Chapter 5

I disconnected the call to Recon and called Rodney Strong.

“Mick?”

“Hi Rodney. I need to ask a favor.”

“Sure. How can I help?”

“I need to meet with a group of friends that are going to help me out with the situation with my wife. Can I use your office?”

“You are not going to do anything against the law are you?”

“It is not in the plan, but in the end, I am going to do away with the threat to my family. I will do everything I can to stay within the law, but if my family is in danger, I will stop at nothing. I’d like to meet them at 7PM tonight.”

“I understand. Be very careful.”

“I will be. Thanks, Rodney.”

At 6:45pm, I walked into Rodney’s office to find him sitting at the reception area.

“Hi Mick. I couldn’t take the chance that you would do something illegal. If I may, I would like to sit in on this meeting of yours.”

“Sure Rodney. I think that would be a great idea.”

Rodney led me to the meeting room and in a few minutes, I got a text from Recon that they were all at the building. I texted back with instructions on how to enter the building and office. In a few minutes we heard the footsteps of friends, and maybe enemies, coming down the long hallway.

I was at the head of the table with Rodney to my left. The men entered the room. They spread out around the room and took seats. One of the men smiled at me and exchanged the chair at the table with one against the wall, seems the one with the arms would not take his width.

“Hi all. This is Rodney Strong my lawyer. He is here because this is his office and he wants to be sure what we do stays on the right side of the law. I want him here because as an officer of the court, he can act as an official witness to everything that is said.”

“Wildman, why do we need a witness? What is going on?”

“I had a long talk with Renee today. I’m going to tell you everything that she told me. When I am done we are going to make an action plan. We will either gather evidence that will destroy my marriage and family, or save my wife and bring destruction down on those who have assaulted her.”

I proceeded to explain everything that I knew in the order it had happened. I told the story in such a way so as to get all of the men in the room to start thinking about burning the bitch. Then I told them about the meeting with our divorce lawyers and the discovery that Renee had been sexually and physically assaulted. At that point everyone at the table was in an aggitated state of pissed off.

“That, gentlemen, brings us to tonight and my talk with Renee before I came over here. She told me the whole thing began the Tuesday after I left for a consulting job. She was at home with the kids when a man came to the house and told her that his start-up company was in trouble and he needed someone to come in and straighten out his office and his office management.”

“Renee told him she was not interested until he said that someone had referred her to him. She told me the name of the man who referred her and so she went along with them until one of the men showed her pictures of the kids and my mom, who they think is their babysitter, and told her bad things would happen if she didn’t go along with them. She didn’t tell me about this because I had left on my business trip the day before, and because she was afraid,” I paused and looked into eyes of each man at the table. “And she said that she was protecting her kids and my friendship with the man.”

“Wait a minute! Are you telling me that the guy who referred this guy was a friend of yours?”

“Yeah Recon. She didn’t know how to tell me that he was one of my brothers.”

“One of us, Wildman?”

“Not only one of us, Recon. She said it was you.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“But ... Wildman ... I would never do anything to hurt you or Renee.”

“That is what she said, and what I believe with all my soul. You would never do anything to harm me and mine. But we have to look at the possibility that someone who knows both of us would. So, the first thing we do is find these fellas names and find out everything about them that we can find. Then we sift through the intel and find any connections.”

“Guys, they are connected enough that they thought that they could go into a hospital room and kill a cop and try to kill my wife. I pissed off the shooter and told him I was going to be coming after his bosses and their families. At some point he is going to talk to a lawyer and get that message back to his people. That is when the shit is going to hit the fan. We need to be ready by then.”

“When do you think he will talk?”

“Well it should be soon. He is out of surgery for the eye I poked out and the wound I gave him when I accidentally shot him in the nuts.”

“You shot him in the nuts?”

“Yeah. Accidentally.”

“Wildman, you never did anything accidentally.”

“I don’t know about that. Digger can tell you about the time I accidentally left him locked in the latrine for an hour.”

“Accident my ass! Rocker, he did that because I dropped a pass that would have won us a ball game.”

“Shoulda caught that pass.”

“I know!”

We bumped fists and chuckled.

“The point is that the news should be back to the shooters bosses by now and we can expect to have some traffic between these guys and we need to get to it.”

“Um, Wildman?”

“Yeah Jack.”

“I can see why you need Recon and Digger and Rocker and the lawyer. Why am I here?”

“Jack, these guys beat up my wife. She had bit marks on her body, not hickies, bite marks, teeth marks. The three guys were all big guys. If it comes to a hand to hand I would like to have you on my side of the fight.”

“Oh man, three wife beaters will be easy.”

“Remember they killed a cop with no remorse. I don’t know what they might do.”

“I got you.”

“Hey, can I ask a question?”

“Sure Rodney.”

“They call you Wildman and these guys are Recon, Digger, Rocker, but he is Jack. Why doesn’t he have a call name?”

“Jack is his call name.”

“Mr. Strong did you ever see the Muppet Movie?” Jack looked at the lawyer with a dead serious expression.

“No.”

“Well, there is this scene where Kermit is talking with some other Muppets after Fozzie Bear’s car breaks down. Some Muppets are working on Fozzie’s car in the shop, but one huge Muppet, that the others call Jack, is just standing there. Kermit asks this huge Muppet if his name is Jack and the huge Muppet says “Jack not name. Jack job.” And he picks up the front of the car.”

“So, you are Jack?”

“Yeah, I lift heavy stuff and break things.”

Rodney nodded like he understood.

“OK let’s get to work. Rodney do we have the names of the three guys that were arrested when they brought in Renee?”

“Yes.”

“Do we have the name of the shooter in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“OK, give them to Digger and he will begin to flesh them out.”

“Everyone stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Rodney left the meeting room and returned with a folder in his hand.

“This is all of the info I have right now. This has the guys names and a few notes as to their employer. I gotta say that something doesn’t pass the smell test. I don’t think that the guy we list as their boss is really their boss. I don’t have any proof, but I have a feeling that someone else is behind the scenes pulling the strings.”

“Well, we will just have to keep our options open. Guys, as we look into this, don’t leave anything open-ended. Even if it looks like the slightest thing, follow the string to the end. OK?”

“Yes, sir!”

They all answered in unison.

“OK, Rodney will you please make copies of that file and give one to each of the men, please?”

“Yup.”

The guys got up with Rodney and they all left the room. Recon was the last one in the line and he stopped at the door, closed it and turned to me.

“Wildman, I hope you know that I would never hurt you. I think of Renee as my sister. Please tell me that you believe me.”

“Recon, we have been in the shit. We have been through things that no living man should be through. If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone. But, Recon, if there is any chance that you did something, or know something, and you don’t tell me, the pain of that betrayal will be more than I will be able to stand.”

“I understand, Wildman. Mick. Major O’Dell, sir.”

“Let’s go and find these cocksuckers and break it off in their asses.”

“Roger that.”

We followed the sounds down the hall and into the copy room. Recon had been my best friend since the day, now I had to decide if I trusted him more than I trusted Renee. Rough mission.

“OK, here are the assignments. There are three guys due to be released from jail. Digger, Jack, you take the big one, I think his name is Billy. Rocker, you take the one with the beard, I think his name is Brian. Recon, I was going to have you take the other guy, I think his name is Bruce. Instead, I would like you to check out the shooter. You have more hand to hand kills than any of us. That should give the two of you something to talk about.”

“I am going to have a final face to face with the potential future ex-Mrs. O’Dell. I want to get her full story and then we can compare notes. I want notes for each of your people in 48 hours. Any problem with that?”