The First Sixteen: A Vigilante Series crime thriller novella - The Prequel (2 page)

Almost
a month to the day had gone by since that unfortunate incident on December
23rd. There had been no hemming and hawing, I had told my wife exactly what had
happened as soon as I had gotten home and her reaction had been tears of joy
and relief because I had not been harmed. The story of a young man, known to
the police and found dead in an alley in St-Henri had been a passing blip on
the news at the time, soon to be forgotten. By the way, my mother loved the
cane.

Anyhow,
earlier on, I had mentioned finding my first full time job in the computer
industry and this had quickly become my career field of choice, mainly because
I enjoyed the logical and analytical challenges it presented. I apparently had
a knack with zeroes and ones and bits and bytes and had turned out to be very
good at what I did. I bring this up, not to boast in any fashion but rather, to
segue to the subject of my employer, or more specifically, its clientele.

Amongst
a number of high profile clients the company I worked for had secured, one was
the Montreal police department, for which we had completely revamped its
computer systems security, including all databank management processes. I don’t
need to tell you that this opened a door to countless opportunities, if I were
inclined to ensure some nasty individuals out there got what they justly
deserved. After what had happened to Donna, and my recent foray with a lowly
mugger just before Christmas, I was so inclined.

I
knew that I would eventually branch out but, for nostalgic reasons, my first
database searches led me to Chester Jackson. Chet, as his many drinking buddies
called him, had been accused of molesting his daughter years earlier. However,
laws and regulations being what they are, Chet’s lawyers had succeeded in
convincing the court that statutes of limitations, as they were, made the case
against their client ‘past due’ if, of course, there ever had been a case to
begin with. Subsequently, his daughter, Janie, had taken her life.

Chet
might have even passed unnoticed under my newly activated radar, if I hadn’t
seen him shrug at a TV camera in a ten second late night news clip saying, “That
little girl of mine should’ve checked out her time limits if she wanted to nail
me. All she managed to do was make life difficult for us and then killed
herself in the end. She shouldn’t have tried to make a story about nothing.”

That,
in itself, was an admission of guilt. However, I took the required time to dig
into the case further – I did have access to a lot of confidential information –
and came to the conclusion that Chet Jackson was guilty as charged though,
unfortunately, that had not been the official verdict – he would have lasted
longer in prison.

With
all the data I had on the man literally at my fingertips, tracking him down had
been a no-brainer and I had quickly been able to determine his comings and
goings. Divorced a number of years earlier and without a current partner, Chet’s
pastime most evenings was knocking back a few cold ones at a local sports bar in
the West Island sector where he lived. The place was close enough that he
probably walked when the weather was milder and, by the same token, he ran
little risk of any DUI consequences by taking the car on colder or inclement
evenings.

He
worked the day shift starting at seven on weekdays at some manufacturing firm
so he generally called it quits at the bar around ten or so weeknights, headed
home, had a nightcap or two then hit the sack. I knew because I had been
watching him for over a week. As it turned out, that was exactly what he was
planning that night as well, which is what I expected.

At
about ten-fifteen, I saw his big Chrysler Newport turn into the driveway and
roll out of sight as he parked in the carport on the far side of the house. I
moved away from the front bedroom window and crossed the bungalow’s hallway
into the rear bedroom. Chet apparently used it mostly for storage so I had
little concern of him walking in there and finding me. The muffled rumble of
the car’s engine ceased and, a moment later, I heard the side door opening and
Chet entered, closing and locking the door behind him. So far, so good.

Light
filtered down the hallway as he flicked a switch in the kitchen and, seconds
later, more light shone, followed by the sound of him urinating in the home’s
sole bathroom. The toilet flushed and I heard him returning to the kitchen, his
vinyl slippers sliding against the linoleum floor. The rattling of condiment
jars and such told me he was into the refrigerator which was soon confirmed by
the snapping pop of a beer can tab. A few more sliding, shuffling steps ensued,
their sound ending as he entered the carpeted living room off the hallway
opposite from the kitchen. The television came on and I heard Chet grunt, belch
and sigh as he dropped his overweight form into his recliner. Show time.

