Side(H)arm Read online

  Jordan shook his head and smiled without breaking stride. Tommy stood his ground and called out after him. “We must find a way to celebrate this worthy occasion with some adult beverages!”

  Jordan was motioning Tommy along when, THUMP, he bumped into somebody. He turned to find an elderly black man stumbling forward, trying to keep his balance as he desperately clutched onto an old wooden box. The man’s name was Raymond Wilkins. He had wandered into Jordan’s path, distracted by Tommy’s impromptu show. He was short in stature, had closely cropped white hair and beard to match, and was wearing a dark suit and tie. He had a broad face, leathered skin, and sad brown eyes.

  Jordan grabbed Raymond around his shoulders, steadied him, and said, “I’m so sorry.”

  Raymond turned toward him, and Jordan immediately saw the fear and disorientation in his eyes.

  “Sir, are you alright?”

  Raymond took a second, and then turned to look at the box he had held in his hands before the collision. It was still there. He gathered himself and said, “Yes, I’ll…I’ll be alright.” He glanced at Tommy, and then turned back to Jordan and said, “You…just enjoy it while you can.”

  Jordan smiled, gave Raymond two soft pats on his shoulder, and said, “I will, sir. Thank you. And you take care.” Then Jordan headed up the steps toward Tybee Pier.

  The pier, originally built in 1891 by the railroad company that had connected Savannah to Tybee, still serves as the centerpiece of the three-square-mile barrier island. It’s where the locals come to fish, gossip, and enjoy the sounds and smells of the ocean below. Most of them live in modest mid-century seaside cottages or small fishing shacks, enjoying the island’s laidback lifestyle for the seven months out of the year when they are left to themselves. For the other five months, from May through September, that lifestyle is rocked by the thousands of vacationers who invade the island—wallets in hand.

  Most of the visitors are hard-working, blue-collar families from in and around Savannah who head to Tybee to enjoy the surf and sand. Unfortunately, a new subspecies from America’s unmotivated class has also been spotted on the beaches in recent years—the ones inspired by reality shows that celebrate bad behavior. If you happen to throw your beach towel down near one of them, extreme caution is advised, or you just might learn dozens of new ways to use the F word as a modifier.

  The entrance to the pier includes a small concession stand. Jordan headed over to it, thinking how lucky he was that it was still open in October. He bought Molly a chocolate ice cream cone, her favorite, and waved off the change from a $10 bill.

  As Jordan walked down the pier, he spotted Molly first. She was sitting at an easel with paintbrush in hand, focused on the watercolor in front of her. Molly had strawberry blond hair, her dad’s light blue eyes, and her mother’s high cheekbones. The young boys in her school had already started to drop by the house, and Jordan was scared to death about what the tweenager years were going to bring with them.

  Then Jordan spotted Casey. She was leaning over the railing, watching the waves gently roll to shore. She had on a pair of faded blue jeans and a tightly fitting white T-shirt. Her light red hair was parted to one side, falling softly to her shoulder.

  Jordan watched as a group of fishermen walking toward the end of the pier all turned their heads to admire Casey’s shape. He wasn’t jealous, just proud, because he knew that there were very few men who could resist that sight. He also knew that Casey was one of those rare women who had no idea how beautiful she really was.

  “Mom. Mom! Mommy!”

  Molly’s words pulled Casey out of her reverie, and she turned and walked toward Molly. Jordan could see her light green eyes twinkling in harmony with the mischievous smile she had on her face, and he was immediately reminded why he had fallen in love with her when they first met back in college. Casey was always in a good mood, always ready to take on each and every day, and Jordan never stood a chance.

  Molly wanted Casey’s opinion on the seascape she was working on, a watercolor that showed an attention to detail and use of colors that was very impressive for a twelve-year-old. Casey herself had been an art major in college. Since moving to Savannah from upstate New York, she had made a bit of a name for herself within the local cultural circles as an up-and-coming artist. Not bad for a Yankee.

