Savage code, p.21
Savage Code, page 21
part #4 of The Porter Series
Porter nodded in the darkness. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“I already told you. Don’t worry so much, it makes you sound like a pussy.”
He laughed. “Maybe so. How’s Daisy?”
“Fine. Lung function is getting stronger. She should be good in a couple days. Just make sure she doesn’t go back to another situation where she can get her ass kicked like that.”
“Done,” Porter said, thinking briefly about the muffled screams from the back of Pavel’s car as he slowly sank beneath the surface.
“Good. If that’s it, I need to go. I have some people to try to keep alive.”
“Thanks for the status report,” Porter said.
“Sure. And hey.”
“Yeah?”
“These two sweet girls are in the hospital and you’re nowhere to be found. Whatever it is that’s more important than being here, try to make sure you don’t end up with any holes in you, got it? We can’t save everyone who gets rushed into this place.”
“I can’t make any promises,” Porter said, and he hung up the phone.
He started to put the phone away, but instead dialed his most frequently called number.
It rang once. “Why the hell are you calling me this late?”
“Is it late?” Porter said. “I had no clue. I’m in New York. It’s a time zone thing, I guess.”
“It’s the same time zone, asshole.”
“Come on, Ross, you need to wake up anyway. Too much sleep is bad for you. Makes you lazy.”
“I’m sure sleeping at…” Ross’s voice trailed off. “…four a.m. is what makes me lazy. How’s it going? I tried to call you yesterday, but you didn’t answer.”
“It’s going,” Porter said.
“What the hell are you doing in New York?”
Porter gave Ross the quick rundown. His best friend since childhood, Ross was uniquely qualified to get the full report on demand. If there was one person who knew where the skeletons—both literal and figurative—were buried, it was Ross.
“Is she gonna be okay?”
“Nurse thinks so,” Porter said.
“That’s shit luck, her getting shot.”
Porter didn’t say anything.
“Where’s the guy that did it? Pavel, right?”
“Pavel sleeps with the fishies,” Porter said.
“Good. Screw that guy.”
“Agreed.”
“How are you holding up?”
“I kind of feel like stir-fried shit,” Porter said. “My hand’s the worst. It’s as bad as I’ve ever seen. Probably need a plate in there or something.”
“So go to the doctor.”
“I can’t.” Porter told Ross about the current situation.
“You think it’s a good idea to try to grab that guy with a busted hand, while some guy named Big Harsh has your back?”
“Why did it sound like you did air quotes when you said Harsh’s name?”
“I did. Sometimes you get out on the hairy edge, but this is way out there. You sure you’re okay?”
“I have to be. This lead was important to Rivera. So now it’s important to me. And I may just get a chance to find out more info about Reno’s group. If it’s even a possibility, then it’s worth it.”
“I’m not going to try to talk some sense into you. It never works. You’re too damn stubborn.”
“Me? You’re the most stubborn person I know.”
“Don’t go there. I can spend all night giving you examples, and since you’re sitting in a homeless guy’s poncho waiting to ambush some crime lord, I’m sure you don’t have time.”
“It’s a cape,” Porter said. “A homeless guy’s cape.”
“See?” Ross said.
Porter didn’t answer.
“Look, just be careful, okay? Me and Tessa are having a housewarming when she moves in next week, and I’d like you to actually be there in one piece. Think you can manage?”
“I’ll do my best,” Porter said.
“Good. Now, go meditate, or game-plan or whatever it is you do before you get all violent and stupid.”
Porter laughed as he hung up. In truth, Ross wasn’t too far off the mark. While he didn’t meditate, he liked to focus and get himself ready for a confrontation.
The problem was, things tended to happen so quickly that he rarely had the luxury. Instead, more and more he found himself thrust into action, winging it, flying by the seat of his pants.
Given the fact that he had time to gather himself, he felt bad for Osito, and anyone who was with him.
Fortunately, he didn’t have the chance to feel bad for long. A herd of people started to trickle down the sidewalk. Some went across the street and got in their cars; some went down the street toward Harsh in Rivera’s sedan. In the span of about ten minutes, most of the other cars on the street that Porter watched had disappeared.
Porter’s eyes were peeled, looking for someone who was Osito. He strained at every face he could see—and even the ones he couldn’t—trying to figure out if Osito was leaving in another vehicle, worried he’d miss his chance at the man.
His worries were for naught.
Sometime after the street emptied out, a big guy pushing a wheelchair came down the street. There were two other men with him.
“Gotta be Osito,” Porter muttered to himself.
Porter stayed in the shadows, still and unmoving until the crew arrived at the car. One man was in the street, another was by the driver’s door, and the third still had his hands on the handles of the wheelchair.
Porter stood and took a few steps forward, still mostly hidden, so he could hear better.
“What’s the matter?” Osito said.
“Flat tire,” one of the security men said.
No shit, Sherlock.
“Coño,” Osito cussed.
“Both on this side are flat, too.”
Another genius, Porter thought. Where did he get these idiots?
Osito looked at the tire nearest him, flat as well, making it a flat tire clean sweep. “This is no accident.”
“But who?”
