The Shack: An Implacable Man

The bigger C.O. stared at my arm. "Somalia. Nigeria. Uganda. Kenya... shit."

"What's wrong?" The brown haired C.O. looked from me to him.

"His tattoo. 'De Oppresso Liber.' With deployment bars under it." He eyed me warily. "5th Group?"

"Yeah. Medic. Thirteen years with Group, seventeen years under SOCOM."

"I did five years in Ranger Regiment. You're not going to make any trouble are you?"

"I won't go looking for it."

He understood immediately. "Shit."

The other C.O. still looked confused. "What? He's a medic right?"

"In Special Operations, that just means he knows how to sew you together after he fucks you up." He sighed. "I'll get the word to the would-be hard cases to stay backed off if you promise not to start any shit yourself."

"I'll keep to myself. I just want to be left alone."

*****

I'd arrived just in time for lunch. I sat alone, eating a very forgettable beef stew, just warm enough to not fully congeal and a slice of bread. The orange "safety spork" probably tasted better.

A couple of prisoners at a table not too far from mine slowly got up and headed my way. From the North County Wild Boys tattoos on their necks, I figured at least it wouldn't be a boring discussion.

The big NCWB gang member sat down across from me, the smaller one sat next to him. They both kept their hands open on the table. I just stared at them.

The smaller guy squared up. "We ain't involved."

"Involved in what?"

"Word's out you're worth ten grand dead."

"Sounds kinda low. Almost insulting."

"Yeah, that's what we thought. We're out. We wanted to make goddamn sure you to know that. We told the others to stay out of it, too. You kill more fuckin' people than Glock. Ten grand ain't near enough."

"Good to know."

He started like he was going to get up, then paused. "We was supposed to be at the welding shop that day, but we got rolled up three days before."

"Lucky you."

"Yeah. We're takin' it as a sign. We're out of that business, all of it."

"Then I'm probably not interested in you."

He looked down at the table. "If anybody tries for the ten, they're freelancers. Everybody got the word to stay away, but some people are just stupid."

He started to get up and I held my hand up. "You wouldn't know who Manny was planning on selling the girl to, would you?"

He shook his head. "Manny didn't tell nobody shit. All I know is he was planning on taking her to Richmond."

"You find out, you let me know. It'd go a long fucking way to making sure I forget about you."

They walked back towards the table where they'd come from.

*****

It was Sunday night before anyone decided to take a shot at the ten grand. I was eating alone again, when the smaller NCWB gang member caught my eye from across the room and glanced meaningfully at a couple of skinny meth-heads at another table. I gave a single nod.

After I dropped my tray off, I casually headed over towards the corridor outside the jail laundry. It was the only place I'd seen with no cameras, and the lighting was pretty bad.

I leaned against the wall and waited until they hurried around the corner after me. I hammered the bigger guy down before they had a chance to realize how bad they'd fucked up. I caught the smaller one and threw him against the wall, the back of his head ringing off the tile. A badly sharpened toothbrush handle clattered to the floor.

I hefted him up the wall a bit. "Problem with some people is that they have no survival instinct, no sense of self-preservation, ya know? I blame streetlights. All that light out there, some people have just forgotten why they should be afraid of the dark."

He started to say something, eyes rolling in panic, but I slammed my fist into his gut and dropped him to curl up on the floor gagging for air. I sighed. "People with any sense, they'd ask themselves, 'why is everybody staying the fuck away from that guy?' After all, they'd think, there has to be a reason. But you two? No, you don't get it. No survival instinct. See?"

I glanced back down the hallway. "The good news is that I think I can fix that. They say just one really traumatic experience can make you reassess your whole approach to life."

He cringed as I shook my head sadly and reached down to grab his collar. "This is for your own good. Really."

*****

Monday morning was ant-climactic. Tara had pulled strings to get to the State Attorney General's office and their Internal Affairs Office chief to sit down with her first thing in the morning and go over some interesting video. Agent Stein had seen the outside cameras but hadn't considered that I might have in-wall internal cameras in the trailer, especially not ones that fed to cloud storage that Tara could get to without going into the cordoned off salvage yard. I'd put the cameras in when we moved to the cabin, mostly in case some of the local douchebags broke in to steal something. I wish I could claim foresight, but honestly, the shit was on sale. It worked well to catch Agent Stein in the act of planting the drugs.

