Running Towards The Abyss Page 9

  Joey’s mouth was dry and he stammered trying to speak. “What…what kind of agreement, Deputy Carter?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Joey. It’s pretty simple. You boys start working for me. I run this county and oversee several enterprises. You’ll keep doing what you’re doing, taking from the rich and giving it to the poor. Only we’re the poor.” He laughed loudly at his own joke and continued. “You fellas have some talent but you’re not very sophisticated. I know for a fact that if you keep doing things the way that you have been, you’ll end up as a play toy for somebody named ‘Bubba’ in one of the state prisons.

  “Here’s our deal and these things are non-negotiable.” Carter removed his shades, bending down so they could see his eyes, and counted off on his fingers as he gave instructions. “Really, it’s just three simple little things. Number one, I’ll tell you who to sell your stuff to. Pawn shops are a no-go. The GBI and most police departments have detectives who do nothing but drive around checking pawn records all day. You’d be surprised how many burglars are entertaining Bubba in jail right now just because they sold stolen stuff to a pawn shop. I’ll send you to some people who are safe to deal with. We won’t make quite as much money but there’s a whole lot less risk involved.

  “Number two, I get a third of everything you sell. I like cash and you’ll pay me regularly. Don’t try to screw me over and we’ll have a long and prosperous business relationship.

  “Number three, you will never, ever mention my name to anyone. Like I said, I’m involved in a variety of activities here in Franklin County and even some of the surrounding counties but I stay under the radar. This is our little secret. I’d actually like to see you boys expand your operation and add some more teams so we can all make more money. You can bring on whoever you like as long as you can trust them. But, my name and involvement is never to be mentioned to any of your other friends.

  “Now I like being upfront with people so let me just say right now, if you try to cheat me or if you mention my name to anyone or if you ever have thoughts of turning me in, I’ll kill you. Plain and simple. No loose ends. Of course, that would never happen with you fellows. I try to screen my associates ahead of time and you two seem to be level-headed and dependable.

  “A while back, though, I did have an associate go rogue on me. Y’all may have heard about Tyler Monroe. He decided to change the rules that I laid out and it didn’t go so well for him.”

  This got the desired reaction from Joey and Wesley as their mouths fell open. They had both known Tyler. He had bought stolen property from them on several occasions. A month earlier, they had driven over to Monroe’s house to sell him some guns and jewelry. As they got close to where he lived, Joey pointed out smoke rising into the sky.

  When Wesley turned onto Tyler’s street they could see the smoking ruins of his house. There were several police cars, fire trucks, and other emergency vehicles parked around it. Joey heard later on the news that the medical examiner’s report had shown that Tyler Monroe had been hacked to death and then his house set on fire. After finding narcotics in the crime scene, the Sheriff’s Department was calling Monroe’s death ‘a drug deal gone bad.’

  Lester and Maddox looked at each other. Had 5-0 just admitted to them that he’d killed Tyler Monroe?

  “Now, here’s what my business partners get from me,” the deputy continued. “First of all, I’ll keep the heat off of you. I’ll feed our investigators some bad intel and keep them looking in other directions. Now, of course, I can’t do much for you if you get arrested in another jurisdiction, but here in Franklin County, I should be able to cover for you.

  “Another thing I’ll provide are some good leads. I’m friends with all the local gun store owners and some of the other businesses. I can make sure that the houses you’re hitting have stuff worth stealing. ‘Work smarter, not harder’, is what I like to say,” he concluded, chuckling at his own wit.

  Joey and Wesley stared at Deputy Carter in disbelief. Was he trying to set them up? No, that couldn’t be it. He already had them dead to rights. They were caught. The trunk of Wesley’s car was open and the stolen property was right there, staring out at them.

  “Can we have minute to talk, sir?” Joey asked.

  “One minute and that’s it. I need to get out of here so talk fast and figure out what you want to do. Just remember that Bubba is waiting to make your acquaintance.”

  The deputy closed the back door of the police car and let the two friends talk. He rummaged around in Wesley’s trunk, pulling out a .40 S & W Glock 23 pistol. After admiring the gun for a few minutes, he walked back to the police car and opened the rear door again.

  “Well, boys, what’s it going to be?”

  Joey spoke for them. “We’d love to work for you, Deputy Carter.”

  Abandoned house, Thursday, 0215 hours

  McCain breathed a sigh of relief as the three vehicles backed out of the driveway and left the neighborhood. He had watched them carry boxes inside but their yells and screams had carried up the street when they had found their dead friends. A few minutes later, they brought the boxes back out, loaded them into the two pickups and the passenger car, and then sped off on the snow-covered roads. Chuck counted nine men, whom he hoped would not be back now that they knew their safe house was compromised.

  He climbed the stairs and stopped outside of the master bedroom. “Elizabeth? They’re gone now. May I come in?”

  “Please,” she said, quietly. Benton was sitting on the floor next to the bed, a blanket around her shoulders, holding her pistol, and looking terrified. McCain sat down beside her on the carpet.

  “What happened?” she asked, and Chuck told her what he had seen.

  “So we can leave tomorrow, please?” she asked, her face a mask of fear. “If those guys were driving, the roads are OK, right?”

