The Pale: Volume One by Jacob Long (portable ebook reader txt) 📕

moment, Joshua was in the room. Two of his goons weren’t far behind. The other two were still downstairs. Warren chose a nice neutral spot to stand after the room was filled.

“What’s up, Rick? You look good, not a day over ninety-five,” Joshua said jovially.

“Thanks, Josh,” Rick replied dryly. “You too. New suit?”

Joshua Truong plopped himself down in one of the nice chairs in front of Rick’s desk. “Yeah. I like it. It’s gray, but then the shirt is like a velvet cake color, you know?”

“Right. Well, what brings you here, Joshua?”

Josh leveled a look at Rick. “You know why I’m here.”

“I know your brother needs to learn when to back out of a fight.”

“Way he tells it, the guy just burst in and attacked him.”

“Yeah, well, he drugged another girl and brought her up here to have another one of his private parties,” Rick explained. “Turns out it was the wrong girl, because before I even know what’s going on, there’s a guy beating him up and raising all kinds of hell in my office.”

Warren’s eyes darted about the room. He was surprised to hear that Rick was giving Joshua so much grief.

“Right,” Joshua said, “and this guy just muscled his way past your security?” He held up his index finger. “One guy?”

“He was really strong,” Warren put in.

Joshua looked over his shoulder at the doorman. “Strong?”

“Like, really strong.”

“Like, really strong?”

“Yeah,” Warren answered, “and he wasn’t really big or anything, so he was probably on PCP or some other drug.”

Rick chimed in. “Yeah, but, Warren, he wasn’t raging. The guy was lucid. He probably just caught you off guard. I don’t know why you didn’t just break his arm when you had the chance.”

“I tried,” Warren said.

Everyone looked at the doorman expectantly, and Warren fidgeted under the scrutiny. “Yeah, when I had him in an armbar, I tried to break his arm. He was too strong for it.”

Rick looked skeptically at Warren. “One of his arms was stronger than both of yours?”

Warren shrugged. “I told you, he was weird.”

Rick turned back to Josh. “Look, your brother was asking for trouble every time he pulled that shit. This time he got it, that’s all.”

A wry smile curled Joshua’s lips. “Is that what this is about? Did Davy need a lesson?”

“What?” Rick asked.

Joshua started fiddling with his cufflinks as he spoke. “Did you know him?”

“What?” Rick repeated.

Joshua sprang from his chair. “Did you fucking hire a guy to assault my brother?”

“What? Josh, no! I didn’t do that!” Rick was leaning all the way back in his chair in a subconscious effort to increase the distance between him and the fiery criminal. “I didn’t know the guy, and I didn’t know the girl, okay? Your brother just messed with the wrong girl, that’s all.”

“He asked for her by name,” Warren put in.

Rick shot his doorman a look.

Joshua seemed pleased with this information. “By name?”

Warren nodded. All eyes were on him again. “Yeah.”

“That’s interesting.”

Rick wanted to end this show. “All right, are we done? You get what you wanted?”

Joshua Truong looked at Rick with the eyes of a viper. He just stared unwaveringly for an uncomfortable stretch of time, like he was looking at lunch.

“I’d think you’d have more empathy for my brother. I’d think you’d be on his side. He said that the guy roughed you and yours up, too, and from the looks of things, he was telling the truth.”

The whole room was charged with electricity, and you could almost hear it crackle in the air. It was so quiet.

“My little brother may have some . . . untoward hobbies,” Joshua continued. “But he’s still my brother, and that’s what’s important here. That’s the issue.”

One of Joshua’s big thugs had been slowly circling the desk, and by then was very near to Rick.

“I actually don’t mind his little outbursts because at least when he gets in trouble it gives me the opportunity—”

Joshua snapped his fingers, and the thugs were on top of Rick and Warren in an instant. In a flurry of motion, Warren was pinned to the wall with a forearm across his throat, and Rick’s face was pressed into his desktop from behind by a guy with ape-like strength. The two did not take it lightly and made moves to resist.

“Hey!” Rick strained, spit bubbling from his face, reddening from rage and exertion. “Get your hands off me! I’ll fucking bury you, you motherfucker!”

All the struggling halted when Josh pulled the hammer back on a gun in Rick’s face. “Stop it.”

Rick stared into the barrel unblinkingly.

“It gives me an opportunity,” Joshua continued, “to remind all of you just who it is you all are messing with.”

“But . . . but I didn’t have anything to do with it!” Rick pleaded. “It wasn’t my fault! What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Joshua explained. “I’m just here to make a statement.”

Rick could see Joshua’s finger slowly tighten around the trigger. He clenched his eyes shut, and an errant tear was squeezed from its hiding place. “Oh god.”

Click!

Rick flinched, but the hammer struck home, and there was no explosion of gunpowder. His face was red but entirely intact. He stared dumbly up into the smug grin of Joshua Truong.

Josh rolled his eyes and put his gun back into his belt. The thugs released their captives. “Oh, Rick. I don’t want to kill you. There’s no point in it. You’re basically a good guy, and your loyalty is useful. You just . . . needed a lesson, that’s all.”

Rick massaged his sore neck as he was allowed to sit upright. Warren was released from the wall.

