by K A Kron
Chapter 24
Back in Criminal Law, we pondered the quandary of whether a crime was committed if there was no victim. Again the hands were raised, the intelligent-sounding responses were posed, and then there was a polling of the class to see who was right. Bottom line was that if there was no victim, there was no crime. Period. Interesting. I could see how that worked. As happened quite frequently, my thoughts wandered. What about Chris? If she was dealing drugs, then she was definitely committing a crime. She would probably not see the actual victims of her actions. Chris just handed it out and never saw the overdoses or the way they got hooked and would do anything to get the money to score—it was more important than breathing. These people, the people she sold to, they had no chance at life, thanks to her.
And who the hell did I think I was? I was going to fix everything for everyone? I was going to stop her from dealing? I was on a path to what? If I stopped her, someone else would take her place. And what about me? What was I really doing? Well, in one morning alone I had committed several crimes, and there was technically a victim, Tommy. Were my actions justified? On a legal level, absolutely not; but on a moral level, he was getting what he deserved, because there was a real victim, and she was sitting beside me. Ali made everything I did or would do much more dangerous. She was trained to look for signs that people were hiding things, and eventually she would put all the pieces together. And the bad guy, me, would end up in a bad way. All this said, I was not even considering walking away from her.
Chapter 25
To my relief, the rest of the week passed without much drama, and I woke up on Friday looking forward to the weekend. Tommy’s very public demise had, at least for the moment, given Ali some peace. My peace, however, was shattered when I hacked into Denver Health’s server and found that Tommy had been discharged. I spent some time and found out that he had been stabilized and sent home, not charged with anything. UPS had him on sick leave, and it looked like he was going to keep his job. I wondered if Tommy had gotten the clue and was going to behave himself.
I looked at my watch and realized I’d been at it for some time. After spending the rest of the morning running errands, I settled back into the apartment and thought about the days ahead.
Ali had sent me a series of text messages that morning, asking if I was available for dinner with her fathers, but I had declined the offer. I wanted to spend time with Ali and her family but needed the unexpected free time to focus on Chris. Based on Ali’s lack of response, she wasn’t pleased with my decision.
Oliver called me early in the afternoon, begging me to beg Adam for my job back at Ice House, with exaggerated stories of the sure demise of both the bar and his mental stability if I did not soon return. While I missed Oliver (and Adam, if the truth be told), I wasn’t ready to return to the bar and relished an entire weekend of freedom. I had come to a decision on the Chris situation and would need extra hours in the day to pull off the plan. With a final promise to stop by over the weekend, I hung up with Oliver and focused on my to-do list.
My first stop in the late afternoon was to the closest Target, where I paid cash for three disposable phones, a pair of black leggings, a tight black T-shirt, a black hoodie and a bag of strawberry licorice. The phones and clothes were for the evening’s activities, and the licorice was a substitute for the giant Snickers bar I really wanted. I stopped by the Starbucks inside the store, again thanking the American need to combine nearly every activity into one-stop shopping.
I sat in my car in the parking lot, sipping a vanilla chai latte and munching on the licorice as I programmed the phones. In a post–September 11 world, it still amazed me that you could purchase an untraceable cell phone, but I was now taking full advantage of my civil liberties. I watched a suburban family unload their purchases into an SUV and laughed as the father struggled to keep the cart from rolling away and load a squirming toddler into a car seat, while his oblivious wife looked on. Based on the look of contempt he gave her, I estimated their marriage would last another six months, at best.
I dialed a number I knew by heart and listened to the phone ring twice before the silent answer on the other end.
“Charlie.”
“Riley.”
“Pineapples and celery. One case of each, please. Oh, and an apple pie.”
There was a long silence before he replied. “You got it, babe. Two hours.”
Charlie disconnected, and I exited the car, crushing the phone under my boot and throwing it into a trash can. The family had by now managed to load all their wares into the vehicle, and I nodded to the husband as he carefully backed out of the space. Poor bastard, I thought.
Chapter 26
It also amazed me that you could purchase grenades and assault rifles from a gay ex-solider in the middle of downtown Denver with little trouble. But who was I to argue free enterprise, I thought, as I slid the back door open on Charlie Black’s downtown warehouse. The space was fronted by a reputable business, called the Royal Flush, that rented and stored port-a-potties. It was an unusual choice for a cover that I questioned when Charlie and I first started working in the civilian sector. His answer was brilliant in its simplicity, and we never discussed the topic again.
“Do you notice the smell of shit when you walk through the front door?”
“Yes. I was trying to be polite, but it really smells like crap…literally.” I wrinkled my nose to emphasize the point.
Charlie smiled. “How many cops do you think are going to spend a lot of time poking around a business that smells like a shit house on a hot summer day?”
That night, I met Charlie in the back of the warehouse, which was sealed from the smell of the front area. The warehouse floor was covered with wall-to-wall synthetic grass, and the walls were soundproof and windowless, which helped conceal the arsenal Charlie stored in the middle of the city. State-of-the-art surveillance and computer equipment lined an entire wall of the building, and I could see the familiar color-coded blips on interactive GPS maps. One map was dedicated to the unsavory mix of clients who paid Charlie for executive protection, while the other map tracked a different set of customers. Charlie conducted surveillance on another set of distasteful characters, and the map with the red dots moving around the city represented his current assignments.
