The Lowdown (Dale Conley Action Thrillers Series Book 3) Read online

  Percy drew his Colt and aimed it toward the balcony. He yelled out to Ervin without turning around.

  “Get out of here, Erv. Go!”

  Percy had only fired his weapon once in the line of service, a warning shot. But he knew he was going to have to do something a lot more serious now—if the shirtless hero would just move for a moment.

  Percy only got little flashes of Jesse Richter. Most of what he saw was the other man’s sweaty back and arms, his brightly-colored beads. They fought and fought. The hero was strong—or, at least, fighting with alcohol-fueled power.

  Jesse Richter broke free for a moment and fired his gun once, twice, in rapid succession. The crowd on Bourbon Street erupted into chaos. To this point, many of them hadn’t noticed the struggle as anything other than drunken zaniness. Now they knew. People ran, screamed. Percy scanned the area where the shots had gone. No bodies. No one injured.

  A police siren sounded a few blocks away.

  The two men continue to grapple. More of the man’s back. If the hero would just get out of the way …

  Percy darted to the left, tried to get a better angle. People ran all around him, bumping into him, not noticing in their panic that he, too, had a gun.

  Richter got a hand onto the face of the shirtless man and gave him a shove.

  There was space between the two men. Richter was fully visible for just a moment. His whole torso.

  Percy couldn’t hesitate.

  He fired. Three times. The sounds shots cracked off the buildings.

  Jesse Richter moved left then right, almost an awkward dance, jolting as the three rounds entered his chest. The gun fell from his hand. He went toward the railing of the balcony, teetered for just a moment, then flipped over the edge, his body somersaulting forwards as it fell through the air. Richter hit Bourbon Street with a wet thud. More screams. Richter’s face was angled toward Percy. The body was about fifty feet away. Even dead, those eyes of his were malevolent.

  Percy holstered his gun and whipped around. People were still running about, but some began to filter out of the shops and bars to see what had happened.

  But none of them were his son.

  “Ervin!”

  The police siren wailed. Blue and red lights bounced off the walls, mixing with the brightly-colored lights of the bars and shops. People moved all around him. A uniformed cop came up to him. Asked him something. Urgently. Percy looked past him.

  And then he saw Ervin, coming out of the shop behind him. Percy pushed past the cop, grabbed his son, and pulled him in tight.

  Chapter 51

  As the two men circled each other, Dale watched Dylan Mercer’s face sliding in and out of the moonlight. A vague smile. Mercer was enjoying himself. Confident, as though he truly believed he was going to win.

  Cute. Someone who actually thought his will was stronger than Dale’s.

  Still, Mercer was formidable. Well over six feet tall. All legs and arms. Large, square fists. His chest was thin but broad. Wide shoulders.

  He was a rough-looking man. Kind of creepy. His hair was long and scraggly, with a few grays. His beard, too, was unruly, untrimmed. Within the beard, his mustache was longer, full-grown, as though it was his intent to wear a mustache, but he rarely shaved around it. It was all hidden in the wild, oily scruff.

  Most striking was his demeanor. There were people who you could just read, and from Dylan Mercer, Dale saw nothing but spiritual decay. He thought back to when he and Percy had captured Jesse Richter, looking into the man’s eyes and seeing his hatred, which had been based on a perverse ideology. Mercer, though, had no ideology. He was nothing but unbridled hate. He was the kind of man who hated everyone but himself, someone with a chip on his shoulder carved out by the entire damn world. The ultimate in victim mentality. He hadn’t done all this because he hated black people. He hated indiscriminately.

  Dale really didn’t like that the man hailed from Indiana. Since leaving the Hoosier State at the age of ten, Dale had built up a disproportionately glowing image of the place and its people. This assignment, more than anything, had brought that image crashing down. He’d discovered that Indiana had been infiltrated with the original KGC, and the Second KGC had started at the hands of a Hoosier. It was like finding out your childhood hero was a criminal.

