Justice Edge (Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Book 10) Read online

  According to court testimony, Solowski attempted one more time to hand the papers to Protancio, at which point Protancio produced a 32 caliber Belgian Bulldog revolver and shot Solowski dead.

  Prosecutors had pushed for a sentence of 30 years to life, but Judge Helene Stewart, citing Protancio’s community charity work and otherwise clean criminal record, imposed the 8 year term.

  In doing so, Stewart told Protancio that she hopes he spends much of his term considering his actions, and can return to society a responsible member.

  Protancio will be eligible for parole in April of 1994.

  Welp. There you had it, Chris supposed.

  There could always be more to it, and things get watered or pled down by the time the court takes over -- and sure, maybe poor Patrick Solowski hassled this a-hole a bit more on that doorstep than was portrayed. Process servers have been known to carry weapons, and conceivably he flashed something or mentioned it, igniting The Tank to take it to the next level.

  Sure . . . all that can happen.

  Chris was convinced it didn’t. That you side with law enforcement and witnesses and juries and the courts -- until proven otherwise.

  This guy didn’t like getting served, and in his mind, his world, he made it go away.

  Then you had a sympathetic judge, having the nerve to go on the record lecturing the guy, while imposing the minimum sentence.

  That -- or she was intimidated -- and you can’t you rule that part out, and Chris supposed a judge would be only human, if that happened.

  Chris put the phone away. You couldn’t help wonder what was in the lawsuit, or subpoena, that contributed to getting the poor guy killed. The article didn’t say. It was something you might ask Ned about some time, what was the thrust . . . but yeah, some other time.

  Chris had spent an hour in the diner, at least. He continued into town, gave the main couple blocks the once over. There was a square right there too, with decorative old black iron fencing, sharp points on top, and a monument in the middle, some guy on a horse and the horse rearing up.

  119 Briggs was the in-town address that Ned gave him. It was an historic building -- the whole downtown was -- with its own little brass plate on the front, and the building was originally The Ice House it said, which you assumed was where they produced and stored the ice blocks people used in their refrigerator, before real fridges were around.

  It was quite an impressive brick structure, subdivided into shops and offices, maybe 8 total, and there was an interior courtyard with some tall indoor potted trees, and quite a few chairs had been set up and someone was dusting off the little stage up front.

  Chris heard someone say it was their Friday night art walk, the 3rd Friday of the month.

  It didn’t look like the art walks Chris was familiar with, but he was thinking what probably happened, people pop in and out of the galleries on the main three or four blocks, and then there’s some finishing event here where they sit down, an artist maybe demonstrating something more intimate, or someone lecturing or otherwise unleashing verbiage onto the unsuspecting crowd.

  Chris tended to be cynical of course, with these events, since he’d sat through enough of them, but they obviously filled a need . . . so that’s what was going on.

  Hmm. Where would The Tank be currently? Ned had forked over only the address of the building, no specific office or department. Had Ned suggested The Tank owned the place? He might have.

  There was a directory off the courtyard near the stairs, and you had one listing by itself, for Building Services, B-1.

  Might as well take a look . . .

  B-1 it turned out was in the basement, which you figured out by elimination -- since the first floor units had G before their number, assumedly for Ground, and the upper floor units had M before theirs, for Main, it seemed.

  It wasn’t apparent that this place had one of those -- a basement -- since the stairs next to the directory only went up a flight, not down.

  This was going to take some detective work, and Chris casually searched the four corners of the interior building, looking for a secondary egress, and you had nothing.

  So you go outside, give it the once over. There was a guy patching something tar-like on the side of the parking lot adjacent to the building and Chris was tempted to ask him but didn’t, and went back inside, and a few people were filtering in for the lecture, and Chris thought maybe don’t be a hero tonight after all, how about just take a seat and see what’s on tap like everyone else, and tomorrow’s another day, and worry about The Tank then.

