SNAFU: Resurrection Page 28

  * * *

  Griffin left the Sheriff's HQ and climbed into his truck. He pulled out his phone and selected a number he seldom called. The owner of that particular number usually called him. Mel Broderick picked up on the third ring.

  “Griffin,” Broderick said. “You need work? I got plenty.”

  Broderick was a broker for mercenaries. If you needed a bodyguard or someone to help you storm a fortress in Afghanistan, he could hook you up. Griffin specialized in bodyguard work these days. It kept him close to home for Charon's sake, and it rarely required him to do anything illegal.

  “Not today, man. I'm looking for information on Avery Mason.”

  Broderick gave a low whistle. “Even I won't work with that nutjob these days, Griffin, and you know how low my standards are.”

  “I do. Thing is, I think he and some of his rent-a-mercs may have pulled a couple of home invasions in this area.”

  “I've heard rumors about Mason being involved in that sort of thing.”

  “But no hard facts?”

  “Nothing I'd swear to.”

  Griffin rolled his window down. The day was turning warm after a cold start. Spring was definitely out of whack. “Do you know anyone who might have a line on Mason, then? I want to find him before he kills any more civilians.”

  “What will you do if you find him?”

  “Better you don't know.”

  “Let me make some calls,” Broderick said. “I'll get back to you. And watch your back, Griffin. Mason is a seriously bad guy.”

  “Me too,” said Griffin.

  “Yeah, but you're still mostly human.”

  Broderick rang off.

  * * *

  Brian Coleman knew he had screwed up. And he knew he needed to get out of town before Avery Mason learned about it. Taking the ring had been stupid. Selling it had been worse. He still remembered what Dwayne Haskell had told him.

  “I'm sticking my neck way out vouching for you,” Haskell had said. “You stay clean until this job is over and we'll both be rich men. But so help me, Brian. You fuck up and Mason will kill you without a second thought.”

  Brian had thought he could do it. But once he saw all that money in the lawyer’s house and got some idea of what his cut would be, man he just had to have the coke. He had told himself he wouldn't go crazy. Just a couple of snorts. Didn't have to turn into a binge.

  But it had. And now the money for the ring was gone and he wasn't going to get anything else. He just needed to pick up a few of his things and go. The small rental house he and Haskell were sharing sat on a back road north of Wellman. Brian had sworn it was the last dump he'd ever live in. They hadn't known where Mason was staying with the other two members of the team, and they hadn't told him where their place was either. Safer that way.

  Brian parked in the trees some distance from the house and made a wide circle through the woods so he could come at the house the back way. It also allowed him to see all around the place and make sure no vehicles were parked anywhere near. He didn't think Haskell would sell him out, but then Haskell was afraid of Mason, so who knew?

  He came up to the backdoor and saw that the trip wire was still in place, attached to the edge of the door and hidden in the doorjamb. Gingerly he unhooked it. It was rigged to the pin of a flash-bang grenade. Wouldn’t kill an intruder but it would mess up their day real good. The front door was similarly rigged.

  He slipped in through the kitchen and went into the living room. Avery Mason was seated on the beat-up sofa that had come with the place. Dark hair, a body sculpted by years of combat missions. He was smiling, which was a bad thing.

  “You know, Brian,” Mason said in his gravelly voice, “You have to be some special kind of fucking stupid.”

  Brian said, “Look, I’m sorry, man. I know I screwed up.”

  Avery shook his head. “I don’t think you know just how badly. The police are circulating an indenti-kit sketch of you. It’s not a bad likeness, really.”

  “Had to be the pawn shop guy. I—”

  “Brian,” Mason said, cutting him off. “Do you know the term pump and dump? No? You probably think it’s something one of the hookers you hired with my money does for you. But no, it’s a stock term.”

  “Stocks?”

  “Yes, Brian. Stocks. Didn’t you wonder why the doctor and the lawyer had so much cash hidden in their homes when neither of them was involved in the drug trade? I’m sure if they’d had any drugs, that runny nose of yours would have sniffed them out.”

