by Alan Lee
Marcus and Big Will and I looked at each other. The last men standing. Surrounded by four dead bodies, and Megan Rowe.
“If I wasn’t on the verge of unconsciousness,” I said, “then I would be really surprised. Instead I just feel like I’m flying.”
“Will, we need a cleanup,” Marcus said.
“Yes sir.” Big Will walked to the car and opened the trunk.
“You just shot a cop,” I said. Marcus nodded. “And you’re an episcopal.”
“Trying to be,” Marcus said. “Like you, I’m a work in progress. You and me, August, we’re alike.”
“You’re the Blood General,” I said.
“That’s an arcane term, and you know it. I’m a businessman. I told you. In high school, I hustled. Delivered papers. Did what I had to do. Hard work.”
Big Will came back with two trash bags. He removed my Kimber from its holster and handed it to Marcus. Marcus tossed his Glock into the trash bag, and then Big Will knelt beside Silva’s body and rifled through his pockets.
“You’re a business man?” I said. “You’re running the show. The cocaine.”
“I’m in many businesses, and cocaine is one of them. I control the traffic in all directions for two hundred miles. But I’m not in a gang; I hire them.”
“And Silva was?”
“For hire. And a headache. Uncontrollable agency, pissing me off. Bad for business. He came here from California and brought all the unnecessary hate. Too wrapped up in the thug life. He started killing girls for no reason.”
Big Will collected Silva’s knife and gun and wallet and phone, and then he moved to Ugly Tiger.
My head swam. Stackhouse thought Silva and Marcus were the same person, a violent heavy hitter recently moved from California nicknamed the General. But Silva was violent and new, and Marcus the true heavy hitter. Two persons, not one.
“Let the girl go, Marcus.”
“I plan to. Silva thought these juvenile rites of passage were important.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t. Do you know what gangs are, August? They’re kids. Broke adolescent alcoholics. I don’t even speak to them, usually. I send liaisons, like Big Will.”
“They’re also people. People with families and priorities and dreams.” My “s” sounds were coming out slurred, and I had a funny taste in my mouth.
“Makes them easier to exploit, August. They are adolescents in need of identity and purpose. The gangs give them that, and then I give the gangs money and work. I have a degree in accounting from Princeton, you understand. I turned down offers from the fucking FBI and Wall Street. I bring peace and order to the drug trade. It would be so much worse without me.”
“Big Will called you,” I said. “He told you that Silva had another girl. You and Sanders came to kill Silva tonight.”
“Yes. As I said, I limit the violence when I can. Do you realize how big this is, August? Silva didn’t. I have cops in my pocket. I got FBI too. I’m moving tens of millions every month. I snap my fingers and a hundred guys show up. The gangs are mercenaries. Local hired militia for grunt work, that’s all.”
“You get tax breaks for that?”
Big Will crouched next to Sergeant Sanders’s body. He took two phones and two guns off him.
“I like you, Mack. We are at an impasse, but we got something working in our favor.”
“Good looks?”
“Call it mutual respect. You and I, let’s live and let live.”
My stomach lurched from the light-headed dizziness. I bent over and dry heaved. Embarrassing.
He said, “You need stitches. I’ll drive, to the hospital.”
“Do you tithe off your drug money?” I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.
“You’re being blithe.”
“I’m being hilarious.”
“Plan on telling the sheriff?” he asked.
“Probably.”
Big Will stopped his collection and glanced at Marcus, and shook his head.
“Mack. I got ten eyewitnesses put me somewhere else. Plus I got preset digital alibis. You can’t win, it won’t fucking work.”
He returned to his car and came back with an emergency first aid kit. He lifted up my T-shirt and opened the kit.
“I saved your life, Mack. Tonight, and other nights. Silva wanted your ass. Sergeants Sanders talked about killing you multiple times. So did Big Will. But my boy, Jeriah, he said you’re a good man.”
“That’s very nice.” I winced. “I’ll bring you cookies in prison.”
