My Mother the Car

This story sort of came to me but I didn't have a clue where it was going so I just started writing it and it led itself where it wanted to. I actually started in the middle and then filled in the beginning and the end. No sex to speak of not very erotic, and it gets a bit bloody at times. Only warning.

Not too long ago I posted a story with the disclaimer, to paraphrase, that the plot was cartoonish and not plausible and if you didn't want that don't read the story. I then read some comments complaining the plot was cartoonish and not plausible. It is probably the same reason we are now needing to put warning labels telling people not to stick their tongues in light sockets, eat poisonous material, or creating self-driving cars for people too dumb to drive. I have stated this one will be formulistic and cartoonish and if you want to read it and complain it is formulistic and cartoonish please do so. Far be it from me to stop a fool from publicly demonstrating his inability to grasp the obvious and complaining about it.

All the standard disclaimers about sex, violence, and perhaps a somewhat dark view of human nature, apply here. This one might be a bit darker than most but then again maybe I am also

All the usual restrictions apply. Copyright 2019 all rights reserved to me.

My mother was a whore. Perhaps escort would be a better word for what she did, but at the end of the day she had sex for money. Or in the middle of the day, or the morning, or whenever her services were paid for. She had come out to Hollywood at sixteen with dreams of stardom and by the time I popped out a year later she realized that wasn't happening. But what she wasn't was stupid. She didn't do drugs or drink, but she liked sex, and was good at it. So, she made a career of it. She was blond haired with cornflower blue eyes and kept those farm girl next door looks well into her forties. She turned what should have been a broken life into a lucrative one.

She also had those midwestern farm girl values still in her, her kid was her responsibility and no one else's, and she wasn't going to let her life cause me to skimp on mine. Or maybe it was she loved me, although she never said so. I can do a lot of things but figuring out females emotions isn't one of them, I stopped trying long before I developed the ability to try. I think I was just the one thing she decided to care about. She went through life not giving a damn about anything except me as far as I could tell, but I still don't know why.

What I do know is she took care of me and isolated me from her life. She didn't hide it from me, she just didn't expose me to it. There wasn't a parade of men through the apartment, she had her meetings elsewhere. When she was older she told me what she did for a living, but she didn't justify it or excuse it. It was what it was, and I just had to accept it, or not. And she told me what she learned from the men she met, how to read them, how to use them. She had the whores cynical view of human nature and had seen more than her share of the dark side. Like Dorian Gray's picture, though, it never showed on her face.

When I was old enough she sent me to private schools, good ones, foreign and domestic, most with a military basis. After I turned eight I only saw her on holidays and we usually spent them traveling. We would spend two weeks in New York, or Paris, or half the summer in Brazil. It worked for both of us, not being together each day, emotions weren't something that I was all that interested in either.

Some people shrivel in military schools, I thrived. I spent half of high school in a school in Germany and the other half in the US. I was in VMI at 17 and the Army at 21. After Iraq they were taking just about anyone with a college degree and VMI was a good degree. I went through airborne training with the 101^st, then the Rangers, bounced around a little on some odd jobs, then to my present assignment, which doesn't have a name. I had been doing it for a few years now and, oddly enough, was good at it.

I was in Syria when the call came in, with instructions to pull my small team out. It took us two days to extract, a half day to transit and clean up, then I met the Admiral on a ship in the Gulf. Why an Admiral? We were one of those joint multi service outfits and despite being in the army he was my boss. My team had a SEAL, a Marine, Rangers, and only God knows where the other couple came from. Jail possibly, maybe an asylum of some type. They were good, disciplined, and dependable, but some of them were just fucking psychotic. We fit in well together and had each other's backs.

The Admiral was curt, but then he always was.

"We have a situation. Your mother was severely beaten and left in an alley, she is in the hospital with bleeding on the brain, and in a coma."

"Were any of my team members families targeted?"

"Not so far. We don't know if this is connected to us, personal to her, or just random violence. If it is related to our work here then our security has been compromised. Either way I am sending you to Los Angeles to ascertain the facts and, if necessary, eliminate the threat. Until then your team is off line."

