Hot Shot, page 22
Jack looked over at Dennis and instructed, “Help Mr. Hershel and clean this up. Harry, call Snowden and tell him we need an extraction like now. Not when it gets dark. Don’t worry about Meadows. Cyrus can stay in that position for hours. He’s loving every minute of this. I gotta call Little Jack back now.”
One minute into the conversation with his one and only godchild told Jack he had nothing to worry about and no dire crisis was invading LJ’s summer camp experience.
“Slow down, slow down. Let me make sure I have this right. The swim meet for tomorrow has been canceled till next week, and I do not have to make the trip.” Thank God, Jack thought, because I completely forgot about it.
“Because the girls, with Emily as the ringleader, made you guys some brownies laced with ex-lax. Even the counselors are . . . indisposed. What do you mean this means the girls win the meet by default? Well, that’s not fair. Okay, okay, I’ll talk to the boys and see if we can come up with something to score a win for you guys next week. Yeah, yeah, I promise, LJ. I know how hard it is to lie in bed, then have to get up to run to the latrine. I’m sure you are exhausted. You’ll get over it. Okay, okay, if you gotta go again, then go! Call me tomorrow to let me know how it’s going. Love ya, kid.”
Dennis was laughing so hard, Harry had to clap him on the back. “I can’t believe kids still do that at camp. Boy, do I ever remember when that happened to me. And it’s all because of the swim meet with the boys versus the girls.” Then he sobered and said, “Damn, hearing all that makes me feel old.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Jack called off Cyrus, who immediately trotted over to the elderly Hershel to be praised and petted.
“You just convinced me, big fella. I am definitely gonna get me a dog. I know he or she won’t be anything like you, but maybe close.” Cyrus woofed twice. Anything is possible, just not probable, the big dog thought before he lay down, crossed his paws, and went to sleep.
“We need to get this guy tied up in a nice tight bundle. Do you have any rope or twine, anything to hogtie him with, Mr. Hershel?”
“Got some fishing line, but that’s about it.”
“That will work,” Jack said, as Hershel rummaged under the kitchen sink and came up with a ball of fishing line. He tossed it to Jack, who had Meadows trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey in mere minutes.
“You wanna talk to us now or wait till later, when we have all your pals corralled in one spot?”
Meadows sneered. “I don’t have anything to say to you. I didn’t do anything, and I am going to sue all your asses for kidnapping me and holding me as a hostage. Whatever plan you have up your sleeve is not going to work, I can tell you that right now.”
“Yeah, right, and my name is Robin Hood,” Jack said, sneering in return. “We know all about you and the Scorpions. We saw that bag of money by the front door. You’re planning on paying off the Scorpions for whatever you hired them to do. Knowing what I know about you, I’m thinking you were trying to get out of paying the second half of the money to those animals. Then they came down on you, and here you are, holed up in a senior citizen’s house rather than daring to live in your own multimillion-dollar condo.”
Jack turned to Dennis. “Call Abner and tell him to freeze all of Meadows’s money or move it to a safer place. Every penny. Hold on a minute here. We need this guy’s records. The insurance he collected, and so on. I don’t care how smart he claims to be, he can’t keep everything straight, especially when it comes to killing people. I’m going to send Dennis back to Happy Village with his laptop and phone. We’re meeting up with Maggie, Ted, and Espinosa after Snowden shows up. How long, Abner?”
Jack ended the call and said to Harry, “He said a couple of hours, so we should have everything by the time we meet up with the others and make it back to Babylon. Unless we’re needed here.”
Dennis was halfway to the door with Meadows’s laptop under his arm and his phone in his hand. His hand was on the doorknob when he turned and asked if Jack was going to need Meadows’s phone log. “Never mind, I’ll send them to your phone the minute I get in the Uber. You need me, call.”
“I like that youngster. Dolly would have loved him,” Hershel said with a catch in his voice.
“Yeah, the kid is okay. He’s got heart,” Harry said quietly. Cyrus woofed softly in agreement.
