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#Post#: 3032--------------------------------------------------
Haunted by the Past - Chapter 32 - Somethin' Bad
By: RampageSports Date: April 13, 2016, 3:31 pm
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Author's Note: The Spenser, Hawk, Susan Silverman, Vinnie Morris
and Ives characters belong to mystery novelist Robert B. Parker.
Mr. Parker is one of my favorite authors, and his work is a
major influence on the the way I write. Whether I even come
close to mimicking his style is open to considerable debate, but
I have chosen to use his characters in this story as something
of an homage. My goal is to handle them as lightly as possible
and to maintain them as Mr. Parker created them. Any failure on
that front is completely my own.
[hr]
Haunted by the Past - Chapter 32 - Somethin' Bad
I pulled the Subaru — freshly sprung from the police impound
yard at no cost to me — up to the curb a block and a half away
from the dilapidated house King Powers was using as his office.
Spenser snugged the Mustang up behind me, while Hawk parked his
silver Mercedes facing the other way on the opposite side of the
street. As soon as Hawk brought the car to a stop, Vinnie got
out and walked up toward the house, but never crossed over.
I looked at Danni.
"This is gonna get messy," I said. "You ready?"
She chewed her lip for a moment, then looked at me and gave what
I can only describe as a wicked little grin.
"Stand on the bar, stomp your feet, start clapping," she said,
speaking the words to the song that had been so chaotically
interrupted the previous day.
"Got a real good feeling somethin' bad about to happen," I said.
We got out, and Spenser and Hawk were on the sidewalk with us
instantly.
I immediately started up toward the house. There was no need to
review the plan again. It really wasn't all that complicated.
Calling it a house was giving the little structure too much
credit. It was more like a freestanding apartment. One floor.
Living room in front. Miniscule kitchen area. Bedroom in back.
Bathroom somewhere... I hope.
We positioned ourselves around the front door. I stood directly
in front, waiting like an expected guest. Hawk crossed over and
pressed himself against the house to the left of the doorframe,
his nearly foot-long .357 Magnum Colt Python out and ready.
Spenser did the same on the right, his Browning Hi-Power up in
front of him. Danni was tucked in behind Spenser.
Spenser met my gaze and nodded.
I knocked.
The door opened, fill by a large, overweight loser in a tent
sized gray blazer.
"Knockity, knockity," I said playfully.
"You!"
"Oh, good. I don't have to waste time introducing myself."
I slid right to clear the doorway. Gray Tent saw Spenser and
reached down to his side. He died before he got his gun out,
Vinnie hitting him dead center from across the street, where he
was using the trunk of an ancient Buick as a shooting bench.
The body hadn't even hit the ground before Spenser and Hawk were
through the door. Vinnie sprinted across the street and went
through right on their heels. I went next, with Danni behind
me.
We entered into the left corner of a living room that was
perfect for the house. Dark green shag carpet, darkened further
by unchecked grime and muck. Walls of an indeterminate pale
color, with wood paneling running half-way up. To our right,
five or six guys — men who lacked the professional look of Rat
Boy and Mr. Clean, but were probably the best Powers could come
up with in his current financial state — were grouped around a
tiny television, watching The Price is Right.
Being a career scumbag is a tough life. Nothing to do all day,
and not a damn thing worth watching on TV.
The craziness our sudden arrival caused would've been hard to
follow if I was analyzing it on slow-motion video. Trying to
track it all live was impossible.
A scrawny little guy in a sleeveless white T-shirt sprang from a
filthy, half-eaten couch and lept at Spenser. Spenser switched
his gun to his left hand and hit him with a right hook that
stopped him cold. The little guy wasn't going to wake up for a
week, and he'd be dining through a straw for a long time after
that.
Another nameless face stood and reached for his belt, the
kitchen chair he'd been sitting on toppling to the ground. The
Python roared with a deafening boom, and Nameless had a hole in
his chest that wasn't there before.
Hawk and Vinnie spread to the right to deal with the remains of
the group, while Spenser pressed onward, past the tiny kitchen
to the closed door of the back room. Danni and I followed him.
One solid kick and the flimsy balsa-sheathed door was gone.
Inside, Powers sat stunned behind a large, cheap-looking desk.
In his defense, it had been less than ten seconds since Vinnie
had dropped the guy at the front door. So, ol' King didn't have
a whole lot of time to prepare.
The only light in the room came from a large picture window
behind Powers that looked out into the backyard. I squinted
hard, trying to get my eyes to focus in the relative darkness.
To Powers' right, Mr. Clean rested on a torn leather sofa, his
heavily bandaged left leg up in front of him. Meghan's
handiwork, I guessed.
He instinctively reached for his weapon.
