Only this one was smaller than the first and didn’t contain a hairbrush, but what looked like a vial filled with a dark liquid.
“Blood?” Drake said, eyebrow raised. “Is that her blood?”
Stitts nodded.
“They took it a while back before field test.”
Drake wondered how and why Stitts had Chase’s blood but decided to let this lie. They all had their secrets.
“I gotta go,” Stitts said suddenly.
Drake shook the man’s hand again.
“Thank you for this, Stitts. And I will find her.”
Stitts didn’t say anything. He offered a subtle nod as a response, then just turned and left Drake staring at his back as he exited Barney’s.
The man was a shell; an empty shell.
What happened to him? What happened that caused him to lose his soul? Drake wondered.
A flurry of images flooded his mind then, images of Jasmine, of Clay, of the hand-off on her porch.
He wondered if someday everything that had happened to him, that had happened because of him, would render him hollow, as well.
Drake shook his head and came to, removing the hairbrush from the bag as he walked back toward a now smiling Dr. Kruk.
“I’ve got what you want… now you need to tell me where those tapes are.”
Chapter 60
Screech was staring at the TV when there was a knock on the door. He bolted to his feet so quickly that he nearly knocked over the half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker on the desk.
Heart racing, he looked at the frosted glass. It didn’t appear to be one person, but two.
“Who is it?” he shouted, instinctively reaching beneath his desk for the pistol that Drake had given him long ago.
“Sergeant Yasiv. Open up, Screech,” a voice hollered back.
Screech let go of the gun and ran to the door. No sooner had he unlocked and opened it, did two men step inside: Sergeant Yasiv and Leroy, the latter of whom looked worse for wear.
“Jesus, you guys okay?” Screech asked. “What the hell happened?”
On the video feed from the camera that Drake had planted in Officer Pontiac’s car, Screech had seen the two corrupt cops scramble from the vehicle. Maybe five minutes later, Leroy also left the car, having to climb into the front seat first to get out.
But that was it. After that, the video had gone blank, leaving Screech wondering if the kid was alive or dead.
“I’m fine, just a little banged up,” Leroy said softly.
But he wasn’t fine, a blind person would be able to tell that. Leroy was trembling like a leaf in the breeze and his breath was coming in shallow bursts.
“Where is he?” Sergeant Yasiv demanded as he made his way deeper into Triple D.
It took Screech a moment to figure out who the man was referring to.
“He’s not here. He’s back at Oak Valley.”
Either Yasiv didn’t hear or he didn’t believe Screech. The man continued to look around, searching every corner of the small office before returning to Leroy’s side.
“He can’t be out,” Yasiv told Screech. “It’s too dangerous. I never thought… shit, I never thought it would go this far. I’m afraid that if any of Palmer’s men see Drake, it’s game over. They aren’t gonna wait for someone in prison to do it for them, they’ll take him out. And the worst part? No one is going to give a shit. There probably won’t even be an investigation. So, you tell him… you tell Drake that he needs to stay where he is. He’s safe at Oak Valley. For now, anyway. He needs to stay there.”
Screech could only stare at the sergeant.
It was an empty speech; both men knew that Drake had a mind of his own. Both men knew that Drake would stop at nothing to get to Ken Smith.
Yasiv took a deep breath and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up.
“What about… what about the cops?” Leroy asked suddenly. All eyes were on him now. “What’s going to happen to them?”
Yasiv took several drags of his smoke before answering.
“Dalton will flip, I have no doubt about it. That man will say whatever it takes to stay out of prison. Pontiac will have limited options because he was the one who shot Dunbar.”
Screech staggered.
“They shot Dunbar? Is he—”
“He’s okay. Heading to the hospital to get stitched up, but he’ll be fine. Got lucky.”
Screech breathed a sigh of relief. He liked Dunbar and considered the man a friend.
“That’s fucked up… this is all so fucked up,” Screech breathed.