  Which is what he did for a minute, it felt good to rest your rear end, even though that’s what you were doing driving for a week, but even so . . . and then he noticed the far office to the right, set up a little different, there was an outer hall you went into first, and a door off that . . . and who knows.

  So Chris took a look, and no-one seemed to notice him pushing the outside door, or disappearing into the secondary one and down the stairs.

  It felt original down there, that’s for sure, very low ceiling, the brick walls needed an extensive repointing job, barely any mortar left between them, one light bulb in the hall with a pull string hanging.

  You had a couple of maintenance closets, left and right, an oversized low sink with a mop in it . . . and at the end of the hall, B-1.

  Chris thought about knocking, didn’t, and tried the handle and the door was open, and he went in.

  He realized he should have tried to pull up a photo of the guy when he was googling him, that there hadn’t been one attached to the 1987 newspaper story -- but all that said, this guy sitting at the desk in the one-room office staring you in the face sure looked like he’d acquired The Tank along the way.

  Like Ned presented it, everything wide and massive up top, and then short little legs, which you couldn’t see, specifically, but the guy was sitting pretty dang low in the chair, wasn’t he.

  It was tempting to lay it out straight, say, “Excuse me, are you Nick the Tank?”

  The issue there might be though, once Tank began with his friendly enough, “I’ve been known to be. Who wants to know?”

  . . . or some similar wisecrack, warming up to the main event, which could easily be pulling a gun out of the drawer -- who knows, maybe even the same one still as with the process server . . . and things could spiral out of control badly from there.

  So Chris said, “Excuse me, sir? Mr. Protancio?”

  “What,” the Tank said.

  Chris continued. “They sent me to report a power surge? Something with the microphone, it’s cutting in and out. The lights too, they are flickering.”

  The Tank stood up. “Goddamn Art Walk. Every month, some peripheral bullshit.”

  There was an old-fashioned phone on the wall, no numbers or anything, just a small light lit up below it and a speaker mounted off to the side, the type you spoke into without using the earpiece. You could picture the Tank being the type who wouldn’t upgrade stuff if it worked fine, which this obviously did. It was also interesting to think that whatever scammy boiler-room operation he was running out of here, it was likely to be a lucrative one -- and why not go upstairs, take one of the real offices, you own the damn building.

  But this too, probably fit the profile of the Tank. Meaning the dingy basement room works fine, why sacrifice the rent you’re receiving instead, from the fancy upstairs office.

  Chris was on that page himself, situations like that, you didn’t need luxury and you didn’t need to show off.

  Meanwhile, the Tank picked up that house phone and waited a moment, and then Arturo apparently picked up the other end because that’s what Tank kept calling him, and there was some confusion between the two how to handle it, the electrical business, and the call ended . . . and the Tank seemed sufficiently distracted for a few more seconds, plus he was turned halfway sideways to handle the phone the easiest way . . . and Chris moved in a step and got the wire around his neck -- first not quite perfectly, a little o
ff center with the leverage -- and then he squared it up and was solid.

  You had the weird breathing sound you expected, and the guy reaching back toward you, and yeah, no exaggeration from Ned, big meaty paws, thick wrists, muscular forearms, though obvious fat in the mix as well.

  Chris held firm, the angle was locked down, all the physics in place, and soon there wasn’t as much fight from Nick and he dropped to a knee -- and Chris adjusted himself accordingly.

  These were never pleasant, but as he waited out the Tank it ran through his mind with surprising clarity -- that when you separated out the less important parts, pared it down to its essence -- this guy, either on his own or collectively -- sent Ralph out to LA, with the express purpose of sooner or later extinguishing his -- Chris’s -- ass. (Ned’s too, if you wanted to get technical.)

  So here, right now, you didn’t have to relish this or enjoy it or take pride in it or even chalk it up to revenge -- you just had to do it.

  Something sounded like water running and a door creaked and Chris hoped to God he was hearing things, and it wasn’t from outside in the hall, it was from right here -- and only then Chris noticed what was probably a rest room in the corner.