My appearance before the judge lasted long enough for the State to drop hurriedly drop charges and offer an apology. Tara was stuck at the Internal Affairs office so that they could go through the process of transferring copies of the video to State IA with proper chain of custody for Stein's eventual prosecution.

On the bright side, I at least had a ride. The State had arranged for a taxi to get me back to the Sheriff's department.

The Sheriff was waiting at the station when I arrived.

I nodded to him. "Thanks for relaying that info to Tara and Sheree. Let's get this over with; I need to get out there and find Delaney."

"Yeah, about that." The Sheriff pushed open a door marked "Patrol Officers Only."

Delaney jumped up from a lounge chair. "Finally!"

I glanced around, my old sleeping bag was laid out on a cot in one corner of the room, with Delaney's blanket and pillows from home. "How long have you been here?"

She grinned wickedly. "Since about an hour after I busted that asshole's nose. He kept saying you weren't my real dad."

The Sheriff sighed. "She came right in the vehicle bay door and hid in here. Found her after we transferred you. I didn't trust that the Agent, so we let them look all over the state. I couldn't even get in to see you to tell you."

"Since those blankets are from home, I guess Sheree knows, too?"

"Sheree was already here with Delaney when we found her."

Delaney smirked and pointed to the phone on the wall. "I called her and told her what was going on."

Sheree walked into the lounge looking entirely too smug. "Y'all about ready to leave? I got the truck outside, kinda taking up extra space and don' wanna get ticketed."

I shook my head, chuckling and she stepped over for a kiss.

The Sheriff nodded at Delaney. "Be a good idea to get you out of here. And take those damn poker cards. I think Deputy Hyatt owes you twenty candy bars by now."

"Twenty three, and she better not think she can cheat me on those."

"She won't forget." He looked over at me. "I'll be right back, got your personal effects to give to you and I need you to sign for them."

As soon as he stepped out, Sheree looked up at me. "Do ya' think this is about Delaney?"

"I think so..." I cut off as the Sheriff stepped in and handed me a stack of forms and a pen. He handed my bag of stuff to Sheree.

I sat down and started in on the form.

Delaney finished getting her stuff together and sat down across the table, looking at me eagerly. "So how was it? Do you have any cool prison gang tats? Did you get to shank a child molester for a pack of smokes?"

"I was only there for three days, and you know I don't smoke, Delaney." I looked up at Sheree standing next to me. "Do you think it's too much fucking caffeine? I mean this can't be normal, can it?"

Delaney, almost bouncing in her chair, ignored my comment and Sheree's quiet laugh. "C'mon, something cool had to happen."

The Sheriff shook his head slowly. "Jesus, you two are weird." He sighed. "Not my jail, not my problem, I'd have stuck your ass in solitary if they'd have kept you here. I'm not stupid. The C.O.s over there informed me that two prisoners were severely injured, consistent with being badly beaten by someone who really knew what they were doing. Both prisoners oddly insisted they'd tripped and fallen down the stairs."

"Oddly?" Sheree raised one eyebrow.

He nodded. "There are no stairs anywhere near where they were found. And they weren't capable of crawling, much less walking."

Sheree narrowed her eyes at me, but at least it was half-playfully. "That'd make it a lot harder, wouldn't it?"

I shrugged. Delaney grinned. "I knew it!"

The Sheriff put his hat down on the table. "Christ. I don't know if you're setting a bad example for her or she's a bad influence on you."

Sheree dropped her arm over my shoulders. "He can't help it none. He's fallen in with a coupla uppity women."

I reached over and gave her butt a squeeze. "My favorite kind."

She bumped my shoulder with her hip. "Don't you forget it."

Delaney winced dramatically and screwed up her nose. "Ewww. Get a room."

Sheree gave me a pensive look as we walked out to her truck. "I saw a little brown car parked out front of the yard Saturday and Sunday. There was at least one guy in it, kept ducking down whenever someone drove by."

"You know what kind of car?"

"Is rust a kind of car? It was a little two-door hatchback of some kind. Old, I mean I'm not sure if it was primer brown or just completely covered in rust. Prob'ly need a tetanus shot to drive it. I didn't want to get too close, I figured you'd want to have a talk with them."

"Doesn't sound like gang members."

Delaney smirked. "It could be that fucking asshole cop. I hear he lost a car."

