11th hour

Chapter 33

Revenge knew who was driving the BMW and who was going along for the ride.

Jace Winter, Bam Cox, and Little T Jackson were small-time drug dealers with long sheets for heavy crimes. They forced children into theft and females into prostitution; they broke down families; they caused destruction and desperation; and they sent young kids toward certain death.

They were, in a word, scum.

Revenge took a Boost phone from his glove compartment. He’d confiscated it during a bust and it couldn’t be traced to him. He dialed 911 as he drove up Sunnydale, the BMW’s taillights in view right up ahead.

The 911 operator asked him what his emergency was, and he put on a ghetto accent stained with panic.

“They’s a shooting going down right now. Oh God. They’s shooting at cops. They shot a cop!”

He gave an address three miles south of his current location, then clicked off and tossed the phone out the car window.

Revenge followed the BMW east on Sunnydale, and as the gangsters sped up, he followed them through the thick of the ghetto and out the other side to where the housing was single-family homes, flat fronts with garages and driveways on the street level.

The BMW took a right onto Sawyer and when it hit Velasco Avenue, Revenge put on his siren and his grille lights. Stuff started flying out of the windows of the BMW. Small glassine packets, a couple of guns.

He spoke into the bullhorn. “Pull over. Pull the car over. Now.”

The BMW did slow, went from sixty to forty down Velasco, took a right onto Schwerin, and stopped next to an abandoned lot fenced with broken chain link and filled with garbage.

Revenge braked behind the BMW.

He left the engine running as he screwed the suppressor onto the muzzle, grabbed his flashlight, and got out of his car. He approached the driver’s-side window of the BMW, shone his light in the driver’s face.

The smell of weed coming from the BMW was so strong, one good inhale could produce a profound contact high.

The driver, Jace Winter, said, “Wus up, Officer?” He was smirking. Laughing with his homeys. Unafraid. Stoned out of his mind.

“Cox. Jackson. Put your hands on the ceiling,” Revenge said.

“Man, how’m I going to show you license and registration with my damned hands — ”

“Winter, keep your right hand on the wheel and open your jacket.”

“Yo, what was I going? Twenty-eight in a twenty-five zone?”

“Good night, you piece of crap.”

Revenge pointed the gun into the interior of the car. He shot Winter first, two shots in the chest, another round in the neck. Jackson and Cox went crazy trying to get out of the car, and then the last man they would see in this world sent several shots into various parts of their upper bodies until no one moved.

Revenge stripped off his jacket, balled it up with the gun, and dumped the bundle into Winter’s lap.

A car went by fast, didn’t stop, didn’t even slow. Revenge went back to his vehicle, took out the plastic liter bottle filled with gasoline, and returned to the BMW. He poured gas inside the car, front and back, made a good job of dousing the dead men.

Then he lit a match and tossed it inside the drug-mobile.

There was a loud puff as the flame caught, then the car started to burn, and within a few seconds, the whole of it was engulfed in fire.

Keeping his head down, Revenge returned to his SUV. He watched the BMW explode as he backed out, then he made a U-turn and drove through the projects again.

He felt cleansed and almost high.

Like he was younger, and lighter, the very best version of himself, and since he would never get credit, he thought it was okay to give himself a pat on the back for a very clean shooting. Three heinous sewer rats were dead.

In twenty minutes, Revenge would be sitting in front of the TV watching the game, but he’d be thinking of Jace Winter’s smug face and then his expression when he realized he was going to die.

Revenge listened to the police band, learned that cops were still investigating a report of a cop down but hadn’t yet determined who had been shot or where. He turned off the police band, found a rock station on the radio. He was whistling as he drove home.