  “No, the roads are still bad and covered with ice. The temps haven’t been over freezing for two days. Those guys are idiots for driving now, plus they have a three car convoy. If one of them gets in trouble, they can take care of each other. Now if it warms up later today, I’d love to get out of here. But, I need you to trust me on this. I’ve been by myself for the last few weeks and it’s a very dangerous world out there right now.”

  Elizabeth laid her head on Chuck’s shoulder. “You think those guys are hooked up with the ones who killed my friends and kidnapped me?”

  He put his arm around her, trying to comfort her. “They have to be. That group didn’t just randomly pick that house in the middle of the night. They had a lot of stuff stored in there that I took when we left. It’s almost like that house was a storage facility for them. But after seeing their buddies dead inside, they took off. I don’t think they’ll be back.”

  “You promise?” she said, softly.

  “No, but I promise to protect you until we can get you back to your people.”

  She took a deep breath and held him tightly. “Why’d you kiss me earlier?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, after a moment. “I woke up with you lying on top of me and it just seemed like the natural thing to do. I’m sorry if I offended you, Beth. I didn’t mean anything by it. You’re a beautiful girl, but I don’t want you to think I’m trying to take advantage of you.”

  Elizabeth didn’t say anything for a long time as they sat holding each other in the dark, cold room.

  “You think I’m pretty even with my face all beaten up?” she asked, quietly.

  “That’s especially cute,” he answered with a smile. “Remember, I was a fighter, so to me, that’s just a mark that you weren’t afraid to mix it up. I think you’re tougher than you realize.”

  Benton continued to hold onto him, as if she was afraid he was going to leave without her.

  Finally, McCain sighed, “We probably should try and get some sleep. Why don’t you sleep up here where you can have a little privacy?”

  “I don’t want to be by myself, Chuck. I’m not a scaredy-cat but if there are mo
re of those guys out roaming around, I’d rather stay close to you. Can you please stay up here with me? I may have said some things earlier that made you uncomfortable and I’m sorry for that. I told you I was lightweight when it came to booze. Please, just don’t leave me alone.”

  After taking a quick peek out all of the windows, McCain returned to the bedroom and took off his plate-carrier, pistol belt, and boots. He climbed into the king size bed, lying right on the edge. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be close to Elizabeth. His problem now, he realized, was that he did. He also knew that he had to stay focused on the mission at hand so that he could keep them both alive.

  Beth’s back was to him but Chuck sensed that she was awake. He started to ask her if she was OK but checked himself. He considered reaching over and touching her but realized that would not be a wise move, either. Some things were better left alone and he eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  The Northeast Georgia Technical College, Lavonia, Georgia, Friday, 1215 hours

  “So how long have you worked with Elizabeth?” Chuck asked Alicia, as she steered Beth’s Cherokee out of the dining hall driveway and turned right. He noticed the jailhouse tattoos on her hands, wrist, and forearms as she drove.

  Alicia saw Chuck looking at her tattoos and then turned her attention back at the road. “I’ve worked with her for three years and I owe her everything.”

  Chuck was listening but turned to look out the window at the beautiful campus. After a long pause he looked over at his driver and saw that she was crying. He waited until she got her emotions under control.

  “Miss Benton told me that you were a police officer. I hope you won’t judge me. I showed up here four years ago, a week after getting released from the county jail. Part of my probation was that I had to get my GED and get a job. I’d dropped out of school at sixteen and had been in and out of lock-up for one thing or another,” she said, smiling wanly.

  “The college here offers the GED so I came to apply. Miss Benton was one of the first people I talked to. I didn’t realize that I was going to have to pay for the prep classes and the testing, though, so I got up and walked out. I’d just got out of jail and I didn’t have any money.

  “Miss Benton followed me out the door and asked me if I wanted a job. Mr. McCain, I was nineteen years old and I’d never had a job before. My mama and my grandma have lived off welfare their whole lives. Miss Benton told me that they had an open position in the cafeteria and that school employees didn’t have to pay for their GED course.

  “I didn’t want to work in no cafeteria, serving food to people who probably thought they were better than me because they were in college. But, I heard myself say, ‘Yes ma’am, I’d like a job.’ She told me that she knew I’d do well there and she promised that she’d help me study for that GED test.”

  Alicia had pulled up in front of a long, two-story brick building. The sign identified it as the ‘Student Residence Hall.’ She put the gear shift into park and turned the engine off but made no move to get out.

  “I found out later from another faculty member that the school doesn’t give free tuition to employees. It’s discounted but not free. Miss Benton paid for it out of her pocket. And she helped me study. I wouldn’t have passed if she hadn’t helped me.

  “After I got my diploma, Miss Benton asked me to apply as a student at the college. I started to walk away again. I didn’t think I could afford it. I didn’t think I was smart enough or that I’d fit in. You know Miss Benton is a career counselor so she asked me to take this test to figure out what I was good at.

  “Mr. McCain,” she said, glancing at him, but not making eye contact, “I didn’t think I was good at anything. I’d never had anyone, in my entire life, who believed that I was smart or talented or had said anything positive to me. Miss Benton came back with the results of my test and said that I had an aptitude for business administration. I laughed! I didn’t know anything about business but she handed me the test and that’s what it showed.”

