Free Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 by JM Harvey Page A

plowing over a janitor who was pushing a carpet-sweeper down the hall. The janitor took one look at her face, muttered an apology and stepped aside as she raced past him toward the exit.

10
     
    Val had made the trip to the Confederate Syndicate’s clubhouse in the rural suburb of Talty six times while he was trying to track down Lamar and Lemuel Sutton, but there had been many changes since Garland Sutton had turned preacher and kicked his biker buddies to the curb. What had been a cinderblock bunker painted black, surrounded by a gravel parking lot, a confederate flag hanging in its single window, had become a full-blown compound with a ten-foot chain link fence and several smaller outbuildings that looked like temporary construction huts. The clubhouse itself had been repainted white and the Confederate flag had been replaced by the blue and gold logo of the Offender Reintegration Program, a job training and job placement program for parolees that was funded by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Feed a Crook is what the cops called it. And it looked like Garland was at the trough in a big way.
    A collection of battered pickup trucks, vans and motorcycles were parked nose-in to the clubhouse, but only two men were in sight. Both were bare-chested, dressed only in faded green cargo pants and black sneakers. They stood on the inside of the closed gate and watched expressionlessly as the tow truck slowed and turned into the driveway, the wrecked Rover trailing behind.
    “Stay put, Zeke,” Val said as he put the truck in park and stepped out and down. The sun bouncing off the white gravel blinded him and ratcheted the temperature up to a hundred and ten degrees. Sweat popped out on his forehead and underarms as he squinted at the two men guarding the gate.
    Up close, Val could see that they were barely out of their teens. One was tall and lean, the other short and stocky, but both were heavily tatted across the chest, shoulders and arms. Neither of them spoke, they just stared, their cargo pants sagging low enough to show five inches of gray boxer shorts.
    “What’s up fellas?” Val asked as he scanned the ink littering their upper bodies, a habit from his years on the force. The one on the left, the taller of the two, had a Virgin Mary filling his skinny chest. But the Madonna wasn’t cradling the baby Jesus. Instead she held a red, leering devil child with a confederate flag branded on its forehead. The other teenager’s tattoos were random jailhouse crap, roses and crucifixes and a few names in old English script. No Confederate Syndicate tags that Val could see.
    Neither man replied, they just kept staring, giving him the bland, prison-yard glare that was supposed to make every male piss his pants and every female swoon. It just made Val want to climb over the fence and knock their heads together. But he kept his cool
    “I’m here to see Garland. He around?”
    The shorter of the two jerked his chin at the clubhouse. Val looked through the gate and up the drive then back at the kids.
    “So, are you going to let me in?”
    The pair shared a look. Apparently they decided that the shorter one should do the talking.
    “What you want with Garland?” he asked, as his skinny friend silently looked over the wrecked Range Rover, a small smile playing across his face.
    “You his social secretary?” Val asked.
    The short one shrugged. “Nope. I’m just a guy getting a little sun,” he grinned and added, “Officer.”
    The skinny one glanced at Val briefly. His eyes were muddy, pupils pinpricked, his jaw slack. Obviously high on something stiffer than booze or weed.
    “Copper. Flat-foot. Oink-oink,” he said, his expression never changing, then went back to looking at the Rover.
    “I’m not a police officer,” Val said.
    The short one chuckled. “Like I don’t know a cop when I see one? That wino disguise you’re wearing ain’t fooling nobody.”
    Val looked down at himself. His hands, shirt and jeans