Drug Lord- Part I

by Patrick Logan

  The bouncers looked at each other, shrugged, then nodded at Mickey.

  Drake raised his glass once more.

  “Thanks, Mickey. When I have more time, I’ll tell you about today. But just a head’s up? There is no way you’re going to believe it.”

  Chapter 58

  Leroy thought he was going to die. He’d survived infiltrating Chris and his gang of thugs, only to be killed by those who were supposed to protect him: the police.

  The same two police officers with whom he had a history.

  But then, seemingly out of nowhere, Sergeant Yasiv had arrived with a detective and shit had gone down.

  It had been stupid for him to return to Tremont, Leroy knew, but he was just trying to set things right with Chris.

  To make sure the man didn’t come after him or his mom when he missed his weekly delivering.

  Besides, how was he supposed to know that Officers Pontiac and Dalton were on the prowl?

  “Just a coupla bruises, kid,” the paramedic said as Leroy adjusted himself in the back of the ambulance.

  Leroy nodded and let the man dab at his cuts while his mind was elsewhere. He was good at history, math, and a whiz at chemistry, but memorization wasn’t his forte. And he had to make sure that he got his story straight, the story that Sergeant Yasiv had told him to make sure he didn’t go back to prison.

  Tell it just like it happened: you were just walking, minding your own business, and they grabbed you because of what happened last time — that the charges against you didn’t stick. Then they threw you in the car and beat you up a little bit. That’s when Detective Dunbar and I showed up. We tried to get you out of the car when they drew their guns and one of them fired.

  Leroy was aware that his lips were moving as he ran through the scenario in his head, but he didn’t care.

  Don’t say too much, and don’t say too little. Pontiac and Dalton will run their mouths, but their statements aren’t gonna be worth shit. If anyone asks about the drugs, you know nothing about them. You don’t know where they came from or who they belong to. Don’t even mention them.

  A woman in a navy suit approached and introduced herself as Melissa Orson from Internal Affairs.

  “How are you feeling, Leroy?” she asked. The woman had a pleasant face, with high cheekbones and plump lips. But there was a hardness to her eyes that set Leroy on edge.

  “Okay,” he replied softly.

  “Doesn’t look like anything was broken,” the EMT offered. “He’s gonna have a nasty welt around his right eye, but the swelling should go down in a few days.”

  Melissa nodded and then turned her attention back to Leroy.

  “Is there someone you would like me to call, Leroy? Your mother or father, perhaps?”

  Leroy shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to call his mom; Officer Pontiac might have nearly killed him, but his mother wouldn’t hesitate to complete the job if she found out he’d been walking around Tremont looking for trouble.

  “Uh-huh, okay. And how old are you, Leroy?”

  “Eighteen,” Leroy lied. This was something else that Yasiv had ‘suggested’. As a minor, they’d have to get his mom involved before they asked him any questions.

  Melissa nodded and produced a flip pad. She scribbled a few notes before addressing him again.

  “Is it okay if I ask you a couple questions about what happened today? Like the sergeant told you earlier, you’re not in trouble and you’re not under arrest.”

  Leroy nodded.

  “Good, thank you. I think the easiest thing is if you just tell me, in your own words, what happened.”

  Leroy spoke quickly, recounting the narrative that Yasiv had prepped him with.

  Don’t say too much, don’t say too little.

  The woman stared at him intently as he spoke, jotting the occasional note. When he was done, the woman gave him a comforting smile that never reached her eyes.

  “Thank you, Leroy, and I’m very sorry that you had to endure such a traumatic event. I know you’re probably tired and sore and just want to get home, but I think it’s important for you to come down to the station and give a statement. You know, while everything is still fresh in your mind.”

  “Wh-what?” Leroy stammered. Yasiv hadn’t said anything about going to the station; he needed to get back to Screech and Drake. He had to ask them to find some more drugs to replace the bricks that were currently in evidence. If he didn’t come up with more in a week, if Chris—

  A hand suddenly came down on his shoulder.

  “Try to take some deep breaths,” the EMT instructed. “Nice and slow and deep.”

  But the man’s words failed to register, and Leroy felt himself on the verge of hyperventilating.

  I almost died… the cops were gonna kill me. Now Chris will definitely kill me… me and mom.

  “I can’t,” he blurted. “I can’t go with you.”

  The woman’s smile didn’t waver, but her eyes turned icy.

  “Leroy, I know that you’re in shock — we all are. But it’s best to get this taken care of. The last thing we want is a drawn out—”

  Sergeant Yasiv suddenly appeared behind the woman.

  “I’ll take it from here, Melissa,” he said, and Leroy felt a wave of relief wash over him.