Porter couldn't help himself. He slipped Camelot Jones’s brass knuckles on his hands, barely getting it to squeeze down over the swollen fingers of his right hand, and stepped closer to Osito’s wheelchair. He raised his voice, much higher than normal. “You guys got any money you could spare?”
Osito ignored him. “I don’t know who it was, but that can wait. Find me another way home.”
“I could use the spare,” the man pushing his wheelchair said.
“Do you have four spares, idiot?”
How can these guys even breathe? Porter though. They’re so stupid.
Aside from the generally stupid statements and questions about the tires, they weren’t particularly good guards, either. When he first spoke up, they should have been paying attention to him. Assess the threat against their boss. Instead, these morons were too busy trying to find four spare tires in the Town Car. “I just need a little something to eat.”
Porter looked down as Osito turned to look up at him. “Look, you piece of shit bum. You need to get out of here, huh? Do what I say before you get hurt.”
“That’s funny,” Porter said. “I was just going to say the same thing.”
Then he launched himself into action.
Forty-One
Osito’s eyes widened in terror as Porter barreled toward him. Porter first hit the man who was still holding the handles of the wheelchair. He smashed him with a left in the kidney, then another left a bit higher, in the ribcage, then a third left, the brass knuckles burying themselves deep in the man’s neck.
Before the man even knew he was in a fight, Porter had hit him three times, and knocked him from consciousness.
And he wasn’t done yet.
He stepped past the wheelchair toward the man who was still bent over, looking at the front driver’s-side tire. The ruckus drew the man’s attention, and as he turned, Porter was already on him. He slammed the man into the quarter panel above the tire and crashed a big knee into the side of his head. The fight was immediately sapped from the guard, who barely had a chance to turn his head again before Porter slammed his head into the car, and let him fall stiff as a board on the ground.
The guard on the other side had more notice. Porter was loud as he worked and there was a car in between them, giving the man a chance to orient himself and draw his concealed pistol.
Porter casually stepped away from the Town Car, directly behind Osito, drawing the man’s own Python revolver and pressing it muzzle-first into his head. “You think you can shoot at me with that thing and not hit your boss?” As he spoke, he snaked his left hand around the front of Osito, quickly feeling for a replacement revolver, finding none.
The guard stepped around the trunk to try to get a better angle. Porter crouched down, keeping the man in the wheelchair between himself and the hero.
“Go ahead. Shoot. See if you can hit me.”
“No, you idiot, don’t shoot,” Osito screamed from the wheelchair.
“Show him what a good shot you are,” Porter said.
The guard looked confused. He raised and lowered his gun.
“Okay,” Porter said. “How about you drop your gun, or I shoot your boss.”
“If you kill him, you’re a dead man,” the guard said.
“I never said I’d kill him. There are plenty of places to shoot someone without killing them. Places that hurt like hell. Why don’t you ask ol’ Jimmy here,” Porter said as he smacked Osito in the face. “Tell him, Jimmy.”
“No! Don’t. Just put the gun down, Oscar.” The way Osito accented the name made it sound like ‘Oss-car.’
“But boss—”
“Put the gun down.” Osito practically came out of his seat as he said it.
Reluctantly, Oscar dropped his weapon.
“Good,” Porter said, standing a little straighter. “Now, pop the trunk.”
“What?” Osito said.
“I’m not talking to you. Oscar, pop this big bitch’s trunk.”
Oscar slowly moved to the cab of the car and reached inside, pushing a button and popping the trunk.
“Good,” Porter said.
“I’m not getting in there,” Osito said. “No way.”
“Will you shut the hell up?” Porter said. “Everything isn’t always about you.” He punctuated the statement with a sharp smack to the man’s face.
Oscar flinched, as if his hard-wired need to protect his boss was in conflict with his desire to stay alive.
“Oscar?” Porter said as he gestured with the revolver. “Get in the trunk.”
“But what about—”
“All right, dammit, I’m about sick of all this talking. I’m trying to keep from killing you, Oscar. Look, you got kids?”
The guard nodded.
“How are they gonna feel growing up without a dad? Because sure as hell I’m going to kill this piece of shit in the wheelchair. You won’t ever see him again. The only question is, do you want to go down with him?”
Porter raised the revolver and pointed it at Oscar.
In the blink of an eye, Oscar was in the trunk, slamming the lid after himself.
“Some loyalty,” Osito said.
“You probably don’t pay enough.” Porter walked to the closest patch of grass in front of a townhouse and fired three shots into it.
“Hey, what the hell?” Osito said, jerking as he tried to look behind himself.
“Those weren’t for you. Not yet,” Porter said.
By the time he put his hands on the handle of the wheelchair to move Osito, Rivera’s sedan came screeching around the corner, up the wrong side of the street and then nosed in toward the Town Car.
“We have to work on that,” Porter said to Harsh, who was already out of the car and pulling open the lid of the trunk. Porter grabbed Osito by the blazer and ripped him from his wheelchair. His broken hand screamed in agony, but Porter pushed it down, burying the pain. In one smooth movement, he lifted Osito up and into the trunk. Porter leaned in after the man, smashing the heavy revolver into Osito’s head, leaving him limp.
