Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip Read online

  Tommy was shocked by that.

  Jewel looked puzzled.

  K.J. laughed. “You two are not the violent type. I’m not sure that even if you knew you couldn’t hurt the two men for more than a day, you could swing something at a man’s head hard enough to knock them out.”

  Tommy nodded. “I don’t see us having a choice.”

  “I don’t either,” Jewel said. “We need to be free of those two to really make sure the senator isn’t killed in that room with that girl.”

  “I agree,” K.J. said. “But if either of you miss, they have machine guns remember? It has to be either them or you in a fight like that and you have to know it going in. One of you hesitates or doesn’t swing hard enough and both of you will be waking up in a great deal of pain in a few days.”

  Tommy nodded and the three of them sat there in silence for a moment, thinking. Then Tommy decided to move to his next question.

  “If we knock those two out of the picture,” Tommy said, “would the Brigade send reinforcements? Would their bosses even know their two men were down?”

  K.J. nodded. “They would know. And if they thought this assignment was important enough, and had someone close enough that was free, they would send two more, more than likely from LA.”

  “But they might not,” Jewel said.

  “And they might not have anyone free,” Tommy said.

  “They might not,” K.J. nodded.

  Again they sat in silence. That was worth a chance as far as Tommy was concerned.

  Finally Tommy looked at Jewel. “You up for giving a guy a bad headache?”

  She laughed. “I am.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Tommy said. His stomach twisted when he said that. They were risking the entire mission right here. But they had to get those two with their machine guns out of the way.

  Jewel glanced at the clock at the top of the arrivals board outside where they were sitting. “Senator arrives in fifty minutes.”

  Tommy stood and went through the counter and into the back kitchen of the restaurant. There, hanging from hooks were two very large and very heavy skillet-like pans.

  Tommy took both of them back out into the restaurant, making sure that the two Brigade men were out of sight before handing a pan to Jewel. “Think you can swing that with some force.”

  Jewel hefted it and then nodded. “They won’t know what hit them.”

  “And that’s exactly what needs to happen,” K.J. said. “Good luck. I’ll go scout them out and make sure they are still against the wall. Watch for the black waves and follow them to their source through the wall.”

  Tommy nodded and he and Jewel stood as K.J. disappeared.

  “You all right?” Tommy asked.

  “Scared to death, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, good,” Tommy said, smiling at her. “I was hoping I wasn’t the only one scared.”

  “Deputies aren’t supposed to be scared,” she said as they headed for the wall that divided the men from the area they were in.

  “Doctors are not supposed to be scared,” he said.

  “So much for those myths,” she said, laughing.

  “Yeah,” he said, laughing with her.

  But it didn’t help the fear filling his stomach and clamping it tight around the breakfast sandwich and coffee he now wished he hadn’t eaten.

  THIRTY-NINE

  JEWEL MANAGED TO keep her eyes open as they went through the wall and into a storage room for cleaners in the area between the two waiting areas. It had dim light and was full of cleaning carts. It smelled like bleach.

  She could see the black waves coming through the wall directly in front of them. Two sets of waves about chest waist high.

  “Both men are in position,” K.J.’s voice said in a whisper from the air. “Both have their heads back, both are asleep. But better hurry, a couple is heading toward them and if they sit on them, the Brigade men will wake up.”

  “Ready,” Tommy whispered.

  Jewel nodded and made herself take a deep breath and grab the heavy pan with both hands.

  Tommy moved over to the wall about three feet from the men and stuck his head through, then pulled it back. “Wall is only about five inches thick,” he whispered. “We swing from here as hard as we can through the wall. Swing at the top of the waves about here.”

  He showed her where on the wall. Then he braced his feet.

  She stood beside him and braced her feet as well.

  She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she just made herself think of it as only an exercise. She forced herself to breathe and focus.

  Breathe and focus on the spot just beyond the wall.

  Tommy raised the pan over his head.

  She did the same. It felt surprisingly heavy.

  Focus.

  “On the count of three,” he whispered.

  She nodded, staying focused on the point just beyond the edge of the wall, gripping the pan like it would fly out of her hands at any moment.

  “One, two, three.”

  She swung the pan down as hard as she could at the same time Tommy did.

  Her pan went right through the wall and hit something hard.

  The impact stung her hands, and the impact vibrated up her arms, but she didn’t drop the pan.

  Tommy hit something hard as well.

  The sound was a dull thud and crack.

  They both instantly stepped through the wall and into the waiting area, pans raised like two mad cooks in a crowded kitchen.

  Both men with bib overalls were slumped in their chairs, but the one she had hit was moaning.

  Tommy stepped forward and smashed the huge, heavy pan into the side of his head, snapping it sideways with a loud thump.

  Jewel was shocked.

  On a live person, that was more than likely a death blow. K.J. had been right, if she had needed to see whom she was swinging at, she might not have been able to do it hard enough.

  K.J. appeared and quickly pulled both men to the floor as the couple wearing Bermuda shorts and carrying cups of coffee took the two seats.

