Judgement and Wrath (2 page)

Sometimes you make rash decisions that you instantly regret. Other times you just have to go with the flow.

Like when I walked into Shuggie’s Shack – a roadhouse north of Tampa, Florida – and parked myself on a stool at the corner of the warped and stained bar.

Shuggie’s is the kind of place that self-respecting souls avoid unless they’re dragged inside by the hair. The tables are planks nailed to barrels, seats 1970s retro-vinyl from the first time around. The atmosphere is redolent with beer fumes and cigarette smoke, and the stench of unwashed bodies. Tattoos seem to be the order of the day. Muscles and hair, too. And that’s just the women.

You finish your meal of grease over-easy, and the kind of gratuity you offer the staff is thanks that you get out with your face still intact.

I was made as a cop by every man, woman and beast in the place within the time it took me to catch the bartender’s eye. Every last one of them was wrong, but I wasn’t averse to letting them wonder.

‘Beer,’ I said. There didn’t seem to be any choice. It was that, or chance the brown liquid masquerading as liquor in the dusty bottles arranged on the shelf behind the cash register.

The bartender moved towards me reluctantly. He glanced around his clientele, as if by serving me he was betraying their creed. Not that he looked the type to worry about people’s feelings. He was a massive man in one of those cut-off leather vests designed to show the size of his biceps. He had a black star inked into the rough skin beneath his right eye, and a scar that parted his bottom lip and ended somewhere in the braided beard on his chin.

‘Don’t want any trouble in here, mister,’ he said as he set down a beer in front of me. ‘I suggest you drink up and get on your way.’

Holding his gaze, I asked, ‘Is that what you call Southern hospitality round here?’

‘No,’ he sneered, ‘in these parts we’d call that good advice.’

Besides the long hours I’d already put in at the wheel since leaving Tampa, I could foresee a long night. A relaxing drink would have helped my mood. Maybe a little pleasant conversation would have helped, too. Didn’t look like I was going to find either in here.

‘Thanks for the heads up,’ I said.

Flicking dollars on the bar top, I stood up and walked away, carrying my drink. It felt warm in the glass. By contrast, the barkeep’s gaze on the back of my head was like ice.

Passing a group of men sitting at a table, I inclined my chin at them. They looked back with the dead eyes of men wary of the law. One of them shivered his overdeveloped pectoral muscles at me and they all sniggered.

In the back corner of the bar sat a man as incongruous to this setting as I was. A small bird-like man with nervous eyes and a way of oozing sweat through his hair without it moisturising the dry skin on his forehead. His right hand was in continuous motion, as though fiddling with something small in his palm. I may have caught a flash of metal, but his hand dipped to his coat pocket and it was gone.

Without asking his permission, I placed my beer on the table and took the chair alongside him. The barrel made it awkward to sprawl, so I leaned forward and placed my elbows on the planks. I turned and studied the man but he continued to watch the barroom as though fearful of who might walk in next.

‘When you said I’d know you when I got here, I see what you meant,’ I said. ‘You don’t strike me as the type who hangs out in biker clubhouses.’

‘We agreed on this place for that very reason,’ the man said. ‘It isn’t as if anyone I know is going to be here.’

‘It wasn’t a good idea,’ I told him. ‘If you wanted anonymity, you should have chosen somewhere where you’d blend in. Where
we’d
blend in. Check it out; we’re on everyone’s radar.’

Maybe the bartender’s advice wasn’t so bad after all.

‘We should go,’ I told him.

The men gathered at the table further along had turned their attention to the spectacle we presented sitting in their midst. They didn’t seem pleased, as if we spoiled the ambient testosterone.

The man wasn’t listening. He dropped a hand from the table and dug beneath a folded newspaper. I saw the corner of an envelope.

‘Everything you need is in there.’ He quickly grabbed at his own drink, taking a nervous gulp. ‘The balance will be paid as soon as I get the proof that Bradley Jorgenson is no longer a threat to me or any of my family.’

Sighing at his amateurish game of subterfuge, I left my arms resting on the table. It gave me cover for when I dipped my right hand under my coat and caressed the butt of my SIG Sauer P228.

‘I’m not sure I want the job,’ I said to him.

The man stiffened.

‘I’m not who you were expecting,’ I said.

He finally glanced at me and I knew what he was thinking. Is this a set-up? Was I a cop like everyone in the damn bar thought?

‘You can relax, Mr Dean. I am Joe Hunter.’ I folded my fingers round the butt of my gun, placing my index finger alongside the trigger guard. ‘What I mean is I’m not a hit man.’

‘Jared Rington told me that you would help,’ Richard Dean whispered harshly.

‘I will help,’ I reassured him. ‘I’ll get your daughter away from Jorgenson. But I’m not going to kill the man without any proof that he’s a danger to her.’

Dean nodded down at the envelope. ‘Take it. You’ll see what I mean. All the proof is there.’

There was movement among the men at the next table. One man with jailhouse tats stood up. He picked up his beer, held it loosely in his hand. He gave me a look that said we’d outstayed our welcome. He sniffed loudly, then jerked his head at the two men nearest him.

Oblivious, Dean said, ‘Please, Mr Hunter, I need you to get my daughter away from that monster. If it means killing him to do that … well … I’ll pay you any price you want.’

‘Pass me the envelope,’ I told him. ‘Under the table. I’ve got your phone number. I’ll be in touch with you, let you know my decision.’