  Dale threw a jab, testing the waters. Mercer dodged it. There was that look of enjoyment on his face still. He threw his own punch, missing Dale by several inches. A light punch. He was experimenting too.

  Dale glanced at Luanne. She breathed lightly. Her legs were folded against her, one arm resting beside her head. When Dale looked back at Dylan, he felt a fury. The man in front of him had done that to her.

  Dale bolted forward with two swings, a left that missed and a right that connected.

  He thought about what Allie had said, about negativity being ten times stronger than positivity. If she were right about that, it meant that Dale wouldn’t be able to beat Mercer. It meant that hate would win. When they broke up, Dale had contended that the strength of their connection was most important thing, that they could get over their differences. But Allie had said that the idea of love conquers all wasn’t realistic. She said there were things in a relationship more important than love; it was her theory of bad being ten times more powerful than good taken to the ultimate level. She confused Dale. What could be more important than love?

  Mercer wasn’t going to win. Positivity and love were more powerful, not ten times weaker. Allie was wrong about that.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Dale threw a big roundhouse and cracked it across Mercer’s jaw. The impact against Dale’s knuckles was both painful and exhilarating. He wanted to punch the hate right out of the man.

  Mercer staggered. The blow had been a good one, and it stunned him.

  Dale hit him again, this punch to the opposite side of the face. Blood flung from his mouth. An uppercut to Mercer’s ribs. He buckled.

  Mercer swung back. His punch was unsteady and misplaced. Dale easily dodged it and threw another blow into Dylan’s temple. Then his collarbone. His stomach.

  Dale punched again and again and again. He punched the monster for every woman who felt the hands of her love bring pain to her flash. He punched him for every child who quaked at the sight of his parents. He punched him for every quivering, cowering animal, shaking at the feet of some twisted, piece of shit person.

  Dale swung and swung and swung some more. His mouth was open, lips curled back over his teeth, and he realized he was screaming. Guttural. Primal. A roar as his arms swung madly. Dylan backed into a wall, head teetering woozily on his neck, the wall the only thing holding him up. His ugly face was bloody and contused. Dale felt the anger in him as he grabbed Dylan’s shirt, and he envisioned the next blow, straight to the man’s face. Dale’s fist went back, tightened, and—

  He stopped.

  For all his lofty ideas about hate and the power that good had over evil, for last few moments, Dale been filled with nothing but hate as he’d swung mercilessly at Mercer. He’d let his emotions rule, and if he went any further—

  A sharp pain to Dale’s side.

  Piercing, blinding pain. Right below his ribs.

  Dale’s vision flashed white, and a wave of cool sweat swept over his forehead. He looked down. Mercer’s hand, pressed against him. The handle of a switchblade up to Dale’s chest. All the way to the hilt.

  Dale’s eyes looked up and met those of Mercer’s. They were bloodied, beaten. But they twinkled. And a smile came to his lips.

  Another bolt of searing pain. Mercer had yanked the blade out.

  Dale stumbled backwards. He was bent over. There was a moment where Mercer stayed reclined against the wall, gathering his strength, summoning his reserves. Then he slowly stood up. Stretched out to his full, long length. He took a deep breath, twisted his neck to the left and right, popping it.

  And then he stepped toward Dale.

  A kick with one of his long legs. Dale was
still bent over, and the kick caught him in the chest. This pushed Dale back farther. His feet shuffled on the cement. He barely maintained balance.

  Mercer came forward. An uppercut, catching Dale right where he’d been stabbed. Dale screamed. He was still hunched. Mercer grabbed his hair, yanked, and punched the wound again. And again.

  Huge, terrible waves of pain surged through Dale. He tried to shield the wound with his arm, but the punches came, over and over. Fast. Dale’s vision grew lighter. The sounds of the waves began to fade.

  The blows were pushing him backward, farther and farther, his feet shuffling against the cement, and Mercer followed, swinging those arms. Dale remembered how he had been punching Mercer relentlessly, like the man was doing to him now. The hate that Dale had felt. He had let himself go. And now the tables had turned on him.