Jack swung around and gave Meadows’s prone body a none-too-gentle kick. “You want to talk yet? Makes me no never mind if you want to go the alternate route and have one of our friends pull it out of you one way or the other. I’m thinking we would enjoy having her do that very much. Yup, the friend in question is a woman, and you would not believe how much she would like to get hold of you after she saw Ellie Harper’s head. Right now, I’d say we’re the lesser of two evils.”
“Screw you and the horse you rode in on. I didn’t do anything, and you can’t prove I did. I want a lawyer,” Meadows snarled.
“You hear that, Harry? This piece of garbage thinks he’s entitled to a lawyer! How funny is that?”
“Pretty darned funny from where I’m standing. He’ll be singing a different tune, begging is more like it, when Maggie gets a piece of him. I heard she has something spectacular planned for all those guys in the Scorpions.”
Pete Hershel looked from Jack to Harry and back to Jack. “Are you fellas some kind of . . . you know . . . Special Forces working out of uniform? Not that I care, I’m just curious,” he hastened to add.
“In a manner of speaking.” Jack grinned.
Hershel cackled in glee at Jack’s response. “I kind of figured something like that when I met this here dog, who I know is the only one of its kind. That means he’s had some real special training.”
Harry laughed out loud. “Oh yeah,” he drawled. “He understands Greek. He can make his own bed, answer the phone, and his specialty is folding towels. That’s just a few of the things he’s really good at. The list is endless. He has so many medals and commendations, we can’t keep track of them all.”
“You don’t say! I could tell just by looking at him that he was special. Greek, eh?”
Cyrus rolled over and covered his eyes with one massive paw. Sometimes, and this was one of those times, his own accomplishments overwhelmed him.
Harry moved closer to the window and laughed. “Mr. Meadows’s ride is here! A big, beautiful ambulance. Snowden is backing it up the driveway. Mr. Hershel, you have to open the garage door for him. We don’t want your neighbors seeing any of this.”
Hershel hobbled as fast as his arthritic legs would allow. “I think I’ll go out on the porch in case some of my neighbors come by thinking something happened to me. I’ll just tell them I had a guest who collapsed. What we do not need right now is Mr. Gentry Lomax sticking his snoot into what is going on here.”
“Good thinking,” Jack said, as he walked over to where Meadows was lying. “Last chance to fess up, Meadows.”
“Screw you!” the trussed-up man bellowed.
“Can’t say I didn’t try.” Jack laughed.
“Well, well, well!” Snowden said boisterously. “What do we have here?”
“This is Mr. Zack Meadows. He owns half of Happy Village along with Cosmo Cricket. You and Abner have all his creds, so you know who he is and what he’s done. This is him in the flesh. I’m not sure what we should do with him right now. Stash him somewhere at least until it gets dark out. Maybe the parking garage at Babylon. Unless you can come up with something better. When you leave, Harry and I are going to meet up with Ted, Maggie, and Espinosa out on the boulevard in the Chinese restaurant’s parking lot. We nixed their going to Lizzie’s house when we heard about a bunch of motorcycles stashed nearby, then found this piece of garbage here. Dennis is on his way back to Babylon as we speak. Anything you want to say, Snowden?”
“Not at the moment. But I do have a question. Mr. Hershel, do you have any duct tape? We don’t want this piece of human trash caterwauling at the top of his lungs when I take him out of here and wherever it is we end up.”
Pete Hershel returned to paw through the contents of the bottom of his sink. He triumphantly held up a roll of bright purple duct tape. “My wife loved the color purple,” he said, explaining the flamboyant color.
“Works for me,” Snowden grunted as he ripped off a long strip of tape and slapped it against Meadows’s mouth.
Snowden bent down and hefted Meadows to his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The three men watched as he unceremoniously dumped Meadows on the floor of the ambulance, then gave him a shove so he would slide deeper into the lifesaving vehicle. He slammed the door shut and snapped the lock.
“Guess I’ll be seeing you when I see you. Call or text if you get a brainstorm. I can’t be riding around too long with that guy in the back. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hershel,” Avery added as an afterthought.