“No kidding,” Yasiv continued. “I bet Pontiac tries to cop a deal, too, but it won’t work. A cop shooting another cop? That’s gonna stick no matter what.”
“You think that anything they say will lead back to the mayor?”
Yasiv took another drag.
“Maybe. I dunno. Honestly, I doubt you get to where he is by giving your henchmen any information that can hurt you. If they do have something on the mayor, then—”
“—then he’ll take them out,” Leroy whispered.
Screech’s eyes narrowed.
“He wouldn’t… assassinate cops, would he? Would he go that far?” But even as he asked the question, Screech was recalling Pontiac pulling a gun and aiming it at Leroy. These men had no scruples, no fear.
They weren’t above the law, they were the law.
“Probably,” Yasiv admitted. “Dalton and Pontiac are heading back to the station now, gonna be locked in a cell for the next few hours while IA figures out some stuff. After they’re formally charged, they’ll be put in holding. If someone is going to take a shot at them, it’ll happen then.”
Screech stared at both men across from him.
“Which means we need more,” he said absently.
Yasiv finished his cigarette and lit another, putting the spent butt in Screech’s empty scotch glass.
“Drake isn’t gonna stop until he gets Ken Smith, is he?” Yasiv asked. “He’s not gonna stop even if we get all the other officers of ANGUIS Holdings… even if what befell Boris Brackovich happens to the others, including Steffani Loomis, Horatio Dupont, and Raul. It’s Ken he wants.”
The question was clearly rhetorical; they all knew the answer already, even Leroy.
Yasiv threw his head back and swore.
“You’re right—we need more. Now, where’s this drug lab you were telling me about?”
Chapter 61
“I’m warning you, Dr. Kruk, if you’re just fucking around with us, it’s not going to end well for you,” Drake said as Hanna turned down yet another alleyway.
“Yep, I’ll make your life a living hell,” Hanna added.
Dr. Mark Kruk, who had been staring at Chase’s hairbrush like some sort of relic ever since he’d handed it over, didn’t even acknowledge them. In fact, if it weren’t for him barking out a direction to turn every few minutes, Drake would have thought the man in some sort of trance.
Fucking creep, he thought with a pang of guilt. The man was some kind of obsessed, and Drake had facilitated it.
I will find her, he promised himself. When this is done, when Ken is behind bars, I’ll find her. And when I do, we’ll laugh about this.
Dr. Kruk brought the hairbrush to his nose and inhaled deeply. Drake cringed.
Well, maybe not laugh.
“Not too much farther,” Kruk informed them.
Hanna slowed to nearly a crawl, partly because she was awaiting the next turn, but also because the alley was lined with garages and even her VW had a hard time squeezing through.
“How much farther,” Drake said, feeling his temperature rise.
Kruk said nothing; he only stared at the hairbrush.
Drake wanted nothing more than to wrench it from the man’s hands and throw it out the window.
“Tell me where the fuck—”
“Stop the car,” Kruk instructed suddenly, and Hanna slammed on the breaks. They weren’t moving quickly, bu
t half-turned as he was, Drake jostled forward awkwardly.
The adrenaline of the day had forced most of his acute and chronic pain away, but the aches had slowly started to creep back over the last few hours. When the afternoon eventually bled into night, Drake wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t breathe let alone move.
“On the left,” Kruk said, and Drake immediately turned his attention to the window.
They had stopped in front of a simple, white-washed garage. Drake’s eyes drifted to the identical garages flanking this one, then to those on the other side of the car.
They’d arrived in a sea of indistinguishable buildings.
“I assure you, this is the one,” Dr. Kruk said, sensing his frustration.
“Better be,” Drake spat as he stepped out of the car and squeezed his way to the other side. Hanna met him in front of the garage in question, her expression making it clear that she shared Drake’s doubts.
At first, neither of them could figure out a way to open it. There didn’t appear to be a handle, a lock, anything. Drake reached out and pressed his palm against the door.
