The Angel of the Abyss

by Hank Schwaeble

  “The answer, in case you need me to spell it out to preempt any ambiguity, is no. If you wanted to do that, you shouldn't have let me know you thought it was a trap.”

  Hatcher hummed, running his gaze along the street, thinking, he really hadn't wanted to let her know that part. But he also knew her answer would still have been no.

  “Okay,” she said. “Al least that's settled. If there's a good chance it's a trap, that means we don't go in. So what do we do instead?”

  He huffed out a sigh. “You still have that guy's cell phone? The DA?”

  “Dick Leslie.” She reached for her purse, fished through it. “Here it is. Why?”

  “Has anyone tried to call it?”

  She pressed a button and the screen lit up. “No. Not since I took it from him. I'm sure it's a burner, though.”

  He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Okay. Put your cop hat on. If you were investigating this now, what would your next move be?”

  She set the phone down in a change tray on the center console. “Call for back up?”

  “No. I mean, if some lead sent you here, knowing what you know. But let's say you searched the place and found nothing, realized it was a snipe hunt. Where would you, the detective, think to go next?”

  “The place I figured they didn't want me to go,” she said. “Deborah's.” She contemplated it for a moment, then her mouth sank into a frown. “Hey, that's why you were asking about Leslie's phone. To call her.”

  Hatcher shifted the car into gear and turned on the lights. “Just make sure the record reflects that you said her name, not me. And that going back to see her again wasn't my idea.”

  * * *

  The building where the apartment was supposed to be, where she'd confronted Dick Leslie, was three blocks east. Hatcher had Amy navigate the route. He took his time getting there, trying to think the situation through. Wondering how much he should share his thoughts with her.

  As he turned onto the street where the building was, she said, “You're thinking this is the trap. You really are paranoid.”

  He looked over at her, furrowing his brow. “I didn't say anything.”

  “You didn't have to. You have a way of going quiet when you're worried. It's different than the quiet when you're just thinking.”

  “You think you can get in my head, just like that?”

  “Turnabout is fair play. Now you can imagine how I feel, since you seem to always be able to figure out exactly what I'm thinking. Heaven forbid I ever try to tell a fib, like to surprise you on your birthday.”

  He looked at the street, parked cars sliding by. “Truth is, I don't know.”

  “Could they really be that smart? Think that many moves ahead?”

  The question was worth some thought, he realized. He pulled along the curb in a no-parking zone and put the car into park. Before he could respond to her, the car lit up with strobing red and blue lights. He glanced up at the rearview as Amy looked over her shoulder. An unmarked SUV pulled to a stop behind them. The flashing blue and red came from an array on its dashboard.

  “There's your answer,” he said.

  Amy reached for the door handle. “Let me handle this.”

  “Wait,” he said, reaching an arm in front of her. He kept his eyes on the image in the mirror. “As soon as the driver gets close enough, I can—”

  “That would not be smart, Hatcher. They're running the plate now. Even if you could pull some NASCAR moves and evade them, the chances of blowing past another cruiser while we're making our getaway make it a loser. The rental company will have my name for them in minutes. The last thing we need is a warrant out on one of us.”

  He was only half-listening, his eyes still on the mirror.

  “We probably stumbled onto a surveillance at that other place. Maybe that was the trap, trying to get us to go to some place that was being watched. Get us busted breaking in. Pretty smart. But either way, I can find out what's going on. Maybe even pick up some helpful information in the process.”

  Before he could object, she opened the door and gently shrugged off his arm. He watched her head back to the SUV, one of her arms raised, shielding her eyes from the headlights. The passenger door opened and a guy in a flak jacket and black tactical gear stepped out. Some words were passed back and forth, Amy gesturing and pointing, the cop looking stern, unmoved, not saying much.

  Hatcher couldn't make out what she was telling him. Then the driver got out. He was dressed the same way as the first one, full tac outfit. He paused near the front of the SUV, caught the eye of the other cop and they exchanged nods.

