FOREWORD

The philosophy--don’t get mad, get even, is alive and well with Amos Rogue and Felix Kilner Jr. All of their lives, they had supervised the administration of the law, watching those with the ability and means to beat it walk away laughing, if not richer. Now that they have retired, all of the frustrations and other deep-seated problems with the system that have festered for years are surfacing. They have a strong compulsion to straighten the crooked road of justice all by themselves.

Can a series of lifelong disappointments cause a man or men to become psychopathic killers? I think it might. Looking at the profile here, where outwardly, two perfectly sane people practiced an honorable profession for a long period of time and saw rebuff after rebuff of their efforts to do their job according to the law. Did it eventually ingrain itself in their minds so deeply that it became a sickness? I can see where it could happen to one,--- but to two. I find that to be a little incredulous. But, that is the theme of this story.

Single, with no obligations to anyone, they embarked on a road of retribution to correct thirty-five years of perceived injustice. This is how they did it.

BALANCING THE SCALE

The strangest team in the history of police work was about to became a fact. Captain Amos Rogue and Captain Felix Kilner Jr. had joined the metropolitan police force together thirty-five years earlier. Today they were standing side by side with eighteen other officers in a command retirement ceremony, waiting to hear the final words of praise and good humor from their superiors. Their shoes were polished to a high military shine, and their uniforms were pressed with knife-edge creases. Each would receive a proclamation and citation for his years on the force. Today they would hang up their spurs, so to speak, and be free to do as they wish without the tedium of daily routine required to run a precinct.

Felix was deep in thought as he half listened to the ceremony. For the first time in his adult life, he was thinking about the last few years and how the business of law enforcement had changed since politics entered the picture. The fun had gone out of the business, and he was glad to be leaving.

The speeches of the politicians droned on, praising the retirees’ long and honorable contributions to the city and their fellow officers. He fidgeted and whispered to Amos, "I wish they would get on with it. It’s hot out here. This is the first time I have had to stand in formation since old Cap’n Murdock’s funeral. That was about three years ago."

Amos smiled and whispered back, "Hold on. It'll be over soon then we'll go get a cold one."

As he stood there, Felix thought about his career. He had only one regret. Lately he had seen too many of his cases dismissed or diluted by plea bargains. He felt strangely unfulfilled. For years, he and Amos had fantasized about how they would personally extract justice for certain defendants after losing a case to departmental appeasement, political influence, big money, plea bargains or a biased or nullified jury.

At first it was a joke between them, a means to let off steam after watching a wealthy criminal walk through the system unscathed. As the incidents became more frequent and as higher profile cases were washed away with money and slick lawyers, plus inside deals cut with politicians, the retribution thoughts became more frequent and much more serious. By the time he had reached retirement age, he had tolerated all of this injustice he could swallow. He was glad to get out of it.

Amos was likewise distracted by his thoughts and half listened to the speeches and presentation. He was also reviewing his thirty-five year career. He too was not satisfied that he had fulfilled his destiny for justice. His attitude was bitter to the point where it was affecting his health with worry. He was ready to get out. He shrugged at the thought that he may have contributed to the present system in some small way by turning his back in certain instances. It had reached a point a few years ago when he just didn’t give a damn anymore. He didn’t have enough time in service to retire then, so he stood by and watched the charade called justice being meted out by amateurs for money. Certain high profile cases had brought him to the boiling point. Most of the smaller fry didn’t bother him. He had watched the morale of the department plummet when these cases were slam-dunked by the politicians, so he became a cheerleader of sorts, trying to get his men to forget the past and move on, something he couldn’t do himself.

The ceremony was finally over. The finale was a handshake and congratulations by the senior officers and the Mayor's stand-in. Of the eighteen men who had received the retirement honors today, Amos was the superior rank of the group. Felix was second. Amos had been promoted to Captain one month before Felix, eight years ago.

Soon the last hand was shaken and the department Chaplin said his parting prayer, then the ceremony ended. The families and friends of the retiring officers began to disburse hugging and congratulating their retiree.

Amos and Felix walked away from the ceremony together. None of their former families had bothered to come. "What do you say, want a beer?"

Felix nodded, "Good idea. Let’s go home. I’ve got a six-pac in the frige."

Both had been married, but were divorced years ago. They had grown apart from their families over the years. Felix didn't have children. His ex-wife had remarried and moved out of state. He didn’t know where she was living and didn’t care.

