Rogue Justice: Retribution

By Ronald Kaehr

Middle-aged fugitive Jill Robertson heads up an operation called Justice Janitorial. The business has nothing to do with customary janitorial practices. Rather, its motto “We Clean Up Your Messes” refers to the fact that one can purchase justice at a cost if he feels that the criminal justice system has failed him.

One such job in El Paso puts her in the direct fire of Juan Carlos Dominica, one of the most ruthless drug lords of the northern Mexican drug cartels. But when she is contacted by the New Mexico governor to find the killer of his stepson, the trouble unexpectedly deepens. As her investigation widens, it takes an unexpected turn. The governor suspects Dominica, but who really killed the boy?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662449482

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Rogue Justice

Retribution

Ronald Kaehr

Copyright © 2021 Ronald Kaehr

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-4947-5 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-4948-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Retribution

Retaliation

Prologue

Jaime Delgado sat in the third row from the front in the balcony of the KiMo Theatre in downtown Albuquerque. It was a school day, but he had taken the opportunity to ditch his afternoon classes to attend a two-o’clock showing of James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. Ditching high school was a norm for him, so the idea of missing out of his academics did not bother him in the least. There was never any punishment administered. Not at school, ever, and certainly not at home!

Besides, he had his good looks, his slicked-back black hair, his cool wardrobe in the latest ’70s fashion, plenty of money in his wallet, and a bright candy apple red 1948 Mercury Sedan Coupe with a bored-out dual-carbureted flathead V-8 parked outside. And today, he had possibly the prettiest girl in senior class sitting next to him!

Alone in the balcony, he slipped his arm around the girl, undid the top two buttons of her white cotton blouse, and slowly slid his hand over her ample breast.

Wait! she said and then proceeded to lean forward and dexterously reached behind her back to unsnap her bra before removing it and placing it in her purse.

There! she said, leaning back. That should make things easier!

Unnoticed by the lovemaking couple was the entrance of another character into the balcony. This personage, dressed in jeans, a Western-style shirt, and a black leather jacket, slipped silently into a seat several rows behind the boy. For a moment, he watched the couple in front of him. The light from the projector behind him flickered in a beam of dusty light that made the couple’s lovemaking look like a cheap pornographic movie.

Jaime smiled as he felt the soft warm flesh in his hand and the erect nipple. He placed it between his thumb and forefinger and gently rubbed it. He leaned his head over so that it rested on her soft brown hair. It had a subtle floral scent. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. An impending erection began to press solidly at the front of his pants. The same could be said for the stranger watching them from behind.

Suddenly, thump! A bullet ripped through the back of Delgado’s seat, the sound of the shot muffled by the action on the screen. Delgado slumped forward, releasing his hold of the girl’s breast. His arm dropped weakly to his side.

Jaime! Jaime! she shouted at this sudden change. What’s wrong?

Quiet up there! someone shouted from down below. Can’t you see there’s a movie going on?

Help me! she shrieked hysterically. Please! Someone! Help me!

Shut up! rose a chorus from below. Watch the show!

The intruder, deafened by the shot, looked numbly at Delgado and Rebecca. He rose and prepared to make a quick exit from the balcony. The girl, noticing that there was someone else near her, dashed into the aisle. Blood spatter was clearly visible on her breast and unbuttoned blouse. The light behind the stranger made it impossible to see his face. So she reached out at the shadow and grabbed the person by the collar.

Help…me! she stammered.

He stepped back and was able to break her panicked grip.

Please! she pleaded as she reached toward him. Please! Can you help—

The light from the projector flashed briefly on his face in the visage of James Bond. But in another second, he had vanished through the curtained door.

Don’t you miss the outside world? asked Bond from the screen.

For me, this is all the world. There is beauty…there is ugliness…and there is death!

Retribution

Ret·ri·bu·tion: punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act.