"Don't," Spenser said, but he did and Spenser shot him dead —
Clean's gun clattering harmlessly to the floor.
Powers gathered himself impressively, seemingly unshaken by the
sudden loss of his trusted employee. He looked past
insignificant little me and glared at Spenser.
"You!" he shouted, standing and slamming his palms down on the
desk. "I should have known! That n*gger with you, too?"
Spenser smiled.
"You hear that, Hawk?" he called over his shoulder.
There was the distinctive thud of a body being thrown against
the other side of the wall, then silence.
"Mmmm," Hawk growled as he appeared in the doorway. "Racial
invective."
"Hey!" I barked, much like I do when trying to get Tramp's
attention.
I pushed a kick against the front edge of the desk, sending it
sliding into King. He grunted as it him, and fell backward. He
missed the chair, catching only the front edge of it, and both
Powers and the chair crashed to the floor. He struggled to his
knees and looked at me over the top of the desk.
"You keep your eyes on me," I seethed. "I'm the one you need to
worry about."
He smiled condescendingly, stood slowly, then carefully adjusted
his tie. Making the nothing b*tch wait.
Just give me an excuse, you f*ck.
"I'm the one who ruined your deal," I continued. "I'm the
reason you're stuck in this sh*thole."
The smile slipped from his face, but he managed to keep up the
rest of his facade.
"You can't just barge in here like this," he said calmly.
"And yet, here I am."
"This is private property."
"Not your property," I countered.
"You have no right to be here."
I hooked my thumb into the collar of my shirt.
"You see a badge on this shirt, dipsh*t?" I asked. "We're not
cops. This is not a legal proceeding. And right now, you have
no rights. Period."
"Of course, I do."
"No, assh*le. You don't. You sent your little rat friend and
Bald Mountain over there to kill my friend and I. They f*cked
it, and, in the process, shot a cop. Shot her with the gun I
bet Baldy is holding, too. So, there's your evidence."
He looked stricken and said nothing, both of which confirmed my
assumption.
"It's over for you. Shooting a cop changes everything. There
are no rules, now. And I, for one, have been dying for this
day. The day when your money was gone and your power was gone
and the world was finally coming to give you what you've so
thoroughly earned. So, my friends and I rushed right over, just
so we could watch."
"You can't talk to me that way," he spat, clearly losing it in
the face of my antagonistic approach. "You and this fat b*tch
friend of yours can just..."
I was up and standing on the desk without a word. A quick,
short-step and I kicked him full in the face. No martial arts.
No training or technique. A full-on blast. I kicked his head
the way Carli Lloyd would launch a laser shot to the upper
ninety.
The impact sent him reeling. He stumbled a few steps, tripped
over the chair and fell backward through the window.
I jumped down from the desk and went out the back door. No one
moved to stop me.
Not that they could have, anyway.
The backyard was little more than a postage stamp covered in
dirt. It was fully enclosed by the three nearest houses, and I
slowly realized it was actually a shared space. I had a nice
yard, with plenty of room for Tramp to run. Danni had a park
behind her house, complete with its own river view and a various
and diverse collection of wildlife. Here, these four homes
shared a ten foot square plot of earth.
There was a socioeconomic lesson to be learned there somewhere,
but today was not the day.
Dazed and bleeding — a thousand little cuts and a deep gash on
his right leg, all compliments of the shattered window — Powers
never saw me coming.
I grabbed a fistful of his falsely colored hair and dragged him
deeper into the yard. He scrambled along behind, trying to keep
up and alleviate the pain in his scalp. After a few steps, I
ran out of room, so I slung him down in the dirt.
Hawk and Spenser appeared in opposite corners of my vision,
spread out to the left and right — keeping Powers between them.
Danni came up at my shoulder, right where she always is. Vinnie
hung back in the doorway, just to be sure none of the few people
still breathing in the house did anything stupid.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Pat sending in the troops, just
as we'd planned.
"You hear that, you f*ck? You know that is? That's the end of
your world. Their coming for you. And I'll be here, smiling
like an idiot when they take you away."
I could King's chest rising and falling as his nostrils flared,
the furor painted all over his face.
I was so close to getting what I was after.
I squatted down beside him, ready to give the knife its final
twist.
"Tell me Powers," I said. "How does it feel to be beaten?
Again. By a girl."
That would have been enough, but then Danni stepped up and
kicked him hard in the ribs.
"Two girls, this time," she said.
It was then I knew for sure that she understood my goal. I also
knew what she was doing. She was casting her lot with mine.
She wanted us both to be responsible for whatever came next.
Even though I wished she hadn't, I couldn't deny it put a warm
feeling in the center of my chest.
She looked at me and gave a little nod.
You are not alone in this, it seemed to say.
I smiled and turned back to Powers.
