The Roach: A Vigilante Justice Crime Thriller by Rhett C. Bruno

Author:Rhett C. Bruno [Bruno, Rhett C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2020-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Chuck had me in the passenger seat of his station wagon, gun aimed at me across his lap as he drove with one hand. The floor was littered with fast-food wrappers and empty coffee cups—the diet of an ambulance-chasing, vigilante-impersonating loon.

We’d made it a few blocks before some cops raced by, but none in the direction of his building. The officers there had probably already knocked on Chucky-boy’s door and found he wasn’t home. They’d either walk away or go in and find a mess, but nothing incriminating. Maybe a smidge of my blood on the carpet if they looked close enough. They wouldn’t—there was no reason for them to believe a crime had happened there, after all. Well, no crime outside of a gutless, worthless nugget of shit like Chuck Barnes breathing the same air as someone like Isaac or Laura.

Other residents might talk about a paraplegic carried up the stairs by a teenager, or a gunshot they’d heard from somewhere, but this was Iron City. Weirdness abounds. Besides, if those cops were really there to talk with Chuck—and honestly, I wasn’t sure—the most likely case was they’d leave and come back later. It wasn’t inquisition time yet. As far as they knew, he was an everyday working schmuck, and these were normal work hours.

“How long?” I asked when we got stuck at a light.

“How long what?” Chuck said, leaning into the horn the millisecond it turned green and speeding right up the ass of the driver in front of us before cutting off someone else on our left.

“Slow down,” I told him. “Drive normal. Blend in.”

“Is that how you did it?”

“Christ on a fucking bike, would you just listen?”

He muttered something under his breath, but the station wagon slowed. He fell in with the steady flow of city traffic, like ants in their tunnels. It’s why I didn’t care for cars. People in them focused only ahead on getting where they needed to go. They probably forgot why they needed to go in the first place, they just did it. Routine. Gather food, feed the Queen, make more ants.

“So, how long have you been parading around as the Roach?” I asked.

Chuck’s jaw clenched. “Would you just say you’re him already? My God, you’re ridiculous. I already know.”

My jaw set right back at him. I knew what he wanted. I’d never outright told anybody I was the Roach. Not even Laura. She knew, of course, as did everyone directly affiliated with that night, but I never had to say it. I certainly had no plans to make Chuck Barnes the first.

“How long?” I repeated.

“You read the columns. A few weeks.”

I laughed. “I was down for a month, and you only stopped two crimes?”

“Hey, I don’t have much practice.” He turned right, and as his car straightened out, so too did his features. His chin dropped to his chest. “Only one crime,” he said softly.

“What?”

“That Bodega up on 3rd? I uh… I set it up after a night of driving around, finding nothing I could stop.

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