by A. J. Downey
There was nothing on the hotel’s TV, and if I had to watch another rerun of ‘My 600 lb Life,’ I was going to scream long and loud and wordless into the void that was police custody.
“What’re you thinking about so hard over there?” Driller – I mean, Detective Stahl – asked me. He was looking over at me, and I carefully picked at a stray thread on the thin hotel comforter.
I pointed at the TV and gave it the finger.
He choked on a laugh and said, “Jesus, tell me how you really feel.”
I frowned at him and he smiled.
“Wish you would have said something earlier.”
I glared at him.
“You’re a smart cookie, you would have figured it out.”
I scowled at him again and he just laughed, then he shook his head.
“I’d give you my tablet to watch Netflix, but until you’re deposed and statements are on record, I’m not allowed.”
I cocked my head.
“Why?”
I nodded.
“Because we don’t want you contacting any of your friends who may be attached to the club.”
My shoulders dropped, and I shook my head.
“Not sure what that means, darlin’. It could mean so many things.”
I nodded. It wasn’t like I could get any more detailed.
“You up to gripping a pen yet?”
I shook my head. Bending my hands stretched things, which hurt. A lot. So I didn’t do it if I could avoid it. I sighed heavily, and he sighed too.
“Not sure how they’re going to do that, either,” he said, but that wasn’t what I’d been thinking. Although, he had a point. I didn’t know how they were going to do it. King had made a good choice in charming a mute into being his pussy. Of course, when the charm wore off, it was fear that’d gotten me to stay. Fear, and some semblance of love. As badly as he treated me, up until the night he’d ordered my crucifixion he’d still treated me better than I’d been treated back home.
“You’ve had a rough go of it, haven’t you, Ms. Tate?” he asked softly and I startled.
“Surprised we figured out your last name?”
I nodded.
“Well, that was all Narcos.”
I frowned and shook my head slightly.
“Whiskey.”
My eyebrows shot up. His road name with the cop club was ‘Narcos’? Seriously? What a crap road name.
“You prefer Everleigh or Silence?” he asked.
I shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly. I didn’t suppose it really mattered.
“Was it always Silence?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“What was it before?”
I thought about it, and carefully drew my index finger back-and-forth across the top of my thumb.
He frowned and asked, “Violin?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, but had to smile. I tried again and willed him to get the answer, my mind screaming Cricket! Come on! You can do it.
He finally shook his head, laughing.
“Sorry, I suck at Charades.”
I shrugged and heaved a frustrated sigh.
We didn’t talk anymore, but I’d catch him looking at me like he wanted to say something. No, more like he wanted to ask something. The next time he looked my way, I met his eyes and cocked my head to the side.
He kind of laughed and said, “Boy, nothing gets by you, does it?”
I shook my head.
He raked his bottom lip between his teeth, and said, “He’s real broken up about it,” jerking his chin in the direction of my hands.
It wasn’t what I was expecting. Like, at all. I let mouth drop open slightly to express my surprise.
“He went back and got you as fast as he could without drawing suspicion, which was hard as hell. I’ve never seen Narcos come that close to blowing his cover over anything before, but something about this… He could have called me, could have called it in, but he didn’t.” He looked me over, his eyes wandering over my face slowly, scrutinizing me, before he asked, “What makes you so special?”
I blinked at his question, taken aback, and shrugged. I had no idea; none, whatsoever. In my estimation, I was the furthest thing from ‘special’ as anyone could get, a neurotic mess on a good day – I couldn’t tell this man why Whiskey had done what he’d done, but I could tell him, I had known there had been something about him. I should have suspected that what that ‘something’ was, was that he was a cop, but he was good at keeping secrets. I guess you had to be, in order to be undercover narcotics.
I settled back against the headboard with a sigh and just tried to stop thinking for a while. That was easier said than done when I had so much to think about and literally nothing to distract me from it.
5
Narcos…
Almost a full week had gone by and things were moving fast in the criminal underworld. At least, they were for me. It was a different world once you were patched-in to the Knights of Crescentia, and I had front row tickets to the main event. I was learning all sorts of shit, having given none of these motherfuckers a reason to question me or doubt me. It was a fine line to walk and one that was about to be blown all to hell when King called out, “Joker! Whiskey! Step into my office, boys.”
I backed away from the bar and the random bitch I was talking to and took a swig of my beer. I looked over at Joker, who gave me a chin lift from by the jukebox. We moved down toward one of the last booths along the wall opposite the bar, and slid in across from King.
“What’s up, oh fearless leader?” Joker asked, licking along the edge of a rolling paper. He didn’t do cigarettes, but dude was way too into his fuckin’ weed. They smoked like fuckin’ chimneys in this bar; just one of the many laws these motherfuckers broke, but least among them. The ceiling was yellowed with the tar from their cigarettes. I waved Joker off when he offered up the blunt to me first.
“Suit yourself, man.” He stuck it between his lips and scooped up King’s lighter off the table, putting flame to tip then clicking the Zippo closed.
