Killpoint

Beck Michael

Description

Mark Tanner, a wise-cracking, disillusioned U.S. veteran and casualty of the War on Terror in Afghanistan, whiles his time away in a sleazy trailer park surrounded by eccentric misfits. After losing a bet with his long time Army buddy, Bear, Mark begrudgingly agrees to be the personal trainer of the young tennis prodigy, Brooke Wentworth.When Brooke mysteriously disappears, apparently because of something in her past, Mark spares no effort and no person in his endeavors to find her. Mark must try to put aside his own demons while he tries to navigate his way through the lies and deceit to the awful and tragic truth behind her kidnapping.Ably assisted by Bear, he cuts a swathe through both the criminal and tennis worlds. Mark, with acerbic wit and devil-may-care attitude, treats tennis players, white-supremacists, cops and crime bosses with equal amounts of disdain and disregard. And then his tortured past catches up with him.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Uncial Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781601741332
• Langue: English

Extrait

KILLPOINT
 
By
Michael Beck
 
 
Uncial Press       Aloha, Oregon 2012
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are productsof the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Anyresemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirelycoincidental.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-133-2 ISBN 10: 1-60174-133-2
KILLPOINT Copyright © 2012 by Michael Beck
Cover design Copyright © 2012 by Judith B. Glad
All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work inwhole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known orhereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by theFBI and is punishable by up to five (5) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Published by Uncial Press, an imprint of GCT, Inc.
Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com
Dedication
For Jennifer
CHAPTER 1
I was busy killing Saddam Hussein when Bear walked around the front of my trailercarrying a tennis racquet with his one remaining arm.
"I don't think so, Bear."
"It's not for me. It's for Lucy."
Lucy was his nine year old daughter and my goddaughter. Lucy was only four feetten inches tall but already weighed one hundred and thirty pounds. Bear's wife, Angie, is verysmall and cute and weighs about one hundred and ten pounds dripping wet. Unfortunately, asmuch as I loved Lucy, she seemed to be taking after the wrong parent.
"Is that right?"
"Yeah...yeah, I know, but someone gave it to me. You never know, she could begood at it?"
"Yeah...I suppose so. Like soccer and dance?"
Bear grimaced. "Okay, I know she sucked at soccer but I still think she could havebeen good at dance if she stuck at it."
I tried to conjure a picture of Lucy in a leotard but failed.
Protective mechanism. Thank God.
"Is the kid out of hospital yet?"
"No, smart ass, he isn't. And those hospital bills are frigging killing me. And I'll say itagain while we're on it, that it wasn't Lucy's fault. She was just jumping into her partner's armslike she was supposed to, for chrissakes! Is it her fault he had arms like match sticks? That kidcouldn't catch his own breath, let alone his dance partner."
Privately, I thought it wouldn't have mattered if the kid had arms like Arne. No nineyear old kid was ever going to catch Lucy.
"Spiral fracture, wasn't it?"
Bear's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, it was."
I picked up another throwing knife. It made a soft, woody noise as it struck thepicture of Saddam I'd nailed onto the side of the big sycamore tree, whose branches draped overmy trailer.
Thunk.
"What happened to Bin Laden?" Bear said.
"I'm working my way up?"
"Up what?"
"The most hated people in history. I've already done Hussein, Idi Amin and BinLaden. Now I'm getting up to the real evil motherfuckers."
"Who's next?"
"I'm undecided. It's between Adolph Hitler and Mel Gibson."
Bear shook his head. I'd often noticed he does that a lot.
I threw another knife. Thunk.
Bear stepped over to the vacant block next to my trailer, and lifted up a discardedconcrete bus seat with his left arm. He casually plonked it down next to my torn, vinyl armchairand sat next to me.
"I could have done that."
"Yeah, but it would have taken you ten minutes."
Bear made the bus seat look like a kid's toy. He had one of those deceptive linebackerbodies that look a bit flabby until you run into them. Then it feels like hitting a brick wall. Bear,at six foot five inches, was only two inches taller than me yet, when we last weighed ourselves inthe Army, he was a good eighty pounds heavier. Despite his bulk, Bear didn't get his nicknamebecause of his size. Ever since he was a kid Bear had been quite hairy. Now, he had a thick matof hair covering his front and back. Even his arms, bulging out of his Special ForcesFitness t-shirt, were covered in a luxurious layer of black, wiry hair.
"Anyway," I said, looking again at the tennis racquet he was holding, "If you want toget Lucy into a sport, get her into a real one--like hockey, basketball or even lacrosse. But not anamby pamby sport like tennis."
"Did you just say namby pamby?"
"Yeah, smartass, namby pamby. All those spoilt looking rich girls with theirentourages, sports cars and mansions. Have you seen what some of them play in? Who can take asport seriously where they play in a frigging negligee?"