Dean had panic in his eyes. Whether it was about relinquishing the cash already in the envelope without a firm agreement, or because there was a
real possibility
I was going to do as he asked, the nerves got a grip of him. He wavered, his fingers plucking at moisture on his glass.

‘Two seconds and the deal is off,’ I warned him.

He quickly slipped the envelope into my outstretched left hand.

‘OK. Now go.’

He opened his mouth and I gave a slight shake of my head. Suddenly he was aware of the Aryan Brotherhood approaching us. Coughing his excuses, he started from his seat, dodging round the tattooed man and his two compadres. They heckled him but allowed the little man to go.

Pushing the envelope into my waistband, I stood up.

‘I’m going, guys. You can relax.’

The man with the jailhouse tats barred my way. He lifted a grimy nicotine-stained finger to my chest.

‘You’re not welcome here.’

‘Didn’t you just hear what I said?’

‘Can’t say I did. What is that funny accent?’

I get remarks like that occasionally. Comes with being English. And northern to boot.

‘Look, guys, you’ve caught me in an awkward predicament,’ I said to Tats. ‘You don’t want me here; I don’t want to be here. Truth is, normally I wouldn’t sully myself by entering a shit hole like this. But here I am.’

My words had the desired effect.

I got a laugh.

Stepping forwards, I found they parted for me.

That should have been it. Playing on the paradox of self-deprecating humour, I should have got myself out of Shuggie’s Shack without any injuries. The problem was two things got in the way.

First, Tats’ question: ‘What did that little freak hand you under the table?’

Second was the surly mood I’d been in when I arrived. Which wasn’t helped by the bullshit Richard Dean had subsequently laid on me.

‘None of your fucking business,’ I told him pleasantly.

The jukebox was spitting out heavy rock music. Ear-jarring stuff, but expected in a place like this. It played on. If there’d been a pianist in the bar he’d have stopped at that moment.

‘You’re in
my
place,’ Tats pointed out. ‘That makes it
my
business.’

‘Oh, so you must be Shuggie, then?’ I swept my gaze around the barroom. Shook my head at what I saw. ‘You know, place like this dump, you should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘I ain’t Shuggie, asshole. And that’s not what I meant.’

‘Yeah, I know what you meant.’

‘I own this place. I own what goes on under this roof.’ He stuck out his grimy hand a second time. ‘Hand it over.’

I shrugged.

‘OK.’

The SIG was between his eyes before the smirk had fully formed on his lips.

Chairs scraped and there was a chorus of shouts as just about everyone leapt to their feet, pulling out guns of their own. A couple of the more delicate customers headed for shelter.

It was like DefCon Five had just been announced and anarchy was the new world order.

It kind of matched my mood.

‘This is how it’s going to be,’ I said. My words were for everyone in the room. ‘Everyone relaxes, puts away their weapons and gets the hell out of my way. The alternative is that Biker Boy will be throwing his very own wake in the near future.’

‘He’s only one fucking pussy,’ an anonymous voice shouted from out of the crowd. ‘We can take him out.’

‘One pussy with a gun at your stinking boss’s head,’ I reminded the shouter. Turning my attention to Tats, I asked him, ‘How would you like things to go? Bit of a party animal, I guess. Should be a good turnout for your wake.’

‘Put down your goddamn guns,’ Tats yelled. ‘Any of you muthas with itchy fingers, you’re gonna answer to me!’

Smiling at him, I grabbed a handful of his denim cut-off.

‘Me and you are going to walk out of here together,’ I told him.

He was shorter than I was, but bulkier in the chest. Slightly awkward for getting a hold round his neck. Making do with bunching his cute little ponytail in my left hand, I stuck the SIG under his ear. That way we moved towards the door.

A man to my right maybe still had it in his mind that I was a cop. Cops will always warn before they shoot. He lurched at me, trying to grab the gun away from Tats’ throat.

But I’m not a cop.

My sidekick found his knee. There was a tendon-popping twang and his leg now had a two-way joint. His face screwed around the agony, a good target for my elbow. He went down, but at least in his unconscious state he wasn’t in pain any longer.

In the fraction of a second that it took to take the idiot out, the SIG had never wavered from its target.

‘Any more of you assholes want to test me?’ I growled.

They hung back like a pack of hyenas, wary of the lion in their midst, starving but too afraid to try to snatch away its kill.

Taking that as my cue, I dragged Tats backwards and out of the door. Arrayed along the road outside was a row of chopped and converted Harley Davidsons and other bikes I didn’t recognise. I shot at a few of them, putting 9 mm ammo through their gas tanks. One of them went up in the air like the space shuttle, trailing fire and burning fuel that splashed most of the others. Rapidly I dragged Tats away from the conflagration, even as others began to spill out of Shuggie’s. Suspended between their desire to get Tats free and saving their beloved bikes, there could only be one winner. I was able to bundle Tats into my Ford Explorer without anyone else trying to play the hero.

Screeching out of the parking lot, I pushed the SUV into the eastern lane approaching eighty miles an hour and gaining.

‘Fuck, man!’ Tats said from the passenger seat. ‘You didn’t have to go as far as blowing the bikes to hell.’

I smiled. The action had done my bad mood the world of good.

‘Had to make it look real, Ron, otherwise they might’ve guessed you were a willing hostage.’