Street Justice (21 page)

              As Adrian returned with two empty cups, Sam stepped up to the desk. He calmly looked around at the scene, Steve sitting in front of the computer looking at a collection of pictures titled “Work Happens” showing unfortunate things happening to people at work and Adrian walking up to the desk with two cups and an bottle of vodka sitting out. “You two look like you’re ready for quite a party,” Sam said calmly.

              Sam was standing relaxed in his tailored suit, every hair in place and a placid look on his face. A stark contrast to only a few minutes before. Sam set down a file he had been holding on Adrian’s desk, then picked up Adrian’s suit coat and draped it over the back of the guest chair in Adrian’s cubical. Adrian sheepishly placed the two empty cups down on the desk next to the bottle and tried to subtly slip the bottle back into the drawer as if Sam would forget he had seen it. Steve minimized, but did not close, the browser window.

              Sam folded his arms behind him, clasping his hands behind his back. Quietly he said, “May I ask that we delay the festivities for a few more minutes?” Glancing around he waited for both Steve and Adrian to nod. Raising his voice to a level that could be heard several cubicles away, he continued, “Excellent. Now I want to reiterate what was said in my office. You are not to investigate Carl Marfori. You are not to bother Charles Forkner. The computer tracks all actions on the database, who made what inquiries, who or what they checked out, for how long, when they did it, so we will know if you make any attempts at continuing to investigate either man.”

              Throughout Sam’s warning, his voice steadily rose. Initially everyone had been busy in the large room but as Sam’s voice grew, more and more people struck fleeting glances toward Adrian’s cube. Typing that had a quick, rhythmic clickity-clack now was halting and stilted as others tried to listen in while pretending to work. “Now, rather than drinking here on the job, why not take the rest of the afternoon off and go drink at home. Or at a bar. Or in the park. I don’t care. Just not here. Am I clear enough? Get out of this office for the rest of the day.”

              With that, Sam unfolded his hands, pivoted on his heel and walked off, back toward his office. Steve and Adrian stood dumbfounded. They were barely breathing. Adrian felt as if he had just been punched by the man he considered his mentor. The normally glib Steve’s mouth hung slack. Finally, Steve broke the silence and growled, “Well, you heard the man, let’s get the hell out of here.”

              “I guess so,” Adrian numbly agreed, nodding his head slightly. Adrian grabbed his coat from the back of the chair. He reached down and gathered his brief case. Steve stood up and headed toward the door. Just then, Adrian noticed the file Sam had set down. He had forgotten to take it with him. Opening the file he glanced at the papers then hurried after Steve with a giant smile on his face.

              “Let’s take one car,” Adrian said, “You drive.”

              “Fair enough,” Steve said and led the way to a small four-door wagon. It was red with white trim and interior.

              “What the hell is this?” Adrian stopping for a moment. The smile left his face and his brow furrowed in deep grooves.

              It was Steve’s turn to beam. “It’s a 1964 Falcon Wagon with the Sprint package.”

              “Sure it is,” Adrian agreed as he wandered over toward the passenger door, still looking the ungainly wagon up and down. Steve unlocked his door, then climbed in and reached over to unlock Adrian’s door. Adrian dropped in beside Steve on the broad bench seat. He reached back over his right shoulder for his seatbelt and found air. Contorting himself to look back to where the seatbelt should be he saw nothing.

              Steve noticed Adrian acrobatics and grinned even wider, “No three point belts, only lap belts for us. You know, and interesting fact, there was no Sprint package on the wagon, so I had to go find a coupe with the package and transplant it.”

              “Yeah, fascinating,” Adrian mumbled as he found the two ends to his lap belt.

              The car rumbled to life as under his breath Steve muttered, “It is interesting.” Steve backed the car from the spot and headed down the ramps of the parking garage. As he did he asked, “So what the hell is up Sam’s ass?”

              “What do you mean?”

              “Not only does he tear us a new one in his office but then he comes to your desk and basically repeats himself.”

              “Ahh, yes, that was for everyone’s benefit,” the grin returning to Adrian’s face as he gripped the door handle trying not to flop across the seat into Steve who was taking the downward spiral at a pace much faster than Adrian would have thought the old wagon could do.

              “I’m not following. He wanted to embarrass us? That’s not like him.”

              “Sorry, no, he wanted it well documented that he told us not to go anywhere near the case or either of the suspects. But that was for show only. In reality, he casually left this on my desk. Heck, I didn’t even see it until we were leaving.”

              “What’s that?” Steve took his eyes off the tight corners for the briefest of moments to steal a glance at the folder.

              “This my friend, is a folder full of information about Carl Marfori and Charles Forkner.”

              Steve stepped hard on the brakes and little wagon’s wheels locked and slid about a foot before it came to a stop. “Really?”

              “It is,” Adrian waved the folder back and forth in the air.

              “So, what’s in it?” Steve inquired.

              “I don’t know yet,” Adrian answered incredulously, “I just got it seconds ago, before we got into the little death trap here. But I’m guessing he also didn’t want us to read it here which is why he was so vehement that we leave the grounds.”

              Steve cocked his head to the side and nodded. “Makes sense. So where are we off to?”

              “Let’s head to my house, it’s closer. Plus my computer is there in case we want to do any further digging.”

              “I have a computer,” retorted Steve.

              “You have a paper weight. Besides, last time I was over there, you had an engine in the living room.”

              “It was on a stand. I like to watch TV as I wrench.”

              “Whatever, we’re going to my house.”

              “Fair enough,” Steve said in an obviously better mood.

