Fireteam Spectre: “Old School Methods”
A heavy handful of keys slid across the table, stopping against a stack of loose papers and binders. The rings held devices of brass and shiny aluminum reflected the ambient light for a brief moment until Jackson’s hand closed over them. Dave Abernacle — a stupid name, but he liked it well enough — stood at the end of the opposite end of the table.
“It’s one expensive repair bill, my friend.” Jackson sighed, but was under no illusions of what he asked his of his friend.
Dave shrugged, “I could charge you for the use of my tools, too. It’s what the government would’ve done.” He laughed slightly and sat down, “Business is what it is, but what do you have going on here?”
Jackson dangled the keys and slid them into his front right pocket. Dave helped himself to a bundle of stapled paper, “What’s this shit you’re reading, anyway?”
He shrugged at the questions, acting nonchalant about his kitchen table being covered entirely with brick after brick of printed paper, some organized, and other’s not so fortunate. “It’s nothing important, Doc Evans said research would help me understand what Emily is going through and what rehab is going to put her through. You know, so when she returns we can have a hellacious fight in divorce court about sending her to Montana without her consent.”
“Yeah I’m sure that was illegal somewhere.”
Jackson didn’t smile at his friends comment, “According to the laws in Montana I’m in the clear, apparently they don’t like getting involved in private citizen’s marriage disputes and if you act within the best interest of a person who can’t decisions for themselves, it won’t go to court.”
That is when Dave laughed, “That’s not the State you live, my friend. When’re we moving?”
Jackson’s eyes shift upward, “I have a year to make that decision, let’s hope it turns out for the best. Okay?”
“I’ll toast to that.” Dave raised his hand, holding an invisible glass and turned his nose upward in a joking manner.
Jackson nodded and turned to fish a few cold cans of beer from the refrigerator, though Dave declined the offer, Jackson set the spare beer to the side keeping it far away enough so that the condensation didn’t cause a mess with his paperwork. “There’s finally something worth toasting about, right?”
“That,” and Dave took another healthy look at the literature on the table, scoffing at all the facts and figures strewn about. “That and your obsession with light nightstand reading.”
“Doc is full of helpful info, you know?”
The right side of Dave’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Oh yeah, it was a nice plan, keeping tight with him. Too bad Emily had to make her choices.”
“Lizzy too.”
Dave changed his mind and made a grab for the beer sitting across from him and keeping the can under the table to keep it from spraying across the papers. “Yeah,” he said before taking a healthy dose of piss water, “Lizzy, now that was a shame. I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“You didn’t hear? Shit man it’s been on the news for days.”
Jackson shook his head, “Man I’ve stayed away from the TV, nothing on that’s any good anyway.”
Dave exhaled loudly, leaving the room for a moment and returning with the noise of the television blaring in the den, and it was at the kitchen table where Jackson could hear the voice of his stepsister, and what she had to say wasn’t pretty. “What the fuck is this?” Jackson stood up to move to the den, to hear the accusations of the hour long rape and beating she suffered at the hands of an unknown assailant. “What the fuck is this!”
“You didn’t talk to Lizzy? Didn’t know she was at her usual drug hangout when it got blown away two days ago or so?” Dave stood back, watching his friends’ anger level annotate itself in the redness in his face. “Better put a cap on that, or your head’s liable to explode.”
“Oh god damn it,” Jackson muttered several times under his breath. “What does this mean?”
His eyes squinted into a sort of quizzical expression to match the rest of his face; he wetted his lips with his tongue several times to attempt to say anything. “What’s the problem, they caught the guy responsible, gang war is starting and the cops are going out in force. You should see it out there, downtown is insane. Cops walking beats with guns, I’m talking AR-15s, a curfew instated, man you’ve really got to keep your eye on what’s going on around you.”
“They caught the guy?”
“Yeah, some high school dropout, a guy wanted some blow but no one was selling to him so he went in and blew the whole place away. The press was calling at “Call of Duty” style execution.”
“The video game?”
Dave nodded, “everyone needs an excuse, videogames are violent, but hey, stoners just want to be left alone right? They don’t perpetrate crime, ever.”