  A woman came out, finishing tucking her blouse into her slacks. Then her mouth extended to the wide open position and Chris hoped it would stay that way, frozen open, no sound attached to it . . . but then the Oh My God, Help’s started, but hopefully they wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, since they were the only ones in the basement and even better, there was heavy machinery humming in the hall.

  Which Chris assumed was a generator for the whole building, or the furnace or central air -- or whatever the fuck else was going at it out there, but it was effective.

  The screams diminished and unfortunately the gal had found a pair of scissors on the Tank’s desk, and she didn’t waste any time -- though it occurred to Chris if someone’s choking out your man, you stab the choker guy in the eye or something, that should do it . . . but instead she went after Chris’s hands, and it wasn’t pleasant, not in the least, but Chris maintained his grip.

  He was starting to think Nick had seen better days anyway, he felt awful limp and heavy down there now . . . but you better make sure.

  Meanwhile Chris thought of something -- remembering the name Ned gave him, the 4th wife, Lorraine -- and you might as well go for it and see, and Chris said, “Lorraine. Listen to me here. Look at me . . . This was scheduled.” And he let that hang, hoping there’d be some effect, and at least she stopped the screaming, though she kept up the cutting his hands and knuckles a little longer, and then stopped that too.

  Chris let go of the Tank, and it was a done deal.

  It was pretty clear her name was Lorraine, and that she was confused.

  Chris help up his hand, like give me a second before you do anything stupid . . . and he started for the bathroom but figured you lock the main door first, in case Arturo came wandering in explaining that he couldn’t detect the electrical problem upstairs.

  Lorraine stood still and Chris washed his hands as best he could, and whatever kind of soap they had in there stung bad, but that was probably for the best.

  “So,” Chris said to Lorraine, “we move on . . . Things happen for a reason. You know that by now . . . I don’t like it any more than you . . . It’s nothing personal Babe. You know that too.”

  Chris gave her a long look, and she was crying, which you didn’t like to see, but the lesser of several evils obviously, which included placing a call to the sheriff, or constable, or state troopers, or whoever handled the stuff in this town.

  Chris also knew that as soon as he left she would make a call, but that would be to someone in Tank’s orbit . . . and Chris said to please pass over her cellphone, and to wait here for exactly seven minutes until it’s safe -- that those were the explicit instructions that he received -- and that the phone would be waiting for her upstairs where the set of mailboxes was.

  Lorraine opened up her purse and for half a second you had that terrible repeat alarm, that she’d pull out something snub-nosed herself, but thank God she was complacent enough to simply hand over the phone and sit down.

  The lecture upstairs was in full swing, the audience section almost full, and Chris heard the expression ‘power of persuasive endeavor’ resonating out of the speaker’s mouth and over the PA system as he hesitated for just an instant, took a look, and got the hell out of there.

  Chapter 15

  Which way you were going had nothing to do with it of course, and the first meaningful road he noticed was state route 413, and that worked you slightly east toward south Jersey, and you ran into the 295-276 interchange near Trenton -- all good at this point -- though Chris didn’t stop physically sweating until an hour later when he pulled off for a bite to eat in a place called Plymouth Meeting.

  Whew.

  One thing that had been in his favor, was the Tank’s henchmen likely had to come to Bucks County from somewhere else after Lorraine made that call, as opposed to being down the block -- though Chris didn’t leave her phone like he said he would, but that wouldn’t matter.

  The somewhere else, again, could be Philadelphia, NYC or Atlantic City -- whereas if you had similarly dealt with the Tank in one of those places the exit strategy might not have been as smooth.

  You never know . . . and Chris reminding himself for the umpteenth time that you can’t script this shit -- that line was getting old.

  When he came out of the restaurant it was dark and windy, and it was already dusk when he went in, but now it was pitch black, no moon tonight, or stars you could see either.