“And I’m trying to save you once more. Big Will, he’s gonna shoot you, you realize. Don’t be a fucking moralist. Hold this bandage tight. It’s covered with disinfectant cream.”
I did. The world was dimming.
“Think about it. I arranged for Roanoke’s most violent criminal to be killed tonight. And I shot a corrupt cop. I got Roanoke’s best interest at heart. That, and money.”
“Two wrongs making a right? That your argument?”
“This is our city. Mine and yours. It’s a good place. I keep the wolves at bay. Believe that, August, it could be worse. A lot fucking worse. You try to take me out, trust me, it gets bad.”
He had a point there. I’d encountered a lot of mobsters. Marcus seemed the brightest and sanest of the bunch. On the other hand, I might be going into shock and not thinking clearly.
“I didn’t let them come to your house, Mack. I’mma keep you alive, this one more time. We’ll attend church together. Dinner with our families. Talk about raising boys.”
My words were mixing. “Gonna hafta kill me.”
“Do you think you can stop the drugs? Never. They’ll hand the operation to someone like Silva.”
“Gonna hafta.”
“See. I’m not stupid. I know your Mexican friend is hidden nearby, gun trained on me. I bet he’s almost shot Big Will and myself a dozen times tonight. It’ll be a race between me and him. Or Big Will and him. See who hits their target first.”
Big Will carried his bag of stuff to the car and closed the hood. “Marcus. Man, we need to go. Want me to ace the asshole or what?”
My Kimber was in Marcus’s hands. He took out a rag and wiped it down, and then held it in the rag.
“Consider your beautiful son, Mack. And my boy Jeriah. They don’t need to be orphans. If I die? Or end up in jail? They’ll come looking, Mack. The big swinging dicks. They’ll look for my killer and they’ll find you. They’ll kill you and Kix and your father. Promise you that.”
I wavered on my feet.
“I did my research. I know you killed a man last year to protect your son. You should consider letting a man live now for the same reason. You don’t, I promise your boy will be fitted for a small coffin. And lowered in the ground next to you. The people I work with? Fucking nightmares. They didn’t go to Princeton.”
He pressed the pistol into my hand. I couldn’t grip it.
“You and me,” I managed to say, “Aren’t. Finished.”
“I want you alive, August. I don’t say that to many people.”
He turned and walked back to his car.
I fell to my knees and then my face.
* * *
Manny drove to the hospital. I was conscious but not entirely in my right mind. The world was cold. Megan Rowe lay in the backseat of his car, with Stevie. What a mottled crew.
The towel I lay on kept shifting and Manny complained about the leather, and he poured old Pepsi into my mouth.
“Drink the sugar, amigo. Keep you out of shock.”
I grunted, “You ever gonna shoot anyone? Why didn’t you shoot Silva?”
“You had it covered, señor Mackenzie. Never a doubt.”
“Coulda called…called for backup,” I said.
“Could. But I got caught up in the fun. I can kill Marcus Morgan anytime I want. Besides, you wouldn’t want me to shoot Silva. You wanted him for yourself.”
“What I want. Is for you. To shoot somebody.”
/> “Next time.” He grinned.
“Going to…throw up again.”
We made it to the hospital before I did.
Nick Floyd, the physician’s assistant, thought I was hilarious. “Well,” he said, “I told you not to get shot again. And you didn’t; you got stabbed. I’ll be in tomorrow at seven, in case you get burned or poisoned.”
He gave me a transfusion and sewed me up.
A couple hours later I felt much better, thanks to blood and morphine and Zofran. I could sit up without vomiting. Small victories.
Attorney Adam Moseley, Stevie’s guardian ad litem, came to pick him up and take him home. He took one look at me and said, “You need a lawyer, call me.”
“But what if I need a good one?”
“I’m the best there is, asshat.” He left, Stevie in tow.
Manny said, “I like Counselor Moseley.”