Charlie was busy chipping golf balls off the grass into a giant net when I arrived, and I was quiet until he finished the bucket and set down the seven iron. He still kept his dark hair short, and I watched the muscles flex under his shirt as he swung the club. A former Army Ranger, Charlie was thirty-four, five foot eleven, and gorgeous. Done swinging the club, Charlie turned and gave me a slow smile and a crushing hug.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said into my hair.
“Hello, handsome,” I replied against his neck.
“Still a dyke? Such a pity.” I could feel the smirk on his face, and I gave him our standard reply.
“Still a fag? It’s a crying shame.”
Charlie let me go and brushed a stray hair out of my eyes. He walked to a bar in the corner of the space and pulled two Michelob Ultras out of the refrigerator.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake. I haven’t seen you in months, and all you have to offer me is a Michelob Ultra? Is that any way to treat a customer and a guest?”
“It’s your punishment for not seeing me in almost a year. You’re lucky to even get that, so be grateful. And I’m watching my figure.” He laughed, but there was an edge to the sound. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you are just coming back to me for my superior weaponry.” He popped the caps off the beers and made a wide sweeping gesture toward the rows of wooden crates lining the walls.
“Never. I’m using you for the potential for future heterosexual relations, in the event I need to get impregnated someday.” It was a running joke between the two of us, since Charlie wanted me to have his baby, and I would rather have hot pokers stuck in my eyes than bear a child. The entire birthing process disgusted
me, a fact Charlie knew and relished.
It was Charlie’s turn to roll his eyes. “The only way you are ever going to have a kid is if you can buy one at Costco.”
“I would buy our baby at Macy’s—the quality is bound to be better.”
I looked at the flat bundle of wires, batteries, and cotton sitting on a counter and laughed. In the two hours since I had called, Charlie had assembled a remote-controlled incendiary device that actually resembled an apple pie. Typically, he built the mini fire bombs in a strictly Unitarian manner, ensuring the components were minimal and untraceable. This time, however, Charlie had outdone himself and had packaged everything inside a pie tin, with wires running out the top of the crust.
“Nice,” I commented, not giving him the satisfaction of my true thoughts.
“You’re welcome,” Charlie said and stuck out his tongue.
I ran my hand across the two crates sitting in the middle of the warehouse floor. Both lids were cracked, and I could see grenades and rifles nestled in straw. Charlie watched me as I picked up an M16 and inserted an empty magazine into the well. I sighted the weapon at a point on the wall and pulled the trigger, listening to the click of the firing pin. Without looking at Charlie, I returned the weapon to the crate and picked up three grenades. As I started to juggle the grenades, Charlie dove behind a couch in the middle of the room. I caught the grenades one at a time and returned them to the straw.
I peeked over the couch to find Charlie rolled into a tight ball. “Don’t be such a wimp, and a couch is not going to protect you from the blast.”
“Jesus fucking Christ! What is wrong with you? You’re going to blow the entire block to hell and back.” He unrolled himself and brushed off his jeans. Charlie picked up his beer and went back to the seven iron.
“You are such a baby sometimes, Charlie. You know as well as I do that you have to straighten the pins and pull them out of a grenade before it will go off. You think the guys deployed to Afghanistan right now walk around on eggshells all day waiting for a grenade to spontaneously explode?”
Logic wasn’t going to sway his mood, and Charlie silently popped balls against the net. I suspected the silence had more to do with my long absence than with the juggling, and I decided to confront it, rather than ignore the conflict like we typically did.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called. I know you’re angry.”
He was quiet for a long moment and I waited. “Where have you been, Riley?”
“I’ve met someone, and I like her very much. I’m trying to build a normal life, but it’s complicated, Charlie. I’d like to tell you about her, if you give me the chance.”
“Where have you been?” he repeated in a soft voice, and he didn’t look back from the net. “I’ve been worried, you know.” Charlie picked up a Ping driver, the muscles flexing through his shirt as he rocketed a ball off the net. The anger was now visible in his shaking hands, causing me to stare silently at the floor. We were no longer joking, and the air was thick with hurt and unspoken words between us. In trying to move on with my life, I had violated a sacred trust.
I walked to where he stood with his back to me and touched his shoulder.
When he turned, Charlie’s blue eyes were less angry and more hopeful. He gave me a half smirk and cocked his head.
“Are you back?”
“I’m back.”
Chapter 27
I drove by the Detour and spotted Chris’s Audi parked in the back lot, far from where it could be dinged by a careless car door. Dressed in my black Target attire, I parked on the street and made my way through the shadows to the car, remembering how proud Chris had been when she’d showed it off at Ice House a few weeks prior. We had all ahhed and ooed over the beautiful machine, never suspecting that she had purchased it with drug money. I should have thought as much, though, given the slew of cash Chris was flashing around each time she came into the bar. Everything from a new Movado watch to rounds of drinks was now making sense. Unfortunately for Chris, the story she fed me about her neighbor, combined with selling drugs to kids, was to be her downfall.