  Mercer reared back and let another huge punch go. Dale’s senses were so muted that it hardly hurt.

  The blow knocked him over. He landed against the opposite wall.

  Dale shook his head. Woozy. He was lying in a pile of junk from the construction. A couple partial bags of cement. A few pieces of rebar. Mercer was a few feet in front of him, silhouetted against one of the windows behind him. He stepped forward and inverted the knife in his hand, put it in a stabbing position, like Psycho. Dale watched his own blood dripping off the blade, glistening in the moonlight

  “This is where it ends for you, Special Agent Dale Conley.”

  This was not where it ended.

  Dale’s vision was lightening rapidly, but even in his current state he knew that there was always an answer. Everything works out if you give it time, and he still had a few seconds before Mercer would be upon him.

  Something was brushing up against his hand. He glanced, askance. It was a piece of rebar. Short. A trimming. About a foot and a half long. Sheared to a shiny, pointy end.

  Perfect.

  As Mercer moved toward him, Dale targeted exactly where he would need to pierce him with the rebar. He was going to have to kill the man. It was him or Dale. Straight into the chest. He could angle it up and jab slightly to the left when Mercer was about two feet away.

  Mercer lumbered forward. He smiled. The knife looked gigantic.

  Dale slid his fingers toward the rebar.

  He took a big breath. He needed every bit of his remaining energy to do this. He’d have to spring up, quickly.

  He watched Mercer’s feet.

  Just come forward two more steps.

  Then Dale would jab, at a forty-five-degree angle.

  Mercer took another step.

  Come on. Come on. I can handle you. I got this.

  Dale wrapped his fingers around the rebar. The time was now. He tensed his legs.

  Angle this just right.

  Mercer’s foot lifted off the floor.

  Dale put his other hand flat, ready to push off, to spring to his feet. Now all he needed to do was—

  Mercer stopped moving. His eyes went wide. And he jolted. Something came out of his chest. Something small and round, dark. Rebar. His mouth opened. He coughed.

  Was Dale delirious? Had he done it?

  Dale was still on the floor. He looked down. His fingers were wrapped around the rebar, the sheared tip resting beside his thigh. He looked back at Mercer.

  The rebar coming from his chest moved, shoved out another few inches. Blood oozed down to the tip, dripped off. There was another sputter from Mercer’s lips, and he dropped to his knees.

  Luanne stood behind him.

  Her hands were in front of her chest, one in front of the other, still in the position they’d been when she’d shoved the piece of metal through her husband’s back. She quivered, and her eyes were wide and dilated. Mental shock.

  Blood came out of Mercer’s mouth. Bubbly. Frothy. His body fell forward, landing a foot in front of Dale, facedown. The rebar clanked against the cement.

  Luanne was frozen, her eyes still staring into nothing, shaking.

  Dale used that bit of energy he’d been reserving for the attack and stood up, hobbled over to her, put a hand on her shoulder.

  “What have I done?” she said. “Oh my god. What have I done?”

  “I was in mortal danger. You came to the aid of a federal agent,” he said and put his hands on her face, turned it to look at him. Her eyes avoided his. “You’ve done a good thing here, Luanne.”

  “But … but … What will happen now? My boys … The men in his group. They’ll come for us.”

  He took both of her hands in his. “Listen to me, Luanne.”

  She looked at him. He’d gotten her attention.

  “The organization I work for, we make things happen,” he continued. “We can protect you. Every resource is available to you. We can make you disappear. From this day forward, you have not a thing to worry about.”

  Her eyes moved briefly to Mercer’s body and back to him. Then she took in a deep breath.

  “Now … could I get a ride to the hospital?”

  Chapter 52

  It was still early in the morning, and the Grizzly took a final look at the front page of The Times-Picayune before placing it on the chessboard surface of his desk. The top headline read: Gulf-Wide Task Force Diverts Potential Drug Disaster. And the byline read: Notorious Figure Jesse James Killed on Bourbon Street.