Jackson bent down to turn off the boob-tube, “No truth in the news, no news in the truth.”
“Awesome, what TV show did you lift that from?”
Jackson shrugged, “Something I caught on CBS a year or two back, decent show.”
“Nice.” Dave laughed and followed Jackson back into the kitchen where he watched his friend going back to organizing his papers. “So, you are going to tell me what all this is really about, right? As much fun as this charade is, you’re not a very good liar Jack.”
“Charade is a pretty big word for you.”
“Yeah, you know it’s classified as a ruse at the same time, though while different sounding words entirely they mean essentially the same fucking thing. Though it is a lot more fun to play charades than it is to play a ruse. You play a ruse, and it’s likely you’ll lose a friend, they’re mean-spirited.”
“You’re rambling.”
The mechanic laughed, “I’m not stupid, Jack. But hey you want plausible deniability that’s cool. There’s no way a gang-banger is going to know how to dig slugs out of the bodies of how many people you shot and killed. Plus, what strung out loser is going to place well aimed shots center mass like that? You really ought to shake things up, make it look messy next time.”
“Fuck it,” Jackson nodded, there was no point in trying to hide it anymore. If Dave figured it out on his own, it wouldn’t be long before Dean was knocking at his door. “Yeah I did it.”
“Well no shit, Jackass. We’ve established that much.” Dave laughed at his friend’s moment of obviousness, and he lifted up several bundles of paper. “But this shit, you’re planning something big. John’s being tight lipped about it, and I’m telling you right now, I’m in, all the way, no questions asked.”
Jackson nearly fell out of his chair, “You were supposed to be the hard one to convince.”
“Yeah well, you find out your friend goes to a drug house for a little vigilante justice because the cops are too chicken shit to slice through red tape and it brings up some interesting questions you can’t answer without downing a few beers to grasp onto.”
“Uh huh.”
Dave stopped, tossing the papers down and smiles, “Yeah I know, rambling again. Whatever you do, I’m not going to be Robin to your Batman, I don’t do well in capes and tights, and I look retarded at Halloween parties.”
Jackson burst out laughing, hardly able to contain himself before taking a few minutes to get in control of himself, “So at this rate I should just pick up the phone and call Dean, huh?”
“Might be worth a shot.” Dave shrugged, “But then again he might be opposed to this.”
Jackson scoffs, “He’s got a conscious now?”
Laughter fires out of Dave’s mouth, “I guess not, that guy lives for having a reason to shoot at people. Sick, sick world with such people in it!”
A smile crept across Jackson’s face, after everything was said and done and the laughter left the room, the two got down to serious business at hand. They hardly stayed on topic for more than a few minutes at a time but it’s when Dave spoke up about the news, “Please tell me you didn’t fuck your step sister man. I can handle killing bad people because your wife is in a bad way. That I can understand. But dude, she’s like almost your sister.”
Everything in Jackson’s face was serious at the drop of a hat; the room was silent enough to hear a pin drop into a haystack. “Are you serious?”
“We’re close enough to Arkansas.”
“No we’re not, we’re nowhere near it.” Jackson said, almost sure where his friend was going with his statement, but: “What the hell does that have anything to do with it?”
“I’m sure quasi-incest is legal there, I mean it won’t be on the books or anything, but hey out of sight out of mind. But you might not want to tell Emily.”
“Fuck you,” Jackson laughs aloud and walks to the fridge for another beer. “You can get your own, fucker.”
* * *
Circled in red, a particular section of Jackson’s map stood out to Dave more than any other. Generally red would do that to anyone, but Dave’s curiosity won the best of his attention as Jackson spilled on with an emotional rant about Emily. He would nod every few seconds to show that he was at least partially listening, but in reality he was discussing within his own mind the flaws in Jackson’s ideas, curious about what they might be at the same time. Though he lets Jackson continue on with his emotional diatribe, he figured with Emily leaving this morning he needed at least the opportunity to vent it out. There wasn’t much too really listen to anyway, so Dave calmly waited for him to empty that emotional tap.
“What’s with the red, over there?”
