Chapter 19

The time passed quickly after the first two days. Those days I was depressed because I was in constant pain. I had no real plan, until I got this message from the Geek on my phone on the third day.

‘Check your email’. The geek’s text message said. ‘It’s a get well soon message.’

I checked the email expecting a personal email. Instead it was a veritable list of the who’s who of Henrico County Virginia. It detailed the cops, DA’s, Public defenders, and even judges, who had been involved with three or more of the missing prisoners. The links went back almost the whole ten years since the New Sheriff’s election. The lower branches on the tree held the names of people who at least should have known what was going on. Those were the names of those people who at least allowed it to happen. The geek, through the power of information manipulation had it all laid out in black, white, red and blue.

It was the whole three course meal laid out for me to do with as I saw fit. The email even had the people whose names I provided in red and the rest of the named the Geek came up with were in blue. One of the higher ups on the tree was a Sheriff’s Department Captain. Then one of the branches from the Captain in Red were two names with a star by their names.

The footnote also with a star identified them as brothers. The two of them were immigrants from Chechnya. Their backgrounds were unknown, and of a highly questionable nature. Most likely they were still involved with the Eastern European mob. Also the most likely perpetrators of my beat down.

I spent the next ten days sorting them out in my head, while I healed. That wasn’t the only thing that was going on in my life. For one thing Thia continued to rattle my cage about retiring.

“Damn it, Daddy you need to get the hell out of whatever kind of business you call it. Get out before someone kills your ass,” Thia demanded.

“Just to shut you up, I’ll ask you this. When have you ever known me to leave a job half finished?” I asked.

“This is not painting the house, or cutting the grass in the rain,” she said.

“Sure it is. I have a debt to pay, I for damn sure am going to repay it,” I don’t expect you to risk everything, so if you and Jon want to take a vacation, I’ll understand,” I admitted.

“Maybe Jon should visit his cousins in California,” Thia admitted. “But I’ll be fucked, if I’m disrupting my life for some lowlife thug. I’ve seen too many of those die begging for their mommy, for me to be afraid of them.

That was almost the end of the discussion, but as always she got the last word. “After this is over, I am going to be on your ass to get out of the business,”

I continued to study the tree looking for the weakest branches. I had no plan, but I did have a raid in mind. I asked the geek for more information on the brothers Kalashnikov. I could never remember their official names. Which were probably fakes anyway.

After the fifth day I began taking short walks with the PVC and steel war club in my hand, and the other toys in my new vest. The new vest had even more pockets. One of which I reinforced with cardboard from my bran flakes cereal box. The slight cardboard stiffness made it easier to get to the 22mag revolver. The concealed carry permit would likely be no good in Virginia, so I decided to go to my easier to hide and untraceable .22 mag. I loaded it with hollow point ammunition to make it a little more lethel. They would make a hell of a mess, even if they lacked the punch of my .38.

Earlier I had taken a ride on my scooter to visit my storage locker. While there I sorted through my collection of Ghost weapons. I found the 22mag which Had been made in Mexico. I took it immediately to the country. There using a string on the trigger, I fired it, while standing back a few feet. It was just to be sure it worked. Since a revolver is the simplest of all pistols, and it worked without exploding I was satisfied. Was it accurate? Up to ten feet it seemed to be. At least it was all I felt I needed. Anything more than that, I figured on throwing it, I would be more likely to hit the target with it that way.

I returned the Scooter to the car wash’s bay four, aka my shop. So at the end of that day, I had the pistol, my light weight stun gun and heavier collapsible baton tucked away in my vest. I also had a total of two miles on my pedometer. Those two walks were made during that one day. So each walk was only one mile. The mile took me over an hour’s time to complete. Walking was going to be a very inefficient way to move around for some time to come. Nonetheless it had to be done, so that someday it would be possible to get from a to b while walking. Someday getting from A to B might be necessary to stay alive, I thought.

It was three in the afternoon when I heard to car pull into the parking lot of the car wash. I fumbled for the Colt since I didn’t recognize the car. When it stopped I put the Colt back on the shelf by the door. The driver of the car was none other than Tanya, aka the skinny blond chick. She also had a passenger. He was more the accounting clerk type. At least he looked that way to me.

I opened the door without the pistol though it was still within easy reach. A hidden benefit of a tiny house, I thought.

“Ed, how are you?” Tonya asked.

“I’m just fine and you?” I asked in return.

“I’m fine two, but you are the one who got beaten?” she asked.

I didn’t mention that it had been over a week and this was the first I had heard from her. “As you can see, I’m just fine, so what’s up,” I asked.