I needed to take back control of the situation. “Turn around and assume the position.”
He held up his hands. “Or what, big man? What are you going to do?”
I rose up and kicked him right in the chest. He flew back. His head banged into the trunk deck as the rest of his body folded into the trunk.
“You aren’t listening to me, are you? I said get out of there. Now.”
He gave a wilted cackle as he again climbed from the trunk, one hand holding his head. He stood on shaky legs and pulled a bloodied hand away from his head. Blood covered his hand and rolled down his wrist.
Scalp wounds bleed a lot.
“Now,” I said, “turn around and put your hands on the car. I’m going to pat you down for weapons.”
“Little late for that, don’t you think? You asshole.”
Finally, some emotion. He turned slowly. I helped out, kicked him again in the ass. He flew forward and banged his forehead on the open edge to the trunk deck. Another laceration. Blood ran down the side of his face.
His injuries didn’t bother me, and I only had the urge to beat the shit out of him more as my anger rose. I had to control my emotions. I grabbed the back of his shirt. With my other hand I put the gun in the back of my waistband and patted him down.
Under his sock, taped to his leg, I found a dirk, a double-edged knife. A felony. Taped to the small of his back I found a.44 derringer. Two felonies. I tore it off. He had nothing else, no wallet, no bits of paper, just some money and a prescription bottle with four Demerol tabs.
I stepped back and looked at the gun in my hand, a reminder he’d made me nothing more than a pawn in his game. I hadn’t played this smart. I should’ve patted him down before he went in. If he’d wanted to kill me, he could’ve had the gun ready when I opened the trunk. I thought of Marie and the kids back home. I kicked him from behind, right between the legs. He fell to the ground. His bloody head flopped in the dirt as he writhed in pain, his hands clutching his crotch.
“You going to tell me, or are we going to keep this little game of pain going until you’re nothing but a bloody lump of flesh?” I asked.
He gasped. “You’re an asshole, Deputy Johnson. And you’re going to pay for everything you do here today. So think carefully.” He coughed and spit, got up on his hands and knees, his head lolling, dripping blood. “I’m not telling you a thing. Think about it. Do you think I haven’t mentally prepared for this? Do you think we’ve come this far for me to simply roll over and beg forgiveness? We want the money. You owe my mom and me a million dollars. Not money from the FBI. And not money from some person concerned over the little brats, but money from you. It has to come from you. Call it poetic justice.”
My anger rose up again, and I kicked him in the ribs. The air blew out of him in a huff. “I’m the asshole? I’m not the one who’s kidnapped three helpless little children, huh? And, putting all that morally corrupt mess aside, how, exactly, how do you figure I owe you a million dollars?”
He coughed and choked and let out a crazed laugh. “You know, asshole, you know.”
“I don’t, so tell me.”
He looked up, blood running in his eye. “Because you had to be a big man that day. You had to kick our door in. If you’d have done your job the way you were supposed to, you should’ve just walked away. But no, you had to be the big man and kick the door in. We would’ve died like we were supposed to, me and Bella. Me and my mom would’ve died with my sisters like we were supposed to. Instead…instead look at me. You created me. You’re a son of a bitch, a monster maker.” He kicked out and missed.
I took a step back, awed at the intensity of his insanity.
Another piece to the crazy puzzle fell into place: Micah Mabry. The only person who could’ve told him about that day, about kicking in the door when I didn’t have to, was his father. I said, “Did you kill your father?” Micah Mabry was old and could have succumbed to age. The government had not done an autopsy.
Jonas rolled over onto his back, chest heaving. “I would’ve killed my old man, believe me. I would have. I planned on torturing him, just like you’re doing right now. Only he told me about you without any prompting at all. He told me what you’d done, the whole dumb-assed story. Then I told him what I was going to do to you for what you did to me and Mom. He died right there, grabbed his chest and keeled over like some kinda weak pussy, asshole.”
“That was two years ago. Why did you wait two years to do this?”
“What? Wait a second, you don’t know, do you?” He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one. Believe me when I tell you, that’s really a good one. You’re not only an asshole, you’re a big dumb asshole. Come on, big man, break me up a little more, let’s get on with this little dance. Figure out that I’m not going to tell you shit about those cute little children so we can get this thing going.”
He’d been planning this for two years. I didn’t know the significance of those two years, what they had to do with his plan, but it showed his resolve. I realized he wasn’t going to give up the information. The sun beat down, draining my strength. Hopelessness crept in. What was I going to do now?
Jonas saw the shift in my resolve. “We done here? What a pussy. That’s the best you can do? I expected a lot worse from you, of all people, a BMF, a Brutal Mother Fucker. That’s right, I did my research.”
His words made the BMF tattoo on my shoulder burn and tingle. Mistakes and poor judgment would haunt me the rest of my life. I could’ve had the tattoo removed, but left it as a reminder.
He used that word again, the one Robby would have used: pussy. I walked over and shot him in the foot.
He screamed and rolled around in the dirt. The dirt stuck to him like a Foster Farms chicken, dusted in flour before Dad dropped it into the hot grease.
I tried one last time. “You going to take me to those children?”
He groaned and continued to flop around. I dragged him back over to the car and shoved him into the passenger seat. What choice did I have?
He tossed around in the seat, fumbled with his prescription bottle, and popped two Demerols into his mouth. I headed down off the mountain. In ten minutes his agitation calmed. “Take me to Mission, west of Central in Montclair,” he said.
“Why? Do you think I’m done with you? I could be taking you to the FBI.”
“Really? We going to keep playing this game?”
“I don’t want you to hurt those children.”
“You do what you’re supposed to do and I promise you-I give you my word-nothing will happen to them.”
No way did I believe him.
We drove on for a few minutes. He wiggled until he got his foot up onto the seat. He gently peeled off his Nike. Blood was everywhere and his foot looked horrible. I felt bad and regretted the course of action I had taken. He took off his shirt and tied it around his foot. The tattoo the old crone from Landers had described, the heart with the bullet scar in the center, covered his left breast. As he moved, I spotted a larger tattoo in Gothic lettering across his abdomen: “Mama Tried.” Right below that: “Patricide, try it.”
“Please, tell me why you’re doing this?” I asked.
His eyelids drooped from the narcotic, the muscles in his face slack. “You’re a smart guy, you’ll figure it out.”
“Tell me.”
Out the window he watched the passing landscape. “I need the money. I need the money because you ruined my life.”
That logic, of course, didn’t make sense. I had saved his life. “How can you be mad over what I did?”
He turned and looked at me, his mouth agape. His missing teeth gave an illusion that his hole went on forever. “We’re done talking.” He laid back and closed his eyes. “Take the freeway to Central, get off and go south to Mission, hang a right then a left on Kadota. Wake me when we get there.”