Harsh slammed the lid and the men hopped into the car and Porter drove away, leaving the wheelchair on the ground behind him.
Porter looked at the clock on the dashboard. Nearly five a.m., and the city was slowly coming back to life, like some great animal rising from its nightly slumber. There were more and more cars on the road, despite the fact that it was still dark out.
He’d been driving for nearly an hour. Turning and winding his way through the city, his GPS constantly recalculating and turning him around. Once he thought enough time had passed, he headed to his destination.
Back to Osito’s bodega.
Porter drove past the main drag in front of the place, and found it empty. No lights or movement in the bodega, no one out front.
He rounded the block and came up behind the side street, where Osito’s car had been. Where Porter had knocked his men out.
The men and the Town Car were all gone.
Porter had expected as much. It was the reason he’d fired the shots as he’d left. There was no way any of those men, with their illegal-to-carry-in-New-York guns, wanted to be around when the cops showed. If they ever did. No, he imagined Oss-car would let himself out of the trunk and grab his guys, unconscious or not, and throw them in the car to get away.
Porter did stop to wonder how the hell they had moved the Town Car on its flat tires. He imagined they’d hauled ass on the flats. Not their rims to worry about, after all.
Regardless, it had worked—everyone had cleared out, the players and guards. He wasn’t sure they were all as smart as Oscar, eager to leave and stay out of trouble. Some of the men would be loyal to Osito. That said, even if they were looking for their missing boss, no one would think to go back to the scene of the crime.
Which was why Porter was there.
After he pulled around the building, he pulled into the small street in the back. He looked at Harsh, who had been silent the entire drive. “I gotta be honest with you.”
The former Trinitario hit man turned toward Porter.
“Things are going to get messy in there.” He nodded with his head to the small, metal rear door of the bodega. “You up for it?”
Harsh didn’t say anything. Instead, he swung his feet out of the car and was waiting by the trunk before Porter could pry himself out of the front seat.
“Guess that’s your answer.” He popped the trunk of the sedan, and by the time he got around back, Harsh already had a wobbly Osito up on his casted leg.
Porter dug through Rivera’s trunk and pulled out his black gloves. He slipped them on his hands and looked at Harsh. “Don’t touch anything.”
Harsh didn’t answer.
“Okay.” He looked at Osito. “Where’s the key?” Porter said.
“What key? I don’t know what you’re talking abo—”
Harsh held Osito up by the scruff of his blazer with one hand and ripped his shirt buttons open with the other. There, dangling on a string around his neck, were several keys.
“Old school,” Porter said. “I can respect that.”
“I was a latch-key kid back in the day. Old habits die hard,” Osito said through clenched teeth.
Porter grabbed the keys and gave them a yank, and the string broke. Porter walked over to the back door, trying keys until he found the right one.
Above the door was a small security camera. Porter briefly considered it, the area, and what he knew about physical security. He doubted very greatly that a guy like Osito had a camera that actually worked. Even if it did, there was practically no chance the feed went to some cloud storage. No, something that cheap and old recorded on site. Probably still tapes.
Porter made a note to himself to grab the copy before he left.
He pulled the door open and lifted an upturned hand, ushering Harsh inside.
The quiet man half-carried, half-dragged Osito through the back door, and disappeared into the darkness of the bodega. Porter took one more look around, stepped inside, and slammed the door behind him.
Forty-Two
Porter turned the deadbolt on the door and looked around the space. It was dark, but there were some faint lights coming from various appliances. Porter stepped past Harsh and went toward the front of the store.
There was a swinging set of double doors that led from the back room to the main space. Once Porter was on the sales floor of the bodega, there was a bit more light, coming from the streetlights outside and filtering through the frosted glass that he’d watched the men through.
On the floor in front of him were several poker tables, the usual stock of small groceries having been pushed against the wall. There was the faint greenish light of an old television monitor behind the sales counter. Porter stepped around it, like a clerk going to work, and walked to the end near the register and the wall.
There was a small TV, perched on a thick old VCR. Porter looked at the screen, then the VCR. He hit eject and slipped the tape into his back pocket. No reason anyone should see what was going to happen next, and Porter definitely didn’t want to keep a copy around for posterity.
He stepped back through the double doors, hunted around the wall for a light switch and flipped it on. The small space in the back was illuminated, but none of the light would creep up to the front.
Porter wanted to be sure no one knew the bodega had occupants.
It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust, and he looked around. It was a simple storeroom. On the floor were pallets of foodstuffs that would be cycled onto the shelves. There were several rolling trashcans in the same space, and back near the door, stacks of empty boxes, bound together with twine.
“Your people recycle? How green of you,” Porter said. He stepped over to a bundle, pulled his pocket knife, and cut several long lengths of twine from the bundle.
“Maybe they’ll recycle you,” Osito rasped out.
Porter smiled as he knotted the twine together, then walked over to an empty spot on the floor and looked up. The ceiling was exposed metal rafters. In industrial buildings, the studs, joists, and ceiling beams usually had to be metal. Something about the strength of the structure, as well as the metal being able to withstand fire longer.
