Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

The grip tightened around his hand, Moises felt clearly. “ About me?”

“Your little sister,” Roger said, stepping next to Darian. “We know what happened.”

Moises looked to the floor, but a hand roughly lifted his chin up. Darian had released his grip on the youngster’s hand and was now preventing his head from dipping.

“You keep your head high, Brother Moises,” Darian told him. “Always high. Always proud. You don’t bow because of nothing. Not because you’re sad. Not because you’re in chains. Because folks don’t know the difference, and no one is ever going to think you’re bowing to them.” He pulled his hand away and tapped the boy’s cheek lightly. “You understand?”

“Yeah.”

Darian nodded. “Good. Now, you said you wanted to fight the last time you were here.”

“That’s right.”

“Right,” Darian said, noticing the rougher appearance of the youth. He was unshaven by a couple of days. The clothes were not clean, though they weren’t soiled. He was different. “Are you ready to stand up for your people?”

“Yeah,” Moises said, his trepidation of a few moments before gone completely now. Yeah, I’ll stand up. I’ll stand on some cracker’s head if you want me to . “I’m ready.”

“Are you afraid of dying?” Darian inquired.

Dying? I’m halfway there already . “No.”

“What about other folks dying?”

Moises shook his head slowly. “I won’t cry as long as they’re the right color.”

A smile now came with Darian’s nod. “You’ve got a family, right?”

“I had one.”

“You’ve got a new one,” Roger said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“And this family is going to do something big real soon,” Darian said. “Then we’re gonna split. You got any problem with taking off?”

“I’ve got nothing to keep me here,” Moises answered. Just a mother and father who might as well be dead . He hurt as he thought that.

“All right, Brother Moises.” Darian looked into the boy’s eyes. Yes, the eyes . He was right the first time he had seen them. You’re a fighter . And soon, he knew, Brother Moises Griggs would be a killer. “Be here Monday night, ready to go.”

“I’ll be here,” Moises said, sensing that the life he had known was over, and another was about to begin.

“His finances check out clean,” Hal Lightman reported.

Art scanned the summary sheet that covered a stack of bank and business records relating to Monte Royce and his company. “Of course they do. Why should anything even remotely related to this make any sense? Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Everyone’s innocent.”

“What about Kostin?” Frankie asked, moving beyond her partner’s frustration. “The cashier’s checks?”

“The bank that issued them says he came in with cash and had the checks made out.”

“Just for the rent?” she probed.

“Rent and for those chemicals and the equipment,” Lightman answered.

“Nikolai Kostin was not born with that money,” Art observed with some agitation. Things were moving much too slowly, even for the new and improved Art Jefferson. “He did not come here with that money. And he sure as hell didn’t make all of it in his time at Royce Pharmaceuticals.”

“We’re trying, Art,” Lightman said.

The senior agent leaned back in his chair and let out a purposeful breath. “I know.”

Frankie looked up to the bearer of bad news, hoping to lighten the moment. “Don’t mind him, Hal. He’s still trying to decide if he likes cold weather.”

“Freezing weather,” Art corrected her.

“It don’t get cold in Chicago,” Lightman joked, his voice lowering to a whisper, “ It gets fucking cold .”

“Thanks for the weather report, Hal,” Art said.

“I’ll see you kids tomorrow,” Lightman said, leaving the agents to pore over the information some more.

Art looked down upon the pages, his head shaking. “Mr. Clean, huh?”

“We missed a smudge or something. I can feel it, Art.” Frankie rarely called her partner by name, and then only when she was dead serious and certain of something. “He’s dirty.”

“I know he is.” It was easy to spot someone soiled by their own actions, Art knew, and it was often a chore to keep from getting dirtied by that person. The last thought reminded him of one avenue they hadn’t taken yet. “Vorhees was mixed up with Royce, even if innocently.”

Innocent . Frankie rarely used that word when referring to politicians of Vorhees’s type. The consummate player. Mr. Backroom Dealer who would still get in your face if it was required. Guiltless, maybe. Innocent… Her head shook. “We need to talk to him.”

“Senator Crippen, too,” Art said. “Royce said he knows them both well. Let’s see how well.”

“It could shed some light,” Frankie agreed.

Art stood, his mind made up. It could shed some light, as Frankie said, but it would also certainly ruffle some feathers. The director was sure to get some calls about this one. “Pack a bag, partner.”

“D.C.” Frankie scowled. “Wonderful.”

The town of Sandberg, located at the northern end of the Old Ridge Route, had seen better days. Really, it was now only a gathering of crumbling walls and amputated chimneys that had once marked a bustling waystation along the former south-north route over the mountains from Los Angeles to the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley. But the two-lane, winding road had been made virtually obsolete by the completion of the Grapevine portion of the Golden State Freeway many years before. Unmaintained now, the ribbon of rough asphalt was frequented only by off-roaders and the adventurous, and the town of Sandberg, nestled among a grove of oaks at the base of an antennae-topped peak, was similarly deserted. Except for this morning.

“You see them?” Stanley asked, his head almost jerking left and right in search of the Africans.

“No.” Toby slowed the Aerostar past a line of buildings marked only by ankle-high bricks that outlined what remained of their foundations. “They’ve gotta be up the road.”

“Toby, I don’t like this. What if they’re cops?”

Toby gave his brother a brief, disdainful look. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“I just—”

“Stan, Freddy’s friends checked these guys out, all right? Brother D is some guy named Darian Brown. You know that. I told you. That nigger’s done time, enough that Freddy’s Brotherhood friends knew of him. One of the other guys was a basketball player before he did time. Do those sound like cops to you?”

Stanley looked back out the windshield, avoiding the challenge. “There they are.”

Off by the side of a muddy dirt track that circled behind a group of fallen structures a faded green Buick Electra 225 sat. Resting against its hood were the same three who had met them at the zoo.

“No rear guard this time,” Toby observed. “I guess they trust us.” But if not, the .38 in his waistband would help settle matters.

The Aerostar turned off the “main” road through Sandberg, nosing right up to the big Buick. Toby took the duffel from between the seats and stepped out with his brother.

“You picked a cold enough place for this little get-together,” Roger, his hands tucked beneath opposite arms, commented to the white boys.

“Wait’ll it starts to snow later,” Toby responded, adding a snicker.

Darian stood straight from his leaning place against the car. “First, the money.”

Toby nodded. His father really was right about these guys. They could be bought cold. “Stan.”