Justice Rain (Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Book 11) Page 13

  Unfortunately he was an old guy, and Chris was pretty sure he recognized him from dealing with the trash and recycling containers in back of the restaurant -- and Gee, maybe the guy was a dishwasher who moonlighted overnight working security.

  No gun on the guy -- thank God, because something could have gone way south there. He did have a short night-stick, attached to his belt.

  “What do we got?” the guy said to Chris.

  Chris said, “Just the usual, I’m guessing. Couple idiots who think they’re tough guys.”

  “Do you know these folks?” the security guy said.

  “Sure, they’re harmless . . . Nothing on middle of the night TV would be my guess, so they take it outside for a little extra. No doubt propelled by a little booze. Boys will by boys. It’ll run its course.”

  Meanwhile, Waylon suddenly got the upper hand. He slid out of the embrace, forced McBride down to his knees on the pebbly walking path, and Jeeminy Christmas, slapped what sure looked in MMA fights like a rear-naked-chokehold on the guy.

  McBride of course had done exactly the wrong thing. What they tell you, the commentators on those bouts, is never give your back to the opponent -- meaning specifically the back of your neck. There were of course a variety of front-chokes too, but the one you take to the bank, once the opponent locked it in with the other arm, was this one currently being applied to McBride.

  A separate thought was you did have to give McBride a modicum of credit for standing up to this jerkell -- not just in spirit but in reality. The guy had gone toe to toe with Waylon for at least a solid few minutes, before unfortunately being submitted -- which was now playing out in full, no doubt about it, Waylon with the right arm just so -- and not choking off the guy’s air passage, which is how Chris understood it, but squeezing the life out of the carotid artery -- which shuts the brain down momentarily, and the guy doing the applying wins the bout.

  So yeah . . . you did wonder about McBride. He’d mentioned the hot water he’d landed in, the late night real estate stuff where he admitted to duping folks with the fake lifetime e-mail consultation . . . so you had a bit of mystery to the guy already . . . but having the guts to take on -- and holding your own (for a while) -- against a cocky redneck NFL guy who’d no doubt been around the block . . . Chris decided that showed some character, for sure, and you were curious what other aspects of McBride’s life story might have been similarly colorful.

  All that aside -- the guy didn’t look too great right now.

  Waylon had reduced McBride from his knees to flat on his stomach, and Waylon was continuing the with the neck-lock full speed ahead, a crazed grin dancing on and off of his face, which Chris figured corresponded to his level of exertion.

  It occurred to Chris that McBride was likely out cold by now, and that should do it, conclude matters for tonight -- except Waylon wasn’t showing any signs of buying into the program. Whoa.

  Chris shouted, “You got him! Let him up!”

  Which wasn’t the right choice of words, exactly, since McBride wouldn’t be getting up for a while, even if Waylon let him.

  But at least you got Waylon’s attention. Though the response wasn’t what you hoped for. “Whyn’t you help yourself then, faggot,” Waylon said, plenty of enthusiasm behind it.

  This was a challenge obviously, no different than a third grader bully in a schoolyard saying ‘make me’ to the kid who’s telling him to release a different kid who’s crying and screaming to be let out of the headlock that the bully’s got him in.

  The old security guy was thinking the same thing as Chris apparently -- that the boys will be boys portion was now over, and we could be looking at a more acute situation here. If it continued unabated . . .

  So the old guy showed some fortitude as well, and pulled the night stick off his belt and started waving it at Waylon, ordering him to put his hands up. Or trying to . . .

  This only inspired Waylon, and you could see him theatrically adjusting things under McBride’s throat, and then re-aligning the grip and cranking it up yet another notch -- really sweeping the right arm in there for effect. And maybe that’s all it was . . . but damn, this was started to get scary now.

  So the security guy did the logical thing, taking it to the next level, and he came up behind Waylon and swung the night stick downwards, and caught Waylon between his own neck and right shoulder blade.

