“Yeah?”
“He says that all of the deaths are caused by a powerful fentanyl derivative called ohmefentanyl or some shit. The thing is, you need a special lab to manufacture it. A special lab and a degree in chemistry. Says it’s not easy.”
Drake made a face and Screech shrugged. Only Leroy appeared to know what the hell Yasiv was talking about.
“Screech? You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m just not sure what—”
“I need you to do a little research for me,” Yasiv said, his tone now muffled as if he were cupping his mouth as he spoke. “I need to know if there are any labs that might be capable of producing this sort of stuff here in New York.”
Again, confusion washed over Screech’s face.
“I bet there are plenty labs. Why doesn’t Dunbar just—”
“I’m not thinking about just any lab, Screech; I’m thinking about a lab that is owned by a particular holdings company.”
Something clicked in Drake’s head and he suddenly realized why Yasiv was calling Screech and being so secretive about it.
A particular holdings company… ANGUIS Holdings.
Screech must’ve realized the same thing, because he started to nod.
“I gotcha. I’ll cross-reference capable labs with our list of real estate holdings. In the meantime, is there any update on Drake?”
Drake immediately started shaking his head and wagging his finger, but Screech looked away.
“Nothing I can do, Screech. I wish to God I could help him out, but there’s simply no way. Last I heard… last I heard, he was going for a psychiatric evaluation. He’s gonna go to trial on this, Screech. And the outcome doesn’t look good.”
Hearing the words from the sergeant’s mouth made Drake’s heart sink. He’d given up hope of getting out of this unscathed, but in the back of his mind he’d clung to the idea that one day he’d be able to return to his girlfriend and their new baby. Return to them without putting them in danger, that is.
But it was clear by the tone in Sergeant Yasiv’s voice that this wasn’t going to be possible.
One week, Drake thought again. I have one week to find Ken Smith and make him pay for what he’s done.
“I understand,” Screech said. “I’ll look into labs and get back to you.”
There was a short pause before Yasiv added, “Thanks for this. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up the phone and the three men stared at each other. Eventually, Screech broke the silence.
“You heard the man, that shit’s killing people on the street and you want to put it back into circulation? You want this kid to get involved with these savages?”
Drake didn’t answer; he just turned to look at Leroy.
Leroy closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, they were filled with a lucidity that hadn’t been there before.
“I’ll do it,” he said at last. “I’ll do it for Declan and my mom. I’ll do it to find a way out.”
Chapter 25
Leroy swallowed hard and tried to keep his entire body from shaking. He wasn’t really sure why he’d agreed to what Drake had proposed. Sure, the man had gotten him good legal representation, but he’d brought him the bag he’d stolen from the crooked cops.
That made them even.
Maybe it’s because of Declan, he thought as he walked tentatively toward the subsidized apartment building. Maybe it’s to prove to him that I am, for once, not being a pussy.
This idea offered him little solace; he was fairly certain that in the next hour he’d end up just like him.
Dead.
For what felt like the thousandth time, he reached inside the front of his sweatshirt and adjusted the package. Satisfied that it wouldn’t slip out, he then fondled the camera that Screech had given him in his front pocket. It was discrete, not much bigger than a button. But to him, in that moment, it felt enormous, like a cinder block that stretched his jeans to the maximum.
A siren sounded somewhere behind him, and Leroy whipped around so quickly that he almost fell on his ass. An NYPD squad car tore down the street, not slowing even as it veered around a handful of school children who had no business being up at this hour.
“Calm down,” Leroy told himself. But his words had no way, not here.
With a deep, shuddering breath, he turned back to the apartment complex and started walking again. He’d only taken two steps before someone appeared out of the darkness and grabbed the back of his head.
“You got some balls showing your face around here, nigga,” the fat man who’d chased Leroy the day his brother had been killed growled in his ear.
“I’ve—I’ve got—”
But Leroy couldn’t find the words.
What was he supposed to say in this situation, anyway? I need to speak to your thug lord? You know, the man who killed my brother, the same one who came to my school while someone — likely you — vandalized my apartment and beat up my mom?
Oh, yeah, before I forget, I’ve got the drugs that you were looking for when you trashed my place, by the way. I mean, I hid them well, but now I’ve had a change of heart.
You can have them back. No strings attached. Pinky swear.
But apparently Leroy didn’t need to say anything.
The man, still gripping him tightly by the hood, reached inside the front of his sweatshirt and wrenched out the package of heroin.