He’d expected it to give a little—it looked like it was made of cheap plastic—but to his surprise, it felt thick and solid to the touch.
Eyebrow raised, he took a step back and observed the garage as a whole.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing a finger at a small box embedded in the frame of the door. At about four inches tall and maybe half that deep, and painted to match the door, it was no wonder they hadn’t noticed it at first.
Hanna shrugged and walked over to it. She pried at it with her nails for a moment before managing to flip the cover up. Instead of a number pad beneath, however, there was just a flat, featureless square.
Furious, Drake walked back to the car.
“How the fuck do you open it, Kruk?”
“Fingerprint,” he replied, eyes still locked on the hairbrush.
When the man didn’t move, Drake reached inside and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder. One sharp tug and Dr. Kruk was standing in front of the door, a confused look on his face.
“Either you open it, or I’ll chop your hand off and do it myself,” Drake threatened.
With the brush still clutched in one cuffed hand, Kruk somehow managed to reach up and press his thumb into the pad.
At first, nothing happened, and Drake felt his anger returning.
“This is—”
But he was cut off by the sound of a beep, followed by a motor engaging.
Drake casually guided Kruk in front of him as he waited for the garage door to roll up.
He suddenly found it difficult to swallow. With only a handful of days left before he was due back in court, this was his last resort.
Either Dr. Kruk had something in here that he could use, something of value, or he was toast.
Drake would never see his son again. Shit, if he went back to prison, which was the most likely outcome, he might not even see another sunrise.
He squinted hard, trying to peer into the dark garage. On the drive here, Drake had pictured something more… professional. All he saw now was a concrete floor covered with a thick layer of dust.
“There’s nothing—” he began, but then Hanna flicked on her cellphone flashlight and Drake gasped. “Jesus.”
Chapter 62
“I think I should go with you,” Screech said.
Yasiv made a face.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea. With all due respect, Screech, you’re more of a behind the scenes guy. Besides, if anything goes down, you can’t be there.”
Screech held Yasiv’s stare.
Yasiv was right: Screech was a behind the scenes guy. Or, more accurately, he had been a behind the scenes guy. But Drake had since thrust him in the spotlight and now it was on him to get some hard evidence on Ken Smith to put him away. Otherwise, Drake, the stubborn prick that he was, was as good as dead. And the supposed drug lab that Leroy had helped identify showed more promise of doing some real damage to Ken Smith than two corrupt cops flipping.
If what Yasiv and Beckett said was true, if the new heroin—if Ken’s heroin—that was flooding the streets all contained ohmefentanyl, then this lab was the key.
“So, you’re just going to go in alone, then? Just knock on the door and say, ‘Oh, hi there, it’s me Sergeant Yasiv from the NYPD. I was just curious… have any ohmefentanyl lying around? What’s that? No? Hmmm… what about a video of Ken Smith in scrubs injecting his eyeballs with heroin. How about that?’”
He’d meant the comment as a joke, but as the words started to come out of his mouth, his temperature began to rise.
“Screech, I know what you’re going through. I know you’re—”
“You don’t know shit, Yasiv,” he spat, his anger coming to a head. “You don’t know why I’m here, how I got suckered into taking this job by some asshole DA who threatened to throw my brother behind bars for the rest of his life if I didn’t take it. You don’t know about how I was coerced into taking pictures of Drake and his friends, pictures that Ken Smith used to blackmail all of us.”
Yasiv’s eyes widened.
And there it was; Screech had finally let the cat out of the bag. Only he hadn’t spilled his guts to Drake who deserved to know the truth more than anyone, but to an NYPD sergeant and a kid he’d just met. But now that the floodgates had opened, he had a hard time shutting them.
“All I had to do was snap those pictures, then guide Drake in one direction or another, do whatever I needed to do to make sure that his path crossed with Ken Smith. That’s all. I had no idea that Ken was such an asshole… more of an asshole than Drake. I had no fucking idea about sex slaves from Colombia, about heroin, about ohme-fucking-fentanyl. I had no idea about any of this.”
