried about her mother’s safety. Running up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, Carmen gasped for breath. Fear made her deaf and blind to the sounds and sights around her and she reached the main floor before taking a deep breath.

The desk sergeant met her in the lobby, stopping her. “We have a silent alarm in the Quay district. Are you taking this call?”

She didn’t wait to ask questions.

Momma.

On the way to her car, she checked the ammo in her weapon. There was no need to check. The Glock was never empty. This time, she planned to empty the semi-automatic into an animal’s hide and hoped to hear him scream.

Her cell phone rang. She didn’t want to, but she hit the answer button and yelled. “Redstone. What?”

“I know where you’re going, Carmen. Stop right now and let the men in the district handle it.”

“She’s my mother, Genonese. I’m responsible for this.” She gunned the sedan around a city bus. “I may be too late.”

She threw the phone onto the seat and drove on, passing cars and swerving to miss a tamale wagon. Nothing would stop her, not even the devil himself.

Chapter Fourteen

Carmen reached her mother’s house and pulled behind the patrol car already parked in front. The lights from the car seemed to set the area on fire. She could see the officers at the front door, using their cell phones.

She jumped out of her car and ran to the front door, holding her shield up for them to see. “What’s going on? Why are you out here?” Controlling her fear and anger took all her effort.

“Ma’am, the suspect has a woman in there, and we’ve called for SWAT.”

She unclipped her weapon, pushing past the surprised officers. “Come with me.”

“Captain, he has the woman as a hostage.” The patrolman’s words only added fuel to the fire raging in her. She’d been in situations like this before, but now it involved a loved one. She wanted to throw all regulations aside and crush the animal who had dared harm her mother.

“And I said come with me.” She pushed the door to the screened in porch open, moving quickly to the side door that led to the living room. “How do you know he has a hostage?”

To Carmen, it seemed to take an eternity to get information from the patrolman.

“He warned us not to come in, that he’d hurt the woman if we rushed him. He just wants out, he said.”

At one end of the porch, an aging green leather glider moved slightly in the wind. A small wicker table had been overturned, and colorful beads glistened in brilliant disarray over a cream colored rug. Carmen knew her mother sat out here in the evenings, creating new designs to please her loyal customers. Tonight, a beast had invaded her sanctuary and brought his stench with him.

She held her hand up to stop the two officers. “Did either of you see the woman? Goddamn it, is she okay?” She coughed and swallowed, trying to moisten her dry throat. “Is my mother in the same room with him?”

Rage consumed her as the officer nearest her grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away from the door. “Your mother!” He attempted to step in front of her, his voice husky with obvious strain. “Ma’am, you’re not supposed to be here. You can’t answer calls involving family members.”

“Tell that shit to a cop whose mother isn’t in there.” She jerked her arm free. Hearing the wail of sirens, she clenched her teeth in frustration. If anything sent a nut completely over the edge, the sirens did. “Stand on either side of the door.” She stepped on something soft and glanced down to see her mother’s buckskin moccasin under her shoe. “I’m not playing with this bastard.”

She didn’t need the lights to find her way around the small home. The streetlight cast a warm glow over the thick, woven rugs and the floral arrangement on a rickety table. She released the safety on the Glock, gripping it in both hands as she moved forward.

Mere seconds clicked by, yet Carmen felt suspended in time, breathing from habit, locked in one bubble of space. The only sound coming from the small living room came in the soft chiming of the grandfather clock by the door.

Easing along the wall, she reached the open doorway to the living room. The scene flashing in silent clips before her took Carmen’s breath. A man, wearing a white muscle shirt, held her mother in a headlock and peered out between the wooden slats of the blinds.

Carmen had been witness to this scene many times during her childhood. Everything around her evaporated, her heart beat drowning out any other sound. This could have been her drunken father throwing her mother around the room, kicking Carmen aside when she tried to intervene.

From her vantage point, Carmen could see the twist of pain on her mother’s face. Desire to shatter the animal’s skull that touched her mother became suffocating. He stood unaware of her presence, not realizing what an easy kill he had made of himself.. A tap on her shoulder reminded her she wasn’t a murderer.

She motioned the patrolman to stand back. Familiar sounds of squad cars and boots on the concrete outside the house forced her hand, and she squared herself in the doorway.