Manny had been brought more juice and food than I had by the nurses. He probably could score Dilaudid if he asked. He read his novel, feet crossed and propped on my bed, between their visits. He didn’t get up when Sheriff Stackhouse came into my small corner of the emergency room.
“Mackenzie,” Stackhouse said. She had on jeans, boots, and a tight sheriff’s office windbreaker. “You’ve had a hell of a day.”
“I am aware of this.”
“I just left Megan Rowe’s room. She essentially spent the last twenty-four hours on a forced cocaine bender, but should recover. Her parents are beside themselves. Where’d you find her?”
“Gravel supply lot, near a train car dumping ground. Nate Silva took her.”
“Where’s Silva now?”
“You’ll find him there. Along with a few others.”
Manny whistled tunelessly and turned a page.
“You shot him?” she asked.
“No. I’m an episcopal. I only shot his friends.”
“Oh hell.”
“I’m not a very good episcopal. I’ve only been twice.”
“Who killed Silva? No wait, I need to write this down. And I don’t know where the hell Sanders went, he’s not returning my calls.”
“Stackhouse,” I said, and she stopped searching for paper and a pen. “Listen to what I say first, and then decide if you want to write it down. Trust me.”
“Okay. Go.”
I told her Silva kidnapped Megan Rowe to make me stop poking into his business, and about how I’d found their execution spot thanks to my neighbor. I told her Silva had been the one kidnapping girls, and he’d arrived from California last year. I told her about the fight and Silva’s knife and Sanders driving up and shooting Silva. She held up her hand and said, “Sanders? Shot Silva?”
“Worse than that. Sanders was working with them. For years, I surmised.”
A long pause.
“That can’t be true.”
“I can prove it. Couple hours ago, he called off reports of gunfire. Said it was kids playing with fireworks. But it wasn’t. It was his gun.”
“Sanders is helping move cocaine,” she said, kind of on autopilot.
“Was. Yes.”
“Was,” she repeated.
I nodded. “He’s beside Silva, at the gravel supply lot.”
She sat down on my bed. On my foot. “Dead.”
“Shot three times by one of the drug traffickers who thought he’d grown too headstrong.”
Manny looked at me curiously and went back to whistling.
“What will I tell his wife?” she said, hollow and distant.
“You could tell her the truth. Nate Silva, a local leader of the Bloods, is dead. He moved a lot of cocaine. And Sanders shot him. Tell her that. It’s the truth.”
“Part of the truth. But not all.”
I gave her a few more details, but so far I hadn’t mentioned Marcus Morgan. His words had struck me. Hard. I had a vision of Kix’s coffin being lowered into the ground. His broken little body inside, and I about came undone. I’d go to any extent to keep that from happening, and Morgan was right; gang cartels were notorious for going after families.
Plus, Marcus saved my life. Multiple times, from the sound of it.
Marcus Morgan and I weren’t done. He still had to deal with me. But I wasn’t ready to risk the police yet.
Stackhouse turned to search my face with that nasty piercing glare detectives develop over time. “Stuff you aren’t telling me?”
“Yes ma’am, there is. Haven’t decided about it yet.”
“Why?”
“If I tell you, it might make Roanoke a less safer place. For me, for you, and for my son. And I’ve told you the truth. Just not all of us. It’s up to us to decide if Sanders is a hero or not, so to speak.”
“I don’t know you well enough to trust your discretion, Mackenzie. I’d prefer not to bring you in on withholding evidence and obstruction of justice charges.”
“You got the violent criminal you were after. And my investigation isn’t done yet. You’d only muddy the waters.”
She twisted to inspect Manny, who innocently read his book. Then back to me. “You two dumbasses are a handful. You know that. I don’t care how pretty you are.”
“Can you tell Ms. Deere that I won’t be in tomorrow? She scares me,” I said.
“No. I have dead bodies to examine. Don’t be a wimp, kid.”
