Drake took one more look back at the captain, who was still staring at him with those red-rimmed eyes, before turning back to the jungle.
“Fuck it,” he whispered with a shrug before hurrying after Diego.
***
If it hadn’t been for Diego, Drake could have easily seen himself wandering aimlessly in the jungle until he perished from dehydration and heatstroke. But the little Colombian was like some sort of bush ninja, dodging and weaving branches and shrubbery alike, following secret, organic road signs that only he could see. And, huffing and puffing as he tried to keep up, Drake emerged from the thicket less than an hour later.
“What the hell?”
The change in scenery was so sudden, that he actually looked back the way he’d come just to make sure that this wasn’t some sort of mirage.
And Diego was still there, grinning at him.
“We going here,” he said, pointing at a small, concrete building that had what looked like a first-generation air-conditioning unit hanging out a wooden opening in the wall.
Normally, Drake would have protested—in and out, I’m here for two reasons, that’s it—but he was so damn hot that just the idea of air-conditioning was enough to give him a chill. Not that it would have mattered anyway; Diego was off again, bounding toward the building.
A few seconds later, the man was holding the door open for him, still smiling broadly. With cool air spilling out, Drake picked up his pace and stepped inside.
Even though it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior, he didn’t need to see to know what sort of establishment he found himself in.
In New York City, Montreal, Mexico, and even Colombia, it seemed, the characteristic sounds of a bar were all the same: muted chatter, terrible music, and the occasional clinking of glasses.
Diego led the way to a small table and took a seat. Drake slid into the booth across from him.
“El phantasmo, you want to drink?”
Drake wiped his forehead with his palm and was surprised to see that his hand was shaking.
That was answer enough; Diego whistled and raised a hand high in the air. That too, it appeared, was universal.
Chapter 19
Screech shook his head.
“You've got to be kidding me. You have to be fucking kidding me.”
Sgt. Yasiv pressed his lips together and mimicked Screech’s head movements.
“I’m not.”
Furious, Screech looked over at Hanna who simply shrugged. Leroy, on the other hand, had a strange, bewildered expression on his face; the boy looked out of his depth, mostly because he was out of his depth.
They all were.
“Please tell me this is a joke. After all we've been through? Leroy almost getting shot in the face, Drake nearly mauled to death in prison, Hanna nearly murdered by a serial killer, and—”
“Well, he didn't really try to—”
Screech ignored Hanna and continued in a rapid clip.
“—and I was nearly blown up by a maniac with an assault rifle. And for what? You’re telling me that that’s still not enough to end this? That we still have to be involved in this crazy shit?”
Yasiv’s tone was calm and even, and yet Screech detected anger buried deep down.
“Ken's not coming back to New York—I doubt we’ll ever see him again. But, if by some chance he does return, we’ve got more than enough to put him behind bars for a long time. As for Raul? He’ll cave, plead out. Get fifteen, serve two-thirds. Palmer and the other cops are trying to work the legal system to their advantage, but they’re not going anywhere, either. The DA is desperately trying to hold onto his job, and the only way to do that is to make sure these corrupt bastards see some jail time; real jail time. And we know what happens to cops in prison.”
As he spoke, Yasiv pulled a worn sheet of paper out of his pocket and slowly unfolded it. Then he held it out to Screech, but he refused to take it.
He knew what it was, whose names were on it.
“No, no way,” Screech said, shaking his head again. “We got everybody on that list. We got everybody who mattered. Horatio is dead. Ken is on the run. Raul is in chains. Ray Reynolds? Dead. That Russian sex trafficker fuck? Also dead.”
“There’s still one more; there’s still Steffani Loomis.”
Screech threw his hands up in frustration. He couldn't believe this; he thought that this was behind him, that never again would he have to hear about ANGUIS Holdings or the Church of Liberation or any of this shit.
With Ken gone, he’d figured that the last peg would just fall into place. After all, shit flowed downstream, didn’t it?
“You go after Steffani. Use all your manpower in the NYPD and you go after her.”
Yasiv exhaled loudly.
“I can't.”
“And why the fuck not?”
“Because she's connected.”
Screech looked to the heavens and opened his mouth in a silent scream.
“Look, her dad is high up in the military. I can't go after her, but you can… so long as there is one high-ranking member of ANGUIS Holdings left—”
“I don't care.”
“I’m telling you, Screech. This entity that Ken set up… it really is a snake. A fucking venomous snake.”
Screech glared at him.
“Snake? Snake? This goddamn thing is more like a fuckin’ worm; you cut off a little piece of the worm, and it just keeps on living. Even though after we’ve cut into—what? Four? Five pieces?—it just keeps on living. When is this ever going to stop?”
“Well, technically, a worm can only survive if you cut it above the clitellum. Even then, only one—”
“Shut up, Leroy,” Screech snapped. Even before the word had come out of his mouth, he regretted it. “Shit… sorry. I just thought… I just thought we were done with all this shit.”
He took a deep breath and massaged his forehead.
