Outlaws Read online

  Occasionally a chrome-lit foreign car would creep down the street, sending a heavy bass sound pounding through the windows of the tiny row houses that lined the block. The three punks darted into the shadows when one of these cars passed, like minnows scattering from a big game fish that had wandered into the shallows. Striker faded too when these cars approached. They would be trouble, and he was not there to clean up the streets. He was focused on a single purpose.

  Striker watched patiently as his quany openly sold drugs to other teens at street corners and in garbage-strewn driveways between gutted buildings. Finally one of them cajoled a bum into buying a case of Colt 45 Malt Liquor from a run-down corner store, and the three made off toward an empty garage in an abandoned lot. The garage was the only thing standing in the empty lot that was surrounded by what Striker knew must have been a picket fence. Nothing was left of the old house that had once been there except some scattered pieces of brick and charred lumber covered with twisted rusty nails. Tall weeds poked through the uneven ground covered with garbage and dotted the lot with menacing silhouettes.

  After a few minutes, a glowing, orange light shone through the broken windows of the garage. Striker saw smoke billow up through breaks in the roof before it disappeared into the clear night, and he let them get settled inside for a while. The night turned chilly, and he zipped his jacket up to his chin and pulled it up over his mouth to stay warm. Occasionally gunfire would split the night. Striker thought about going in. He could do what he had to with the three of them stone sober and armed to the teeth. But out of habit Striker would give himself the absolute best possible advantage. He would wait until they were intoxicated.

  At twelve-thirty Striker limbered up, rotating his arms and legs. He removed his gun from inside his jacket as he crossed the lot and slipped into the abandoned garage through the side door. Two of them were sitting in old beat-up armchairs while the third, the fat one, stood by the fire gesticulating wildly as he told some story. Striker instantly zeroed in on the skinny one, the leader, and leveled his long sleek .22 at the youths head. The end of the barrel was fitted with a silencer. For everyday use Striker carried a Beretta 9mm, bul when he had a special job, he brought Lucy, his .22.

  "Stand up," Striker ordered in a calm voice. The skinny kid gave him a smart-ass grin, and Striker put a bullet through his ear just to let him know that he wasn't a cop, and that they didn't have any rights. The blood drained from the kid's face. He grabbed at his torn ear. Blood seeped through his fingers, and he grimaced in pain. The other two remained frozen in disbelief. The quiet spitting of the gun almost made the whole thing seem like some kind of gag.

  "Now stand up," Striker said in the same tone. Before he could blink they were all standing, facing him with their hands in the air.

  "What the fuck?" the fat one whined.

  Striker stepped in and whipped a front kick into the punk's groin hV collapsed in a heap, gasping for breath. Striker never let the gun waver from the skinny one. He knew better. There was no fear in the skinny one1; eyes, and Striker knew that he was dangerous. The realization gave Striker a rush. He would have to change his plans. He knew better than to let an animal like this kid see another day. This kid would get him if he didn't get the kid first. It was too late to go back.

  Striker stepped forward, but the skinny kid was expecting it, and he ducked under Striker's kick and went for the gun in his sweatshirt pocket. Instead of backing away. Striker shifted his weight while his kicking leg was still in the air and landed solidly right beside the kid. At the same moment that his foot hit the ground, his elbow smashed into the side of the kid's head and knocked him unconscious just as he pulled a Clock from his pocket. The gun clattered on the concrete floor. The other kid, whose face was riddled with acne, froze in his spot.

  Striker aimed his gun at the boy's face and slowly advanced the muzzle toward him until it tickled his nose.

  "Pick up the gun," Striker said in that same voice.

  The kid bent down and picked up the Clock.

  "Now, take the money out of your buddy's pockets," Striker said. This kid had seen enough to know that anything but obedience would be trouble. He pulled wads of money from the skinny kid's pants pockets.

  "Now," Striker said, "put the gun up to his head, right to his ear. Right there!"

  "Oh, man," the kid whined, "oh, man. Oh, no, no man, no..."

  "Shut the fuck up," Striker snapped. "Now, pull the trigger. . . I said pull the trigger, you piece of shit, or I'll blow your fucking brains out!"

