Jack Stone - Wild Justice (2 page)

A
few minutes later a waitress in a clean blue uniform with a white apron tied around her waist came from the kitchen. She had long black hair and a friendly smile. Stone guessed she was in her mid-thirties. He liked her eyes.

“Welcome to
Lilley’s diner,” the woman said. She had a southern accent. “What can I get you?”

She laid a paper place mat out on the table
, put a knife and fork beside it, and then pulled a small notebook and pencil from within the pocket of her apron to write down his order.

“Are the burgers any good?”
There was a plastic covered menu standing upright on the table beside a napkin dispenser, but Stone didn’t bother.

“Be
st burgers this side of Phoenix,” the woman smiled again. Stone liked her smile too.

He
asked for a burger and a Coke.

There was someone’s
discarded newspaper on the counter top. Stone unfolded the paper and read the front page. The lead article was about two local teenage girls who had been reported missing the week before. The newspaper said that police were following up leads. Stone frowned. He read the article carefully and then tore it from the newspaper and stuffed the page into his pocket.

Then h
is burger arrived.

It
was
good.

Stone
was just finishing his meal when a dark blue SUV pulled off the highway and parked in front of the diner, right next to the old Chevy. Stone glanced up and looked at the vehicle with idle curiosity. The plates were Californian. The van was covered in a thin layer of brown dirt, but it looked like a new model and had heavily tinted windows. Two men got out, slamming doors and adjusting their jackets. They didn’t look tired. They didn’t look like they had been driving for hours. Stone frowned again.

Instinct was something
Jack Stone had learned to trust. From his time in the military, and his years of specialized work since mustering out, it was rare that his intuition had evaded him. These two men were trouble. Maybe they weren’t the guns and violence trouble – and maybe they wouldn’t be trouble for Jack Stone. But they were definitely trouble for someone – that much he knew.

They came into the diner tucking
aviator sunglasses into their jacket pockets and stomping dust off their shoes. Both men were dark haired, in their thirties. Both men were unshaved and unkempt. Stone frowned again. They dressed like businessmen – but they acted like men who were physically aware and alert.

Stone
had seen the type before, and without consciously realizing it, he felt himself moving on the seat, shifting his weight and taking up the tension in his legs so that he could move in an instant. Then he casually turned away and picked up his Coke, watching the men’s reflections in the big glass windows as they approached the counter.

Then,
Stone stiffened.

He was right. The men were trouble. And they
were
the guns and violence kind.

Unless your tailor is a genius, there is no way a man can conceal
something as bulky as a handgun down the back of his jeans without the bulge showing beneath a jacket. Stone saw the bulge. The taller of the two men was carrying. He stared down at his glass of Coke and sighed. He didn’t need this shit.

Get up now, Jack. Just get up and walk away. This doesn’t need to be your fight.

At the serving counter, the men were talking loudly to each other, and although the conversation was cryptic, Stone could tell by the tone of their voices that something had them restless and frustrated. He kept watching from the corner of his eye. One of the men suddenly began to pace the floor, then crashed his hand down on the counter-top and kicked at a nearby chair.

“Service, for Ch
rist’s sake!” he shouted. “Jesus, we’ll never get out of this shit-hole town.”

The waitress came through the kitchen door, wiping her hands on a washcloth, her
startled expression wide-eyed and flustered. She saw the two men waiting to be served, balked for a split-second, and then she forced a smile onto her face and breathed an apology.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, gents,” she said. “What can I get you?”

“It’s about god-damned time,” the first man said. “Hustle your sexy titties and get me a burger with the works, and my associate will have a steak sandwich. Pronto.”

The waitress didn’t write down the order. She just rang up the amount on the register and handed the men their change
, the smile on her face frozen and tense. “Take a seat, and I’ll bring your order to you.”

The two men turned and
seemed to notice Stone sitting alone for the first time. They sneered wolfishly at each other. They came across the diner shoulder-to-shoulder, and stood over the table. Stone looked up at them slowly.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Keep calm.
Keep your voice low and steady and don’t make any hurried movements. And above all else, don’t say a damned thing that might upset them. You don’t need this shit. Just keep your words civil, your tone friendly, and they’ll go away. They’re just looking to blow off steam. Don’t give them a reason, and don’t say anything to provoke them.

The taller of the two men leaned over the tabletop, and pressed his face close to Stone’s. Stone noticed the man’s eyes were bloodshot. “You’re sitting at our table.”

“Really?”
Stone said, his voice flat.

“Really,” the m
an said and then snapped, “Unless you are calling me a liar?”

Stone
paused long enough to remember the advice he had just given himself about keeping calm, and then he ignored every word of it. “Yes,” he said. “I’m calling you a liar.”

The man flinched
, offended. “You got a problem, boy?”

Stone
worked hard to keep his expression neutral. “Yes,” he said. “My problem is I don’t think you’re locals, and that means I don’t think this is your table. If you were locals, you would never have spoken to the waitress the way you did – and your van wouldn’t have Californian plates.”

The guy
looked around to his buddy, and then turned back. “You some kind of private eye?”

“Nope. But I’m not stupid either.”
Stone took another drink of his Coke, kept his hands in sight at all times. Did nothing to alarm the guy – nothing that might make him think he was a physical threat.

“We want to sit here,”
the guy said to Stone, his tone low and threatening. “We want you to move.”