  The cop walked toward Hatcher, his path hugging the side of the car. He stopped before he reached the driver's side door.

  “Shut off the engine and step out of the vehicle,” he said.

  Hatcher stared at the man's reflection in the side mirror. Keeping his body still, he slid his arm over to the control on the door and adjusted the angle to get a better look.

  The cop had a hand on his sidearm, the other crossed over and near it, ready to break leather. “Shut it off,” he repeated, a bit more loudly. “And step out. Now.”

  Movement in the rear-view. Hatcher glanced up and caught it, then jerked his head around to see it directly. Amy was being pushed against the SUV, that cop blading his body to protect his weapon, kicking her legs apart.

  Goddamn it. He pinched his lower lip between his teeth. A swarm of I-Told-You-So's buzzed through his thoughts, but he forced them aside. He had much more immediate issues to worry about.

  Since hitting the gas and leaving Amy was not an option, he turned the key fob. The car went dead.

  He sat behind the wheel for a moment, then he picked up the phone Amy had taken from Dick Leslie and scrolled the address book. One entry was simply ‘D’. He tapped on the message icon and quickly thumbed in a few words of text. Satisfied, he hit send.

  “I'm not going to say it again, asshole! Out of the car. Move!”

  Hatcher slipped the phone between the seat and the center console. Then he pushed open the door and stepped out onto the street.

  He looked over to see Amy bent over the hood of the SUV, her arm being yanked behind her back. Her eyes were both apologetic and confused when she looked up to see him.

  The cop nearest Hatcher took a step back from the car and pointed. “Hands on the hood.”

  Hatcher raised his hands to around chest high. “Before you have a YouTube moment, I don't suppose I could ask what the charge is.”

  “Get up against the fucking car, shitbag.”

  “Oh, now I get it.” He smiled. “Case of mistaken identity. Shitbag's my cousin. Understandable you'd be confused.”

  The cop sneered at him, but didn't move closer. Before Hatcher could say anything else, the rear doors to the SUV opened and one cop bounced out on each side. The one on the driver's side spun a baton in his hand by its side handle and gave it a sharp flick. It telescoped out and doubled in length, locking into place with an audible crack. He gave it another twirl and secured it along his forearm, hand in a tight fist around the side handle, and cocked his arm back. The cop who'd exited on the opposite side passed by where Amy was. He drew his weapon as he rounded the front of the car, aiming it steadily at Hatcher's face.

  “I'll give you this,” Hatcher said, looking from one cop to the other, then the third, before turning his attention back to the first one. “You're smarter than you look.”

  There was little use in resisting at this point, not with Amy in custody, being tugged off the SUV by an arm, her eyes pleading with him not to try anything. He watched her get shoved into the back of the other vehicle, then turned and leaned against the car, spread eagle, as instructed. Two of them converged on him, knocking him off balance and smashing his face against the surface as they zip-tied his hands behind his back. They emptied his pockets, dropping
his phone onto the concrete and smashing it underfoot, then took him to the SUV and roughed him into the back next to Amy. Two of the cops got into the front. The other two got into the rental.

  Amy looked at him, but didn't say anything.

  They drove for about ten minutes, winding through deserted back streets, only an occasional cab or delivery truck visible. Hatcher saw a police cruiser at one intersection, but it turned in the opposite direction. The SUV stayed behind the rental, keeping a few car lengths between them but matching pace.

  A few scenarios crossed his mind as he sat there, hands wedged near the small of his back, pressed against the seat. Scenes of getting the door open, doing a drop-roll onto the pavement. But there was no way to accomplish something like that without leaving Amy. Part of him knew it would have been the smart thing to do, for both their sakes, but there would be no way of making her understand that, even if she pretended to. Ever. And even if she did, there would be no way of lying to himself about it afterward. The smart thing wasn't always the best, wasn't always the one you wanted to define you. The mind could focus on the ends all it wanted, but the heart always remembered the means.

