A Father's Wrath (7 page)

“Do you have one?”

“On my phone. But I can’t show you here.”
Richie looked around at the crowd of people. “Imagine if someone
saw us looking at pictures of a naked boy with a wet little white
ass.” Richie laughed. “They might get the wrong idea. You know what
I mean?” Richie elbowed Lu gently.

Lu smiled, but didn’t say anything.

Richie glanced back over his shoulder, then
said, “Oh. I think my wife is calling me. I’ll have to catch up
with you later, Lu. It was great seeing you again.”

Lu adjusted his glasses, then shook Richie’s
hand.

There was a moment on his way to New York, when
Richie thought he might be wrong about Lu, but after the way Lu had
just reacted to Richie’s naked boy stories, Richie knew the man was
a sicko.

Richie headed into the crowd. He wanted to turn
around to see where Lu was, but he didn’t want to be
obvious.

The wall behind the buffet table had a huge
mirror on it, so Richie took an empty plate and adjusted his
position so he could see Lu in the mirror.

Lu was moving toward the bathroom. Richie
wasn’t mentally ready yet, he thought he’d have to follow Lu around
for a while before getting him alone, but now that he had his
chance to get a confession out of Lu, he knew he had to take
it.

Richie put the plate down and headed back
across the party, to the bathroom. He stood outside the door for a
moment and took a deep breath. This was it. He fumbled through the
apps on his phone, then finally turned on the voice
recorder.

With the phone recording in his front jacket
pocket, Richie opened the door slowly and slipped in as quietly as
possible without looking like he was sneaking around. The bathroom
was empty. There were two urinals and two stalls. One of the stall
doors was closed, but Richie didn’t see any feet under the door. He
knew Lu was in there.

Richie stood silently against the wall for a
moment. He heard something, movement inside the stall.

Hoping that no one would come in, Richie peeked
over the side of the stall.

Ko Sin Lu had his feet on the toilet seat and
he was squatting down with his pants around his ankles,
masturbating. His other hand held his cell phone, scrolling through
pictures of naked boys.

After getting a recorded confession, Richie’s
plan was to beat the hell out of that little sicko and hope for the
best in court, but now, Richie’s hate and anger blinded him and he
went into caveman mode.

After slipping his Bowie knife from the sheath
strapped to his leg, Richie smashed the stall door open with his
shoulder.

Lu fell off the seat, his phone fell in the
bowl as his feet hit the ground.

Richie punched Lu in the face, knocking him out
with one powerful shot.

He grabbed Lu’s small cock and balls with one
hand and used the other hand to chop them off as if he was carving
a Thanksgiving turkey. Blood sprayed everywhere.

Richie heard something behind him. He turned,
still holding the bloody cock and balls in his hand.

An old man in a tuxedo stood frozen, then began
to vomit.

Richie stuffed the cock and balls into his
front jacket pocket along with the phone from the toilet and then
raced out of the bathroom with his hunting knife in his hand and
blood splattered all over his tuxedo.

Only a few people saw Richie as he sprinted
from the bathrooms to the front door. The security guard yelled.
Everything felt like a dream.

Richie bolted down the street to the garage
where his car was parked. He didn’t even stop to breathe. His rib
cage throbbed and saliva dripped from his mouth, but he kept
running—straight up the five floors to where his car was parked.
Richie knew he fucked up. He should have stuck to the plan and not
let his anger take over, but his temper was always his problem, and
this time he knew he went too far.

He took a quick look around before getting into
the car. It didn’t seem like anyone had followed him, so he got in
and drove down the ramps. He knew that a lot of people in his
situation would kill themselves at this point, but Richie refused
to do that. He was hoping for a miracle. Maybe the judge would be
lenient because of what had happened to his son.

Things were still cool when he got to the first
floor. He paid his ticket, then the oblivious man in the booth
pressed a button that lifted the gate. Richie thought about driving
home, but he knew he’d be going to jail very soon and didn’t want
his kids and his neighbors seeing him taken away in
handcuffs.

Richie drove to the precinct where McCoy worked
and double-parked outside. Nothing mattered now. At least he
avenged his son.

When he marched into the precinct with his
bloody tuxedo, a few cops put their hands on their guns and kept
their eyes on Richie while creeping toward him.

Richie approached the desk cop, pulled the
bloody cock and balls and wet cell phone from his pocket and
slammed them on the counter. “You tell those motherfuckers upstairs
their DNA sample is here!”

CHAPTER 21

After an early Sunday dinner at his mother’s
house, Joe headed to the city for another night of patrolling the
cold streets.

At the precinct, he changed into his uniform,
but as he approached the roll-call room, the sergeant on duty told
him to go to the captain’s office.

Joe knocked on the captain’s door.

Detective McCoy opened the door.

Joe stepped into the office and noticed two
other men along with his captain.

The captain said, “Sit.”

Joe looked around at everyone’s serious faces,
then sat in the only vacant chair.

The captain asked, “You haven’t read the papers
today?”

Joe replied, “I woke up late and had a busy
day. Why? What did I miss?”

One of the two men in suits asked, “When was
the last time you spoke with Mr. Carson?”

“I don’t know. Last week maybe. I saw him on
his way out of the precinct.” Joe knew something must have
happened. He just hoped Richie didn’t kill anyone.

The second man in a suit asked, “Did you have
drinks with him that night?”

Joe glared at McCoy. He knew that pub was a
regular after work spot for McCoy, and it was probably him that had
seen them there that night after work. Joe turned to the two men in
suits and said, “Yeah. I had a couple beers with a fellow former
marine. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

The captain said, “Relax, Martello.”

The first suit said, “We’re Internal
Affairs.”

