Before he knew what was happening, BT grabbed him by the arm and led him towards the door.
Start-up cost… school… fifty stacks… ohmefentanyl…
Leroy’s mind was swimming. A month ago, he’d just been a regular kid in the ghetto, trying to use his brain to think his way out.
Now he was indebted to a murderer and was committed to providing him with a kilogram of heroin each and every week.
What the fuck just happened?
Chapter 31
Drake burst into Triple D and went straight to the bottle on Screech’s desk. His partner looked at him as he entered, his eyes wide, but Drake didn’t even acknowledge him.
He didn’t even bother getting a glass.
He just took a gulp straight from the bottle.
“That bad, huh?” Screech said, his voice devoid of humor.
Drake just shook his head.
He still couldn’t wrap his mind around what he’d seen. The other photo, the one of Jasmine holding the brick and smiling back when Clay had been alive, could be rationalized, explained, justified. But this… what else could this be other than Jasmine selling dope to the cops?
“Drake, you all right?” Screech asked.
Drake swallowed another mouthful of scotch.
“Fine,” he grumbled.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Drake frowned. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about what he’d seen. He didn’t even want to think about it.
To change the subject, he nodded toward the computer screen. On it was a live feed of a black man sitting behind a desk rolling a joint the size of a miniature baseball bat.
“Shit, is that… did the kid get it done?” Drake asked, leaning in close.
Screech hesitated.
“Leroy set up the camera, yeah,” he said in a soft voice. “But Drake, they nearly killed him. They almost shot him right there, right on camera. I watched the whole thing.”
Drake ignored his partner and sucked back some more scotch. It burned on the way down his throat and again in his stomach.
“That’s good,” he said to himself. “That’s really good.”
Screech suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm.
“That’s good? That’s good? He’s just a fucking kid, Drake. A confused kid who lost his brother. And now—fuck, this chick—”
Drake shook off Screech’s hand and was about to say something when the door to Triple D was thrown open again. He whipped around, but then relaxed when he saw that it was only Leroy.
“Jesus Christ,” Screech cursed, exhaling loudly. “What the fuck happened in there?”
Leroy, like Drake moments before, strode directly over to the desk. Thinking that the kid was going to strike him, Drake backed away. But when Leroy’s hand shot out, it went for the bottle.
Drake gave it to him and watched as the kid took a sip. It had barely touched his lips before he coughed and sputtered into his hand.
“I think… I think I pissed myself,” Leroy said softly.
Drake stared at the kid for a moment and then looked at the computer screen.
“But you got the camera in place. That’s good. That’s real good.”
He took the bottle back from Leroy and drank.
Screech backed away from them both and held his hands out in front of him.
“This is insane,” he said. “Why can’t you see that? The girl almost died in the video, Drake. One shot of that fucking poison and she almost died. And then Leroy almost got shot. I can’t… I can’t do this…”
Screech continued to back away, but Drake’s attention was on Leroy.
“You don’t gotta do it again. One time and it’s done. All we needed was the camera to be set up. You can go back now.”
Leroy blinked several times before answering.
“Go back? Go back where? I can’t go home. I can’t face my mom.”
Drake shrugged, which set Leroy off.
“I had to promise that fucking maniac that I would bring him a kilo of heroin a week. Each week. Where the fuck am I going to get that from? If I don’t… he’s gonna kill me like he killed Declan. God only knows what he’ll do to my mom.”
Drake’s eyes flicked to the computer monitor, and he watched as the thug behind the desk sucked in and then exhaled a huge cloud of smoke.
“Fuck,” he grumbled.
He hadn’t meant for it to go this far.
Maybe Screech is right, maybe—
Drake’s world suddenly started to spin and he had to brace himself on the back of a chair to keep from falling. Screech was at his side in an instant, helping him sit.
“This is fucked up, Drake. I’ve been through a lot of shit with you, but this is fucked. Goddammit, you escaped from prison, for Christ’s sake. You can’t be thinking straight. This isn’t the way to do it. This is fucking… it’s fucking wrong.”
With a trembling hand Drake tried to grab the bottle again, but Screech pushed it just out of reach.
“And this ain’t helping.”
Drake slumped back into his chair. When he blinked, it took a long time for his eyes to open again.
“What we do now?” Leroy asked.
Drake looked at the computer and sighed heavily.
“Now we wait—we watch and wait. What the hell else can we do?”
Chapter 32
Screech was so tired that he could barely keep his eyes open. But unlike Drake and Leroy, who had since passed out in front of the computer screen, he forced himself to stay awake.
And the entire time he had his cell phone clutched in his hand, debating if—when—he should call Sergeant Yasiv. He knew that Drake meant well, he always did, but this wasn’t right.
But what if Yasiv went to DI Palmer? What if they got suspicious and drove to Green Acres or wherever Drake was supposed to be and found out that he wasn’t there? Then what?
“What the fuck do I do?” he muttered through clenched teeth. “What in the holy fuck do I do?”