It took Jackson a second to recover from the interruption and shake off the tension. “What? Oh, that, yeah.” He stammered a bit and re-organized his thoughts for a moment, “The place I hit was only the first one, and Emily wasn’t a one-stop shopper.”
Dave nodded, “Starting a pattern are we?”
“What?”
Dave stood and turned his chair around, only to sit in it again, jabbing the red circle with his finger, “I get the first house, and you didn’t think it through. It was personal, not the best of moves but at least forgivable nonetheless. But you keep doing this based on the people Emily knows, after you sent her to one hell of an expensive rehab center so many states away. You know, that’s not going to take the cops long to figure out, probably the drug pushers even less.”
Expletives leave Jackson’s mouth under his breath and he nervously taps the table staring down at the red circle. “Fuck man, what do I do now?”
“How much cash did you spend to send Emily off?”
Jackson exhaled again with a long expletive, “Damn near a hundred and fifty.”
“God damn, are you serious?” Dave whistles, “Hundred and fifty grand for only a year of treatment?”
“Yeah, and it’ll only work after she starts cooperating.” Jackson downed the rest of his beer before finishing his statement. “It emptied my savings that much is clear. But it’ll be worth it.”
“Let’s hope.”
Jackson’s head dropped, his eyes looking at the map and then shifting to the binder full of facts and graphs and newspaper clippings, “Other than this mess I started, hope is all I got.”
Dave slapped his friend on the back, “And hey, look on the bright side, your car is nice and tuned up.”
“Yeah, so awesome since you did that four months ago too.”
“Oh yeah,” he laughed, “I conveniently forgot.”
Jackson went back to the fridge for another beer, his third in as many hours, this time not offering one to Dave. Keeping his promise to make Dave get his own, Jackson went back to work over his data and the map. “We can’t just hit things randomly, there needs to be a plan, and plans cause patterns.”
“Right,” Dave nodded, stroking his chin in a parody of thought, “but you need to think of this as an operation, not a personal vendetta. Think about what we’d do if this were a real operation for DoD.”
He pushed himself off the chair and Dave watched him leave the room. Jackson stayed out of the kitchen for almost twenty minutes, vanishing upstairs and Dave never bothered to follow. He stayed in his seat, looking over the data on his own, and really not seeing anything out of the ordinary, except the way it was organized. Jackson was meticulous, just went to show two things about Jackson’s seriousness and dedication to his need to do this. It was going to become an obsession if someone did not keep him grounded, and the last thing Jackson needed to do was die before Emily got better.
Jackson reappeared nearly a half an hour later with another book in his arms, “Okay check this out.” Jackson said as he laid the book in front of Dave. “Though my paranoid stages, I followed both Em and Liz for months at a time.”
“Before the apathy set in, nice. This is the sort of intelligence I like to know about. What’d you do forget about this?”
Nodding in reply, Jackson pointed out an ear-marked section of pages he kept in the OD Green record book. “That’s where I remembered the house. It was the one her and Lizzy frequented a lot.”
Dave tapped the book, “This is the stuff you should be doing, and this is what we should all be doing. The old fashioned detective shit you know, digging around asking around, maybe making a few purchases to see how reliable the Intel is, that sort of thing. We should stick to the old school methods here, it ain’t like we’re going to have satcom to dial into and communicate with battalion Intel about the latest string of events that occurred in the past week, you know.”
“We’re going to need to rely on ourselves.”
The pair discusses the new possibilities, they make new annotations on the map and Jackson’s watch starts to chime. “Need to meet up with John, feel like coming along?”
“Will food be there?”
“Going to eat at Phil’s diner, and maybe talk about the idea of finding a new home for all this crap.”
Dave laughed, “Imagine that, we’re civilians now, hunting for good deals on a safe house. How awesome can life get? All we need to do know is rent a bi-plane and start doing Halo jumps from it!”
“Dave,” Jackson shakes his head, “Try to think in terms of reality okay?”
The mechanic thought about laughing for a time, then switched off and brought up a point that he had been wrestling with for quite some time. “You know what we really need? We need an active source; you can’t use Emily for obvious reasons, but how about the city’s favorite news story?”
“Lizzy. That’s perfect, thanks for redeeming yourself.”
