“I knew you’d return,” the man said with a chuckle as Hanna accompanied him deeper into the cell. “I hope that you remember our previous conversation and come bearing compensation.”
Drake’s eyebrows knitted.
“Compensation?”
Dr. Kruk made a tsk, tsk, tsk sound as he lowered himself into the chair across from Drake. In his periphery, Drake saw Hanna close the door, only, unlike last time, she remained inside the room.
“If you want my help, Drake, I want something from you in return — well, more specifically, something from your partner. From Chase Adams.”
Chapter 48
“Yeah, I don’t care what they say,” Officer Dalton began. “That was Damien Drake.”
“I don’t give a shit who it was,” Officer Pontiac replied as they walked out of the station. He lowered his voice. “All I care about is the shit he took.”
As he approached his car, he glanced at the rear door and scowled. A fellow officer had managed to close it while they were giving their statements, but he’d done a shit job; it was held together by a repurposed coat hanger and some electrical tape. Mike tried the door, but not only did it not open, but it felt as if it were welded shut.
“Motherfucker ruined my door,” he muttered as he got in the driver seat. When Dalton didn’t immediately join him in the car, Mike leaned out the window. “Get in.”
Dalton glanced back toward the front doors of the precinct.
“Think you can give me a ride home? I was considering picking up my daughter from school early and taking her to the movies.”
Mike stared at his partner in disbelief.
“Get the fuck in the car, Pete. Now.”
Dalton did as he was asked and Mike bit his tongue as he pulled out of the police station parking lot and made his way back toward Tremont.
When they had been driving for nearly ten minutes, he finally looked over at Dalton.
“Are you a fucking idiot?”
The man made a face.
“What are you talking about? It wasn’t my fault—”
“Going to the movies with your daughter? Seriously?”
Dalton shrugged.
“IA said to take the rest of the week off. I just figured—”
Mike ground his teeth in frustration.
“What do you think is going to happen when Chris and his crew see that the heroin is missing? Huh? When we can’t pay Jasmine for the dope we took on consignment.”
Dalton held his hands up.
“Dude, it’s not our fault. Someone jumped us.”
Mike shook his head.
“I knew you were a fat slob, Dalton, but I didn’t think that you were a complete fucking moron. They’re going to come after us, you idiot.”
Dalton swallowed hard.
“Naw, we can explain. Tell them what happened.”
Mike made a hard left and pulled around a slow moving taxi cab.
“Yeah, sure, that’ll work great. Both the thug and the drug lord will just, oh, I dunno, give us a hug maybe, tell us it’ll be okay. Then they’ll forget the whole thing.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You wanna go to the movies with your daughter? They are gonna fucking gut her and pull her intestines out like silly string, you fat fuck.”
Dalton’s jaw clenched and he finally clammed up. They continued toward Tremont for several minutes in silence, before Mike started to feel bad for the man.
“Look, you know what happened to Detective Simmons, right?”
Dalton nodded.
“Yeah. Those psychos in the cult skinned him.”
Mike shook his head. He couldn’t believe how naive his partner was.
“It wasn’t the Church of Liberation, Pete. It was the—”
Officer Pontiac reached up and pulled his aviator sunglasses down his nose. There was a young black man in a hoodie walking down the street, a plastic bag slung over one shoulder.
A plastic bag that Mike recognized.
“What the fuck?” he whispered as he slowed down and pulled over to the curb.
“What?” Dalton asked. “What is it? Why you stopping?”
What the hell are the odds?
It was only then that he realized that they were just a block or two from where Drake had jumped them, a block or two from Chris’s trap house.
“You gotta be shitting me.”
“What, man? Tell me what’s going on.”
Mike aimed an index finger at the youth walking down the street, not twenty yards in front of them.
“That’s my bag. That’s my bag, and that bastard’s got our drugs. I think it’s time we take them back, don’t you?”
Chapter 49
“Nothing on the news about Drake,” Screech said softly. “That’s a good thing — a real good thing.”
When Leroy didn’t answer, he turned around.
“Leroy? Where the fuck did you go?”
Concern spreading over his face, for the first time in at least an hour, Screech moved away from the TV, his eyes darting around Triple D.
It was empty.
“What the—?”
He hadn’t seen the boy leave, didn’t even hear Leroy say a word since he asked about the—
Screech’s gaze fell on the now empty table off to one side.
The drugs… drugs were gone.