Jaime Delgado, from all outward appearances, led a charmed life. He lived in a neoclassical home in the heart of the Country-Club neighborhood in Albuquerque. His father, or rather his stepfather, Frederic Spence, had owned a very prosperous automobile dealership in Grants selling overpriced vehicles, particularly trucks, to those who could least afford them—primarily unemployed mine workers and impoverished Navajos and Hopis. That being an unsuitable occupation for the eventual fulfillment of his far-reaching political ambitions, he sold it at a hefty profit to a larger dealer from Arizona. Using a considerable amount of the cash proceeds to buy political favors from more established Santa Fe politicians, he rose rapidly in the government hierarchy of New Mexico, and eventually was elected governor.

One thing the new governor did to endear himself to both the democratic and republican parties of the state when he took office was put forth bills waging war on the illicit drug traffic that came across the borders with Texas and Mexico, winding its way north up the Rio Grande to Socorro, the first distribution point.

Although much of it eventually found its way as far as Chicago to the east and Denver to the north, a considerable amount, mostly low-purity heroin, found its clientele in the Española Valley. What had once been a peaceful and profitable farming and fruit-producing area soon found itself overrun with drug addicts who did little for the community other than siphon off already-scarce human resources. Reducing former farmworkers to little more than peasant zombies, the fertile fields and apple orchards reverted into fields of blowing dust and graveyards of dead trees and addicts. The non-using locals, approaching a minority status, were infuriated that their pastural community was being turned into a shithole, or so that was the face they publicly put on it. For all the hand-wringing, no one took any action to stop it. Not the parents. Not the schools! Not the churches! Not local government! And tragically not even the state government! Ironically, the bulk of the anger centered on the Mexican suppliers, not the northern New Mexican consumers, the root cause of the problem. But eventually the situation became so untenable that they began to pressure the politicians to do something about it.

Privately, the former car salesman Spence really didn’t give a damn about the crisis. He more than occasionally partook of cocaine at various private functions, as did his beautiful wife. As one of the socially elite, taking drugs was considered a recreational activity, an Orwellian expression he rather liked over the vulgar plebeian phraseology taking drugs. However, his public position on the drug trade was another matter altogether. He shouted out to the rooftops that it was destroying the children! It was destroying families! It was destroying whole cities and counties! Hell, it was destroying the nation!

As his public rhetoric gained publicity, it caught the attention of the drug kingpins south of the border, in particular Juan Carlos Dominica, leader of the Chihuahua syndicate, who saw him as a serious threat to his multimillion-dollar international enterprise. These were not just idle words coming from the mouth of the former car salesman. He knew that a slimy politician could be as crooked as the criminals they ranted against. And if public pressure got too hot to handle, who knows what these weak-kneed public servants might pull? This car salesman was skating on thin ice with the Mexican drug lords as well as the New Mexican electorate!

Miguel Esparza was the leader of a small street gang in an industrial district near downtown El Paso, Texas. He was twenty-three years of age, of a swarthy completion, dark black hair slicked back and held adequately in place with copious amounts of Brylcreem. He was tall and lanky and dressed quite fashionably in the pachuco manner. His white high-collared shirts were always starched and pressed, his jeans were always clean and never showed any signs of wear, and his boots were Lucchese imported ostrich skin; very expensive. He seldom wore a hat since he avoided the brutal Texas sunlight, but when he did on occasion, it was of the white Mexican straw variety like those worn by Mexican farmworkers but twice as costly.

His father, also a gang member, had been murdered when Miguel was still an infant. Purportedly, his mother resorted to prostitution to support her son, but in reality, she took up the trade to support the heroin habit her drug-peddling husband had introduced her to before his abrupt departure from the family. So, having no parental guidance, Miguel developed a contempt and disregard for the opposite sex. This led to a sense of invincibility that sometimes led to reckless behavior toward women.

As the maquiladoras flourished in El Paso and Juarez, more and more women were recruited to work in them on both sides of the border. Many of them did not have access to transportation other than the diesel smoke-belching busses on the Juarez side of the border. Since these were not allowed to cross the border, the women would show their green cards at the border crossings and walk to their place of employment, or if fortunate enough, hitch a ride with an acquaintance on the American side. When they were outside these conveyances and on foot, they were vulnerable to psychotic sexual predators on both sides of the border. Many were kidnapped and sold as sex slaves to wealthy Mexicans and deviant Americans. Some were even murdered