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  Or old age.

  I tied the sicko up and left him lying on the floor, then gathered up all the contents of my go bag from his closet. It felt good to have all my extra magazines in my possession again, and I smiled hard when I found my Osprey silencer. Thank the good Lord, there would be no more ear-busting gunshot blasts for me.

  I cleaned out every penny from the Prophet’s safes, and Frances helped me carry all the cash out to my BMW in plastic garbage bags. The money would go to good use in the form of trust funds that I would anonymously set up for Wendy and her two friends. They had enough things to worry about to get their lives back on track, and I wanted to make sure that money wasn’t one of them.

  When I returned from my pleasant stint as motel desk clerk, I called the Pennsylvania State Troopers, and they arrived within twenty minutes and brought multiple ambulances along with them.

  Wendy changed into some decent clothes and was interviewed and released into my custody. We’d gotten to her before any sexual abuse had started, and she didn’t require any medical attention other than a cursory exam, with a promise to follow through with counseling.

  The other two girls weren’t that lucky. They each went for a ride in the ambulance to the hospital, and after the initial exam by the docs, they were airlifted to a hospital closer to home. Pittsburgh for one girl, Scranton for the other.

  On the ride home, Wendy let us in on a little secret. Unlike her two roomies in the basement, she hadn’t run away. She had been sold to the Prophet by Cecile and her husband, Hardy. Menthol Man had picked her up at the orphanage, and the two had spent the night at Johnson’s Motel. He didn’t dare touch her because she was a special order from the Prophet, “who paid damn good money for you,” according to Menthol Man. But he did make her watch porn all night, which was what simpleton Bobby heard.

  I knew there was something amiss with the Happy Home Orphanage, but even in my craziest dreams, I’d never have accused them of selling underaged girls, and my blood boiled for the rest of the ride home.

  How could anyone do that? How could anyone be so heartless as to sell a young girl, a girl that you were entrusted to keep safe? Something so innocent and precious that most people would give up their lives to save?

  This craziness needed to end, right now. I couldn’t allow Cecile and Hardy to lawyer up and delay the criminal trial for years. I made up my mind to put a stop to it as soon as I got home, in a way that only I could.

  I filled Debbie in about what had transpired when we reached cell phone reception. She insisted that we cancel our trip to Key West and that Wendy stay with her and her sister Catherine until things were figured out. She also insisted that I share the contents of the Prophet’s black book with her. I agreed. With a smile, I filed away the image of my baby and me preparing for a mission. The two of us at my outdoor gun range, sighting in our Remington 700s with Leopold 4x9 scopes at five hundred yards. Ah, good times…

  I told Wendy that she would be staying with my girlfriend, Debbie, and she was so relieved that she started crying. She’d thought she’d be going back to the orphanage.

  As soon as I returned home, I used HFS to verify multiple large cash deposits to Cecile’s bank account over the last nineteen months. Unfortunately for her, she overdosed on her insulin medication that same night. Her husband Hardy found her unresponsive in the morning and called 911, but by the time the medics arrived and treated her, she was in a diabetic coma. The medics happened to notice a large number of empty insulin vials on her bed stand and assumed that she’d inadvertently taken too much. Her husband and the doctors at Cobleskill Hospital were at a loss as to how an experienced insulin user could accidentally overdose, but my guess is that she had a little help.

  Wink, wink.

  One thing the doctors did know was that if she came out of the coma, she’d be bedridden for the rest of her life. No more signing underage marriage certificates for her.

  On a personal note, I’m going to brag to you that my record of never killing a woman lives on.

  #I’mANiceGuy.

  Less than a week after his wife was admitted to the hospital, Hardy had some bad luck. Poor guy. He was doing repairs under his four-ton Farmall tractor when the jack gave way. He struggled to escape, but the monster tractor slowly squeezed the breath, guts, and everything else out of him. The panic in his eyes when he realized he was dying was a wonderful sight, one that I wouldn’t need to try and erase via Keller’s shrinking image technique.

