SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #32

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #32

JUICE

ALL OVER HELL AND BACK

In the wind. The son of a bitch lands in Minneapolis. He gets met at the airport by the contact. The contact and Morrow walk through the parking garage and some fucking renegade cowboy comes up with his six shooter like he’s John fucking Wayne and frees Morrow. Then they duct tape up the contact up to the point so that he’ll never have to worry about hair or eye brows again, and lock the asshole up in his trunk. That sounds just like Morrow. Smart ass son of a bitch.

Airport security gets the dipshit contact out of the trunk four hours later when an elderly couple from Des Moines hear him kicking the inside of the trunk.

And then Morrow is gone. Just disappears. Almost five months. Gone. In the wind. The motherfucking wind.

And now this shit. He looked in disbelief at the newspaper in front of him.

Headlines of the most recent Navy Times:

DEPENDENT CLAIMS NAVY RAILROADED ENLISTED MAN IN

DEATH OF NAVAL OFFICER NEW ORLEANS, La. - Mary Teresa

Givens, 19, the daughter of Navy Captain Monte L. Givens, has approached agents from the Naval Investigative Service in New Orleans to file a report

claiming that almost three years ago she was the victim of an attempted sexual assault by Naval Ensign Raymond Leonard Dunn III, now deceased. According to Givens, the assault was forcibly stopped by a naval enlisted man, SN Jacob Morrow, who was jogging through the naval housing area just outside of Pearl Harbor, in the driveway of the deceased ensign. Givens claimed that she had been smoking marijuana with a friend who also lived in the dependent housing area, and had been walking home when Ensign Dunn stopped and asked her if she wanted a ride. The Ensign reportedly then took the young woman back to his home and attempted to sexually assault her in his vehicle. The struggle with Morrow resulted in the death of the Ensign. SN Morrow was subsequently found guilty at a court martial and sentenced to a life sentence in the military correctional barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas. Miss Givens stated in her report that she had been advised by her father, Pearl Harbor NIS agents, and base police that it would be in everyone’s best interests at the time not file a report on the incident and she was sent back to the continental United States. Court martial records of Morrow show that there is no record of any statements or testimony from Miss Givens. Navy Times attempts to interview Morrow have been denied at the present time by Commander Max Morgan, the ranking naval official

at Leavenworth, who states that Morrow is currently in solitary confinement for unrelated behavioral problems. There have been no comments on this incident by either Pearl Harbor NIS officials or Captain Givens. Captain Givens is currently the executive officer of the Naval Reserve Training Center in New Orleans.

Banks crumpled the paper up and threw it into the trash can. Shit!

The little bitch had come out of the woodwork at the very worst possible time. It would be just his luck if Morrow stumbled onto a copy of the paper and discovered the truth. That his witness had not been an enlisted man's daughter killed in a car crash but was in fact, the daughter of a high ranking

naval official. And to top it off, she wasn’t dead at all, her sweet little pot smoking ass was currently in New Orleans stirring up a shit storm.

What could Morrow do with the information even if he did find out? He had killed six people since Banks had sprung him. Granted it was under government orders and under a different identity, but that could be taken care of. He sure as hell couldn’t sashay himself into the local police office and turn himself in. Especially, if the events Banks had been investigating in the last five months were true.

After Morrow took off in Minneapolis, Banks had caught the first flight burning to Minneapolis, an Air Force fighter, and had puked almost the entire flight to Minnesota. The pilot had been a true fighter jockey and had tortured Banks with a series of rolls and the buzzing of cattle across Iowa.

Morrow had been his usual smart ass self. He had taken the Ely’s drivers license and prison I. D. and had anonymously mailed it to Bryant at Oak Park prison with a description of what had been planned for him.

Of course, it had been intercepted by the prison mail officials, but they weren’t involved in the mission. Oak Park officials had gone ape shit and Ely was suspended while an investigation commenced. Ely would have to be dealt with before he panicked and started bumping his gums.

Banks had jumped into his rental car and driven straight to New Richland, Minnesota, Morrow’s hometown, to pay a visit to Morrow’s crippled aunt, Dawn Morrow. Good God, what a rural piece of shit. The golf course looked liked a cow pasture with putting greens on it.

But Morrow’s aunt was gone. The house had been sold and the new tenants were a welfare widow and her three screaming yard apes. She had no idea where Morrow’s aunt was or who she even was for that matter. The house had been sold at about half the price of its current market value and the government had picked up the tab for the current owners.