"Understood sir. How long do I have?"

"I would like you back in ten days or less. Do you need anything from me?"

"Credentials might be useful. Something to show the locals if needed. I don't want to have to cause any more disturbance among the friendlies than needed."

"There are no friendlies, but we can do that. CID, maybe NSA, or NCIS. I will also get a word passed along for them to leave this alone as a national security matter. Their report will be in your prep bag, but they really didn't do anything."

"Wouldn't expect them to. A beaten whore in an alley isn't a high priority target. Any additional orders, sir?"

"No just close it up, no lose ends. It could get messy if it gets into the public domain, so we don't want to go that way. The number one priority is protecting the integrity of the team here. If someone is identifying members and targeting their families it would be bad. Once you determine what it is take whatever steps you feel are necessary to close it off. Understood?"

"Yes sir."

"What name do you want to use?"

I thought for a minute. "John Smith."

"They will know it's a fake."

"Yes, and they will know we know they know, and that we don't give a damn that they know. Like you usually say, sir, the best offense is a good offense. Hit them hard and they leave us alone."

"Yes, hit them all hard, close it off, and get back. We have an assignment, but we need to know the team isn't compromised before we move."

I flew out immediately. Usually the air force was accommodating to us and I only had four changes before I was in Los Angeles. It wasn't as comfortable as flying commercial, but it beat lugging the guns through customs. They had my credentials ready to pick up when I arrived.

They had a car for me to use as well, and I went directly to the hospital. I had changed into civvies on the plane. I had read what little was available on the journey. There wasn't much. A patrol had spotted her in an alley, badly beaten. Part of her skull was crushed in, there was anal and vaginal tearing and bruising, and she had lost a lot of blood. No DNA evidence was present, and someone had washed her down quickly with alcohol. Her left arm was broken and three of her fingers crushed.

I arrived in the evening and was able to see her for a few minutes. There wasn't much to see, mostly tubes and wires all over the place and a little of her sticking out from bandages. Her eyes were closed, I missed those clear blue eyes she had. I had forgotten how little she was. Someone had hurt her, badly, and they were going to hurt in return.

The on-call doctor couldn't tell me much and I signed some paperwork as next of kin, although the degree of kinship was left a little vague. I also put in a call to the policeman assigned to the case, a Detective Decker, who had left his contact information with the hospital, and arranged to meet him the next morning.

I did notice the man visiting the elderly dementia patient in the next room seemed to be paying a little too much attention to our room. It wasn't that he was trying to watch me but that he was trying not to watch me that made me notice him. Why would I interest him and why would he hide that interest? He obviously wasn't a true professional, but he thought he was.

*************************************

I met Decker at a local coffee shop the next morning. He didn't look at that great, like he had a hard night, so I sprung for two coffee's. I missed strong black coffee but with a shot of turbo something in it this was almost drinkable. We walked outside and found a spot away from everyone else to sit.

"You don't look like an army officer. Where the fuck are you stationed looking like that?"

Blending in was more important where I was stationed than anything else and we weren't trying to blend in with the West Point group. I looked more like an Arab than an army officer, although I had trimmed my beard some this morning.

"Syria."

"Bullshit. We don't have any troops in Syria."

I just looked at him. We stared into each other's eyes for a minute before he looked away.

"Jesus Christ your one of them, aren't you? Spooks. I dealt with enough of you when I was in Iraq. First my captain jumps down my back over this case, then tells me to stay the fuck away from it, then they pull you out of Syria of all fucking places to take over. What the hell is going on?"

"Sorry that's classified. I just have a couple of questions and you can walk away from it. I read your report, is there anything you want to add?"

