“This sounds like an X-Files episode. But if what you’re saying is true — and that’s a colossal if — then why the fuck does Dr. Kruk want to sniff your ex-partner’s panties or chew on her pubes? According to your psychoanalysis, Marcus Slasinsky committed those crimes, kidnapped Chase, nearly killed her, etc. — not Dr. Kruk. And yet, it’s Dr. Kruk who’s demanding tokens. Why?”
Drake thought back to when he’d mentioned Marcus’s name in front of Dr. Kruk and the way that his eyes had changed. Maybe Marcus and Mark weren’t completely separate, after all.
Or maybe you’re just out of your league, Drake. Maybe you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.
He shrugged.
“I don’t know… I don’t know, Hanna. I really don’t. But we’re wasting time here.”
Hanna pursed her lips and peered over Drake’s shoulder. Through the small window in the metal door behind, they could both see Dr. Mark Kruk sitting silently, his eyes trained straight ahead, his hands again neatly folded.
“You’re not seriously considering taking him out of here, are you?”
It was a strange question, given their circumstances; like Dr. Kruk, Drake was also a patient here. Hanna was the one who held all the power.
“I’ve got nothing else, Hanna. Either you help us get out of here and we hope that Dr. Jekyll in there has something we can use, or I go back to prison. You see these bruises?” Drake asked, indicating his face. “I can’t take another beating like that. If I go back to prison, I’ll be dead within a day.”
Hanna’s phone rang, and she took it out of her pocket and stared at the screen. Then she thrust it in his direction.
“Hey, what do you know? It’s for you.”
Drake answered it.
“Hello?”
“Drake? It’s Stitts. I’m fifteen minutes out.”
“And you have it? Something of hers? Something of Chase’s?”
“Yeah, I got something. Where do you want to meet?”
“Hold on a sec,” Drake said, pulling the phone away from his ear and covering the mouthpiece with his hand. “Well? The ball’s in your court, Hanna. Are you gonna help me or not?”
Hanna scratched her head again and a strange smile appeared on her lips.
“You know what they say,” she said. Drake expected her to continue, but when she didn’t, he just shook his head.
“No, what do they say?”
Hanna stepped forward and scanned her electronic keycard, unlocking the door to the cell in which Dr. Mark Kruk sat patiently.
“In for a penny, in for a pound. In for a dollar, in for a ton.”
Chapter 56
Yasiv watched as Dunbar walked toward the Taurus, leading with his badge. His other hand was gripping the butt of his gun in his holster.
As he moved, Yasiv made his way around the other side of the car, but unlike the detective, he stayed low and against the wall; out of sight.
When Dunbar made it to within six feet of the rear window, the driver side door opened and a man with a brush cut wearing aviator sunglasses stepped out.
He had a pistol in one hand.
“Wait,” Dunbar said, holding his detective shield up even higher. “I’m a detective, I’m one of you guys.”
The man eyed him suspiciously. During this interaction, Yasiv continued to sneak around the other side of the car.
“What do you want?” the man asked, not lowering his gun.
“I was in the neighborhood, and saw the car… I recognized it from the parking lot, the door is all messed up. Just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”
The man pulled his sunglasses down and squinted at Dunbar.
“Did she send you? Is that what this is?”
“Uh, she? No — no one sent me,” Dunbar replied. “Seriously, I was just in the neighborhood. Is everything okay?”
“It will be if you take your hand off your gun.”
Sensing that the situation was about to escalate, Yasiv picked up the pace.
“Okay, okay, calm down. I’m a detective, one of the good guys,” Dunbar said as he raised his free hand and continued to display his detective shield in the other.
“Yeah, well I’m not,” Yasiv heard the man mutter. “Drop the shield and place both hands on top of your head.”
Dunbar’s eyes went wide.
“W-what?”
“You heard me,” the man spat back.
Yasiv crouched low and reached for the passenger door handle.
As Dunbar continued to protest, Yasiv pulled the door wide.
The fat police officer in the car was so surprised that he gasped but didn’t move. Yasiv aimed his gun at the man’s burgeoning belly and indicated with his finger to keep quiet. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to try anything stupid, he glanced in the backseat next. A scared looking black boy with bruises all over his face, including a swollen right eye, stared back.
“I told you they’d come for us, Dalton. I fuckin’ told you,” the first officer shouted. “But you can tell her and Palmer that we got their stuff back. It’s all good now, all good gravy.”
The fat officer — Officer Dalton — opened his mouth, but when Yasiv flashed the gun, he closed it again. The sergeant reached out and grabbed the man by the collar and started to pull him from the car. It was hard going given the man’s size, but he eventually managed. Then he spun Dalton around, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, and aimed the gun just to the right of his head.
