Rough Justice (The Scarecrow and Lady Kingston Book 1) Read online

  “I’m only going to ask this once,” Julie said, letting the taser snap, crackle, and pop as she waved it around for dramatic effect. “Who sent you to kill me and why?”

  Dusting off his hands, Scarecrow finished tying up the last of the mercenaries. “You know, if I were you, I’d tell the lady everything she wants to know.”

  Picking up the squad leader by his collar, Julie propped him up on his knees, reached down with her free hand and clamped down on his nuts with a vice-like grip.

  “Arghhh!” moaned the squad leader. The twinge of pain put a crease in his already perspiring brow.

  “I’m losing my patience,” Julie said, and squeezed even harder, relentlessly crushing the man’s scrotum like a bear trap.

  “Okay! I’ll talk,” he said in a high-pitched squeal.

  Letting go of his family jewels, Julie suddenly jammed the taser back into his crotch and shocked him again. The man fell back to the ground, hands cradling his thoroughly baked oysters. Julie looked over at Scarecrow and shrugged as if to insinuate it couldn’t be helped.

  At that very moment, the faint rhythm of Spanish hip-hop music blaring in the distance grew audible. Julie and Scarecrow looked in the direction of the sound just in time to see a low-rider, gaudy-gold ‘70s Cadillac convertible bounce around the bend of the street corner. The car hip-hopped its way toward their position.

  Easing up next to Julie and Scarecrow, the car came to a screeching halt, and with a cagey curiosity, four Chicano gangster wannabes looked around at the inexplicable display. Bodies littered the pavement. Red blotches of blood splatter-decorated it like flecks of paint. In the background was a heap of destruction where the diner had once stood, and in front of it stood a pissed off Chicana over the writhing body of a man clutching what was left of his frazzled junk.

  But perhaps even stranger yet was the bona fide living, breathing scarecrow eyeballing them suspiciously.

  The Scarecrow &

  Lady Kingston

  Rough Justice

  TRISTAN VICK

  DEDICATION

  For my father, Wayne L. Vick,

  who always believed in me.

  ***

  A WINLOCK PRESS BOOK

  ISBN: 9781618687692

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-768-5

  Rough Justice

  THE SCARECROW AND LADY KINGSTON Book 1

  © 2015 by Tristan Vick

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

  Cover art by Jack Kaiser

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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  Please visit Tristan Vick’s website

  Contents

  CASE FILE: 1

  1: COGITATING OVER COFFEE

  2: CAFÉ CRUNCH

  3: MACHINIST MAYHEM

  4: INTERROGATION

  5: BACKLOT BLUES

  6: SHOWDOWN

  7: THE GREAT ESCAPE

  8: THE HOLLYWOOD EXPRESS

  9: RISQUÉ BUSINESS

  CASE FILE: 2

  10: THE SEX FILES

  11: ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

  12: THE DEVIL IS IN HER KISS

  13: PROVOCATION

  14: GLAMOR AND DECEPTION

  15: STOOLPIGEON

  16: SUSPICIONS OF FOUL PLAY

  17: ¿QUÉ NOS TRAE LA SERPIENTE?

  18: PROTECTIVE CUSTODY

  19: FACEOFF WITH THE DEVIL

  20: BOMBSHELL THREAT IN BLONDE

  EPILOGUE: ATTACK OF THE KILLER MUTANT CEPHALOPOD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MORE FROM TRISTAN VICK:

  CASE FILE: 1

  Café Crunch and the Hollywood Express

  CLASSIFIED

  1

  COGITATING OVER COFFEE

  Buzzing with an electrical hum, the art-deco style “Danny’s Donuts” sign glowed in bright neon as it rotated high above the humble diner. The ‘50s-style glass doors of the restaurant swung open, and a gorgeous, raven-haired woman stepped into the diner with a seductive swagger. Looking over the rims of her oversized sunglasses, she glanced at all the eyes focused on her and tossed her feathery hair back. Peering between her bangs and the rims of her shades, she spotted the woman she had come to meet, pushed her shades back up, and stepped urgently toward her contact.

  At the center booth in the middle of the diner sat an athletic-looking brunette with green eyes. She wore a black Emily Strange t-shirt with the phrase “there’s no place like alone” written on it.

  As she sat gazing contemplatively into a cup of hot coffee steaming with the aroma of freshly-brewed beans, Julie Kingston noticed the sudden increase in chatter and looked up from her cup to see what the commotion was about. Walking toward her was none other than the popular Hollywood actress, Kateland Rameses Beckensale. Julie sighed as the starlet leaned over and gave her a peck on both cheeks, the way Italians do, and then dropped down into the seat directly across from her.

  Smoothly sliding her sunglasses off, Beck looked around the diner and adjusted the top of her white Gucci summer dress, then broke the ice with some meaningless chit-chat.

  “God, I hate L.A. in the summer,” she said with a raspy yet sultry voice—the kind of voice that only comes with genuine sex appeal and smoking a few too many cigarettes. Picking up the menu, she promptly began fanning herself with it. Her attention drifted to Julie’s cup of Joe, and she pointed her chin at it and inquired, “What are you having?”

