For Her Honor (11 page)

“There’s another
, too,” Doug said, noticing the sedan parked next to Jackie’s vehicle. “He ain’t alone.”

“Can’t be sure how many are in there,” Taz said.

Ben looked at Doug. “Sarge?”

For all his bloated attitude and opinion
s, Doug was a thinker. He did a quick sweep of the joint, checking all the lower level windows until he came across an open one. “One at a time, fellas. Keep it quiet.”

One by one, each Skull entered the buil
ding, taking quiet steps towards the muffled voices. Taz’s astute senses instantly told him there were only two guys. Perfect. Peeking in, he saw Jackie sitting at a desk in the center of a large warehouse watching television and chugging a bottle of liquor while a buddy smoked a joint. Double perfect. Drunk, high and, from what they could see, unarmed. After Ben did a quick search to make sure no one else was around, the three men made their appearance guns drawn. “So this is where the party is, gents,” Doug announced.

Jackie fell back from his chair while his friend went for an escape.
Doug took care of Jackie, knocking him to the ground and keeping him down with his foot while Ben caught the friend. The enforcer’s large hand encircled the front of his throat while pressing the barrel of his gun to his forehead. “Don’t….move.”

It was Taz’s turn.
The shit he loved the most. “Who do we have here?” He fished through the friend’s back pocket and retrieved a wallet, sliding out the guy’s license. “Okay, then. My photographic memory has all your info, dude. Name, address. Translation – I know where you live. And,” he flipped through the photos, “what do we have here? That your ol’ lady?”

The guy nodded
while gasping for air under Ben’s chokehold.

Taz let out a low whistle.
“She’s a looker, my friend. You did good. I bet she’s a hell of a fuck, too.” He returned the wallet back to the guy’s pocket, then came around to face him. “You leak one word of this, I’m gonna find out just how good she is. We clear on that little tidbit?”

Sweating and shaking, the guy n
odded. That was Ben’s cue to send a sharp elbow into the guy’s head and into unconsciousness.

Now came the real fun.

“Jackie-boy!” Taz walked over while removing the pouch from around his waist. “I hear you’ve been makin’ bets you can’t cover. That right?”

“Please.
Please,” Jackie begged. “I’ll get you the money. I swear.”

Pulling zip ties from the pouch, Taz handed them to Doug to tie Jackie’s hand
s behind his back. “Unfortunately, my friend, your promise is past its expiration date. You were supposed to pay up two weeks ago. And a certain airline ticket to Canada tells me you didn’t plan on forkin’ over a single dime.” Taz crouched down to face him on the ground. “Am I right, or am I right?”

“I was gonna get it
,” Jackie stated. “I swear I was!”

“Yeah, see
,” Taz straightened up to walk around, “the problem with that is that your flight’s scheduled in two days. You really gonna make me believe you were gonna square away your debt before you left the country? Come, Jackie. I ain’t a dickhead. Unlike you.” He looked to his brothers. “Get him up.”

Doug and Ben dragged Jackie up and leaned him against a supporting beam.
Taz went back to his pouch, pulled out a surgical knife and walked up to Jackie. “See, I think you’re lyin’. And the only reason you’re grovelin’ now is because you want to save whatever body parts we plan to exact as payment.”

“No!
No! I swear, I’ll get…..”

Doug
found a roll of paper towels, ripped some off and shoved them in Jackie’s mouth to shut him up. “Ah, that’s better,” Taz said then continued his assault. “So,
Mister
Jones. Know what my favorite movie is?”

Jackie furiously shook his head.

“Oh, glad you asked. It’s Reservoir Dogs.” He looked between Doug and Ben. “Right, guys?”

Both Skulls nodded.

“I’m especially fond of Mr. Blonde because he’s a sadistic motherfucker. Likes to toy with you, make you think everything’s gonna be okay, then…..BAM!”

With precision quickness, Taz sliced the back of Jackie’s ear.
His howl of pain was muffled by the paper towels. “I always wanted to do that.” Taz circled him, in full psychological torment mode. “Always wanted to know what that felt like. But, lucky for you, I can’t have you walkin’ around with one ear. Too…I don’t know…obvious. I think maybe a better way to teach you a lesson is to make sure you can never comfortably toss the dice again.”

Taz went behi
nd Jackie to his tied hands, the knife poised at his carpel tendon. “Now, where’s that median nerve again?” Taz asked himself while Jackie screamed. “Don’t worry. You’ll lose use of your thumb and some sensation. You could
probably
shoot craps, but not jerk off. I don’t know. Never did this before. You’re my first. Aren’t you a lucky dog?”