Amos had two children, a boy and a girl. It was by chance that a friend mentioned that he had seen his wife and another man in a bar. Amos investigated it himself and found out that she was having an affair with her doctor. A divorce followed. The oldest child, Rebecca, was less than three years old at the time and his son, Amos Jr., was an infant. He was bitter at first, and seriously considered trying to get his children away from her. After thinking it over, and on the advice of an old friend who was a juvenile court judge, he gave up the idea. His friend told him that it would be difficult to get the children from their mother unless they were abused or mistreated in some way. He settled for visitation rights. His ex wife married the doctor within six months after the divorce.

After she was settled in with the doctor, he decided that it was better for the children to have a stable home life, so he abandoned any further court action. A year later, he agreed for them to be adopted by their stepfather in exchange for his wife dropping alimony and child support demands. He retained limited visitation rights and for a while he visited the kids regularly. Within a year, they seemed to be uncomfortable during his brief visits and anxious to get away. He was sure that his ex-wife was poisoning their minds about him. Soon he stopped going. None of the children ever called to inquire why.

Later he stopped sending birthday and Christmas presents after his ex-wife returned them unopened. It was very clear that he was no longer a part of their lives. He missed his children and occasionally grieved that he may have done the wrong thing to give them away. It took him a long time to get over it, but finally he accepted his decision.

The retirement announcement had been in the paper, and though he was sure they wouldn’t come, he couldn’t resist looking out of the corner of his eye occasionally just in case. He wasn’t sure that he would recognize them now. They were grown and he hadn’t seen them in a long time.

Amos enjoyed hunting and fishing with Felix and they went regularly. Most of all, he enjoyed his small machine shop in the basement of his apartment building. He had excelled in shop in high school and became enamored with metal working. He wanted to go into that line of work, even over the objection of his family. When he came home from WW II he decided to try it, but the end of the war left many experienced machinist unemployed, so jobs for the inexperienced were nonexistent. He had recently married and his wife was pregnant. He took a job on the police force out of desperation. As time went on, he decided that he liked police work and never looked back. His wife hated it from the start because of the odd hours, the low pay and the dangerous nature of the job. Early on the arguments became frequent and long. That started the downhill slide of his marriage and even after two children, it couldn't survive.

On the way home, Amos asked, "Felix, didn’t it feel a little strange that we ended a thirty-five years career in about an hour? That's sort of like a funeral. A fellow lives and works all his life to make his mark in the world, and it’s all put to rest in a thirty minute ceremony."

Felix smiled at his friend, "For Christ sake, don't get maudlin about it. Hell, I'm glad it’s over. The last few years haven't been fun."

"I’m not getting maudlin, I'm wondering if I could have spent my life in a better way, maybe by trying to keep my family with me and being a real family man like my wife wanted."

Felix laughed, "That woman grew to hate you just as mine did me. I was glad to get rid of her then and I haven't had a single minute of regret since."

Amos shrugged, "Me either." He said to himself that he was lying.

By that time they had reached home.

Amos owned the small ten unit apartment building where they lived. He had moved into it as a tenant after his divorce, and bought it when the ailing owner made him a deal that he couldn’t refuse. It had been a good investment and it was paid for. Nine years ago, after Felix’s divorce, Amos rented him a small bachelor apartment on the second floor. Their friendship developed over time because of their common interest.

In the last few years, while having a beer after a day on the lake fishing or in the woods hunting, the conversation usually got around to the changes taking place in the department. It was during those trips that they seriously talked about methods to correct situations particularly where jury nullification allowed proven criminals to walk free, even after a thorough investigation had proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the person was guilty. Weeks and occasionally months of developing a strong case would go down the drain in minutes by these juries, cases that under normal circumstances would have buried the criminal in prison. They had decided that the reason for it happening was simple, people are not afraid of the police or courts any more. This was their moment of defiance. It was get-even time for this segment of the population.

Over the years their discussions began to zero in on the time they would have available after they retired when maybe they could do something about it. Neither mentioned what.

They were different in that Amos had an outgoing personality and Felix, an avid outdoors man, was quiet by nature. Amos came across as a person who took his work seriously, but one who also liked people. Felix, on the other hand, was reserved to the point of bewilderment. You never knew what he was thinking, therefore it created an air of uncertainty about his interest in the conversation. Amos made friends easily and listened to conversations with interest, whereas Felix had a tendency to look away during a conversation and without visible emotion, leaving the conversationalist wondering if he heard any of the dialogue. It was distracting and disturbing, therefore conversations with Felix tended to be short.

They both enjoyed the company of the ladies and frequently one or the other would have a lady sleep over. After his marriage dissolved, Amos wasn't anxious to make a permanent commitment. Felix never said what his attitude toward marriage was. He seemed content to be a bachelor and never allowed his bed partners to stay over for more than one night.