  Looking a little annoyed, Julie simply smiled with a false air of nicety and informed her, “What I always have, Becky. Coffee. Two creamers.”

  “Yeah, I won’t be having any of that,” Beckensale said, emphasizing the last word as if to say plain ole coffee wasn’t sophisticated enough for her taste. Looking at Julie, she smiled and then leaned back in the booth and stretched. As she put her arms across the back of her seat, she thrust out her substantial, but mostly artificial, chest and eyed Julie with her trademark dark, painted eyes as she chewed on her bottom lip.

  It was the sort of look Julie didn’t much care for because, for the life of her, she couldn’t read it. Being a detective in L.A., the thing Julie was best at was reading people. Beckensale was different though. For some reason, Beck was impossible—in every meaning of the word. Julie just couldn’t seem to get a handle on her. Take the erotic chewing of her bottom lip for example. Julie didn’t know whether she was judging her silently, or coming on to her. Before Julie could break the awkward tension with some trivial formality, a blonde waitress strolled up to the side of the booth to take Beckensale’s order. Before the waitress could even take her order, however, Beckensale stated precisely what she wanted.

  “I’ll have a caramel frappuccino with nonfat whip.”

  Rapping her fingers on the order pad nervously, the waitress leaned in and penitently whispered, “Apologies, Ms. Beckensale, but we don’t serve that kind of coffee here.”

  “What?!” Beck gasped in an overly dramatic display of disbelief. “It’s summer, for crying out loud! Besides, who doesn’t serve frappuccinos in this day and age?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the waitress replied. “I can get you a coffee with some milk or creamer if you’d prefer.”

  “Fine, I’ll have that,” Beck
said in disappointment. “But just one creamer—I don’t need the extra calories.” The waitress scurried off, and Beckensale looked back at Julie and smiled again.

  Julie was still wondering what on God’s green earth Beckensale wanted, and cradled her coffee cup in both hands. She stared intensely back at Beck to match her overly-intense gaze.

  “What?” Beckensale inquired with a tone of annoyance as she began chewing on the plastic skull temples on her sunglasses.

  “Becky, you do realize that you just ordered literally the exact same thing as me, right?”

  “So?”

  Julie decided to let it go.

  “By the way, Kingston, I just go by Beck now. Becky is so freshman cheer squad, if you know what I mean?”

  “No, I don’t know what you mean, Beck. And not to seem overly discourteous here, but I haven’t seen you since the last annual policeman’s ball when you had your arm draped around Senator Brickman.”

  “Blackman,” Beckensale corrected. “I was with Brickman the year before.”

  “Whatever. What I don’t get is how you can come here and act like we’re bestest friends as if nothing ever happened between us, so, you’ll have to excuse my manners, but go away.”

  Beck’s dark, smoldering eyes intensified as she raised an eyebrow. “Oh. My. God. Are you still bitter about that? That was back in college for crying out loud!” Beck shifted in her seat and fidgeted with her top, which was bulging with her tightly squeezed together breasts. The distracting cleavage formed a perfect M-shaped arch that faded down into a valley of perfectly tan skin. “Unlike some people,” Beck groaned, “I have learned to forgive and forget.”

  “What do you mean unlike some people?” Julie scoffed. “You’re the one who slept with my fiancé!”

  “Goddammit, Julie Angelica Kingston! What do you want from me?”

  “An apology would be nice,” Julie said through clenched teeth.

  “Okay, have it your way. I’m sorry!”

  “That’s better,” Julie said, half-shocked that she’d actually gotten an apology out of Beck.

  “I’m sorry your fiancé found me so irresistible.”

  Julie rolled her eyes so hard that she could practically hear them tearing out of her sockets.

  “I’m sorry that it ended up in a messy threesome. And I’m sorry for not pretending that I didn’t enjoy it. I’m sorry for liking sex, like, way too much. And I’m sorry if that fact offends you.”

  “First off, wayyy too much information. Secondly, a threesome? Seriously?”

  “Ju, you’ve known me how long now?”

  “Sometimes I think perhaps too long.”

  “Long enough to know that modesty and propriety are not my strong suits.”

  “True.”

  “Believe me, I’m sorry to break it to you, but your fiancé was a cheating scumbag.”

  Julie couldn’t think of anything to say. She was still having trouble trying to wrap her mind around all the new information she had just learned. They revealed truths about her past that weren’t entirely how she remembered it. But the one thing she could count on was Beck’s unrelenting candor, and although it killed her inside, she knew Beck was right. All the signs had been there. She’d just refused to heed their warnings.

  “In a way,” Beck began as she brushed her hair from her eyes, “you owe me for finding him out and saving you the trouble.”

  “As hard as it is for me to admit it,” Julie opined, “I think you’re probably right.”

  “So are we friends again?”

  “I suppose,” Julie answered, still half in shock.

  “But that’s not what I came here for,” Beck said.

  “Somehow I guessed that already.”

  “I’ve come to tell you something important, Ju. I’ve found new meaning in my life. A purpose, you might say.” Beck gazed intensely at Julie, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement.

  Glancing through the window briefly, Julie turned back toward Beck and said, “Sorry, you lost me.”