“Don’t get me wrong, this has been informative,” Josh said. “Téa Vardo’s house was going to be my next stop anyway, but at least now I can approach the situation a little more prepared. So thank you, really. I’ll be needing to use your space again to store my goods for the next week, so keep the doors unlocked.” Truong’s goons followed him out the door, and Josh shouted, “I’ll call you later with the particulars!”

Rick and Warren looked at each other with tired gazes. Rick wiped the sweat off his forehead. Neither of them knew what to say.

15

Kennedy Memorial Hospital was unusually quiet as the sun began its descent on Farol Verde. The halls had only milling doctors chatting idly between minor car collisions and household accidents. The rhythmic clopping of approaching boots was the only noise that broke the eerie quiet, heralding the dark, lanky form of Sgt. Lamont Fisher. He strolled down the hallway in jeans, a black leather jacket, and steel-shanked boots. Under his left arm, he carried a plain white binder, and in the opposite hand, a Farol Verde Conquistadors football helmet intended as a gift for his hospitalized partner. In the binder rested all the evidence Lamont was able to compile on the incident from the previous night. It consisted of exactly one artist rendering of John Doe. It took hours to get it just right, but Lamont had a mind like a steel trap, and even if he didn’t, the man’s face was stuck in the pit of his heart like a monster from a terrible dream.

Lamont had made it his mission to hunt this monster, alone if need be. Apparently, no one else was going to help. The only support he was going to get from his precinct was what he could network from friends inside the department. His captain would not authorize a manhunt, much less a task force, to assist. Funny, Lamont never imagined himself to be a renegade cop; even being out of uniform in the middle of the day felt somehow strange. He missed the feel of the fabric and the weight of his belt. At least visiting his partner was a great opportunity, not to just visit but also recruit Gray to the cause.

“Whoa! Looking bad to the bone there, Sarge. They let you off work too? You didn’t even get your ass beat.” Gray was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed despite lying in a hospital bed and wearing a paper dress. A giant, swelling bruise shaded his right eye in purples and yellows, but he already had his jibes and japes cocked and loaded for the day. It brought a smile to Lamont’s face the moment he walked through the door.

“Man, you’re too quick on the draw for me,” Lamont said.

“Darn right. That’s why they call me Gray Lightning! Fu-shaa! Fu-shaa!” the young police officer accompanied his sound effects with swift chops to the air.

“Oh, is that right?” Lamont gave him a comically skeptical look.

“That’s right.”

“Yeah? Well, those moves weren’t quick enough to save you last night.” Lamont proffered the helmet for Gray to take. “That’s why I got you this. I figured you could use it next time some petty criminal gives you the business so you don’t get brained.”

Gray tried and failed not to grin openly. “Yeaahh, right,” he said as he accepted the gift. “I’ll keep it in the car. Don’t know if it can save me, though.”

Gray’s mood had become suddenly somber by the end of his sentence. His eyes listed out of focus, and the smile faded.

“What do you mean?” Lamont asked.

Gray shrugged and shook his head. “Well, he just . . . really knew what he was doing. He had control the whole time. He had control of my gun, he had control of my arm, he had control of the fight. He knew jiu-jitsu or something, and he just beat me like I was nothing. He shouldn’t have even gotten that close.”

Lamont admonished Gray with a smirk and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re young, Gray. You made a rookie mistake, and you got beat in a fight. It could have happened to anyone. Besides, you’re doing better than I thought you would. I didn’t think you’d make past the first week, and instead, you’re good enough that you’re gonna live through a long career of me bringing this up every time you want to do anything by yourself.”

Gray tilted his head back and rolled his eyes. “Agggghhh! God!”

Lamont chuckled and pulled the sketch out of his new binder. “Besides, you’ll be the one laughing when we catch up to this guy. What do you think?”

Gray took the picture and gave it a look. “Pretty good.”

“You remember him pretty well?”

“Yeah. From what I remember, you pretty much nailed it. His chin was maybe a little more pronounced, and they should really use color in these. His eyes are what I remember most.”

Lamont wasn’t surprised; the eyes were also what stuck with him the most, but he was hoping for more. “Is that the only thing that . . . sticks out in your mind about the encounter?”

Gray nodded, his gaze was unfocused, and he seemed far away. “Pretty much. Just those eyes. I was pretty in and out, but they were definitely weird. Like two bright disks, just . . . pinpoints in the dark when he was on top of me. Ugh . . .”

Gray squeezed his eyes shut and put his hand to his head like he was having a migraine. It was on the opposite side from his bruising. “Now that you ask, actually, there was all the green. I don’t know where it was coming from. It felt real, but I think I was passing out. It was like he was choking me, you know. I felt like I was getting weaker. Tunnel vision was setting in, but I couldn’t feel his hands. Mmh.”

Lamont wanted to stop him from digging too much deeper in his weakened state. He took Gray’s hand from his head and held it. “Hey, relax, man. I’m not trying to interrogate you. You just rest. You don’t feel that way anymore, do you? You’re getting better?”

Gray nodded energetically. “Oh, yeah. I was sleepy as hell at first, but the docs let me get plenty of rest—and I ate. Oh, man, I ate, like, a lot. I’m already feeling way better. I wish I could get out of this bed, but I’m still under observation.”

“Really? So there’s not really a concussion or anything?”

“Nah, not a major one anyway. They said they just didn’t want me to try to get up and pass out randomly if it was aggravated, and my blood work was like of someone’s who’d spent days in a prolonged state of exhaustion. I just needed to recoup.