“It’s what I do.”
* * *
The silver Honda slowed to a stop next to the multicolored abomination with a Ford logo on the front. He parked a little too closely and had to squeeze his body between the vehicles in order to free himself from his own vehicle. He hated it when people did that, parking right on the line of the space and giving him no other choice but to nearly scrape his car door against the other.
A news crew van was parked just outside the trailer not far from the general parking area, it was several lots down but merely a two minute walk. Jackson decided to double check the remote locks before turning his back on the cadre of trailer trash watching his every movement, protected in their tornado attracting structure. He nodded a ‘hello’ to a group of three unemployed men huddled around a portable television and relaxing in their football mascot collapsible chairs and puffing on the tobacco burning in the bong in broad daylight.
The scene was only slightly humorous to him.
There was not a huge police presence around, and he supposed the bong would be a common sight unless some Bubba or another beat his wife, but he assumed something of that nature would wait until nightfall anyway. There were only three steps in his way to Lizzy’s screen door. She rarely closed or locked the slab of fiberglass that pretended to be a door, and as the news crew passed by him without a care to notice him Jackson could hear them whisper something about sweeps and move on.
Locusts, Jackson thought to himself.
He slipped through the closing screen door — he never bothered with knocking — and instantly the rank smell of tobacco along with some other colorful smells he recognized from the days of high school and then the others he could not quite separate. She was sitting in her recliner, a hand-me-down from when he and Emily upgraded their furniture some years back, imitation leather he purchased from the piece of shit furniture store at the Fort Bragg Post Exchange. He laughed when he saw it again, it had been years and it was in perfect condition the last he saw it, sadly now it was torn in various areas and foam was falling out of the arm rests.
“Well lookit here, even Jack comes out of the woodwork to see if his sister is okay.”
His arms crossed over his chest and he opted to keep a healthy distance from her, in his mind there was no telling what sort of viral pathogens she would be carrying, “”And if it isn’t her majesty the queen of opportunity.”
“Jealous?”
She started to giggle and he shrugged it off, “Nah, even strung out whores get their fifteen minutes from time to time. But you usually charge twenty for being on your back that long, right? How’s the change of pace going for you, being paid for keeping your clothes on. The last I heard the only thing most people were interested in you saying was their names for a cheap thrill.”
“And sometimes they love it when I hum happy birthday with their cocks in their mouths, what’s your point?”
He smirked; her unapologetic perception to her station in life notwithstanding, it was at least entertaining for a time. “I saw you on the news, and it gave me an excuse to come by.”
“Sorry,” she said plainly, “I don’t have a family rate, but come back during the holiday’s maybe I’ll throw a package deal with your pretty wife.”
“You misunderstand, I don’t want syphilis. Though there is one other thing you can do for me.”
Lizzy smiled, pulling her stringy bleach blonde hair out of her face and leaning forward to glare into his face, “You can’t keep me away from her, you know that, so why bother asking again? Little brother.”
“Two things.” He spoke up quickly, “First, your skank mother is dead, therefore we’re not family. Secondly, Emily is far, far away for her own good and I came to thank you for pushing her into another overdose to wake me out of my funk and get me to do something I need to do last year.”
She moaned and ran her hands down the front of her body. If there was anything Lizzy knew, it was the right buttons to push on Jackson to rile him up. “She is such an overachiever, Jackie. It’s a shame she’d rather let me fuck her than give you that satisfaction.
“Yeah that’s exactly what I’m here about. Em is going to be gone for a while, and I want you to get used to that. If you step anywhere near my house, I’ll be going through the courts this time for a restraining order for starters. Then we’ll remind you how much you hated prison.”
She smiled large enough so he could see the teeth that were rotting out of her skull, brown and chipping away from the heavily acidic substances she was putting into her body, “What makes you think it’ll work this time? It didn’t last time.”
“I just want you to stay away from us. Live your life how you want, hell, suck down a bullet for all I care, just stay away.”
She rose from the chair; mimicking her once and now former stepbrother she crossed her arms over her chest, “No.”
He expected as much but feigned surprise, “you think you have a larger claim to my wife than you do?”
