Brenda nodded her head.
“I said get out!” Frank barked loud enough to get a girl’s attention. Brenda turned and shot Frank a look that quickly made the old man shut his mouth.
Amy Davison poked her head out of the booth, spotted Mack and Brenda approaching, and rolled her eyes. “You guys better fly.”
The other girl, a snotty blond brat, sighed. “I need a few hits anyway. Who has a joint?”
Mack waited until the other teens split the scene. Walking past him, Brenda with sarcastic and cold eyes slipped into Amy's booth.
“Your tears have dried up.”
“Hey, a girl can't mourn forever,” Amy answered in a snotty tone. “What do you want?”
“I'm someone who is going to slap your smart mouth into the snow,” Brenda promised Amy in a tone that made the snotty girl tense up. “You shut up, answer the questions you're going to be asked, and then go whine to whoever will listen about how two cops mistreated you.”
“Hey, you can't--”
Brenda slammed a hard fist down onto the table, making the rusted napkin dispenser jump.
“Your boyfriend is dead. That boy is never going to come back home and eat a microwave dinner or look outside his bedroom window at a dirty street. His body is laying in a cold morgue. If you don't talk, you could be next.”
“Me?” Amy gasped in horror. “What did I do?”
Mack let Brenda take charge. He leaned back, folded his arms, and waited.
“You know who killed Alonzo,” Brenda hissed. “Don't deny it. If you do, I'll get a court order and attach you to every lie detector test known to man.”
“I… well...” Amy actually began to sweat. Most cops in her neighborhood could have cared less if she lived or died. Most cops just looked the other way to protect their own backsides. That was the law of the streets, an unspoken code that no one dared to break. “Look… I don't know nothing, miss.”
Brenda locked her eyes on Amy's bitter face.
“I'm probably being followed. And you better believe that if Joey Curanto sees me talking to you, well, he’ll want to know why.”
“Hey! what?” Amy shot her eyes out of a grimy window and studied the snow. She didn't see anyone watching that diner. But in her neighborhood, there were unseen eyes lurking in every shadow.
“Talk to me!”
Mack was impressed at how quickly Brenda had broken her.
“Amy,” he spoke, deciding to play the good cop, “Let us help you. If you refuse, you’ll probably end up like Alonzo.”
“I don't know anything,” Amy insisted in a shaky voice. She kept her eyes on the snow. “Even if I did… no one betrays Joey. No one!”
“You were on 'Dazed'. If you deny it, I can track down your IP address,” Brenda warned and decided to take a daring chance. “A person who goes by the name 'Jadedrosepedal1712' introduced Alonzo to 'Underyournose’,”
Mack leaned up a little. So Brenda was holding back on him—but for good reason. Mack wasn't talented at acting shocked; Brenda needed a sincere reaction out of him.
“You're 'Jadedrosepedal1712', aren't you?”
Amy slid her eyes away from the grimy window and looked up into Brenda's hard face.
“Stupid cops. You're going to get me killed!” she screamed and then tried to jump to her feet and run.
Brenda used her right foot to kick Amy back down into the booth.
“Time to talk, girl,” she growled. “Tell me just what Curanto is up to and why he killed Alonzo.”
Chapter 5
“Hard to believe, isn't it?” Brenda asked as Mack stepped outside the diner into an icy wind that began clawing at his hard face.
“Amy dating the son of Curanto's nephew? Not really.”
“Not that,” Brenda said, walking back to Mack's car as her eyes darted around the street. “It's hard to believe a girl that young can harbor a soulless heart.”
Brenda paused and examined the snowy, decrepit buildings that surrounded her like dark eyes trapped in a cold corpse.
“Is that what New York does to people?”
“Not New York. The world,” Mack told Brenda, walking his eyes around as the heavy falling snow covered his hair and trench coat. “New York seems to be a magnet for these people, I will admit that.”
Brenda was about to reply when a 1984 gray Honda Accord came bursting around the corner at a dangerously high speed. The Honda skidded on the icy road, nearly sliding into a parked SUV, before straightening out and speeding toward them. Brenda spotted an Uzi poke out of the open passenger window and began spitting out hungry bullets.
