by Jonas Saul
“I’ll call Jake, text him, and then call him again. He’ll answer. If not, I’ll call Lana back in Phoenix and see if she knows what his room number is.”
He pulled his phone out and stopped. The snarly woman behind the counter, Rose, still watched him.
“I’m calling in for the search warrant,” he said to her and then smiled.
Rose shrugged and looked away.
“Bruce, don’t be so juvenile,” Munro said with a smirk.
His phone rang in his hand.
“Hello.”
“Detective Bruce Collins?”
“Yeah, you got him.”
“This is Detective Mackey, homicide. I have a crime scene you might want to come see.”
He looked at Munro who scowled.
“Why would I want to see it?”
“Do you know a man named Tyrone Percy?”
“Name rings a bell. If it’s the same guy I’m thinking about, he does small jobs for Big John. Tied in with Maxwell Ramsey, too.”
“Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tyrone is deceased. He was found in the shower of his trailer cut up in four pieces. His girlfriend found him and ran out of the trailer screaming her head off, according to witnesses.”
“Okay, why tell me? Who has the lead on this one?”
“We found something at the scene that you might be interested in.”
Bruce stared at Munro, covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “One sec.” Then he moved away from the gamblers and into an alcove by the escalator that led up to the second floor games room.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“Ten thousand dollars in cash and a wallet with ID in it for a man named Jake Collins.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Kristi Rain, the girlfriend, claims she scammed a man named Jake Collins into giving it to her. His whole wallet is here, ID and everything. That’s Jake Collins from Phoenix, Arizona. Got his address right here. Your card is in with his ID. Thought maybe you wanted in on this as it looks like he’s family and all.”
“Give me the address and I’ll be right over.”
Bruce wrote it all down, then slapped his phone closed.
“Munro, I need your help.”
She nodded. “Who was that? What’d they want?”
“Homicide. They got a body. Funny thing is, my brother’s ID showed up at the murder scene.”
“Oh, that can’t be good.”
“I know. We can’t let Jake out of our sight. I need you to sit outside the elevator bank by Gallagher’s and watch for him to come down. When he does, nab him and bring him to me. In the meantime, I’ll grab a warrant to get Jake’s room number. I have a reason now.”
“You got it. Where you gonna be first?”
“At the scene of Tyrone Percy’s murder.”
They started walking.
“Tyrone Percy’s dead?” Munro asked.
“Sounds like it. Brutal too. Dismembered.”
“Oh shit, somebody was angry. Always a little more personal when it’s like that.”
“Yeah.”
They got to the area where Munro could watch the elevators.
“Go in the bar over there. Sit in the corner. You’ll be able to see if he comes out from there.”
“Got it. Go.”
Without another word, Bruce ran for his car.
Whatever game Russell Anderson was playing by coming into their station and saying that Jake was in Vegas and in trouble, Bruce was determined to play out to the end.
Then he would arrest Russell and put him in jail right where he was supposed to be.
Nobody fucks with the Collins family.
And where the hell is Sarah Roberts? Isn’t she supposed to tell me something?
Chapter 10
Sarah turned her bike off and swung her leg in a wide arc to dismount. She lifted her helmet off and swung her hair back. A quick look around the area confirmed she was alone.
Vivian had given her a message moments after she had gotten to her bike. The message had arrived in a new way Vivian had started using. Sarah wouldn’t pass out completely as she had before. Now that she carried an iPhone, Vivian would take over Sarah’s arm for long enough to type the message into her phone. The few times Sarah had done this, it simply looked like she was very focused on texting. Mentally, she felt out of it for a moment, but then snapped out of it seconds later and her phone’s screen had the message.
An address for a warehouse in the west end lit up on her screen. She had typed it into her map feature and was directed to this area. According to her phone, she was one block from the warehouse. The rest of the distance would be on foot as she didn’t want her presence known too early.
She checked the time. She was supposed to have stopped the torture session five minutes ago.
“Shit.”
As she jogged down the side road, she wondered what state the person being tortured would be in if she showed up too late.
At the corner, by the road, she dimmed the light on her phone and checked for directions.
The building she needed was a linen factory across the street. At this late hour, it was the only building with cars out front. Seven cars were parked on the side by an access door.
After a quick check of her gun, she stuck it in the back of her pants, flexed her fingers, looked both ways, and crossed the road. Now on the fabric factory’s property, she bent low and ran for the shelter of the building. Once she reached the wall, she stopped, calmed her breathing, and listened.