“Jackie, I liked you so much better when you kept yourself out of our business and just went on through your life.”
Jackson nodded, curling his lips and turning his nose upward at her, “And I liked it better when you were in prison and I didn’t have to think about what Emily was jamming into her arm every twenty minutes. So it looks as though we’re at an impasse.”
“You can’t keep me from her.”
“Watch me, Lizzy. Just fucking test me.”
She closed the distance between them, Jackson stood his ground however. “Is that what this is?” She asked, “A little test, you’re going to try and get my baby clean and she’ll toss me aside because all of a sudden she’ll be better than me?”
Jackson shrugged and chuckled under his breath, “Maybe it is, and maybe it’s not. But, my request stays, please, stay away from us.”
Saying what he intended, he turned to leave; but before he could touch the door, she started screaming. Expletives that would make a sailor blush left her mouth faster than he could hear. He never stopped walking; but she followed, screaming the entire distance to his car.
“Hey, boy.” Jackson heard between her yelling. “You wanna explain what’s goin on?”
The car chirps and the doors unlock, Jackson turned around to stare at one of the dirty rednecks wearing little more than swim trunks, a wife beater, and flip-flops that had seen better days. It was the first time Jackson had ever felt sorry for duct tape, but being that close that that amount of foot fungus had to be a fate worse than death. “Nope, it’s none of your business.”
“How about we make it our business?” His two buddies put down the bong, which had started to reek of something totally other than tobacco.
He immediately sized up the trio, “That’s your choice, but I wouldn’t advise it.”
Lizzy stopped screaming long enough to let the lead redneck take over the threats. Though adding her own advantage to the situation, she dug three of her nails into the skin of her forearm and scratched down. “He hurt me Richie.” She said as blood trickled down her arm, “See.”
“Yeah, I see darlin. What do you say boy, you like hittin’ on women?”
He laughed at them, “Well I’m not a fan of hitting on guys, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The lead redneck started speaking a little too fast to understand, though the dialect of English was lost on him as he didn’t speak retarded American, all Jackson could make out was a quip about his smart mouth. His friends joined in, they pushed their way past Lizzy and placed themselves at either side of the lead redneck. And Jackson was not impressed, “What do you guys do, bind together to defend the pack?”
“She’s one of us” one of the others decided to join the debate, adding little of value.
Jackson laughed aloud, loud enough to simply anger the trio. “And where do I join this country club of yours?”
The skin head to the left of the lead man and just in front of Lizzy snapped open a knife with the flick of his wrist, “C’mon Richie, let’s teach this boy some manners.”
Hey, Earl-Bob-Jim, why don’t you put away the pig sticker before you hurt yourself, eh?”
“None of those ain’t my name.”
“Eloquent, EBJ, just plain eloquent.”
The redneck with a new nickname lunged out at Jackson without an order from the alpha male, and with a swipe that had been telegraphed from twenty minutes in the future, he missed with at least a mile to go. Jackson easily stepped aside, with his hands still at his side. However, he wasn’t finished, he grabbed the man’s wrist and tore the blade from his hand, then shoving him face down into the concrete the skinhead known as EBJ broke into tears as the concrete broke into his skin and tore the flesh from under both eyes down several layers. “Got anymore foolish ideas EBJ that looks like it hurt, buddy.”
A pistol’s hammer clicked into place behind Jackson’s head, “You need to leave.”
“See, that’s the funny part. Until you toothless fucks started talking, I was on my way out of here.”
“Well I suggest…” he started speaking before a single movement from Jackson tore the pistol from his hand and broke both inner fingers simultaneously.
“Nice grip, there Bubba.” Jackson laughed as he dismantled the weapon without a look down. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way. And Lizzy, I mean it, stay away from Em.”
He left the three rednecks to attend to their mascot whore. Pulling his car away from the clown-edition Ford and kicking gravel into their faces as he pulled off from the trailer park. All he needed were two left turns and to pass through a green traffic light and Lizzy’s trailer was well enough behind him. He smiled; dialing ‘2′ on his cell phone and pressing down ’send’ he held the phone to his ear.
“John, you’re up.”
* * *