Deliverance - Hooch and Matt's Story (11 page)

“I’m sorry, Mandy.” Matt said softly while handing her another tissue.

“Can you imagine Mike doing something like that? Blackmailing us?” Hooch chipped in.

“I don’t know,” she looked like she had to force herself to look at them, eyes puffy and swimming with tears that kept spilling over. “I hope not,” she said miserably.

“Well…” Matt tried to comfort her, “you’ve not been having a whole lot of luck with boyfriends since you came here. I’m sorry, Mandy, but I couldn’t help notice.

“I never really have,” she agreed. She took a breath, considering, deciding, weighing up, but in the end it was clear to her. “Do you want his address?” she asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

“Yes.” Hooch said a little too quickly.

She reached for a pen and paper in its usual place on Matt’s desk and wrote it down, handed it over. Dabbing at her eyes before blowing her nose, she visibly pulled herself together and sat up straighter. “Oh, Hooch?” she asked, “it all of this is true and he really plan the blackmail…”

“Yeah?” Hooch raised his eyebrows.

“Could you leave enough of him for me to dump?”

Hooch carefully smoothed his expression back to blank. “I don’t know what you mean, Mandy.”

Neither Matt nor Mandy commented on that blatant lie, both of them wise enough to realize the less they knew the better.

They sent her off with reassurances and apologies, Matt being particularly concerned that Mandy would take it badly that for a while he hadn’t trusted her, but she seemed alright albeit heartbroken at yet another, this time epic, failure of a boyfriend.

When she was gone, the two men went back upstairs before the gym opened.

“You know what I want to do, don’t you?” Hooch said the moment the apartment door closed behind them. “Question is, is it wise to do what I want to do right now, or better to wait for the next contact?”

“Not right now,” Matt fiddled with the coffee machine, “not when we’re both feeling rather…” someone else might have said ‘homicidal’, but they were people for whom it would be rather easy to put it into practice. “Soon. I don’t like waiting any more than you, and given what we suspect, I don’t want to give him any more time to do anything stupid.”

Hooch nodded. He ruthlessly shoved down the restless energy that wanted him to act right
now
. “Exactly my thinking. Wait till he contacts us again, and I’ll be there like that.” He snapped his fingers.

Matt nodded, put a large mug of coffee in front of Hooch, sparing a glance at the scrap of paper. A name, an address. “That stupid, stupid child.” He shook his head. “So much damage from such a stupid idiot.”

“He won’t be able to do any further damage.” The dangerous glint in Hooch’s dark eyes hinted at what exactly he was planning.

“Just nothing that…” Matt thought for a minute for the right word. Not ‘regret,’ as Hooch didn’t tend to do that. “Nothing that’s going to make this an even bigger mess.” He finished.

Hooch let out a short, sharp, entirely humorless laugh. “I’ll just frighten him enough to never again think of blackmailing anyone, least of all us. No major damage, I promise.”

Hooch’s idea of ‘major’ was rather different to most peoples’, but Matt had a hard time feeling sorry for the imbecilic, hapless Mike.

“Okay.”

“Deal.” Hooch stepped close, the energy still strumming through his body, running right beneath the surface of his skin. “And now, since it’s Saturday, we should go back to bed. I know a fail-safe cure for hangovers.”

Matt snorted, but smiled despite the headache and the worry. He collected both their coffee cups and dumped them in the sink before heading back into the bedroom.

Making very sure that the blinds were pulled down.

* * *

The weekend remained tense, and early on Monday morning, in amongst the mail, was a plain typed envelope and another note, naming a nearby park as a location to meet, where the blackmailer would hand over the memory disk for a price.

“It’s hard to believe this guy’s really that stupid.” Hooch read the note before handing it back to Matt. “It’ll still be light by the time he wants to meet, I need to stall him.”

“I’m not sure whether stupidity in this case is a good or bad thing.” Matt folded the note and put it back in the envelope. “It’s not as though we don’t know where he lives. He could always be delayed at home.”