Soundlessly,
I made my way down the hallway and entered the living room behind him, the back
of his recliner conveniently facing me. He was seated in a semi-reclined
position, his legs sprawled apart on the raised footrest, his opened can of
beer in one hand as he fondled himself through his opened fly with the other. I
stared in disgust at the television screen which displayed the images of a man
well into his forties or more engaging in sexual activity with a girl of no
more than ten.

Pressing
the end of the steel pipe I held against the back of Chet’s head, I said, “If
you move, you’re dead, understand?”

Chet
stiffened in his seat but, believing my steel pipe was actually the muzzle of a
large bore gun, he nodded and remained perfectly still.

“Good
man, Chester,” I said. “As long as you behave yourself, you and I are going to
get along just fine. Now, take your hand out of your pants and reach over
slowly to that VCR remote.
 
I want you to
turn that crap off because it’s making me sick.”

He
did exactly as I asked, the only part of him moving being his right arm as he
reached over to the side table and located the remote. To his credit, he didn’t
even turn his head but rather found the device by feel. Seconds later, the
television screen turned blue as he powered off the VCR.

“Atta
boy,” I told him. “Stick with that attitude and I’ll be out of here before you
know it.”

“Who
are you?” he rasped. “What do you want from me?”

“I
want some answers, Chet,” I replied. “I want to ask you some questions and I
want some honest answers from you.”

“What’s
this about?” Chet insisted. “I’m nobody important. I’m just a shop worker
making a living. What questions could you want to ask me?”

“Aw,
Chet, you’re underestimating yourself,” I said. “You’re far from nobody. I saw
you on television. You’re practically a celebrity.”

“This
is about Janie, isn’t it?” Chet muttered. “Did the little bitch’s friends put
you up to this?”

“That’s
no way to talk about your daughter,” I said, jabbing him on the back of the
head with the pipe. “She’s dead because of you. What kind of a father are you?”

“I
don’t know who the hell you are,” Chet replied, apparently gaining some courage
but remaining smart enough to stay still, “But she put me through hell with her
damned accusations and taking me to court like a damned pervert. Nearly cost me
my job and I could’ve ended up in prison if the law wasn’t like it is. If you
knew the half of what she put me through, you’d call her a hell of a lot worse,
mister, whether she’s dead or not.”

Visions
of my sister, Donna, flashed through my mind and I had to make a conscious
effort to not bash his skull to a pulp with the pipe in my hands.

“We’re
getting off the subject, Chester,” I said, keeping my tone relaxed and calm. “Like
I said before, I want to ask you some questions and I want you to answer them.
No bullshit, no pretending anything was other than what it was. We need to do
this to clear both our consciences. Okay?”

Chet
huffed. “Whatever, asshole. Ask me your damned questions. I have to work in the
morning.”

Clearly,
Chet had reached a point of overconfidence with the given situation. I brought
the pipe back and smashed him in the left temple with it, knocking him out. He
slumped over to the right, completely limp and I had to check his pulse and
breathing to confirm I hadn’t killed him. His heart was still beating, his
breathing steady enough. Good, because I wasn’t done.

With
a roll of duct tape I’d brought along for the occasion, I bound each of his calves
to the steel footrest supports then secured his wrists together, leaving his
hands resting over his limp, exposed penis which still protruded from his
opened fly. I finished the roll of tape by wrapping its contents across his
torso, just below the rib cage, his arms across the lower biceps and around the
back of the recliner several times, effectively pinning him into place.

I
checked his vitals again and determined he was still alive and kicking, just
taking a nap from the tap I had given him. Confident he wasn’t going anywhere,
I headed into the kitchen and found a large plastic pitcher then went to the
sink and turned the cold water on. I knew it would get really cold pretty quickly
at this time of the year but I let it run for a full two minutes before filling
the pitcher to the brim.