With another rapid slice, Taz ripped through Jackie’s thumb meat, severing the nerve and making him howl in agony through his gag.
“I don’t have a medical degree, so you better hope I did it right, bro. I could’ve done more damage than I intended. Oh well, least you have your balls. At the moment. Now the Achilles tendon – I know
exactly
where that sucker is.”

Crouching down, Taz lifted the guy
’s pant leg and lowered his sock. Warm, wetness greeted him. Jackie had pissed himself scared. “Great. You fuckin’ contaminated me with your piss, asshole. Maybe if you manned up and forked over what you owed, you wouldn’t be in this position. You have the money – close to 250Gs in two accounts.”

Jackie struggled to talk and Doug pulled the gag out.
“I will. I will, it’s…it’s just all I have. I bailed on my house. I closed my business. My wife left. Please! I’ll get you the money. Please!”

Taz noticed the laptop on the desk.
“Doug, get his laptop.” He then turned back to Jackie. “Here’s how it’s goin’ to go down. We have an account number that you’re goin’ to wire funds to – right now. And don’t say you need the bank to do it in the mornin’. You have the credentials to do outgoin’ wires from your account. Now be a good boy and give my friend the website and log in to your bank accounts or,” he bent down towards Jackie’s ankles, knife poised at the tendon, “say goodbye to ever walkin’ again without use of crutches.”

“Okay….okay…okay.
I’ll give it to you.”

It always worked.

“Good man. Wise choice,” Taz said, straightening up. “You don’t mind if we wait here while the transaction takes place?”

Jackie gave over the info to
Doug, who punched it in while Ben stood by with his gun trained on Jackie the entire time. It took about fifteen minutes, but they got confirmation. Ben walked off to the side and placed a phone call to Vic who, in turn, called Conti that the transaction had been completed. “Good,” Ben said, just as the friend began to stir on the ground.

“Pleasure doin’
business with you, Jackie-boy. If I were you, I’d think twice next time you decide to bite off more than you can chew.”

Jackie shook his head.
“You don’t understand. I lost everything. I had to get it back somehow.”

“Maybe you’ll hire estimators who know what the fuck they’re doin’,” Doug told him.

“Wasn’t that,” Jackie choked out. “Investments. Lost it all. Guy embezzled every dime. Motherfucker took my money and hung me to dry.”

“
Not
my problem,” Taz told him.

“Others
out there like me. Lost it all. Trusted the wrong guy. He’s in jail, but people are still pissed. They’ll find some way to collect. Track down that rich bitch of his and milk it out of her.”

“Yeah, you’re talkin’ to me as if I care, Jackie.”
Taz put his stuff away and looked to Doug and Ben. “We done?”

“It’s a wrap,” Doug said.

Taz nodded.

Ben shot both guys in the head.

Yeah, he had the money, but he’d lied about it and was prepared to bail. Lessons had to be learned.

Chapter Eleven

Earlier tha
t evening, Karen wrapped up closing the store with Jen and was out the door before seven. The sun was losing its vibrancy, while a twinge of purplish dusk circled the peak of a mountain visible from the plaza. She walked down to the bakery to find the ‘CLOSED’ sign up. Not knowing which car in the lot was Janice’s, she wasn’t sure if she was still here or not. Tapping her knuckles on the glass door, she waited a bit before Janice appeared from the back to let her in. “Thought you forgot about me, hon.”

“Thought you got tired of waiting and left.”

“Nah. Not for what I have planned. C’mon, follow me.”

The back room
had all the contraptions for baking everything under the sun from bread to wedding cakes. A floor mixer, long prep tables, two enormous ovens and about a hundred baking trays filled the area amid patches of white flour sprinkled about. This was where all the fattening magic happened. Janice spread her arms wide. “Welcome to my domain. Long way from a little cookie ‘n cupcake hovel.”

“That’s how you started?”

Janice nodded. “After I got my shit together and realized I had to be a mother and not some backstage accessory.”

Karen could only imagine the wild past Janice had.
“You said you had a little something for me.”

“Sure do.”
Janice went over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Always keep a supply. Club runs Ticker Liquor so I get the family discount.” She got two glasses. “Nothing fancy, but it’ll give you the buzz you need after what happened this afternoon.”

Gratefully, Karen took the glass.
She just didn’t need a buzz, she needed to swim in an alcohol bath after that little visit from her mother and sister. “Thanks.”

“Yo
u got it.” Janice coughed hard then caught her breath. “Damn, maybe I do need to kick the smokes.” Looking a little woozy, she pulled two folding chairs and sat in one. “I get my checkup faithfully. Lungs are good, considering,” she swiped a pack of Marlboro off a table top. “My son’ll kill me if he knew I bought a new pack with this damn cough, still. Thirty-six years I parented that little shit. Now he turns the tables on me.”

“He cares about you.”
Karen took a healthy drink of the wine. It was good. Not too fruity or dry. “You’re his mother.”

