Never Go Alone

by Denison Hatch

  Jake carefully maneuvered his body through cracked window. The undulating glass flowed like a series of waterfalls towards the ground below. His eyes to the side, he gazed along a single tier of the building like a treasure map. There was a channel—only eight inches wide—that ran at an angle from his window towards the roof of the building. Jake held onto the window as he steadied himself. The grooves of the façade above him formed a perfect rail for his hands to find balance. He scooted along the side of the building. He timed each shuffle with a breath, careful not to look down. It didn’t take him but a minute.

  As Rivett’s feet hit the gravel on the top of the building, he spotted a dark figure sprinting along the roofline away from him—and holding a large black object the size of a briefcase. Jake pulled his weapon.

  “Stop! Police!” he yelled to no avail.

  The figure turned for a brief moment and stared directly at Jake, but it was too dark for Rivett to make out any of his features. The robber was about 150 feet away from Jake and heading farther. Jake kept the figure in his sights as he rushed along the roof. The roof’s highest level was a flat platform that snaked along the top of the building like a river, sometimes as narrow as a foot across and at other times much wider. Ahead of Jake, the robber reached the end of the building. The robber crouched down with the object, then picked it up with both hands and flung it off the top of the Modern.

  Before Jake arrived, the robber stood. He was holding a J-hook ladder. The robber took a running leap off the edge of the roof and flew across a small alleyway. Miraculously, the J-hooks on top of his ladder were extended in the air and caught onto a fire escape across the street.

  Jake neared the edge. He glanced over. He saw the robber acrobatically twirl around the J-hook ladder, yank it down, then step backwards off the fire escape. The robber dropped through the air, twenty feet in milliseconds, before catching the fire escape again with the J-hooks. Jake saw one more of the dark-clad robbers standing on the street below the fire escape, watching his brethren descend.

  “I’ll shoot!” Jake screamed.

  The robber didn’t seem inclined to stop. He fell another twelve feet to the ground. The two dark figures crowded around the heavy box below them. Jake steadied his gun. He pulled the trigger. Bang. Bang. Two quick shots. Both missed, but they caused the two men to scatter quickly. They raced around the corner and into the night.

  Tony blasted through the exit door on the roof of the building as Jake turned.

  “You okay?” Tony asked in a panic.

  “It was them.”

  “Who? Where? How many?”

  “Two,” Jake said. “You know who . . .”

  Tony jumped onto his radio, updating SWAT with the last known positions of the subjects.

  “Markle’s not going to be able to find them . . .” Jake said.

  ▪

  “According to the property manager, the penthouse is still owned by the LLC that built the SoHo Modern. So he doesn’t actually know who was living in there—says he could describe him, though. Developer’s name is Appian Trust LLC. You were right, by the way,” Tony said to Jake as a large mass of police, representatives of the building, and others congregated in the lobby of the Modern.

  “Didn’t find ’em?”

  “Nope.”

  “Just like the last one, right?” Jake asked.

  “Indeed.”

  “They’re in the sewers.”

  “Well, at least we know who they aren’t,” Tony said.

  “Vipa,” Jake concluded.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m convinced this was Rory Visco and Jack Castle. Maybe more of them. The tennis ball. I told you about the tennis ball . . .”

  “Get me some hard evidence, pal,” Tony said.

  ▪

  Rivett strolled along the outside perimeter of the Modern. He was searching for the box he’d seen the perps toss. There was nothing underneath the fire escape across the street. He pushed a dumpster a few feet away from a wall, and he saw a dark mass on the ground. Jake reached down and dragged the box out from behind the dumpster. Once it was in the light, he was surprised to find it was a small safe—heavy at sixty pounds but still mobile. Jake scanned the edges of the safe. The front panel had become loose from ground impact. Jake tried the safe’s door. It rotated open easily. Jake reached inside but found no fine jewelry or cash. Instead, he pulled out a handful of SD cards.