Movement on the computer screen drew his attention, and Screech collapsed into his chair in front of it. He nudged a snoring Drake out of the way to get a better view.
At long last, Chris rose from his desk and wobbled out of the frame, leaving only the two junkies in the room.
Riveting, Screech thought as he grabbed the bottle of scotch and took a swig. Then he leaned backward and stretched his neck and spine. He felt like a hundred years old.
Being awake at five in the morning would do that to a person, he supposed.
Being friends with Drake would also do that.
With a groan, Screech was about to put his head on the desk like Leroy, who looked all of eleven years old now, when one of the junkies started to stir.
It was the same greasy blond chick who had tested Leroy’s product what seemed like a decade ago. Screech watched her curiously as she first glanced around the room, before pulling herself to her feet. Her movements were strange, like those of a marionette, and twice she nearly fell even though she’d traveled a grand total of three feet.
What the hell are you doing? Screech wondered. Go back to sleep—nothing good happens after midnight.
But the junkie had other ideas.
With her focus locked on Chris’s desk, her attentions suddenly became clear and Screech’s heart started to race.
“No, no, go back to sleep. Sleep it off, you fucking idiot,” he whispered, leaning even closer to the monitor.
By the time the junkie started to melt a massive spoonful of the off-white powder, Screech’s nose was pressed right up against the screen.
“Go to sleep, just go to sleep.”
But the junkie had no intentions of stopping now. She loaded a syringe to the maximum and wrapped rubber tubing around her narrow bicep.
“No, please,” Screech moaned. “Don’t.”
It took five full minutes for her to find a vein this time. And when she did, it took less than a second for her to inject the entire volume.
“No, no, no.”
The junkie’s body instantly went stiff and she collapsed to the ground, the syringe still dangling from the crook of her elbow.
“No!”
Chapter 33
Drake awoke to someone shouting. Instinct took over, and he reached for the gun on his hip only to find that it wasn’t there. His eyes snapped open next and he quickly surveyed his surroundings. Screech was in front of the computer, desperately grabbing the sides, moaning something unintelligible.
“What’s wrong? Screech, what’s wrong?” Drake snapped.
He tried to get a look at the monitor, but the screen was completely blocked by Screech’s thin frame. Drake reached out and grabbed his arm, and the man jumped.
“Screech? What the fuck is going on?”
Screech turned slowly and Drake was shocked to see that there were tears running down his cheeks.
“We killed her,” he said. “Drake, we killed her.”
Drake frowned and he gently guided Screech out of the way.
“We killed who, Screech? Who did we—”
But when he saw the image on screen, he realized what Screech meant.
Drake caught the final seconds of the woman in the soiled t-shirt undergoing a grand mal seizure before falling limp. He stared at her chest, willing it to rise and fall again, but he already knew that she was dead.
It was in her eyes, which were open and unblinking; they were empty.
“Fuck,” Drake whispered, his gaze moving away from the woman to the brick on the table that had been torn open as if by rabid dogs.
At that moment, Leroy awoke and raised his head.
“We killed her,” Screech repeated, and Drake hushed him.
Screech pulled back violently.
“Don’t you fucking hush me.”
Drake had seen Screech at his best and his worst over the two, two and a half years he’d known the man, but he’d never seen him like this.
Screech was furious.
“What happened? What’s going on?” Leroy asked after clearing his throat.
“Nothing,” Drake grumbled, his eyes locked on Screech. “Nothing happened.”
“Nothing? Nothing? We fucking killed that girl. If it wasn’t for us—”
“If it wasn’t us, she would’ve gotten her smack from someone else. She might not have died today, but she would have died tomorrow or the next day,” Drake interjected, deliberately blocking Leroy’s line of sight of the screen.
Screech rose to his full height, towering over the still seated Drake.
This wasn’t just fury, Drake realized. This was pent-up anger that had been building for a long time.
“You sound just like all the other drug dealers out there. Like a fucking pimp.”
The word stung Drake, considering what he’d gone through with Veronica not that long ago.
“Oh, I’m doing nothing wrong,” Screech continued in a mocking tone. “I’m not forcing these people to shoot up—I’m not forcing them to do anything. I’m just providing a product that the market demands. I’m a business man, just like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. That’s how you justify it, Drake? Really?”
Drake clenched his teeth and looked over at Leroy, who still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying, Screech. What I’m saying is that what we’re doing here is trying to stop this shit. I want this poison off the streets as much as you do. But what you don’t seem to realize is that intercepting one of these packages ain’t gonna cut it. I was in that shipping container, Screech, I smelled the girls’ sweat, their piss and shit and vomit. I know the stakes, trust me. So what do you want us to do? Take that package and, what, burn it? Bury it? Then what? Then next week, they’ll double the shipment. Account for expected losses. Getting rid of one kilo won’t do shit. We need to go to the source, cut the head off the snake. We need to get to Ken fucking Smith.”
Screech stared at him for a long time before finally replying.