I wish… I wish I let my brother go to prison and never had to cut a deal and take this goddamn job.
“Me too,” Yasiv said softly. “Me too.”
After several seconds of silence, Yasiv pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and held it out to Leroy.
Screech barely noticed this interaction; he was still fuming about the prospect of being dragged back into this mess.
“Wait—is that… is that Declan’s chain?” Leroy asked.
Yasiv nodded.
“Yeah. Managed to get it out of evidence. Take it.”
Leroy swallowed hard and reached for the plastic bag. He had tears in his eyes as he looked through the plastic at the gold chain.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “Thanks for—”
“What can we even do about this, Yasiv? In case you haven’t noticed, Drake's not here and none of us are even registered PIs.”
Yasiv turned back to Screech, his face hardening again. Then he reached into his pocket for what felt like the thousandth time and pulled out three wallet-sized ID badge holders. He handed one to each of them.
“Yeah, I figured you might say that. I managed to pull a few strings, fudge the requirements given what you guys did in the Ken Smith case—not everyone was under his spell. This also means you guys can carry, by the way, except for you, Leroy.”
Screech didn’t even bother looking at the ID.
“It doesn't matter; we’re tapped out here. We spent all our money getting this place up and running, and now you tell us that we need to take on a woman whose father is in the military? Do we—” Screech gestured to the three of them, realizing how inept they appeared, —”look like we’re capable of something like that?”
Yasiv shrugged.
“I’ve seen you do more with less, to be honest.” Screech opened his mouth to protest, but Yasiv held up a hand, silencing him. “Dunno, Screech. I'm just telling you the way it is, Screech. Ken might be gone and the network that he used to distribute his product is destroyed, but so long as ANGUIS still exists, so long as Steffani’s still around, thin
gs will eventually go back to the way they were; regress to the mean. And when they do, what do you think is going to happen to this shop you have here? To DSLR Investigations or whatever you call yourself? People know what you guys did. People know, and they’ll come for you.”
Screech had had enough; the sergeant’s words were bordering on a threat now. And while he might be nothing like Drake, Screech didn’t take kindly to threats, either.
“That's it,” he said under his breath.
“I came here to help, to —”
“That's it!” Screech suddenly shouted. “Get out!”
“Screech, maybe—” Hanna began, but Screech was having none of it.
“Yasiv, get the fuck out!”
Yasiv just stared at him for a moment, the outer corners of his eyes drooping just a little. For a second, Screech felt sorry for the man. After all, he’d put everything on the line to bring down ANGUIS, as well.
But they’d still given more; the namesakes of DLSH Investigations had given nearly everything.
“Get out!”
Yasiv didn't need to be told a fourth time. He spun around and quickly left the room.
When he was gone, and the door was closed behind him, the three of them just stood there in silence.
And then Screech cursed and yanked the desk drawer open.
“Well?” he asked, holding up the bottle of Johnny Blue. “What the hell are you waiting for? Get some goddamn glasses.”
Chapter 20
The beer helped cool Drake down. It also helped to stop his hand from shaking.
Only after he’d downed half the glass of some no-name beer did Drake take the opportunity to look around. This was no tourist bar; that much was obvious. In fact, he was the only gringo in sight. It helped, he supposed, that he hadn’t shaved in well over a month and that there were still hints of the bruises on his face from the beating he’d taken in prison; and yet it felt like everybody in the room was staring at him, nonetheless.
“Where is it that you want to go, el phantasmo?” Diego said finally, sipping his own beer.
Drake hated that name, but he’d also given up trying to convince the man to just call him Drake.
“I'm looking for somebody.”
Diego nodded.
“Another gringo.”
Drake concurred.
On a whim, he pulled out the photograph that he’d shown the maître d' back in the Virgin Gorda. Diego studied it for several moments before speaking up.
“It's a lot nicer than the boat we came in on,” he remarked.
Drake smirked. Indeed, a lot nicer.
“I've seen it before—on the news,” he continued. “It burned down.”
“Yeah, I saw that, too. They said my brother was on it, but nothing was ever sent to me or any of my family in New York. If he was on the boat, I want to see his body.”
The words came out with surprisingly little emotion. With all that had happened with Ken Smith, he’d had no time to properly grieve for his brother. Drake had simply compartmentalized his death in an area of his brain to access later.
And yet, it was later, and he was still unfettered by the idea that Dane was dead.
Drake wasn’t sure if this was because he held out hope that his brother was still alive somewhere, that he’d just disappeared as the man had done all those years ago, or if he’d just lost the ability to feel.
Drake grabbed his beer and took a mouthful of the malted water.
“Maybe he’s still alive,” he said after swallowing, but it was unclear if he was trying to convince Diego or himself.
The man across from him downed his own beer then signaled for the waiter to bring another round. When the drinks arrived, Drake reached into his pocket for the few American dollars he had left, but Diego beat him to it.
“This one's on me. You should drink up—you’ll need your strength.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed.
“For what?”
“For your brother, because I know where he is. It's a long walk from here. Drink, then we’ll go see him.”