  Chuck listened intently to this story, amazed at what he was learning about Elizabeth Benton.

  “So she told me that I needed to enroll in the Business Administration Program. I told her I couldn’t do it. I thanked her but I knew there was no way I’d make it through that course. Miss Benton just smiled and said, ‘Of course, you’ll make it. I’m going to help you.’

  “I’d been working in the cafeteria for about year by then and Miss Benton said she needed an assistant and offered me the job. I didn’t know what an assistant did or was supposed to do, but I took the job and started learning everything I could from her. She taught me how to dress professionally, how to answer the phone, how to talk to people, and she helped me get my Associates Degree.”

  By now, the tears were pouring down Alicia’s face as she looked over at Chuck. “Mr. McCain, I cried myself to sleep every night while she was gone. I didn’t think she was coming back. Miss Benton may only be a few years older than me but she’s more of a mother than my own mom. She’s not the nicest white person I’ve ever met, she’s the best person I’ve ever known. Period.”

  Alicia wiped her face, took a deep breath, and regained her professional composure. “I apologize for taking up your time, sir. I just wanted to let you know how Miss Benton has influenced my life. I’ll get you inside to your room now, and have a couple of our security team unload all those guns in the back.”

  Alicia led Chuck into a two-room suite at the end of the first floor hallway. Turning left inside the dorm room took him into the bedroom. Two male students carried in all of the guns that McCain had recovered from the kidnappers. Chuck had made sure they were all unloaded and clear before anyone handled them. The firearms were deposited on the extra single bed in his room.

  Alicia thanked him again for bringing Miss Benton back and shook his hand. She handed him the key to his room and left, shutting the door behind her. As Chuck stripped out of the clothes he had been wearing for days, he looked around the small room. It was devoid of decor except for the two beds, a dresser, a small table with a lamp on it, and several cardboard boxes stacked in a corner. The other room contained a small sitting area with a couch, chairs, dining table, and a small kitchenette.

  Between the two rooms was the bathroom. It contained a bar of soap, a towel, and a razor. He turned the shower on and for the first time in months, felt hot water. He soaked, lathered, rinsed, and repeated. The soap also worked as shaving cream and he scraped his hairy face clean.

  Chuck took entirely too long in the shower and enjoyed every second of it. He walked out of the bathroom, clad only in his black briefs, drying his hair with the towel. The sound of someone clearing their throat startled him and he almost dropped the towel.

  “Sorry, I knocked but you were in the shower,” Elizabeth said, smiling and looking him over. “The nice thing about being an RA is that I get a master key,” holding it up for him to see.

  She was sitting on the empty bed with her legs crossed, her wet hair wrapped in a towel. She was wearing clean jeans with a tight pink sweater and had even put on some makeup and lipstick.

  Beth blushed when she realized he had caught her staring at him and laughed with embarrassment. “That’s a sight I could get used to,” she said.

  “Well, hi there to you, too. Don’t you look gorgeous? I’m glad I had my underwear on,” Chuck said, grinning at Beth. He was glad to see her, even though they had only been apart less than hour. “I missed you. Where’s your room?”

  “Hey, you got to see me mostly naked, so fair is fair. My room’s right across the hall. I hope that’s OK but I wanted to be close to you.”

  “Three days stuck in a house together and you still can’t get enough of me,” he said, smiling. “What’s the dining schedule?”

  “We only eat twice a day to conserve food,” she answered. “We have breakfast at 9:00am and dinner at 4:00pm.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, even though his stomach was already growling.


  He finished running the towel through his hair and tossed it at Beth, who giggled and caught it. McCain picked up his cargo pants off the floor and started to put them on.

  “Did you say I could get some laundry done?” he asked.

  “Here, I brought you some clothes.” She reached behind herself and handed him a stack of garments. Chuck took them and found gray sweatpants, a green t-shirt, a green sweatshirt, and a pair of black athletic socks, all of them bearing the school’s logo.

  “Brand new from the school store and I’ll make sure all your laundry gets done, don’t you worry.”

  “These are perfect, thanks,” Chuck said, putting the clothes on while Beth watched him.

  “You don’t get embarrassed having such a young girl watch you get dressed?” she asked, playfully.

  He laughed. “No. When you get to be my age you don’t worry about it and just enjoy the attention. I’m not in as good of shape as I was fifteen years ago plus my hair’s turning gray and starting to thin out.”

  Beth shook her head, watching him pull the t-shirt on over his broad shoulders and muscular chest. The sleeves of the shirt looked like they were going to rip trying to contain his arms.

  “I can’t imagine you being in any better shape fifteen years ago,” she said, getting to her feet and standing in front of him. “You look pretty good to me right now.”

  Elizabeth stepped closer to Chuck and reached up, putting her arms around his neck, looking into his eyes. “You said you wanted one of these when we got here but I forgot. Sorry.”

  His arms went around her waist and pulled her into him while they kissed. When they came up for air Chuck said, “Since you forgot, I think you owe me another one as interest.”