Chapter 3

“Are you ready to try this last address?” Ed asked, as we finished eating and were finishing our soft drinks.

“Sure. Let’s drive over there and see if this guy is still there,” I told him, as we collected our trash from the meal, put it in the provided trash receptacle, and left. We checked our weapons before we started out again. I had my trusty pump shotgun and a pistol. Ed had brought his double barreled shotgun, and a pistol - a .45 Colt automatic.

The address that we had for Mark Haskins was several years old, and not located in a very good area. It took us nearly a-half hour to get to the address. It turned out to be a rather rundown house in a rundown neighborhood. There was a ‘For Rent’ sign in the front window of the house, and the grass hadn’t been cut in a while.

“What now?” Ed asked, as we sat in the truck looking at the vacant house.

“How about we call the number on the sign and see what we can find out?” I asked.

“Sounds reasonable,” Ed responded, and pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number. The phone rang several times before someone finally answered it.

“Hello!” I could hear someone say.

“Good afternoon. You have a ‘For Rent’ sign in the front window of the house at,” and here Ed gave the address of the house. “I’m interested in renting a house,” Ed told him. I couldn’t hear the reply, but heard Ed’s answer.

“That sounds all right. Can I get a look at the inside of the house?” he asked next. The person on the other end of the call said something in answer.

“Yes, I can wait here,” Ed told him before he closed the cell phone.

“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes or so,” Ed told me.

“That was a good idea to pretend to want to rent the place,” I told him.

“I was pretty sure that we would get a better response this way rather than just asking about his former tenant,” Ed replied with a smile.

Fifteen minutes or so later, a beat up SUV pulled up behind us, and a guy in his mid forties got out. He was in need of a shave and a shower. He had on a torn T-shirt and dirty jeans with muddy boots. He walked up on Ed’s side of the truck.

“You the guy that called about the house?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you the owner?” Ed asked.

“Naw. I’m his rental agent. He don’t come down here,” the fellow told us. He didn’t offer us his name and we didn’t offer ours either.

“Let’s see the inside,” Ed told him after a few seconds. The guy didn’t say anything, but headed up the driveway toward the house. Ed and I exited the truck after a quick look around the neighborhood to be sure that no one was watching us, and walked up behind him. We both still had our pistols holstered and had our shotguns down at our sides.

The rental agent finally got the door open after trying several keys before he turned back to look at us. The surprise on his face at the sight of our shotguns was very genuine, but we were already close enough by then to just push him into the house without saying anything.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, as Ed closed the door behind us.

“We just want to have a friendly talk with you,” I told him from where I had pushed him up against the wall of the entry hall.

“It would be a lot friendlier if you guys put those shotguns down,” he said. It was very evident that he knew just what kind of destruction these shotguns would create in the close quarters of a house on a human body.

“We figured that you might not want to answer our questions without them,” Ed told him.

“What questions?” the guy asked.

“We are interested in finding Mark Haskins. We understand that he used to rent this place. We want to locate him,” I told him.

“Good luck!” the rental agent answered. “That sorry bastard ducked out owing three months back rent. If I knew where he is, I would have already visited him with a tire iron,” the guy told us.

“Do you know if he had any friends or associates,” Ed asked him.

“Friends? That nut case! I doubt it. He’s a real wacko. Always talking about keeping the human race pure, and how there were aliens running around disguised as humans, and taking everything over. I should have known that he would skip out,” the guy said, but sort of trailed off. He started to smile after that.

“I might know someone that he hung out with though, if you make it worth my while that is,” he told us with a grin.

“What did you have in mind?” Ed asked before I could say anything.

“You both look like tough guys. I haven’t tried to contact these people because they play rough, but you guys probably talk the same language they do and could deal with them. For a hundred, I’ll tell you who they are,” he finished with a smile still on his face. Ed smiled back at him, as he quickly brought the double barrel up under the guy’s chin.

“How about you tell us for free, and we let you live?” Ed asked, as he cocked both hammers of the shotgun. The guy actually pissed on himself in fright.

“Come on fellows. Gimme a break!” he pleaded. “What could be that big of a problem?” he blustered.

“Mark Haskins sent three people to kill me and my family,” I told him. “That’s the big problem. My wife and I killed all three of them. Now we want Haskins.” He turned very pale on hearing this. It was very probable that he had heard about the three dead men on the news and now realized that we wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

“You ... you ... need to talk to,” and he gave us the names of several people and told us where to find them. “They’re pretty tough people,” he warned us. He was sweating heavily by now.

“You’re going to forget that we’ve been here after we leave, and also that you ever saw us or talked to us. If we find out that you have told anyone about us being here or our conversation, we will be very unhappy with you. You won’t like us at all when we are unhappy. Do you understand me?” Ed demanded once we had the information. I had copied down the names and the locations that he had given us.

While Ed was telling him that he had never seen us, I reached into the guy’s back pocket and removed his wallet with his driver’s license and some business cards in it. I took a card and wrote his name and address on the back. The front had his business address on it. Once I was finished and had returned his wallet, Ed continued.

