Talon of God

by Wesley Snipes

  Lauryn gritted her teeth. If one more person quoted the Bible at her, she was going to go ballistic. “Not that it’s any of your business, Dad,” she said, “but his name’s Talon, and he’s the guy who saved me from getting ripped to bits last night. I was giving him a ride home from the hospital because, you know, gratitude, but then we ran out of gas and I was forced to coast in here. Again, I’m sorry about that, but the car’s fine, so now that you’ve got the keys, we’ll just be on our way.”

  The both of them. Because while Lauryn wasn’t exactly keen to spend more time listening while Talon tried to convince her she was chosen by God, the idea of leaving him here to say that stuff in front of her father’s congregation was miles worse. Unlike her, they would actually believe, and then she’d be in real trouble. But while she was obviously in a hurry to go, Maxwell was moving slower than ever.

  “You’re normally at work this time of day,” he said, looking her up and down. “I heard on the radio that there was an emergency at the hospital. Something to do with drugs? They didn’t say what exactly, but it gave me a bad feeling.”

  Lauryn fought the urge to roll her eyes. Her dad got “bad feelings” about everything that didn’t directly involve living a Christian life. Of course, in this case, he was actually right, but Lauryn had learned if she didn’t want to hear a lecture about the evils of the world and the fall of morality in the modern age, she should avoid agreeing with him whenever possible.

  And after that car ride, she really didn’t want another lecture.

  “We did have a pretty crazy situation, but it’s okay now,” she assured him. “I’ve actually got the rest of the day off since they called me in early, so I’m going to go back to my place and crash. Naree’s been really worried.” As her overflowing voicemail box was proof of. “I should really get back home and calm her down. Thanks again for letting me stay with you last night, and, again, I’m sorry about taking your car.”

  “It’s just a car,” Maxwell said, surprising her. Her dad loved that car. “Before you go, though, I was hoping you could help me.”

  The question made her eyebrows shoot up. When her father wanted her to do something, he usually just dictated. The asking thing was new, so she decided to hear it out. “What?”

  Maxwell’s expression grew grimmer than ever. “Your brother didn’t come home last night.”

  “Well, he went out after midnight,” Lauryn reminded him. “Are you sure he’s not just passed out at someone’s house?”

  “Not this time,” Maxwell said, his brows furrowing in a way that made him look far older than he should. “I’ve had bad dreams all night, Lauryn. I’ve known for a while that Robert was in trouble, but it’s gotten a lot deeper recently, and with all this news about some new drug, I fear the worst.”

  Lauryn’s breath caught. She hadn’t thought of that. Probably because she hadn’t wanted to. Now, though, it was the only thing on her mind. “Have you talked to him?”

  “Of course,” Maxwell said. “But you know he won’t listen.”

  Like father, like son . . . like daughter.

  “We’ll see about that,” she growled, pulling out her phone. “I’ll call Will. He works Vice. He’ll know exactly what to say to scare him straight.”

  “You’ve been away from this neighborhood too long if you can even suggest that,” her father said, exasperated. “Down here, young black men who get involved in things like this don’t get scared straight. Especially not from some white cop their sister used to date. No—they go straight to life in jail. Robert’s young and stupid and acting the fool, but he doesn’t deserve to pay that price.” He pulled out his battered old phone. “I’ve been calling him all night, but he won’t listen to me. I was hoping you could give it a try.”

  Lauryn sighed. “You heard him last night. He’s not going to listen to me, either.”

  “We won’t know that until we try,” her father said. “He’s still your brother, and though he was bad at showing it, he always did look up to you. He’s lost at the moment, but Jesus tells us ‘there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’ We must do everything we can to save him and bring him back to the light, before he’s gone forever.”

  After what she and Talon had talked about in the car, that warning hit Lauryn a lot harder than it should have. It also made her angry, because Maxwell seemed to be more upset about losing a sheep from his flock than losing his actual son to the culture of drugs and violence that ran through South Chicago like a polluted river. Then again, maybe she was being too hard on her dad. Maybe God and the Church were just so much a part of his life, he didn’t know how to talk about painful things like Robert without them.

  Not that she was any better.

  Lauryn winced. She always accused her dad of picking God over everything else, including his own children, but in her own way, she’d done the exact same thing. The moment she’d turned eighteen, she’d dropped her family like a hot potato and run off to chase her dream of being a doctor. She’d never even thought of what that would do to Robbie—it wasn’t like the two of them had ever been close—but when she thought about how he’d yelled at her last night, accusing her of leaving them, she couldn’t deny that he was right. She had left, and worse, she’d left him alone. Growing up, she’d had her mom and then Robbie to help her push back against her dad’s ridiculousness. But Robbie was too young to remember their mother’s death, and when Lauryn had gone, too, he’d been left with no one. Just a dad who cared more about his church and his ideals than his flesh-and-blood children.

