“What are you talking about? We confiscated the drugs from some dead junkie’s apartment. You’re off your rocker, man.”
“Pontiac, it’s him,” Dalton said suddenly. He was almost giddy, as if he were in the presence of a celebrity. “I swear, it’s him. This is what he was saying in court. All this crazy stuff about the mayor and—”
“Shut up, Dalton.”
And then something in Drake’s head clicked.
Officers Dalton and Pontiac.
These were the two officers who had put Leroy in prison, the very same ones who had sold drugs to his brother, Declan.
Drake was floored. He knew that there were maybe two dozen officers assigned to Tremont, a particularly large number given the borough’s history of drugs and violence. And yet, it just happened to be these two crooked cops who took the call? No, that was too much of a coincidence. They’d been tipped off, which was why they were in plainclothes; they’d been off-duty when Screech had reported the overdose.
That also explained why they’d dragged the junkie’s corpse onto the street; they wanted to make sure that their trap house remained untouched and intact.
All of this served to further substantiate Drake’s suspicion that Ken was using police officers to get his drugs on the street. And it made sense; what better network did he have at his disposal than police officers stationed all over the city? They could distribute the drugs with practical impunity. And if a particular officer acted up or threatened to snitch, they’d just end up like Detective Simmons.
Or Clay.
Drake ground his teeth.
“It’s you guys, isn’t? The cops… you guys are spreading the heroin all over the city.”
Pontiac made a face.
“You’ve lost your mind, man. Why don’t—”
“Tell me where you get it from. Is it Palmer? Do you guys do blind drops or do you pick it up from a warehouse? Something like that?”
Drake was grasping at straws, but he knew if he could find out where the product was distributed from, it would eventually lead to Ken Smith.
It had to; he was the top of the pyramid.
Officer Pontiac chuckled.
“Man, you are seriously—”
Drake thrust the shotgun forward so hard that the fabric on the seat began to tear from the strain.
“Tell me how you pick up the dope or I swear to God I’ll fill both you bastards with buckshot.”
Pontiac stopped laughing, but he didn’t say anything.
“Alright then, what about you, fat boy?” Drake asked, moving the shotgun from Pontiac’s spine to Dalton’s head. “You gonna tell me what I need to know or am I gonna paint the windshield red?”
The man swallowed hard and Pontiac shot him a look, but he eventually broke.
“W-w-we pick it up from a woman,” he stammered. “From a woman named Jasmine.”
“Dalton, you motherfucker. You—”
A string of obscenities spewed from Officer Pontiac’s mouth, but Drake heard none of it. All he heard was one name, repeated over and over in his mind: Jasmine.
“No,” he moaned.
Officer Pontiac must have seen the confusion in his face, because he used this to his advantage and pulled a hand away from his head. Only, instead of going for his gun as Drake expected, he went for the door lock.
Drake recovered from his shock and reached for the door handle, but he was too late.
The door was locked, the child lock was engaged; it could only be opened from the outside.
“Fuck!” Drake shouted, readjusting his grip on the shotgun. As the two officers scrambled to get out of the car, he swung the gun around and aimed it at the door.
Then he squeezed the trigger.
The sound was so loud that Drake’s ears felt like they’d exploded. For a brief second, his vision swirled and he nearly passed out from the concussive blast. But his ingrained instincts took over and he somehow managed to kick the door hard enough to cause the twisted metal to swing open. Still disoriented, Drake leaped out of the car, leading with the shotgun.
Even though Officers Pontiac and Dalton had gotten the jump on him, the former must have stumbled, because he was only now scrambling to his feet.
Drake was on him in an instant, wrapping an arm around his neck and jamming the shotgun into his back.
“Don’t move,” he ordered, but could barely hear his own voice.
He whipped around and spotted Officer Dalton crouched over the hood of the car, his pistol aimed straight ahead.
“Put the gun down or I’ll kill him!” Drake warned.
Again, his voice sounded strange and he stretched his jaw to try to pop his ears. Officer Pontiac must have noticed that something was wrong, as he tried to squirm free, but Drake tightened his grip on the man’s throat and he eventually stopped struggling.
The standoff lasted for less than a minute before Pontiac hissed at his partner.
“Put the gun down, you idiot!”
Dalton, a scowl on his doughy face, did as he was asked.
“Throw it on the ground,” Drake instructed.
Again, Dalton obeyed. Only then did Drake let go of Pontiac’s neck and, with the shotgun still pressed against his back, unclasped the officer’s gun and removed it from the holster. After tucking it into the front of his jeans, Drake ordered the two men around the back of the car. As he followed, he reached into the driver seat and popped the trunk.
“Get in,” he said.
His hearing had started to come back a little, but his words were still muffled and his head ached something fierce.
When neither man reacted, he shoved Officer Pontiac forward with the barrel of the shotgun.
“Get in,” he repeated.
The two officers just looked at each other, and Drake had had enough. He turned the shotgun to the ground and fired again. This spurred the men to action, and Officer Dalton immediately pulled his girth over the lip of the trunk and started to lower his big body inside.
Aware that the shotgun was now empty, Drake pulled Pontiac’s handgun from his belt and used that to motion toward the trunk.