"Good to have friends, right King? Of course, you probably
wouldn't know, since all of those friends you thought you had
don't seem to be around, now that you need them."
I stood and looked down my nose at him like the worthless piece
of sh*t he was.
"I'm sure you'll make new friends in prison, though," I said.
"Remember to give it up first thing when you get there. Don't
fight it. Just be somebody's good little b*tch, and it'll all
go a lot easier for you."
And that's when I saw it. There, in the depths of his eyes, I
saw the thin twine of his self-control snap.
I was going to get my wish.
I took Danni's hand, spun her, and we walked toward the house,
side-by-side.
"Don't do it, Powers," I heard Spenser say.
But he was going to do it, and I knew it. With a lot of help, I
had taken his money and his power. Now, I had come to take his
freedom.
It was all too much for his massively swollen ego to bear.
"Powers!" Spenser called again, and both he and Hawk were now
yelling for Powers to stop. The sound was like music to my
ears. A powerful symphony playing in pre-celebration of my big
moment.
Then Danni ruined it all, sending the orchestral harmony
spiraling into a cacophonous train wreck.
As we walked, she casually slipped her hand from mine. Then,
she stepped deliberately to her right, inserting herself between
Powers and myself.
Suddenly, the moment I had been waiting for had become the
moment Emma warned me about. With my eyes wide open, I had
watched it go by, and now it was too late.
Gunfire erupted behind her... two distinct shots echoing clear
and crisp in the cold morning air.
Danni froze, paralyzed by the sound. I stood in front of her,
paralyzed by sheer terror.
"Danni..."
Her eyes moved from left to right... slowly and aimlessly, as
though searching for something to focus on. After what seemed
like an eternity, they found their way back to me.
"Do you see any holes where they're not supposed to be?" she
asked.
"God damn you!"
I swung my right hand at her, the strike angry and wild. She
let it land on her shoulder. I wound up to swing again, but
reached out and knocked my hand down.
Then, I brought both hands up and pulled her head to my
shoulder.
"God damn you!" I said again. "You scared the sh*t out of me!"
"I know. I'm sorry," she said. "I just... I don't know..."
From the tone of her voice, it sounded like she had even
surprised herself with the move. I would later realize that
meant Emma had predicted something neither Danni nor I knew was
coming until it actually happened, and that made no sense at
all.
But right now, I cared about nothing other than Danni.
Eventually, I raised my head up and looked over her shoulder to
where Powers lay motionless on the ground. The shots I'd heard
must have come from Spenser and Hawk, because Powers' weapon was
still in its holster — the tips of his fingers still squeezing
the very edge of the gun's handle.
Spenser squatted down beside the body and felt for a pulse.
After a moment, he looked at me and shook his head.
Powers was dead, but there was no joy in it for me. Not after
what had just happened. Now, I just wanted to take Danni, and
get the hell out of there.
Danni started to turn, but I wouldn't let her.
"Don't," I said.
"It's fine," she said. "I know what happened."
"Maybe," I said, "but you don't have to look. Just trust me.
Please."
Fighting me seems to come naturally to her, but she seemed to
appreciate the gravity of this one. The scene behind her was
something she didn't need — or really want — to see. After a
moment, she nodded tiredly and we walked on together.
We made our way out of the yard via a narrow strip that ran
between the house and one of its neighbors — choosing to
circumvent the carnage inside. We got back in the car, and I
started it up so we could run the heat while we waited for Pat.
Spenser joined us a few minutes later. Hawk and Vinnie got back
in the Mercedes and drove away.
"Everybody alright?" he asked.
"Never been better," I said unconvincingly.
It's not that the statement wasn't true. Powers was gone, and
the saga was over. So, there was a lot to be happy about.
I didn't feel any remorse, either. Powers was no loss to
anyone, and the others had made their choices and suffered the
consequences.
But right now just didn't feel like a time for celebration.
[hr]
Character Reference
HTML http://s19.postimg.org/x7gm9w22n/Richelle_100x120.jpg
Name: Richelle Winterfeld
Nickname(s):
Background: Owner of the RSI stable, former underground fighter
HTML http://s19.postimg.org/9av3z511b/Danni_100x120.jpg
Name: Danneel Harris
Nickname(s): Danni
Background: RSI stable leader, reigning DEF welterweight
champion
HTML http://s19.postimg.org/cj46pxcov/Emma00x120.jpg
Name: Emma Watson
Nickname(s): Dr. Watson
Background: Reigning FAC featherweight champion, training
partner and romantic partner of Tiffany Mulheron
HTML http://s19.postimg.org/kmg56h1fj/ORourke_100x120.jpg
Name: Patrick O'Rourke
Nickname(s):
Background: Major with the New Jersey State Police, family
friend of Richelle's
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