  Not the optimum evening, in other words, to be heading across Pennsylvania on one of these highways that didn’t help you out much with the artificial lighting, and you’d have to pay attention. But Chris was revved up, nothing gained tonight by checking in somewhere and not being able to sleep, so he kept on driving, and by 3am he required a cup of coffee . . . and that wasn’t going to be easy . . . so he opened the windows and blasted the radio -- what few stations he could tune in -- and it occurred to him this was a throwback to a couple of road trips 25 years ago -- and it sustained him until 5:30, when it started getting light, and you could smell the wet grasses being warmed up, and he found a convenience store and stood outside for a while looking over some fairly idyllic valley that had come into focus the last 20 minutes.

  He’d picked up a couple interstate maps in the convenience store. They still sold them here, which seemed to be a dying industry for sure, the physical maps, and he opened one on the picnic table they had outside near the gas pumps.

  Jeez, he’d screwed up pretty good overnight -- not that it mattered much -- but at some point he veered onto 79 and had driven several hours largely due south into the heart of West Virginia and was headed for Tennessee at the moment.

  Again, which was fine. It did point out how you got confused at night, and you had to give credit to the over-the-road truckers, those guys likely never working on enough sleep yet rarely making a wrong turn like this, even on a pitch black night.

  You could see on the map the Monongahela National Forest to the right, which you’d definitely negotiated, and yes sir, pretty darn curvy through there, and obviously beautiful country too, which would explain this lush green untamed expanse he was soaking in in the distance this morning from the convenience store.

  Detroit, as Chris was calculating it, using the un-exact finger method on the map -- from here, you were talking . . . 350, 400 miles . . . and if you were going 65 all the way you could do it in half a day, couldn’t you . . . except from here you were on the small stuff until at least Columbus, and even there not really, you needed to hit Farley before you finally found an interstate that ran you toward Detroit.

  So, no, don’t be a hero again, go halfway and hope you catch your friendly 56-year old unknown relative Marlon Studebakker up there tomorrow . . . and Chris got back in the Malibu and it was a good day of driving, clear and bright and
crisp out there, and he settled on Dakota, Ohio, for the night, a bit north of Delaware, Ohio, for Gosh sakes -- and he noticed this other places too, why name towns after states, though they had their reasons.

  Not until Chris found a motel did he realize the extent of how shot he was, not just the staying up all night but the reverberation from the encounter with Nick . . . and the unexpected surprise of the 4th wife Lorraine making her appearance. Thinking about it, it was a one-man operation down there in the basement office, so Lorraine probably just dropped in, end of the day, a Friday evening.

  It could have been messier if the Tank had an actual secretary emerging from that rest room, who might not have understood the nature of Tank’s businesses and those of his associates . . . and issues that sometimes arose. Lorraine clearly did, you had to give her that, she was going keep it in-house, and if the police happened to get involved later, so be it.

  Chris had taken a page out of Ned’s book of course -- the mechanics of it, as related to Ralph -- meaning the wire seemed decent -- and Chris found a Home Depot on the way out here one night in Wyoming, and had gone in there with a mental list of supplies: roll of wire, wire cutters, thick gloves . . . He wasn’t sure he’d need any of it, but you tried to plan ahead, and he’d thrown the Home Depot bag in the trunk and hadn’t thought about it again until he was closing in on Bucks County.

  Anyhow, when Chris got in the room in Dakota, Ohio, and saw that bed, he collapsed right on top of it, no turning back any covers, and he barely got one shoe off and slept for 6 hours.

  It was after 9 when got up, re-energized, starved, all that good stuff, and he figured why not see what, if anything, is cooking in town.

  There was a lot actually. A couple groups on foot heading for the main drag bar scene, yukking it up pretty good and carrying baseball equipment, which likely meant an adult softball league breaking up. There were couples strolling around as well, some old folks sitting on benches, even little kids riding scooters and bikes around . . . and this is how it should work, Chris was thinking, you’re brutalized all winter by the weather, when it’s over get your asses out there.