“Yep.” Janice put her cigarettes down and drank her wine.
“Just the two of us all these years. I was a screw-up in the beginning.”

Karen was appalled.
“Where did they think you’d go?”

“Oh, they knew my sister would take me in.
She was a single workaholic. Had her own place. I paid her back by doing the cleaning, cooking, errands. When Gabriel…….Taz was born, my mother slowly tried to inch her way back into my life. Figured I could at least get free babysitting out of her. She or my sister watched him while I took a bartending job at night. Old place called The Water Rock, which is now the Skulls’ clubhouse. They only kept it open for a year or two after taking it over, and that’s when I had to get my ass in gear and figure out what to do with my life.

“
Taz was in school, my sister was at work and I was home all day. Don’t know what hit me, but I just found her cookbooks, pulled out flour, sugar and butter and began baking. It calmed me. Little by little I got fancier and fancier and began to wrap my desserts and give them to the stores in town to sell at the counter. From there it was a stand, then finally, the store. Scared me shitless, but I did it.”

She took a deep breath then a deeper drink of wine.
“Came a long way from giving blowjobs to rock stars.” Karen almost choked. “Sorry. Overshare. Just like my son, sometimes I just can’t shut up.”

Yes, mother and son were definitely a lot alike.
“Janice, what you did before. What you said……”

Janice held her hand up.
“Not necessary, hon. Like I said, I know what it’s like. My mother was quite the bitch. Thought I’d break down, get an abortion and crawl back home. No fuckin’ way. Taz may’ve been a terror when he was a kid, but he’s
my
terror.
My
son. And,” she looked pleased with herself, “despite his habit of putting holes in his body and looking like he needs an exorcist, he turned out pretty well.”

Karen didn’t think Taz was hard on the eyes.
Not one bit. Aside from that beard and piercings, he was clean cut, had deep, dark eyes and dimples, which softened that harsh look. And then when he smiled and those dimples deepened, that strange warmth always seemed to appear. Well, it wasn’t strange anymore. She knew what caused it. She’d felt it rush through her when he’d fucked her at the reservoir. “He does seem like a nice guy. And he’s very sweet to you.”

Coughing again, Janice got up to grab the wine bottle
. “He worries about me too much. What he should be worried about is not winding up like me – single and alone.”

“But you’re not alone.
You’ve got an entire town.”

“
We’re like one, big convoluted family. But I want him to have something outside of spending his weekends drinking and dancing from blondes to brunettes.”

Okay, so Taz was quite the male whore, which suddenly made Karen feel cheap abo
ut what happened between them, even though she’d said she was okay with it. She hadn’t seen nor heard from him since then, which made the idea of that being a one-time thing more solid. But for some crazy reason, she didn’t regret it. And even crazier, she’d do it again. That was some wild, hot sex they’d had, which had made her feel free from the shell of her former life.

“I think he
likes you.”

That made Karen cough now.
“Oh…..no, I don’t….”

“I do.
Remember,” she tapped the side of her head, “a mother knows these things. I saw the way he looked at you when he came in the bakery Wednesday. He remembered you. With all the females he’s rotated through, I can’t recall the last time he remembered one specifically.”

“But,” Karen finished her wine and held her glass out for more, “from the sound of it, he’s not ready to settle down.”

Janice poured. “He will. I know he will. He can’t live like that forever. Hell, even Ben knew a good thing when he met Eva and snatched her up. I just have that feeling. And when that day comes I’ll be one very happy woman.”

Karen held
the wine glass to her lips and froze. Something about that last line was familiar. But, why? Where did she……?”

“Someone in this plaza is going to be a very happy woman.”

The psychic. Oh shit, really?

“
Karen?”

Snapped from her thoughts, Karen noticed Janice holding her chest, her color not looking so good.
“Janice?” She went over to where Janice had slumped down in her chair. “Janice, what’s wrong?”

“I….,
” she continued to rub her chest, “it feels like someone’s pushing on my chest.”

Janice wasn’t clutching her heart or her arm, so Karen didn’t think it was a heart attack.
She immediately found her purse. “I’m calling 9-1-1. And Taz. What’s his….?”

“No.” Janice wheezed.
“He’s not in town. Eva. Call Eva. She can get…,” Janice stopped talking as she fought for breath.