  Brian could feel sweat running down his back. Mason never talked this much. Brian’s 9mm was in a flat holster at the small of his back. Mason wasn’t holding a gun. But he’d seen Mason pull a piece before. The guy was scary fast.

  “See what happens is,” Mason went on, “a broker buys blocks of stock from basically worthless companies, usually with the help of a partner or two. They inflate, or ‘pump up’ the share price by bogus trades and such. They persuade a bunch of uninformed people to invest, because it looks like the stocks are continuing to rise in value. Then the lawyer and his pals dump the investment at a profit. The stock prices collapse, and everyone else loses whatever they put in.”

  Brian said, “That’s what Wesson and Roth were doing?”

  “Yeah, and a friend of mine with his ear to the financial ground noticed that the two of them were suddenly liquidating some investments, which meant they were cashing out and covering their tracks before anyone found out just what was going on. And so, you and me and our friends came to Georgia to get that cash while it was available. Some of the money was in offshore accounts, but Wesson and Roth had over a million each hidden away, plus all that jewelry and stuff we got.”

  “Christ. I didn’t realize it was that much. I’m really sorry, Mason.”

  “Yeah, well, I just wanted you to know just how much you’d lost, and what you almost cost me before I killed you.”

  Masons last words registered, and Brian jerked his jacket aside and reached for his 9mm. Without seeming haste, Avery pulled a Glock .40 from inside his coat and fired twice. Brian felt the impact but was dead before any real pain reached his brain.

  * * *

  Avery Mason stood and walked over to Brian Coleman’s body. He was sure Coleman was dead, but he kicked his gun aside anyway. A careless mercenary was soon a dead mercenary. He considered putting an extra round through Coleman’s head, but since the police had worked so hard on their sketch, he thought he might as well let them see how close they’d gotten.

  Mason sighed. He had hoped to make a couple more scores before blowing town, but things were too hot now. They needed to go. Haskell’s buddy had screwed everything up. Mason figured he’d kill Haskell too, but he was now one man short and he did have an idea for one last hit on the way out of Brennert County, something totally unrelated to the stock swindle. After that, Haskell was toast.

  Mason pulled out his phone and made a call. “Come pick me up. Yeah, it's done.”

  * * *

  Turned out Hulsey's men were easier to deal with than the Blackbournes. With the possible exception of Jolene, that whole clan could hold a grudge. As he pulled away from the third location where the Blackbournes should have been openly selling, Major Sandra Thorne was looking at him with a slightly amused expression on her face.

  “Everything okay, Sheriff?”

  He smiled. “Oh, not even close, Major. First, please call me Carl. Second, the Blackbournes recently lost a major lawsuit against me, and the leader of the clan, a lady with the cheery name of Lament, has made it a personal task to make my life as miserable as possible.”

  “Okay, Carl, then I’m Sandy. And why are you trying so hard if they’re just going to run whenever you come around?”

  “Well, Sandy, no one ever said being the sheriff was supposed to be easy. Besides which, if I let them win on these little grudges, they get to win on other stuff, too. On important stuff. I can’t allow that to happen.”

  “So, politics
?”

  “Sort of. Only the politicians here are some particularly stubborn types.”

  “So what next?”

  Carl looked at the sky, which was darkening a bit, then at his watch, which confirmed sunset was right around the corner. His stomach growled. “Well, I figure if we play this just right, I can meet with a less hostile Blackbourne and you and me can have about the best chilidogs ever placed on this planet.”

  “What if I’m a vegetarian?”

  Carl frowned. “Are you?”

  Sandy shook her head. “Not even a little.”

  “Oh, good. We can still be friends.” He paused. “I’m just kidding. Some of my best friends are vegetarians.” He paused again. “Okay, no, that’s a lie. But I’ve met people who claimed they don’t eat meat.” One more pause as he moved the truck in a tight one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. “Something wrong with those people.”

