Hard Case VI: The Killer Inside (John Harding Book 6) (2 page)

“Take your time sweetie. Flo… go on inside your house,” Lynn called out over her shoulder.

“I’ll stay, Lynn,” Flo said, folding arms across chest. “He come to my house to kill me.”

Lynn smiled at the bleeding, wide eyed Jeron Thomas, holding his knife in the unwounded appendage with a nonstop tremor. “Jeron won’t be killin’ anything in a moment.”

To Jeron’s credit, he saw his death in Lynn’s eyes, and tried to launch forward in a tackle to bring her down under him where speed wouldn’t mean anything. Unfortunately for him, speed meant everything in the next split second as Lynn shifted aside, covering Jeron’s face with her hand. She wrapped around his back while yanking his face into her chest. One lightning fast swipe, and Thomas sprayed arterial blood out in a fount. Lynn dropped his gurgling soon to be corpse to the sidewalk, where she watched him writhe in his last death throes into hell. Lynn looked up with a big grin at her cringing hoodie audience as she bent down and wiped her blade on Thomas’s still twitching pants leg.

“Well, damn… that was almost as satisfying as I’d hoped it would be.”

“That concludes the first part of our business. Thanks Crue,” Tommy stated.

Lynn did a final magic trick with her blade as it twirled around and disappeared into her jacket. She stepped away behind Jess and Dev. “It was my pleasure.”

“Second part of the business is we absorb you into Oaktown, or you get a champ to fight our champ, or we just shoot you all where you stand,” Tommy continued. “We’ll also make a little wager if you have anyone with the balls to fight. The bets will be in addition to the five large you get if your champ wins.”

When there wasn’t any sound from the hoodies, Lynn stepped forward, making clucking noises. “This isn’t fair to the little clucks, T. They should choose four, and we’ll let one of them have a knife.”

“What?!” I think Tommy and me yelped at the same time. I could hear Lucas braying on top of Flo’s roof.

“Hell yeah! We take that action,” one of the hoodies at the front said with the rest of his Mob making affirmative noises behind him.

Lynn turned to me. “Step up, Cheese! I’ll hold your jacket.”

Yeah, I’m the Cheeseburger, shortened to Cheese because a fighter named the ‘Rattler’ made hamburger out of my face in a UFC fight. My real name’s John Harding, although I seldom hear it anymore. I slid my jacket off and handed it to her. “I’m tellin’ Lora and Al.” Heh…heh. That threat got her. She didn’t count on my ratting her out to my wife and stepdaughter. “They aren’t going to be very happy with you, Crue.”

“You bastard! What the hell, Cheese? What goes on mission stays on mission, right T?”

“Don’t bring me into this, Psycho.” Tommy shunned her. “This was one of the reasons we didn’t want to bring you along.”

The hoodies had congregated while we were playing word games. Four of their biggest guys stripped off their hoodies. I assumed they were the picks. One of them flicked a switchblade into the ready position. Tommy looked at me, and I shrugged.

“It can’t be helped now, T.”

The one who had jumped on Crue’s deal came forward with a wad of money. “We got two large between us. What odds you givin’?”

“Odds? Did wild zombies eat your fuckin’ brain?”

“We know your man,” the kid says, pointing at me. “He John Harding. We need odds. He a pro.”

“We’ll give you three to one,” I said. “It’s okay, T. Let’s get this part of the evening festivities done.”

“Make it five.”

“Okay, five.” What the hell do I care? If I lose, Lucas will probably shoot me anyway.

Tommy gestured for us to move out of Jeron Thomas’s blood pool. “Come away from the blood pool where you bunch won’t be playin’ slip and slide. Crue’s right. We can’t let this incident get reported back to La Lora, John.”

“I had to say something when Crue dumped four ‘bangers on me, one of them with a knife. You know I wouldn’t say anything to Lora.”

“Hey… we gonna’ do this or not. Dry your eyes Harding. Hand over our money. We walk and let you live.”

I turned to the big guy shooting his mouth off. “I’m going to save you for last. I’m ready. Say when, Big-mouth.”

They got in their fighting stances, spreading out, which was just fine with me. Knife-man, by agreement I’m sure, stayed back. The punks figured to grab me, and knife-man guts me. Good plan. It wasn’t going to work, but it was a neat plan.