“Down!” she yelled, diving behind Mack's car. Mack didn't need to be told twice. He dove down next to Brenda, yanked out his Glock 19, and waited as the Honda sped past his car without stopping.
Steaming bullets chewed Mack's car to pieces. Mack and Brenda kept low as glass shattered and tires exploded. As soon as the Honda was clear of the scene, Mack and Brenda both jumped to their feet and began firing into the snow. Two of Brenda's bullets struck the Honda's back windshield, while Mack succeeded in shooting out one of the back tires. The driver of the Honda kicked it into high gear, sped away, slipped around an icy corner, and vanished.
“I didn't see a license plate,” Brenda smelled the sourness of gunpowder lingering in the cold air.
“Junk car designed to hit and run,” Mack explained, eyeing the street angrily. “Curanto knew where we were.”
Mack checked his gun and then marched back to the diner just in time to see Amy run out the back door.
“Hold it,” Frank yelled at Mack, reaching his right hand under the front counter.
Mack fired off a warning shot that missed Frank's face by a single inch.
“Back off or I will shoot you, your choice!” Mack roared.
Frank froze. No cop had ever fired at him before. Mack was a different brand of cop—an honest cop. Honest cops were dangerous.
“Yeah, sure... okay.” Frank raised a pair of shaking hands into the air. “No harm, cop, just trying to protect the girl.”
Mack glanced behind him. No Brenda in sight. She's going for the girl.
“If you ever try to pull a gun on me again, I'll put a bullet in your head,” Mack warned Frank in a tone that sent the old man cowering back to the greasy kitchen on shaky legs.
While Mack handled Frank, Brenda ran around the side of the diner into a narrow alley just in time to see Amy burst out the back door. Brenda quickly ducked down behind a metal trash can, waited for Amy to run her way, then stuck out her right leg. Amy was running in blind fear to notice anything. She went flying forward, hands whipping out in front of her, and landed belly first on the alley floor so hard that it knocked the wind out of her.
“On your feet, girl,” Brenda barked, grabbing the back of the pink coat Amy was wearing. “Up!”
Amy felt Brenda begin yanking on her coat. She was too dazed and scared to fight.
“Please...” she begged, struggling to breathe. “Please...”
“You called Curanto! Why?” Brenda demanded, swinging Amy around to face her. “Talk to me!”
Amy's terrified eyes looked up and saw the gun in Brenda's right hand.
“You… you can't hurt me,” Amy stumbled on her words. “You're a cop.”
“Girl, since I woke up this morning Joey Curanto has tried to kill me twice. Do you really think I care about you?” Brenda snapped, kicking the part of 'Bad Cop' into gear. “Why did you call Joey Curanto?”
“I told you I was dating Joey Jr's son, okay? Go talk to that Joey. He was the one who told me to hook up with Alonzo and get the guy to make a profile on 'Dazed'.”
Brenda studied Amy's soulless eyes. “Where is your heart, girl? An innocent kid is dead. Doesn't that matter to you?”
“Look, I didn't know Alonzo that good, alright? I didn't even like the guy. It's like I said, Joey Jr. had me hook up with Alonzo. What am I supposed to do, cry my eyes out over some guy I didn't even like? Get real.”
Amy tried to back away but Brenda grabbed her arm. “Let me go!”
“Why is Joey Curanto recruiting teenagers?” Brenda snapped. “Talk or I'm going to arrest you for attempted murder!”
“Attempted murder? You—”
“You made a call knowing full well that you put the life of two authorities in danger! I call that attempted murder, and so will a judge and jury. Now spill the rest of it!” Brenda growled, ignoring the icy winds and snow that were howling up and down the alley like rabid dogs.
Amy stared at Brenda with terrified eyes.
“I… had to call Joey Jr. He’s into some real heavy stuff and he… he talks to me, okay? The guy has it real bad for me. So what if Joey is using him to start a drug circle? It's not like the kids around this neighborhood have a future, anyway! Just last week Hammer, that fourteen-year-old kid, shot another ten year old. So don't go wasting any tears on a bunch of kids who want to earn some extra dough to get out of this dump! Joey pays real good, you know. So get off my back!”