  Casey asked, “What is it, honey?” knowing exactly want Molly wanted to hear.

  Molly pleaded, “Just tell me!”

  Casey shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and said, “It’s good.”

  “Just good? Is that like sixth-grade good or good-enough-to-win-first-place good?”

  Casey smiled, waggled her finger, and said, “Honey, painters paint and…” but Molly interrupted and said, “I know. And critics criticize. That’s what your boyfriend always told you.”

  Casey laughed and said, “He was not my boyfriend! He was my art professor.”

  “Well, that’s what Dad calls him!”

  “It was before I even met your dad. And prizes don’t mean anything, so just watch your sass, young lady!”

  They both laughed as Casey pulled Molly in for a hug.

  Jordan snuck up from behind Casey, putting his free hand around her waist as he held the ice cream cone out to Molly with the other.

  “Here you go, pumpkin!”

  “Dad! Thank you!”

  Startled, Casey turned around to find Jordan zooming in to give her a quick kiss on the lips. “Hi, Case.”

  “Hi, honey! What a nice surprise. What brings you out here in the middle of the day?”

  Jordan didn’t hear the question; he was busy looking at Molly’s painting. “Wow, you did this?”

  Molly finished a big lick of her ice cream and said, “Yup, but it’s not done yet.”

  “Well, it sure looks good to me.”

  There was that word again.

  Molly and Casey glanced at each other and smiled.

  Casey said, “I’m still waiting. Why you are here?”

  Jordan got a sheepish grin on his face, letting the moment hang.

  Then he said, “I got it!”

  Casey got a puzzled look on her face.

  “The promotion. I got the promotion!”

  Casey threw her arms around Jordan and gave him a kiss.

  “Congratulations, honey! I’m so proud of you. We have to celebrate.”

  “Ahh, it’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Yes, it is. You’ve worked hard for that promotion.”

  Tommy, who had been hanging in the background, appeared behind Jordan and said, “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Casey gave Tommy a polite smile and no more. She wasn’t so sure that Tommy was a good influence on her husband, and Tommy knew as much.

  Jordan knelt down next to Molly and said, “But I also just found out that I can’t make it to your art show tonight. I’m sorry, pumpkin, but I promise that I…”

  “You can’t?” Molly interrupted, her disappointment showing.

  Just as Casey was giving Jordan that look, Raymond pushed in between Casey and Jordan and said, “Excuse me, I’d like to take a look at the young artist’s painting, if I may.”

  Jordan and Casey exchanged surprised looks as Raymond, still carrying the wooden box, approached the painting and started moving in and out and from side to side as he talked to himself with comments like, “That’s good. Wrong perspective there. Oh, no, that’s a problem.”

  Raymond finally backed away, turned to Casey, and said, “Certainly, you know that there’s not enough white space. Like the minutes in the day, the beats in our hearts, it can be gone before you know it. You need to tell her!” As abruptly as Raymond had arrived, he turned and left, walking toward the far end of the pier.

  Jordan choked back a laugh, but Casey didn’t notice. She was watching Molly give the stink eye to the strange old man who had just criticized her painting.

  Recognizing the teachable moment, Casey called out to Raymond, “Thank you, sir. Appreciate the help.”r />
  To her surprise, Raymond stopped in his tracks, turned, and gave her a smile and a brief nod of the head before resuming his walk toward the end of the pier. While they never got to compare notes, Casey saw the same sadness in Raymond’s eyes that Jordan had witnessed a few minutes earlier.

  Casey turned to Molly and said, “Molly, you must always be respectful. The elderly have a lot to offer.”

  Molly initiated a defense. “But…”

  Casey interrupted her. “No buts, young lady. He was right. You can’t add white back to a watercolor like I can with my oil paintings. You can only take it away.”

  “Then teach me how to paint with oils!”

  “In time, Molly. In time.”

  Jordan saw his opening and took it. “Well, gotta go.”

  He gave Casey another quick kiss and got down on one knee and turned to Molly.