“Dalton? Get out—” Officer Pontiac turned and when he saw Yasiv, his brow lifted. “What the fuck?”
Dunbar lunged and managed to close almost the entire distance between them before Pontiac turned back.
A shot rang out. It was only a single report, but it echoed off the high apartment buildings all around them, which made it sound like a ball bearing dropped in a tin sink.
Dalton tensed, but Yasiv gripped him even tighter.
He couldn’t do anything now; if he let go of Dalton to help Dunbar, the man would shoot him in the back.
Thankfully, the bullet didn’t appear to slow Dunbar’s forward progress. His body went airborne and his shoulder struck Pontiac in the sternum, sending them both toppling backward.
Someone grunted, or maybe it was both of them, and then they hit the ground hard. Yasiv saw Officer Pontiac’s head bounce off the pavement before his legs went slack.
“Dunbar!” Yasiv shouted.
Dalton started to struggle then, and Yasiv drove his knee into the man’s hamstring. The big fella toppled forward and Yasiv went with him, shoving his face up against the now closed passenger door. Without hesitating, Yasiv holstered his gun and managed to cuff Dalton before he even realized what was happening.
Then he ran to Detective Dunbar.
The man was lying on top of the unconscious officer, breathing heavily.
“Dunbar? You okay?” Yasiv asked, gently pulling the man’s shoulder.
That’s when he saw the blood.
“No,” he cursed.
With both hands, Yasiv managed to roll Dunbar onto his back. There was blood in the man’s dark hair.
“Dunbar!”
Dunbar’s eyes fluttered and then they opened and Yasiv breathed a sigh of relief.
“Jesus Christ, you okay?”
Dunbar nodded and then reached up and touched his scalp. His fingers came away red, but after further probing, he said, “Fucker just grazed me.”
And then anger overcame him and before Yasiv could intervene, Dunbar rolled back onto his knees and punched Pontiac in the face.
There was an audible crunch as his teeth bent inward and from somewhere behind them, Yasiv heard Dalton gasp.
“Don’t kill us, we didn’t… we didn’t do anything. We got the stuff back, I swear, that’s why the kid—”
Yasiv ignored the man’s pleas; his mind was working a million miles a minute, trying to piece together what had happened.
Screech had told him that the kid was in the ba
ck of the car, that the off-duty cops were beating on him. When Dunbar had first approached, Yasiv figured that was why Pontiac had come out, pistol at the ready.
But now, after Dalton’s comments, it was clear that this wasn’t the case. They were afraid, but not of getting caught with the kid. They were afraid of something… and someone… else.
“You gonna be okay, Dunbar?” Yasiv asked as he helped the man to his feet.
Dunbar touched his scalp again.
“I’ll be fine,” he replied. Now that they were standing, Yasiv could see that the bullet had only grazed a small part of his scalp. “Can’t believe that fucker fired at me.”
“I believe,” Yasiv said with disdain. A year ago, he would have been floored that a cop would have tried to take out one of their own.
But not anymore. Not after what he’d seen.
“Please, don’t kill us,” Officer Dalton blubbered. “We got the drugs back — we got them back. That’s why the kid is here. He had them, but we got them back.”
Yasiv glanced over at the fat officer and saw that there was snot and tears running down his face.
“Oh, we won’t kill you,” Yasiv said, picturing Drake’s bruised and battered body. “But in prison? In prison, I’m pretty sure somebody will.”
Chapter 57
“One of these days, I’m going to get you to tell me how you do that,” Drake said.
Hanna just laughed as she helped Drake out of the trunk. He’d already changed out of his white garb and switched into the jeans and t-shirt she’d given him before, and now he brushed himself off.
Hanna might be a master manipulator and capable of the impossible — like sneaking Drake out past the cops in the trunk, while Dr. Kruk was in the backseat with just a towel covering his cuffs — but one thing she wasn’t, was clean.
The trunk was full of shit; of garbage, of strange knickknacks, of ancient newspapers.
Dust billowed off his clothes, and Drake coughed as he made his way to the passenger seat. He debated joining Kruk in the back to keep an eye on him, but with the cuffs around his wrists and ankles, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“A girl has to have some secrets,” Hanna said as she put the car into drive.
“Speaking of secrets,” Dr. Kruk piped up from the backseat, “I’m curious as to why a detective of your stature would need to resort to such extreme measures just to go for a drive.”
“I told you, I’m not a detective anymore.”
Now it was Dr. Kruk’s turn to chuckle.
“No, I don’t suppose you are. I think you’ve fallen pretty far, my friend.”
“I’m not your friend, and I told you not to psychoanalyze me.”