When he saw what it was, his eyes narrowed; clearly, he’d expected that Leroy was here for a different reason, probably to try and even the score.
But when he held the package up to the yellow street light and saw the clear tape with the symbol of the snake eating the eyeball, he sneered.
“Now where the fuck did you get this?” he demanded, letting go of Leroy’s hoodie.
He stumbled forward, but then righted himself and spun around to look the man straight in the eyes.
“It don’t matter where I got it from,” he said quickly, imbued by a courage that he hadn’t known he possessed. “All that matters is that I want to give it to your—” he hesitated, stopping himself before using the word ‘boss’. “—to the man with the chain.”
The fat man chuckled.
“Let me get this straight: we kill your brother and you come bearing gifts?”
Leroy felt a twitch of anger somewhere deep inside him, but he forced it back down.
“I just want this to end—I want to squash this.”
One more up down, and the man grabbed Leroy by the hoodie again. Without another word, Leroy was guided gruffly through the playground, then up to the apartment entrance, where they passed a thug smoking a joint.
“Chris ain’t gonna believe this shit,” the man mumbled under his breath. “That nigga gonna flip.”
Chapter 26
Drake ground his teeth as he stared across the street at the semi-detached home that, for a very short period of time, he’d called home.
He ground his teeth, because he didn’t know what to do next. The truth was, if it hadn’t been for Screech insisting, he wouldn’t even have found himself here; he’d still be back at Triple D trying to put together a back up plan to entrap Ken Smith.
But Screech had developed somewhat of a backbone since he’d last seen Drake and wouldn’t take no for an answer. And now he found himself sitting in a car much like he had months ago staring at Jasmine Cuthbert’s house.
He hadn’t known what to say to her then, and had no idea what to say now. The trumped up charges that DI Palmer tried to stick to Jasmine were easily dismissed, especially considering that Screech had wiped the photos from Ken’s hard drive.
But Drake was convinced that it was in her best interest to make a clean break. Associating with him would only make her life more difficult, given his current legal troubles. Besides, what Beckett had said on multiple occasions wasn’t that far from the truth…
But now that I’m out, at least for the week, I should go see her. I want to see her.
&n
bsp; And he wanted to see his son as well. Drake had spent a total of five minutes with Clay before he’d been arrested.
“Fuck,” he whispered, rubbing his eyes.
Like a Band-aid, he decided to just tear it off. He really did want to see her and hold his son.
Drake reached for the door handle and tried to open it, but grabbed the window crank instead and almost tore it off.
“Jesus,” he grumbled. He wasn’t used to Hanna’s car; he’d been driving his Crown Vic for so long until it was stolen that it was all he knew. Sure, he’d taken Veronica’s Tesla for a while, but that had pretty much driven itself. But Hanna’s piece of shit—
A police cruiser suddenly turned onto Jasmine’s street and Drake hunkered down into his seat. His hand slowly made its way from the door handle to the keys that were still dangling form the ignition. With his Crown Vic, he’d managed to evade a police car before, but in this car? In Hanna’s ride?
He doubted that he would be able to outrun a drunken tortoise.
But as Drake watched, he realized that he might not have to run.
The NYPD cruiser pulled up to the curb and two officers stepped out. They glanced around briefly and Drake sunk even lower into the worn upholstered seats.
His mind was racing.
Did they find out that I’m missing already? How? Did Hanna… no, why would she?
As the two men started up Jasmine’s steps, Drake pulled his cell phone out and switched it to the camera.
One of the officers knocked on the door, while the other one stood guard, looking back towards the street.
Less than a minute later, the door opened and Drake saw her for the first time in months.
Jasmine was as beautiful as she’d been the day she’d given birth. And like that day, her cheeks were slightly flushed and her dark hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Without hesitation, she stepped from the house, a finger to her lips. Then she closed the door halfway behind her.
There was something surreal about this initial exchange; not only did it appear as if she knew them, but it was like she expected them.
Drake snapped several photos of the officers, trying to focus on their faces through the car window.
As Jasmine and the officer who was wearing sunglasses even though it was dark out, started to discuss something, it looked even more to Drake like they knew each other.
“What the hell is going on?” he mumbled under his breath.
He continued to take photographs as the officer reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and pulled something out. Drake immediately sat ramrod straight in his chair, no longer concerned about being seen.
The man passed a yellow envelope to Jasmine, who exchanged it for a larger package that she retrieved from just inside the door.
There was a curt, final exchange before the two officers made their way back to their car.
“What the fuck?”
