James Born - Shock Wave

It was near dawn, and Alicia Wells had broken her rule of not drinking while working, but the young lawyer who had helped Daniel had showed up and was so nice. A public defender for the federal court. Whatever that was. He was nice, cute and had some cash. The next thing Alicia knew she was a little drunk, giving him a lap dance in the back room. One lap dance turned into another and another, until they were just making out in the small room with two couches. No one even checked on her. She lost interest when he ran out of money, and nice and cute just didn’t cut it. Besides, she was a married woman, though that seemed less and less real every day. In fact, the longer she was away from Daniel’s hellion boys, the better she liked it. She did miss little Lettye. She was just a sweet little Barbie doll. But the boys never stopped, and Daniel encouraged them all the time. He talked about how he liked to “disturb the natural flow of the universe.” Whatever that meant, she just wished the boys weren’t one of the ways to do it. Daniel would watch the news about the riots or some explosion like it was one of her soaps. Like General Hospital without a plot. She knew he had some weird ties to different people and believed he might have helped them do some crazy things from time to time but never let on. He thought she was a little stupid because he had three years of college, but she wasn’t. She had her GED, and a month and a half of beauty school besides. She may not have known the capital of Florida for sure, she figured it had to be Orlando ’cause of where it was built, but she was smart in other ways. Like he didn’t have ten dollars to his name. He’d work and work and charge people for only the hours he put in. She made four hundred, sometimes six hundred, a night after expenses, and untaxed. Unlike the other girls, she didn’t use drugs or drive fancy cars. She had almost nine thousand dollars stashed away. That made her smart as far as she was concerned.

All this ran through her head as she stumbled down the long path that led to the small apartment she rented from the nice Cuban family in North Miami. The bungalow-type building sat way off the road and no one ever bothered her.

As she stuck the key in the lock and started to turn it, she heard a man’s voice say, “Found you finally.”

Tasker was a little drowsy at the wheel of the Cherokee on the way home and then fell into a deep sleep on his couch ten minutes after turning on the TV to unwind. He caught a little of Saturday Night Live -the “Weekend Update” bit with the really hot babe in glasses-before he was off dreaming of water skiing with the girls in the Keys while Donna drove the boat. The phone snapped him awake at eight in the morning.

He reached for the portable handset, unable to focus on where it could be. Finally he grabbed it and mashed the talk button. “Hello.”

“Billy, it’s Jerry. Did I wake you?”

“Yeah, I was on the damn Klan house until almost midnight.”

“Sorry, Billy, I thought you had it this morning and the only number I had handy was home. I was trying to get you before you left.”

“No problem, Jerry. Camy has some ATF guys covering the surveillance for us today. What’s up?”

“Hey, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the Feds, but there is something weird about one number in Wells’ phone book. I was in the office yesterday, cleaning up some stuff, and noticed a subpoena to Bell South had come back.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“There’s a North Miami number that according to Bell South is an un-assigned number. The problem with it is that it rings. Unassigned numbers have a phone-company recording. This unassigned number rings, but no one answers when I call.”

“You think it’s a police UC line?”

“Not even a UC line. When I call another number close to it with the same exchange, guess who answers?”

“No idea.”

“The FBI.”

Tasker was silent while he thought about what that might mean.

It took Alicia Wells five minutes to calm down after being surprised at her front door. She sat on her couch, looking at the source of her surprise next to her.

“How’d you find me?”

Daniel Wells smiled. “Your mama told me where you were. Why would you hide from me?”

“I knew you didn’t like me dancing, and I needed a break from the boys.”

“They doin’ okay?”

“If starting fires all over your uncle’s neighborhood and blowing up a little bridge across the canal is okay, then they’re fine.”

“I miss those boys. But I had to see you to let you know what was gonna happen.”

“What?”

“You need to go collect the kids and wait at Uncle Tom’s for me to call. End of the week I’ll ride over to Tampa and we’re all heading for Louisiana.”

“New Orleans?” she asked hopefully.

“No, way further west. West of Baton Rouge. Little compound there run by some mighty serious boys. Boys that hate the government and need my help.”

“I don’t want to live in Louisiana.”

“That’s fine. We’ll be moving on to Montana after a couple of weeks.”

She put her hand on Daniel’s arm. “No, Daniel, you don’t understand. I want to stay.”

“Can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see. You won’t wanna stay after Thursday.”

“What happens Thursday?” She was getting frustrated. She hated it when he treated her like she was an idiot.

“Gonna stir some things up. Nothing you should worry your beautiful little mind about. Just gonna cause a little pandemonium.”

She looked at his handsome face with a sideways glance. “You ain’t gonna hurt anyone, are you?”

“That’s not the point. It may happen, but it’s not intentional.” He put his arm around her. “You’re the only person in the world I’ve said anything to about this. I just need you to pack up and go get the kids. Then we’ll go back to bein’ a family.”

Alicia pulled away and stood up. “You know the cops are looking for you.”

“Yeah, I know. How do you know that?”

“That black cop, the one that came with Bill Tasker, tried to question me.”

Now Wells stood. “What’d you tell him?”

“Nothing. I used the pepper spray you gave me. And ran.”

He hugged her, laughing. “That’s my girl.” He held her at arm’s length and said, “Don’t look so worried, baby. I got an ace up my sleeve with the cops. They won’t touch me.”

She smiled at him but felt a wave of uneasiness. He’d changed since she’d last seen him. He had a wild look in his eyes. She didn’t know what he had planned, but she didn’t want to see anyone hurt, and definitely didn’t want to ever see Montana, let alone live there.

“It’s as hot as Pamela Anderson’s ass out here,” said Derrick Sutter to Bill Tasker.

Tasker looked at the empty lot and tall sawgrass along the unkempt edges of Manny’s abandoned market and had to agree. He’d brought his partner lunch at the surveillance post and thought he’d break up Sutter’s day with a visit.

Sutter looked at the FDLE agent and said, “What’s bothering you now? You got everyone to agree with you, Wells is a bad guy. You got the FBI to work on a Saturday. You’ve performed miracles, and you still don’t look happy.”

Tasker smiled at that. “Something’s not right with this.”

“The case?”

“This surveillance. You think Wells would be here?”

“No, not really. He does seem too smart to be mixed up with them. He’s got a job, or at least did have a job, which most of the Klan jerk-offs don’t, and he seemed too normal. But that doesn’t mean shit, because apparently he’s not if he likes blowing things up.”