After questioning a few of the local yokels, Banks discovered that Dawn Morrow had taken off in her Winnebago for somewhere in Baja, Mexico. Since she was wheelchair bound, she had paid a local woman to drive her there and had paid for her return flight. The woman was easily found. She spent her afternoons and early evenings at the local municipal watering hole.

Banks found her hunched over her draft Buckhorn beer, smoking a generic cigarette, and cursing the Twins as they stumbled around the diamond up on the big screen.

She looked unusually tan for a woman from these parts and was wearing a Tecate beer T-shirt. After Banks had approached the woman and she realized what he was there for, she had squinted through the smoke of her coffin nail and had told Banks to “go piss up a rope,” and had then returned to watching Kirby Puckett take his turn at bat.

There was absolutely no sign that Morrow had been here. Then town only had a thousand or so people, if he had been, or was here now, someone would know or no one was talking.

Banks had a good idea who Morrows partner was, the maverick first lieutenant from the hit in Missouri. A quick phone call to Fort Leonard Wood gave him the information that James Pitre had unexpectedly resigned his commission in the army and had disappeared.

Then nothing. Banks returned to Nevada and waited.

Two months later, the USS Dixie, a destroyer tender home ported out of San Diego, had been robbed one day before payday. Two white males had walked up the brow of the ship at approximately 0020 hours on a Monday morning, flashed their military ID’s and had been allowed onto the ship. Neither the officer of the day, the petty officer of the watch, or the messenger of the watch had immediately recognized the two.

That was no big deal. The Dixie was a huge ship with a crew of over six hundred sailors and had constant turnover. Except these two men had the keys to the

finance office. Keys that should have been held by only the financial officer and the captain of the ship. The finances officer had been on duty that evening and had been awaked by a knock on his stateroom door at 0120.

When he answered the knock he was greeted by the sight of a large man with a rubber Richard Nixon mask on. Tricky Dick was holding a .45 Colt in his hand.

He was ushered up to the finance office, which was already opened and the financial officer, Lt. Perry Palmer, was forced at gunpoint to open the ship’s safe which contained the payroll for the entire crew. A tidy sum of over two hundred thousand dollars. The two thieves had packed the cash up in plastic garbage bags, wrapped them up with duct tape, and had placed the bags inside of two large scuba diving bags. Duct tape was wrapped completely around the whimpering body of Lt. Palmer, and he was locked up in the office and wasn’t discovered missing until the following morning when he didn’t report for morning muster.

Two lines were found leading from the main deck of the ship down to the water line and the dive shop had been broken into and two sets of gear were missing.

There were no suspects at the time. Without a doubt they were either current or ex-military men. They knew that late at night onboard a destroyer tender in port there was little or no activity. The ship rarely left the port so many of the crew lived off the ship. And they obviously were experience divers.

Banks had three suspects in mind, which he was not presently sharing with authorities involved in the active investigation. The case had Morrow and his redneck buddy written all over it. The duct tape and heavy duty firepower seemed to be their style.

And Tony Hendrichs, Jake’s old marijuana dealing buddy from Hawaii, had recently been stationed onboard the Dixie prior to his medical retirement for diabetes. Hendrichs had been a Gunner’s Mate and one of his duties on the Dixie had been the cutting and issuing of keys on the ship. It all fit.

A trip to Mobile, Alabama, found Hendrichs tending bar at a bay side dump called Liz’s Haven. A rough joint right down on the waterfront.

Hendrichs didn’t seem to be taking very good care of himself for being stricken with diabetes. It was eleven in the morning and he was smoking a huge Cuban cigar and sipping from a glass of cognac. He had patiently

listened to Banks run through his line of questioning, all the while with a grin on his face, but never answering with more than an occasional chuckle or an amused grunt.

The “interrogation” ended when Banks noticed that a large presence behind him was blocking out what little sun could make it through the filthy windows. He swiveled around on his bar stool to see a monstrous black man with a shaved head wearing a Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey with Doug Williams' number on it. He informed Banks that it might

be best for him to leave or possibly face having his “honky fucking ass fed to the gators.”

The agent had taken the advice.

Once again for another couple of months, there had been nothing.

