Page 8 of Justified (Ruthless Vigilante #1)

Chapter three

I sat on a bench in the park, agitated as fuck because I was tired as hell.

Three hours sleep was torture, even for one with as much stamina as I had.

I checked my watch for the third time, it was five minutes to seven.

I probably wouldn’t be as tired if I hadn’t had to get up at five forty-five in the fucking morning to be able to make it to this meeting in time.

I really should have charged them double the amount they were paying us.

At seven, I watched an older gentleman in a dark business suit and hat walk towards me. He took a seat on the bench and smiled in my direction. If this was my contact, I hoped he didn’t ask for some stupid ass secret word, because I didn’t have any.

“Mr. Tanner told me that you have our property,” he said without looking at me.

Mr. Tanner, I smiled to myself. Jordan’s fake name. I guess I shouldn’t make fun of him and his aliases. If I was going to go through with this crime-fighting life choice, then I needed to come up with an alias of my own. Anyway…

I nodded. “Do you have the money?” I asked, hoping this guy wasn’t going to try to pull a stunt. It was early as fuck and I wasn’t on my game completely, but I would still kill the shit out of him if he tried to screw us over.

He reached into his coat and I tensed. “Relax,” he said, then removed a white piece of paper, extending it to me.

I took it and looked at the series of numbers on it. “What the fuck is this?” I asked.

“Give that to Mr. Tanner and the money will be transferred into your account,” he explained.

“I was under the impression we’d be receiving money,” I said.

“That wasn’t the deal we made with Mr. Tanner. Go on, contact him,” the man replied.

Ugh, I didn’t like this kind of bullshit. I was expecting a fucking envelope with cold, hard cash in it…preferably small bills. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’d like to confirm the transfer went through before I relinquish your package.”

“Of course. We’re on the up-and-up,” he reassured me.

“We’ll see,” I said. Then reached into my pocket, pulling out my cell, and called Jordan.

He answered. “Did he give you the transfer information?” he asked me in an excited tone.

“Yeah,” I deadpanned. It took a lot for me not to roll my eyes at this point. “Are you ready?”

“I am, give me the numbers.”

I rattled them off and waited to hear back from him if it went through. About a minute later, he gave me the confirmation and I hung up. “Looks like everything went according to plan,” I said, pulling the flash drive out of my pocket and handing it over to the man.

“Thank you. Now, before you leave, you don’t mind if I check to see if this is what we’ve just paid for?”

“It better be, or what I went through last night was all for nothing,” I remarked, and gestured for him to check.

He gave me a somewhat confused and curious expression before he reached over towards his briefcase and removed one of those fancy laptops that was super thin.

I guess he was curious as to what could have been so difficult for me.

He had no idea. I waited as he inserted the drive and confirmed its contents.

He smiled and nodded, removing the drive and putting both it and the laptop away. “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Yeah, it was. Oh, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need our services in the future,” I added.

“Oh, it is our hope that we will never need your services again.” He tipped his hat to me. “Good-day.” With that, he got up and walked away.

If I actually gave a damn, I might have been insulted by his last statement. I stood up and walked towards the subway, taking the train and the bus back to my home. When I arrived, I took off my leather jacket as I made a bee line for the bed.

Jordan jumped in front of me before I could hit the mattress. “Wait! I want to show you something,” he said, grinning from ear-to-ear.

“What is it, can it wait? I wanna go back to sleep.”

“It kind of can, but I’m so excited about it, I want your opinion now. I was up all night working on it.”

Ahh shit, fine. “Okay, show me.”

I let him lead me over to the sofa where one of the most horrendous things I’d ever seen was put on display before me. “What the fuck is this?” I frowned.

“Your costume.” He looked at me as if he couldn’t understand my disappointment.

I grimaced. “The fuck it is.”

“You don’t like it?” he asked with a heartbroken tone.

I shook my head. “This is absolutely the gayest shit I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some gay shit before.”

“I thought it was bold and would make a great statement.”

“You must have been high as fuck coming up with this idea last night. Oh, it’s bold, all right, And that’s the problem.

” I stared at the rainbow colored costume that my apparently fashion deficient sidekick came up with, which consisted of biker shorts and a top.

