No Going Back (2 page)

‘You’ve a mind to apologise to these good people is what you’ve got.’

The pressure went off Jay and she spun away from the young man, placing her back to the cooler. The perspiration on her skin felt like ice, but she didn’t move, just stared wide-eyed at the older cowboy as he stood in the doorway. He’d placed the straw hat back on his head, and it was sitting at the raffish angle adopted by the good guy in Western movies. Jay doubted there was anything good about the cowboy, though. His reason for intervening wasn’t well intentioned, but because there were too many witnesses. On the forecourt another vehicle had arrived: a station wagon with a young couple and three children inside. Nicole was also standing by the SUV, her hands at her throat as she watched the drama.

The blond man said, ‘Why, heck! If you ain’t right.’ He quickly moved away from Jay, raising his hands. He still held the Xerox and Jay saw a smudged image of a young woman on it. Beneath her name was printed the fateful word:
missing
.

The cowboy came inside. ‘My buddy is hurting, folks. His woman has gone and run off someplace. You can imagine how upset he is, I’m sure? Now let’s all just calm down, shall we, and get about our own business?’

Jay opened her mouth to object, but the teller jerked his head at her, another warning to get out. For all she joked about enjoying walking on the wild side, Jay had experienced enough of it for one day. She hurried for the door. Before she could escape, the cowboy lifted his arm and blocked her way. ‘It’s finished with, right? There’ll be no making complaints to the po-lice?’

That was when her big mouth got the better of her and said, ‘I’m not surprised that his woman ran away. Your
buddy
is an animal.’

The cowboy showed her his gap-toothed grin, revealing stumps of rotting teeth. ‘Yup. You got that right. He probably should be in a cage, but I’m not gonna let that happen.’ He leaned in close. ‘You get me, miss?’

‘I get you,’ Jay said, as she ducked under his arm and scurried back to the SUV.

‘What was all that about?’ Nic asked, her face drained of colour.

‘Just get in, Nic. We have to get out of here.’

Jay glanced over at the pick-up truck. The sunlight was making a prism of the windscreen, causing rainbows to bounce back at her. She thought she saw another figure seated in the cab, but couldn’t be sure. Forget about it, she told herself. Two maniacs are enough for anyone to contend with.

They scrambled inside the SUV, and Nic tossed over the keys. Jay jammed them into the ignition and roared out on to the highway. As dust rose in a cloud behind them, she could have sworn a figure alighted from the pick-up and moved towards the family’s station wagon. Then she could no longer see anything for the trail dirt.

‘What happened?’

Glancing across at Nicole, Jay guessed her face was as pale as her friend’s. ‘Just a couple of crazy men,’ she said. ‘If I ever see them again, it will be way too soon.’

Her words, said in hope, would come back to haunt Jay tenfold.

2

I’m a firm believer in employing economy of motion, and that extends to the day job as much as anything else in life. I’d set off from my home near to Mexico Beach on the Gulf Coast to meet Jameson Walker, but I had a couple of hours to kill. My route took me past Tyndall Air Force Base, and over water on the Parkway, before reaching Panama City, where Walker’s flight was scheduled to land. Off and on for the past fortnight I’d been engaged on a job in the neighbouring town of Callaway, and it was only a minor diversion to go there and tie up the loose ends.

I had my military pension, as well as funds from the sale of my house in the UK and other savings and investments I’d set in place over the past eighteen years, but I still needed a wage. I’d signed on as a partner in my friend Rink’s private investigations business, albeit I didn’t see myself as much of a detective. The work I tended to take on was where a person’s guilt wasn’t necessarily the issue, but how they could be made to pay for their transgression was. Sometimes, by the nature of their crimes, the law couldn’t touch them. That was where I came in.

Maria Purefoy worked hard at a major chain store. It was thankless work, with long hours and a minimum wage. It was difficult for her to raise her four boys after their daddy ran off and left them to fend for themselves. Her eldest son, Brian, sixteen, had fallen in with a group of youths who believed that the only life was one spent on a skateboard. They hadn’t anticipated that the older boys would force them into using their wheels to
run errands
for them. Brian Purefoy had been arrested for dealing cocaine, then got himself a criminal record, a fine neither he nor his mother could afford, and threats demanding allegiance from the older gang. Maria was worried that her son was being forced down a slippery slope, and wanted things stopped.