"Not really. They found her dropped in an alley at 2:00 AM, beaten badly. DNA came up a bust so far, there was plenty of blood, but it was hers. It was a bit out of her normal stomping grounds, looked to be a drive by and drop off. She is a hooker but not a streetwalker, so she was most likely beaten elsewhere and then disposed of. She's more of the classy escort, girlfriend experience, party girl, that type. Getting a little old for it but then again she would look better on the arm of an older man than some twenty something bimbo. She didn't have any priors, but she has worked for a few agencies in the past, so we were able to identify her."

"So, what were you planning on doing?"

"Mostly, wait and see if she woke up and could tell us something. She wasn't with an agency that we know of, so we don't know who she was with that night and we didn't have much luck tracing her calls. She might have used a burner phone or worked with someone we didn't identify."

I considered that. I really didn't think they had a lot of other options. I could ask the NSA to do some phone searches, but I didn't want to involve them if I didn't have to.

"Do you have anyone at the hospital watching her?"

"No, I don't have enough people to do that. You think we need to?"

"It might be nice to make sure if she wants to wake up no one interferes. Tell your captain I asked if you could do that, starting this evening. A uniform would work. I'm sure he will be agreeable. Anything else you can think of?"

"How can I get in touch with you if I need to?"

"I'm staying at the Sheraton on Hope St, room 402. John Smith, just leave a message at the desk to call you."

He looked at me.

"I know she was a whore, but I don't like seeing any women beaten like an animal. I don't think I will ever get used to it. You need help, you call. I may not like spooks but I like this even less."

I went back to the hospital. I thought if the shadow was back I could get him to tail me.

*************************************

The same man was watching the room as the last time. It was a fairly loose surveillance he was putting on but as Decker had assured me the locals weren't doing it and, as I assumed they didn't have the resources for surveillance available for this case, I tended to believe him. Trusting the local authorities not to lie to me isn't big on my list but in this case, it made sense. Besides if they had lied it wasn't my fault if one of their own was hurt.

I let him follow me from the hospital. It wasn't in the best of neighborhoods to begin with so within an hour I had led him to an area mostly populated by drug dealers and homeless people. I wanted to have a little talk with him and really didn't want anyone listening in. We went down a couple alleys until I found what I was looking for, a dark spot behind a couple of old burned out warehouses or machine shops or something. When I ducked in the alley, he waited a minute to follow, and when he didn't see me started jogging towards the end. It only took a moment to slip in behind him and put my 9mm behind his right ear.

I quickly relieved him of his gun, phone, and wallet and zip tied his wrists, knees, and ankles. The wallet didn't have much, a couple of debit cards, some assorted bills, mostly tens and twenties, and a California drivers license. James Wallace was his name. He looked like a stupid one, more built for bouncing heads in a bar then trailing a man through the street.

I squatted down next to him. I had him sitting down, back to the wall, hands tied in front of him. "So, tell me, Jimmy, who are you working for."

"I'm not telling you shit. I was just walking down the street when you jumped me."

"We can do this easy or hard, Jimmy. Tell me who your watching the hospital for and I let you go."

"I'm not telling you nothing."

Why do they always say that? They always promise not to talk but they eventually all do. I didn't have a lot of time to go slow on this one though. We were out in a public place, I had sort of pulled him behind an old stairwell, but it was still exposed, so I wanted to end it quick.

"Anything. You're not telling me anything. Not telling me nothing is a double negative."

"Huh?"

"OK here's how this is going to go. In a minute I am going ask you again, nicely, who hired you. If you don't answer I will put a cloth in your mouth. You might want to bite down on it, hard. Then I am going to pull one of you fingernails out. Then I will take the cloth out and ask again. If you don't answer the cloth goes back in and you lose another fingernail. We keep this up until you talk, or you run out of fingernails. Then we start to do things that really hurt."

He just glared at me. They usually don't believe you until the first nail comes out. I popped out my knife and cut off part of his sleeve and rolled it into a ball. Then I put the knife away and pulled out my Leatherman tool and unfolded the pliers. Leatherman makes a really quality product and I had carried this pair in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon. I hated to get blood all over them, but they do wash up. I held it up in front of his face.

"OK Jimmy, time to go. Who hired you to watch the hospital and what were your instructions?"