Heading
back into the living room, I walked around to the front of the recliner and gazed
at Chester for moment. He was still out, his head lolling to one side, but
breathing steadily, slightly snoring, in fact. I shook my head in disgust then heaved
the contents of the pitcher in his face.

It
revived him instantly and he immediately began to splutter and cough, likely
because he had snorted some of the water as he inhaled.

“What
the hell?” he stammered, trying to move but unable to do so. He raised his head
up and stared at me, his expression a mix of anger and fear. “Who the hell are
you?”

“I’m
not a friend,” I replied, my expression supporting my statement, “And, for the
record, I had nothing to do with Janie, per se, because she didn’t even know I
existed. I’m here on my own accord and I want some answers to my questions.”

Chet’s
demeanor changed at that moment. He seemed to understand that something he had
no control over was going on, as if fate had finally caught up with him, which
it basically had.

“Ask
me your questions,” he said, his tone resigned.

“Did
you sexually abuse your daughter, Chet?” I asked. “Did you take advantage of
your own child to satisfy yourself, just like that animal in the film you were
watching?”

“What
do you want from me?” Chet whispered. “She’s gone. It’s over. What damned
difference does it make to you?”

“Do
you realize that Janie is dead because of what you did to her, Chester?” I went
on. “Do you understand that you murdered your daughter, slowly, painfully over
almost three decades?”

“You’re
crazy, mister,” Chet tried to argue. “She killed herself and that was her own
damned decision. She could’ve just let go of the past and moved ahead but she
was weak and gave up. She was a coward right to the end.”

“Do
you hear what you’re saying?” I asked. “You forced yourself onto a defenseless,
innocent child, over and over, you refuse to admit it and now you have the gall
to call her a coward? Is that your story?”

“It
is what it is,” Chet replied, apparently regaining some of his earlier
confidence as he gazed at me. “Now, I don’t know who you are or what you want
from me but if you’re trying to get me to make some confession so you can feel
better somehow, you’re wasting your time. Maybe you’d just better cut me loose
and get the hell outta here and we can pretend this never happened.”

I
stared at a spot behind him, despair and failure obvious in my expression. “So,
that’s it? You’re not even going to admit feeling bad about anything? About
what happened and what you did?”

Chet
studied my expression and even had a slight smile as he replied. “That’s it,
mister. I can’t change anything with what happened so there’s no use making a
big deal about it. Life goes on. Now, cut this damned tape off of me and, you
have my word, I’ll let you go without any trouble. I won’t even call the cops
once you’re gone.”

I
nodded absently as I pulled a knife out of my jeans pocket, the five inch
locking blade my first victim had left with me. I stepped forward toward Chet
and he actually grinned as I approached, but only for a few seconds.

In
the early evening of August 17, 1995, twenty-three year old Sylvie
Theriault
had been sitting on the rocking chair they kept on
the front balcony of their first floor apartment, enjoying the late summer
warmth. While waiting for her husband to come home from work, Sylvie had been
in a lovely world of her own, gently rubbing her extended tummy as she cooed
softly to the twins she was expecting at the end of September.

Boulevard
St-Michel, on which their apartment was located, had been fairly busy as usual
with both vehicle and pedestrian traffic but Sylvie was used to the noise and
was easily able to block it out for the most part. Paying no attention to her
surroundings, she hadn’t really noticed the four young men coming along the
sidewalk, members of a local street gang, which was unfortunately a fact of
life in the area.

By
sheer coincidence, just as the foursome happened to walk past the building
which housed Sylvie’s apartment, a car had approached heading northward. As it
had neared the four gang bangers, it had slowed for a moment and the occupant
seated on the passenger side had raised a semi-automatic rifle though the open
window and quickly fired nine shots, the last few while the car accelerated and
sped away.

Miraculously,
only two of the four intended victims had been hit and both had sustained
relatively minor wounds. Sadly however, two of the nine shots had hit Sylvie,
one in the throat and the other in the forehead, killing her, and consequently,
her unborn twins.