  The streets were dark, the buildings darker. Old, industrial structures of dingy brick and stone. Steam misted up in alleyways like a gothic fog, visible in the wash of an occasional caged bulb. The rental swung behind a warehouse and pulled down a narrow drive. It parked next to a loading dock. The SUV pulled up next to it.

  Neither Hatcher nor Amy had spoken during the ride. They even avoided exchanging many glances, Amy seeming to understand it was more important for them to stay aware of their surroundings at this point than to communicate. The sum total of their interaction had been her mouthing the words, Leslie's Boys.

  The cops all got out and gathered near the front of the SUV. They talked a bit. One got out a cell phone and made a call.

  “Hatcher, they're not—”

  “I know.”

  “These are Leslie's goons. The East River Boys. They have to be.”

  Hatcher kept his eyes on the cops. “I'm sure you're right.”

  “Deborah's behind this. She must have set it up. They're probably going to hold us until it's too late to stop whatever it is you're supposed to stop.”

  Hatcher said nothing. He watched the one cop put the phone away. Light brown hair in a crew cut. That guy looked lean, arms well proportioned. No pudge to his cheeks. An athlete. One of the others, the guy who'd flicked out the tonfa, had a swollen look, the kind that came from a lot of free-weights, a constant pump. Short dark hair combed straight back. Probably acne on his back from juicing. The guy who'd driven them was a bit short and stocky, thick dark hair on the back of his hands, wiry, thinning hair on his head. The fourth one was bald with a paunch even his vest couldn't hide, and older than the other three. The four of them exchanged a few more words, glancing back at the vehicle, a couple of them nodding. Then the athletic one and the one with the paunch turned and climbed the stairs up to the loading dock and the other two came back to the SUV.

  “Here we go,” Hatcher said.

  One came to each side of the vehicle and they opened the rear doors. Short-and-Stocky yanked Hatcher out by his arm first, an aggressive squeeze and jerk near the elbow. Amy was pulled out at almost the same time on the opposite side.

  The cop with Hatcher shut the door and shoved him forward. Amy came stumbling to the front of the SUV just after he got there. She shot a glance over her shoulder as the pumped-up cop behind her gave her a hard poke with his retractable tonfa. They stepped up onto a curb in front of the dock, prodded toward the stairs.

  “How long do you really think you can keep this up?” she said. “Everyone on the force has heard about your little club. I'm sure some have even figured out who you are. It's only a matter of time before someone digging into Leslie comes across a bone in his closet that leads right back to you.”

  The cop grabbed her by the back of her hair with one of those swollen arms, tugged her head back. He put his face close to hers and talked with a voice that was low and growling. “Pretty mouth like that should have something going into it, not coming out of it.”

  He pushed her forward by the head like he was throwing a shot-put. She floundered a few steps before tripping on the first concrete stair and dropping hard onto them. Hatcher moved toward her, saw her wince in pain. But then she opened her eyes and looked up at him, shook her head.

  The cop who had shoved her snorted and started forward. As he did, Hatcher spun into his path and head-butted him square in the face.

  The guy backpedaled a foot, hand covering his nose, eyes forcefully blinking. Short-and-Stocky, who'd been escorting Hatcher, made a sound and lunged, but Hatcher pivoted on one leg and thrust a sidekick into his gut. The kevlar absorbed the impact, but the force of it knocked the guy back off the curb, and the sudden drop off caused him to lose his footing completely and fall backward, slamming the upper part of his back against the grill of the SUV.

  The cop he'd head-butted came at him with a looping right hand, the tonfa gripped by the side-handle, short end forward, so that it would smash against his face. But Hatcher jerked and twisted his upper body, rotating his shoulders, and the punch zoomed past his face. He swung his foot hard, connecting with the man's ankles as he stepped through, and that guy tumbled off the curb also, head-first.

  Two hammers cocked from the loading dock a few feet above him. Hatcher looked up and saw both of the other cops pointing their service weapons. One a pistol, the other a revolver.

  “Enough of that,” the athletic one said.

