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  DEEP THREAT

  DEEP THREAT

  A Billy Beckett novel

  By

  Scott Pratt

  With Kelly Hodge

  © 2019 Phoenix Flying LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Scott Pratt, my late friend and literary mentor, who believed that nothing in life is beyond imagination and went about proving it every day. He was a remarkable storyteller with great vision and drive. Our collaboration on the Billy Beckett series of novels was among his final active projects before departing this earth, and it will remain a bittersweet postscript for me personally. I take solace in knowing that Scott’s indomitable spirit lives on in family and friends, and in the many compelling adventures he brought to life for his readers.

  K.H.

  This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit, and to her inspirational courage. She lost her 11-year battle with breast cancer on June 23, 2018. She fought like a lioness to her last breath. I loved her before I was born, and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

  Prologue

  Charles Ratliff was sweating profusely as he stooped in an old sugarcane field on the outskirts of New Orleans, a shovel in his blistered hands. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his body glistened in the bright sunshine. His baggy jeans were dirty and stained, his tennis shoes the same color as the brown soil he was moving. He’d been digging for a while and was breathing heavily.

  “Speed it up, Charles. It’s getting near noon, and we’re hungry. You’re getting close, but that hole ain’t near deep enough yet.”

  The man who was overseeing the digging looked at his wristwatch. He laughed like he often did at the end of these assignments. He took a perverted pleasure in watching a soon-to-be corpse assist in his own demise.

  “Charles was never good at anything except finding drugs and trouble,” he said to his partner, who was stone-faced and leaning against a black SUV with a Glock 42 .380 pistol poised at his side. The overseer was short, balding, and thick. His puffy face was covered with a dark stubble of beard. He was wearing a white polo, khaki pants and a pair of black Sperry boat shoes. “We could put that on his grave marker, but he isn’t going to have one.” He spread his hands dramatically. “I can picture it in my mind. ‘Here lies Charles, a pathetic loser.’”

  The man cackled again.

  Charles wiped his brow and kept digging without saying a word. He was more than knee deep in the hole, and the mound of rich Louisiana dirt was piling up beside him.

  Finally, the short man said, “Okay, drop the shovel and get on your knees. Let’s see how you fit.”

  ***

  The gravity of the situation hadn’t been apparent a few hours earlier, at least not to Charles. He was just another shiftless addict looking for his next high when the men surprised him and grabbed him up in a back alley of the French Quarter. Charles knew he shouldn’t have returned to the Big Easy, because he had crossed Frank Romano, and Romano was looking to get even. But New Orleans was the city Charles had drifted to for years, and he knew all the places he could score dope.

  As he was led into an abandoned warehouse down on the waterfront, Charles wondered how he could make things right and walk away. The mood was grim, but maybe Charles could talk Romano down. Maybe he could reason with the man.

  The office door opened. At the end of a long table sat a hulking figure with dark, slicked-back hair and a bushy goatee. His shirt was spotted with perspiration, and a thick gold chain hung around his neck. Charles knew Romano was a made mob guy, and he looked the part. He was a walking stereotype. A menacing scowl radiated from Romano’s face.

  Charles also knew Romano was the head of a growing crime syndicate that had been running drugs all along the Gulf Coast and leaving plenty of carnage in its wake. The two henchmen who had snatched Charles off the street stood watch at the door.

  “Sit down,” Romano said. Tiny beads of sweat shined on his forehead as he lit a cigarette.

  “Wand looked up at the cloudless sky. ant one, Charles?”

  “No, sir. I don’t smoke.”

  Romano glanced at his men and snorted. “That’s funny. Son of a bitch has every bad habit known to man, but he don’t smoke.” He looked back at Charles. “This might be a good time to start.”

  Charles remained silent. He tried to allow his mind to take him to a different time and place, back when he was young and sturdy and athletic – a tight end, in fact, and a good one. He could have led a different life had he chosen to use the athletic ability that had been bestowed upon him by God or nature or whatever. But he hadn’t. He’d made bad choices, especially when it came to substance abuse, and he looked at least ten years older than fifty-one. It now appeared he might not see fifty-two, and the end would probably be ugly.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” Romano said.

  “I guess it’s because of my son. I tried to talk to him – me and his mother both tried – but he don’t listen no more. That guy, that sports agent, has been controlling him for a while.”

  “So the young man is a big star now and doesn’t want to make new friends? We’re just trying to help him, Charles. Trying to put him on the right path for the future so he doesn’t make the same mistakes you made. We were counting on your influence.”

  Charles swallowed hard. “I know. I can still help.”

  The crime boss exhaled a billowing cloud of smoke that seemed to fill the room and tapped his fingertips impatiently on the table.

  “The biggest problem, Charles, is that I invested in you. I gave you something of value. I gave you precise instructions on how to handle this valuable thing. And what happened? You stole my investment, and you delivered nothing in return. You made me look like a fool.”