“Go!” The words no sooner left Big-mouth’s gums than I ran through him with a forearm blow to the head.

Contrary to what knife-man thought, I planned to fix him for the evening first. My charge caught him by surprise. Worse, I went into a slide with knee high side-kick. He had no chance to use the knife before the side of my booted foot slammed into his planted knee, smashing it free of its joint. Knife-man screamed, pitching onto his back with hands clutching his ruined knee. Big-mouth was still recovering from my forearm blow to the head, as I used my hitting the knee target to help pop out of the slide. Without stopping, I charged straight at the big guy across from me, leaping into a flying knee before he could react. It caught him right between the eyes. Goodnight sweet prince. The one I hadn’t touched yet tried to tackle me when I came down, but I stayed low with my right arm as a tripod base, and leg whipped the tackler’s feet out from under him. I football kicked him in the side. One or more of his ribs cracked with a familiar sickening snap I’ve heard before, accompanied by more screams.

Big-mouth, now on his feet didn’t look too enthused. As the last man standing, Big-mouth looked around with his fists up as if expecting a cavalry charge to his rescue. The Mob wanted to join in, but no way they challenged our backup. I grinned at Big-mouth, my hands at my sides.

“If you take a knee, we’ll talk about the Mob’s entry into the Oaktown Cartel. Stay on your feet, and I knock your ass out, and then we talk. Your choice.”

“Fuck you, Harding.” Big-mouth had game.

I put my fists up, walked in on him, and round house kicked the back of his left knee. Big mouth went right on his ass. I followed through with a left hook as he half sat on the ground that nearly took his head off. He went jet propelled onto his side with lifeless dead cat bounce and then started snoring. I did a quick look around, but my four opponents were done.

“Damn, Cheese,” Lynn called out. “Next time, I’ll make it six with two ‘bangers getting armed with baseball bats.”

“You’re not coming next time, Psycho,” Tommy said. “Okay, boys, pay up, and then the Oaktown Cartel Godfather, Gus Denova, will explain what your duties will be from now on. Get your damn ID’s out. We’ll scan them, and let you go get your cars to pick up your casualties. We’ll keep Jeron.”

Tommy, Jess, Dev, and the minions were well versed in handling the aftermath of an absorption. The Oaktown Cartel was like one of those Star Trek Borg Cubes. Tommy should start these things in Borg voice – ‘you will be assimilated’. Naturally, a couple of our assimilations rebelled against Borg rule. Those gangs don’t exist anymore. Yes, they had family members incensed because their murdering, looting, and pillaging DNA carriers disappeared. They wanted to sue the police, the city, the state, Mickey Mouse, and Pluto, but none of those entities were to blame. This was the first time one of our own was threatened. The 49
th
Street Mob will be watched and canceled if they didn’t conform.

We became ‘nanobots’ injected into the city of Oakland’s bloodstream. It was a dangerous game, but we already bought our own island refuge, and we didn’t have an extradition treaty with the beloved United States of America. So far, Oakland’s politicians and police tacitly look the other way due to our success rate. When someone in authority receives intel concerning something that could lead to the gangs looting and pillaging the city or murdering innocents, they inject our ‘Monster Squad Nanobots’ into the trouble core. We assimilate or go to war until the infection is cured. Sure, it’s outside the law. So is terrorizing and murdering witnesses, and turning neighborhoods into drug slums. We let the law handle the law abiding who get into a bit of trouble due to poor choices. We handle the organized thugs who believe they’re untouchable.

Lynn walked next to me while we watched the minions do their work under our protection. Every ‘banger in the city knew Gus Denova by reputation. He had been a murderous enforcer for a Columbian Drug Cartel. Lynn had cured him. He and his fellow Cruella Deville minions, Quays Tannous, and Silvio Ruelas had all been turned from the dark side. We were all monsters, but we leave the moralizing to the two faced politicians stealing with both hands while crying crocodile tears about injustice.

“Sorry, Cheese. Clint says I went way too damn far. Handling Jeron gave me such an adrenaline rush, I didn’t let the excess drain away before I shot my mouth off. I know this isn’t supposed to be some kind of challenge.”