  The kid began to cry, and Striker put the barrel of his gun to the kid's ear. He pulled back the hammer. The kid was hysterical.

  "Do it!" Striker screamed in a rage. The tiny garage exploded with the sound of the big-caliber gun. The kid dropped the gun and collapsed to the ground, sobbing. Brains and blood were all over the place. Striker got a charge out of the mess, the hysterics, and the hot, pungent smell of the gun powder. The fat one started to squeal on the floor in terror, and Striker kicked him hard in the side of the head to shut him up.

  "Now pick up the fucking gun again, you piece of shit!" Striker had a crazed look in his eyes. He was riding a crest now, and he let it carry him. This pimple-faced kid would take the rap, no fuss, no muss.

  "Pick it up!"

  The kid did it.

  "Shoot that fat fuck in the head."

  "Oh, fucking man, oh, motherfucking man!" cried the kid, pulling the gun behind him as if he could hide it. "Why? Oh man, fucking please, no man..."

  "Go ahead," Striker growled. "You want to be a big fucking bad guy. You want to scare people! Do it, bad guy!"

  Striker grabbed a handful of the kid's nappy hair and twisted it hard, forcing him over toward the fat one. Then he put a vice-grip on the boy's wrist and forced the gun up to the fat one's ear.

  Striker punched his thumb into the pressure point between the kid's thumb and his wrist and screamed right into his ear, "DO IT, YOU MOTHERFUCKING BAD GUY! DO IT! DO IT!"

  The Clock exploded, and before the terrified kid knew what had happened, Striker was gone.

  Chapter Two

  Madison McCall was late for lunch. She was always late, though. Marty usually expected her about fifteen to twenty minutes after the assigned time, so he didn't mind. Still, Marty himself could never be anything but punctual. That was a tax lawyer's most common trait. The early spring sun was shining. It was warm enough for the cafe to open its outdoor seating area, and it was there that Marty sat, sipping a Perrier and waiting. He saw Madison coming from halfway across the little park that sat between the cafe and the Travis County Courthouse. She negotiated her way through the scattered benches and lunchtime crowd. People and pigeons bustled about, scurrying for places to sit and things to eat. At the opening to the park stood a large statue of a cowboy on horseback and a fountain that splashed noisily. Madison gave the fountain a wide berth to avoid the spray being carried by the breeze as she made her way to the cafe.

  Marty liked to watch Madison walk. In fact, he liked to watch Madison do just about anything. She was pretty. There was something soft about her, but at the same time you knew she was tough. Marty couldn't think of anyone else like her. She was one of a kind. When she saw him, she waved and smiled in an easy way that suggested a successful day. That was Madison. She could tear the district attorney to pieces one minute and then be that sweet and beautiful southern belle the next. Her legs weren't long, but they were shapely, like the legs of a sprinter. She wore a dark blue suit, and her light brown hair was pulled back into a French knot by a comb, showing the fullness of her face.

  She was spectacular. Her eyes seemed to fluctuate between slate gray, light blue, or a greenish color, depending on the color of her clothes. Her cheekbones were high, and her nose was thin. She didn't have the face of a model or a movie star, but she was a sophisticated if not unique beauty. She rarely wore makeup or got "dolled up," as she put it. Madison believed that a jury mistrusted a pretty woman made up with lipstick a
nd rouge. She relied on her brains and her sharp tongue as her only weapons of persuasion. Marty thought if he were on a jury, he would give her any verdict she wanted, but that was Marty.

  Madison had to go inside the cafe to get to the outside tables where Marty was seated. He scowled at several men whose eyes followed Madison's figure to his table.

  "What are you glaring at, Marty?" she said, sliding easily into a chair across from him.

  "Don't they have wives?" Marty said, continuing to glare.

  Madison glanced over her shoulder and laughed lightly. She was used to that kind of attention and ignored it.

  "Please, Marty," she said, "you don't have to be my big brother."

  Marty turned his attention back to her and smiled. "So, how's it going?"

  "With what? Brayson?"