  “I tried to do what you wanted, Mr. Romano. I swear it. I talked to the brother. I did everything I could.”

  “Bullshit. Did you deliver the package like you were told? It was a simple job. You were the one to suggest it, right? You said you knew this guy, that for an ounce of blow he could get in your son’s ear and change his mind. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “I saw the man in Florida and he said he’d do what he could,” Charles said. “I left the package in his hands. That was it.”

  “Stop insulting my intelligence, Charles, or I’m going to shoot you where you sit. I hear everything that goes on out there on the street, and what I hear is that you didn’t follow my instructions. You were selfish. You stole part of what was in my package. You took care of you. You doomed yourself for a few grams of blow.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charles said. “Let me make it up to you. I’ll pay you for the coke I took. I’ll talk to my boy again. I’ll get him to bring Jarvis around.”

  “That’s what you said last time.” Romano snuffed out his cigarette and turned to his men. “I’ve wasted enough time and money on this junkie,” he said. “Get him out of here. And make sure I don’t see him again. Then put out the word that you don’t steal from Frank Romano, and if you tell him you’re going to do something, you better deliver. Make an example out of him.”


  ***

  The grave was now deep enough. The stocky man walked over and told Charles to kneel in the middle of the hole. He raised his pistol, a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm, and cocked the hammer.

  Charles Ratliff hit his knees, heard the metallic click, took a deep breath, and looked up at the cloudless sky. He thought fleetingly of what a waste his life had been. Then he bowed his head.

  Two bullets shattered his skull, and he slumped into the hole – a perfect fit – as a crimson mist settled over him.

  PART I

  Chapter One

  Jarvis Thompson could catch anything thrown his way, and he could run like the wind. Football was his great escape.

  Down in the Florida panhandle, they called him “The Autumn Blaze” – a tribute to the wide receiver’s breathtaking speed and the dusty little town where his story began. The nickname followed him to college, and it would fit nicely in the NFL, too, because Jarvis was going to compete on the fastest fields of all.

  The folks in Autumn, Florida, would be mighty proud.

  “I can’t wait,” Jarvis said, gazing down at another sleek cabin cruiser as it meandered past the gray, contemporary home that sat high above the Tennessee River. “I’m going to be the whole package, man, going to do everything we’ve talked about. Scoring touchdowns and posing in the end zone. Commercials. All that stuff.

  You’ll make sure it happens, won’t you, Billy?”

  A beaming smile crossed the face of his mentor. Billy Beckett had his own dreams about Jarvis’s future. Big dreams. They’d started back in the early days, when the kid was just making a name for himself in the football-crazy Sunshine State, before every college powerhouse in the country lusted after him. The dreams had only grown more real as the years unfolded.

  Most everyone around the game had heard Jarvis Thompson’s all-too-familiar backstory by now. As a black child growing up in government-subsidized housing in Autumn, Florida, he’d survived all kinds of hell – lowlife father, alcoholic mother, girlfriend shot dead in the yard, the gangs and drugs. But Jarvis had eventually fought his way out. The only part of the backstory most people didn’t know was that Billy had played a major role in making it happen.

  And now, finally, it seemed the stars were lining up just right for both of them.

  The possibilities were intoxicating as the men sat on the veranda of Billy’s house, sipping Red Bull on a pristine fall afternoon. At that moment, Billy felt more like a big brother than a young sports agent closing in on his most high-profile client yet. He was the only reason Jarvis had come to Knoxville, and he was satisfied with the way it was all playing out.

  “If you think you’ve gotten a lot of attention here, Jarvis, just wait,” he said. “The NFL is the greatest show on turf, and it’s all about quarterbacks and receivers, guys like you. The best thing is that you’re better than most. You’re bigger, you’re faster, you have incredible hands. And you’re an intelligent young man. We just have to get you through this season healthy. After that, there’s nothing standing in our way.”

  Billy took a long sip of his drink and continued: “The whole world is going to know about Jarvis Thompson. I will make sure of it.”

  The experts said Jarvis would go early in the draft, maybe in the top three. At six-foot-four and two hundred and twenty pounds, with strong, sinewy hands that gripped those leather spirals like a vise and elite footspeed, he was already an All-American at the University of Tennessee. The program had been a launching pad to the pros for so many at his position through the years that they called it Wide Receiver U, and Jarvis might have been the best the school had ever produced.

  His celebrity was growing as he approached two hundred career catches. Fans would hang around the stadiums in clusters long after the games, just to get a closer glimpse of this freak of nature with the bright smile. Wherever Jarvis landed in the NFL, the endorsement deals were sure to follow.

  The Autumn Blaze was more than halfway through his junior season now, a battle-hardened, twenty-one-year-old used to carrying a heavy load. Even on a mediocre team, he was leading the conference in receptions and touchdowns for the second straight year. If things just stayed on track, he would leave Knoxville as a player whose legend would only continue to grow.