“It is what it is, Sis, like you always say.” Lynn Montoya Dostiene is my sister by another mother as her husband Clint Dostiene is my brother by another mother. “I had a feeling this would get messy. We needed a statement made. No one comes for our loved ones… no one. If the Mob does anything other than what Gus orders it too, they’ll disappear. These outside the law adjustments are an inexact science. I admit you caught T and I by surprise, but what happened to the Mob will be streaking through the city grapevine by tomorrow, including the disappearance of Jeron Thomas. I’m sure he’ll have family looking for payback or someone to blame because poor old Jeron’s been a murderous thug since he was in diapers. Boo hoo. Jess’s Mom, Flo, is worth a thousand of those gangbangin’ bastards. You fixed Jeron real nice, Crue.”

“Thanks. You won’t let T ban me, will you?”

I chuckled. Like she’d listen even if he did. “He’ll get over it. We’ll have to stay on the down low for a while. We had to handle this in too much of a messy open way. The politicians and police will be under pressure to do something about the vicious Oaktown Cartel.”

“The only witnesses will be gangbangers. If they cause trouble, we’ll do them like they do innocent citizens. They’ll never make it to court. I can’t believe tomorrow is Al’s last soccer game for the season.”

“At least we could be helpers, and not have to get involved in running the team. It’s more fun as a spectator. Besides, we worked with Al privately anyway. You’re damn good at soccer. You should have been a coach.”

“Maybe when Clint Jr. gets of age. Is it against nature to talk Mommy and Daddy issues after I slit a guy’s throat, and you maimed four others?”

“I don’t know. Do you care?”

“Nope. I was wondering if I should.”

Now that was funny. “We pretend a lot. It’s part of the game where we offer our human mask for people to see rather than our monster mask.”

“What time’s the game tomorrow? I forgot to check the schedule.”

“It’s at one,” I replied. “Al has to be there by 12:30 though.”

“Are you making a pilgrimage to The Warehouse tonight?”

“I’d like to, but it’s late. Lora will be waiting for me. She probably let Al talk her into allowing the little extortionist to stay up late too because the game’s not until one. It’s Friday night, so I guess it’s no big deal. Al might even sleep in for a change.”

“Uh oh, planning on some morning delight, huh? Since Clint Jr’s been sleeping all night lately, it’s been easier on Clint and I. He jumps faster at the first sound on our Nanny Cam than I can even think. Clint said you’re fighting some guy named the Berserker in Las Vegas.”

“Maybe. That one’s in the air. He’s the number one contender. His opponent dropped out due to a training camp injury. The UFC and Berserker’s handler asked Tommy if I would fill in on short notice. If I do, I’ll probably be sleeping on the couch for the next month.”

“La Lora has been getting awful feisty lately with the disapproval tirades. Is there something that I, your unappreciated adopted sister, can help with?”

“Not really, Sis. You know how it is. Two people don’t always see eye to eye. I listen and reason with her, but we don’t have the option of unarmed combat like you and Clint.”

Lynn frowned. “The prick always beats me, but it does get rid of any tension building up. I don’t know what Clint Jr will think about it as he gets older.”

“Just so you’re not Tasing my partner, Clint, I think Clint Jr will understand. I think I like Lora’s small acts of disapproval more than if I had to come home like Clint, watching around every corner for an attack.”

“It keeps him sharp.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Do you think we’re done? I’m going to grab Clint and head for home. Dannie and Amara are watching movies tonight while watching Clint Jr and Tonto. I figure we should relieve them of their duties before it gets any later.”

“Sure, go ahead. Has Amara decided what she wants to do?”

Lynn looked away guiltily. “I think I may have another assistant.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. So she decided to attend college with Dannie, huh?”

“Yeah. She knows the score, and she’s okay with it. It’s not like I can recruit from the college bulletin board. I have another photo shoot down in LA soon with an interesting Red Dragon Security thread. Dannie and Amara have been studying all the movie tech angles to help in my directing. Plus, I get to travel everywhere with Clint Jr. I’m not real sure how Clint feels about my adding another assistant though. I’ve been avoiding the subject when he brings it up.”