“You done yet?” King demanded, and Joker grinned, holding in his lungful of the overpowering, earthy smoke. I didn’t say anything, just took a drink of my beer and waited King out.
“You oughtta take a page outta Whiskey’s playbook, here,” King said decisively. He sighed heavy and said, “I got some disconcerting news.”
I perked up a bit on the inside but played it close to the vest on the outside, keeping my expression neutral, waiting for King to spill it.
“That don’t sound good,” Joker said and finally exhaled. He laughed, and I hated this guy’s laugh. He sounded like a hyena that had yet to finish fuckin’ puberty.
King pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I may not have liked the son of a bitch, but on this, I could sympathize with him. Joker was a fuckin’ headache.
“Shut up and let the man talk,” I said with a scowl, and Joker opened his mouth to snap something off at me but King interrupted him with, “Thank you.” I gave a nod and smirked at Joker, who glowered at me.
“Word from inside the pigpen is my bitch ain’t dead and is willin’ to turn state’s evidence. I need you two to go finish the job.”
I felt my blood run cold. Word from inside the ICPD? What the fuck?
“Reliable intel?” I asked and King’s eyes snapped to mine, his brow drawing down into a scowl.
“As reliable as it fuckin’ gets.” He slid a folded piece of paper in our direction. “Now, you wanna keep that patch, you go finish what you started.”
I drew the paper toward me and frowned at it, squinting in the dimly-lit bar’s interior to read it. It was where we housed witnesses, all right. The same hotel we’d kept Chrissy at. Their intel was good. Shit.
“On it,” I declared.
“Should only be one guy with her. Cutbacks, don’t you know?” King asked, sucking in air between his teeth. He tapped the blunt he’d taken from Joker agains
t the heavy glass ashtray overflowing with butts. I stopped my slide out of the booth and gave a nod.
“We’ll get it done,” Joker said.
“Kill her, no fucking around.”
“Awww…” Joker bounced on his feet and pouted.
“I mean it. She’s still my fuckin’ property regardless of if she’s sold me out. That pussy is, and always will be, mine. Double-tap her and be done with it.”
“You got it,” I said.
My adrenaline was coursing hardcore. I had a wire on. I’d caught everything this motherfucker had said, but that wasn’t why. It was because I didn’t know how to warn Driller without tipping these assholes off and getting myself dead. That, and I was still reeling on the inside from King’s bombshell.
They had intel on the inside of the force, but not enough intel to know I was a cop. Maybe it wasn’t the force, then. Maybe it was the prosecutor’s office? My mind was racing the whole way out to our bikes, Joker chattering away a mile a minute as he was apt to do, fuckin’ meth-head.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded, and I had to think fast.
I scowled and said, “You heard him, right? I wanna keep these colors, bitch needs to die.”
I cut off any further conversation with him by starting up my bike, revving the engine to drown out his noise. I had no idea how I was going to fucking do this. We rode through night-blackened city streets, the pavement dry, but the air slick with heat and humidity. The summer was bearing down on Indigo City with a vengeance and I felt bad for the rest of my true brothers in blue. The temperature went up, and so did tempers, and along with them, the crime rate and incidences of domestics.
What I wouldn’t honestly give to be walking a fucking beat right now.
I rode through a yellow that Joker had slowed for and took my fuckin’ life into my hands to shoot off a text one-handed, then pulled off and waited for Joker’s ass to catch up. We were blocks from the hotel and I was hoping that I’d given enough warning, that Driller was there and on duty, and that he could, at least, get Silence out of the line of fire. It was mandatory that Driller, or whoever it was who was with her, was wearing a vest, so at least there was that.
We got to the hotel, took the garage elevators up to the lobby, and took advantage of a blind spot for the front desk to skate into the stairwell. I made some mental notes to pass on to the higher-ups. This hotel was compromised six ways to Sunday and weren’t no good for housing witnesses no more.
We took the stairwell up one floor and sauntered to the elevator like we belonged here. The elevator took no time at all whisking us to Silence’s floor and I hoped I’d been able to tip off whoever was on the other side of that door that we were coming in time.
Too soon we were standing outside the room number listed on the piece of paper King had passed us and Joker was grinning at me like a fool. He nudged me with his elbow and said, “If the bitch is dead, ain’t no one to tell King what we did.”
I grimaced on the inside and scowled on the outside, playing the ever-loyal foot-soldier to the bitter end.
“King told us to kill her and be fuckin’ done with it,” I whispered harshly. “So that’s what we’re gonna do. You can get your dick wet back at the club.”
Joker, a weasel-looking motherfucker, with eyes too close together and a nose for days, rolled his deep brown eyes at me so hard I was pretty sure he saw the back of his own skull.
“You’re a fuckin’ downer, Whiskey.”
“I’m fuckin’ loyal, you should fuckin’ try it.”
That earned me a glare and amped him up. He kicked the door to the hotel room, once, twice, until it gave way with the third well-placed kick. I had my gun out, and he went through the door, right into Driller’s tazer, which he held with one hand, and his firearm, which he aimed with the other.