The curtain pushed aside and my father stepped through. Kix was in his car seat carrier, leaned back and sleeping. Dad was holding the carrier like a bag of groceries.
“I got the phone call all fathers long to get,” Timothy August said. “My boy has been stabbed. How are you, son?”
Kix shifted positions and sighed in his sleep.
“I’ve been stabbed. Lesser men would complain.”
“Manny, how could you let him get stabbed?”
Manny shrugged. “Ask me, it’s a miracle it doesn’t happen more often, Señor August.”
Dad didn’t listen. His attention had already shifted to Sheriff Stackhouse. “Why hello there.”
“Timothy.”
“How about that dinner you owe me?”
“Always the charmer, aren’t you. Turning into quite the silver fox.”
“And you,” he said. “Gravity seems to have no effect.”
Manny made an amused noise that no one heard but me.
“No dinner. We should catch up over a cocktail,” Stackhouse said.
“I would like that above all things.”
They were standing far too close for people who barely knew each other.
She said, “Not tonight. My evening just got booked solid and I have to go kick ass. Tomorrow?”
“It’s a date.”
“Gross,” I said. “What the heck just happened.”
Chapter Thirty-One
A week later, I read about Sanders’ funeral in the paper. As a fallen officer, he’d been given a special procession and service. The mystifying events at the gravel supply lot were hard to figure, but one thing was for certain: Sergeant Sanders died in the line of duty and took down a major criminal with him. What a hero.
His longtime friend Marcus Morgan delivered the eulogy, which I read with mild amusement and disgust.
I sat in my office and stared blankly out the windows. I had a list of attorneys to call, all of whom were screaming for my services. Good help is hard to find, and all that. I’d taken a week off from teaching to recover, but was scheduled to return tomorrow. Couldn’t decide which career path I’d rather travel, teaching or investigation. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood And I was too blah to choose.
My stairs creaked and groaned softly. Could it be? Princess Leia? The door was open and a woman I didn’t know stuck her head in.
“Mr. August?”
“Yes, come in.”
She was fifty-five, red hair cut in a stylish bob, professional pantsuit, black handbag. “Do you have a moment?”
“I have plenty of moments.”
“I’ve never talked to a private detective before.”
“I’m not sure I have either,” I said. “Not many of us around. Please sit.”
“What happened to your arm?”
“Walrus.”
She sat. “I need help.”
I nodded.
“It’s a matter of…desperate delicacy. And I was told you could be trusted. Can you?”
“I can be. Who directed you my way?”
“My attorney. And, in a funny coincidence, my favorite bartender. A miss Veronica Summers. Do you know her?”
“I do.” My chest tightened a little. I’d been trying not to think about Ronnie, and I’d been failing. A lot. “She’s my favorite bartender too.
“She gave you the highest praise. I thought it was too cute. She said she’d never met a man of integrity before she met you. All others, she said, pale in comparison. Isn’t that darling?”
“It is. But perhaps she’s merely spent her life with awful men.”
“It’s possible. She seems quite fond of you. Which reminds me.” She opened her black handbag and withdrew an envelope. “She requested I deliver a card.”
The envelope had my name on the front. The word “Mackenzie” never looked so good. I opened the seal and withdrew a handwritten note.
Mackenzie,
I am a mess.
I know our romance was brief.
And ill-fated from the beginning.
But I’m having trouble moving on.
Please think of me often?
I find my life more bearable…
if I can believe you haven’t forgotten me.
- Ronnie
I read it twice and returned the note to its envelope.
She said, “Mr. August, it must have been a good note. You look so happy.”
“That’s because it’s a beautiful day. What a time to be alive. How can I help you?”
The End
Excerpt from the next Mackenzie August novel…
The skies were clear and business was booming.
Except I didn’t want to do any of it. I needed a day off from photographing romantic trysts and searching for missing teenage runaways. So I did what all trusty and industrious private detectives do in their downtime; I searched online for new grill recipes, and practiced drawing my gun from the holster, Wild West style.