“Your turn. Get the fuck in.”
The officer scowled and put his left leg inside, when Drake noticed another package with the all too familiar tape on it lying in plain view.
“Throw that out first,” he said.
Pontiac was scowling so hard now that it looked like the veins in his neck were going to burst.
“We’re gonna come for you, Drake. We all are,” he hissed as he tossed the package out of the trunk.
Knowing that the shotgun blasts would raise alarm even in this neighborhood at this hour, Drake shoved the man inside and then slammed the trunk closed.
Then he scooped up the heroin and returned to the front of the car to grab the plastic bag with the other brick.
He was about to sprint back to Hanna’s car when a thought occurred to him.
One more thing…
Drake reached into the front pocket of his jeans. He couldn’t remember grabbing one of Screech’s button cameras back at Triple D, but he must have, because there it was.
His goal was, and always would be, to get Ken Smith. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t do his due diligence and get these corrupt cops off the street in the process.
Drake stuck the camera on the back windshield and then hurried back to Hanna’s VW, chased by the muffled cries from the police officers locked in their own trunk.
Chapter 41
“Sergeant Yasiv? It’s Screech,” Screech said hurriedly, his eyes still locked on the computer screen.
“Yeah? You got something?”
“I think… I think I found the place where they’re making the ohmefentanyl. It was a warehouse that used to make tires, but has been unoccupied since ANGUIS Holdings purchased it some time last year.”
There was a muffled sound on the other end of the line.
“Sergeant Yasiv?”
When Yasiv returned to the line, his tone had
changed.
“Screech, what the hell is going on? I need—”
The door to Triple D blew open and Screech whirled around to see Drake stumble in. He clutched a plastic bag in one hand, and there was dried blood in each of his ears.
“What the fuck?” Leroy gasped as he hurried toward the man.
“Screech?” Yasiv demanded.
Screech gaped and Yasiv yelled his name again, louder this time.
“I’m gonna have to—I’m gonna have to call you back,” he said absently as he hung up the phone without waiting for a reply. Then he followed Leroy over to his friend and helped him into a chair.
“Drake, what the fuck happened to you?”
Drake looked stunned and Screech snapped his fingers in front of his face several times. After the third or fourth snap, the man’s eyes seemed to focus.
“I got the drugs back,” Drake said, raising the bag in his hand.
Leroy grabbed the bag from Drake and began rifling through it. He pulled out a misshapen brick that had been haphazardly rewrapped and set it on the table. Then he pulled out a second brick, this one still neatly packed, and placed it next to the first.
“Two of them? What the…” Leroy let his sentence trail off as he stared at the drugs.
Screech was more concerned with his partner than the dope.
“Drake? You all right? Tell me what happened.”
Drake just stared at him for a moment before pointing at his ears.
The next time Screech spoke, he did so slowly so that Drake could read his lips.
“Are you—”
The piercing sound of his cell phone ring filled the room and Screech quickly declined Yasiv’s call before turning back to Drake.
“Fuck, are you alright? What happened?”
“Got the drugs back,” he repeated.
“Yeah, but how? How—”
Screech’s phone rang again and he declined the call for a second time.
“Fucking hell,” he grumbled. “Drake, I think we found the place where they’re making the ohmefentanyl—a warehouse owned by ANGUIS Holdings. I was just—fuck!”
This time Screech answered the call, putting a finger to his lips as he did.
“Yasiv, I’m sorry, I can’t—”
“Is he with you?” Yasiv hissed, cutting him off. Screech’s eyes went wide.
“Is who with me?”
“Drake… is he with you?”
Screech swallowed hard.
“No, of course not. He’s in custody, waiting for—”
“I just got a call from two off-duty cops in Tremont,” Yasiv interrupted. “These assholes are claiming that they were assaulted and then thrown in the trunk.”
Screech turned to Drake, mouth agape.
“You wanna take a stab at who they say the guy who held them hostage with a shotgun was?”
“John Wilks Booth?”
“Fucking Damien Drake. DI Palmer is losing his shit over here and is heading over to Oak Valley. Screech, if Drake’s with you—and I hope to god he isn’t—but if he’s with you, you gotta get him out of there.”
Screech’s eyes darted around, trying to figure out what the hell they should do.
“Yasiv, I don’t know—”
“Screech, get Drake out of there, now!”
Chapter 42
Yasiv smoked furiously as he and Deputy Inspector Lewis Palmer made the short walk from the parking lot to the front doors of Oak Valley Psychiatric Institution.
Even though the sun had just started its ascent, his brow was slick with sweat.
And his heart was racing.
“If he’s not here… if somehow that asshole managed to escape, I’m putting every cop in the entire city—no, the entire state, on his ass,” DI Palmer barked as he walked. The man had long, loping strides and Yasiv had to nearly jog to keep up.
“He’ll be here,” Yasiv said, but his words failed to even reassure himself. “Officers Dalton and Pontiac made a mistake. They said that the man was wearing a nylon… they just got confused. It couldn’t have been Drake.”
Yasiv took another drag of his cigarette, but it was already down to the filter and he burnt his lips.
