The Heart Has Reasons (49 page)

He
toggled the switch to bring the target back to them, and regarded it
expressionlessly before grudgingly admitting, “Nice grouping.”

“Thank
you.  May I go home now?”

CHAPTER
34

James ‘Mad Dog’ Kavanaugh leaned against
the rear brick wall of the public housing apartments and watched a flock of
children who should have already been called in for the night run shouting past
him.

The
complex was a blighted scar on the urban landscape.  The buildings
squatted on a barren dirt yard as blighted as the lives of the people who lived
here.  Everywhere he looked, rubble, broken bottles, and other assorted
trash littered the ground.  A chain-link fence enclosed a playground area
where the rusty swing set’s one remaining seat dangled from a single chain.

A
constant stream of people, many of them clearly drug addicts, entered and
exited the common doors of the buildings.  Prostitutes lounged on
doorsteps, calling out to the men that passed.  Televisions blared with
mindless sitcoms from wire-embedded glass windows thrown open against the heat.

The
firefly flicker of cigarettes drew his eyes to where a small group of men shot
dice in the square of light thrown onto the parched ground from an open
window.  The place reeked of hopelessness and misery, and he realized with
a start that he felt no safer here than he had in Afghanistan.

Mad
Dog knew that he and the big Native American, Randy ‘Roach’ Tallchief, were
conspicuous as all hell.  Even Travis Barker, who was himself black, stood
out from the residents.  From the suspicious manner in which people eyed
them while giving them a wide berth, Mad Dog knew that most of the inhabitants
likely believed them cops, which was probably just as well.

Just
that morning, he, Travis, and Roach had acquired Travell Parnes and Andre Gant
and had driven them out to Roach’s desert cabin.  The two had, after the
judicious application of a little physical persuasion, both agreed to recant
their stories against Chase.  They'd also informed them as to where they
could find Malik Waddell.

The
rear door of the apartment building stood open.  The grim, graffitied
vestibule reeked of cigarette smoke, stale urine, and cheap whiskey.  The
stark fluorescent light in the stairway only added to the bleakness. 
Across the lobby, Travis peered back at him through the propped-open front
door.  Beyond, Roach was a shadow under a tree.

Mad
Dog looked around as one of the prostitutes cautiously approached him. 
“You the po-po?”

“Uh-uh.”

She
was probably no more than thirty, but years of drug use and toothless gums made
her appear twice that.  “You not vice?”

“No.”

“You
wanna blowjob?  Only five dollars.”

Mad
Dog had no idea what the going price was for a blowjob but, in his considered
opinion, the woman was severely overcharging.  She had a sore in the
middle of her lower lip — hopefully nothing more serious than a crack-pipe burn
— and his stomach clenched at the thought of that mouth touching
any
part of his anatomy.  “No, thanks.  But I might be willing to part
with a five for some information.”  Seeing the interest quicken in her
face, he asked, “Do you know Malik Waddell.”

Her
face rearranged itself into harder lines.  “Yeah, I knows that
motherfucker.”  She eyed him for a moment.  “You the one what put him
in that chair?”

“Sadly,
no.  Have you seen him around today?”

Her
expression changed to one of trepidation.  She glanced uneasily about and
lowered her voice.  “He at his mama’s.”  Jutting her chin upward, she
added, “Second floor.”

That
was exactly what Parnes and Gant had said.  Relieved at the confirmation,
he pulled out a five and handed it to her.  A crafty expression came over
her face as she eyed his wallet.  “You sho’ you don’ want no blowjob?”

Suppressing
a shudder, he pasted on a strained smile.  “I’m sure.  Thanks
anyway.”

Clutching
the bill, she wandered off in search of the nearest street-corner pharmacist.

* * * * *

Malik Waddell shifted his weight to one
side and shoved his gatt under one leg.  He hated being crippled, hated
being in this fucking chair.  And the worst part was that it’d be another
month before the casts came off.

