Smoke Trail

The second part in my Empty Tie series, the first part is called Empty Ties.

Smoke Trail

"Don't know much about history, don't know much about biology."

Sam Cook's hit song played from the radio of a black Cadillac as it pulled up past the parked Hum-V and several soldiers standing around, rifles in their hands searching wearily for another said "attack". The car stopped a couple feet from a white van propped on its side and several holes littering the white roof. The radio stopped and the car door swung open and a tall lanky man in a white dress shirt and black vest with black slacks and leather dress shoes stepped out. He had a 'Lee Van Cleef' style hat resembling the one from 'The Good the Bad and the Ugly'. He had a long peaceful face with large eyebrows and long brown hair that hung down to his shoulders and emerald green eyes and a pistol tucked in a pouch under his left arm.

"The hell happened here, it looks like Bonnie and Clyde's ending." The man spoke with a slight sarcasm indicating he isn't humorless and stern like most cops.

"Ah, detective Philips, you've finally arrived, nice to see your not blacked out in a gutter somewhere." The beat cop spoke in harsh ridiculing tones.

"Cram it Sampson I've got actual work to do here, you know figuring stuff out and not shoveling food in my mouth like a junkie and his pills." With that Sampson shut up and turn to go get some information from some soldiers during the accident. Philips walked over to the body sitting against the top of the tipped van. He went to one knee and put some rubber gloves on and lifted the bodies head by the chin. His eyes were closed and he had a few lines of hardened blood trailing from his mouth to his chin and neck.

"Better you close your eyes, id'e of done the same", Philips mumbled to himself and got back up to check the pile of everything that had been taken out from the van. "What have we got?"

"Drugs, firearms, a murder victim with matching murder weapon and prints, what else, oh yeah, the vans stolen, we can connect him to the murder and theft of some guards and a military munitions convoy. Along with that guy being the biggest crime king-pin in the west coast, so with that we can connect him to hundreds more things, and he also pulled out an untraceable firearm. He also had his phone on him, with several texts on it detailing his entire plan, I don't want it to be too long but in short, he planned on exiting the country with all in the van and expanding his crime-kingdom."

"Something must of gone horribly wrong if he had a plan this large to fail, he would of had to had months of planning." Philips spoke to the crime scene investigator who told him about the van contents. "Get the coroner over hear, I want the full physical diagnosis on this guy within the week." He told the investigator and walked back to his car and drove from the scene on the military base.

 

 

"Get your motor runnin', Head out on the highway".

Steppenwolf's hit song played lightly from the greasy spoon's juke box in the far left of the diner. Four people sat in three different booths and one more at the bar. A Miss Sharon Mcgan leaned against the pickup window and waited for the man at the bars order of a hamburger with all the fixings. Sharon hated the job but the pay was surprisingly good for a diner on a baron highway. She stood waiting and quickly turned her head as the bell on the top of the door rang and a man in a black suit stepped in. His blue tie with three black holes and black under shirt. He had a long defined face and shoulder length  black hair. He had a long scar going down from the left corner of his mouth down to his Adams apple, and his sapphire blue eyes were a great contrast against his face that seemed to hold a deep inner darkness. The man walked next to the other sitting down at the bar.

"Maa'm" He called over in a cool mellow voice.

"What'll it be sugah'?"  Sharon asked in her sweetest southern drawl.

"Got any whiskey?"  He asked in an emotionless tone.

"We don't have any hard liquor here."

"A beer then." He said annoyed now.

Sharon walked away and quickly returned with a bottle of beer and handed it to the man. He put his thumb under the cap and flicked it off and Sharon watched it as it flew up into the air and landed perfectly in his palm and the man placed it down on the counter. Sharon heard the bell that told her the food was ready ring and she quickly walked to get it.

The man sat there nursing his beer and staring at the pickup counter thinking. "Might be good to take a picture." The man quickly turned to his right to look at the only other man at the bar. He was a tall man in a white dress shirt and black vest, and he had a wide brimmed black cowboy hat on the counter next to his cup of coffee.

"Names Philips, Derek Philips." Philips held his hand out and the man warily returned the gesture. Philips started to say something but he was interrupted by a static voice coming from his pocket. "This is Philips, what is it?" He spoke into the radio. "Detective, we have word that some highway patrolman just arrested the man who sold the drugs that were in the van at the scene on the military base." The man who was watching Philips immediately stopped in the middle of the sip of beer he was taking and set it down quickly. "I'll be there in half an hour, and bring him down to the Bachman bridge at Eel River and make sure your not followed, we'll get the info out of this guy." With that Philips got up and noticed the other man had left and all that was left was a five dollar bill.

Philips walked out of the diner and heard a small 'whooshing' sound and he looked around and noticed some pebbles being pushed on the ground by his car. He looked closer and notice both tires on the left side of his car were slashed. His eyes widened and he yelled in frustration and quickly called the tow services and the men at the river to tell them he'd be a bit late and to not release him until he gets there.

