Touch’s Usual

Touch stepped behind the counter and followed Johnny out the back door of the café. “Johnny, you ever remember Will Welch or Laceon Shakopf hanging out around the north part of the county when you lived out there?” Johnny got a thoughtful look on his face, “Touch, I gave that time some thought yesterday when things slowed down. I can’t remember anything specific about who did what or where they might have done it out there. I asked my wife and the other folks I speak to at church about that time and area: nothing seemed to shake loose.” Touch thanked Johnny for his time and turned to head back into The Tiger’s Den. As Touch walked past the cooktop, the man from the beater had Reva by the arm. A water glass spilled and broken on the floor behind the cash register. Seeing someone with hands on Reva triggered an animal response in Touch. In a step and a leftward power shuffle Touch cleared the counter. The man unhanded Reva, hearing someone moving strong and fast to his right. Touch, sensing a backhand right coming from the man, countered with a circular right forearm to the man’s elbow. Pivoting to close the distance and reinforce the power behind his forearm block, Touch grabbed the waistband of the man’s pants and hiked them up as he swept his feet out from under him. Clearly and crisply, Touch dropped the man on his face and brought his wrist halfway up his back with his left hand while pulling a set of handcuffs off his service belt with his right hand. “Sorry, fellow, but some folks around here are untouchable and Reva Dennis is one of those people,” Touch explained to the man. “I’m guessing this was an ill thought-out setup of some sort to get thrown into my jail so you can tune up or, maybe, cancel Hank Benitez. Not gonna happen.” “Reva, you okay?” Touch asked. “Yeah, Touch, no problem. I don’t know what his problem is. He just came in, knocked a glass of ice water out of my hand, and got aggressive,” Reva said. Touch fished the man’s wallet out of his right-hand back pants pocket, one of those wallets chained to a belt loop. Ricky Drummond was the man’s name. Nothing about the name rang a bell. His driver’s license gave an address in a small town in Eastern Kentucky. “Ricky, I believe I’m going to walk you back out to your car and we’re going to have a quick little chat,” Touch informed the man as he hefted him to his feet by his right bicep. The two walked across the street toward Davis’s Dry Cleaners and Drummond’s piece of shit car. “All right, Ricky, I’m going to take these cuffs off you. I want you to seat yourself in your car with your hands on the steering wheel. You do anything other than that and I’ll drag you out of your car by your hair, cuff you again facedown, and escort you to the city police station where you can meet my buddy, Chief of Police Chris Hauser. “From the address on your driver’s license, the appearance of your car, and a few of your tatoos, which match a couple on my new friend Dougie Delaney, I’m guessing the two of you are somehow affiliated. If so, I want you to tell your boss that whatever you’re up to in Cooper and Walter County isn’t welcomed and, as such, isn’t going to work. I know you guys intimidated Hank Benitez: we’ve got multiple, around-the-clock watches on his parents’ house and restaurant. The U.S. Attorney liked a great deal what Mandy Herman had to say about the Dixie Mafia and its plans to move pills and meth across the Lake. She’s already shipped out, but I’m guessing you guys know that, too. The more ya’ll screw around over here, the more I learn about you. I suggest ya’ll move on somewhere else. Or, better yet, just go legitimate. I can find you a job this afternoon with one of our local shops; I bet you’re really good at deliveries, huh? Either way neither you nor any of your Dixie Mafia brothers are messing with Hank or any of the other Benitezes,” emphasized Touch. Drummond responded, “Sheriff, I don’t think you’ve got much of a handle on what’s about to go down around here. Once the people I work for decide to go, they don’t stop. Product demand just grows and things adjust around it. I’m sure you’ve compared notes with your partners in Pikeville and Monticello, maybe even the Tennessee towns south of there. Associating with Hank was a mistake, but we’ve got longer-standing associates much higher up in Cooper. Hank was just a street-level mover, like me, nothing more. I’ll pass your word on, though,” Drummond replied. “I see you again, locked up you will be,” Touch relayed as he turned to walk back to The Tiger’s Den. “Reva, I believe I forgot to pay my bill,” Touch spoke. “If you see that fellow in here again, give me a call immediately.”