Screech’s anger was slowly starting to be replaced by guilt.
Guilt and shame.
He was ashamed of what he’d done—there was no doubt of that. Screech had contributed to pushing Drake to the edge.
To the brink… the brink of madness.
Yasiv blinked once, twice, and then nodded.
“All right, you come with me, then. I’m just doing recon, anyway. If we confirm that they’re making the fentanyl there, I’ll call for backup, SWAT if I have to; anybody who Ken doesn’t have in his back pocket.”
Screech ground his teeth. Everyone was in Ken’s back pocket. Everyone except for Drake, Yasiv, and Leroy.
It’s us against the fucking world, he thought. It’s us—
“What about me?” a small voice asked.
Screech turned to see Leroy staring at both of them. He’d forgotten that the kid was even there.
What about him, Screech thought. He should be home with his grieving mother, that’s what he should be doing.
He looked to Yasiv for advice. The man shook his head and threw up his hands.
“You don’t want to go home and we sure as hell can’t leave you here,” he snarled. “You can come with us, but you’re not getting out of the car.”
Chapter 63
If it was all just an elaborate ruse, Dr. Kruk was perhaps the greatest practical joker of all time.
The entire back wall of the garage was lined with bookshelves… bookshelves that were filled with VHS tapes, of all things. There were also perhaps a dozen dusty boxes to the right, some stacked three or four high. On the exterior of the boxes, Drake could see names and dates scrawled in black sharpie, as well as what looked like some sort of patient identification number.
But his main interested was the VHS tapes.
“Stay here,” he told Dr. Kruk as he made his way toward the back of the garage. Hanna followed suit, using her cell phone to illuminate their path.
Just like the boxes, the tapes were labeled with some sort of coding system, only they didn’t have dates or names on them. The sheer magnitude of tapes—there must have been six or seven thousand of them—was overwhelming.
Drake turned back to look at Dr.
Kruk, who was once again fiddling with the brush in his hand. He glanced at Hanna next. Her eyes were as big as saucers.
“Well, at least he wasn’t lying about the tapes. Kruk, what tapes correspond with your sessions with Thomas Smith?”
“Alas, my memory is not so good, Drake. These represent almost eleven years’ worth of work in my practice.”
Drake frowned.
“That’s fucking useless. How would you ever—”
“But,” Kruk continued holding the brush in the air like some sort of talking stick. “I started filling the shelves from the bottom left-hand corner working my way across before starting on the next row—like a typewriter. If I recall correctly, Mr. Smith came to visit me towards the end of my tenure, which means that his tapes should be up in the top.”
This was only moderately helpful, narrowing it down to maybe a hundred tapes. Drake didn’t have time to watch them all.
“What about a legend of some sort?”
“In one of the boxes. Let me see if I can find it,” Dr. Kruk said as he made his way towards the stack of boxes.
Suspicious, Drake turned to Hanna.
“Go with him,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. Then to the doctor, he added, “Kruk, where are the lights in here?”
The man chuckled, an unnerving sound, and then clapped his hands. The sound wasn’t particularly loud given that his hands were cuffed, but it was sufficient to activate a lamp to Drake’s right.
“What can I say,” Kruk said, still chuckling, “I started renting this place in the mid-nineties.”
As Hanna and Kruk started to root through the boxes, Drake once again took a step back and stared up at the video cassettes.
A comment that Dr. Kruk had made suddenly took on another meeting: the person I most like to learn from? Why, that would be myself, of course.
With hours and hours of footage, sure Kruk could learn from himself, but he could also learn from others. Drake was reminded of something else that Dr. Kruk was fond of referencing: an imago.
With all these tapes at his disposal, Dr. Kruk or Marcus Slasinsky could become an imago in the truest sense of the word; he could be whatever other people needed or wanted him to be in order for him to get what he wanted.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 53