  “There’s some cord in the Mexican restaurant to guide people to the ordering area,” Tommy said. “I’ll get it.

  He handed K.J. his pan and headed off.

  K.J. handed the heavy pan to Jewel to hold and then got out some disinfectant in a small bottle and squeezed it all over his hands. “I hate touching those men. Just makes me feel dirty all over. Yuck.”

  Jewel just stood there, shocked that she had done what she had done.

  There were good things about being a Ghost Agent, but also some bad stuff, and this was clearly one of those bad things.

  She just kept staring at the two Brigade men knocked cold on the floor. Their black waves of aura still radiated off of them. Both still had their machine guns strapped over their shoulders. And they smelled like a backed-up sewer. She wondered when either of them had ever washed those bib coveralls, and if they wore anything under them.

  She sure wasn’t going to look.

  Tommy came back with a bunch of the cord about a quarter inch thick and colored in bright reds and orange swirling colors.

  He pulled one man’s machine gun off and tossed it in a garbage can nearby. “Will that vanish in a few hours?”

  “It will,” K.J. said, nodding, still putting more disinfectant on his hands.

  Jewel stood there with a heavy skillet in each hand and watched as Tommy pulled the other machine gun off the second man and tossed it into the trash as well.

  For an instant she felt odd leaving weapons like that in the trash. Then she kicked herself saying that they were not real weapons in the real world. No kid was going to pick it up and use it by accident.

  “Wow, these guys have an odor to them,” Tommy said, making a face and turning his head to take a breath.

  “These two are fairly clean ones,” K.J. said, shuddering from some memory in the past.

  Tommy expertly tied one wrist of one man, the
n wrapped it around the man’s feet, tied it off, and then tied the other wrist. To Jewel the guy looked like a calf tied up at a rodeo with his hands and feet tied together behind his back.

  Tommy cinched it tight, so tight Jewel wondered if it broke some of the guy’s bones.

  Then Tommy did the same to the other one.

  “Perfect,” K.J. said, handing Tommy the disinfectant, which Tommy gladly spread all over his hands.

  “Now one more thing,” K.J. said as Tommy finished and handed him back the small bottle.

  K.J. went over to one of the Brigade men, and, making sure to not touch anything on the man, he pulled the guy toward the windows using the rope they were tied up with.

  Jewel had no idea what he intended, but Tommy clearly understood and grabbed the other guy, also by the rope, and pulled him along toward the window.

  Then when both men were near the wall that looked out over the tarmac twenty feet below, both K.J. and Tommy stood back.

  “I give you the pleasure,” K.J. said, bowing.

  Tommy smiled and with one foot reached out and pushed the man through the wall.

  Jewel came over and looked down at the tied up figure of the man smashed into the concrete below.

  Tommy pushed the other Brigade man through the wall and he fell next to his partner.

  The three of them stood there looking down until finally Jewel turned to Tommy. “That’s going to really hurt when they come to.”

  Both Tommy and K.J. laughed as the attendant behind a desk announced the arrival of the senator’s flight.

  FORTY

  “YOU TWO ARE going to be very special agents,” K.J. said as they stood waiting for the senator to get off the plane. “You’ve only been dead four days and you are already way ahead of most other agents.”

  “We have a good coach,” Tommy said, smiling at K.J.

  “Oh, trust me, sweet man with the wonderful smile,” K.J. said, “I’m still not sure I would have been able to do what you two did to those two Brigade men. Brilliant idea, but beyond me.”

  “You said you hit one with a pan once,” Jewel said a half second before Tommy could say anything.

  “He was going to take over the body of my favorite chef to poison a customer and I just couldn’t allow a master chef’s reputation to be ruined like that. I had no choice. The Brigade soldier made me mad and I hit him three times before he stopped moving. He stayed down long enough to stop the poisoning plot. And I broke a nail on top of that. A horrid day all around.”

  Tommy just shook his head. He really, really liked K.J., but clearly the guy was from a different world completely.

  At that moment the senator came out of the plane followed by two of his staff. He had a black garment bag over one shoulder. He had on a silk suit and no tie. He looked relaxed, yet ready to meet any press he might see.

  Tommy instantly hated the look of the man.

  Instantly.

  But he had no idea why.

  “Look at his aura,” Jewel said softly, sounding shocked.

  Then Tommy saw it. The aura was almost entirely black. Very few colors or light areas anywhere.

  If black aura meant evil, this man was almost entirely evil.

  “This doesn’t seem right,” Tommy said. “Let me find out what we are dealing with here.”

  He stepped over and as the senator passed, Tommy stepped inside the man.

  And was instantly repulsed.

  The senator had no morals at all. None.

  And no remorse about anything.

  He had even killed a man at one point in his life before entering politics, but had not been a suspect in the murder.

  He didn’t care about any laws as long as it made him richer and more powerful.

  And he was a pedophile.

  He had hurt dozens of young, underage girls in the last ten years, and he was looking forward to the one in his suite tonight.

  Her name was Connie Benz and she was fourteen and from a local middle school. She loved politics and she had been told that she and three others from local schools were invited to talk with the senator for a school project.