“Stop bickering and tell me where we’re headed,” Hanna interjected.
Drake thought about the safest place to meet Stitts. It was dangerous for him to be out in the middle of the day, especially considering he wouldn’t be surprised if Palmer had put out a ‘shoot on sight’ notice for him.
Just thinking about this inspired Drake to pull the hood on the sweatshirt he’d found in the trunk up over his head.
Hopefully, that and the bruises would disguise his appearance enough not to get noticed.
“I know a place,” he said quietly. “Take us back to the city, and I’ll give you directions from there.”
***
“I never took you as an EDM fan,” Hanna said as they pulled up outside of the neon sign that read: BARNEY’S.
“EDM?” Drake asked.
“Electronic dance music,” Hanna replied, hooking a chin at the blinking lights and the music that emanated from the open doors.
“I’m not,” Drake said before turning back to Dr. Kruk. “I’m going to take your ankle shackles off, but if you try anything…”
BARNEY’s was the safest, most discrete location he could think of, but that didn’t mean that they could just traipse in there with Dr. Kruk in chains without raising undue attention.
Dr. Kruk smiled.
“We have a deal, Drake. So long as you give me what I want, I’ll give you what you want.”
“Whatever,” he said, getting out of the car and heading for the backseat.
Drake unlocked the man’s ankle cuffs and disconnected them from his wrists. But he didn’t go as far as to take the doctor’s handcuffs off. Instead, he just wrapped the towel around them more tightly.
Then he looked to Hanna in the front seat.
“All right, let’s get this over with.”
Drake walked with his arm hooked through Dr. Kruk’s and Hanna followed closely behind.
It had been a long time since he’d last been to BARNEY’S and, disappointingly, not much had changed. Drake had hoped that it had gone back to the way it had been, that Mickey had given up with the neon diarrhea and reverted it to its classic, local watering hole roots.
But no. It was the same as the last time, complete with Tweedledee and Tweedledum standing in front of the doors.
“Dee and Dum, how are you?” Drake asked, not even bothering to feign a smile.
It took a while for the two refrigerators wearing suits to recognize Drake and when they did, their mouths cracked into identical smiles.
“I see that your mouth got you in trouble, after all,” the one on the left, Tweedledum if Drake remembered correctly, said.
Drake let the comment slide.
“Step aside, Mickey’s expecting us.”
He could sense the bouncers’ frustrations — they weren’t used to being spoken to like this — but eventually, they did as he asked. Drake fought the urge to whisper a disparaging comment as he passed.
“Looks like you make friends everywhere you go,” Hanna remarked from behind him.
Drake ignored her and guided them to a booth near the back. The place was deserted, which was what he’d hoped for. Clearly the EDM crowd, while large enough to support the place, only arrived later.
Drake wondered if Mickey just kept it open during the day to pay homage to his old guest, like himself.
“You guys stay here,” Drake said as Hanna and Dr. Kruk slid into the booth. “I’m going to talk to the owner.”
Hanna nodded, and Drake made his way over to the bar.
Mickey Roots was standing with his back to him, cleaning the glass with a white rag.
“Bartender! Yo, bartender! Think you can hook me up with some of that top shelf scotch?”
The man’s hand froze, and he slowly turned.
When he saw who it was, he nearly stumbled.
“Drake? What the—”
Drake reached up and pulled his hood back just for a second before replacing it.
“Jesus fucking Christ. It is you. What the hell—what are you—how did you—”
“Don’t have a coronary, Mickey. It’s a long story and one day I’ll tell it to you. I swear.”
The bartender gave him a look and then reached up and grabbed a bottle of Johnny Blue. It hadn’t been cracked yet — clearly, the EDM crowd preferred their Crantinis — but he didn’t hesitate to open it and pour two glasses.
He slid one over to Drake and held the other one up.
“Fucking A,” Drake said, clinking his glass with Mickey’s. He downed the entire drink and Mickey immediately refilled it.
The liquid hurt his raw throat from the thrashing he’d taken in prison, but it warmed his belly in a way that nothing else could.
“Thanks, Mick. But I need more than just a drink this time. I need a favor.”
Mickey leaned in close.
“Sure… what do you need, Drake?”
“Some privacy, just for a little while. No more than an hour. I have a friend coming and some business to take care of.” Drake cast a glance toward the door. “Maybe you could…”
Mickey nodded and brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled sharply.
“Hey Meat, no more guests for the next hour. No one is to enter except for—” he looked to Drake for the name, and he gave it to him. “No one but Jeremy
Stitts. Let him in and then lock up shop and take a hike. Go get yourself a coffee or some testosterone, whatever you want. I’ll keep you on the clock.”
Drug Lord- Part I Page 17