I wouldn’t normally involve myself in a job like that – sadly they were ten a penny these days – but Maria had reported that her boy was terrified of saying no. A week before, one of his friends had been the victim of a hit and run accident where he’d ended up with two broken legs and a perforated spleen. The friend had recently told the gang where to shove their drugs. It wasn’t in me to stand idle while kids were being hurt.

Like Maria, the local cops had a thankless task on their plate. With witnesses too afraid to come forward they had no way of bringing the offenders to justice; their hands were tied. I was sure they knew why I was around and were steering a wide berth. Still, they could only allow me so much leeway before the press got hold of the story and started screaming about a crazy vigilante stalking their town. I couldn’t go in all guns blazing, but, as long as nobody died, the cops kept out of my way.

I’d already pulled two of the older skater guys; showed them the error of their ways. Still, their leader, a twenty-three-year-old punk named Joey Dorsey, had the balls to front things out. Dorsey could have made it big on the boarding scene, not that he was in Tony Hawk’s league, but he’d allowed his wilder urges to get a hold of his good sense, and had gone off-track. Now he fancied himself as the local king of anarchy and lived up to the image. The trouble with following his ethos is that there’s always someone else tougher, more brutal, and prepared to bend the rules that much further. I decided that, seeing as I was passing, I might as well go and teach Joey that valuable lesson.

When I arrived at his house, I had to smile. Like many who embraced the notion of anarchy, Dorsey came from a privileged background. Basically he was a spoiled brat who’d had everything he’d desired, but was so greedy he wanted more. His house, or more correctly that of his parents, was on a huge plot of land on Callaway Point overlooking the still waters of a lagoon. It was a sprawling mansion with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a separate three-door garage to accommodate the family Jags and Mercs. A private road ran up to a turning circle outside the house, and I was glad to find a number of vehicles sitting out in the Floridian heat. If I was going to show Dorsey up for what he was, it was better that the message rang loud and clear.

Parking my Audi alongside a black SUV with tinted windows, I exited on to hard-packed sand. I stretched, releasing the kinks from my muscles, then made for a paved walkway that led between the house and garage. There was a babble of raucous laughter, punctuated by enough four-letter words to keep an ignoramus happy, the clink of bottles, and the splashing of bodies plunging into deep water. Smoke wafted on the breeze: a potpourri of barbecue sauce and marijuana.

It must have been a business meeting, because thankfully there was no sign of Dorsey’s parents, and there were none of the young girls who occasionally hung with the gang, just the eight youths who were terrorising their younger skating buddies into dealing dope for them. The two guys I’d already had a word with were there: I recognised them by the bruises around their eyes. Another three were splashing in a large swimming pool, one more lounging on an inflatable bed at the side of it, toking on a joint. A tall, skinny guy with blond dreadlocks was turning burgers on a barbecue. Dorsey lorded it over the scene like the king of the castle, his throne a striped deckchair.

Everyone fell silent as I appeared on the paved area next to the pool.

‘The SUV back there,’ I said by way of introduction. ‘Whose is it?’

‘Who the fuck are you, dude?’ Dorsey scrambled up from the deckchair, and stood breathing hard, his hands fisted by his sides. He was wearing board shorts and a
tap out
T-shirt that moulded to his muscles.

Ignoring him, I repeated, ‘Whose is it?’

On my way in I’d noted the dent in the front fender of the SUV; it approximated to the height of a kid squatting on a skateboard.

‘Who wants to know?’ Dorsey said.

‘I’m not making myself clear enough?’

One of the guys with a bruised face moved close to Dorsey, whispering and jabbing his hand my way.

‘You’re the asshole who thinks he’s gonna shut me down?’ Dorsey sneered as he looked me up and down. He didn’t look too impressed, but that was good because it meant he’d underestimate me.