Then came a report out of Minnesota that Jake's Uncle Billy had been broken out of prison in a spectacular military like operation. Billy Morrow’s lifestyle had finally caught up to him. While serving his sentence in Stillwater prison for the murder of the man whose wife had crippled Dawn, Billy had begun to while away the boring hours by shooting up speedballs with his fellow biker inmates. Drugs were easy to obtain for his crew in the joint but syringes were not, so like good biker brothers, they shared. Billy came down with AIDS.

In typical prison medical fashion, the institution first assumed that he was faking an illness to shirk his prison

duties. He remained in general population for several more months before the official diagnosis came through. By then a combination of poor living habits and a case of pneumonia had weakened him to the point where he had to be admitted to the St. Paul Medical Center.

He began to deteriorate to where nothing could be done except to keep him comfortable in his final days. Plans were made to transfer him to the old timers convict unit at the state hospital in Walker, Minnesota. The state hospital was located in a beautiful section of northern Minnesota, an area covered in gorgeous trees and deep blue lakes.

The two transport officers couldn’t have pulled easier duty. Taking an old dirt bag to finish out his string so that they could stop on their way back to enjoy a delicious northern pike dinner and do some gambling at one of the Indian casinos.

Fifteen miles out of Walker, without warning, an old Cadillac had shot out of a side road and had t-boned the corrections van with such force that the van had flipped over onto it’s side that it slid in a shower of sparks down the road.

A person dressed in solid black coveralls, gloves, military style boots, and a rubber Alice Cooper mask, had come around the front of the van and kept the two stunned transport officers under his control by firing two warning shots from what appeared to be a M16 into the grill of the van. Another person outfitted the same as the first, only the second person was wearing a Herman Munster Halloween mask, had climbed onto the side of the tipped van and had blown the side doors open with an explosive charge that was later determined to be C4, a plastics explosive.

Billy Morrow had been pulled out of the van and the trio had taken off in an old VW bus covered in flower power stickers. The van would be found several day later, wiped clean of fingerprints and submerged in a lake. Both officers recovered from their injuries. The driver had only a minor concussion and some facial cuts while his partner had suffered some burns from the coffee that he had been drinking at the point of impact.

Routine medical tests had both officers pissing positive for marijuana use.

The Cadillac used in the escape was discovered to have been stolen in Brainerd off the Indian reservation and had been fortified with a cast iron bumper and added weight in the trunk. The front seat had been replaced with a stock car style seat and web harness. The windshield had been removed.

The trio disappeared into thin air. There had been no witnesses other than the two reporting officers. The beautiful trees and iron ore hills of northern Minnesota had prevented the two officers from broadcasting a decent emergency call.

The only person who had picked the call up clearly was an eighty five year old communist, who had received the mayday on his ham radio. The old fart had cackled with glee and had headed down to the end of his dock to fish.

Banks was quickly becoming sick of the sight of Minnesota. And when he returned to Nevada, the Navy Times was waiting for him.

His bosses were infuriated to say the least. They had insinuated in very clear terms that this could be a career ending fuckup on his part. This matter had to be taken care of FUCKING IMMEDIATELY!

If matters could be any worse, a number of national newspapers had picked the story up off of the wire and had rerun segments of the article.

It had tweaked the attention of one Reverend Joshua Carter. Reverend Carter was the minister of a small non denominational church located in Story, Wyoming, in the lower foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Carter was particularly incensed over this story due to the fact that his daughter had at one time been engaged to Jake Morrow and the good reverend had been very instrumental in making sure that Morrow could not communicate with his daughter after he had been sentenced.

Reverend Carter now felt that he had been made a fool of. He and his daughter had still not recovered from the emotional rift that had separated them since he had intercepted letters addressed to his daughter from Morrow, and the letters that he had written to the authorities at Leavenworth demanding that Morrow be stopped from corresponding his daughter again .

She had recently given up her studies in divinity and was living in a small cabin farther up in the mountains while supporting herself by working at a small combination gas station and grocery store. She hadn’t spoken to her father for close to a year. He prayed that for now she wouldn’t notice any articles about Jake in the local newspapers.

But for now, the reverend was driving Banks absolutely fucking nuts. Carter had written letters to Commander Morgan, the warden of Leavenworth, the Chief of Naval Operations, and Billy Fucking Graham.

Banks had only a matter of days before this all exploded in his face. He poured another generous amount of scotch over the ice in his glass and fired up another Marlboro while he dialed the number.