“What did Alonzo—”
“Alonzo was a whiz kid, real smart with computers and stuff. He was a hacker or something like that. Had a reputation for being real smart. He also pushed some street drugs around, small stuff, marijuana mostly, but a little white powder here and there.” Amy tried to yank away from Brenda's grip but she held it firm. “Let go!”
“I want some names,” Brenda demanded. “Who did Alonzo hang with?”
“Hang with?” Amy asked in a confused voice. “Alonzo hung with some bad dudes, that’s all I’m going to say.” Amy winced when she tried to yank away from Brenda again but failed.
“Look. Curanto wants to start running drugs through this area, okay? Now please… I've got to get out of here and go get my mom. If I don't, we'll be dead before night hits.”
“Dead?” Brenda asked in a stern voice.
“What? Do you think Joey Jr. is gonna let me live? Well, maybe he would, but Joey isn't going to. No way! I'm taking my mom and grabbing a train to the city and then splitting the scene. Now, let go of me!”
“Girl, if you run, you're dead. Your only chance to stay alive is to talk to me. I'm an FBI Agent—”
“The FBI is a joke and everyone knows it,” Amy spat at Brenda. “Joey Curanto isn't afraid of the FBI, the CIA, whoever. He's the big dog around here.”
Brenda thought back to Henry and Brent, and suddenly she was too tired to care anymore.
“Yeah, I get it. Amy. Run away. Live your life.” Brenda let go of her arm.
“You better run, too, if you know what is good for you,” Amy told her. “Joey Curanto is on a warpath. That's what Joey Jr. told me. You better split town and fast. Don't say I didn't warn you.”
Amy glanced around and then took off down the alley without saying another word. Brenda watched her run into the snow, then eased through the back door of the diner and found Mack.
“I let the girl go.”
“Why?”
Brenda told Mack every word Amy had spilled out into the snow.
“We can't protect her, Mack. She is still considered a minor. I can't prove she called Joey Jr.—”
“You could have snatched her cell phone.” A little anger bled into Mack’s voice. “Brenda, you know better—”
“She knew it and I knew it, Mack,” Brenda explained in a hard voice. “Sooner or later Curanto would have gotten to her. And he still might. But now, at least that girl has a fighting chance to live. And maybe this might have scared her straight? I doubt it, but there’s always a chance.”
Mack stared into Brenda's tired eyes, and decided to drop it. What he saw told him everything that needed to be said.
“The old man is in the kitchen. I locked him in the freezer. Better go let him out.”
While Mack was gone, she whipped out her cell phone and called Brent Summers.
“Yes, Director, this is Agent Lawson... Yes, you warned me.... No, I'm not leaving New York, but I will tell Joey Curanto you are helping me unless you decide to show a little backbone.”
“What?” Brent yelled into the cell phone. “I'll—”
“You'll do nothing, do you hear me!” Brenda yelled back. “I'm not stupid, Director. I can make Joey Curanto believe a whole lot of lies if I choose to do so, is that clear!”
Brenda was fed up with these cowards.
“You hold the upper ground right now, Agent Lawson, but pretty soon the media is going to stop reporting you as a victim and move on to another story. Then you're dead.”
“He sent another hit team to take me out,” Brenda informed Brent. “I don't think Curanto is going to wait until the media stops gushing over me. He knows I'm just another quick story to fill a stupid time slot. He's not going to give me time to breathe.”
“What do you want?” Brent asked Brenda through gritted teeth.
“Information,” Brenda demanded. “I want to know who Joey Jr. is. I want to know where the rat lives, what he drives, what he eats and what kind of toilet paper he uses.”
“You're walking into a death trap,” Brent fired at Brenda. “You can't take Joey Curanto down. The man has an army of lawyers that can—”
“I'm going for him,” Brenda told Brent as she examined the street from the diner window. “I intend to kill Joey Curanto. That's the only way I'm going to stay alive. Now, stop chewing my ear off and get to work. I'll call you back in one hour.”
“You're insane. You can't kill Joey Curanto. The man has so many body guards… it's impossible. You're insane!” Brent yelled at Brenda. “You're going to get a bullseye painted on our backs and—”
“Stop gabbing and get to work,” Brenda snapped. “Mack and I are going to hide out at a warehouse on the east river. I'll call you from there.” Brenda snapped her cell phone back into her coat pocket as her eyes continued to study the street.
