Lido Shuffle - A Justice Security Novel: Justice Security, #13

By T. M. Bilderback

In this thirteenth Justice Security story, Lieutenant Michelle (Mickey) Rooney of the Chicago Police Department returns, along with Detective Sam Tanner and ex-cop Manny Salazar.

 

This time, two of them have a price on their heads, along with Joey Justice of Justice Security.  The bounty has been placed on them by insane Mexican drug cartel leader Esteban Fernandez.  Fernandez has hired Lido Bouvier, a wild Cajun assassin, to eliminate all three.

 

Bouvier is known to the underground as the Lido Shuffle because of his "shuffling" of murder techniques…and because of his ability to escape capture.

Joey brings Mickey Rooney, Sam Tanner, and Manny Salazar to his Southern city to better protect them from Bouvier…but who will protect Joey and Justice Security?

 

Find out in T. M. Bilderback's "Lucky 13th" Justice Security story, Lido Shuffle – A Justice Security Novel!

 

"I...felt as if I knew the main characters on multiple levels, such is the power of the author's prose." --Bowling Green Daily News

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sardis County Sentinel Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393254614

T. M. Bilderback

T.M. Bilderback es un ex-comentarista de radio con un gran número de ideas para historias en su cabeza, muchas basadas en canciones clásicas. El autor actualmente reside en Tennessee y escribe febrilmente para lidiar con estas ideas en la forma de libros, antes de salir corriendo por la calle.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by T. M. Bilderback

Cover design by Christi L. Bilderback

Cover photo © Can Stock Photo / prg0383

All rights reserved.

The city described in these pages is imaginary.  The story is fiction, and any resemblance of the fictional people in this story to actual people is a darn shame.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright Information

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

About The Author

Other Works By T. M. Bilderback

Chapter One

Captain Baker was completely adamant.

You are going to this seminar.  You are taking Tanner.  You are going to pay attention, and you are going to answer me with, ‘Yes, sir’.  Am I clear on this matter?

The lasers shooting at him from my eyes finally shut down, and the smoke cleared.

Through clenched teeth, I replied, "Yes, sir.  It remarkably had the same tone and emphasis as screw you."

I must have gotten the point across, because the captain said, I’m surprised.  It’s being hosted by some old friends of yours.  I thought you’d be happy to go.

I looked at Baker, suspicion flowing from my eyes.  What old friends?

Justice Security.

I leaned back in the chair I occupied, and thought about the last time I had seen Joey Justice and Justice Security.  The Mexican drug cartel led by General Esteban Fernandez had attempted to take over the drug trade in Chicago.  Justice Security had come to town and drafted Captain Baker, Sam Tanner, and me into their attempt to stop him.  Because it had been a National Security situation, none of us were permitted to talk about it.  We had all received Presidential citations for helping...including my smarmy ex-partner, Manny Salazar, who just happened to save the life of Joey Justice.

I had also met FBI Chief Marcus Moore, the FBI’s liaison to Justice Security.  We had developed an interesting relationship outside of the case.

To Baker, I said, They’re not coming to Chicago again, are they?

Baker smiled.  No, thank God.  You’re going there.  By special request.

I took the bait.  Special request?

Baker nodded, still smiling.  The email came across this morning.  It requested that you and Sam come to this seminar on some top-secret subject.

After a moment, I asked, Who sent the email?

Baker said, Joey Justice.

Crap.

Anything else?

Baker smiled even wider.  He said for you to consider it a National Security request, and not to even think about turning it down.

Joey, you bastard! I thought to myself.

Out loud, I said, That bastard!

"Oui, chere.  I will accept your job.  There is nothing to it.  One more job and I quit it."

"Bueno.  But, senor, please remember that I am not a man that accepts failure with good grace."

The voice on the phone laughed.  "Chere, I never fail.  Ce n’est rien."

The second voice was cold.  "It may be nothing to you, senor, but it is everything to me.  The pause was deafening.  All of them."

I PULLED SAM AWAY FROM the box of doughnuts he had been scarfing down, and dragged him to my office.  Once there, I shut the door.

What’s wrong, Mickey? asked Sam.

I exploded.  "Joey Justice!  That’s what’s wrong!"

Sam flinched.

I slapped several files on my desk.  We’ve got all of these homicides that we have to work, and Justice pulls rank on us again!  He’s ordered us to some stupid seminar he’s hosting in that god-awful hot city of his!

Sam was pressing his lips together tightly to keep himself from laughing.  Finally, he said, When do we leave?

Freaking Friday!

Sam looked at me.  Mickey, come on.  You know it will be fun.

I looked at my partner as a smile played around the corners of my mouth.  Maybe.

Sam smiled at me as he took another bite of a jelly doughnut.  My desktop computer dinged its email notification.

It was from Joey Justice.

Dear Mickey,

By now, Captain Baker has told you about the seminar that I want you and Sam to attend.

I also bet that you’re chewing nails at the way I worded it, too.

There’s no seminar.

I’m sorry about that, but I need you two here.  We’ve picked up some chatter.  I can’t tell you about it in an unsecured email.  Obviously, you need to keep this fact between you and Sam.