Conscious of the security cameras I knew were monitoring the Detour parking lot, I crouched next to the Audi and slid a knife blade deep into the tire sidewall. Sighing at the thought of damaging such a beautiful car, I repeated the process on the other three tires before slinking out of the area.
Chapter 28
The damaged Audi was going to buy me a few extra hours while Chris called for a tow truck, but I was still cutting it close. I parked in the alley a few houses down and listened to the night before I got out of the car. Without one of Chris’s infamous parties, the neighborhood was quiet, and I slid out of the driver’s seat and opened the trunk. The grenades and M16s were hidden inside a duffle bag Charlie had loaned me, and I struggled to haul it out of the trunk. Charlie had convinced me to take only five of the rifles and a handful of the grenades, based solely on his prediction that I couldn’t lift much more. Despite my vocal protests to the contrary, Charlie turned out to be correct, and I banged the bag against the ground with a small but unladylike grunt.
Hefting the bag onto my back, I made my way as silently as possible down the alley, holding the fire pie with both hands. I paused at the locked chain-link gate surrounding Chris’s property and silently cursed my luck. I rolled the bag over the fence and winced as it crashed down on the other side. After scrambling over with the pie precariously balanced in one hand, I grabbed the bag and moved toward the back door, listening for any indication of a neighbor who had been awakened by the commotion. A convincing story seemed unlikely at the hour, and I didn’t know what I was going to say, if challenged. I again reminded myself to come up with a cover story prior to starting an operation—it had always been my weakest link.
I maneuvered the locks on the back door and pulled the bag into Chris’s kitchen. I had never been inside her house, despite the many party invitations in the past, so I wasted a few minutes wandering the rooms. Clearly, by the standard Chris was enjoying, dealing drugs was a lucrative field of work. The kitchen was outfitted with Viking appliances and marble countertops, while the living room featured an assortment of contemporary furniture. Original art pieces competed for space with the latest electronics, and the bamboo floors shined even in the dim light.
I walked through the space, looking for the inevitable stash of drugs and money, knowing even before I entered the house that it would be in Chris’s bedroom. Drug dealers are all the same in that they eventually succumb to a life of paranoia and desperation to maintain their lifestyle and protect it from both the competition and the law. The money was stacked in a wall safe, hidden behind an Annie Liebowitz nude photograph of Kate Moss with a fully clothed Johnny Depp.
“Weird. So weird,” I sighed.
I extracted half the money and instead left three of the hand grenades Charlie had given me.
Sitting on the bed, I looked around the room for the most likely hiding spot for the drugs and settled on the closet. Within a few minutes, I found bags of cocaine in a floor safe under a throw rug.
“Amateur,” I whispered.
In less than twenty minutes, I hid the remaining hand grenades in the closet floor safe and stored the rifles under Chris’s bed and in her hall closet. Charlie’s pie-o-fire was safely hiding under the couch, where it would be most effective. As the night set, I jumped the fence and made my way back down the alley with a much lighter duffle bag now filled with cash and drugs.
Chapter 29
One downside to being a caped avenger is the sporadic sleep. After returning Charlie’s duffle bag and stashing the cash in his warehouse, I returned home and tossed and turned until my alarm went off at 10 a.m. With a groan, I rolled out of bed and headed immediately for the shower, knowing from past experience that if I went for the coffee first I would dillydally in the kitchen and compromise the timeline.
Hair done, makeup concealing dark circles, legs fully shaved and dressed in Highlands-appropriate
athletic wear, I grabbed a to-go cup of coffee and made my way toward Chris’s house. As I had anticipated, the neighborhood was slowly showing signs of life. Jordan’s house was quiet, but people were on the street walking dogs, despite the cold. I spotted the Audi parked in front of Chris’s house, all four tires intact.
At exactly 11 a.m., I jogged two houses down from Chris’s house, turned on the second disposable phone, and dialed the code Charlie had given me the night before. I paused, wondering for the hundredth time if I was ready to cross the line again. When I thought of the damage Chris was causing the community, it seemed like an easy decision. I pressed “send” on the phone and continued to jog down the block. Inside the house, I knew the fire pie had ignited and would soon burn through the living room couch. I continued a few blocks, hoping that someone would see the smoke before Chris burned to death so that I didn’t have to waste the last phone calling the fire department. By the time I rounded the next corner, I could hear sirens in the distance and made the final turn back toward where I had parked.
As I reached my car, the first fire truck arrived, and I knew I needed to leave before the street was blocked completely by emergency vehicles. I slipped behind the wheel and saw that Jordan and a woman I assumed was his mother were on their front lawn, watching the smoke pour out of Chris’s house. Jordan’s mother had a hard expression of satisfaction on her face, and I could only theorize that her thoughts were close to mine. Jordan’s face registered a mixture of open excitement and disbelief.
I dialed 911 using the final throw-away phone and spoke to a harried DPD dispatcher.
“911 dispatch. What is your emergency?”