A
witness, as surprising at it may seem, had noted the plate number of the car
and reported it to the police. The vehicle in question had turned out to be registered
to a member of a rival gang but further investigation had revealed that the
owner had a solid alibi at the time of the shooting. He had been serving a
thirty day jail term for some probation violation. Though a number of other
gang members had been suspected of using the automobile, none had been
identified as the actual offenders and the case had gone cold… with three
innocent lives lost for naught.

I
had the advantage of operating on a different set of rules so when I reviewed
the police case files, I was confident I could get to the bottom of this and find
out who had been responsible for Sylvie
Theriault’s
death. The car’s owner at the time had a younger brother who had also been
affiliated with the same gang. Considering the connection and that the vehicle
had been parked at the family home during the owner’s thirty day incarceration,
it made sense that the younger brother might have been involved or, at the very
least, knew something about the incident. In fact, the car had since changed
hands and was now registered to the very same younger brother.

The
police are not idiots and they had investigated the same avenue I was looking
at. However, as I mentioned, they worked with a different rule book. The police
interview reports I reviewed made it clear that the younger brother, Mathieu
Masson, had no clear alibi at the time of the shooting. His prints had been
found in his brother’s, now his car, following the incident but that had been
far from definite proof. Masson had stated he had been sleeping at home when
the shooting had taken place, his mother had backed up his statement, and the
cops had been up against a wall.

Since
the time of the unsolved drive-by shooting, Mathieu Masson had left home and
moved into his own place, a ground floor apartment on Chambord Street in one of
the countless duplex and triplex row houses which made up most of the
residential property in the Rosemont district. Though parking in the area could
be difficult at times, Masson had no such problems as his apartment included an
unattached one car garage which was accessed by the back alley.

Humans
are creatures of habit, which allowed me to establish Masson’s usual evening routine
without too much effort. Between eight and nine most evenings, he’d go out to
his car with his ever-present Adidas gym bag loaded up with a variety of pre-packaged
dope for sale, and drive to Chez Pitt, a local drinking dive heavily frequented
by drug users.

On
this particular evening, when Masson entered the standalone garage, I was waiting
in a back corner, shielded from view by a pile of boxes and other junk. He went
right by me as he walked around the rear end of his car, on his way to toss the
gym bag in from the passenger side. Moving in behind him, I raised the tire
iron I was holding and brought it down on his head, effectively knocking him
unconscious. A bit of duct tape later, I had him trussed up nicely, hands
behind his back, ankles bound and lying face down in the trunk with a strip or
two of tape across his mouth, just in case he woke up along the way.

I
found his car keys in his jeans pocket and, after a quick look outside to make
sure nobody was around, I opened up the garage’s gate-style doors and drove the
car out. I didn’t bother with closing the doors behind us. I didn’t think too
many people would be walking out in a back alley in the middle of winter to
notice and my main priority was to get away from there as quickly as possible.

I
was still kind of new to this self-prescribed vigilante therapy program and had
a lot to learn but driving around in some gang banger’s gold and silver 1987
Chevy Caprice, in his neighbourhood, I might add, wasn’t something I felt I
should do for long. However, I didn’t want to deal with him at his place, not
knowing if somebody might show up, so I had to get him out of there. Six or
seven blocks southwest was an industrial area along the railroad tracks where I
had identified an abandoned warehouse as an appropriate location at which I
doubted we would be disturbed.

We
made it there without issue and I was pleased to see the fence gate remained
opened as I had left it earlier. I drove the Caprice around the back and out of
sight from the street, stopping by the roll-up door I had unlocked on my
previous visit. Hurrying to the door, I heaved it upward, raising it just high
enough to allow the car to pass. Within a minute, I’d driven inside and cut the
engine, the door was lowered again and it was time to deal with Mathieu Masson.

