John Gilstrap - Threat warning

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said. “That was rude of me. May I please have that bunk?”

The thug gaped for a moment, then exploded with a laugh. “Hell no, you can’t have it.”

“Are you using it?”

“I might.” The guy was at least three inches taller than Jonathan, and outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Now he was mugging for his buddies.

And Jonathan was getting pissed. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you think about it, talk it over with your friends, and then let me know what you decide. Meanwhile, step aside and save us all a lot of heartache.” He turned back to the bunk. There were only a couple of ways the rest of this could go, and he didn’t anticipate a happy outcome.

The banger made his choice, grabbing Jonathan by the arm and pulling him back again. Hard. Jonathan found himself whirling toward the concrete wall. He had to get his hands up fast to keep from kissing it. By the time he turned, the banger was six inches away, spouting threats and doing that arm-flapping thing that gangbangers do when they get blustery.

Jonathan struck like a snake. He grabbed the guy’s balls with his left hand, his larynx with his right, and squeezed. Hard. The banger’s knees sagged, allowing Jonathan to pivot him so the wall would take some of the weight.

He noted that the banger’s buddies did not rush to lend aid. If they had, Jonathan was ready to handle them; but as it was, he sensed that they were willing to let this assault run its course.

“What’s his name?” Jonathan asked the buddies.

“Hey, man, let him go. He can’t breathe.”

“He’s going to be infertile, too. Name, please.”

“Dion,” one of them said.

“Thank you.” He burned his gaze through Dion’s skull. “Hi, Dion. My name’s Jonathan. My friends call me Digger. You can call me ‘sir.’” He squeezed harder with his left hand, and pain shot through Dion like a seizure.

Jonathan let go with both hands and let the banger drop. He didn’t look tough anymore. Then again, it’s hard to look tough when you’re on the floor cradling your junk with both hands, gasping for air. That little whimpering sound didn’t help. Nor the piss stain.

Crap. Jonathan looked at his soiled hand as if it might be covered with cockroaches. As he moved to the sink to wash his hands, the banger buddies remained riveted to their spots.

“Here’s the thing, guys,” Jonathan explained, his tone the very essence of reason. “I tried to be friendly, but you didn’t want it that way.” He glanced over his shoulder just to make sure they weren’t moving on him.

“You never even introduced yourselves,” he went on. “Talk about rude.” When he finished rinsing, he stepped toward the buddies. As he approached, they stepped back in unison. They jumped in unison, too, when he extended his hand. “Jonathan,” he said to the one on the left.

The guy shot a look to his cohort, clearly unsure of what he should do.

“Tell the man your name,” the friend said. He rolled his eyes, then reached past him to offer his hand. “I’m Luke,” he said.

Jonathan shook his hand.

“This is Jermaine. You already met Dion.”

As Jonathan shook Jermaine’s hand, he noted that Dion’s breathing was returning to normal.

“So, dude, are you like some martial-arts god or something?” Luke asked. His tone dripped admiration.

“I’m just a guy,” Jonathan said. “Who happens to be really, really tired, and pretty much up to here with bullshit.” He pointed to a spot above his eyebrow.

“But what did you do to him? I never seen Dion drop like that.”

Jonathan shrugged. “Just got his attention is all. He’ll be fine.”

“Man, that was like Spock shit, man. Could you have killed him like that if you’d wanted?”

Jonathan winked. “He’ll be fine.”

A heavy door opened down the hall and a voice boomed, “Graves! Wake up, you lucky sonofabitch. You’re getting sprung.” It was Engelhardt, and when he arrived at the cell door, his face turned into a question mark. “What’s his problem?” He pointed with his chin to Dion.

Luke gave Jonathan’s shoulder a playful slap. “Asshole done got his attention.”

Engelhardt didn’t care. “Stand back, guys. Your bunky gets to sleep in his own bed tonight.”

“Ain’t that some shit,” Jermaine said, his first words.

Jonathan’s posse stepped aside to allow the door to open and Jonathan to pass.

“How’d you get sprung so fast?” Luke asked.

Engelhardt answered for him. “Helps to have friends in high places. That high-and-mighty Secret Service agent who brought you in is sitting in receiving lookin’ like he swallowed a bucket of worms.”

“This is bullshit,” Dion said. Now that a wall of bars separated them again, he seemed to have rediscovered his courage. He still stood funny, though. “You pull that cheap fightin’ stuff, and I’m supposed to believe you’re innocent?”

Engelhardt had already taken two steps toward leading Jonathan to freedom, and Jonathan nearly let Dion’s bravado go unchallenged.

Nearly. In the end, he couldn’t do it. He whirled on the bars, and Dion jumped back. “Look, you gangbanging moron, you need to decide if you want to sew your mouth shut or be fitted for a body bag.”

Jonathan understood better than most the lives of disaffected youth. At one level, all that differentiated him from these punks was the fact that his father’s criminal enterprises had been enormously successful. Money talked. Dion and his friends never had the benefit of Jonathan’s fifteen-thousand-dollar-a-year high school education.

These boys had been throwaway strays since the day they were born. Jonathan pitied them the way he pitied everyone who was born into crime. Years ago, he’d founded Resurrection House, a tuition-free residential school for children of incarcerated parents, specifically in hopes of breaking the cycle of misery that began for children when their parents were arrested, and often followed them all the way to their graves in a potter’s field beyond their own prison walls.

Jonathan noted a smirk on Engelhardt’s face as he led the way back out through the maze of airlocks. “Something funny, Deputy?”

Englehardt bristled. “Keep your tough-guy rap for the inmates,” he said. Then he laughed. “But wait till you see the Secret Service dick. You seem to have an interesting way with people.”

Jonathan’s first impression of Agent Clark when he saw him waiting in the receiving area was that Engelhardt had gotten it wrong-the guy looked like he’d swallowed a bucket of spiders, not worms. Worms would have brought a look of disgust. This guy looked scared.

Jonathan knew exactly what had happened: Dom had placed a call from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Ninth Street, beginning a ripple of consequences that had led to Clark learning this vivid lesson in Washington politics.

“Good evening, Agent Clark,” Jonathan said through a broad smile. “Nice of you to come.”

Clark stood, but his face remained as hard as granite. “There are a lot of people dead out there tonight, Mr. Grave,” Clark said. “Forgive me if I don’t find that funny.”

Jonathan glared at the classic inside Washington bullshit. When rocked on your heels, take the offense by being offended. Warfare by sound bite. It was a game Jonathan chose never to play. He shook his head in the most patronizing way he knew how. “I’m going to go home now and read about the murderer who got away because you wouldn’t let me shoot her.”

That ought to do it.

As Jonathan pushed past, Clark grabbed his elbow. The fact that they were in a police station saved him from a nightmare of facial surgery and jaw wire. “Wait,” Clark said.