“I don’t know who you are anymore,” he said softly. Drake watched as he reached for the cell phone on the desk. “You know, Beckett said that you were always trying to do the right thing, that your heart was always in the right place, Drake. And I believed that. But I don’t know… I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. You’re obsessed. You’ve been rationalizing your actions,” Screech’s eyes darted down to the screen and he started to scroll through his contacts, “for so long I don’t think you even know what is right anymore. First there was the Skeleton King—”
That was it; the culmination of everything that had happened to Drake—all of his injuries, Jasmine, Clay, Ken Smith, all of it—came to a head and he rocketed to his feet, raising a clenched fist high above his head.
“It is about the Skeleton King!” He shouted. Screech backed up and bumped into the desk, nudging the computer monitor so that Leroy finally got a good look at it. “It’s always been about the Skeleton King! It’s always been about Ken Smith! You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Screech. You’re the one who’s trying to rationalize what you did… the pictures you took.”
Drake was about to punch Screech, when a hand grabbed his arm and he whipped around.
It was Leroy.
And it was the young man’s face, a young man who less than two months ago was just a regular kid attending high school, but now whose entire life had been flipped upside down, that gave Drake pause.
And time to reconsider everything that had happened.
But then he saw Screech bringing the phone up to his ear and his anger returned.
“Who are you calling?” he demanded.
Screech’s Adam’s apple bobbed several times before he finally answered.
“Yasiv,” he said in an oddly calm voice. “I’m calling Sergeant Yasiv and I don’t give a shit what you say.”
Chapter 34
“Yasiv? I have to… I need to report…” Screech sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. “There’s been another overdose, Yasiv.”
Drake watched Screech closely as he spoke.
“Yeah, East 178th Street and Washington,” Screech said. “Yeah, just send someone. Please.”
“She’s not getting up,” Leroy muttered, and Drake turned briefly to look at the computer screen. BT and Chris had found the dead girl and were yelling at each other, although because the camera didn’t have sound it was hard for him to figure out exactly what they were shouting.
Drake cringed when Chris reared back and kicked the dead girl in the ribs.
She flopped like a rag doll.
Then he threw his arms up and BT took a shot at waking her, primarily by slapping her across the face.
“No I—” Screech stammered. “No, shit, I looked but none of the ANGUIS Holdings buildings are designated as a lab, as far as I can tell.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed. He’d completely forgotten about what Yasiv had said when he’d called to ask Screech for help.
But that was Screech’s domain. Drake’s was out on the street, pounding the pavement.
“Yeah, I’ll see if I can cross-reference shipments with any of the buildings. Thanks, Yasiv—and please, send someone quick over to Tremont.”
Screech hung up the phone and turned to Drake.
“That was a mistake, Screech. Yasiv is going to send his men over there and the thugs are going to scatter like scared rats. They’ll set up shop somewhere else, and we’ll be back at square one.”
“There has to be another way.”
Drake shook his head.
“Like what? Like your way? Like finding an ANGUIS property that doubles as a heroin lab? How’s that working out for you?”
“I touched it,” Leroy said quietly.
“Yeah, well, at least my method doesn’t end up with dead bodies,” Screech shot back.
“I touched it,” Leroy repeated, but once again Drake ignored him.
“It will. Mark my words, when I get shipped back to prison, the
streets are going to be flooded with this shit. More people—”
Leroy suddenly reached out and tapped the computer monitor, drawing both Screech and Drake’s attention.
“I touch it,” he said a third time.
Drake eyed him suspiciously.
“It’ll be alright, Leroy. It wasn’t your fault.”
Leroy clenched his teeth.
“No, you don’t get it,” he said. “I touched it—the heroin. I was fucking playing with it in my hoodie before BT grabbed it—I wasn’t even thinking. Now, when the cops come, they’re going to run prints on it. Fuck. I was just arrested when that asshole Officer Pontiac and his fat fuck of a partner beat me upside the head. I told my mom, I promised my dying brother, that I would get out of the ghetto.” Leroy was becoming increasingly agitated, and Drake was forced to grab him by the shoulders in order to try and calm him. “I am only one who can get out. I can go to college, man. And my brother, he got involved with these thugs for me. So that I could go to school. But now? Now I’m going to go to prison, just like my deadbeat dad who I never met. I’m going—”
“Screech, give me a hand here,” Drake said as he forced Leroy into a chair.
Screech took over trying to calm him.
“We’re gonna figure it out, kid. Just… just relax. We’ll figure it out.”
Drake took a step back and stared at the screen again. The heroin was still there, the brown paper half torn, but there was no way that Chris and BT would leave it there. Even if the cops—
He saw Chris answer his cell phone, say a few words, then gesture madly at BT.
Someone had tipped them off.
“Shit,” Drake swore.
Then they scattered, just like he said they would. Only they didn’t take the heroin.
It was still lying on the shitty IKEA desk, front and center.
“Shit,” he repeated.
While Screech continued to try and console Leroy, Drake quickly walked to his office and removed the top drawer of his desk. Then he reached inside the body and felt around for the holster. A second later, he returned to the computer with a pistol tucked into the back of the jeans that Hanna had given him.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 46