  “Tony!” Jake yelled. But Villalon was too far around the corner to hear. Jake hustled back towards the entrance. As he did, a dark SUV pulled up in front of the Modern. And when Arthur Metropolis strolled from the shotgun side of the car, Jake decided that now might not be the best time to tell everyone what he’d just found.

  ▪

  Metropolis stomped through the police in the lobby like an elephant marking territory, his own large coterie hyena-ing behind

  “The hell happened here, detective?” Arthur asked Tony.

  “Uh . . . Mr. Metropolis? Can I help you?”

  “I got robbed. I own this building.

  Jake passed by Metropolis' head of security, Stian Ziros, as he entered the lobby. Ziros was smoking a cigarette and staring at the ground. There was definitely something off about the man, and now that Jake had a chance to see him closer up, he could tell what it was. Ziros dressed like he was in his twenties. He was very fit. His clothes were ultra-trendy. But the lines on his face belied a much longer life. He was well into his fifties, the same age as Metropolis—older actually.

  “Appian. That’s my LLC. It’s a subsidiary of MetroVenture,” Arthur told Tony. “Just got the message.”

  “That’s insane,” Jake popped in.

  “Who are you?” Arthur turned.

  Tony jumped. “One of our guys.”

  “Why are they targeting you, man? Why don’t you just tell us and get it all over with?”

  “Jake, will you please let me talk to Mr. Metropolis by himself?”

  “You’re Jake?” Arthur asked. “I always like to know who I’m talking to. What’s your last name? Are you one of the undercovers workin’ for me? For us, I mean?”

  “I’ll take care of this,” Tony pushed Jake out of the way. “The penthouse. Your manager told me it was the developer’s apartment. So that was yours?”

  “I have lot of places,” Arthur said.

  “Sure. But this is the second time they’ve gone after a place where you actually lay your head,” Tony said.

  “I know. I’m not blind. There’s a lot of people that don’t like me out there. I’m the new breed. The Modern isn’t exactly affordable. Pushes people out. I make enemies that way. But I also get rich. It’s a trade-off,” Arthur said. “But I don’t sleep here. Sometimes my security does.” Arthur nodded to Ziros at the door. “What was taken?”

  “More jewelry,” Tony said.

  “I’m going up. Stian! Let’s go!” Arthur yelled.

  Jake watched as Arthur whispered into Ziros' ear while they entered the elevator to the penthouse unit. Arthur stared out of the elevator doors and through the glass, directly at Jake. He didn’t drop his gaze until the he rose.

  Jake shook his head, palming the SD cards he’d found on the street. The cards would stay with him while he figured this out. Two of Arthur’s buildings getting hit in a row might be a coincidence. Sure. But it was a damned good one. The only thing that did make some sense was Arthur Metropolis. This was the first crime scene that Metropolis had bothered to show up at personally—and quickly. It was perfectly obvious. There was a reason for Arthur’s actions. Arthur knew something was up there. Something that he didn’t want anyone to have—maybe not even the police. And perhaps that thing was sitting in Jake’s pocket at that very moment.

  ▪

  Up in the penthouse, Metropolis looked around while nodding at Ziros. “So what are we looking for?” Arthur asked him.

  “I don’t keep valuables,” Ziros said.

  “Please have a look, anyway,” Tony reque
sted.

  Ziros nodded and began to take a mental inventory. Tony watched as Ziros walked towards the master.

  “Nice place,” Tony said to Metropolis. “All your employees get free rent?”

  “Stian’s my best man,” Arthur said. “But I’m good to my people. It’s my policy. And I gotta tell ya, Tony, I’m always looking for top-notch security staff.”

  Ziros returned to the living room. He didn’t seem particularly concerned.

  “They took three of my gold chains and one watch. A nice one. Cortébert.”

  “That’s it?” Tony asked.

  “I loved that watch,” Ziros replied. “But—yes.”