“Uh-huh,” was Hershel’s response.
Jack looked around at the pizza mess on the floor. “I’m sorry to be leaving you with this mess, but we have to get going. Take my card, and if you need me, no matter the time of day or night, you call, and we’ll be here. I’m going to text Lionel and have him put extra eyes on your place for a while. Are you okay with that?”
“I am. Don’t worry about this mess. It will give me something to do. After that, I think I might take myself over to the SPCA and take a look around. Thanks for your help, and you, too, big guy,” he said, addressing Cyrus, who just nuzzled Hershel’s gnarly old hand.
“Guess our work here is done,” Harry said, disappointment ringing in his voice.
Jack grinned. “For the minute, Harry, just for the minute. I’m thinking the best is yet to come. What do you say, Cyrus?”
Two sharp barks were Jack’s answer.
Chapter 15
Everyone except Avery Snowden was seated at the dining-room table in Annie’s penthouse, with Charles presiding over the meeting. The room was silent, a rarity. Phones and laptops were on the table but not in use. Another rarity. It was Dennis who finally broke the silence. First, he pointed to Zack Meadows’s silver phone, and said, “The Scorpions are waiting for him to get back to them. We need to think about sending them a text. They’ll never know it didn’t come from Meadows.”
Before anyone could respond, the phone next to Charles pinged that a text message was coming through. Charles read the message aloud, word for word. “Change of plans. Am in parking garage. Send private elevator down with guys to help transfer Meadows from ambulance. Will back right up to elevator. Garage very busy right now.”
Jack, Harry, and Ted, along with Cyrus, were headed for the door before Charles could respond to the text.
Fifteen minutes passed before a trussed-up Zack Meadows was unceremoniously dumped in front of the kitchen sink in the penthouse. Jack stooped down and ripped the purple duct tape off his mouth. Meadows cursed long and loud. Too long and too loud for Cyrus’s liking. He waltzed over and bit down on the man’s ear. Meadows howled his outrage. No one cared, least of all Cyrus, who settled himself a foot away and kept his eyes glued to the man tied up in fishing line.
The private elevator sounded its zippy little three-note tune, and Avery stepped into the foyer. “Sorry I’m late, but I had to secure the ambulance. What’s the plan now?”
“This might seem a little droll to you, Mr. Snowden, but when you said there was a change of plans, we thought you had a better plan,” Maggie said, her tone as sour as the words she spoke. “Sorry to say we have no plan.”
“The man is not cooperating,” Ted said.
Snowden waved his hands in the air. “He really doesn’t have to cooperate. We know what his plans are. I’m not sure if he believes we intend to thwart his plans, which we are going to do. Text messages are a wonderful thing. No voice giveaways. That sort of thing.”
“Listen, before we get into all of that, I think we should have the Scorpions’ Harleys disposed of. Can your people take care of that like now? Just in case their supreme leader decides to take it on the lam without waiting for darkness,” Jack said.
“I already gave the order. One of my people is picking up the ambulance I left in Annie’s parking spot, and they’ll fit as many of the Harleys as they can in the back. It’s just a shell vehicle, so there’s plenty of room, but it will still require two trips. Possibly three. That’s why I said there was a change in plans. And before you can ask, yes, I have operatives watching the Cricket house in case the Scorpions opt to skedaddle before dark. This is just a wild guess on my part, but I don’t think the Scorpions trust Mr. Meadows any more than he trusts them.”
“I think you’re right, Avery,” Charles said. “What do we need from him that we aren’t getting from his laptop and cell phone?”
“The names of the Scorpion members as well as the names of the Lobos members he’s in contact with,” Jack said as he drew a deep breath. “And we need the records of . . . of tenants he had killed and dismembered, and where we can find their remains.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t know any members of the Lobos. You have this all wrong,” Meadows bellowed.
“Really! Do you seriously think we believe that?” Maggie snapped. “You need to get it through your head—it’s over. You lost. We won. We caught you. By tonight, we’ll have all of the Scorpions and those Lobos members under lock and key. Mr. Cricket is talking. If you help us, maybe we can help you. Or not.”