Chapter 21
Together, Hanna and Screech finished off more than a third of the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. Leroy was more interested in his brother's chain than the booze, which was just as well, given his age.
“WWDD?” Hanna said, lifting her glass and staring at the golden liquid. “What the fuck would Damien Drake do?”
“He's not Jesus,” Screech grumbled, before finishing his drink.
“No, he's definitely not that.”
“Because if he was, he could’ve walked to Colombia, instead of asking to borrow ten grand to get there.”
“He really is there, isn’t he? Chasing down Ken Smith?” Hanna asked.
Screech shrugged.
“Honestly? I don’t know where he is.”
“I doubt he’d give up, and as much as it annoys me to say this, I don’t think we should, either. I mean, I wasn't here in the beginning, when this all started, but don’t we owe it to him to see this through? After all, it's his name on the door, isn’t it?”
“No, not anymore; it’s our names on the door,” Screech corrected.
“You know what I mean.”
Screech wanted to disagree with her but couldn’t bring himself to do it. She was right, in a way. They owed him. After all they’d sacrificed along the way, Screech couldn’t imagine it being for naught, of ANGUIS Holdings eventually returning to power.
There was also something to be said for completeness, finality.
Thoughts of what Drake might do should he accomplish the nearly impossible task of hunting down Ken Smith in Colombia came to mind, which instantly reminded him of another person who was there in the beginning: Beckett.
Beckett had his own ideas of finality.
Screech shuddered involuntarily then reached out and refilled his glass.
There was another reason for wanting to put an end to all this, aside from the moral and ethical implications. Steffani Loomis and ANGUIS Holdings was the final string that held him to Drake. As much as he owed the man, as much as he liked the man—most of the time, anyway—Screech also wanted to be free of the spiderweb that seemed to govern his very movements.
And the only way to do that? Oh, why all they had to do was just take down a high-ranking military officer and his daughter.
Screech sighed.
“Fuck… How do we even go about doing this? Any ideas? I don't even know who Steffani Loomis is, where she lives, what she does. Nothing.”
Leroy cleared his throat.
“We can find out, look into if she has any sort of online presence, social media, that sort of thing. I’m guessing that she’s not posting selfies with bricks of heroin, but there’ll be a history, a trail.”
Hanna nodded in agreement.
“You know, I once worked as an executive assistant to the CEO of a hospital. A new hire, this man was the charismatic leader that the hospital needed. They were looking to break ground on a new site, but the government was dragging its feet. So, the Board of Directors brought this man in knowing that he would do whatever it takes to get things moving. And you wanna know what he did?”
“Quit?”
Hanna rolled her eyes.
“He broke ground himself. Literally; one day, the man, who was built like a penguin, by the way, got a shovel out and just started digging.”
Screech sighed.
“What's your point, Hanna?”
“Well, anyways, to make a long story short, the hospital got built, but the CEO wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He’d organized a kickback of ten or eleven million dollars from the construction company they hired to finish the job. But here's the thing: as soon as all this came to light? The embezzlement? The fraud? Everyone around the CEO, everyone who had previously sung the man’s praises—friends, politicians, the Board of Directors themselves—they immediately distanced themselves from him. It was like he was the black fucking plague. It didn't mat
ter what they’d said before, how close they were, they just lied through their teeth to try to stay afloat the sinking ship.”
Screech chewed the inside of his lip, finally understanding the analogy.
“So, let me guess, whatever's left of ANGUIS Holdings, including Steffani Loomis, is going to be doing everything in their power to distance themselves from Ken Smith.”
Hanna nodded glumly.
“Right on, Durango. That's exactly what happened. But… but, while they did everything they could to stay away from the CEO, the relationships between one another just grew stronger. You know how Drake kept rambling about power as a driving motivator for these people? Well, these fucking people didn’t see this as a time to clean up their act, but a time to grab the power that was left in the CEO’s wake. It’s what brought them all down in the end.”
Screech and Leroy waited for Hanna to continue, but she just looked at them.
“…that’s what brought them down, in the end,” she repeated after a few moments. “…end. That’s it. All I got. What the hell are you waiting for? Why are you staring at me like that?”
It was Leroy who spoke up first.
“You were an executive assistant? You?”
Screech chuckled; he couldn’t help himself, mostly because he was thinking the same thing. He couldn’t picture this woman, this woman who had multiple piercings in her ears and used to have her head half-shaved, being subservient to anyone. Probably, the CEO was working for her, only he didn’t know it.
“Fuck off.”
“Okay, okay, easy now,” Screech said. “So, what are you saying? You're saying that we should find out what country club all these rich and powerful people hang out in and infiltrate them, MI6 style?”
Hanna stared at him blankly.
“Nothing gets by you, Ken Jennings.”
“Yeah, no offense, but I definitely don't fit in that crowd, and I don’t think either of you does, either,” Leroy offered. “And I’m thinking you can’t just waltz up to the golf course and ask for a membership.”
Screech frowned. The boy was right.
Drug Lord- Part II Page 6