They frequently rode to work together and had a beer after work.

The friendly Amos was a big man, weighing a few pounds more than departmental regulations allowed. He maintained himself in the gym to keep agile. His six foot height and broad shoulders helped with the tough look. A rugged complexion and full head of touched-up dark brown hair helped him to also maintain a young and lively look. His good personality made him popular with his men, plus he was known to stand up to the brass to defend his people.

Felix, on the other hand, was a wiry fellow who tipped the scales at about one sixty-five. His sharp features still had a subtle attractiveness that caused women to take a second look. He went to Hollywood from Pittsburgh after the war hoping to become an actor. It didn't take him long to realize that more than looks were required to make it in the movies. In the meantime he met and married a starlet. A lifestyle beyond an extra's income required a steady paycheck and the police force back home became his day job. The woman he married never forgave him for supposedly ruining her career by getting her pregnant. She made his marriage a pure hell, even after she lost the child, until it ended in divorce a year later.

Though both officers worked in the same precinct all of their careers, they never worked directly together as a team. They frequently consulted each other at work because the natural flow of cases was from Amos’s department to Felix’s office for final preparation for trial.

Felix had been an investigator for the District Attorney's office most of his career. He was made Chief of the team when he was promoted to Captain.

Amos was a precinct commander at the time of his retirement, but liked to express himself as a street cop to his men. Occasionally he had a morale problem when many hours of work done by his men went down the drain. His primary job was to keep them motivated after these events.

Amos and Felix bounced their frustrations off each other during their off-time, usually over a beer. Their bitterness against the system was enhanced as they discussed particular cases where a murderer, rapist, child molester, narcotics dealer or others had worked the system and walked away, and how in the last few years it had reached epidemic proportions. Amos had begun saving pictures of the criminals and had them mounted with tape on a wall in his study. He called it his gallery.

The vow to do something about it started innocently enough one day when Amos said to Felix, as he added a picture to his collection, "I wish I had that bastard alone for a few minutes. He would never sell narcotics to another child."

Felix shrugged and said, "Why don't we? I believe the rest of the police think like I do. When I was on the street, we eliminated people like that occasionally. I know I've shot when I could have probably shouted stop louder. I didn't want the son of a bitch to stop, especially when the evidence was overwhelming that I had the right man. One night I heard screaming. I took off running, when I turned the corner, I saw a guy ram a knife in the chest of a woman. He saw me and ran. I shouted stop, but all the time I hoped he wouldn’t. He didn’t, so I stopped him with a 32/20 slug in the back. I have never felt bad about that. In fact, I think I did the world a favor."

Amos grinned at his old friend, "Yeah, but that ain’t the way the law sees it. Maybe we ought to think about it."

The idea grew from there. As case after case unraveled, their conversations about how they would correct the situation became more detailed. Both officers knew that they couldn't do anything about it while they were still on the force. They had to wait for retirement.

For the last couple of years, Felix had nearly let the situation become an obsession with him. He constantly complained about the new justice system, especially after spending innumerable hours working up a case to perfect conviction status, only to have to stand helplessly by and watch it plea-bargained away by some young lawyer in the District Attorney’s office. He was convinced that the lawyers were protecting their own careers by sliding the cases into a plea to keep from taking a chance of losing it with a nullified jury. The attorney’s for the defendants had become more sophisticated in working the system and knew all of the weak spots in the department. They would work political angles to get cases assigned to prosecutors who they knew they could manipulate or easily defeat.

It was two years ago when Amos and Felix, for their own entertainment, began to plan how they would handle a particular case outside of the system. The planning took on a serious tone after several of Amos' high profile drug cases were stored away by the DA's office until the publicity died down, then washed out by the courts on minor technicalities. Amos was sure that a deal had been struck and a lot of money had changed hands to kill the cases, but he couldn't prove it. Several times in the last few years, when his men got too close to a big time dealer, the case file would be shifted uptown or to another division without explanation.

Amos listened patiently to the tirades of Felix week after week as his cases were dumped. He was familiar with many because they had originated in his jurisdiction. After nearly two years of listening and saying little, one day at lunch he made a surprising statement. "Felix, the time is fast approaching when you and I may have to form our own two-man vigilante organization to correct some of these wrongs, especially where the evidence is so overpowering."

Ed note:  Boone did something here that every writer would like to do, but cannot because publishers worry that episodic novels will not sell.  This should destroy that superstition forever.