I
turned on a battery-powered lamp which I had left at the warehouse then moved
around to the rear of the car, popping the trunk while being mindful that my
captive might have rolled over and be in position to kick out. However, he wasn’t,
though he had started to come to. I rolled him onto one side and shifted him
into a sitting position with his back to me then slid my hands under his
armpits and dragged him out of the trunk and onto the concrete floor.

“Time
to wake up, buddy,” I said as I ripped the tape from his mouth.

“
Oww
,
hostie
,” he
cursed in French. “What the hell is going on?”

“I
needed to speak to you in private,” I replied, “So I brought you to this place
I found where I’m pretty sure we won’t be disturbed.”

“Why
am I tied up?” he demanded as his thoughts became more lucid. “Who the hell are
you?”

“Who
I am isn’t important,” I said. “What’s important is that you answer my
questions.”

“What
questions?” Masson asked, trying unsuccessfully to get into a sitting position.
“What’s this all about?”

“Here,
let me help you,” I said.

Bending
over him, I grabbed the front of the leather jacket he wore and dragged him
back a couple of feet before pulling him up to a seated position and leaning
him against a support post.

“There,”
I said with a smile. “Now you’ll be more comfortable while you answer my
questions.”

“What
questions?” he repeated. “Are you ripping me off here?”

“Not
at all,” I assured him. “I have no use for that crap you have in your bag. Now,
stop interrupting me so I can ask my questions.”

“What
damned questions?” he snarled in frustration. “What’s this about?”

“Were
you driving this car during the shooting on August seventeenth last summer?” I
asked. “That’s what this is about.”

“I
already told the cops everything I had to say about that,” Masson replied.

“Well,
there are a couple of problems with that,” I said. “For one, I’m not the cops
and secondly, you lied to them and so did your mother. You weren’t sleeping
when that shooting took place because you were driving this car right here. I
want you to admit that to me.”

“It’s
like I told the cops,” Masson insisted. “This was my brother’s car then. I don’t
know who was driving it but it wasn’t me.”

“The
police found your prints and your brother’s on the steering wheel, Mathieu,” I
said. “That’s it, nobody else’s. Since bro was in jail, you had to be the
driver.”

“Somebody
coulda
been wearing gloves,” Masson argued.

I
went to the car and returned with the tire iron I had used on him back at his
place.

“You
know as well as I do that the glove theory is bullshit,” I said as I examined
the tire iron.

“What
are you going to do with that?” Masson asked, eyeing me with suspicion and
fear.

“Who
was driving the car that night,
Matty
?” I asked,
slapping the tire iron in the palm of my hand. “Things will get painful if you
don’t tell me.”

“Why
are you doing this?” he asked.

“Because
an innocent mother and her unborn children are dead,” I replied. “Admit that
you were driving.”

“Was
she your sister or something?” Masson enquired, going with the psychological
approach by trying to keep me talking.

In
response to his question, I swung the tire iron down and smashed his left
kneecap.

I
waited for his shrieking howl to subside before answering, “No, I didn’t know
the woman. Were you driving the car?”

“What
are you
gonna
do if I say I was?” Masson cried.

The
tire iron swung again, its victim this time, Masson’s right ankle.

“Why
make it difficult for yourself, Matt?” I asked and waited.

“Yeah,”
Masson whimpered. “I was driving.”

“There.
Wasn’t that easier?” I said. “Now, who was the shooter?”

“Aw,
Jesus,” Masson sobbed. “You’re asking me to sign my death warrant.”

“It’s
a question of deciding whether it will be sooner versus later,” I replied. “Think
about it before making any final decisions. Who was the shooter?”

Masson
closed his eyes and sighed as he slowly shook his head. “Rick Bourque. He’s
known as Birks on the street.”

“Very
good, Mathieu,” I said. “It’s so much easier when one cooperates, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,
right,” Masson replied. “I’m serious when I tell you I’m as good as dead now.”

I
nodded in agreement as I pulled out my knife and locked the blade in place. “I
never doubted that,
Matty
. Not for a minute.”