 

"Just got word from Philips, he won't be here for another half hour, so we just have to keep him here until he gets here." The officer said as he closed the car door.

"Lucky for you." The last man to speak was a veteran officer, he'd been a officer of the California police for almost 27 years. He knew that almost every member of the police force was not a dirty cop, but thought they were better than everyone else, so half the time they were brutal and unrelentless. The veteran's name was Kyle Leif, and he considered himself to be one of the only wholly, good, 'original', cops in the force. He knew that if the detective arrived, then the drug dealer they arrested wouldn't be walking out of here, literally. Just in the middle of his thinking he heard tires grinding on dirt and gravel and turned to see a black sedan driving down the hill to the river landing at the bridge.

"Guess he got a ride", another cop muttered from behind him. 'No, that isn't right', Kyle thought to himself, 'he said if he left on time it would still be half an hour, it's only been twenty minutes, and he said he's be late.' His thinking was once again interrupted as the car door opened and a man in a black suit and blue tie stepped out. Kyle could barely make out a black and blue wrestling mask and realized it wasn't the detective until it was too late.

Kyle heard the distinctive popping and whooshing sound of a silenced hand gun and then looked to see one of the officers collapse into a heap and Kyle looked down at the officers face and saw a red hole in his forehead and a small red trail leaking into his hair. He looked back up and felt a sharp pain in his right thigh and he collapsed from the pain. He let out  a low yell and heard several other screams like it. He looked around to see only one other cop standing, he was leaning against the back door of his SUV and he was clutching at his chest with his left hand and had his right hand raised with his gun in it. Kyle looked back at the masked man and then heard two silenced gun shots, one from the officer's gun, and then one more silenced. It was still night time so he didn't know if the shot came from the officer, but he looked back to see the officer's body sliding down the SUV with three more distinctive red holes in his chest.

Kyle looked back to see the masked man walk out of the darkness to the lighted circle surrounded by squad cars with the headlights on. The only thing distinctive about the man was the long scar from the left corner of his lips to his Adams apple.

"Why are you doing this?!" Kyle almost yelled out, clutching his leg. "Has the dealer told you anything?" The spoke assertively. "He told us the name of the man he sold the drugs too." Kyle spoke in an exasperated voice. "What was his name?" The man now spoke with a certain alarm in his voice.

"Da-" His speech was cut off by a bullet entering his throat. Kyle sat there, hands around his throat as blood shot out from the bullet hole. The only sounds he could make were gurgling screams hardly audible. He looked up at the masked man as his vision got darker and his face was patterned with droplets of his own blood. He was still looking as the man stuck his hand in Kyle's pockets and pulled out his car keys and put the gun to the side of Kyle's skull.

"You should thank me for this, putting you out of your horrid life, living for ages will never be a blessing. Before Kyle could comprehend what he meant from the pain in his neck and coming darkness he felt the cool metal barrel of a gun as it pressed against his temple. Within seconds he heard the popping and whooshing sound of the hand gun and then complete darkness.

The man studied the cop as he pressed the barrel of the gun to his temple and quickly pulled the trigger and watched as blood sprayed from the opposite side of the officers head. The man wiped the barrel of the gun on the officers tie and put it in his pocket and walked to the SUV. He opened the door and put the gun next to the Hispanic mans skull. The man had a blindfold and a tank top on with faded jeans and work boots. The masked man looked at the drug dealer and pulled the trigger as more blood sprayed from the dealers head and his body collapsed in a pile on his side.

He closed the door and walked to a black sedan opposite the SUV and he unlocked the car with the keys he took from the officer. He took a Swiss army knife from his pocket and pulled out the screwdriver and took the license plated from the police sedan. He then took the license plates of his car and put them on the police on and put the police ones on his. He was sure there was no DNA and then went to go to the car when he heard tires coming  down the road. He ran and ducked behind the SUV and waited, his gun coked and ready. He heard the car stop and the door open, then a surprised gasp. With that he walked to the back of the SUV  and jumped out gun held high and fired.

The bullet firing out and hitting Philips right in the gut, doubling him over onto his back. The masked man walked over and looked down at Philips but didn't recognize him with the hat on. Philips was playing dead so he was hopefully not going to get shot. He opened his eyes slightly, but not enough for the man to see and saw him put his gun away. The man studied him and huffed, walking away to the car he switched the plates with. Philips heard the engine start and the wheels grind on the dirt road and looked up to see the first two digits of the license plate. "8D" he made a mental not and opened his vest and dress shirt and peeled off his Kevlar vest and grabbed his phone from his pocket and called for backup. He remembered the scar on his face and the man in the diner. He knows what he looks like, the first two digits of his license plate, and if he can find the beer bottle he drank from, DNA. This man was as good as caught, or so he thought.

Author's Note

The whole series is about an unknown man and his hatred for a California Mobsters family and is then hunted by the dirty California Police force. Second part, show me what i got!