“Where's the old man?” she asked, feeling Mack looking at her from the kitchen door.
“Sent him for a walk out in the snow.” Mack walked around the front counter and joined Brenda. “What's your plan?”
“I can't keep dodging bullets all day, Mack. I have to bring Joey Curanto to me.” Brenda continued to eye the heavy snow that was falling outside in the gray street. “Director Summers will betray me, I'm certain of that. But I can use him to lure Curanto to us.”
“And kill the rat?” Mack asked in a voice that reminded Brenda that they were still cops under a strict code. “We're not killers, Brenda.”
“As of now,” Brenda told Mack, pulling out her FBI credentials from her coat pocket, “I'm a private citizen who is claiming the right to defend her life.”
Brenda tossed Mack her FBI credentials. “If I live through this, you can give me my life back.”
Mack glanced down at the black wallet Brenda tossed him, then nodded. “Good enough.” He put the black wallet into the side pocket of his trench coat.
“As of now, I'm a cop who is going to stick by you no matter what to make sure you have a solid witness.”
Brenda stared into Mack's hard eyes. Mack knew Brenda was now intent on killing Joey Curanto. That is the only way Brenda was going to stay alive.
“Let's get down to business.” Mack kicked the front door to the diner open and stepped out into the falling snow. Brenda followed. “From this point forward I'm your shadow. Got it?”
“Do you see me arguing?” Brenda asked as a line of sirens appeared in the distance. “Right on time.”
Mack walked to his wreck of a bullet torn car.
“Someone got a call and was told to wait before sending in the cavalry,” he told Brenda in an angry voice. “I wouldn't doubt it if I'm a marked target now, too.”
“Welcome to the club, partner,” Brenda told Mack as an old police car driven by a corrupt cop sped up the street and slid to a stop.
“Hey, Mack, you alright?” a hypocritical voice asked. “Just got the call, got here as fast as I could. Man, someone really tore up your car!”
“Yeah, man. That su
re was fast! They left what? A few days ago?”
Brenda shook her head in disgust but said nothing. Yeah, Joey Curanto's poison arms extend real far… and he's not going to stop reaching for me until I'm filled with bullets.
Chapter 6
A faded yellow cab trudged past a string of wooden warehouses that sat as dead skeletons lining a filthy river laced with chunks of ice. Some of the warehouses were still operational—drug fronts mostly—while the rest were deserted except for homeless drug addicts and alcoholics looking for a place to haul up in. Joey Curanto owned the East River Bakery warehouse. The bakery was nothing but a drug lab that sat at the end of a long road that dead-ended into the river.
“Stop,” Brenda ordered the driver. “There,”
she pointed at a rotten warehouse blighted by broken windows and peeling paint.
“Okay, so you’re attending your funeral,” the cabbie told Brenda, easing the cab up to the warehouse.
Brenda and Mack studied the area with sharp eyes. No vehicles were present, but that didn't mean no eyes were watching. Brenda was counting on someone seeing the cab. Curanto’s warehouse was closed, supposedly due to the winter weather.
“We need to hurry. Curanto will be around.”
Mack tossed the cabbie two twenty dollar bills. “Get out of here and stay out. You saw nothing, okay?”
“I never see nothing,” the cabbie told Mack, accepting the money.
Mack saw a sad expression appear on the cabbie's wrinkled face. He told the old man, “Thanks for caring, but it has to be this way.”
“Everybody knows this place is a death trap,” the cabbie told Mack. “Well… this is the way it is around here.”
“Afraid so.” Mack opened the back door of the cab, stepped out into the hard snow, looked around, and then jogged to the front door of the warehouse. Brenda followed, holding her Glock 17 at the ready.
“Let's get inside—”
“My way,” Brenda replied, motioned him to stand back, and then used her right boot to kick open the flimsy wooden front door. “I want him to know we're here.”
“Works for me.” Mack checked his pistol and then glanced down the row of ice battered warehouses. How many dead bodies? In the warehouses, in the river, and for what? That's what the drugs and guns represent. Human life sacrificed on the altar of money and power…
Give No Chance: An Unputdownable Crime Thriller Packed With Mystery And Suspense (A Lawson & Abernathy Novella) Page 3