  It was a stranger end to things than he would have expected. A very unorthodox endgame. But it was an ending. The Grizzly had in no way tried to be a hero when he spread the word that the tainted drugs were going to be mass-released. Still, he felt sort of good about it. In a fashion, he’d help stop a tragedy. This made him think of the two federal agents and their passion.

  It also made him think of the repercussions that would come from abusing the agents’ trust.

  There was a knock at his door.

  “Yes?”

  Rhino walked in. A small piece of paper was in his hand. “You got a telegram.”

  “A … telegram?”

  The Grizzly took the note.

  Dale Conley. The agent from the DOJ.

  Clever. But what could it mean?

  The Grizzly’s perpetual smile broadened a bit.

  There was a burst of noise from the other side of his door, coming from the club. Shouts, banging.

  He looked at Rhino. “Check it.”

  He glanced at the note. Shook his head.

  Before Rhino could leave the room, the door swung open and cracked into the wall loudly.

  “Federal agents! Hands in the air!”

  Four people burst into his office. Three men and a woman. All waving guns. All wearing sunglasses. All with jackets bearing the letters DEA.

  The Grizzly admired cunning, cleverness, a perfectly-timed move. From his smile, the low rumble of a laugh started. A little chuckle.

  The DEA agents spread out into the room. Screaming. One of them went toward Rhino. Another couple headed his way.

  He raised his hands, stood up. And laughed louder.

  Chapter 53

  It was pushing lunchtime, but still Dale had a cup of coffee between his hands as he looked out to the water. After all the festivities with Dylan Mercer last night, he’d taken a trip to the hospital and handled a barrage of paperwork. With only a smidgen of sleep, he’d made the three-hour drive to Pensacola for this meeting.

  The message had instructed him to meet outside the Pensacola Municipal Auditorium. It was a huge structure, and surrounding it was a drive and a wide walkway going up to the water of Pensacola Bay. The sky was bright blue with only a couple small clouds. The air was calm, and sunlight sparkled off the gentle waves. It was a very public location, people all around. This was why Dale thought it safe to meet with the man.

  Dale took another sip of coffee and saw someone approaching. The man was on the short side, about five-foot-seven, in his sixties, round cheeks on a kind-looking face with twinkling eyes. He looked a bit like a de-aged and clean-shaven Santa Claus, but if this man was associated with the grou
p he claimed to be, there was nothing sweet about him.

  Dale faced him. “Mick Henderson?”

  The man nodded and stopped a few feet away from Dale. “That’s right.” He had a thick Southern accent.

  “Got your note, Mick. But it was a little light on the details. It just said that you can tell me about the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

  Henderson smiled. “I can, but first I want you to know that this is all entirely off the record. I need to make sure you’re not wearing a wire.” He held up his hands and gave him a little look that said, Do you mind?

  Dale sighed. “You serious? Fine.”

  Dale grabbed his gun and holster from the back of his jeans then raised his arms and let Henderson pat him down. When Henderson got close to his crotch, this was usually the time when Dale would crack some sort of smartass joke. But he kept reminding himself that this man claimed to be part of an organization devoted to slavery in the modern world. Dale wasn’t in a joking mood.

  Henderson finished.

  “Satisfied?” Dale said. “Now tell me, why are you offering me information?”

  Henderson handed him a folder. “I’m giving you information on the Second KGC, Dylan Mercer’s fraudulent KGC. In there you’ll find the names of every knight.”

  Dale nodded. He looked at the folder but didn’t open it. “And what about your real KGC?”

  “The way I figure, you must be part of some covert agency, looking into societies like us. Certainly Luanne Mercer told you what happened before you arrived at Pensacola Beach last night. There’s no use in denying we exist. But I want you to know that you shouldn’t be wasting your time trying to find us.” He paused. “But you’re going to, aren’t you?”

  Dale nodded. “Of course I am. I’ll be looking for you.”

  Henderson shook his head. “Boy, we’ve been in the shadows for over a hundred years. We are a secret society, after all.”

  He smiled then turned and walked away.

  Chapter 54