  Short-and-Stocky was on his feet first, scrambling up the curb. He reached into a thigh pocket on the side of his parachute pants and pulled out a metal object, five connected circles, side by side, curved brace along the bottom. Brass knuckles, only these didn't look brass.

  “I said, enough. Put it away, Santini. Can't you see? This is exactly what he wants. Don't be a dumb ass. You, too, Richter.” The swollen guy had gotten up, was making a hard move back Hatcher's way, only to pull up when athletic guy barked again. “I swear to God I will kick your ass myself. Both of you.”

  Short-and-Stocky grumbled, stiffening a finger in the air as a warning, then slipped the knuckles back in the pocket. Swollen guy stopped short of Hatcher, glaring at him, trembling with rage.

  “Get them up here and stop fucking around.”

  The bulky cop grabbed Amy by her arm and jerked her to her feet. She looked at Hatcher like she wasn't sure whether he was crazy, her eyes begging him not to try something like that again.

  They marched up the stairs, the cops throwing in extra pokes and jabs, a shot to the ribs here and there, jabs and elbows as hard as they thought they could get away with.

  Paunchy guy held the door as they filed through. The inside was of the building was dark with just a few islands of lonely light along the wall or spilling from around corners, a cavernous maze of wide aisles. There were masses of shapes in the shadows, mostly squared off and solid. Boxes and crates and containers. It was hard to tell whether the place was still in use, or just served as storage. Whatever the case, these guys clearly had the run of it.

  The door closed behind them. Hatcher heard it clank shut. The jangle of keys, the clunk of a bolt thrown. Athletic guy was in the lead. He strode down the lane that spanned the entire floor and cut around a corner where a pale light shone from the window of an interior office. He kept walking down the corridor, past the door to that office, then stopped in front of another door on the opposite side.

  Athletic guy slipped a key into an oversized lock. Once it tripped, he slid a large deadbolt and tugged open the door. It was solid metal with a small, rectangular window of thick glass around eye level, reinforced along the edges with riveting plating. The window had a mesh wiring running through it, and looked like something composite, almost certainly bullet proof. Hatcher glanced
at the door frame. Heavy-duty, with thick steel plating. He guessed that steel encased the entire perimeter and ceiling, behind the plaster. This wasn't just a room. It was a vault.

  Someone behind Hatcher pushed him inside. Amy was thrust in after him. The room wasn't very big, maybe fifteen by twenty, and was empty. A florescent bulb on the ceiling buzzed to life, lighting up the space in a pale glow. The walls were battleship gray. There were no chairs or benches. There was a stain on the floor near one corner. Hatcher assumed it was blood.

  The door shut with a loud, solid thump. The sound of the bolt being thrown followed.

  “I guess this is where they'll keep us,” Amy said, looking around. With her hands behind her back, she looked like an overly formal official, conducting an inspection. “Cold storage. Use the time for Leslie to arrange some trumped up charges with some flunkies in the DA's office who still think he’s going places.”

  Hatcher said nothing. He studied the door, the ceiling light. The florescent bulb was in a long mesh cage.

  She backed up to one of the walls and leaned against it. “I really don't think it was wise to mix it up with them out there like that. Sweet, maybe, but not smart. I wasn't hurt.”

  “I know you weren't.”

  “Well, all that accomplished was to piss them off.”

  “Which is what I wanted. But it also confirmed who was in charge.”

  “The one who looks like an underwear model?”

  Hatcher glanced at her. “Not exactly the way I was thinking of him, but yeah.”

  “Are you saying you have a plan?”

  “I'm working on one.” He scrutinized the door, ran his gaze along the seams. “Not like we have much of a choice.”

  “Hatcher, are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, I don't get the impression they'll hold back. They'll shoot if we try to break out.”

  He looked at her. “Amy, I'm not sure you're quite grasping the gravity of the situation.”

  “What do you mean? I'm well aware it's pretty damn grave.”

  “Hold on to that last word. These are dirty cops. You said so yourself. And they're not exactly hiding their identities.”