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The Vigilante
( This is the first chapter
of another novel I have
just completed and am submitting
to my agent
FINALLY - whew. (10/10/99)
“There are two ways of acting, one in accordance with the laws,
the other by force; the first of which is proper to man, the
second to beasts. But since the first method is often
ineffectual, it becomes necessary to resort to the second.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
Chapter One
One of the two men was taller
and thinner than the other. Both were wearing dark lightweight exercise
suits, gloves and black Reeboks®. In the darkness of a Sacramento
Thursday evening in late spring, they were almost invisible as they stood
in the shadow of a beefed-up Ford pickup truck with hi-rise tires in the
parking lot of Florin Mall. The mall would close in fifteen minutes
and there were fewer than fifty cars still in the lot, most belonging to
employees. The evening was warm, the sky cloudless with a quarter
moon showing. The noxious scent of automobile and diesel exhaust
drifted about from the heavily traveled thoroughfare in front of the mall.
“I like the Beemer,” the shorter man
said. He was a husky man, evident even in the loose-fitting workout
suit. Broad shoulders, full chest, thick legs. He nodded in
the direction of a gleaming black BMW sedan parked several cars away from
them.
“I’m betting on the ‘Vette,”
his companion said, speaking softly. There was a red ’98 Corvette
parked three spaces away from the BMW.
The heavier man chuckled. “We’ll
see,” he said.
A tall slender woman dressed
in a dark gray suit with a white blouse, dark nylons and three-inch black
slings exited the mall. Her hair was jet black, cut close around
her ears. Her makeup was tasteful, well-applied, diminishing her
forty-five years to thirty-five or so. She glanced around her once
and drew her black purse closer to her side as she walked briskly and confidently
toward the parking lot. She was carrying a large canvas shopping
bag in her left hand. The two observers behind the truck focused
their attention on her. Her name was Tracy Stephens.
Moments after she exited the mall,
two Hispanics strolled out, ambling along, but in the same direction as
the woman in the gray suit.
“The ‘Vette owners?” the taller man
said, speaking very softly now.
The shorter man didn’t answer,
but his body language changed subtly to a state of apparent readiness.
Tracy walked faster, her heels clicking on the pavement.
A car horn honked from the street, startling her. She walked on.
Although the parking lot was lighted,
night seemed to envelop the overhead lights, shrouding them in darkness
like a loose-fitting hood. The two Hispanics were dressed in jeans
and T-shirts and were wearing running shoes. They were closing on
the woman perceptibly, but not rapidly. Tracy turned, glanced over
her shoulder quickly, hurried on. When she was close to the BMW,
she raised her right hand to waist level, pressed a button on her keypad
and the lights on the BMW flashed once as the dome light came on and the
door unlocked.
The two Hispanics moved closer, but
changed rows so they were behind the BMW, seemingly walking toward the
Corvette.
The pickup behind which the two dark-clothed
men were concealed was two cars down the row toward the street from the
BMW. The men moved toward the front of the truck to remain invisible
to both Tracy and the two Hispanics.
When she reached the door of the BMW,
Tracy glanced around nervously once more, her keys in her hand and opened
the car door. She tossed the bag and her purse into the car and slipped
her hand under her skirt as she slid into the driver’s seat.
Instantly the two Hispanics raced
across the aisle between the two rows of cars and were on the BMW before
Tracy could close the door. One grabbed the top of the door, preventing
Tracy from closing it.
The two observers, as one, slipped black hoods
over their heads, adjusted the eyeholes and moved toward the car.
“Move over, lady,” the Hispanic holding
the door said gruffly. His name was Juan Garcia. “We’re going
for a ride. You be nice, keep your hands off the horn and we’ll just
dump you somewhere and you can walk home.” A long-bladed knife gleamed
in his hand. Garcia was husky, in his early twenty’s, his skin the
color of old bronze. He had long black hair tied in a ponytail behind
his head, thick black eyebrows and dark intense eyes.
“Take the car, take my purse,” Tracy
pleaded, her eyes wide with fear. “Leave me here. I won't tell
anybody.”
“No, no,” Garcia said. Behind
him there was a brief flurry of movement, a thump, and he whirled.
Rick Juarez, his companion, was lying on the pavement behind him, unconscious.
Although he was approximately the same size as Garcia, he seemed shrunken
now, almost child-like. The two hooded men walked slowly toward the
remaining carjacker.
“What the fuck!” Garcia said.
When he removed his hand from the car door, Tracy immediately slammed it
shut and locked it.
“Who the fuck are you guys?”
Juan said, the knife in front of him now. What had seemed another
simple carjacking worth a great deal of money to him, had suddenly changed.
His friend was unconscious and he was facing two men who showed not the
slightest fear of him.
Tracy was frantically punching in
numbers on her cellphone.
The shorter of the two hooded men
walked slowly toward Juan, his hands at his sides, seemingly relaxed.
“Put the knife down,” he said, “and this will go easy. Don't put
the knife down and it'll go hard. Very hard,” he added.
Garcia glanced around him. A
man was walking to his car several rows ahead of where they were standing,
but other than him, the three men were alone. Angry, frustrated and
somewhat frightened, Juan crouched, the knife in front of him. The
next thing he knew, he was on the pavement, the knife lying several feet
away. His right arm felt broken and he was moaning softly.
The taller man reached down and his fingers dug into the nerves on the
side of Juan's neck. Juan immediately jerked once and lay still.
The two men waited a moment.
Sirens began to wail from the street as two police cars raced to the mall
entrance, their overhead lights flashing. The taller of the two men
waved a gloved hand to the woman still sitting in her car and smiled, although
she couldn't see it through the mask.
By the time the police reached the
BMW, easily spotted as Tracy was flashing her lights on and off, the two
masked men had disappeared. But Juan and Rick were there, along with
the knife covered with Juan's fingerprints.
Tracy could tell the police almost
nothing about her rescuers and she didn’t try very hard. When the
police finally let her go, with her assurance she would drive in the next
morning to sign a complaint against her attackers, she was smiling as she
drove out of the parking lot. She knew who the men were who had saved
her, at least what they were and she was very thankful they had been watching
Florin Mall that night.
Wait ‘till I tell Frank about
this, Tracy thought as she exited the parking lot onto Florin Road
and drove westward toward I-5 and home.
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11/12/99
Music - Hungarian Rhapsody