  “Good luck tonight. I want to hear all about it tomorrow morning. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.” Molly’s response was not all that enthusiastic, but she understood.

  Molly and Casey refocused on the painting, as Jordan and Tommy turned and headed back to the truck. Raymond, reaching the far end of the pier, placed his wooden box down on one of the long wooden benches where tourists sit to read a book or look out at the ocean. He opened it, reached inside, and untwisted the plastic-coated metal tie that sealed in the contents of a clear plastic bag. He took the bag out, walked to the side of the pier, and held it out over the railing.

  He bowed his head and said, “I love you, Patricia. I hope to be with you soon.” And then he released the ashes of his wife into the gentle breeze to be taken down to the ocean, patiently waiting below.

  Chapter 3

  Jordan and Tommy were sitting in an unmarked police cruiser, a Chevy Caprice, on a side street near the Savannah River. Jordan pointed to the windshield and said, “Here it comes. It’s moving now… Ah, crap! You win again.”

  Tommy laughed and said, “Never challenge the master. I am known far and wide as the Great Rain Whisperer.”

  They were passing time, watching the rain hit the car’s windshield and trying to guess which pool of water would be the next to reach the critical mass needed to drip down the length of the windshield.

  But it was now after eight o’clock, and Tommy was getting fidgety. He looked out the side window, up the street, and asked, “Where the hell are those guys, anyway?”

  He was referring to Savannah’s Counter Narcotics Team, or CNT. Jordan and Tommy had been assigned to join forces with their SWAT team to take down a major drug ring operating out of an old brick warehouse just up the street. It was one of the few warehouses in a city full of warehouses that was still being used for its original intended purpose. Most of the others, the ones sitting directly on the river, had been repurposed as bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops to serve the tourist trade. Nowadays, the huge ships entering the Savannah River move past the warehouses, up river to the Port of Savannah. That’s where massive cranes offload their containers so they can later be dropped onto the beds of semi-trailers, which then head onto I-95 to be moved to one of the thousands of regional warehouses found along the nation’s interstates.

  Jordan looked at Tommy and said, “Relax, they know what they’re doing. A couple more minutes isn’t gonna matter at this point.”

  Then he tried to calm him down with some small talk.

  “So, did I tell you? I think we finally talked Casey’s mom into moving down here.”

  “Really?” came Tommy’s half-hearted response, as he moved his head in every possible direction, still looking for the CNT.

  “Yeah. In the spring, we plan to see what’s available on the market.… Will you stop that? You look like a damn chicken.”

  Tommy turned to Jordan and said, “I don’t think they’re gonna show up!”

  “For God’s sake, they’ll be here.”

  “Maybe, but they treat us like crap, and you know it.”

  “What the hell has gotten into you anyway?”

  Tommy looked out the window and answered, “I don’t know. I just want to get this thing over with.”

  Nearby, behind a steel door, a man armed with an assault rifle stood on an elevated platform watching what was going on four feet below on a warehouse floor. Next to him was Lucien Baxter; he was now the man running the local branch of the Southern Mafia, a loosely organized crime family operating throughout the South. Drugs, guns, and prostitution were all on their product list, along with anything else that could turn a quick profit. Lucien had used his brains to talk his way to the top, and he used the skill set he had learned from his late brother to keep himself there. Dissenters were subject to quick and harsh retribution.

  Down on the floor, four muscular rednecks were busy crowbarring open the tops of large wooden shipping crates stenciled with the word ASPIRIN on their sides. After the tops were pried off, they ripped away a layer of packing straw to reveal dozens of cardboard boxes. The open crates were then lifted onto the top of a six-foot-wide, thirty-foot-long wooden table.

  Lucien studied the men’s progress with a smile on his face. He turned to the guard and said, “Wait until you see what happens after they get all of the crates up on the table.”

  He pointed to a group of men and women standing on the other side of the table and said, “They’re like dogs waiting to be fed.”