Leaving
his mom passed out and snoring on the couch, he took the elevator to the first
floor.  As he rolled through the lobby, soft footsteps approached from
behind.  He twisted his head around to see a red-haired white man coming
toward him.  When he rolled through the front door, a light-skinned, black
man pushed off the wall.  The two men were big, and, by the look of them,
5-0.

The
black cop said, “What’s up, Malik?”

“Who
the fuck you?” he snarled.

“There’s
no need for hostilities.  We just want a word with you.”

Motherfucker. 
If they found the gatt, he’d be going back inside for parole violation. 
His chair lurched forward as the white cop started pushing him down the short
ramp, moving quickly.  When Malik grabbed a wheel with his one good hand
and tried to stop the chair, something pressed against the back of his neck
with a crisp crackling sound.  He instinctively tried to flinch away, but
too late.  Pain blazed along his spine and through his torso as his entire
body tensed into one huge muscle cramp.  Invisible flames singed his toes,
his fingers, the top of his head.  Jerking and flopping, his body refused
to respond to his commands.

Finally,
the worst of it stopped and the violent spasming diminished to a nervous
twitching.  His head lolled on his shoulders as the white cop pushed his
chair toward the street, one hand on his shoulder to keep him from pitching
forward out of the chair.

Ahead
of them, the black man hurried down the sidewalk toward two dark sedans. 
A huge, pockmarked Indian, his long black hair plaited into two braids that
hung forward over his wide shoulders, waited beside the open trunk of a Crown
Vic

Belatedly,
Malik remembered the gatt beneath his thigh.  He commanded his good arm to
reach for it, but the arm refused to obey.  When he tried to shout for
help, the only sound out of his mouth was an inarticulate groan.

The
black man and the Indian hoisted him out of the chair as easily as if he were a
child and dumped him unceremoniously into the trunk, heedless of his
plaster-casted limbs.  “Well, well,” said the white man.  “Look what
Malik was sitting on.”

The
fact that they’d found the gatt was, at that moment, not his most pressing
concern.  What the fuck was going on?  Who were these
motherfuckers.  Cops wouldn’t be putting him in the trunk.  As the
black man shoved a ball gag into his mouth and velcroed the strap behind his
neck, an image of the woman tied up and gagged in the back of the van flashed
into his mind.

Was
that what this was about?  Were these three motherfuckers friends of the
motherfucker in the ski mask who’d jacked him up?

The
black man grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his air, and leaned down until
their faces were only inches apart.  “If I hear any noise back here, any
thumping or banging, I’m gonna stop, Taser you again, and rebreak your
legs.  Feel me?”

Malik
had regained just enough motor control to nod his understanding.  The
trunk lid came down, leaving him in total darkness.  Two car doors thumped
shut, and then a third from the second vehicle.  Two engines started and
the car shifted into motion.

Over
the soft
shush
of wheels on pavement, the ragged draw of his breath was
loud in the darkness.  Through the intervening wall of upholstery, he
could barely hear the two men talking, their voices muffled.  Where were
they taking him?  More to the point, were they going to kill him?

They
drove for what seemed like hours.  Despite the fact that the night had
grown cool, he poured sweat.  The car left whatever highway upon which
they were traveling, and bumped down what seemed to be a gravel road.

Aw,
fuck
.  He was too young to die.

When
the car braked to an abrupt halt, he pitched forward, banging his casted arm
painfully against the wall of the trunk.  The engine shut off and the car
rocked with the shifting of weight as the two men got out.  Doors thumped
shut, and he could hear the heavy
crunch
,
crunch
,
crunch
of feet coming toward the rear of the vehicle.

A
key sounded in the lock, the trunk lid opened, and two sets of hands reached in
to yank him to an upright position.  He blinked as his eyes adjusted to
the dim light coming from the moon high overhead.