  She would be the only one and he was planning on raping her and then making sure she couldn’t talk by threatening her parents. The senator, just for his own jollies, would totally destroy a young girl.

  Tommy felt sick.

  He stepped out of the senator and let the man move on.

  Tommy staggered over to a spot out of traffic near the wall and stood there, bent over, breathing hard, trying to keep his breakfast down.

  Jewel was at his side instantly. “Are you all right?”

  Her wonderful touch helped calm him and after a moment he stood up straight and took one more deep breath.

  Jewel had her arm around him, supporting him.

  “That bad?” K.J. asked, looking very worried.

  “Worse,” Tommy said. “The man is a powerful pedophile who has gotten away with this numbers of times in the past. He has destroyed many young girl’s lives.”

  “Oh, no,” Jewel said, covering her mouth.

  “Why would your bosses care if that piece of trash dies?” Tommy asked.

  K.J. took a step back and looked white. “I honestly don’t know, but I’m going to go find out. I’ll meet you back at the Golden Nugget in the buffet as soon as I get some answers. This does not seem right.”

  “Damn right it doesn’t,” Tommy said, letting the anger in his voice show.

  K.J. nodded, looking white, and then vanished.

  He and Jewel stood there for another full minute, not talking, letting people walk by them as he slowly cleared out the images from the senator’s mind.

  Finally, he nodded. “The images are fading. But we need to change plans because I can’t spend all day in that man’s mind to play poker.”

  Jewel nodded. “We’ll come up with something.”

  “Remember this name,” he said to Jewel. “Connie Benz.”

  “That’s the intended victim?”

  Tommy nodded. He then gave Jewel the name of the girl’s school and when she was supposed to arrive at the hotel.

  “She will not be hurt tonight,” Jewel said, her voice firmer than Tommy had heard it in their short time together.

  He put his arm around her and hugged her. “Damned right she won’t be. Now we are not just trying to save some piece of trash’s reputation for some future event. Now we are saving a girl’s life.”

  Tommy turned them toward the exit and they walked with the crowd, his arm over her shoulder.

  And by the time they reached the fresh air near the taxi stand, he felt better, and the images from the senator’s mind had faded.

  Not enough that he would forget, but enough that they didn’t make him sick anymore.

  FORTY-ONE

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER they were serving themselves in the wonderful Golden Nugget buffet. The place smelled of bacon and eggs and wasn’t that full, considering that most of the breakfast rush was past.

  It had been a very long night and Jewel wasn’t really happy that she had knocked a man senseless. But clearly at times this job was going to have to require her to do things she didn’t want to do.

  As long as it was rare, she was fine with that, if the cause was right.

  Saving a pedophile’s reputation was not a just reason, but saving a young girl’s life and future was worth it. And she knew she would hit ten people with frying pans to do that.

  She had pretty much finished her scrambled eggs and waffle when K.J. appeared and again slid in beside Jewel in the booth.

  “The girl is the key,” K.J. said. “She’s very smart and going to be very powerful, I am told, if allowed to grow up in a normal fashion.”

  “So why the focus on the senator?” K.J. asked before Jewel could do it in an angry fashion.

  “Because honestly,” K.J. said, “it seems this predicting the future is much harder than it seems and isn’t an exact science. Who knew?”

  �
�You mean you didn’t know that before now?” Jewel asked.

  “Nope, I never questioned the goal,” K.J. said, until now.

  “So explain to us as much as you know,” Tommy said.

  “From what I was just told by Aeon himself,” K.J. said, “they can see events and then paths from the events, like water being poured over a perfectly smooth surface. It can go anywhere in many streams.”

  “So events are the trigger,” Jewel said. “But no real focus on the details of the event then?”

  “Not until it gets closer it seems,” K.J. said. “Since this event is to happen tonight, the implications of changes into the future can be a little more clearly seen. And it seems that the senator living or dying has no impact on the future, but the girl not being involved is the turning point.”

  “So what was going to kill the senator tonight?” Tommy asked.

  “The girl,” K.J. said. “She was going to stab him a few hundred times after he raped her and fell asleep.”

  Jewel wanted to be sick.

  She pushed the remains of her breakfast away from her and just sat there.

  Tommy was doing the same thing, nodding.

  Jewel knew she needed to find this girl and stop her from getting anywhere near this hotel. There could be no chance that something might go wrong with this.

  And they needed to stop the senator from ever ruining any more girls’ lives. She had an idea about how to stop the girl from coming here. But no idea how to stop the senator short of killing him. And that didn’t feel right.

  All three of them sat there for a few minutes, saying nothing, letting the sounds and talking of the live patrons flow around them.

  Then tommy looked up at her. “Remember what we did to those two men in the diner in Buffalo Jump?”

  “You mean stopping them and having someone tie them up?” she asked, having no idea where he was going with this.

  “No, the part about making them feel pain.”

  Jewel nodded, slowly starting to understand where Tommy was going with this.

  “Is there any way,” Tommy asked, “to make a person feel pain if they had a sexual thought or inclination?”