Tony Armstrong will pick you up at the airport on Friday.  You’ll be our guests, with your own suites on the fifth floor, and Sam will have access to our cafeteria.  It’s open twenty-four hours, and can make him anything he wants.

It’s urgent, Mickey...I wouldn’t get you here if it wasn’t.

Your bud,

Joey

P. S. Marcus doesn’t know you’re coming.  I plan to surprise him with you.  Maybe the two of you can do some canoodling of your own!

I was grinning from ear to ear, and read the email to Sam.  Except for the P. S., of course.  A lady’s got to have some secrets, even from her partner.

Sam was drooling.  What does he mean by anything I want?

Justice Security has its own in-house cafeteria, I explained.  Cooks are on staff twenty-four hours a day.  Food is free to employees that want to eat there.  Joey does it so that his staff never has to wonder where their next meal is coming from.  Apparently, he’s extended it to you...but I don’t think he realizes what he’s done.

Sam’s eyes were glazed over, thinking about exotic dishes that he’d never be able to afford to prepare at home, much less at a restaurant.  Dreamily, he asked, I wonder what kind of chatter he’s heard that makes him pull a stunt like this?

I shook my head, reading the email again.  No idea, partner.  But it must be big.

THIRTY-FOUR YEARS EARLIER, Lido Bouvier had been born in a Louisiana bayou.  Both of his parents were Cajun, and they spoke French more often than they spoke English.  Lido learned to speak both languages fluently, but that was the only good thing about his childhood.

The Bouvier shack was built on stilts in the bayou, and was surrounded by swampy water.  A few weedy humps of mud forced their way through the water.  Spanish moss hung from the trees, and that part of the bayou was permanently hidden from the sun.  The shack was not stable.  During storms, Lido often wondered if the entire shack would collapse into the bayou.

Lido’s mother, Josephine, had lost what prettiness she possessed to the demons of alcohol, and to regular applications of her husband’s fists.  She cared for her small son as well as she could, through the alcoholic haze, often-swollen eyes, and occasional broken bones.

Lido’s father was also an alcoholic.  He brewed homemade wine, whiskey, and beer, but never sold any – between Lido’s parents, there wasn’t enough left to sell.  Lido’s father’s name was Pierre.  He hunted in the bayou, and mostly hunted alligators.  At that time, hunting gators was illegal.  That didn’t stop Pierre.  He had a friendly buyer that he would meet in a quiet location in the bayou, and Pierre would sell him all of the gator skins, jerked gator meat, and other animal skins he had gathered.

Josephine and Lido were never invited on these trips.  And the buyer was never invited to the shack.

Mother and son had never been seen by others.  They were secluded in the middle of the bayou, and Pierre made sure that no one knew of them.  Pierre had married Josephine on the Caribbean island of Martinique, and had smuggled her into the United States through New Orleans, then into the bayou.  No one but Pierre knew that she was in the United States.

Lido had been born in the shack.  Josephine had no epidural, no coaching, and no doctor.  The only anesthetic had been some one hundred proof whiskey.  When Lido made his appearance, Pierre had smacked the baby on the bottom...or he had intended to.  Pierre was too drunk to hit his mark, and he slapped the child across the face.  The result had been the same, however – the child had begun crying with all of his might.

Slapping his son across the face was a practice that Pierre had kept for years.

Josephine named her son Lido, after a beach in Italy that she had visited when she was a little girl.

When Pierre celebrated a big sale of gator skins and animal furs, he usually became extremely drunk.  During these drunken periods, he would use his wife, and occasionally his son, as punching bags.  Josephine usually bore the brunt of these abusive beatings, but, occasionally, if Josephine was too drunk or too injured to protect the toddler, Pierre would hit Lido in the stomach or the face.  The punches were hard enough to knock the small child off of his feet and into the wall.  Pierre found this very funny, and often laughed at the sight until he passed out from the drinking.

Lido was eight years old when his mother died.  He had gone to wake her for breakfast, but she wouldn’t wake up.  His father had passed out on the battered old couch in the kitchen/living room.  Lido shook his father, terrified of the mood Pierre might wake up in.  When his father had awakened, Lido said, "I can’t wake Maman."

Pierre told the boy to repeat his statement twice before the words registered.  Pierre sat up, rubbed his hands over his face twice as if he were rinsing it off, and stood up.  Show me.

Lido led Pierre to Josephine, who was quite dead.  She hadn’t been beaten in almost two weeks, and she hadn’t been drinking the previous night.  She had apparently passed away from natural causes.

Lido couldn’t be sure whether it was a tear on his father’s cheek, or merely a drop of sweat from the humidity.

"She is dead.  You stay here, garcon."  Pierre took his wife into his arms, and stood.  "I will bury your maman, and then we will talk, no?"

"Yes, Papa," replied Lido.

Pierre put Josephine over his shoulder fireman-style, and climbed down the ladder to the wide, flat-bottomed boat.  The last Lido saw of his mother, she was lying in the bottom of the boat, as Pierre