Jack Stone - Wild Justice (18 page)

“I’ve been waiting for you, boy,” the sheriff said, his voice sounding wheezy and rasping like the air in his lungs was having trouble getting out.

“I’ve been
looking
for you,” Stone said. “How’s your arm?”

He took two steps into the
room, gun still extended, aimed at the spot between the sheriff’s beady dark eyes.

The sheriff looked mildly amused. Under the sleeve of his uniform was a thick wad of bandage. He glanced down and flexed his fingers almost like a reaction.

“Got myself bitten,” he said vaguely. “But it’s getting better.”

Sheriff Cartwright rocked forward in his chair. It was an old leather thing with a high back and a couple of padded armrests. It groaned und
er the weight of his body as he turned slightly and set his hands flat down on the desk, his fingers a couple of inches from the stock of the shotgun. Then he smiled.

“You’re a might skittish considering everything I’ve heard about you,” the sheriff said, puffed up with confidence and arrogance for some reason. “Set the gun down, and
then sit your ass down. I think it’s time we had a long talk, you and me.” The sheriff nodded to a steel framed interview chair across the desk. Stone sat down, kept the gun in his hand, let it hang low against the side of his leg.

“So talk.”

The sheriff shook his head and smiled. “Gun,” he
nodded. “Put it on the desk first. Then we’ll talk.”

Stone assessed the threat. He was on the sheriff’s turf. The environment was unfamiliar to him. The sheriff looked calm and confident,
like he had a secret. Like he had an Ace up his sleeve. But in a man-on-man situation, Stone knew he could take the guy down. And if it came to a scramble for the weapons, Stone knew he would be faster. He set the pistol down on the desk.

The sheriff sat back. Smiled.

“Better,” he said. “Now we can have that talk.”

“About what?”

The sheriff frowned. “About those two local girls you’ve been asking around town about, of course,” he said amiably. “And about the damage you have been doing since you arrived in my town. You’ve caused a lot of upset, son. Do you know that?”

Stone raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “I don’t like people who traffic young girls as sex slaves.
And I’m not your son.”

The sheriff shook his head. “You’re getting yourself all
worked up over nothing, boy,” he said. “Those girls were asking for everything they got.”

“Because one of them bit your arm?”

“Because of who they are – and what they are.”

Stone sat back. “
And what exactly are they?”

The sheriff shook his head again.
Waved his hand in the air like he was waving away Stone’s question. Gave a long wheezing sigh and started afresh. “There is a basic law of supply and demand you are ignoring,” the sheriff said. “The truth is there are a lot of men who are willing to pay big money for fresh young girls, trained to obey their every need and to provide them with every pleasure they desire. This is just the free market in action. It’s as American as apple pie – and you’re getting in the way of that.”

Stone
stayed calm. “So you prey on young girls and you sell them to the highest bidder.”

“No. Not normally.”

“But you did this time. You snatched those two girls from the roadside and you were going to sell them to the guys in the SUV.”

T
he sheriff nodded. “That’s true. Hank snatched them girls. But that’s not how the system works, normally. This little incident was…. unexpected.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I had an order for two girls and my supplier couldn’t fill that order in the usual way,” he spread his hands wide in a friendly gesture. “What is a man to do?” he smiled. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Your supplier. You mean Harper.”

The sheriff paused, tilted his head to the side. “You are very well informed,” he said slowly.

“So you snatched the girls?” Stone asked again.

“That’s right.”

“And you have them somewhere.”

“That’s right.”

“But you no longer have clients. The two guys in the blue SUV left town.
I made sure of it.”

“That’s right,” the sheriff’s voice suddenly had a growled edge to it. “You cost me and my associate a lot of money tonight, boy. I’m not happy about that. Not happy at all.”

“Your associate. You mean your brother-in-law, Hank Dodd.”

The sheriff nodded. “You owe Hank a front door, by the way.”

Stone shrugged. “Put it on my bill.”

The sheriff smiled. “Oh, I will. I will – I promise you.”

There was a long silence in the room. The two men just stared across the desk at each other. Stone saw the sheriff’s eyes flicker down at his desk, maybe trying to gauge what would happen if he suddenly went for the shotgun.

“Where are the girls?” Stone asked.

The sheriff smiled. “I have them.”

“They’re safe?”

“They’re safe for the moment. And if you play the game, they’ll stay safe. But if you keep pushing me, boy… well…” He cocked one eyebrow at Stone in a cynical mocking gesture.

“So what do you do with them now you don’t have a buyer?”

The sheriff smiled. “Boy, there are always buyers,” he said. “And those two girls are sweet.” He drew out the last word, giving it emphasis. Then he lifted one hand to his face and drew one of his fingers under his nose, as though he was inhaling the aroma of a cigar. “This just means old Jim Cartwright gets a few more weeks of sampling their goodies before the next buyer turns up.”

Stone felt his
anger building like the pressure in a cooker that needed release. The instinct to kill came upon him like a black unholy rage. The two men glared at each other. Stone bunched his fist and thought about heart-punching the guy.

He clenched his jaw, fought the ur
ge to leap across the table. Fought to keep his voice unaffected.

“But it’s all over, sheriff,” Stone said simply. “You see I’m taking you down.”

The sheriff laughed. Laughed long and hard. Laughed until his big stomach rippled and his eyes watered.

“You think because you beat up two strangers, and put a bullet in the leg of one of my boys that you’re going to take me down?” he shook his head sadly. “You think because you drove a truck through the window of Hank’s bar and set it alight that everything I’ve built up here is coming apart? Who do you think you are, boy?”

“I’m your worst nightmare,” Stone said. “I’m the guy who won’t go away. I’m the guy who has nothing to lose. I’m the guy who won’t hesitate when it comes time to cut out your heart and spill your guts across the gutter. I’m the guy you can’t stop.”