Commander Morgan answered on the second ring.

“I’ve got an idea where Morrow is. What I what to know is if you can handle your end of the bargain if he’s where I think he is?”

Morgan sat up in the chair behind his desk. He felt like he could shit in his dress whites. “What do you have in mind?”

“From what I can gather, he may be holed up in San Pedro, California. I’m planning on flying out there in about six hours, and if I find him, I’m going to try to bring him down with either a tranquilizer or stun gun. I’m going to have a flight crew ready to fly us straight back to Leavenworth.”

“I can lock him back up, that’s not a problem. But with the press rolling on this, sooner or later I’m going to have to produce him. That fucker’s going to sing like a bird. What does he care? He’s already doing a life bit. Even if they don’t let him out, when he spills his guts and they start to check his story, I’m fucked big time. And so are you, my friend.”

Banks took a hard hit of his booze.

“Now you listen to me you gutless little prick. We can make this all go away if you don’t run around like a schoolboy pissing in his pants. As soon as my crew gets Morrow back to your prison, you get him back to the hole and make it look like a suicide. Slash his wrists or string him up so it looks like he hung himself.

But for fuck’s sake don’t beat the son of a bitch to death and then say that it happened during a cell extraction like they did to that convict in Oklahoma. That’ll bring to much heat. You got me?”

Morgan was silent for several moments.

“Jerry, what happens if you can’t drug him? What if he doesn’t come easy?”

“Then we’re double fucked. I’ll put him down and as soon as I contact you, report him missing on the next count. Report him as escaped. That’s all we can do. The investigation will be worse that Watergate, but it’s our only option.”

“Make goddamn sure you get him, Banks,” Morgan hissed in the phone.

“You just do your job, I’ll do mine.” Banks slammed the phone down and grabbed his intelligence report.

Reports on Tony Hendrichs showed that he had purchased two homes in the San Pedro area while he was stationed at the Long Beach Naval station, and was now a long distance landlord since he lived in Mobile. A records check also had shown that he owned a deep sea fishing rig that was kept in a slip in Long Beach harbor and was regularly

hired out for charters. Pretty impressive for a retired E-6 in the military, obviously he had had extra income coming in, drugs most likely.

Banks, on a whim, had placed a call to a NIS agent in Long Beach who had done a quick stake out at both addresses. Banks had given him a bullshit song and dance story about how he had information that drugs were possibly being dealt to sailors on the ships in the local shipyards by shipyard employees living in one of these houses.

One of the houses was being leased out by a three hundred pound (a piece) black couple who spent their evenings barbecuing and drinking gigantic amounts of Pabst Blue Ribbon. So that one was a no go.

The other was a possible hit. Although there was not a lot of activity around the house, the one occupant the NIS agent had seen was definitely yard bird material. Big pickup truck covered in NASCAR stickers and the perp himself was all redneck. Right down to the cowboy hat and boots. Fucking bingo!

Could the cowboy who snatched up Morrow in Minneapolis be the same army officer who resigned his commission after doing the hit with Morrow in Missouri? Very well could be. Most of the contacts that Banks recruited for his missions were military drones that would follow any order, no matter how stupid, just to help out Uncle Sam or God and country.

But every once in a while a wild man who enjoyed the job a little too much would pop up. Jim Pitre may have fit that mold.

Banks had found no trace of him after discovering he had left the army.

Well, thought Banks, if he is with Morrow, it’s going to be the end of the line for him. Like they say, dead men tell no tales.

Banks poured another shot. Jasmine was going to have to be taken care of too. She must have talked. Banks was convinced that he had had Morrow brainwashed that he had to do only one more job and he was home free. But he jumps and runs instead. Had to have been Jasmine. Send her ass out to work at the Chicken Ranch for a month or so and have her blow a bunch of fat greasy businessmen, that would probably get her back in line.

That along with threatening to have family services snatch up her kid. Worse comes to worst, just might have to find her a hole to sleep in out in the desert.

Banks glanced at his watch. Might as well call flight ops now and get that flight going to Long Beach. No need to put off the inevitable. He slammed down another shot. The stress must be getting to him, his bottle of

liquor was getting dangerously low and he felt kind of loaded.

He had never been a huge drinker but a couple of toots of nose candy would help take the edge off that. He pulled out a replacement bottle of scotch and threw it in his briefcase with the file, his service revolver, stun gun,and tranquilizer pistol.