The only thing he got right was the eye mask, but the color was rainbow too, so even that was wrong.

“I thought it was a great idea,” he mumbled.

I looked down at him, and I could tell I’d hurt his feelings.

“Look, Jordan, it’s not like I don’t appreciate the thought and effort you put into this, but this is too flashy.

Yes, I’m a proud gay man and I’ve agreed to avenge the helpless.

But not while looking like a gay avenger in this rainbow nightmare. ”

“I can send it back and get the money returned.”

“This looks like something a flaming drag queen would wear at a gay Pride parade,” I said, rubbing it in just a little bit more.

“Okay, I get it… you hate it. Fine. I’m sending it back.”

“Yeah, you do that. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something to wear.

Something dark, brooding, and sexy as fuck.

I want to look good fighting crime,” I half joked.

“For now, I want to sleep.” I leaned over, kissing his temple, then walked toward the bed, falling into it face first for some blissful rest.

When I woke up, I felt nice and rested. I had plenty of energy and I was going to need it. I climbed out of the bed and took a piss, then came out of the bathroom to search for Jordan. He wasn’t anywhere in the warehouse, so I called him.

“Where are you at?” I asked when he answered.

“On my way back with the U-haul,” he said.

Ah, that was right… I’d told him to get one today. “Okay. I might not be here when you get back, but just start packing what you can.”

“Okay.”

“See you later.” I ended the call and booted up his laptop, opening up the search engine.

I needed to look for a place where the rent was cheap.

I checked out some apartments, but opted for private lofts instead.

If I was going to be exiting and entering in costume, the less people having a chance to see me, the better.

I settled on three locations I was going to check out.

The one I wanted the most, I put first. It had a large garage door for inside parking.

That was sweet as hell. No sooner than the printer spit out the paper, Jordan walked through the door.

“You’re still here. I brought food,” he said, wagging a bag I knew was filled with yummy goodness.

“What did you bring me?” I asked as he started removing the food out of the bag, putting it on the table.

“I brought you a lot of fatty, greasy shit you shouldn’t be eating.”

“Good.” I reached out, snatching one of the wrapped bundles that had the grease staining the paper.

Unwrapping it, I moaned when I saw it was a gyro-burger with bacon and cheese.

Shit was about to get real. I palmed that bitch and took a huge bite, savoring the mixture of flavors.

“Perfect decision.” I saluted Jordan and he laughed, shaking his head.

I rose and grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair.

“I’ll be back later,” I said, then took another bite.

“Be careful.”

“I will.” I left and walked to the bus stop.

One of the reasons we wanted a bigger score was so we could buy a damned car.

This public transportation shit wasn’t going to cut it much longer, especially not if I was trying to save a motherfucker dressed like some damn superhero.

I finished my burger just when the bus pulled up.

After paying my fare, I took a window seat and made sure to look away when we passed the restaurant where police were still canvasing and investigating.

What happened was on the news that morning and there was a crude sketch of my face.

Luckily, I was so much better-looking than the drawing, so I hoped no one would make a connection.

I also wondered if they purposely gave a bogus description of my face to throw police off. There wasn’t even a mention of another man being with me. I mean, if they were trying to protect me, I truly appreciated it. But I wasn’t going to take any chances. Moving was definitely on my books.

On the way to the first location, I called the landlord, letting him know I was on my way to take a look. So by the time I made it there, he was waiting on me. “Thanks for being able to meet me on such a short notice,” I said.

“No problem,” he replied around his stogie.

He looked like the Daddy type; leather pants, wife-beater, and beard.

He was stocky and hairy, but in a bear sort of way.

Jordan would give him a go. I followed behind him as he led me inside the one-story loft.

This really was my first choice and if I didn’t like it, then I’d visit the others.

So far, so good. It was in a loft district mixed with warehouses and not much traffic.

I didn’t see many street cameras either, which was another good thing.

“Would you be opposed to me setting up extra security in the form of a password entry?” I asked.

“As long as you’re willing to install it and maintain it, no. Don’t expect me to lower the rent, though.”

“Seven-hundred and fifty dollars a month, right?”