  The problem being, there wasn’t enough force behind it . . . and Waylon laughed it off . . . and meanwhile went into another theatrical ratcheting up of the rear-naked-choke.

  The guard had had enough, and this time struck Waylon on the side of the head, and the stick slid out of the old guy’s hand and landed next to Waylon and McBride.

  There’d been a little sound from the impact on the Waylon head, but not enough, nothing like when you hit a ping pong ball for instance, much less a pickleball. . . but Waylon at least broke his grip on McBride, and he reached up and felt behind his ear and then looked at his hand, the way guys check for blood . . . and then, a dang smooth motion, quite athletic Chris had to admit, he grabbed the stick and fired it overhand at the old guy, and it hit him right in the mouth . . . and the old guy was down and pretty quickly there was blood all over the place.

  Waylon then resumed his position over McBride, who hadn’t moved a muscle during the brief interval where Waylon released him. Chris hated to make the connection, but it reminded him of a big cat in the African wild methodically caving in the neck of the prey to make the kill, but taking its time, before-during-and after, no urgency to move on.

  At this point Karolina and Reba and the skinny gal -- plus a few other residents on the scene now -- started screaming, and rushing to the fallen security guy.

  Chris couldn’t help thinking -- sure, that makes sense, but you couldn’t open your mouths when Waylon was in the middle of possibly expiring McBride?

  Chris checked the security guy too, and the blood was disconcerting, but at least he had his eyes open and was trying to say something -- though shock could certainly set in pretty quick, especially with an old guy, and at least there was the scrambling of someone calling an ambulance, and another running for a blanket and some first aid stuff.

  The guy was on his back and the night stick that Waylon had flung was curiously laying directly verticle, off the guy’s right hip, pretty much right where he could have been carrying it . . . under better circumstances.

  Chris debated it for about half a second and picked it up. Waylon (and of course McBride) were 15 yards away. Chris slid the stick around in his hand slightly, to get a feel for it, and he headed toward Waylon.

  Waylon saw him coming, and the on-and-off maniacal smile was on again, and bigger.

  Waylon said, “Well ain’t you a piss-poor excuse for a real man. I’ve heard of sloppy seconds, but you’s taking it to a new level.”

  Waylon laughed, and it sounded like an old-fashioned car horn, the ones with the hee-haw effect.

  “Let him go,” Chris said.

  You could sense Waylon evaluating the situation.

  Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was booze, maybe it was macho pride . . . or maybe it was evil.

  But Waylon -- after this type of challenge especially -- was not going to relinquish his hold on McBride.

  Chris was digging deep himself, wondering -- even if this guy didn’t kill McBride, there’d be a point where, you deprive the brain -- or even part of it -- of oxygen long enough . . . doesn’t brain damage set in?

  Chris didn’t know, and it wasn’t something you could guess at . . . but your instincts sure suggested enough time had gone by -- even with the possible re-start when Waylon freed McBride in order to deal with the security guy -- that he needed to get the fuck off him.

  Chris started to raise the stick, and Waylon said ‘hold on’ and Chris hesitated.

  You hoped this meant a compromise was in order.

  Except not with Waylon. He said, “Make’s you a deal, bud. You try to hit me with that th
ing, fine. Your prerogative . . . It don’t do the job however . . . then I’ll kill you . . . We got a deal?”

  Chris absorbed this, and had no doubt that Waylon wasn’t playing.

  That he shakes off your attempt, releases McBride for real, and comes after you big time. And once again you’re going by instinct, but Chris’s told him Waylon likely would indeed kill him.

  And one other problem being, a rather significant one, on Chris’s end -- the darn night stick didn’t have a lot of substance to it, did it . . . and you had to wonder if it was mostly for show.

  And this fact was no doubt not lost on Waylon.

  Waylon was clever in his own way. He could justify the altercation with McBride (probably) because they were having a mutual disagreement which escalated on both parts. Waylon might be able to explain that if he didn’t choke out McBride, McBride would have choked out him.