Meadows tried to inch his way farther from Cyrus to avoid the dog’s hot breath on his neck. In his whole life, he’d never been this scared. These people were crazy, and the damn dog seemed like a human robot more vicious than Alonzo Santiago and the Lobos members. Was it really over? He perked up a bit when he thought these people still needed him. Maybe he could negotiate. Such wishful thinking. These people would not negotiate. Not now. Not ever. And yet here he was, alive and more or less unharmed, which was the proof they still needed him. His mind raced. What to say, what to give them? He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look at the killer dog fixated on him.
Meadows wondered if their computer expert with the straggly hair had found all of his stashed funds. If he could get away safely, there was still a chance he could live out his days in relative comfort, providing they hadn’t found his nest egg. If. Right now, that little two-letter word was the most powerful word in the English language.
“I just sent off a text to the Scorpions’ supreme leader, telling him that Meadows would be at the house no later than nine o’clock tonight and they all needed to be ready to go. Then I added a P.S. saying he was bringing the money he owed them and the money for the new job he had for them. Then I added a P.P.S. telling them to make sure that Javier Vincente Rodriguez, the leader of the local chapter of the Lobos, was there too.”
Meadows’s eyes popped wide. How the hell did that smart-ass kid get all that information? If his hands were free, he would have smacked himself upside his head. His cell phone, of course. He fought the urge to vomit as his mind continued to race.
With people like the Scorpions and the Lobos gang, there was no such thing as honoring a promise. All they cared about was money, killing, maiming, raping, and dismembering anyone who got in their way. How stupid he was to ever think he could control those devils. Now he was going to pay the price. He closed his eyes, wishing he could go to sleep and wake up someplace like Trinidad, where he could live like a king.
“Okay, we’re getting a response,” Dennis shouted ten minutes later.
The room went tomb silent as they all waited for Dennis to read off the incoming response to his text.
“Okay, here we go,” Dennis said gleefully. “Nine tonight. Come alone. Carry nothing but the bag of money. Rodriguez transports you to private airfield you requested. Chartered plane and private pilot will be fired up and ready to go.”
The gang looked at one another, then down at Zack Meadows, ugly expressions on their faces. Meadows once again squeezed his eyes shut.
Maggie broke the silence. “What do you suppose would happen if this piece of human garbage fails to show up tonight at nine o’clock?”
No one had an answer to Maggie’s question. Once again, all eyes turned to Meadows for the answer.
“I don’t know. All I know is you can’t trust any of them,” Meadows said through clenched teeth. He did know that the minute he walked through Cosmo Cricket’s front door, he was a dead man. He corrected the thought—two minutes, maybe three, because Santiago would have to take the bag and count the money in it. Yeah, yeah, three minutes and he was a dead man. There wasn’t going to be any trip to a private airport, not if Javier Vincente Rodriguez was calling the shots. The man was the most evil, repulsive deviant walking the planet. With that thought in mind, Meadows decided his fate was better left in the hands of the people staring at him than the Scorpions and Javier Vincente Rodriguez.
“All right. I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“Hold on, everybody. There’s another text coming in on Meadows’s phone,” Dennis said. “Uh-oh! He wants to know what the other job is and how much you’ll be paying. If they accept whatever job it is, they want the money up front. Do you have that much with you?”
“Well of course he does.” Maggie giggled.
“What’s the job?” Charles demanded in a voice none of them had ever heard before. Even Cyrus tilted his head and looked up at the big man towering over all of them.
“Kill Javier Vincente Rodriguez. Then Santiago can take control of the local Lobos chapter and bring his members into the fold. That’s been his goal from the beginning. He just couldn’t make it happen. A cool million. It’s all in the bag,” Meadows said.
“Someone google Javier Vincente Rodriguez,” Fergus said.
“On it,” Ted responded.
Dennis flexed his fingers as he itched to fire off a response as soon as Charles gave the okay. When he nodded, Dennis’s fingers flew over the keys. “Done!” he said triumphantly.