  Beck waved her hand as if she was brushing away Julie’s dismissiveness, and then leaned over the table and continued with a hushed tone as if what they were talking about was classified information. “The world is full of sinners.”

  Julie blinked a couple of times. Finding difficulty in holding interest in continuing their conversation any further, she replied in an equally secretive whisper, “My coffee is getting cold.”

  Looking irritated, Beck sat up. Her posture became rigid. She slammed her fists down onto the table, her bodacious bosom standing at attention, and snapped, “Forget the damn coffee and listen to me for a moment. I’m going to share my secret with you.”

  “This ought to be good,” Julie responded sarcastically as she looked briefly into the dark vortex of her mug and waited for Beck to enlighten her. Julie looked back up only to meet Beck’s stone-cold stare. The two women sat as if at a standoff, glaring at each other. Growing impatient with the overly long, overly tense, and overly meaningless silence, Julie spoke up, “Which is …?”

  “I had an epiphany, Ju. People seek leadership in these uncertain times. They yearn for a bedrock of stability they can rely upon. People need to believe in something, Ju. The world is full of doom and gloom, and people are looking for heroes. Like that old dead dude that everyone worships.”

  “Do you mean Jesus?”

  “Yeah, that’s the guy.”

  Julie put both hands on the temples of her head and started rubbing them with her fingertips to help ease the sudden headache she felt coming on.

  “People want hope. They’re desperate for it.”

  Adding the second creamer to her coffee, Julie watched as the subtle swirls of cream spiraled around like a miniature Milky Way galaxy in her cup. “So let me guess … you’re going to be the one to lead us all to the Promised Land?”

  “Something like that. I’m going to teach them how to take their destinies into their own hands. I’m going to teach them how to bend the universe to their will. All they need is a little positive thinking in their lives, and I can teach that to them.”

  “Right. So you’re just going to walk down from the Hollywood hills, the Academy-nominated actress, and teach everyone the new and improved Decalogue?” Julie asked with a cynical smile.

  Beck stood up and placed her hands firmly on her hips. “First off, I’m a two-time nominee. Thank you very much. And secondly, I don’t know what a deca-whatever-it-is, is.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” Julie couldn’t help but smile at the Gordian complexity of their whole conversation.

  “Oh, you just think you’re so much better than everyone else, with your one hundred and eighty I.Q. and your irresistibly tight ass, but I have news for you, missy. I’m gonna share my secret with the world.”

  “Great,” Julie replied in a droll monotone.

  “And you know what? They may not worship me like that zombie fella, but I can help change lives! Don’t say I won’t because I will. You’ll see.”

  “Again, his name was Jesus.”

  “God, Kingston! Why do you have to be such a downer?” Waving her hands around in the air, making small circles, Beck added, “Your negativity is so overwhelming. It’s like a black hole that just sucks all the positivity out of the air and turns everything into a dark void as black as your empathy-starved soul.”

  “Right then. Well, as generous as it is of you Beck, and as interesting as this conversation has been, I was wondering, before your busy schedule of bringing enlightenment to the multitude, could you be a godsend and with your superior fucking wisdom, knowledge, and almighty powers,” Julie said, holding up her coffee cup toward Beck as if it were a peace offering, “warm up my coffee for me?”

  Taking offense at Julie’s obstinacy, Beck slammed her palms down onto the table. “Of all people, I thought you’d understand. If only you knew how much your indifference hurts me.” Wiping a tear from her eye, she turned and stormed off.

  Julie shrugged
and looked back down at her coffee. It had turned into a creamy café au lait. Just then, Beck stormed back up to the side of Julie’s table and wagged an angry finger in Julie’s face. “Just a little FYI, this is not how friends treat each other!” And she stormed off again.

  Julie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and rocked her head on her shoulders as she attempted to stretch the tenseness from her neck. Although she didn’t want to admit it, she still nursed a little bit of resentment toward Beckensale.

  It wasn’t just the fact that Beck chose to sleep with her ex-fiancé either, cheating scumbag or not, but more infuriatingly still, for all the wealth and fame she’d amassed in becoming Hollywood’s little darling, she didn’t have the sense enough to do something truly worthy with her fortune and fame. Instead, she merely catered to weak-minded, new-age superstitions about how to bend the universe to her will using the power of positive thinking. And if there was one thing Julie hated more than pseudo-religious quackery masquerading as self-help, it was the dupes who fell for it.

  SUDDENLY, AN INQUISITIVE VOICE SPOKE OUt. “Was that who I think it was?”

  Julie smiled at the sound of the familiar voice, but kept her eyes closed. Letting out a heavy sigh, she answered, “Yeah.” Opening her eyes, she turned and looked up at her partner, John Scarecrow.

  “What’s the matter?” John asked in a worried tone. “You look relieved to see me.”

  Julie laughed at John’s joke. He always knew just what to say when she was in one of her moods. “You know, you can be a stitch-up sometimes.”

  “Well, I try my best, although it’s not a skill that comes naturally.”

  Julie’s eyebrow raised a notch. “Oh yeah, and what skill would that be?”

  “Why, my sense of humor of course.”