“No!” Screech shouted, throwing up his arms. “Dammit!”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at it for a moment. He wanted to call somebody, he needed to call somebody, but he had no idea who.
He couldn’t call Drake — the man didn’t have a cell phone, and he was hesitant to call Sergeant Yasiv back in case he was still with DI Palmer.
Which left only one friendly: Dr. Beckett Campbell.
There was only one option, but Screech hesitated. The last thing he remembered Leroy saying was something about the cops, about Dalton and Pontiac, and how they were going to get away with everything.
If I call Beckett…
This wasn’t like Boris Brackovich or even like Donnie DiMarco. Sure, they weren’t talking about corrupt cops, but Beckett only knew how to take care of things one way, and Screech didn’t know if his conscience could support any more weight.
“How did this happen?” he wondered, rubbing his eyes.
Where did you go, Leroy? Where did you take the drugs?
A loud ringing pierced Triple D, and Screech looked down at his phone as if it were of extraterrestrial origins.
With a shrug, he answered it.
“Hello?”
As he waited for the voice on the other end to reply, he made his way toward his computer and sat down at his desk.
“I don’t know how he did it, but he was out, and then he was back,” a familiar voice said. “But that was close, Screech. Next time, though…”
Screech found himself nodding. His initial instinct was to deny everything, but he was too tired to keep on lying.
“I know,” he said, his voice barely a croak. “I know.”
“Drake dodged a bullet. I don’t even want to know what happened with those two police officers, Screech. I can’t… I can’t know.” Sergeant Yasiv paused and Screech resisted the urge to fill the silence with small talk. “You called me earlier, something about an address?”
Screech took one long, slow blink, and then snapped into focus.
“Yeah, I think we found something. There’s this compound, one that’s necessary to make the ohmefentanyl? Anyways, Leroy says—”
“Who?”
Screech shook his head.
“Never mind. But I think we’ve figured out where the stuff is being manufactured, an ANGUIS—”
An icon at the bottom of his screen flashed, drawing Screech’s attention.
“What the hell?”
He clicked on the app and a video filled the monitor.
At first, Screech thought he was looking at the interior of the trap house again through the camera that
Leroy had planted.
But that wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, because the image seemed to be moving.
“Screech? You still there?”
Screech barely heard Yasiv’s voice as he tried to figure out what he was looking at. It was difficult because the majority of the camera was blocked by a dark shadow.
The video suddenly jolted and Screech realized that he was looking at the inside of a car.
“Who the fuck set up this camera?” he mumbled.
“Screech?”
The movement stopped and the driver whipped around. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and looked furious. His lips formed words that Screech couldn’t make out, then he reached back and slapped the figure in the backseat.
“Fuck is this?”
The driver slapped the figure again, but, clearly not getting what he wanted, things escalated quickly.
In a matter of seconds, he was aiming a pistol into the backseat. The man tried to squirm out of the line of fire, but in the process must have nudged the camera because it moved again. And then, for a second — for the briefest of moments — the dark figure’s profile was visible.
There was a trickle of blood coming from one corner of his mouth, and his right eye was so badly bruised that it was swollen shut.
And yet, there is no doubting who it was.
It was Leroy — Leroy Walker.
“Screech!” Sergeant Yasiv suddenly shouted in the phone. “Screech, are you there?”
PART III - Undercover
Chapter 50
Mayor Ken Smith stood at the podium, staring out at members of the press and perhaps three dozen of his most loyal supporters. He stood alone, but he was well supported: Deputy Inspector Palmer and his most trusted aids were behind him, intentionally keeping a respectful distance. He also knew that Raul was somewhere close by, tucked away in the shadows as was his habit.
But this wasn’t about them. This was about him, the Mayor, and a promise to his delegates.
"Good afternoon," he said into the microphone in a loud, booming voice. "Most of you are probably wondering why I called this impromptu press conference. Some of you are undoubtedly skeptical, thinking that this is some sort of empty, politically motivated speech. I assure you that this is not the case. I’m standing here before you today because I want to make a promise to you, a promise to every citizen that lives and breathes in New York City. I, myself, am proud to be a New Yorker, proud to have been born in New York, and proud to have lived here my entire life. I’ve lived through the high crime era that was the early nineties, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the deadly Labor Day shootings in 2011. I have lived through it all, and I am proud to say that despite these challenges, we New Yorkers have found the strength and courage to carry on.”
Ken took a breath and waited for the small cheer to die down before continuing.