“We’re all going to leave now. You will lock the door, get in your vehicle, and drive away. We’ll be watching. Don’t look back or try anything. We are not in a forgiving mood,” Ed finished, and removed the shotgun from under the guy’s chin. He motioned for him to head for the front door with the barrels.

Once outside, Ed very carefully lowered the hammers on his shotgun, and lowered it to his side, as the rental agent locked the front door, and then headed down the entry walk to his vehicle. He didn’t waste any time getting into it, but pulled out slowly, and steadily picked up speed as he moved down the street.

We got into Ed’s pickup after he had pulled out. I kept an eye on the agent’s vehicle, as Ed started the pickup, turned it around, and we left in the opposite direction from that of the rental agent. We took several cross streets to be sure that we hadn’t been followed. When we were sure that we were alone, we hit the interstate and headed for home.

“You’re getting to be a real bad-ass, Ed,” I told him, as we moved out into traffic on the interstate.

“Lord, I haven’t done anything like that since Nam,” he told me. “I learned it there from watching several others on our team interrogate VC, and suspected VC agents. It’s hanging out with you that’s brought it all back. You’re a bad influence on me, Bill,” my father-in-law told me, but I could see the grin on his face when he said it.

“What are you going to do with those names and that address?” Ed asked after a short pause.

“I’ll need to pay them a visit, but well after dark. I’ll go in my working clothes. I don’t need for them to see my face or know who I am,” I told him.

“You want backup?” Ed asked.

“No. I’ve gotten you and Esther into enough trouble today,” I told him.

“What are you going to do alone?” he asked.

“Persuade them to talk,” I told him.

“So no explosives or mortars?” he asked.

“No, just some gentle persuasion,” I told him.

“Gentle? You want to define that? I didn’t think that you knew the term!” he told me.

“There are many ways to make people talk,” I told him, “without shooting them or blowing them up.”

“Oh yes. The VC were very good at making people talk. There were bamboo splinters under the fingernails, and battery wires on the testicles to name just a few. The South Viets and some SF teams preferred the helicopter at a few thousand feet or so, but you usually needed more than one suspect then,” Ed told me.

“There are other ways,” I assured him with a smile, as we continued down the interstate.

We hit heavier traffic going around the city, as it was after 3:30, and people were starting to get off from work. Eventually we got off the interstate and had to fight the traffic going through the small towns on the way home, but finally got there.

“What took you so long!?” Ashley demanded in a panic, as we came into the house. She had a pistol on her hip and her shotgun in her right hand. I took her in my arms and kissed her after setting both of our shotguns in the rack there in the living room. Ed was kissing Esther also.

“We ran into a couple of things,” I told Ashley, and gave her and Esther a rundown of where we had been and what we had seen and done. Ed added a note about the afternoon traffic.

“What are you going to do with that information?” Ashley asked when we finished. I had worried about her asking that question.

“I’m going to go talk to them later tonight,” I told Ashley.

“Talk? Like you talked to those people at Diversified?” Ashley asked. It was clear that she was unhappy with my decision.

“No, but I may need to persuade them to tell me what they know,” I told her.

“Persuade how?” Ashley asked angrily.

“There are various techniques short of killing them,” I told her.

“Oh Bill, I hate all of this. Why did this have to happen to us?” Ashley asked and broke out in tears. I took her in my arms again and kissed her until she stopped crying and was better.

“Sweetie, this isn’t something that we started, but it is something that we need to finish if we ever hope to lead any kind of normal life again. These people WILL try again unless we stop them once and for all.

“I’m going to talk to the people whose names we got this afternoon. I hope that they will be cooperative, but I’m not counting on that. I WILL use whatever it takes to get the information out of them. Then we will see about dealing with Mark Haskins and the rest of his ‘Sons of Man’ people,” I told her, and kissed her again.

“I know, but I still hate it,” Ashley said quietly on recovering some and kissed me back for a long time.

“We’re going to head for home while it’s still light out,” Ed told us when we came up for air.

“You’re not staying for dinner?” Ashley asked, surprised.

“It would be better to get home while it’s still light enough out to see things well. Just in case, since we have been away from the house for quite a while and don’t know who may have visited us you understand,” Ed told her.

“We’ll be okay, Honey,” Esther told her, as she hugged Ashley before turning toward me.

“Can I keep this pistol for a while, Bill?” she asked. “All of Ed’s pistols are .45s and too much for me.”

“Sure, Esther. Keep it as long as you want. I have quite a few,” I told her.

“I need to say goodbye to my granddaughters before we go,” Esther told us next. The girls were in their playpen between the living room and the dining room. Esther went over to them and picked up Chris. The girls had seen her coming over, and were smiling and saying “Ama” as she neared them.

“You be a good girl,” Esther told Chris with a kiss and a hug before she set her down and picked up Carry. “You be a good girl, too, for grandma,” she told her with a hug and a kiss.

“Ama!” both girls said, as they stood at the side of the playpen looking up Esther.

“Grandma has to go now,” Esther told them, but they didn’t understand.