Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 by JM Harvey

self. But I guess a cop can gun down whoever he likes and walk away from it. I had to do a whole ten years for my killings. But, I got my parole six weeks ago. State of Texas says I’m rehabilitated. A changed man.”
    “I never killed anyone that didn’t deserve it, Smith,” Val replied, instantly bristling at the accusation.
    Jesus, now he was debating morality with a pit viper.
    Jasper’s grin widened. “Let me tell you a secret,” he said. “They’re all asking for it. Every damned one of them, me and you included.” Typical convict psycho-shit. But Val was done listening.
    “Where’s Garland?”
    Jasper’s eyebrows shot up. “Why, I reckon he’s putting out the tea and cookies, Mr. Justice. It ain’t often that we receive celebrity callers.” Smith stepped out of the doorway, the silver dollar heels of his boots crunching gravel. He made a flourish at the door with one big hand. “Why’nt you step into the parlor, as the spider said to the fly,”
    “Come on, Zeke,” Val said, grabbing the smaller man by the elbow. He swung Zeke around and propelled him across the gravel and through the front door, but Val didn’t follow him inside. He paused there to look Smith in the eye. “Ladies first, Jasper.”
    For a split second Smith lost the smile. His eyes took on a hard shine and his tongue flicked past teeth as gray as concrete. But the moment passed and the smile came back, a big, shit-eating grin.
    “You do have a surly mouth on you, Mr. Justice,” he said. “But I like that. I reckon you and me are going to get along just fine!” He turned abruptly and ducked through the clubhouse door. Val followed a few steps behind.
    The changes inside the clubhouse were just as radical as the exterior. The last time Val had rousted the place it had looked like your typical redneck bar: neon beer signs, banged up wooden tables and rickety chairs all coated with a haze of nicotine. But all of that had been replaced with tan office cubicles, fluorescent lights and dark blue carpet. A dozen computer monitors flickered inside the cubicles, manned by a dozen men, all of whom wore the pasty prison pallor and tight haircuts of the recently paroled felon.
    The hubbub of conversation died as Val’s eyes skimmed over the crew, his gaze flat and steady, the uncompromising glare of a lion tamer. He recognized three of the men as ex Confederate Syndicate members, but none of the others looked familiar. Val glanced at Jasper and raised an eyebrow.
    “A passel of sinners doing the Lord’s work,” Jasper explained mockingly. He waved a hand at a row of stacked cardboard boxes lined up along the wall. “You need a bible? Some Holy Water? All of it blessed by the Reverend Sutton personally.”
    Zeke was halfway across the room by then, making a beeline for a door set in the pine paneling of the back wall, cradling his broken hand against his chest. He shoved the door open without knocking and disappeared inside as Jasper continued his sales pitch.
    “This here water wards off all manners of evils and sins and brings riches to the righteous. Guaranteed! And the bibles! The bibles have all the whoring and drinking parts underlined for easy reference.”
    Cheap Bibles and holy tap water and all of it one hundred percent legal. But Val made no comment. It wasn’t any of his business. He just said, “Where’s Garland?”
    Jasper shrugged indifferently. “I didn’t figure you for the praying sort,” he said as he turned and headed for the door that Zeke had left open behind him.
    Val stuck close to Jasper as they crossed the room. A dank, feral odor drifted off the ex-con like the smell of a dog kennel. The back pockets of the man’s jeans had been cut away leaving darker blue squares, a prison punk affectation, but there was nothing feminine about the way Jasper moved. He had the swaggering, shoulder back strut of a man looking for a fight.
    Zeke was talking when Val reached the door. “—son of a bitch wrecked your