“More recently, there is a serious issue that plagues all New Yorkers but is rarely spoken about. It’s an epidemic like none other but fails to gain the press coverage that it deserves. Already, this epidemic has claimed more lives than the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. And yet, because of a perceived stigma, this deadly epidemic is rarely spoken about openly.”
Again, Ken paused, but this time there was no cheer. There was a smattering of confused expressions, while others still nodded solemnly as they clued into what he was referring to.
"There is an opioid epidemic in our city and its impact on all of our lives has grown too great to ignore. I refuse to sweep this issue under the rug as other mayors before me have done. I refuse to pretend that this plague is not infiltrating each and every one of our neighborhoods, regardless of socioeconomic status. Therefore, I stand before you today with one promise: to eliminate this epidemic once and for all."
A hushed silence fell over the crowd. It lasted for several moments before members of the press started looking at each other, eyebrows raised. It wasn't the nature of the claim that gave them pause; after all, many a politician used eliminating addiction as part of their platform. But it was his fervency, his absolute certainty that he could get it done that was unique.
No one did that; no one made such a bold claim, because their inevitable failure would virtually end any possibility of re-election. No normal mayor would dare.
But Ken Smith was anything but normal.
A small smile appeared on his lips.
"Yes," he said, his voice rising an octave. "You heard me. I will, within my first term as Mayor of the greatest city on Earth, eradicate this plague. As I said during the opening, this is not a political ploy. Nor is this a claim that I will back peddle on in a few months. This is a solemn promise, one that I intend to keep. It’s a promise that I’m making to you, to everyone who lives in our beautiful city. From this day forward, no longer will I refer to a war on drugs; this will be different. This will be a shock and awe on opioids. And we will come out victorious. That, fellow New Yorkers, is my promise.”
Chapter 51
Drake tapped his foot and scratched his beard.
"Come on, come on," he grumbled into his cell phone. He knew that Hanna was watching him, staring at his face, analyzing his expression, but he couldn't help his frustration. "Answer the phone, Chase."
This was the third different number that he was trying to reach her at; the first two had been disconnected.
And she wasn’t answering this one, either.
Another few rings and the operator informed him that he would have to try his call again later.
“Shit.”
"What? Your girlfriend not picking up?"
Drake scowled but tried not to take his anger out on Hanna. She was one of the few friends that he could count on, and she’d already proved invaluable in more ways than one.
"I'm not sure what information you expect Dr. Kruk to give you, anyway," Hanna said. "The man may seem normal now, but I've seen the other side of him — the other person inside him, rather. He's got schizophrenic tendencies with a split personality disorder. If his other half comes out to play…"
Drake clearly saw Chase strapped to a pole, a flurry of butterflies all around her. In the memory, Marcus Slasinsky’s smiling face slowly appeared behind her, a syringe clutched between his fingers.
"Yeah, I know about his other half. Trust me on that one."
“Fair enough,” Hanna said with a shrug. “Just wanted to warn you that things with Dr. Kruk aren’t always as they seem.”
Drake nodded and turned his attention back to the woman’s cell phone. He’d exhausted all options for Chase, but there was still one person that he could call. One person who might be able to help. They were the last resort, but he’d already come to the end of the road.
Five days left… five days before you’re shipped back to the court. Five days before you’re reintroduced to Rodney Wise.
Shaking his head, Drake dialed the number. It rang once and then a male voice answered.
"Stitts here,” he said gruffly.
Drake had never gotten along well with FBI Special Agent Jeremy Stitts, partly because he’d usurped Drake's own position in Chase’s professional and personal life. But it was more than that; there was just something about the man, an air of dishonesty that Drake had seen through.
He knew, however, from Chase’s infrequent phone calls, that the two had become quite close. If anyone knew where she was, it would be him.
"Stitts, this is Damien Drake."
Drake paused and eventually Stitts cleared his throat and spoke again.
"Drake… what can I do for you?"
Drake debated starting with small talk, but then thought better of it. They were both too smart for that. Too smart and too pressed for time.
"I'm looking for Chase. I need to speak to her… any idea where she is?" he asked, getting straight to the point.
There was another pause, one that teetered on the fine line between polite and uncomfortable.
"I'm afraid… I'm afraid it's
been a while since I've seen her. It’s been a while since anybody has seen her, to be honest."
Drake frowned and turned his back to Hanna.
Drug Lord- Part I Page 15