“Hold on Janice!”

~~~***~~~

Taz was behind the wheel of the van after leaving Jackie Jones and his friend very dead.
After a quick call to Wes to be sure to wipe all traces of the online bank transaction, Ben noticed a message on his phone. “Shit, it’s from Eva. She called twice almost two hours ago.”

The guys kept their phones off when on a job, especially one where they needed to hide behind the silence.
“She okay?” Taz asked from the front. He was sure Ben had given his old lady the lowdown about contacting him on these little jaunts.

“Finding out now.”
He hit redial and got her. “Hey darlin’, what’s up? You okay?”

Silence followed as he listened.
And then he reacted. “Shit, she okay? We’re on our way back. Give us forty-five.”

“What is it
?” Doug asked.

Crouched down in the back of the van,
Ben crept towards the driver’s side and squeezed Taz’s shoulder. “Bro. It’s your ma.”

Taz spun his head around.
“What? What happened?”

“She’s
at Weirton. I’ll tell you on the way.”

~~~***~~~

Several times Ben and Doug told Taz to slow down. Last thing they needed was to get pulled over while carrying. Less than forty minutes later, they pulled into Weirton Medical Center. Ben told Taz to stop at the ER entrance. “Go on in,” he said, moving up front, “we’ll park and meet you inside.”

Taz nodded then exited the van.
He sprinted towards the emergency entrance and skidded to a stop at the desk, banging his hand on the edge. A pinched admissions clerk looked up from behind her computer, not quite able to contain her reaction. “Excuse me….?”

“
Janice Morrell? She was brought in about two hours ago.”

The clerk pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up.
“Hold on sir, let me check.”

Slapping his hands on the desk one more time, Taz took off for the ER care area.
“Ain’t got time to hold, mama. I’ll find her myself.”

“Sir…..sir, wait.”

Taz answered by giving her a middle-finger salute as he pushed through the double doors. He knew how slow these ERs operated as far as getting someone admitted if they needed. Lord knows he’d had his share of battle wounds over the years. From what Ben transmitted, Eva’s first message was that Karen had called and was with his ma when she’d had trouble breathing, and she was meeting her at the hospital. Second call was with a possible prognosis – walking pneumonia, whatever the fuck that meant – and they were waiting with her while she was being treated. That was the entirety of the message and not enough to calm him down as he’d raced the van over the border back into West Virginia.

He stalked around the ER, pushing past anyone who got in his way without a care for consideration.
The only person who mattered was his ma.

“Taz?”

He was so frantic, looking into all the sectioned areas that he barely heard Eva’s voice.

Or saw Karen sitting next to her.

“Eva.” He walked towards her, his eyes flitting to Karen. “What happened? Where is she? Where’s the….?”

“Calm down.”
Eva gently put a hand on his arm. “She’s with the doctor. It is walking pneumonia. She’s had the symptoms for weeks – the cough, fatigue, headaches. It’s not as severe as regular pneumonia, but because she let it go so long, and the fact she smokes, they want to keep her overnight and administer antibiotics intravenously – just to be safe.”

He felt
better. A little. Damn, his ma and those fucking smokes. He better not catch her with another cigarette after this. Even in his internal tirade, he kept looking to Karen, who’d remained quiet while Eva talked. “How did Ma get here?”

Eva looked at Karen
, who spoke up. “I was with her at the bakery. Her cough sounded worse, and then she felt like she couldn’t breathe. I called 9-1-1 first, then Eva to get a hold of you. I followed the ambulance.”

Taz cocked his head.
“You were with her? You stayed with her?”

“Of course.”

The doctor came out as Ben and Doug entered the emergency room. The pinched puss at the front desk obviously hadn’t dared to stop those two from coming back. Ben went right up to Eva and gave her a fierce hug. That big lug of a guy whose favorite target was someone’s skull was a different person in the presence of his pregnant wife. He was able to be what he needed at home and for the club, as evidenced tonight. Taz still couldn’t fathom it. He gave Karen a sweeping look before regarding the doctor. “How is she?”

“You are….?”

“Her son. How is she?”

The doctor pretty much repeated what Eva
had said and was adamant about keeping his ma overnight until she had a good amount of antibiotics pumped into her. “They’ll fight the infection faster intravenously than orally. She has chills and a slight fever, and I don’t want to release her until her temperature is down. Luckily this was the walking kind. She should be fine. You can go see her.”

“K.
Thanks.” He looked at everyone. “You guys can head back.”

“How’re you gonna get back, bro?”
Doug asked. “Came in the van.”

Taz looked at Karen and something silent passed between them
, which she seemed to catch onto. “I have my car. I can drive you back.”

He nodded, trying not to look affected by her willingness to stay or puzzled by hi
s wanting her to. “Sure. Thanks.”

“I’ll let Vic and everyone else know about your ma,” Doug said. “Elle too.
We’re here, Taz. She’s family.
We’re
family.”

~~~***~~~

Everyone departed, leaving Karen alone with Taz. He looked at a loss as to why she was still here or even that she’d come at all. After all, she wasn’t part of their
convoluted family
as Janice had so lovingly put it. She was so way outside their circle that she was hanging off the end. “I hope you don’t mind I followed her here.”