              Russ dug through a box he had never unpacked in his closet and found the address book that contained Johnny Stubblefield’s number. He wandered back into the living room and dialed. As the phone rang, Russ hoped no one would pick up, that suddenly a bright idea would dawn on him, he would figure out a way to get the money to Eric, the drugs out of his possession, he would find a regular job and his life would slip into boring routine. The phone rang twice, three, four times. No new ideas came.

              But no one answered the phone either. After the seventh ring, Johnny’s recorded voice came on and said, “You’ve reached Johnny, well really you haven’t reached Johnny but you have reached my voicemail. Leave a message.” Then the phone beeped.

              Russ had not been ready to leave a message and stammered, “Um, yeah, hi, this is Russ Evenhuis, um, I’m not sure if you remember me, but I have a, well, I’m not sure, um, anyway, give me a call back.” Then he hung up.

              “Smooth message man,” Mario laughed. His face smiled and he seemed relaxed. Only his eyes showed, not a sorrow, but a steely reserve.

              “Yeah, well what are you going to do? I knew I needed to call before I talked myself out of it. That meant calling before I thought through what I was going say,” with a toss of his head Adrian concluded, “He’ll call back or he won’t.”

              The phone rang. “Man, you are good,” Mario said. Adrian looked down and checked the caller ID. It was Johnny.

              Answering the phone, Adrian said, “Hello.”

              “My man, Russ, how are you?” came Johnny’s relaxed voice.

              “Hey, Johnny, how have you been?”

              “Man you know us, we’re chillin’.” Russ noticed Johnny had switched over to talking about the “we” rather than keeping it on him. Russ did not know if the was conscious or not, was he trying to spread the attention or was his world caught up completely with the men whom he shared his life so everything was a “we” endeavor. Either way it did not matter to Russ.

              “You still in So Cal?”

              “You know it. Warm breeze and pretty babes.”

              “Excellent,” Russ paused, not knowing what to say. The silenced expanded, Johnny seemingly more than happy to allow it. Russ’ mind raced on how to bring up his question. He could not just blurt out, “Hey want to come help us do some illegal drug sales.” After a few moments he continued, “So what are you guys up to now?”

              “You know, we doin’ what we do.”

              Russ cursed under breath. He knew from talking with Johnny that Johnny was not responding as he was to be difficult, it was simply how he talked, but it made it tough to start up a conversation and without a conversation, Russ could not drop in what he needed to talk about conversationally.
Might as well get this over with
, he thought to himself. “So Johnny, any chance you have a break in doin’ whatcha doin’ to come to Seattle and help me with a thing?”

              With the relaxed smile still in his voice, Johnny asked, “What kind of thing?”

              “Not something I want to talk about over the phone.”

              “Something you can’t talk about on the phone? That is our kind of thing. We’ll be there tomorrow.”

              “Don’t you want to know a bit more?”

              “Nah, man, we know if it is you, and you need our help, knowing what we do, then it should be fun. Besides, if you can’t talk about it on the phone, how are we going to find out more about it?”

              “Well, I mean do you want to come up just by yourself rather than bring everyone?”

              “By myself, you tryin’ to get a brother alone?” Russ chuckled to himself about Johnny’s use of the term brother, since Johnny was one of the palest people Russ had known. He must have used SPF 150 in Afghanistan.

              “Not at all, bring the crew,” Russ snickered out loud, “Let’s meet at my house tomorrow when you get here.” Russ gave Johnny the address. “By the way, I’ll have Mario with me.”

              “Mario, how is that beautiful block of chocolate?”

              “Ruthless as always.”

              “You know it. Anyone else I should know about?”

              “Yeah, we have subject matter expert as well, a guy named Jeff,” Russ wanted to make sure there were no surprises. Johnny’s crew was fairly high strung and the last thing he needed was all of them in the living, twitchy, and feeling that Russ sprung something on them. This was Seattle, so they would fly up, but Russ knew all the same they would all be armed.

              “You trust him?” Johnny asked.

              “As much as anyone I haven’t shared a fox hole with,” Russ looked flatly at Jeff. Jeff smiled and nodded his head back.

              “Got it, so keep an eye on him,” Johnny said with a laugh, “We’ll see you tomorrow Russ.” The line went dead.

              Russ looked at the phone and said, “Johnny and his crew are coming up. Tomorrow.”

              “That was easy,” Jeff said.

              “The easy part will be getting them started. I am worried about getting them stopped.”

              Adrian and Steve sat in Adrian’s efficient apartment. It was a simple place, a decent sized kitchen/living room with a small dining area that Adrian used as his office instead since he never had people over. The far wall looked out onto the Puget Sound. The only door that didn’t lead out of the apartment led to small bedroom which in turn led to the only bathroom. The far wall of the bedroom also looked out on the Sound. It was dark and the water reflected the lights from Alki Beach and Bainbridge Island.

Adrian sat as his desk in between the kitchen and living room. He had half of the file, the pages that focused on Carl Marfori. He had a sole cup of coffee sitting on the table next to him. He was still in his suit with his suit coat on the back of his chair. Steve was reclined and lounged on the black couch. Sitting next to him on the coffee table were a half dozen beer bottles, the caps strewn about with at least one being on the floor. He held the other half of the file, those focused on Charles, the other known players and the very little suspected about the organization.

Earlier that night, when they had arrived at Adrian’s apartment, Adrian had called Sam. “Sir, thank you for that file.”

“What file? Did I accidently drop my file and you two picked it up?”

“I guess we did,” Adrian agreed, “Can you talk?”

“Hang on,” Sam said and Adrian heard a door close, “Go on.”

“So what happened?” Adrian asked.