  Sometimes Jarvis thought about the good he’d be able to do for others. He’d build his grandmother a new home, for starters. She had once taken him in, protected him when he was vulnerable, before moving away. He knew both his mother and father would come around with their hands out, but he wasn’t yet certain what he would do for them. They’d done nothing for him other than bringing him into the world. They’d been a constant source of irritation once they realized Jarvis might be a potential gold mine, but he tried to keep from thinking about them too much. He would eventually do right by them. He just wasn’t sure what the right thing was.

  He was a young man, though, one who had lived his life in abject poverty, and the possibility of becoming an instant millionaire inside of a year also caused him to daydream about some other things.

  “I’m gonna buy a fast car, first thing,” Jarvis said to Billy. “Probably a red one. I’ll get a big house with a pool. Maybe a boat like yours, only bigger.”

  Billy raised his eyebrows. “Bigger, huh? I guess you’ll want my girlfriend, too.”

  “That one may be a little too fast for me. I’m not sure I could handle Rachel.”

  “Believe me, you couldn’t,” Billy said, chuckling as he got up and walked into the house. He emerged a few minutes later with the morning’s Knoxville Journal, pulled out the sports section and pointed to the lead story.

  “Right now, you just worry about Alabama,” he said. “Hell, you were playing Pop Warner ball down in Autumn the last time Tennessee beat those guys. I had just gotten out of school here. If you want to leave this school as a real hero, catch a bunch of passes and spank their butts this weekend. Twelve losses in a row is more than enough.”

  Billy had always spoken in a straightforward manner, and Jarvis had always listened.

  Jarvis smiled and pulled back the dreads from his broad shoulders, looping a black elastic band around them. His eyes darted from the dark green water below to the azure sky above and the large maples that had exploded with color all around.

  “Momma is supposed to be here this weekend,” he said. “And she isn’t too happy. Still wants me to sit down with those guys from New Orleans. She says nothing is official yet.”

  “Are we talking about this Sonny Bradley guy again?” Billy said. “I thought it was just a formality now between you and me. I thought we understood and trusted each other. You can’t officially sign with me yet, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal. What’s there to talk about?”

  “Bradley’s guys have been coming around the house and putting ideas in her head. You know she never wanted me to come up here to begin with.”

  Billy’s eyes narrowed and he snatched the key to his Escalade off the table. The disgust he felt was familiar. He’d heard it all before.

  “But you did come up here, and you did the right thing,” he said. “I have some business in Atlanta tomorrow, but we’ll talk again soon. We need to get this settled, once and for all, and move on. Now, let’s get you back to campus.”

  chapter two

  Billy smiled. He could tell the huge man was nervous. Leroy Mitchell was surrounded in the middle of a car enthusiast’s wonderland. Exotic beasts were scattered all around the lot – Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Lotuses, Aston Martins.

  Billy didn’t think Leroy knew much about any of that. He drove a Ford pickup.

  The left offensive tackle, the man who protected the quarterback’s “blind side,” was one of the Atlanta Falcons’ most popular players, and today that was all that mattered. His natural, country-boy charm and his sheer physical presence on camera – he stood six-foot-eight and weighed three
hundred and thirty pounds – would carry the commercial for SuperCars Unlimited just fine.

  SuperCars was an iconic business for men with an excess of two things – testosterone and expendable income. There were many such men in the Atlanta metroplex, and the owner paid pro athletes, especially Falcons, to put a rugged, appealing face on his advertising.

  For the moment, that face belonged to Leroy Mitchell, who just happened to be one of Billy’s favorite clients.

  “I told you we’d make you a television star,” Billy said with a laugh as they waited for a producer to bring the short script. “You’d make triple the money if you were a quarterback, but this is still a good gig. Shows off your personality.”

  “I hope I can read this stuff without stuttering,” Mitchell said. “Just being around these cars makes me nervous. I wouldn’t even fit in most of them, and I wouldn’t know how to drive them if I did.”

  “So you wouldn’t trade that pickup for one? I’m sure we could work out a deal this morning.”

  “Why don’t I just keep the truck and put that little yellow number over there in the bed and take it home to the wife? I can see her face now when I pull into the driveway.”

  “She’d be happy?” Billy said.

  “I’m kidding. She’d kill me. She’s a pickup kind of girl.”

  “Careful,” Billy said. “What you just said could be open to interpretation.”

  “Say what?”

  “Never mind.”

  The producer, a mid-twenties guy with a manicured, dark beard and shoulder-length hair, walked up and everyone snapped to attention. “All right, Leroy,” he said, “let’s do this.”

  Billy slapped his man on the shoulder and faded into the background. He was comfortable there, on the edge of the action. He had a vested interest, sure, but he’d never believed in being overbearing, and he didn’t seek the spotlight.