Just Rewards

(Movie Drabble x4 – written in honor of Anthony Starke’s birthday June 6, 2006)

Ezra looked over the case file with satisfaction. The first steps toward lifetime imprisonment for Angelo Donatelli were complete, and as the star witness for the gunrunner’s trial, Ezra was confident that he could bring this case to a satisfactory conclusion. Thanks to the man’s own stupidity, he had nowhere to run.

It was still difficult to believe that Donatelli would have actually hidden a stash of stolen weapons inside the trunk of his own car, gotten drunk enough for the toxicology report to show his blood chemistry at a staggering 2.1% alcohol level, then tried to drive the weapons across state lines! Ezra thanked whatever God had been watching out for the pedestrian’s of Denver last Friday night that the man had crashed his vehicle into a telephone pole before he could mow anyone down. How he had managed the wits to crawl out of the car before it went up in a fiery inferno was anyone’s guess. Perhaps in his inebriated state, he had crashe d on purpose, thi nking to destroy all of the evidence. Luckily, C.S.I. had recovered more than enough to put the nail in the man’s coffin.

Ezra snorted softly, thinking how literal his musings might have been if Chris Larabee had gotten hold of Donatelli before the police had. Drunken drivers and thugs who marketed handguns on school grounds both made his supervisor itch for a license to kill the miscreants with his bare hands. A sentiment that Ezra appreciated fully. While he and Larabee often seemed to have nothing in common, they were of one mind when it came to those who would do harm to innocent children.

Now that the remainder of the weapons had been repossessed, it was just a matter of paperwork and making sure that there were no loopholes for the little cockroach to crawl through.

With a smile, Ezra added his signature to the official statement that would be entered into court records. This was what made the hard days worthwhile. On some future case where everything went wrong and he felt that nothing he did was having any impact, he could look back on this day and remember that he had made the streets a little safer and ensured that a few more children would live to reach adulthood. That kind of knowledge could make even the most veteran ATF agent feel as if he were 18 again.

The End

The Movies:

First Steps

Star Witness

Nowhere to Run

Blood Chemistry

Inferno

License to Kill

Nothing in Common

Repossessed

Eighteen Again