Bear shook his head again. See, I was right.
"Tan, you do realize that many of the European players come from low or middle-class backgrounds, don't you?"
"Don't be naive. That's only what their agents would have you believe." Thunk. "The only way you could get me to a tennis match is if I was in a coma,completely paralyzed and with severe brain damage." I paused to consider. "No. Even then, I'dfind a way to escape."
Bear seemed about to say something, stopped, then started again. "Yeah, okay, tennissucks. But that's not what I'm here for. Are you working on anything at the moment? Shit, whatam I saying? Look at this dump. Of course, you're not working."
"How do you know I'm not one of those eccentric millionaires who likeslumming?"
I didn't have to look around to know what Bear meant. I'd spent hours every day inthis very seat over the past year doing exactly what I was doing now.
Thunk.
My twenty year old trailer sat on four piles of cinderblock. There were no tires onthe trailer. In fact, if someone asked me, I wouldn't even be able to say what I had done withthem. I suspected I may have traded them to Sanchez for a few of bottles of whisky when I firstmoved into the trailer a little under a year ago. A few weeks later, when I finally noticed the tiresmissing, I asked him but he shrugged and said he had no idea. I knew who I probably should ask.His sons, the black ghosts. But I didn't give a damn anyway. Where was I going to go?
On a beach holiday?
The very thought nearly made me want to throw up. Besides, even if it did havewheels, I couldn't drive it anywhere, as it was unregistered. The hitch was completely jammedshut with rust, as was every other piece of metal on the ancient rust bucket. It also had a coupleof fiberglass panels missing. From the outside, if I angled my head slightly, I could look throughthe holes and watch the old 24-inch TV sitting on the rickety table inside. Well, in theory. Thedamn thing blew a fifty cent fuse ten months ago and had sat there waiting ever since. The holesnever bothered me because in winter, like most of the residents, I was out of there.
I lived down the "permanents'" end of the trailer park. The road made a figure eightpattern through the park. The top half of the circle was a newly made road where all the newlypainted bright blue tourist cabins stood. The bottom half of the circle was a dirt road commonlyreferred as, the oval asshole. The permanent residents lived in a smorgasbord of prefabricatedmobile homes, cabins, trailers and RV's.
The oval asshole was like a refugee camp meets Cyclone Katrina. Scattered in thelong grass, among the trailers and mobile homes, were rusted car wrecks, fridges, broken bikes,car rims and the like. Anything residents broke or didn't want, out the door it went. It looked likeshit. But don't get me wrong. None of the people who lived in the oval asshole gave a stuff aboutthis, including me.
Oh, the name for this eyesore?
Heavenly Falls.
So even though Bear and I were both looking at the same scene, what we saw was completely different.
"Tan," Bear said, "a frigging, homeless nutcase wouldn't like living like this."
"That's a lie. I'm not homeless."
"Why do you think I have the tennis racquet with me? I've got the new Ford Explorerhere and didn't fancy leaving it in the car. Nothing is safe in this shithole. There was a gang ofsneaky looking rugrats loitering behind some of the RVs."
"The black ghosts? Sweet little kids."
"Sweet? They'd steal the cane off a one-legged blind man. Hey, while I remember,don't forget Jessica's birthday party."
I nodded. Jessica was Bear's youngest and was turning six.
"You'll bring Jade?" Bear said.
"Sure."
"How is she?"
I answered the same way I had for the past twelve years. "She's fine."
"She's grown into a beautiful, young lady."
"She has." Bear, I knew, saw her every Sunday.
"Liz will probably be at the party."
I nodded.
"You'll still come?" Bear said.
I looked at him.
"Okay, okay, I told Angie I'd check, that's all."
Little Bear, my black Labrador with the white eye patch, suddenly appeared hoppingthrough the long grass. He had recovered so well from his injuries that I often forgot he wasmissing his left front leg. He hopped straight over to Bear and commenced to lick his face withutter abandon. His tail waved around like a helicopter rotor blade. Even though excited, he neverbarked. Army sniffer dogs never did. Once an Army man, always an Army man.
"Hey, boy, how are you, Little Bear? Have you been a good fellow?" Bear grabbedLittle Bear by the side of the head and rubbed his ears. The dog's head almost disappeared insideBear's giant hands. Bear's artificial hand did not bother Little Bear at all. In fact, if anything,Little Bear rather liked the texture and was prone to chewing on it.
"Hey, he can motor pretty fast on just three legs, can't he?" Bear said.
"Yeah, there's hope for you two cripples yet."
"Care to repeat that around Angie?"
Bear had the ridiculous notion that I was scared of Angie. All five feet two inches ofher. Okay, I probably was. Just a bit. I smiled, remembering Angie's reaction the first time sheheard me call Little Bear by name. I swear, for a moment, you could almost see the smokecoming out of her ears. But then, as she saw Bear playing with Little Bear, her mouth so