Joker jerked, went ramrod straight and flopped onto his back, the two electrodes protruding from the front of his Ozzy Osbourne tee shirt, adding a couple more holes to the already pretty threadbare material.
I shoved my gun into the back of my pants and rolled Joker onto his stomach. Driller put up his gun and lifted his handcuffs from the back of his belt and tossed them to me, smooth and efficient, like we were trained. I slapped the cuffs on Joker, who was moaning and groaning, trying to recover from having his synapses fried.
“You good?” I asked Driller.
“Yeah.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Bathtub, in case bullets started to fly.”
“You get my text?”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“Yeah. Backup coming?”
“On their way, but your cover is fuckin’ blown.”
“Yeah, but it came with getting these sons of bitches dead-to-rights on attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.”
“You got it on tape?”
“Every bit of it.”
“You’re a fuckin’ cop?” Joker screamed, his voice muffled by having his face mashed into the carpet.
“Surprise, motherfucker.” I pushed off of him and went to the bathroom.
“City isn’t safe,” Driller called.
“I know.”
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he asked.
“Yeah, but not in front of the kids. Nothing out loud.”
He grunted and nodded, and I went through the bathroom door.
6
Everleigh…
“Shit!” Detective Stahl exclaimed.
I jumped and looked over from the television to see him leap to his feet. He was coming towards me, all crackling energy, urgency radiating through him like lighting through a thunderhead. I flinched when he grabbed me by the arms and drew me to my feet.
“Gotta hustle, they’re coming for you.”
Fear lanced through me and I looked at him, stricken.
“Not now, baby doll. Just do what I say and everything’s gonna be fine. In the bathroom and lay down in the tub.”
I shook my head but he towed me through the open bathroom door and shut it behind me, my skirts swishing around my bare legs that I’d only just gotten to shave for the first time that day, my hands finally relenting enough in their deep and abiding aching, the wounds mostly sealed.
I swallowed hard and did as I was told; I got into the still-damp bathtub and lay down, my heart pounding, the blood swishing in my ears. My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat, my face was hot and tingling with fear and the tears threatened to spill from my eyes.
It was quiet, so terribly quiet, then I heard Detective Stahl’s urgent voice, muffled by the door, barking out orders – presumably into a phone.
Quiet again, as silent as my namesake.
I breathed shallowly, as if they could hear me in here, fear doing funny things to my mind, when all of a sudden, Boom! Boom! Crash! Two swift kicks and the sound of splintering wood as the hotel room door gave way out there, in an explosion of shards.
I half-cried out, hunching down further into the tub, when a man gave a strangled yell, and then it was quiet again.
Too quiet.
A male voice said a few words, indistinguishable. Another grunted something in return. The bathroom door opened and I jumped, covering my face with my hands.
“Easy, Si. It’s okay.”
I lowered my hands and Whiskey was standing there, wearing his Knights of Crescentia cut. I cringed, and he put out his hands.
“We gotta go. Come on. It’s not safe here anymore.”
I shook my head but sat up. He reached for me and I cried out, shaking my head vehemently. He backed off and I carefully got up, struggling to do so without using my hands much, bracing my elbows against the edges of the tub.
“Shit, right, we ain’t got time for this.”
I yelped as he reached down and picked me up, hauling me to my feet by my underarms like I was a child. I scowled at him, but it was at his back. The large crescent picked out in the Maryland state flag, the sword behind it, sent cree
ping shivers over my skin.
I went out into the room, and jumped when Joker started spewing profanities at me from where he lay face down on the carpet, struggling against the shiny pair of handcuffs they had him in. I smirked at him, cruelly. I couldn’t help myself.
“Gonna fucking kill you, bitch! Gonna fuckin’ kill you!” he shouted.
“Shut the fuck up!” Driller yelled over him, but to his credit, he didn’t hit him. He was a better human than me. I wished he would kick him in the face.
Driller was shoving my things that he’d brought to me into my big brown leather bag that was reminiscent of an old carpet bag. He thrust it into my arms, and fished out his keys, handing them to Whiskey.
“Take my bike, I’ll bring yours later on.”
Whiskey nodded and handed him his keys in exchange.
“Thanks, bro.”
“Just go, before the cavalry arrives and tries to get you to stay.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Whiskey held out a hand to me. “Come on, Si, we gotta go.”
I frowned, clutching my bag to my chest, and looked beseechingly at Detective Stahl.
“Believe me, I wouldn’t say it was for the best if it wasn’t. You gotta go, and Whiskey is the best person to keep you safe right now. He’s in the same boat.”
I shook my head and Detective Stahl gripped my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.
“No argument, not now. You’ve got to go. Trust me.”
I bit my lips together and nodded begrudgingly. Joker’s incessant screeching and hollering was setting me on edge. Whiskey stepped forward carefully. He took my bag from me and put a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him off and he looked grim but nodded.
“Let’s go.”
I nodded and thrust my chin at the door, telling him to lead the way, and looked back reluctantly at Detective Stahl, who nodded his encouragement.