  Marty nodded. Madison was in the middle of preliminary hearings for the murder trial of an aging and once prominent local physician who had given his wife a lethal injection of morphine. The woman had been suffering from a painful and incurable form of bone cancer. Most people looked at the act as one of mercy, but the nurse on call at the hospital where he'd administered the fatal injection was morally opposed to euthanasia and protested loudly and vehemently. Cod told her to protest loudly and vehemently. District Attorney Van Rawlins, in a political move to cement the religious right in the upcoming fall elections, had taken on the state's case with the fervor of a Baptist minister.

  "Oh," Madison said, absently picking up the menu, "I think I've got the needle suppressed."

  Madison wasn't going to wage an ethical battle with Van Rawlins if she could help it. It wasn't that she didn't feel that her client was right, or even that she couldn't win that way; but she preferred simply quashing any conviction by knocking out the real evidence if she could, and in this case she thought she could. The doctor, after giving his wife the injection, put the needle back into his bag. It stayed there until two days later, when the police searched the doctor's home. One of the investigators saw the doctor's medical bag in the next room and confiscated it. The DA was trying to argue the plain-sight exception to the Fourth Amendment's protection against illegal search and seizure. Madison countered that the bag in and of itself gave the officer no probable cause for a search, as it was the needle inside the bag that was incriminating and not the bag itself.

  'You think you got it out? That's great!" intoned Marty.

  Madison closed the menu and looked around for their waiter. 'Yeah," she said absently. "It's good."

  "Good?" Marty said. "Hey, what's wrong with you? This is great news. Van must be grinding his gold caps.... Are you okay?"

  'Yeah, I'm fine, Marty," she said, and finally got their waiter's attention with an exaggerated wave.

  They ordered, then Marty cleared his throat several times and pushed his heavy glasses as far up on his nose as they would sit before he said, "Madison, I want to ask you something."

  "Okay."

  "I want to ask you to dinner."

  "What do you mean, 'ask me to dinner?" she said warily. "We have dinner all the time. Why did you say it like that?"

  "I said it like that because I mean it like that," Marty said, his face flushing. His big, flat palms were cold and clammy. He'd gone over this scene a thousand times. He had hoped that she would gaze back into his eyes and say dreamily, "Of course, Marty, I'd love to." Instead he hit the glitch. He was smart enough to know how she would probably react, so he wasn't shocked, but he decided to press forward.

  "Madison," he said with a sigh, "I can't pretend any more. You have to say yes. I know you care about me."

  "Oh, Marty," she said, her face showing sadness, "of course I care about you. You're my best friend. I--"

  "Don't say anything," he pleaded. "Just listen...."

  The waiter brought their salads, and Marty waited with a pained expression for him to leave.

  'You don't have anyone," he continued in a desperate whisper when they were alone again. "I don't have anyone. We're together all the time. I love you. Don't shake your head, Madison. You don't have to be head over heels for me. Just give me a chance. If you'd just try, I think it could work. You know we have a great time together. We laugh. We cry. We do everything."

  "We're exact opposites, Marty," she said, but he could see she was weakening.

  "That's exactly right!" he said triumphantly. 'That's why we get along so well. Opposites attract! Madison..." Marty reached across the table and took her hand.

  "Please..."

  "I have to think, Marty," she said, allowing him to hold her hand. "It's not you. 1 don't know if 1 want anyone. I've got Jo-Jo--"

  "Don't you want him to have some brothers and sisters?"

  "Marty, you're way ahead of yourself," Madison said incredulously. "I'm not thinking about getting married again. ... Kids? I don't even know if I want a relationship."

  "We've already got a relationship," he said.

  "Not that," Madison replied with a wave after gently pulling her hand away from his. "And I don't mean to demean our friendship. I don't know what I would have done without you, but I just have to think about it."

  Marty slumped down in his chair. The two of them sat with their private thoughts until the rest of the food arrived.

  "Really, Madison," Marty said glumly. "I don't mean to dredge up muck, but how did you marry Joe anyway? 1 tried to tell you back then that he wasn't right for you. I mean, all these years I've known you both, but I never knew why. You never wanted to talk about it so I didn't ask, but I think it might be part of the reason why you can't get on with your life."

  "I have gotten on with my life," she protested.

  Marty said nothing. He didn't believe she believed it, and he didn't think she really had, either.