The sheriff ‘s heavy jaws started chewing like a bulldog with a bone. He took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead and under his fleshy chin and then paused to stare
hard at the man across the desk.

The tension
in the room became adversarial. The sheriff stared belligerently at Stone for a long time, then glanced down at his wristwatch. It was a cheap gold thing, wrapped around a wrist that was thick as a leg of ham.

“I think you’ve underestimated me,” the sheriff said
, measuring his words. “You’ve forgotten about Hank and big Davey Barstow. They’ll be back here any minute. Then it’s three against one.”

Stone smiled. Now he understood the sheriff’s confidence
, and why he had been so willing to answer Stone’s questions. He had been playing for time until his back-up arrived. He figured it was only minutes now before Jack Stone was dead on the floor.

“And you underestimate me,” Stone
said calmly. “Your help isn’t coming, sheriff. The big guy with the ponytail and beard who owns the flatbed truck is laying in the gutter on Main Street. I broke his leg so badly he will probably never walk again – and Hank isn’t coming back either. Never. He just died in the bar fire. The building collapsed when he was inside, trying to recover money. It saved me killing him,” Stone smiled. “So now you’re the only one left.”

Stone leaned back and saw t
he sheriff’s eyes shift and narrow. There was a little jump of nerves in the point of his clenched jaws and his expression slowly began to transform into a look of alarm. He stared at Stone with his lips parting soft and thin and slack. Then he lifted his eyes to the empty doorway and Stone saw some of the color and all of the man’s arrogant confident drain away. The sheriff glanced back down, but this time his eyes were on the shotgun. He stared at the weapon for three long seconds – and then he made a lunge for it.

Stone didn’t
go for the pistol. Instead, he threw himself sideways off the chair. Dived to the ground and rolled to his left. Came up on his feet, fingers tensed into claws and threw himself clear across the big desk. His fingers dug into the sheriff’s throat just as the big man was coming to his feet and swinging the shotgun around from his hip.

The sheriff went over backwards with Stone on top of him. The shotgun was wrenched from his hands and went clattering away out of reach.

They rolled together on the floor. Stone’s hands were digging deep into the soft flesh of the sheriff’s throat, growling his anger as the sheriff’s voice began to rise in a scream of panic and despair and desperation. His legs kicked out, thrashing and his hands clawed at Stone’s face. Stone levered himself back and then smashed his forehead down against the sheriff’s nose.

It was only a glancing blow
. The sheriff was rolling his head from side to side and wailing in pain and panic, so Stone’s head-butt connected with the guy’s cheek. But it was enough to stun the sheriff – enough pain to shock him into pause. He was still screaming a sound of pain and desperation that had no form or coherence, but enough of the fight went out of him for Stone to drag himself up the desk onto his knees. He snatched up the pistol and jammed the barrel hard into the sheriff’s forehead, choosing a place between the man’s eyes and digging the cold steel barrel deep into the flesh.

“
Move one inch and I’ll blow your brains out over the floor!”

Thirty
-One.

Stone pushed sheriff Cartwright out the front door of the station house using the barrel of the shotgun to nudge the big man down the side path. Across the road ‘Stan’s Bar’ was still burning fiercely, lighting up the sky in flickering shades of red and orange.

“Your bastard brother-in-law burned alive,” Stone said. “But I’ve got something
much more painful planned for you.”

Stone
slapped his hand hard down on the top of the sheriff’s head and folded him onto the back seat of the patrol car. There was a heavy wire mesh partition between the front and back seats. The doors had no handles or window winders. They had been removed and the holes in the door trim concealed with pieces of aluminum that had been riveted in place. The sheriff slumped across the vinyl bench seat, half-laying, half-sitting. The car sagged down at the rear under the man’s bulky weight. There was a smell of industrial-strength disinfectant.

Stone t
ucked the shotgun under his arm. Went to the Taurus that was blocking the driveway and reversed the vehicle onto the front lawn of the station house, the tires digging muddy ruts into the ground as they struggled for traction. Then Stone climbed in behind the wheel of the cop car. Threw the shotgun onto the passenger seat, and then slammed the selector into reverse. Got one elbow up on the back of the seat and stared out through the rear window. Stomped on the gas. The car’s transmission howled as the vehicle slewed backwards out of the long driveway, skidding on the slippery tarmac. There was still a small huddle of people gathered in the middle of the street watching the bar burn to the ground. The pack split apart as the cop car reversed towards them and the brake lights flared bright red suddenly. Then Stone had the car in gear and was tearing north out of town.

It
took just a few minutes of fast driving to reach the mailbox with the name ‘Cartwright’ written on it. Stone didn’t see Lilley’s car on the shoulder of the road, but that didn’t bother him. He expected by now she would be somewhere else in town.

He
wrenched the car off the road, and set it onto the narrow dirt track that led to the sheriff’s house.

The trail
was a bumpy, rutted piece of gravel. Nothing more than a pair of deep parallel channels worn into the ground. There was a raised hump between them. The cop car heaved and bounced and groaned on its springs. Gravel scraped against the undercarriage of the car and small stones scrabbled under the tires and went skittering away into the night. Stone took the track fast, fighting against the wheel and feeling the tires digging and bogging in the ground that was quickly being turned to mush and mud under the force of the torrential downpour.

Stone skidded to a halt out front of a low single-story ranch that looked similar from the outside to Hank Dodd’s house. He left the car’s headlights on, the glare aimed at the front of the house, lighting up the steps, the doorway and the porch, and throwing them into harsh highlight and shadow through the misting, teeming downpour. Horizontal rain battered against the windshield, sounding like gravel against the glass.