“Good point.” Hooch was on his way to the door where is pack was waiting for the day ahead. “I will make sure I get off base on time. I have a change of clothes with me, no need to make myself easily identifiable.”

Matt watched as Hooch shouldered his pack and headed down, footsteps somehow louder than usual.

It would all be over soon, he thought, and catching sight of the note and the envelope, he scrunched them up and threw them against the wall in a rare expression of temper. Cursing their own carelessness, the viciousness of a greedy boy, and the stupid rules that hung over his and Hooch’s life.

It was going to be a long day, and he felt a twinge of relief that Mandy would not be in. Facing either the guilt of having accused her, or her over-enthusiastic cheerfulness if she had decided to let it all pass, was unthinkable today.

* * *

That late afternoon, an hour before the appointed time in the public park, Hooch stood in front of a door to a small apartment in a run-down apartment building. Dressed inconspicuously in black jeans and white t-shirt, he stepped out of sight of the peephole, as he rang the bell.

“Yeah?” The voice that came through the thin door was young, male, and punctuated with a yawn.

“UPS, got a parcel for ya.” Hooch exaggerated the drawl of his accent.

The door opened immediately to reveal a tall, dark-haired man in his early twenties, unshaven and wearing a stained T-shirt and threadbare jeans. “Whatcha got?” he asked, not really looking at Hooch.

“A very special delivery.” In one fluid motion Hooch stepped inside, bodily pushing Mike backwards, while kicking the door shut behind him. Before the guy could gather his wits about him, Hooch had him with his back against the wall, the full length of Hooch’s body pressed against him, effectively pinning him in place.

Hooch’s voice was deadly calm and quiet. “The special delivery is that of a ransom note. The ransom for your life, buddy.”

Mike’s mouth moved, but it was a few seconds before any sound came out. “Who the fuck are you, man?”

“Don’t recognize me from the photo?” Hooch pressed his forearm against Mike’s windpipe to emphasize his question.

Mike’s eyes widened, taking in the cool, calm man, such a contrast from the pressure on his throat.

“Well?” Hooch smiled an entirely fake smile that never reached his dark eyes. “Do you?”

There was movement against his arm that indicated Mike was trying to swallow or nod, and in the end he did some strange hybrid of both. “Fag,” he coughed, not realizing the trouble he was in.

“What did you just say?” Hooch’s fake smile widened until all teeth were on display.

More bravado than bravery, Mike looked back. “Fag,” he repeated, with all the stupidity of some small rodent facing down a panther.

“I’m not sure I heard right.” Hooch said very quietly. Without warning, he spun Mike round, with a hand twisted into the guy’s hair, he slammed his forehead into the wall, then followed with his body, pressing all along Mike’s back. “Could you repeat that again?” Hooch stood still, as if nothing had ever happened.

“That’s disgusting! Get off me!” Mike struggled to no avail, starting to yell obscenities at Hooch. “You fucking fag! Don’t touch me!”

Hooch didn’t relent, kept his full body weight on Mike, pinning him against the wall, mashing his face into the grotty wallpaper for good measure. He didn’t move nor did he say anything, letting the little piece of shit rant through an entire arsenal of homophobic hatred.

“Done yet?” Hooch eventually commented, when Mike was forced to draw in a breath.

“No, you fucking bastard!” Mike tried to spit, but Hooch slammed his head twice more against the wall.

“Now?”

Mike wailed, spittle flying. “You fucking fag are getting what you fucking deserve!”

“And that would be?” Still appearing calm, deadly and dangerous, Hooch could have killed the guy and would have only felt a modicum of satisfaction. Every fiber in his body strumming with anger and adrenaline.

“Dishonorable discharge!” Mike yelled.

Hooch lost it. With a roar he grabbed Mike by a shoulder and hip, and flung him half across the room, where he crashed into a rickety low table

Mike screamed in pain and flailed, struggled to sit up slowly, badly bruised and disoriented. “What the fuck do you want?”

