Jo Robertson - The Avenger

He thought of the Invictus motto from an old World War I poet. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." Personally, Jack had started to question how sweet and noble dying for one's country was. Especially if the country was just plain wrong.

Unexpectedly his cell phone rang and he fumbled to retrieve it from the nightstand. He glanced at the readout, a local number he didn't recognize. "Holt."

"Slater."

Jack waited, not minding the dead air of silence over a phone.

"If you're going to be in Bigler County very long, I thought you might want a more hospitable place to stay besides a hotel," Slater offered. Of course, he'd run a check on Jack and knew exactly where he was staying.

Jack glanced around the motel room, thought about having every meal out or ordering room service, the stale stuffy odor of the place. "What'd you have in mind?"

"I have a guest house out back of my place."

"Fancy. Didn't know county sheriffs made that kind of money."

"You don't have to accept the invite."

"Are you being kind hearted or do you just want to keep me in your sights?" Jack asked.

"What do you think?" Slater rattled off an address not far from the university and hung up.

Olivia had been a bitch when he'd married her, and her successful career had only made her more of one. An uppity, frigid, freeze-your-balls bitch. From the start she'd thought she was too good for him, and now with a fancy PhD, she acted like she was the queen bee.

He had news for Miss Fancy Pants.

Bill Gant tipped the bottle back and felt the last dribble of Jack Daniels trickle down his throat. Fuck! Now he'd have to get dressed and go out. Forgetting why he needed to move his ass, he sprawled across the saggy hotel mattress a moment. At last his brain climbed out of its stupor. He struggled into his pants and threw a sweater over his wife-beater shirt.

He always got a kick out of that name – wife-beater. Like a man put on a particular kind of undershirt to beat the hell out of his wife. He knew a wife he'd be happy to pound the shit out of. Stuck up Olivia Gant, even though she wasn't legally his wife any more. Gant, because she hadn't taken back her maiden name after he signed the divorce papers. No matter what she said, no matter what the law said, Bill knew that meant she still wanted him.

It meant she was still his.

Groping his way down the hallway, he fumbled for his car keys as he headed for the parking lot. He'd seen a liquor store on the west side of Sacramento and drove at a crawl towards it. Wouldn't pass a breathalyzer, he thought, better go real slow. He cruised the streets, passed barred store windows. Several women teetered on mile-high heels under the garish street lights.

He found the open liquor store and made his purchase, throwing in a carton of milk and cold cereal before handing over his money to the clerk. Back in his car, heading for the seedy hotel room, he stopped at a corner where a girl lounged against a brick wall.

She sidled up to his open passenger window. "Hey, mister, wanna have a good time?"

She looked barely sixteen and Bill Gant had standards. He didn't mess with kids. "Get lost," he growled.

"Come on, honey, don't be like that." She opened the top button on her bright green blouse, thrusting her breasts over the lip of the car window. "Like what you see?"

"Shove off, kid."

"Screw you," she said and flipped the bird as she sauntered off, stumbling in the stilettos like a child playing dress up in mommy's shoes.

The second woman's face sagged beneath vacant eyes, her breath reeked of liquor, and Bill wanted to throw up. He clenched his fists on the steering wheel and thought of Olivia. She'd shoved him out of her life, reduced him to hooking up with sluts on the streets. He eased his car around the corner, parked in an alley outside the range of the street light, and waited, remembering his wife's soft pale skin and small waist. Imagined himself tightening his fingers around her pretty neck while he came inside her. He felt his erection tighten against his jeans.

The third woman was just right. Like Goldilocks, he thought, smirking cruelly inside the dark interior of the car. With long black hair that reminded him of Olivia, although this broad's was clearly a dye job, the woman was pretty in a gaudy, street-wise way. She had an edge that let him know she could take care of herself. They agreed on a fee and she jumped in the car, directing him to a pay-by-the-hour hotel several blocks off Manzanita.

Bill placed the money on the dresser before she asked for it, letting her see there was more than the negotiated fee. "I might get a little… rowdy," he said, watching her face carefully, gauging if she'd be game or not. "Are you good with that?"

He thought he saw a gleam in her eyes. It was always easier when the women liked it. Frigid bitch Olivia always whined if he got rough.

"Sure, honey. I'm into anything you want." She glanced at the bills on the dresser. "I'm Goldie. What's your name?"

Bill barked out a harsh laugh at the irony. "Not necessary." He shoved her down on the bed.

"You're payin' for my time whether it's a little or a lot."

He was sure the prostitute had put up with much worse, but when Bill finished with her, ugly bruises dotted her upper arms and thighs, and finger marks showed angry and red at her neck. Standing naked by the dresser and counting the bills, she seemed not to notice or care.

She glanced over at him as he slipped on his shorts. "That was a wild ride, sweetie. Come see me again when you're up for more. I'm usually at the same corner." A tiny fleck of blood appeared on the woman's bottom lip. She casually licked the drop from her mouth, and he wondered who it belonged to – her or him. She liked it, he thought.

As he staggered back to his car, he thought he'd feel better, but the rage continued to build as he drank. Olivia liked it rough, too, although she always pretended otherwise. Complained he was hurting her. The bitch never let him do the things a normal man expected. He thought of making her sorry she'd ever crossed him and smiled in the dark motel room, clutching his bottle of Jackie D.

"Get him on the goddamn phone!" the Judge roared.

Higgins jumped so high Warren would've thought he'd have a heart attack if he hadn't known the little man was fit as a fiddle.

"Sir, the motel where he was registered checked him out and he's not answering his cell or Prima phones."

The Judge forcibly lowered his voice. "Myron, we pay you a great deal of money to see that things run efficiently around here." He watched as Higgins bobbed his head up and down like a yo-yo. "Good, now do what you're paid to do and track him down."

"Yes sir, I'll try the Prima phone again."

Calmer now, Warren sat back in his chair and swiveled to look out the window. "Did you get the Phenobarbital compound mailed off?"

"Yes sir, Agent Holt signed for it the day he checked out of the motel."

"That's good," the Judge murmured. Chewing on his unlit cigar, he stared out the window and wondered where the hell Jack had gone. "One more thing, get Dr. Davis up here. I need to talk to him ASAP. In person."

"Certainly, sir," Higgins said softly and closed the door with a soft click.

The Judge had spent the seventies training soldiers in 'Nam and then more years as a district court judge. Years of appellate court decisions based on laws that set guilty men free had disillusioned him and propelled him toward an organization like Invictus. He'd personally recruited every agent in his stable, and Jackson Holt was the best he'd ever seen. The Judge had known from the start that Jack's stellar performance came from far more than Dr. Davis' designer medications.