It was the guy with the gun down the back of his jeans
who was doing all the talking. Stone was glad. It was best that he kept him close because he would be the most dangerous of the two.

“Why?”
Stone asked. He turned and started up into the man’s face, keeping his eyes steady and emotionless.

“Because I just bought the
SUV outside and I want to keep an eye on it,” the man growled. “So why don’t you be a good-old-boy and move your country-bumpkin ass to another table.”

Calm! Stay calm,
Stone reminded himself. Count to ten.

“
But I haven’t finished my Coke…” he said simply.

One… two… three… four…

The two strangers exchanged glances again. Stone saw the second man wink. He was standing back a couple of feet from the table now, so the first man had to turn his head to make eye contact. When he turned back, Stone knew by the enraged expression on the guy’s face that he was never going to reach the count of ten.

“F
uck you, boy! We – ”

It was as far as the man got. In a flash,
Stone’s left hand shot out and grabbed a fist-f of the closest man’s unruly tangle of hair. He smashed the man’s face down onto the table and the guy’s head seemed to bounce back up like a rubber ball. Stone smashed the man’s head down again, this time hearing the crack of bone and cartilage, and while he was bent over, Stone reached under the guy’s jacket and pulled the pistol from the back of his jeans. He dropped it onto the tabletop and then pushed the man hard in the chest so he fell backwards against the second man. Instantly, Stone was on his feet. He was 6’ 2” of broad-shouldered lean power. His arms were thick with the taut muscle of physical labor, and his fists as he bunched them, were lumped with scar tissue across the knuckles and the size of big iron hammers. Through it all, his expression stayed remote and calm.

“Now, I’d suggest you two gentlemen
apologize to the nice lady for your language, and then find another table and sit quietly until you finish your meals. Afterwards we can take this outside if you want to continue.”

The two men scrambled to their feet. The tall one had blood gushing from a broken nose where
Stone had crunched his head down on the hard timber surface. His face was an ugly twisted mask of rage. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the diner floor and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth.

“
Fuck you, boy!” the man hissed and stabbed a blood-covered finger at Stone. “I’m gonna rip you apart.”

Stone
looked to the second guy, sizing him up. He was an inch shorter than the first man, but still a good size.

“Eat first,”
Stone said calmly. “Because you won’t be able to afterwards. I guarantee you.”

“Outside!” the first man said again.
“Now!”

Stone
shrugged. He turned and glanced at the waitress. “Thanks for lunch,” he said. He took ten bucks from his wallet and left it on the table, beside the handgun. The woman was on the telephone, speaking urgently into the mouthpiece, and Stone paused a moment longer to asked her casually, “Are the cops on their way?”

The woman
looked up from the phone and nodded. Her hands were trembling and her face was pale and frightened. “Good. Tell them to bring the paramedics,” Stone said.

A
nd then he smiled.

Three.

Stone
never expected it to be a fair fight, so as he stepped out into the oven-like afternoon heat, he was instantly alert – and as soon as he was away from the glass doors, the closest man behind him roared and lunged. Stone instinctively twisted to the left, and as the guy’s weight came heavily onto his back he flipped him over his hip so that the man landed hard on the asphalt.

“Mistake one.”

Stone
didn’t hesitate. One long step, and then his boot socked into the man’s unprotected ribs with a sound like a bat hitting a ball. The man’s whole body seemed to shudder under the sickening impact. He groaned, made a soft gurgling noise in the back of his throat, and rolled away. Then Stone spun, expecting the second man to rush at him. He went down into a crouch, fists cocked and ready.

The second
guy hesitated. He glanced down at the first man writhing at his feet, and some of his courage left him. When he came forward, it was in an uncertain shuffle, and Stone was charged, ready to strike.

“Mistake two. Never hesitate,” he said.

Stone lunged forward, and the second man spun into the arc of his attack. Stone tensed his hand, stiffening the fingers into a blade, and chopped down into the man’s shoulder. The blow was crippling – the man seemed to sag at the knees as Stone’s strike smashed into the man’s collarbone. He heard the brittle crack, and the man screamed in pain.

Before he could fall, Stone caught the man’s crippled arm above the join of the elbow and thrust up viciously, driving the two pieces of shattered bone together and twisting the fragments into flesh. The man screamed again, and then went limp. Stone let the man go and he collapsed face-first to the ground.

Stone stepped back, looked at the two men bleeding on the ground. In the distance, but coming quickly closer, he could hear the wail of sirens. He wondered idly whether he had time to go back into the diner and finish his Coke before the police arrived.

Four.

The
re were two cop cars, both white, both with flashing light bars on their roofs, both with antennas on the trunk. They blew through the turnoff trailing clouds of dust and skidded onto the highway. They came to a screeching halt in the car park of the diner, the first car slewed to the right, the second car slewed to the left like they were setting up a roadblock.

Stone
just stood and watched. He saw a gold shield painted on the door of the first car with
Windswept Police Department
painted underneath in black letters. The car looked like it had just been washed and polished. Maybe it had been a quiet day for local law enforcement.

A thin young guy
burst out of the first car. He had orange curly hair, cut short. He had big ears and an angry red rash on his neck. He was wearing a tan uniform shirt and black trousers. He looked about twenty, and the shirt looked too big for him, like he hadn’t grown wide enough at the shoulders to fill it out properly. He left the door open as he got out of the car, then he reached back in for his hat and a pump-action shotgun.