“What I
want
? I want to wipe scum like you off the face of the earth.” Hooch snarled. “Wrong question, try again.” He took a couple of steps towards the guy on the floor.

Mike’s eyes narrowed, finally getting it, or at least some part of it. Still too full of himself and his nasty little scheme to give up. “If you want the photos, It’ll cost ya, like I said. Bet there’s a few guys on base who’d find that photo very interesting.”

“See, that’s where you got it wrong.” Hooch had himself back under control, once more the ice cold man who kept his fury locked down. He took another step, now close enough that his boot touched Mike’s leg. “It’s not going to cost me anything at all, because I don’t play the games of little shits like you” With another all-too quick movement, he bent down, twisted his fist into Mike’s grimy t-shirt, and pulled the guy up, as if he weighed nothing.

“Fuck, man,” Mike gasped, “you can’t do this. I’ll call the cops.” Realizing too late, that doing anything at all was going to be difficult with a very tough, coolly calm man holding the front of his shirt.

“Wrong again.” Hooch gave Mike a shake as if he were a puppet, despite them being the same height. “Not only
can
I do it, I actually
will
do it.” Mike never saw the knee cap that connected sharply with his groin, before Hooch dropped him.

Mike squealed as he fell back, landing heavily on the stained carpet. “You’ll never find it,” he covered his groin, face distorted into a grimace, “and you’ll never know how many copies I’ve made.”

“Perhaps.” Hooch delivered a swift kick, and Mike howled in pain when the boot connected with his fingers that had been shielding his cock. Another kick and Mike’s legs were spread apart. Hooch stepped between them, and placed his booted foot onto the groin, pressing down hard. “I’ll make sure you’ll never show it to anyone. You understand?” Increasingly adding weight onto his foot.

“You can’t make me.” Mike tried to move and to throw Hooch off balance, but instead Hooch delivered a well-placed kick between Mike’s leg. Short, sharp, and utterly precise.

This time, Mike screamed and nearly passed out. “You fucking maniac!” he spat, curling into a ball from the pain. “You fucking fag, who do you think you are?”

“I’m the man who is going to stop you from ever blackmailing anyone again.” Adrenaline was surging inside of Hooch, burning with a fury he didn’t allow to show. “So. Where’s the disk? You have three seconds, before I kick your face in. One…two…”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey,” Mike held up his hands, “blackmail? You’re the one who’s breakin’ the law, man, I thought I’d be a-decent like and give you right of first refusal-like.”

“Decent. I see. As decent as someone who picks out a girl, flirts with her, and pretends to be into her, because he’d figured she worked at a place that might have to
fags
he could blackmail to get him some bobs. Am I right?”

When Mike didn’t answer, just stared at him bug-eyed, Hooch took a step forward, which made Mike frantically edge away.

“Listen,
you dickhead
, your stupidity stinks so badly, I could follow the trail of the foul smell right to this place.” Before he had finished the last word, Hooch straddled Mike as he went down on the floor. Knees clamping Mike’s sides, both his hands fixing Mike’s above his head and to the floor. Are you telling me it wasn’t you? Are you telling me you didn’t plan it right from the start?”

For the first time—far too late, Mike realized just what real danger he was in, and his eyes bulged out as strained but was completely unable to move. Hooch could feel the moment the guy realized it was over. Mike’s whole body sagged in defeat.

“Then are you telling me that it
was
you?” This was almost too easy. Hooch needed a fight, wanted a reason to wreak more damage, and to feel the pain of fists, boots and bodies clashing.

But all Mike gave him was a slight nod.

“What,” Hooch leaned down, face to face, “cat got your tongue?”

“Y-y-y-yes,” Mike stuttered, desperately cringing away. “Yes, I’ve got it. I swear nobody else has it, nobody knows about it.”

“Good, but what assurances do I have that you’ll destroy everything after you’ve handed me the disk?” Hooch shifted his upper body so that his elbows ground into Mike’s biceps. “I want to be sure that you will leave Matt, me,” more weight bearing down, “and Mandy alone.”