“Naw, he got out. I don’t know how, but he did.”
Somehow Yasiv reached the door first and when he pulled it open, Palmer slid in front of him and walked inside.
Yasiv followed.
They found themselves in a sort of holding area, with bars in front of them preventing access to the facility, and a glass cage on the right. Yasiv assumed that the latter was where you checked in, only there was no one behind the desk.
Palmer reached out and knocked on the glass.
“Hey! Hey!” he hollered. “This is Deputy Inspector Lewis Palmer and I need to get inside.”
Yasiv swallowed hard as he waited for someone to appear, wishing to Christ that Drake wasn’t with Screech when he’d called; that this was, indeed, just a misunderstanding.
But if it wasn’t, he hoped by some miracle, that the man had somehow made it back in time.
Chapter 43
Hanna’s car might not have been as powerful as Drake’s old Crown Vic, but it was small, which was perhaps even more useful to help navigate New York City traffic.
He managed to get across the city in record time by blowing nearly every stop sign and at least four or five red lights.
People were honking at him, he was sure of it—he just couldn’t hear them on account of his still damaged ears.
Drake pulled onto the street that housed Oak Valley when he caught sight of a navy blue sedan turning into the main driveway. It was moving so quickly that the rear tired bumped the curb.
“Shit,” he swore.
He couldn’t believe it. It was DI Palmer’s car.
Drake slowed as he passed the driveway, but once he reached the first intersection, he made a hard right and then doubled back. Instead of heading to the main parking lot, he parked the VW in the staff lot near the side of the building. Then he jumped from the vehicle, ignoring the pain from his injuries, recent and old, and hurried to the door that Twig and Max had dropped him off at.
Drake took a deep breath and then knocked on the door. He was gentle at first—he had no idea who would answer—but as the seconds stretched into a minute, he gave up being discrete and started to pound.
He had to get inside before Palmer searched his cell.
Drake was in the middle of pulling his foot back to kick the door, when he heard the sound of a deadbolt turning. A second later, the door opened and Hanna’s pretty face stared out at him.
“Drake? What the fuck? What happened to you?”
“No time,” he said, rushing by her and entering the facility. “I gotta get back in my cell.”
Even though she couldn’t possibly know what was going on, Hanna didn’t hesitate. She hooked her arm through his and led him down a maze of hallways. Drake thought that the area looked familiar, but all of it pretty much looked the same.
“Where is it? Where’s—”
“Hanna to reception, Hanna to reception,” a voice boomed from an overhead intercom.
Hanna swore and yanked Drake down another hallway.
“They’re here for you, aren’t they?”
He nodded.
Hanna suddenly put on the brakes, stopping in front of the first unoccupied cell they passed. It wasn’t Drake’s, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. She brushed her ID card against the scanner on the wall, and the LED light on the gray box switched from red to green. Without another word, Hanna yanked the door open and shoved Drake inside. Before he realized what was happening, she’d already closed the door and locked it again.
“Clean yourself up,” Hanna shouted as she hurried toward reception. “I’ll do my best to stall them.”
Chapter 44
“Goddamnit, why is no one answering?” DI Palmer shouted as he continued to alternate knocking on the glass and pressing the call button. “Why the fuck is—”
A door on the other side of the glass opened and a girl with a face full of piercings and dark hair that was shaved on one side appeared.
“Please do not knock on the glass,” she said as she took up residence at the desk inside.
DI Palmer’s frown deepened.
“I’m Deputy Inspector Lewis Palmer—”
The woman waved a hand dismissively.
“I don’t care if you’re the Pope,” she said in a voice that made Yasiv smirk, despite the circumstances. “Don’t knock on the glass.”
DI Palmer’s upper lip curled, but he took a respective step backward.
“I’m DI Lewis Palmer,” he said, starting over. “And this is Sergeant Henry Yasiv. We’re here to see a recently admitted patient of yours, Damien Drake.”
The woman, who looked strangely familiar to Yasiv, turned her attention to the computer in front of her.
“One second,” she said, starting to type.
One second became five, and eventually several minutes. During this interval, Yasiv could feel Palmer becoming increasingly agitated, his hands fidgeting, his foot tapping.
Eventually, the woman raised her eyes.
“I’m sorry, but there are no scheduled visits today for Damien Drake.”
DI Palmer shook his head.
“No, your misunderstood. This isn’t a scheduled visit. It’s… I just need to see him. He is here, isn’t he?”
The woman pressed her lips together.
“Of course, he’s here. Patient Damien Drake doesn’t have outside privileges. Most of the patients here are confined to the building.”
“Great—I want to see him.”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t allow for unscheduled visits or visitors here at Oak Valley.”
“Goddamnit,” DI Palmer cursed, pulling out his badge and holding it up to the glass. “Did you not hear me, lady? I’m the deputy inspector of the NYPD. I want to see Damien Drake, and I want to see him now.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me, your Highness, so I’ll repeat myself: there are no unscheduled visits permitted at Oak Valley.”
Now it was Yasiv who felt anxious. Protocol or not, Palmer wasn’t going to leave without seeing Drake.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 48