"Yeah, we need to talk about that..." I was trying to be serious, but when Delaney shot me her version of "puppy eyes" I sort of started snickering. It didn't help that Sheree promptly broke down laughing. I tried to regain the upper hand. "You owe a quarter."

Sheree shook her head. "I had to suspend y'alls swear jar thing. When I got to Delaney at the station, she told me what happened and, since she'd be payin' out her whole salary for the next twenty years if she held to it, I put it on hold. Just til this thing, whatever it is, is over."

Delaney looked warmly at her.

*****

Tiffany and Tara met us at the cabin just a few hours later.

"You need to be careful. Stein got tipped and disappeared. They didn't give me any details, but they seem to think he's headed out of the country." Tara shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure I believe that. The 'stop and hold' on you wasn't valid. It was supposedly signed off on by Judge Knowlton, but he says he never issued it and says somebody hacked into the system, somehow. His clerks are all backing him up, but that system doesn't connect to the internet anywhere; it's practically impossible to hack into."

I thought about that for a second, Sheree beat me to the question. "How many years does Stein have as an agent?"

Tara looked thoughtful. "Seventeen years. That'd be an awful lot to risk throwing away."

I sat up a bit. "A judge and a special agent." I thought about the ten thousand that had been put on my head. "And some others."

"That's a lot of influence." Tara looked over at Tiffany for a second. "This might really be related to Mother's shooting." She looked back at me. "She was shot in the back four times with a nine millimeter handgun and the study was searched."

Sheree put on a concerned face, obviously for the sake of Tara and Tiffany. "Is she going to be okay?"

Tiffany answered. "She's not completely out of the woods yet, we need to worry about secondary infections, but the surgeries went well and she's more than holding her own."

"Christ. They probably didn't know they had to use silver bullets. Or garlic. Or silver bullets tipped with garlic... maybe a wooden stake..."

"Stop that, Les." Sheree turned so only I could see her face and gave me a wink. She still managed to keep her tone serious.

"I couldda warned them, if they'd have asked." I sunk back into the chair and stared at the ceiling. I caught my breath. "Has she said what the fuck is going on?"

Tiffany twisted her mouth. "She says she's just too weak to talk about it and can't remember anything, anyway."

"Bullshit."

Tara nodded her agreement with my assessment. "She's hiding something. I looked over the study after the police pulled out, but I couldn't find anything. I can't open the safe and Mother says she can't remember the combination."

Delaney, laying on the windowsill, tracing patterns on the glass, looked over suddenly. "Unless she changed it after I left, I can open it. I can't tell you the numbers, but I can do the pattern."

"I thought she changed it after you opened it to get Dad's gun?" Tara eyed Delaney.

"She did, but they worked so hard to ignore me all the time they forgot I was there. It was like being invisible." She stopped for a second. "I was thinking of taking the money in the safe and running away, but running away hadn't worked out so well the first time. I needed to go somewhere I was wanted." She settled back onto the sill.

Tiffany chuckled softly. "God, she hated that. She tries to hide it, but it still eats at her every day. She'd rather you joined the Manson family, or a cult or something."

A look between anger and sadness flickered across Sheree's face. "Lord forbid Delaney ends up with a family that loves her, huh?"

"Yeah, I know." Tiffany looked at the floor. "I don't know why she's that way. When we were little I know she really cared. Maybe it was the money." She looked helpless. "I don't know."

Delaney sat up, her face suddenly tight. "I don't give a fuck. I know where I belong. I'm never going back." She hissed it furiously.

Tara held her hand out cautiously. "We know. And you're right. Even if something happened to Dad, Sheree has guardianship. I set the papers up and made Mother agree to it." She looked over at Sheree. "I hope you don't mind, but I just don't trust Mother anymore. You and Dad just have to sign them."

Sheree was beaming. "We'll never have to use it, but of course I don't mind. She belongs here."

Delaney looked like she was having trouble breathing but finally settled silently into a crooked smile.

I nodded. "You might have trouble if Charlotte contests it. She's on a lot of painkillers."

"If she does, the whole truth about Charles will come out. I'll make sure of it. She knows it." Tara's face was painted in anger.

*****

The next morning, we met Tara at Charlotte's ridiculously oversized McMansion.

Delaney and I had caught a glimpse of the car Sheree had described when Sheree dropped us at the yard to get my Mustang.