He still just looked at me. I wiggled the pliers a little.

"You sure? Once the cloth goes in the nail comes off, I won't stop halfway through. Last chance."

I jammed the cloth in his mouth and wrapped him up in a body lock. I had his hands zipped in front, so it was simple enough to get the pliers under the pinkie nail on the left hand and begin pulling. Despite what you might think nails don't just pop off, it took some twisting and pulling, not to mention digging the plier tip in under the nail, before I was able to rip it off. He damned near bucked me off a couple of times, but I had him down good. When I was finished, I ripped the cloth out of his mouth and wrapped it around the finger to stop the bleeding.

He was swearing and cursing but his face looked a little pale. I gave him a couple minutes to swear at me, didn't take it personally, then started talking.

"Jimmy, here's the deal. Maybe you didn't believe me, or maybe you didn't know what it was like, but now you know I will do this. You have nine more nails and if you aren't talking by then I will probably start with the fingers, one joint at a time. At the moment I'm not very annoyed with you but I don't have all day to spend here so if this keeps going too much longer, I just might just start to get pissed at you. And that would be bad for you. If you want to walk out of here crippled for life that's fine with me. But you will talk, sooner or later, so make it easy on yourself and save yourself some pain."

I know part of it was bullshit but part of it was true. Jimmy was just a low-level thug and I really didn't want to cripple him if I didn't have to. But he was going to talk sooner or later.

"Who hired you to watch the hospital and what were your instructions?"

He just looked at me.

"Do you really want me to put the cloth back in and go for nail number two?"

"No."

God he was a sullen jerk now that he decided to talk. I mean we were both just playing our parts and he was getting bent out of shape over a broken nail. It wasn't personal.

"Who hired you to watch the hospital?"

"Thompson Protective Services. They have an office down on 4^th street."

"And what were your instructions?"

"Just watch the hospital room occasionally to see if she woke up. And see if anyone was spending time with her."

"Did they tell you to follow me?"

"Sort of. When I told them, you know, that you had been there last night, they said if you showed up again to find out who you were. I couldn't find anything out at the hospital so I figured this would be the best way."

I asked a few more questions but he really didn't know anything. I kept the phone just for fun, figured I could strip it tonight for any intel. I ejected the magazine from the gun and emptied it, then stripped off the slide and put the parts down next to him.

"In a minute I am going to cut you lose. If you walk back to the hospital, they can patch you up, or you can do it yourself. Tell them you got your nail caught in a door, simple enough. Like I said I am not annoyed with you, yet, but if I see you again, I might become so. If I do, I will make today look like a walk in the park and you will not survive it. So, your safest course is to stay as far away from me as you can."

"Fuck you asshole. As soon..."

My gun was in my hand and partway down his throat before he got another word out. I think part of some teeth might have gone down there as well.

"You sounded like you were going to threaten me. If you threaten me, I will kill you. If I see you again, I will kill you. If I smell you again, I will kill you. And at the moment your smell is a little strong. In fact, if you in any way cause me to think of you again, I will kill you. Call your boss, tell him what happened, let him know I will be calling on him, then leave town for a few weeks. It will all be over by then."

Sometimes the best way to save a life is let them know how easy it would be to lose it. I pulled the gun out of his mouth and told him to shut his eyes. Then I cut the zip ties free.

"Count to one hundred before you open your eyes. Remember what I said, and you can live."

I left him in the alley and went back to the hospital and sat with her for a few hours. She didn't move or wake up. Then I went to the hotel to clean up and eat dinner. They had a decent restaurant off the lobby, and I had prime rib and rock lobster tail. A bit traditional but I was sick of exotic foods. I spent the evening doing research and making phone calls. Thompson Protective Services was one of the multitude of private protection groups that catered to the Hollywood elite. They did some federal work, not a lot, but enough I could apply some pressure if needed. The also did some with the locals so I could go that route if need be. After all assault was a local matter and I doubted they would want their involvement broadcast. I had a good night's sleep.