  “Sergeant,” she said with a nod. “I have everything under control. I was just telling Leroy that it would be best to give an official statement back at the station. I think it’s in all of our best interests to wrap this up as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don’t you?”

  Yasiv looked over his shoulder at Leroy before turning to the woman again.

  “May I speak to you in private for a moment?”

  Melanie agreed, and they stepped around the side of the ambulance and out of earshot.

  “Leroy, you want something for the pain? Advil? Something stronger?” the EMT asked when they were alone again.

  Leroy’s eyes narrowed.

  “Something stronger?”

  Like an opioid, he almost said.

  The EMT nodded.

  “Yeah, something with a little more kick.”

  Leroy shook his head.

  “No. I’m fine,” he said dryly.

  When he turned back, he was surprised to see Sergeant Yasiv standing in front of him.

  “Come on, Leroy. Let me take you home. You can give your statement in the morning. Let’s just get you the hell out of here.”

  Chapter 59

  As soon as the man with the medium length brown hair stepped into Barney’s, Drake rose to his feet and hurried toward him.

  He looked older than Drake remembered, but he was well aware of his own appearance. While Stitts looked older, Drake was the one who looked closer to death.

  As he approached, Drake smelled the strong odor of cigarette smoke coming off the man in waves.

  “Jeremy Stitts.”

  Stitts’s eyes met Drake’s and for a second, there was no recognition in them.

  Closer to death? Maybe resurrected would be more appropriate.

  “Drake? Shit… what happened to you?” Stitts asked after several awkward seconds.

  “Long story that I don’t have the time to tell,” he replied, extending his hand. Stitts shook it. “Is she really missing?”

  They may never be the best of friends, but it was clear that any animosity between them had been shelved.

  At least for the time being.

  Stitts nodded.

  “It’s been almost 3 months, Drake. I don’t know how much he shared with you about her,” the man hesitated, clearly being careful about his word choice, “about her past, but I think it finally caught up with her.”

  Drake thought back to the first time he’d met Chase, when she’d held up the yellow crime scene tape for him even though she was so short that she could practically walk beneath it without even ducking.

  He thought about how pissed he’d been about getting a new partner, and then how she’d warned him that
if he ever showed up to work drunk again she’d kick his ass off the force.

  Chase was a feisty one, someone who Drake knew could look after herself. Even when Dr. Mark Kruk had held her hostage, she hadn’t broken.

  But Drake knew deep down that if anybody was going to get Chase, it was herself. It would be her own demons that hurt her.

  The parallels between his own life and Chase’s were not beyond him.

  “I’ll find her,” Drake promised. “As soon as I’m done here, as soon as I deal with this shit, I’m going to find her. That’s a promise, Stitts.”

  The expression on Stitts’s face said it all: this wasn’t an, ‘I need a break, gonna blow off some steam for a few months’ type of scenario.

  This was bad.

  Really bad.

  The man nodded and then reached into his coat and produced a plastic Ziploc bag that contained a red hairbrush.

  “That’s hers?”

  Stitts nodded and handed it over. But when Drake grabbed the bag, Stitts held onto one corner.

  “Just for DNA, right?”

  Drake resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at Hanna and Dr. Mark Kruk.

  “Yeah,” he lied, and Stitts released the bag. “DNA.”

  The man seemed to contemplate this for a moment before reaching into his jeans and pulling out another Ziploc.

  Only this one was smaller than the first and didn’t contain a hairbrush, but what looked like a vial filled with a dark liquid.

  “Blood?” Drake said, eyebrow raised. “Is that her blood?”

  Stitts nodded.

  “They took a while back before field test.”

  Drake wondered how and why Stitts had Chase’s blood but decided to let this lie. They all had their secrets.

  “I gotta go,” Stitts said suddenly.

  Drake shook the man’s hand again.

  “Thank you for this, Stitts. And I will find her.”

  Stitts didn’t say anything. He offered a subtle nod as a response, then just turned and left Drake staring at his back as he exited Barney’s.

  The man was a shell; an empty shell.

  What happened to him? What happened that caused him to lose his soul? Drake wondered.

  A flurry of images flooded his mind then, images of Jasmine, of Clay, of the hand-off on her porch.

  He wondered if someday everything that had happened to him, that had happened because of him, would render him hollow, as well.

  Drake shook his head and came to, removing the hairbrush from the bag as he walked back toward a now smiling Dr. Kruk.

  “I’ve got what you want… now you need to tell me where those tapes are.”

  Chapter 60

  Screech was staring at the TV when there was a knock on the door. He bolted to his feet so quickly that he nearly knocked over the half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker on the desk.

  Heart racing, he looked at the frosted glass. It didn’t appear to be one person, but two.

  “Who is it?” he shouted, instinctively reaching beneath his desk for the pistol that Drake had given him long ago.