  Ten minutes later they pulled up at the Dawg Shop, where parking was at a premium. He found a spot near the building and then flashed his blue lights for exactly one second, long enough to get noticed and nothing more.

  Jolene Blackbourne showed up a moment late, her brilliant smile in place. “Hey, Sheriff Carl.” She looked toward Sandy and managed to keep her smile in place, but her voice chilled by a few degrees. “Who’s your new friend?”

  “Hey, Jolene. This here is Major Thorne, a friend of mine who needs a little help with a case I’m working on.”

  Jolene kept her smile in place as she examined the other woman from head to toe. He would have admitted that Sandy Thorne was a fine-looking woman had Jolene asked, but the girl would never ask in a million years. “Anything you want me to help with?” She already sounded bored.

  “Well, honey, I need to know if your people have found any new buyers. Strictly high end, and only come to town in the last few weeks.”

  Oh, the smile she shot him was pure saccharine. “Oh, you know I don’t pay any attention to that stuff, Sheriff Carl.”

  “Of course I do, Jolene. You’d be doing me a personal favor.”

  That changed her entire expression. “Oh, really? The sort you’d owe me for?”

  It was his turn with the purely artificial smile. “Well, I think we could probably work something out later.”

  When she leaned into his window, he smelled the light musk of her body and some sort of flower he couldn’t have hoped to name in a million years. The scent was pleasantly distracting even though he didn’t want it to be.

  “You got a pen, Sheriff Carl?”

  He held up his pen and pad. She rattled off a list of names. Four in all.

  Two of them matched the list that Hulsey’s boys had offered up. Jolene was not as accommodating when it came to addresses.

  “You know, Junior’s boys actually gave me addresses.” He smiled to take the possible sting from his words.

  She smiled at him her eyes practically glowing in the dimming light of the growing darkness. Actually, they were glowing but the lights from the restaurant suppressed that inner glow. “Now, Sheriff Carl, you know I’m working right now, but if you came by later, after my shift, maybe I could show you those places personally.” Her fingers rested on his forearm. They were tiny, delicate looking appendages, but they burned with their own warmth.

  “For now, darlin’? I’d just like to order a few dogs from you.”

  Her pout was exactly as fetching as her smile, and just as theatrical in nature. “What’ll it be?”

  He gave his order and then ordered for Sandra when she was done reading the large menu. They sat in the parking lot and ate, and he loved watching the Major’s face as she came to understand the glory of the Dawg Shop properly.

  * * *

  Nathaniel Collett was not a happy man. He had been once, but that was before his wife took ill from a brain tumor and never recovered. Even then he’d managed a bit of joy in his life. Josh had brought him joy. The boy was smart, he was good looking enough to have a few constant companions of the female variety, and he was popular enough to have good friends. All of those factors made Nate a happier man.

  And then Josh died.

  It was a dumb death, too. He drank too much one night when Nathaniel was out on a run – long distance trucker was not an easy life, but it paid well enough – and he went and got sick while he was sleeping on his back. He drowned in his own vomit.

  A damned foolish way to die.

  Finding his son dead that way? It had taken the last of the joy from Nathaniel. Crushed it out of him. Now there was nothing. Not a damned thing in his life that made him happy.

  To make matters worse, Nate was pretty sure someone at the Thayer Funeral Home had done something to his son. He had no proof of that, just a gut feeling, but as he was taking time from his route to mourn, he also took the same time to make a few complaints and to look into what he’d need to have his boy disinterred. It wasn't something he wanted to do. He did not have any desire to see his dead son’s corpse, but he was also pretty sure that if they tore open the ground and pulled out Joshua’s coffin, he would not find his son’s body in that casket.

  It was a horrible feeling, but one that would not leave him alone. His grandmother, Eloise, was supposed to have been gifted with special senses. Most times he just wanted to shrug that sort of thing off, maybe even laugh about it like his mother always did, much to his daddy’s chagrin. Sometimes he couldn’t just chuckle it away. He thought maybe he had some of her gifts, because now and then he got a feeling and when he got them, they were inevitably true.