Voices emanated from inside. Someone shouted something. A man laughed. Then she heard a smack of some kind and another man screamed.
“Damn it.”
The door was twenty feet away. If she walked in that one, they could all be right there. Vivian didn’t tell her how many there were or if she would meet resistance.
Could have used more direction on this one, Sis.
She hated to go in blind, but if she wasted time looking for another way in, the torture she was supposed to stop would continue. And what if she couldn’t find another way in. Then she would have wasted valuable time.
“Fuck it,” she whispered.
The gun came out of the back of her pants with ease. She flipped the safety off.
They are torturing someone, after all. This isn’t an afternoon tea party.
She moved to the door and tried the handle. It was unlocked. She put her ear to it first and listened. The inside noises were a little distance away, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t parked on the other side of the door.
With her fingers loosely wrapped on the door handle, she edged it open slowly, the tip of her weapon aimed chest high. Once the door was open a foot, she could see enough to know that no one stood guard.
They must be very confident they won’t be interrupted. Their mistake.
She slipped inside and closed the door behind her quietly. The building was laid out with rows and rows of fabric in large, thick rolls like oversized carpets. Down the aisle she stood closest to, the factory opened up into an area with large machines.
Someone screamed from the corner on her right. Staying low, she ran across to the first aisle, and pushed backwards into a fabric roll, her gun aimed at the ceiling.
On the other side of the row, she guessed them to be about three rows back, men discussed something about an address.
“I got it,” one guy said.
“Where?” This voice was louder, deeper.
“The cell phone belongs to a guy named Jake Collins. He’s staying at the New York Hotel tonight, booked in for one night, according to my guy.”
“You got the room number?” Deep Voice asked.
“Yup.”
“Good. Go. Get all the money he has. If it’s more than the debt this fuck owes, take it all. Consider it interest. Then rough him up. If you don’t hospitalize this Jake asshole, I hospitalize you. Got it.”
&nbs
p; “Yes, Boss.”
“Get out of my sight and get the job done.”
Sarah listened and debated if she should stop the men leaving the warehouse. She rationalized that her instructions were to stop a torture at this location. With men leaving, it would prove easier to do that job. To stop the roughing up of someone at the New York Hotel wasn’t what Vivian had asked of her.
Footsteps echoed closer. She got down on her knees and then her stomach. The bottom of the racks that held the fabric rolls were two feet off the ground. She slid under one like sliding under a car.
Four men ran by her aisle just as she hid. They hit the door and exited fast, slamming it behind them.
She only hoped the torture that was about to happen to this Jake guy at the New York Hotel had nothing to do with the torture she was supposed to stop here. Otherwise she would fail Vivian and the consequences of that could prove fatal.
Mistakes might have been made somewhere along the way, but for now, she would continue with her plan. Maybe when she was done here, one of the torturers would let her in on what’s happening at the New York Hotel.
She crawled out from her hiding spot and got to her feet.
Deep Voice shouted, “Where the fuck is my broom?”
She started along the aisle, working her way to the large machines at the heart of the building. Other voices echoed off the walls, but they were too low to discern what was being said. At the corner, she peeked around the edge. A man stood by the wall, his back to her, three aisles up. Something held his attention to his right.
Probably the torture that I was supposed to stop ten minutes ago.
She kissed the tip of her gun, said a quick word to Vivian and stepped out into the open.
“I found a broom,” someone yelled behind her.
She spun around. The man hadn’t seen her yet. He had emerged from a row three aisles away. His head was down as he swiveled the brush end off the broom. She hopped back into the aisle she had just jumped out of. Catching her breath, she waited, her weapon ready.
He moved past her position and she fell in step. At the second he detected movement behind him, she brought the gun down hard, the handle whacking the back of his head. She knew it took a lot to knock a man out cold so she forced all her strength into the downswing. He crumpled to the floor at her feet.
Before the broom handle could make any noise on the floor, she snatched it from his grip, catching it in time. The man who had been leaning against the wall, his back to her, had turned around and now faced her.
She raised a finger to her lips and said, “Shhh.”
Then she started walking toward him. He yanked an arm back and whipped out a gun. Before he could bear down on her, she shot him in the right shoulder, knocking the gun away in a wide arc. The gun landed a dozen feet from him in the next aisle. He grabbed for his wound as he slipped to his knees, a loud grunt emanating from his lips.