  FIFTEEN

  RIVETT WAS RAGGED. HE YANKED his badge and lanyard off his neck. It fell to the ground—he’d put it in the vault later. His entire body ached. His brain hummed with the adrenaline of the evening. He tried to replay the events on the Modern’s rooftop over in his head, but he had to contend with the annoying fact that the human brain was not perfect. He knew the robber had turned towards him, but Jake hadn’t been able to make out a face. It was too dark. What about the other way around? Could that person have identified him? Rivett didn’t think so. But he didn’t want to allow an assumption to be the reason he ended his life in a shallow ditch. And then there were the SD cards . . .

  The cards. Against his body’s every wish, Jake pulled himself off the bed. He sat at the computer. The SD cards were burning a hole in his pocket. He pulled the small pieces of plastic and microchip out. He had seven SD cards in all—none were labeled. He inserted the first one at random. There was a single folder inside, labeled “videos.” Jake clicked on the folder and found a long column of video files. Most had random numbers for names, such as “382311229799.mov,” making them largely indistinguishable from one another. There were over two hundred videos on that card alone. Jake clicked on the top of the data size column, sorting the files by file size. He opened the largest file.

  A video began to play. It didn’t take long for Jake to realize what it was: professionally produced and scripted porn. The nineties variety of pornography. Jake stopped the video and moved down the list. Someone had broken into the SoHo Modern just for a porn stash? As Rivett began to open video after video, they all returned the same sort of content. It seemed as though the robbers had indeed made off with Metropolis' or his henchman’s personal collection—nothing more. Jake inspected the file names again. He discovered that fifteen of the videos had a different naming convention. These files obeyed a format similar to the first one, but with “MOV_” starting out their name. He clicked on “MOV_23488.mov,” and found that he was looking at something quite different. It was still sexual, but taken from a fixed position—a camera set up above a bed. A completely naked woman, lithe and fit, stepped into the frame and turned towards someone operating the camera. She smiled and beckoned with her finger.

  “Come on, Arthur,” she said.

  “I’m just making sure it’s recording, honeybun,” Arthur Metropolis' unmistakable voice orated back.

  Then Arthur’s large, muscular, and hairy frame blocked the view as he moved to the bed. Jake kept watching, although he didn’t need to. He was truly amazed at what he was seeing. Arthur Metropolis and his girlfriend, Isabelle Prins, had decided to make a sex tape. Fifteen of them, actually. She was a world-famous model, the type of woman that the paparazzi hunted across the city. And Metropolis was certainly newsworthy in his own right. No wonder they’d kept this thing locked up tight. But this small answer pointed towards larger questions. Did Metropolis know that Ziros had these tapes? Likely, but unknown. And why did Arthur shoot them in the first place? And more importantly, how did the people who’d robbed Arthur know about them?

  As Jake pondered these thoughts and their infinite hall of mirrors, he began to hear a repeating echo in his head. No—the apartment. Downstairs. It was a knocking. On his front door.

  “Who is it!” Jake yelled.

  The knocking abated. Then Jake heard another loud cacophony at the door. He yanked the SD card from his computer and dropped all seven of them into his safe. He closed and secured the safe, then warily headed down the stairs. He gazed through the peephole, then pulled away. Clearly unhappy about what he’d seen, Jake took a number of sharp breaths. The safe house wasn’t a secret location. It was part of the act—always had been. But now he regretted his lack of self-control. She was the last thing he needed. He collected himself and opened the door for . . . Nikki. She stood with one hand on her waist, hip cocked sassily out to the side, a lascivious smile on her face.

  “Where ya been, hunny bunny? It’s been a few and I ain’t seen you at the bar,” Nikki said. She was drunk. She tried to push through the door, but Jake stepped into the way. He put his arm across the threshold, preventing her from entering.

  “Come on. Take care of me . . .”

  “It’s too late for that,” Jake said.

  Nikki pulled down the front of her shirt seductively. “You’re a night owl. You been out all evening. I know how you operate. You and me, we’re like the same person. That’s why we get along so well. You know I’m right,” she said.

  “I’m serious, Nikki.”

  Nikki’s demeanor suddenly flashed and twisted on a dime. Her intent went from seduction to destruction as she became more and more upset.

  “So where you been? You been out with that chick? Mona?”

  “How do you know her?”

  “You’re gonna get yourself in trouble . . .”