Breathing heavily, Drake once again lowered himself into his seat as they got into their cruiser and pulled away.
When they were gone, he turned back to Jasmine who remained on the porch. For one, terrifying second, Drake thought their eyes met, but then she turned and went back into the house.
Confused, unwilling to accept what he’d seen, Drake glanced down at his cell phone and scrolled through the images.
I’m just tired… tired and bruised. The cops were just asking about me, about the trial. Or maybe it had to do with something else entirely; Clay’s pension, perhaps.
But when the image of Jasmine and the item that she’d handed over filled the screen, he audibly groaned.
It wasn’t a stack of paper, some forms she’d filled out, or the sacred family casserole recipe.
No, in her hand was a package. A package that Drake was all too familiar with.
A brown paper package, one wrapped in clear tape that had the symbol of a snake eating an eyeball all over it.
Chapter 27
“What the fuck?”
The man who shot Leroy’s brother bolted to his feet. He’d been sitting behind a desk, one that was clearly meant to look like a prop from Scarface, but was most likely an IKEA special, when Leroy entered.
Leroy didn’t flinch.
Even when the thug scooped up a pistol and aimed it at him, Leroy somehow managed to remain calm.
He’d gotten this far, after all. If they wanted to kill him, no amount of pleading or begging would change their minds.
So be it.
“BT, why you bring this nigga here? Why the fuck would—”
As gold incisor made his way around the desk, one of the several junkies who was splayed out on the floor got in the way, and he shoved her aside with his foot.
“Why’d you bring him here?”
“’Cuz he brought dis,” the fat man named BT said, producing the brick of heroin and slamming it on the desk.
The man scratched his cheek with the barrel of the pistol.
“Is that—” he turned back to Leroy, a sneer on his face now. “You bring gifts, son?”
Leroy nodded.
“A truce,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice from cracking.
A strange silence fell over the room — even the passed out junkies seemed to stop snoring for a moment — and then gold incisor pressed the pistol against the center of his forehead.
Leroy closed his eyes.
I’m sorry, ma, he thought. I’m sorry I couldn’t get out. I know—
But the bullet he’d expected never came; instead, the pressure on his forehead subsided, and Leroy heard someone laugh.
It wasn’t a hearty chuckle or a high-pitched giggle, but something in between.
He opened his eyes.
“You bring me a gift,” the thug said, using the gun to indicate his own chest. “Me.”
Leroy swallowed hard and casually moved his right hand closer to his pocket that contained the video camera.
“I don’t want no trouble. That shit there is a brick of heroin. The good shit.”
One of the junkies whose skin had the texture and color of clarified butter stirred.
“Calm down, you’ll get yer fix,” gold incisor muttered. As he moved to the desk to inspect the brick, Leroy glanced around.
The room in which they stood was a perfect square, with the thug’s desk located directly across from the only door. To his left was a book case filled with drug paraphernalia. There was so much clutter on it, that Leroy figured there was no way that someone would notice the button-sized camera. It would also provide a perfect view of the desk.
As Leroy slipped a hand into his pocket, he heard his mother’s voice inside his head and felt another pang of guilt.
You’re the only one who can get out of here, Leroy.
Not only had he not gotten out, but he was becoming more entrenched than his brother had ever been.
“Yo Chris, what should we do wit’ him?” BT asked.
Gold incisor, whose name was evidently Chris, turned around, but this time he didn’t aim the gun at Leroy. Instead, he held it at his waist in crossed hands.
“Where’d you get this from?”
Drake had told him that this question would eventually come up. He’d also warned Leroy that if the thugs thought he’d stolen it from them, from one of the many dealers in Chris’s network, he’d end up dead. Likewise, if he gave up his source: dead. If he wasn’t able to convince them that he was capable of getting more: dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
“I asked you a question,” Chris asked, slowly raising the gun again.
If all answers led to death, there was no fucking way Leroy was going to provide a response.
His only course of action was to ignore the query.
“Open it, tell me I’m lying,” Leroy said. “I didn’t cut it with nothin’.”
Chris squinted at him for a moment, and then hooked a chin at BT. The big man waddled over to the desk, grabbed a knife and slit the package down a seam. Then he used the flat of th
e blade to scoop out a small amount of the yellow-white powder. After bringing it to his nose and sniffing it, he looked to Chris for further instructions.
Chris cocked his head at the nearest junkie — a woman who was only wearing an over-sized t-shirt that barely covered her bony chest — and BT grabbed her by her greasy hair and dragged her closer.
Drug Lord- Part I Page 9