  That was the problem here. It was one of his feelings. The ones that were never wrong.

  He wanted it to be wrong. He did. He prayed for it, but still the feeling would not leave him alone.

  Joshua would not be in his grave.

  That thought would not leave him be. It haunted him. It made him do things like call the Brennert County Sheriff’s Department three times a day and ask about the possibility of disinterment.

  It made him walk back over to the small bar he had in the living room, the one his son had used to drink himself to death, and grab the bottle of Johnny Walker Red he kept there. The seal was still intact. He’d picked this one up after he found Josh. Every bottle that had been opened had been watered down. Oldest trick in the book but he never considered checking it out, because, you know, Josh was a good boy.

  His vision blurred for a moment as he considered his son. Nathaniel was lost now. He knew that. With his wife gone and their only son dead, he was lost.

  He looked at his long list of phone numbers. Most of the important ones stayed on a clean sheet of notebook paper that he rewrote once a month. This month’s version was sitting on the counter next to the previous version. He gave thought to calling on Jolene Blackbourne, just to have someone to talk to, but decided against it. She was mercurial. Sometimes she could talk and sometimes she couldn’t, and he didn’t think he could risk a rejection right now, besides, really she was almost as young as Josh had been.

  The sliding glass door at the back of the house opened, letting in a cool breeze.

  Nate looked away from the phone numbers and stared at the door. For one second he thought maybe Jolene would be there. She’d come by once before when he was at his lowest. The very night he’d thought about taking his own life, actually. She'd talked him down and reminded him that Josh still needed him.

  She was a fine girl.

  It wasn't Jolene.

  It was Josh.

  There was something wrong with his face. The jaw was too broad. His mouth looked like he was hiding and orange slice under his lips, and if he smiled there would be a wide orange grin instead of his perfect, white teeth. Like he used to do when he was ten or so. That always made Nate smile.

  Nate stared at his boy and his eyes watered right on up.

  “Josh? Son? Is that really you?”

  Josh didn’t smile. He said nothing. He just stared at his father with a blank expression.

  “Josh?” Nate
’s voice broke and he felt the jagged air he sucked in as it caught and struggled with his throat and lungs. God, how could grief hurt so much?

  Josh nodded. The way he moved? It was wrong, as wrong as whatever the hell was going on with his jaws.

  Nate didn’t care. His little boy was alive! Whatever was wrong, it would be better simply because his little boy was alive!

  He stumbled, dropped his glass onto the carpet as he walked, and reached for Joshua.

  Joshua stayed exactly where he was for a moment and then took a step forward that made absolutely no sense. It was different enough from Josh’s gait that Nathaniel was completely taken aback.

  “Josh, what the hell?”

  It made no sense. His boy was walking. His face was off, okay, but he’d been away and maybe whatever medical miracle had brought him back required some sort of implant or something. In the dimming twilight Nate realized that Josh’s skin was the wrong color, too. He almost overlooked it when they were further apart. It was just the light in the house, he hadn’t turned on the overheads, so a little discoloration, that was just a trick of the light. But no, he looked closer now and frowned. This wasn't a trick of the light. This was something very wrong. Josh was too pale, and his eyes looked… wrong.

  “Josh? Son? What’s wrong?”

  When his boy spoke, the voice was completely out of tune. His tone was inflectionless, and his facial expression barely changed. His eyes never even really looked toward Nate.

  “I’m hungry, Dad.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ll get you a sandwich. Just picked up some bologna today. I haven’t had much appetite since you, well, since you went away.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell his son he’d died. Maybe after they ate.

  “No. Not that sort of hunger. I need meat.” Josh’s voice still sounded off. Breathy. Like he couldn’t figure out how to talk. He’d drilled his son on speaking loud and proud, because, really if you gave off a bad first impression it was all downhill from there. You only got the one first impression. He wanted better for his boy than what he’d been given. Don’t all parents?