‘I’m Joe Hunter,’ I said, ‘and, yeah, I’m shutting you down.’

‘You’re fucking kidding me! You walk in here like King Shit and think that’s going to frighten
me
? Big mistake, asshole.’

There were a couple of empty beer bottles lying on the floor by my feet. I flicked one of them into the pool with the toe of my boot. The bottle made a splash, and all eyes turned to it. Distraction move only: before they could return their gaze to me, I slipped my hand under the tail of my jacket and pulled out my SIG Sauer P226. A murmur of fear spread through the group, but Dorsey wasn’t having it. He stepped forward aggressively, raising a finger to point at me. ‘You ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing with that!’ Turning to his buddies, he said, ‘He hasn’t got the balls to shoot anyone. He’s just trying to scare us.’

‘You’re right about one thing,’ I said, as I circled the pool. One of the youths scrambled out of my way, and I stood over the one lying on the inflatable bed. ‘I am here to scare you. But you’re wrong if you don’t think I’ll shoot.’

The youth on the bed let out a high-pitched shriek, flicked away his joint and tried to scramble off, but he wasn’t as fast as a bullet.

The SIG cracked.

The youth rolled over and splashed into the water, and all around me the others leaped for cover.

Over the sounds of their bleating cries came the hiss of the deflating bed.

The youth from the bed erupted out of the pool gasping, blinking chlorinated water from his eyes. Frantically he checked for blood frothing around him.

‘Relax,’ I told him. ‘I didn’t shoot you.’

Trying to live up to the size of his ego, Dorsey laughed. It was forced and everyone there knew it. ‘I fucking told you he wouldn’t.’

‘Want to try me again?’ I stalked forward; in his haste to get away the dreadlocked guy bumped the barbecue, knocking hot coals on the floor. He danced as the cinders invaded his sandals, then launched himself into the water with a howl.

Now the only ones on dry ground were Dorsey and his two lieutenants – the ones I’d already slapped around. ‘One of you owns the SUV. Which is it?’

The three of them shared glances, and I could tell from the youth on my left that the vehicle was his. Without taking my eyes off Dorsey, I lifted my SIG and aimed it at the guilty youth. ‘So it’s his? But who was driving?’

‘Not me, man!’ Suddenly Dorsey had lost all pretence at being a tough guy. Now he was just an overgrown, spoiled baby with tears on his face.

I looked at the youth I held under my gun. ‘You knocked that boy off his skateboard.’

The youth’s face folded in on itself. ‘I didn’t mean to run him down, man! We were just trying to frighten him . . . we didn’t mean to put him in hospital!’

‘The thing is, you did. And someone should pay for that.’

‘Not me, man! It was Dorsey who told me to do it!’

‘I know.’ I turned the gun on their leader.

Dorsey hands were still up, but they were no longer threatening. ‘Jesus, dude! C’mon . . .’

‘Only one way I can see to put this right.’

Urine splattered down Dorsey’s legs. ‘Don’t do this, please.
Don’t shoot me!?
’

‘OK,’ I said, and lowered the gun. ‘But there’s still a price to pay. Are you familiar with the concept of an eye for an eye?’

Before he could register my meaning I swivelled and snapped a kick into his knee. The joint went sideways and I heard the click of rupturing tendons. Dorsey hit the deck squealing.

‘Get up tough guy,’ I said.

‘You broke my leg!’

‘At least I didn’t shoot you. Don’t worry arsehole, you’ll heal, but riding your board will never be the same again.’ I indicated his friends with the barrel of my gun. ‘Help him up.’

The two punks dragged their moaning leader off the floor, but as soon as he could support himself on his good leg they quickly retreated. Dorsey stood trembling, his good leg partly buckling, the piss pooling around his feet. ‘You still owe that kid another leg, and a spleen.’

‘Jesus,’ Dorsey wailed. ‘You’re not gonna . . .’

‘No, so you can stop crying like a baby. But you are going to pay. You’ll go to the police and tell them what happened.’