  Then Chris coming along, taking his shot, Waylon could explain that the reason he killed Chris (Jeff Masters) was because he feared his life was in danger after Chris tried to kill him with the billy-club.

  All lined up. Perhaps. Whether the cops would buy any of it is a different story, but that didn’t matter right now, did it . . . all that mattered was Waylon’s immediate viewpoint . . . and state of mind.

  Chris had a vision, for whatever reason, of a perfect swing he produced one time in junior high school baseball.

  It was Mr. Gullickson, in fact, who was the coach . . . who Chris and Gloria had gone to see recently out in Walnut Creek, and things didn’t work out well.

  Gullickson had been riding Chris hard, about his batting stance, that he wasn’t planting his front foot at the moment of impact . . . and before the next game Gullickson took Chris aside and grabbed a bat and reiterated what he meant.

  Gullickson knew his stuff, even though the players feared and hated him, and that day Gullickson’s little demonstration clicked.

  So Chris comes up late in the game, big spot, guys on base, and the count goes to 3 and 0.

  Chris swings at the next pitch, and his vision of Guillickson’s demonstration plays out perfectly -- looking back in later years it was probably the closest thing to a Zen experience that Chris ever had -- and he crushed the ball on a line over the center fielder’s head.

  The problem with the whole thing, what ruined the day, was Gullickson had given Chris the take sign on 3 and 0 -- which meant he wasn’t supposed to swing at the next pitch.

  Gullickson grabbed Chris by the bill of the cap when he came back to the dugout, and spit in his face, and told him never, ever, under any circumstances, defy me again.

  Chris hadn’t intended to defy anybody. He was unfortunately concentrating so hard on keeping that front leg straight at impact . . . that even though he looked at Gullickson before the pitch -- and saw Gullickson giving him the sign -- it didn’t register.

  That story, it was neither here nor there. At the moment.

  Except Chris couldn’t shake the image of connecting with that pitch that day, every part of the swing perfection, the ball and the bat and field all one . . . everything synched up and unified . . .

  And he carried that image forward as he cocked back the night stick, sized up Waylon’s head right where the junior high school pitch was hurling toward him, and Chris let his hands do the work, and the forearms pronated perfectly and right before impact there was his front leg straightening out just so . . . and the contact with Waylon’s skull was so loud that all the activity around the fallen security guy went dead silent, and Chris was quite convinced, for better or worse with Waylon, that he’d expired the motherfucker.

  Chapter 13

  For an off-duty cop, Dale was definitely dependable. He showed up bright and early Wednesday morning, a knock on the door, and without any real expression attached, he hands Chris a small box.

  It was the type of box that a department store might wrap up a watch in, or a piece of jewelry, after you purchased it. There was padding on the bottom, and resting on that was a rectangular thin piece of glass, similar to what Chris remembered them making you do stuff with in high school science classes.

  Centered on the glass was a small piece of fabric, the size of a thumbnail, and slightly off-center on that was what looked like a drop of blood.

  “Sheesh,” Chris said, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dale said, “I’m surprised you underestimated me. What -- you thought I was joking?”

  Chris felt bad, since he was trying to joke, and it sort of backfired.

  Dale handed him some latex gloves and told him if found himself having to handle the specimen, which he wouldn’t recommend, to use them.

  “Well okey-doke,” Chris said. “Man . . . So what’s our next step?”

  “You’re asking me? After all the build up, your heavy duty science background?”

  “Not background. I read the papers, keep abreast of the latest developments . . . what can I tell you.”

  “So you said,” Dale said. And that wasn’t great, a little edge to it, meaning Chris’s extra story from the other day, about having to help confirm a long lost relative being real or foster, to settle a family argument, may not have settled 100 percent down Dale’s hatch.

  Whatever. Chris wasn’t worried about Dale getting to the next the level, figuring out the reason Chris knew so much about it was because he was running his own as a test, to stay one step ahead of law enforcement.