  #I’mNotANiceGuy.

  The state trooper who investigated his death figured old Hardy was so preoccupied with his wife’s medical condition that he wasn’t focused on his work, and he forgot to check and make sure that the pins were inserted correctly on his jack stands.

  The Happy Home Orphanage was closed, and the remaining sixteen kids were shuffled off to various other orphanages in upstate New York. I made anonymous donations of two hundred thousand dollars to each one of them. I could use the tax deduction.

  My on-again, off-again special friendship with FBI Special Agent Leo Kennedy was on again. I scrubbed all the recordings I’d captured of the Prophet’s confessions with some proprietary HFS cleaner software and emailed them to him using one of my phony Gmail accounts and my TOR browser. TOR reroutes all web traffic through tens of routers, placed all over the world, before it reaches its final destination, thereby guaranteeing rock-solid anonymity.

  The Prophet’s recorded confessions weren’t admissible as evidence in a court of law, but they were enough for the FBI to initiate their own investigation. Through another fine piece of investigative work, hardworking Special Agent Leo Kennedy was able to locate and rescue the other three missing girls from the orphanage. All three had been sold by Cecile, and they’d wound up being married to men in Massachusetts, where the minimum age for female marriage is sickeningly low. Twelve. No shit. Twelve. All you needed was a parent to sign off on it.

  Cecile wouldn’t be signing any more of those.

  When all was said and done, Agent Kennedy received another commendation for busting the biggest child sex-trafficking ring in US history. He mailed me a New York Times article that praised his investigative prowess. I was happy for him.

  As for the Prophet, I’d decided not to kill him. Don’t think I was getting soft or feeling sorry for the old man. I just knew that with the dead bodies piling up and the amount of evidence against him, the FBI would have a great case, and he’d wind up going to jail for a long time. And he did.

  News of a brand-new child molester, also known as Fresh Pedo Ass, spreads like wildfire among the prison population, so I knew that I had to act fast. After the various guilty verdicts were handed down, I flew my Cessna 206 down to Texas and paid a little visit to the federal penitentiary in Beaumont, where the Prophet would be spending the next six hundred and thirteen years, minus a year or two off for good behavior.

  While the trial was going on, I’d done a little HFS research on Beaumont. I learned that longtime inmate Juan Alevarr Simone was the person to speak with if you wanted anything accomplished inside the penitentiary. We had a very amicable meeting on visiting day, and I was impressed with his physical size. Almost seven feet tall, his hands made mine look like a child’s, and his sculptured physique was solid proof that he’d paid his dues in the weight room. I’d hate to be cornered in the shower by him…

  Despite our different backgrounds and the layer of bulletproof glass that separated us, we established a good rapport. We even came to a gentlemen’s agreement. I would wire three thousand dollars a month into his mother’s bank account, and he would make sure that the good Prophet was his bitch. This arrangement was good as long as the Prophet lived, so there was good incentive for Mr. Simone to make sure that, other than lube-free anal penetration, nothing was to happen to the Prophet.

  After the first month’s deposit was verified by Mr. Simone’s mother on her latest visit, he and the Prophet had their first Friday-night shower party. I found out through the grape
vine that despite Mr. Simone’s life sentence for murdering three people in a drug deal gone bad on Bailey Street in Camden, New Jersey, he was exceptionally good at sharing. When he finished with the Prophet, he passed him around to his entire entourage before one final nightcap, then settled in for the remainder of the evening for a well-deserved rest.

  The weekly Pedo Pounding, also known as PP’ing in the shower, a tradition that would continue unabated for many years, earned the Prophet the “Outstanding Bitch of the Year” award several years in a row at the prison guards’ annual Christmas party.

  The Prophet also earned his place in the Guinness Book of World Records for two very distinct things: paying the most visits to a prison infirmary on a Saturday morning, and purchasing the most tubes of rectal ointment from the prison commissary in its history.