  “Sergeant Yasiv. Open up, Screech,” a voice hollered back.

  Screech let go of the gun and ran to the door. No sooner had he unlocked and opened it, did two men step inside: Sergeant Yasiv and Leroy, the latter of whom looked worse for wear.

  “Jesus, you guys okay?” Screech asked. “What the hell happened?”

  On the video feed from the camera that Drake had planted in Officer Pontiac’s car, Screech had seen the two corrupt cops scramble from the vehicle. Maybe five minutes later, Leroy also left the car, having to climb into the front seat first to get out.

  But that was it. After that, the video had gone blank, leaving Screech wondering if the kid was alive or dead.

  “I’m fine, just a little banged up,” Leroy said softly.

  But he wasn’t fine, a blind person would be able to tell that. Leroy was trembling like a leaf in the breeze and his breath was coming in shallow bursts.

  “Where is he?” Sergeant Yasiv demanded as he made his way deeper into Triple D.

  It took Screech a moment to figure out who the man was referring to.

  “He’s not here. He’s back at Oak Valley.”

  Either Yasiv didn’t hear or he didn’t believe Screech. The man continued to look around, searching every corner of the small office before returning to Leroy’s side.

  “He can’t be out,” Yasiv told Screech. “It’s too dangerous. I never thought… shit, I never thought it would go this far. I’m afraid that if any of Palmer’s men see Drake, it’s game over. They aren’t gonna wait for someone in prison to do it for them, they’ll take him out. And the worst part? No one is going to give a shit. There probably won’t even be an investigation. So, you tell him… you tell Drake that he needs to stay where he is. He’s safe at Oak Valley. For now, anyway. He needs to stay there.”

  Screech could only stare at the sergeant.

  It was an empty speech; both men knew that Drake had a mind of his own. Both men knew that Drake would stop at nothing to get to Ken Smith.

  Yasiv took a deep breath and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up.

  “What about… what about the cops?” Leroy asked suddenly. All eyes were on him now. “What’s going to happen to them?”

  Yasiv took several drags of his smoke before answering.

  “Dalton will flip, I have no doubt about it. That man will say whatever it takes to stay out of prison. Pontiac will have limited options because he was the one who shot Dunbar.”

  Screech staggered.

  “They shot Dunbar? Is he—”

  “He’s okay. Heading to the hospital to get stitched up, but he’ll be fine. Got lucky.”

  Screech breathed a sigh of relief. He liked Dunbar and considered the man a friend.

  “That’s fucked up… this is all so fucked up,” Screech breathed.

  “No kidding,” Yasiv continued. “I bet Pontiac tries to cop a deal, too, but it won’t work. A cop shooting another cop? That’s gonna stick no matter what.”

  “You think that anything they say will lead back to the mayor?”

  Yasiv took another drag.

  “Maybe. I dunno. Honestly, I doubt you get to where he is by giving your henchmen any information that can hurt you. If they do have something on the mayor, then—”

  “—then he’ll take them out,” Leroy whispered.

  Screech’s eyes narrowed.

  “He wouldn’t… assassinate cops, would he? Would he go that far?” But even as he asked the question, Screech was recalling Pontiac pulling a gun and aiming it at Leroy. These men had no scruples, no fear.

  They weren’t above the law, they were the law.

  “Probably,” Yasiv admitted. “Dalton and Pontiac are heading back to the station now, gonna be locked in a cell for the next few hours while IA figures out some stuff. After they’re formally charged, they’ll be put in holding. If someone is going to take a shot at them, it’ll happen then.”

  Screech stared at both men across from him.

  “Which means we need more,” he said absently.

  Yasiv finished his cigarette and lit another, putting the spent butt in Screech’s empty scotch glass.

  “Drake isn’t gonna stop until he gets Ken Smith, is he?” Yasiv asked. “He’s not gonna stop even if we get all the other officers of ANGUIS Holdings… if what befell Boris Brackovich happens to the others, to Steffani Loomis, Horatio Dupont, and even Raul. It’s Ken he wants.”

  The question was clearly rhetorical; they all knew the answer already, even Leroy.

  Yasiv threw his head back and swore.

  “You’re right — we need more. Now, where’s this drug lab you were telling me about?”

  Chapter 61

  “I’m warning you, Dr. Kruk, if you’re just fucking around with us, it’s not going to end well for you,” Drake said as Hanna turned down yet another alleyway.

  “Yep, I’l
l make your life a living hell,” Hanna added.

  Dr. Mark Kruk, who had been staring at Chase’s hairbrush like some sort of relic ever since he’d handed it over, didn’t even acknowledge them. In fact, if it weren’t for him barking out a direction to turn every few minutes, Drake would have thought the man in some sort of trance.