  The group he was pointing to, about ten people in all, was a diverse work force, ranging in age from seventeen to seventy years old. Some were white, some were black, some were Mexican, and some were Asian. The one thing they had in common: They were all drug addicts. With their blank eyes, pock-marked skin, and emaciated bodies, it was easy to tell. They were the true walking dead, and they were also the perfect employees. They were desperate for cash, they were happy to be paid off the books, and they would never rat out their employer.

  They all wore tightly fitting plastic gloves, the kind a surgeon would wear, and watched and waited by their own individual workstations, which were spaced out along one side of the thirty-foot-long table. Each workstation had a large, cube-shaped, clear, plastic container and box cutters. A garbage can sat on the floor nearby.

  When the last of the crates had been opened and set on the table, one of the rednecks yelled out, “Time to rock and roll!” He and his helpers started pulling the cardboard boxes out of the crates and tossing them over the table toward the line workers. The fight was on. The workers pushed and shoved for position as they tried to grab as many of the boxes as they could and stack them up in front of their own workstation. Lucien was like a spectator at a sporting event, hollering out comments like, “Hey, that’s not fair,” or, “Nice move.”

  When the battle for possession ended, the workers settled down and waited for the next command. This time, it was Lucien who yelled out, “Ready, set, go!”

  The zombies grabbed their box cutters and cut open the cardboard boxes, dumping what appeared to be dozens of plastic aspirin bottles out of each box and onto the table. Next, they used the box cutters to cut the top off the bottles just below the neck and dump the pills into the cube-shaped containers sitting in front of them.

  The empty aspirin bottles were swept off the table into the garbage cans. As soon the workers had filled up their cubes with pills, they would grab it and run over to one of two identical machines that sat just beyond the end of the table.

  The machines looked like the coin collection machines found in grocery stores where people drop in their accumulated pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Here, it was the pills that went into the hopper. As soon as the workers finished dumping all their pills, they pushed a red button on the machine, and the churning and grinding started. Within a minute, twenty clear plastic bags full of white, finely ground powder fell out of an opening in the side of the machine and into a cardboard box sitting underneath.

  A frail looking sixty-year-old female bookkeeper stood by the machines with a clipboard, inventorying the final product and tal
lying how many containers each worker had processed so they could be paid later, in cash. Three rednecks would then stack the boxes of finished product onto pallets while another one manned a forklift and wheeled the pallets off to the back of the warehouse.

  Back outside, a black work van with dark tinted windows pulled up next to the Caprice and parked. Before the driver of the van had time to turn off the ignition, Tommy opened his door, glanced at Jordan, and said, “Okay, here we go.”

  Tommy was on the move before Jordan had time to react.

  “Son of a bitch” was heard coming from one of the four SWAT team members as they jumped out of the van with their Heckler & Koch MP5 semi-automatics and tried to catch up. Jordan followed, staying behind the team as it weaved its way up the dark street.

  Back inside the warehouse, the night’s work was already coming to an end. The bookkeeper was busy paying the last of the line workers, and the final pallet had been moved by forklift to the back of the building. By design, the product had gone untouched by human hands from start to finish. Touching it could prove fatal. It was the latest strain of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured in one of many illegal labs in China. It was cheap to make, and it was almost 2,000 times more lethal than pure natural heroin. Lucien’s buyers would cut it with flour or some other filler, add a little natural heroin or perhaps a buzz-inducing painkiller, and then sell it to their street customers. As for Lucien, he had left that end of the business. He was making more money with less risk as the wholesaler. Pushing heroin, if caught, was a Schedule 1 offense. Maximum time. Fentanyl in pill form, however, was different. Lucien knew that no working dog on the docks had ever been trained to detect it, and even if he were caught, it would be a Schedule II offense with lower penalties. Risk and return. Business 101.

  Outside, the SWAT team members and Jordan caught up to Tommy as he reached the warehouse. Tommy pulled out his Glock and CLANG, accidentally bumped it against a metal cable box standing just outside the door. The team froze.