  Senator Ancel Keys had the distinct honor of being the second member to be crossed off a new list I’d created, the Little Black Book of Pedophile Shitheads. His body was found in room 19, along with the body of an unidentified male. The mullet-headed young man was found hanging in the closet with his junk hanging out. Between that and the off-the-charts ecstasy level found in his blood, the medical examiner had an easy time of it. He ruled that the cause of death was a sexual accident. Autoerotic asphyxiation, in medical terms. “I accidentally hung myself while wacking off,” in layman’s terms.

  Senator Keys died from a single gunshot wound to his head, and his death was ruled a suicide. Evidently, he was so upset about finding his gay lover swinging from his belt in the closet that he couldn’t bear to live…

  A pink-handled .22-caliber Derringer was found on the floor next to him.

  The town of Centralia suffered one of the weirdest natural disasters I’ve ever heard of. An underground mine fire that couldn’t be put out. No shit. It grew so large and burned so hot that the streets melted, and every single building was destroyed. The fire still burns today.

  There’s a lot of conspiracy theories about how the fire started. Some say it was the work of the Devil, others say it was the revenge of God. But I can’t help but wonder… if only Frances hadn’t tossed that lit cigarette into the corner of the mine…

  During the drive home, I asked her again how she’d perfected her expertise in rear naked choking. She admitted that she’d spent a summer in the seventies touring as a ring girl for the World Wrestling Federation. She met, and carried on a torrid affair with André the Giant. He taught her the Chief Jay Strongbow sleeper hold—now known as the rear naked choke. She hadn’t been kidding me earlier when she’d told me that she practiced every day. “Five reps on each. I hold each one until they pass out,” she nodded to me. “Gotta train like it matters, Jack.”

  Poor Max and Gus.

  Speaking of Max and Gus, they gave me dirty looks for a while after we returned, and even went so far as to question the bite mark on Frances’s upper thigh that “wasn’t there when we handed her over to you. We’re sure of that…” (with some confirmational nodding between themselves). But I suspect it was just the devilish nature of Frances torturing the poor men over her exaggerated graphic details of our adventure that was doing the talking.

  As time went on, they relaxed a little, and now our friendship is stronger than ever, although Frances still messes with them on a regular basis by making flirty comments about our “special night together.”

  Debbie and I took Wendy down to Fairfax, Virginia, for a weekend visit with my sister Lisa, who’s an attorney, and her daughter Jennifer. The three of them got along great, and we left Wendy with Lisa. Fast-forward a few months and, thanks to me, Lisa has two adopted teenage girls.

  She’s not speaking to me at the moment…

  Debbie and I did make it down to Key West by private jet a few weeks later. To make it up to her I bribed the coolest waitress and bartender I know, Mary Sue, to cover Debbie’s shift behind the bar for an additional week, so we wound up spending two weeks in paradise, where we did nothing but lounge on the beach, drink colorful cocktails, and listen to Barry White.

  * * *

  The End

  * * *

  Turn the page to read a preview of where it all started:

  Fatal Justice - Vigilante Justice Thriller Series 1, with Jack Lamburt

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  Chapter 1

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  * * *

  I killed an FBI agent last week.

  I had nothing personal against the agent and I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but it wasn’t my fault.

  It wasn’t like in Hollywood, where the FBI storms into an arrest situation, everyone sporting one of those dark blue windbreakers with FBI stamped across the back in big white letters so large that a guy could read ’em from two blocks away.

  Nor did the dead agent come screeching up in a cloud of tire smoke along with twenty other dark-windowed SUVs and jump out with a megaphone, announcing their arrival.

  None of that really mattered though, because I was put in a position where I had no choice.

  Fatal Justice: Vigilante Justice Thriller Series 1 with Jack Lamburt

  Chapter 2

  I was hanging out in my favorite bar, the Red Barn. Yeah, I know, corny name, but it was a red barn, built in the late 1800s and located on Route 10 at Charlotte Valley Road in the quaint little town of Summit.