  That’d be a stretch, for sure. Dale didn’t fully understand how the new system even worked -- which he’d admitted to Chris -- so highly improbable he, or anyone for that matter, would be on to Chris’s little angle.

  And even then -- wasn’t a citizen allowed to run their own DNA?

  But back to this. Chris said, “The next step, I guess, is to find a lab. A cutting edge one that does these every day . . . We come out of there with a profile -- that’s like a text file that you upload to your computer -- then you go ahead and run it through Gedmatch. Or we do it together, or whatever you like.”

  “We’ll do it together,” Dale said. “You got a computer?”

  Chris didn’t like that idea, simply out of general principle, sitting down with a cop to roam around your personal computer . . . but he realized the one in the apartment, it wasn’t his Manhattan Beach one, there was no noteworthy history on the thing, since he’d picked it up new at Best Buy when he moved down here and barely used it.

  “Works for me,” Chris said, “though . . . you don’t want to be running it from the one in your squadroom, or something?”

  “Let’s keep it quiet,” Dale said, and Chris put together of course the two minor facts: that Dale stole the evidence and this wasn’t his department’s case. So you weren’t going to argue with the man there.

  Chris said in that case he’d find a lab ASAP, and keep him posted . . . and thanks.

  Dale said, “Yeah, let’s see what happens,” and nice guy that he was he told Chris to bill him for the lab test, and Chris said he had this, it was non-negotiable.

  “If you insist,” Dale said. “Meanwhile . . . how you holding up?”

  This, he’d be applying to the other night, the business with Waylon and McBride. There’d been a day in between. Chris said, “Physically I’m good . . . Though you know when you grip something real tight, and you got the adrenaline working?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Like one time this friend railroaded me into trying Laguna Grand Prix Driving. That’s the name, not the real place. It was a chain of go kart deals in California. But the karts were souped up, they looked like mini Indy 500 ones, and you had to wear a helmet and sign a bunch of releases.”

  “I remember those. We had one in Fort Worth.”

  “Gee, didn’t know you were from there. I don’t hear any accent . . . Point I’m making, I pay for one session, ends up being like 3 or 4 laps, my hands are locked up after for days.”

  “So you’re saying,” Dale said, “Waylon’s skull h
ad the same effect.”

  “I guess,” Chris said, and Dale wasn’t dancing around the concept, because that’s exactly what did happen, it turned out . . . Chris fractured Waylon’s skull.

  “How about mentally?” Dale said.

  “Well, I think I’ve turned the corner there too . . . My first thought, after I followed through on the stroke, I’m gonna need a defense lawyer. And . . . you know the drill . . . should I remain silent when you guys show up. All that racing around in me up top.”

  “But, thankfully -- it didn’t pan out that way,” Dale said.

  “No. I guess me being out there in my slippers and robe didn’t hurt. And plenty of witnesses.”

  Dale said, “Unh-huh. Karolina’s always valuable in that regard.”

  “She is. When the cop showed up, and she cornered him, allegedly giving him the rundown -- I started to ease up on needing to find that defense attorney.”

  Which was true. Karolina got him off the hook nice and clean and logical. She at the time -- 4 in the morning or so when the cop arrived -- wasn’t wearing a whole lot herself, at least up above, essentially a fairly transparent and tight turquoise t-shirt, and that was about it.

  The interesting part was it was the same cop who showed up a week ago, questioning Chris during his golf rental gig about the overnight homicide. This was the guy with the cowboy hat and big gut hanging over the belt, who Chris concluded asked a lot of questions but didn’t seem to be putting anything together, and Dale had confirmed that unequivocally, in his general evaluation of Eclipse PD.

  But let’s face it, thank God Waylon hadn’t died, since then all bets would be off, and sure, Chris should ultimately be okay, but it could be a mess for a while, and his real name would surface, and plenty else that could be royal pain.

  So you’d confined Waylon for the foreseeable future to a double room, Chris learned, in the Lady of Grace Medical Center in Phoenix. And it was what it was.