The second suit said, “And we have transcripts
of all your recent text messages.”

McCoy said, “You told him where to find Lu. You
used the precinct computers to find out where he’d be.”

Joe wanted to know what Richie had done, but
first he needed to try and get the spotlight off of himself and
onto McCoy. “What about you? You said you were gonna file for a
federal warrant, but you never did. And what a coincidence that the
DNA sample was contaminated, just after someone offered Richie
Carson fifteen million dollars to keep his mouth shut.”

The captain asked, “Did you just say fifteen
million dollars?”

The second suit asked, “Are you insinuating
that Detective McCoy accepted a bribe?”

Joe stood and raised his voice. “That’s exactly
what the fuck I’m insinuating, genius.”

McCoy shot to his feet. “Fuck you, Martello.”
He put two hands on Joe’s chest and pushed.

Joe’s body was a concrete wall. McCoy couldn’t
budge him. Without considering the repercussions, Joe slugged McCoy
in the face.

McCoy fell backward, into the captain’s desk,
knocking over picture frames and office supplies. Joe grabbed McCoy
by the throat.

Both men in suits grabbed Joe, but Joe was too
powerful. He picked up McCoy and slammed him against the wall,
smashing him into the plaster and knocking over framed documents
and pictures.

The captain, lying on the ground among the
mess, yelled, “That’s enough!”

Joe could have destroyed all four of those men
with ease, and because of the drugs and adrenaline in his blood, he
wanted to—but he didn’t. He let his body go limp as the men from
internal affairs handcuffed him.

CHAPTER 22

Bradley sat in the back of his limo as his
driver made his way around Columbus Circle, passing Central Park.
They headed up the west side and then pulled over in front of a big
Gothic style stone church.

Another limo pulled up in front of Bradley’s
limo and stopped. David and another man got out of that limo and
got into the back of Bradley’s limo. David’s bodyguard sat up front
with Bradley’s driver.

Bradley knew the man with David, and he didn’t
like him. Wayne Norman, director of security for the American
division of Yates Pharmaceuticals. Wayne was short, but wide, like
a Pitbull. He was an ex-marine, but looked more like an SS officer
with his blue eyes, blond hair, and blond mustache.

Wayne shook Bradley’s hand. “Hello,
Bedford.”

Bradley even hated the fact that Wayne called
him by his last name. He nodded and said, “Hello,
Wayne.”

David rolled down the divider and told the
driver to drive. When the car started moving, David rolled the
divider back up.

The bruises and cuts on Bradley’s face were
almost healed, but there was still a trace.

Wayne said, “Hey, Bedford, I heard that guy
fucked up your face with a glass of diet soda.” He laughed. “Not
even regular soda.”

“We can’t all be tough guys like
you.”

David said, “Don’t even think about getting
started. We have important business to discuss.”

Bradley poured himself a scotch on the
rocks.

Wayne took a bottle of water from the
mini-refrigerator.

David said, “I have to fly to Asia for a couple
days to try and smooth things over with the president of Tam Guk
Van. If we lose those contracts, we’re all fucked.”

Wayne said, “As far as I can see, there is only
one solution.”

Bradley said, “Let me guess. You want to kill
everybody.”

“Not everybody. Only Mr. Carson and officer
Martello.”

Bradley chuckled. “Only two? Are you becoming a
pacifist in your old age? A little bit of a bitch,
maybe?”

“Anytime you wanna dance, nigger
boy.”

David yelled, “Damn you two! Can’t you stop
acting like children for one fucking day?”

Bradley wanted to smash his glass against
Wayne’s face the same way Richie had done to him, but he didn’t.
Not because he knew Wayne could easily kill him, but because the
man wasn’t worth Bradley throwing away his whole career
for.

CHAPTER 23

It had been three nights since Richie’s arrest.
He’d been in jail twice as a young man, once for a week in New
York, and a second time for sixty days in New Jersey. He knew how
to act around criminals, and his size kept most people away, but he
still couldn’t remove the pain of missing his family.

Dinner was over and Richie was in the TV room
with everyone else. He watched the screen, but had no idea what was
going on. He was looking forward to Gail coming to see him. He
checked the clock and hoped she wasn’t late, they didn’t give much
visiting time after dinner.

It was only about a half hour, but it felt like
longer to Richie. A guard called him and told him to go to the
visitor’s area.

It was a Tuesday night, so the place wasn’t
packed.

As soon as Richie sat down and looked at his
wife, she let the phone drop from her ear and began to
sob.

He wanted to do the same, but there was no way
he could do that, especially not now in jail. He picked up his
phone, waited for her to pick up hers, then asked, “Where’s the
kids?”

Gail wiped her nose with a tissue. “With my
mother. I couldn’t let them see this place.”

Richie wanted to see his kids, but he knew Gail
was right.

On his way to get Lu, Richie knew he was doing
the right thing, but now, sitting here in jail, looking at his wife
through a sheet of bulletproof glass, he was beginning to doubt
himself.

CHAPTER 24

Joe had spent Monday and Tuesday in a solitary
confinement cell. It felt like a punishment, but he knew that he’d
get shanked or worse if they put him into population and someone
found out he was a cop.

He’d already heard what Richie did to Ko Sin
Lu. Because Lu had bled to death on the bathroom floor, Richie was
being charged with murder, and Joe was being charged with
conspiracy to commit murder.

On Wednesday morning, a corrections officer
took Joe out of his cell, shackled his feet, and cuffed his hands
in front of him. “Time to go to court.”

Joe waited with one guard as another guard
shackled and cuffed another inmate from solitary—a scarred,
tattooed, big, ugly Neanderthal with a beard and a mess of
hair.