  “I asked you a question.” Jake started at Nikki suddenly, his fist raised for . . . something. But she was giggling. She liked the aggression. He clenched his hand in front of her face and slowly let it drop. “Let me worry about myself,” he finally said.

  “Just tryin’ to help. But if you don’t want to hear it? That’s fine too.”

  “Nikki. What does it matter to you?”

  “So that’s your game? Just run through chicks? I don’t know why those bitches are attracted to you . . .”

  “That’s crap. I always shot you straight.”

  Nikki shook her finger at Jake. “You’re a jerk,” she said.

  “And so are you. And you knew that about me from the very get-go. I’m going to bed. Go home,” Jake said.

  “You’re just going to leave me out here?”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I drove.”

  “Then I’d suggest that you get in your car and drive yourself back where you came from,” Jake replied sharply.

  He shut the door and watched through the peephole as Nikki stumbled back to her car, which was parked across the street. Jesus—what an evening, with a decaying cherry on top. Jake made sure the door was highly secured, double checking all three locks. Then he stumbled back upstairs and fell asleep to delirious visions of Arthur Metropolis and the model whose body and face had sold a million magazine covers.

  ▪

  Emanuel Vipa was sound asleep with Valeria when his cell phone blew up. He didn’t wake on the first ring, but his lady stirred. After a few more rings, she was up and wondering hard. She rolled over Emanuel and looked at the screen. The phone simply read “Blondie.”

  “Emanuel, you got some explainin’ to do!” she yelled into his ear.

  Emanuel was stuck in the depths of a video-games-and-weed-imposed REM cycle.

  “Blondie? If that’s a cuero on the line, she ain’t gonna see straight . . .”

  Emanuel finally stirred. As he gained consciousness, he pulled the cell phone from her hand. He accepted the call. “Hey,” he said groggily. Emanuel listened for a moment, then hung up and pulled himself out of bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “I swear to God this place is going to be on fire unless you tell me that is not some juera you sidelinin’.”

  “You like all your shit I get you? That Louis I bought last weekend? That’s all ‘cause of this guy. I gotta go meet
him. So you’ll stay right there, and I told you, I’ll be fuckin’ back,” Emanuel said as he tugged a sweatshirt over his body.

  “Why his name ‘Blondie’ then?”

  “’Cause he looks like a ghost.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He scares the shit out of me,” Emanuel said.

  ▪

  It was the middle of the night. No one was awake in the city that never sleeps. Emanuel padded down the block and around a corner—where a giant black SUV was idling against the sidewalk. The back door opened, and Emanuel hopped inside.

  ▪

  “Do you know a guy named Jake?” Stian Ziros asked Emanuel.

  “Jake?”

  “Yeah. With Visco and them . . .”

  Emanuel thought for a moment. “Nah, don’t think so,” he finally said.

  “Blond. Skinny. A little bit punk rock—wears leather.”

  “Oh. I think I’ve seen him on the site, maybe.”

  “Confirm that?” Ziros asked.

  Emanuel loaded the UrbEx app. He brought up Rory’s profile and scrolled down the page to a recent mobile upload. There was a shot of the side profile of Jake, standing atop an under-construction skyscraper.

  “That’s him,” Ziros announced.

  “That’s who?” Emanuel said.

  “Jake.”

  “I don’t know his name . . .”

  “I’m telling you,” Ziros said.

  “So what do you want?”

  “Any idea how much money they raised for Unincorporated Brooklyn?”

  “At the party? A few thousand dollars, tops.”

  “What’s the pot at? What are they funding?”

  “I’m working on it,” Emanuel said.

  “Work harder. Stay on the opposition. But now, we need to know more about this Jake guy too . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to know how often he’s with Rory. I want to know where he lives, who he’s fucking. I want to know if he’s boxers or briefs, cereal or goddamned yogurt, man. We need to know everything.”

  “Same day rate?”

  “If you find out where this cat lives, there’s a big bonus for you. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but I haven’t let you down. Have I? You know my money’s good—and it’s endless.”