  Madison looked up at the clock on the face of the courthouse and anticipated its chime on the half hour. After the bell had resonated through the street, she looked at Marty.

  "It was Jo-Jo," she confessed.

  "Jo-Jo?" Marty said, raising one eyebrow. "But he wasn't born until almost a year after you got married."

  "I lied ... about when we were married."

  Madison was a second-year law student when she met Joe Thurwood. Back then he was called "Big Joe," and he still liked to be called that today. He was the starting fullback for the Outlaws at the time, and one of the team's biggest stars. The team was at its pinnacle after having gone to the playoffs three years in a row. Joe was a hunk of a man, with blond hair and blue eyes and a suntanned body that had reminded her of a Rodin bronze. Every sports fan in America knew who Joe Thurwood was, and every woman wanted him. That was the way Joe liked it, too.

  She met him at a bar, of all places. Madison wasn't one to hang out at bars,- the bar scene wasn't her idea of evening entertainment, but that one night had been an exception. Her trial team had won the regional moot-court competition, and the celebration had spilled from the courthouse into one of the popular downtown clubs. Madison, who'd made a spectacular closing argument that had put the University of Texas team over the edge, joined her teammates for an evening of celebratory laughs and drinks. Joe Thurwood caught her like a doe in the headlights of a fast-moving car. She was definitely out of her element, socially disoriented, and she never knew what hit her.

  It was fate really, at least that's what she had told herself at the time. The group had actually left the bar and was heading home when Madison realized she'd left her wallet behind. When she returned to the bar to look for it, Joe Thurwood swooped down on her like a hawk. All Madison knew was that this handsome stranger was one of the nicest people she had ever met He accompanied her on her search of the night club, politely jostling other patrons out of the way and calming her with assurances that they would find her wallet. He insisted on borrowing a flashlight from the manager to search under the tables and in every last comer. She was impressed with his chivalry, as were the manager, the bartenders, and the numerous patrons, who noticed this gallant stranger acting like an overgrown
Boy Scout.

  They never found her wallet. She'd left it at home, but she was so taken with Joe that she accepted an invitation to go to a quiet piano bar and then allowed him to take her home.

  Madison realized that the thing that had drawn Joe Thurwood to her as much as her good looks was the fact that she was not only unfamiliar with who he was, but she was indifferent to his athletic accomplishments. To Joe Thurwood, Madison was the ultimate challenge, plus she was beautiful, smart, sophisticated, and one woman who didn't want to jump into bed with him.

  To Madison McCall, Joe was such an unlikely suitor, he was tantalizing. And more desirable because he was so foreign and out of reach. Madison's father was never a sports fan,- she had no brothers, and her and her sister's extracurricular activities had been limited to the band and the debate team. Madison's father was a highly respected trial attorney in Dallas, and she wanted nothing more in life than to follow in his footsteps. If it didn't have something to do with the law, Madison McCall had no real use for it. Joe Thurwood changed that.

  He was a whirlwind of brute charm, and the fact that there was no expense that Thurwood spared or act of kindness he was reluctant to express, endeared him to her even more. For the first few months of their relationship, Madison would do nothing more than kiss him. Because they had met in the springtime, Thurwood had little more to occupy his time than weight training, running, preparing for the best game he could ever play, and making Madison his personal obsession. Those who knew him and saw him with Madison couldn't believe their eyes. Joe, who could be crude, crass, and incredibly egocentric, was sensitive and suave. As smart as she was in the classroom, and as shrewd as she was at her assessment of people, Madison's vision of Joe Thurwood was clouded and she never clearly saw what she was getting into.

  It happened that summer. After classes ended in May, Madison had gone north to Dallas to work with her father on a murder trial. Every weekend, Joe traveled from Austin, where he was training with the team, to spend as much time with Madison as he possibly could. When they weren't together, Joe would call her, and they'd talk on the phone well into the night. Madison was being seduced. Everything about Joe Thurwood was right. When she looked back on it years later, she would realize that his apparent perfection should have caused her some concern,- nobody's perfect. But Joe seemed to be the exception, and as a student of the law she had learned to always consider the exception. That summer she fell madly in love with him.