“What the fuck was that?” Deep Voice shouted.
Sarah ran to close the distance and stopped at the corner, gun in one hand, broom in the other. Three men flanked another man suspended by his feet, blood coloring them red.
She looked closer at the man on his back, his feet in the air. His face seemed familiar for some reason.
Holy shit!
The random man on the street she had forced to send the text. Was this her fault? Is that why she was supposed to send the text and then stop the torture? What the hell is going on?
After she stopped this, she had to talk to the tortured man.
The wounded guy behind her was crawling to the next aisle. Probably in search of his weapon. Sarah stepped back from the edge of the row, grabbed the man’s shirt, spun him toward the open area and then shoved him.
The others opened fire as their comrade fell face down. Bullets ricocheted off the floor, some of them hitting the wounded man on the floor.
“Stop shooting,” Deep Voice hollered.
The noise stopped.
“Step out of hiding and identify yourself,” Deep Voice said.
“I’ve got the broom,” Sarah shouted back.
She swung her arm out and tossed it toward them, then jumped back. It clanged down and rolled away, no one making a move for it.
“A woman, eh? Okay, here’s the deal, bitch. Come out so we can talk, or I put a bullet in Mark here. Don’t test me. Hey, Mark, you want a little metal in the forehead courtesy of our new guest?”
“Come on, man,” the guy on the ground pleaded.
Vivian’s message to stop the torture probably didn’t mean stopping it by getting the guy killed. Although as much as that would stop it, Sarah knew she was supposed to walk out of the building with the guy still alive.
“Three seconds,” Deep Voice shouted. “I don’t bluff.”
“Shit,” Sarah said under her breath. “Now what?”
“Okay, say goodbye to Mark.”
Sarah decided to move into the open just as a gun fired.
Chapter 11
Bruce jumped in his unmarked cruiser and hit the lights. On Las Vegas Boulevard, he made a U-turn and headed east toward the trailer park.
He couldn’t believe his brother was involved in any way with the criminal element of this city. There had to be an explanation. Although it didn’t look good for Jake. His ID had shown up at a murder scene. Jake hadn’t called ahead to let his brother know he was going to be in town, which he always did in the past. That left Bruce with an uneasy feeling. It meant Jake was in Vegas for something he wanted Bruce to have no knowledge of.
If it wasn’t for Russell Anderson coming into the station earlier tonight, Bruce would’ve had no idea that his brother was here until homicide called. He wouldn’t have been able to track him to the New York, New York Hotel, which is where he always stayed because they comped him the room. Jake even had his own casino host.
If Jake was in trouble, then what could it be? And why not let his big brother in on it so he could help?
Bruce hit the gas harder and ran a red light, the siren warning people to stay out of his way. The streets had thinned as the hour wore on past midnight, allowing Bruce to navigate quickly.
He jumped when his phone rang beside him.
Private caller.
He picked it up. “Yeah?”
“Say goodbye to your brother Jake.”
“Who’s this?”
“Russell Anderson.”
“What are you talking about? Are you threatening my brother?”
“No. But he won’t live through the night if you don’t listen to Sarah. I told you about that.”
Russell sounding like he was crying.
“Just tell me what’s going on,” Bruce said, slowing the speed of his vehicle a little. He didn’t want to race down the Las Vegas strip at seventy miles an hour while on the phone. Too many things could go wrong.
“Sarah is in trouble and needs your help. She’s entering a warehouse in the west end right now. There are guns. People are going to be shot. Believe me. Hurry, or your family will pay a large price.”
“You want me to go to this warehouse and save Sarah Roberts and then listen to her?”
“Yes.”
Russell was definitely crying.
Crime scene or warehouse. Job or family or family and job. Bruce decided to go out on a limb. Russell had come through in unique ways before and Bruce trusted the letters. If he was going to trust Russell, now would be the best time. If he was wrong, he could pick Russell up, grab his brother and talk this thing out. Tyrone Percy would still be dead.
“Fine, where is it? Where am I going?”
Russell told him. Bruce made another U-turn and headed west.
“What am I to expect when I arrive at this warehouse?”
He didn’t receive an answer. Russell had already hung up.
“Shit.” He smacked the steering wheel.
Then he dialed Detective Mackey back.
“Mackey here.”
“Look, I can’t come right aw
ay. I’ve been delayed for a bit.”
“You want me to put a call out on the street for officers to pick your brother up?”