  Sometime around the turn of the century, the owner of the red barn had decided to throw in some light fixtures, add running water and a toilet, install an oven to warm up finger food, and build a bar close to the front door so you could grab a stool and get drunk as soon as you walked in. Not much else to do on a Friday night in upstate New York.

  A three-songs-for-a-quarter jukebox sat between the sawdust-covered shuffleboard table and the lone restroom, belting out country tunes on a crackling speaker. “Elvira” and Garth Brooks having friends in low places were the two most popular. If it happened to be a holiday weekend, there was usually a live band playing, and “Elvira” and Garth Brooks having friends in low places were the two most requested songs. What can I say? Summit had its share of simpletons.

  The locals drank beer and danced to their favorite songs until they were too drunk to move. Come closing time, they’d stagger and weave their way home, most of ’em staying on their side of the faded double yellow line that ran down the center of Route 10. It wasn’t pretty, but that’s all we had in our quiet little town, so we were happy to have it.

  “Can I freshen that up for you?” the bartender asked. She looked at me with those sultry almond-shaped eyes, courtesy of her Japanese mother, that made me melt every time she made eye contact with me. I felt knee-wobbling weak around her, but I thought I did a good job of hiding it.

  “Nah, I’m good for now. Think I’ll play a little pool, though. Can I get some quarters?” I whipped out a five and handed it across the bar to Debbie. She sauntered over to the cash register and I admired the snug fit of her Levi’s. I didn’t bother raising my eyes or killing my grin when she turned around and came back with my night’s worth of pool table money. She was used to me undressing her with my eyes, so she didn’t bother to comment. Her sly smirk said it all.

  She placed the quarters on the bar in front of me. “Good luck at the pool table,” she said. “Those guys look like players to me.” She gestured over to Max and Gus, the two old men that were smacking the balls around the beer-stained pool table as if they were playing bocce ball. “I wouldn’t play them for money if I were you.”

  They were at least two times my forty-three years, but they moved pretty well and still had a bright sparkle in their eyes. Ice-cold beer worked wonders.

  “Yeah, thanks. If I lose my pickup truck to them, I’ll be counting on you to give me a lift home.”

  “Oh, I’m taking you home anyway, unless Frances over there gets to you first.” She turned
to the other end of the bar and waved, her arms swinging overhead like she was waving off an errant F-18 that was attempting to land on the deck of the USS Stennis on a stormy night.

  I looked over and there she was. My number one fan. She must have been pushing ninety-five, but goddamn, she still drank whiskey by the shot glass. She sat ramrod straight on her barstool and sucked on a Marlboro Red. At least she’d switched from those filterless Lucky Strikes.

  She caught me looking over at her and winked at me, an exaggerated gesture that looked like she was having a stroke. Oh, jeez. She waved and called over to me. I cringed, praying she wouldn’t lose her balance and fall off of her stool.

  “Sheriff Joe, come drink with me.” She raised her glass and smiled. “I’m buying.”

  Sheriff Joe retired a few years ago. Nice enough guy, but aside from being about a foot shorter than me, sporting a walrus mustache that complemented his combover, and carrying around a gut twice as big as mine, he looked just like me.

  Ever the polite civil servant, I grinned back and raised my mug. We made eye contact through the smoky haze, and her toothless grin widened to the point of nausea. Ugh. She had probably been attractive sixty years ago, but old age and dementia didn’t excite me like they used to, so I kept my distance from her.

  She was nothing if she wasn’t persistent. If I had a dime for every time she grabbed my ass when I made my way to the restroom, I could’ve retired. I swear she took the stool at the end of the bar every night so that she could reach out and touch all the men that walked by her to get to the restroom or the jukebox. Or the ones who just happened to be unlucky enough to walk past her before being warned about the Frances Fondle.