The
second dark sedan was parked next to the Crown Vic.  Nearby, a small, neat
cinderblock cabin stood one story tall and barely twenty-five-feet wide beneath
a roof that sloped toward the rear.  A deep porch ran the width of the
house and two massive clumps of pampas grass stood to either side of the wooden
steps.  The bladelike leaves stirred and rustled in the warm desert
breeze, the tall, feathery panicles glowing white in the moonlight.  Off
to one side, another cinderblock building squatted, this one clearly a
tin-roofed garage.  They were the only two buildings in sight.

The
surrounding moon-silvered parched landscape of the desert stretched away in all
directions for miles, without so much as a single tree to relieve the utter
starkness.  Overhead, a multitude of stars freckled the night sky.

Ah,
fuck.  The motherfuckers were gonna put a cap in him and bury him out here
in the middle of nowhere.  Then a terrible memory flashed into his mind,
the scene from the movie
Casino
in which Joe Pesci’s character was
buried alive in the desert.  The thought that they might do the same to
him made him nearly piss himself.

The
distant, lonely ululations of coyotes interrupted the quiet desolation, causing
goose bumps to prickle his skin.  Or maybe they weren’t gonna bury him at
all.  Maybe they were just gonna dump his body and let the coyotes and
buzzards eat him.

Absolute
terror made him reckless.  When they hauled him roughly from the trunk and
set him to balance on his good leg, he struck out at the nearest one, the big,
pockmarked Indian.  With a movement that was almost casual, the man
knocked his arm aside and, with a hand like a steel vise, grabbed him at the
juncture of neck and shoulder and squeezed.

A
scream ripped from Malik’s throat as he frantically tried to lower himself away
from the pain.  As his chair struck the back of his calves, he collapsed
back into it.  The Taser connected with the back of his neck and, once
again, his eyes rolled back in his head as his muscles cramped with a
mind-numbing agony.  He flopped and jerked in his chair like a puppet
under the control of an epileptic master.

Someone
began wheeling him across the sandy ground toward the garage.  His chair
bumped over the doorsill, and then he was inside.  In the moonlight that
streamed through the open door and two opposing windows, he got a glimpse of
two pairs of wide, frightened eyes blinking in the darkness.

A
bare bulb hanging from the ceiling flared into life.  When his eyes
finally adjusted, his bowels went hot and liquidy to see Travell and Andre
handcuffed, gagged, and tied to chairs.  Pouring sweat, both were much the
worse for wear.  Both appeared to have pissed themselves, which he himself
was at serious risk of doing.

The
three men rolled him up to a bare wooden table and stood staring down at
him.  The white man cracked his knuckles with a sound like
fireworks.  When the black man removed the gag from his mouth, Malik
sputtered, “You ain’t no motherfuckin’
po
-lice.”

“We
never claimed to be the ‘
po
-lice’.  But it was somewhat remiss of
us not to introduce ourselves.  I’m Mr. Black.”  He jabbed a thumb at
the big Indian.  “This is Mr. Red.  And my pale-faced friend over
here is Mr. White.”

What
the fuck?
  Mr. White?  Mr. Red?
  Managing to paste on a
manufactured façade of bravado, he demanded, “You motherfuckers think this be
some kinda
‘Reservoir Dogs’
shit?”

The
black man turned to the big Indian.  “Mr. Red, it appears Malik’s a movie
fan.  How about you show him what you can do with a straight razor.”

A
dribble of piss escaped Malik’s body.  “
No, man, I ain’t no fan!
”

“No? 
Well, I guess we’ll just have to improvise.”

Malik
suddenly realized that coming across hostile might not be in his best
interests.  Pasting on an expression of friendly entreaty, he looked up at
Mr. Black.  “Why you doin’ this, my brother?”

Two
huge hands shot out, the fingers stabbing into his armpits, the thumbs digging
into the muscles at the edge of his chest.  His breath involuntarily
hissed in between his clenched teeth as a wave of agony engulfed him. 
When the man finally released him, he leaned down so their faces were only
inches apart.  “Bitch, I am not your brother.  You’d best remember
that.”

Malik
sucked in a deep breath.  When the pain eased enough that he could speak,
he asked in a very small voice, “Why you doin’ this
?
”