The little brown car turned out to be a 1973 Ford Pinto, and it was almost impossible to believe it was actually running. I had rusted hulks on the lot that looked like they were in better shape. We didn't get a chance to hunt it down because we'd promised to meet Tiffany and Tara at Charlotte's house, but we knew what to look for.

Tara let us in, grinning. "Mother would have a fit if she knew you were here."

I stepped in past her. "You'd think she'd want people to figure out who the hell shot her in the back."

"She'd rather die than let you help her, Dad."

"Believe me, I'm not trying to help her, I'm just trying to protect Delaney."

Delaney walked right into the study and slid open the panel that covered the wall safe.

I glanced around, trying not to smile when I thought of the last time I'd been in the study. The day that Senator Charles Morris had decided to eat a bullet rather than go to prison for trying to murder his own daughter, though he didn't see her that way.

It'd made the world a slightly better, slightly cleaner, place.

Delaney managed to open the safe on the first try, turning back to us with a smug smile.

Tara stepped over. "Three thumb drives and a stack of paperwork."

I started sorting the paper work while she fired up her laptop and started trying out the thumb drives.

"Bills. A couple overdue notices. A ledger for a 'C&M Consulting'." I began sorting it more carefully. "Chuck's death must've really shaken her up. The overdue notices are all from just after that. Jesus, that's a lot of money. Just what does that pool service do for her?" I was about to make a "pool boy" crack but stopped when I realized Delaney was listening intently.

Tara raised one eyebrow but stayed focused. "The thumb drives are encrypted, I'll have to get the passkey from Mother. Any recent overdue bills?"

"Looks like it's all caught up. Damn that woman spends a lot on spa treatments."

"Yeah, I remember her saying that a Senator's wife has to look the part."

"Look the part of what? High Queen Empress of the fucking Galaxy?"

Delaney snickered but just kept poking around the office.

Tara sat up and closed her laptop. "People have different priorities."

"Charlotte's priority is always Charlotte."

Tara nodded. "Yeah, it is. At least it has been since she met Charles."

*****

"That fucking Pinto is behind us."

Delaney kept looking forward, just shifting her eyes to glance in the mirror; the lessons she'd learned at "Camp Mayhem" had sunk in all the way to her bones. "Do you think it's that Stein asshole?"

"Not a fucking clue, but I'm done fucking around and waiting for someone else to do something. We're going to find out who it is. He's hanging back too far. When I round this corner, you slide over and take the rollback half a block down, stop, then put the disco lights on."

She released her seatbelt and braced herself, ready to slide along the bench seat and take my place. I waited until I was even with a large tree and popped the door. We'd done this dozens of times, picking up wrecks. I dropped out the door and Delaney, half-standing, shifted over, and took the wheel. She could barely reach the pedals, and could still drive better than most of the guys out there.

I stepped behind the tree, pulled my 1911, and waited while Delaney took the rollback a precise half block, stopped and put the emergency lights on.

For a second I thought the Pinto had turned off, but it eventually crept up and came to a shuddering stop about 50 yards back from the truck. As I walked up, I could see the back of the driver's head as he nervously peered forward.

I walked up and tapped on the window of the car with the butt of my gun.

I expected a bit of shock, maybe a hasty apology or stammering excuse. Pretty much anything but what happened.

My ears nearly blew out with his high-pitched shriek, and the car screamed backwards with no warning at all. I barely danced back in time to keep from getting gutted by the mirror. The Pinto bounced over the curb backward into the ditch and flipped up, standing up on end, wheels spinning.

I just stared at it for a minute as Delaney sprinted up beside me to look inside.

"Jesus, what did you do?"

"Knocked on the window."

She cocked her head sideways and looked at the driver frantically clawing at his seatbelt. "Mooky?"

*****

Mooky sat nervously between us, glancing back over his shoulder at the Pinto on the back of the rollback.

I looked him over. "What the fuck is going on, Mooky; why are you following us."

"I... I mean... I'm not following..."

Delaney punched his shoulder with her bony little fist. "Cut the crap. It's been a rough week. He may just shoot you, but I fucking swear, I'll stab you in the nuts if you don't answer." She pulled a screwdriver out of the glove compartment and shook it in his face.

He looked at me, then finding no support, he slumped in misery, hands crossed protectively over his groin with one eye on Delaney. "I'm just... trying to get my shit back."