  Guilt hit her like a hammer, and she grabbed her phone, flicking through her contacts until she came to Robbie’s number, which she couldn’t actually remember ever calling before. She still wasn’t sure if it would do any good now, but while Robbie’s life wasn’t her responsibility, he was still her brother. Her baby brother, and she’d left him alone in the same situation she’d worked her whole life to escape. Now he was out on the same streets the junkies she’d treated this morning had come from, and the idea chilled her to the bone. She wasn’t stupid enough to think she could force him to change his thinking—only Robbie could save himself—but he still deserved better than she’d treated him. He deserved someone who cared, and for once, Lauryn was determined to be that person. He was her family, and if he was in trouble, it was her duty to help.

  She just hoped he’d accept it.

  As if he could tell just how uncomfortably close her thoughts were getting to what he’d told her in the car, Talon chose that exact moment to turn around and give Lauryn a questioning look. Unable to meet his eyes, she turned around as well, huddling in the lee of the church doors as she hit the call button and held the phone to her ear, waiting breathlessly as it rang to see if she was already too late.

  10

  Birth to Sin

  Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and

  sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

  —James 1:14–15

  Will had never been good at following directions.

  He was fine most of the time, but when orders came down that interfered with how he thought a case should be run, the words tended to go in one ear and out the other. Normally, he got away with this by achieving results. It was hard to punish a detective who regularly cracked hard cases. Today, though, Will was pushing it even by his standards. Not only was he back at the station (where he’d been specifically ordered by Chief Korigan not to be) and on his nineteenth hour of unreported overtime (in direct violation of Chicago PD officer safety regulations), he was at his desk calling contacts for a case he’d been ordered not to touch.

  Any of those could mean serious trouble. All together, it was a trifecta that could cost him his badge. Another cop, one with more to lose, would have realized that and gone home. But Will was as bad at letting things go a
s he was at following directions he didn’t agree with, and after the run-in with Korigan this morning, he was more determined than ever to bust this case wide open.

  He just wished the case would cooperate.

  After leaving the hospital, Will had gotten straight to work. Ten years as a vice detective had given him an impressive network among the street pushers and gangs all across Chicago, and he worked it like a spider checking its web, tapping each thread to see what he’d caught. But unlike yesterday when no one had known anything about a drug that made people go crazy, everyone was buzzing today about this new thing called Z3X. As one of his meth cooker contacts explained it, Z3X was an additive that was supposed to enhance the effects of other drugs. And apparently it worked—when he had access to it, he was able to sell triple the amount of rocks by cutting his product, and had people begging for seconds.

  For a while, though, there wasn’t much he could do, because there wasn’t all that much to be had. Apparently Z3X had been around for months now in smaller doses, but since it was touted as nothing more than a cost cutter and it wasn’t actually illegal by itself, no one had thought much of it. But starting yesterday, someone had been dumping the stuff on Chicago by the truckload. Literally.

  The last bit was so bizarre Will hadn’t believed it at first, but every dealer, cooker, and pusher he talked to swore up and down that late last night, giant pallets of Z3X had just started showing up, arriving on huge flatbeds that were circling the South Chicago neighborhoods like ice cream trucks. But it wasn’t just an increase in supply. These new loads of Z3X were supposed to be finer, stronger, and better all around than any of the stuff before, and it was being sold for dirt cheap. As one dealer put it, the drivers were acting like they were on a timed quota, practically dumping the stuff in the street if it wasn’t selling fast enough.

  These reports were further corroborated by Will’s buddies on the force who drove patrol cars. Several of them reported pulling these same trucks over for suspicious behavior. Every time, though, they’d been forced to let them go again, because again, unlike the drugs it was meant to be mixed with, Z3X wasn’t actually illegal, and the most they’d been able to do was give out a few traffic citations. One of the cops had actually picked up a packet of the stuff to take back to the lab, but it had come back clean. No controlled substances whatsoever.

  The best lead Will had was that one of the key ingredients of Z3X seemed to be sulfur, but even this was still well within the legal limits for human consumption. Other than complaints that the stuff stank like rotten eggs, it truly seemed to be harmless by any measure Will could come up with, which put a real damper on police work. Those trucks might as well have been driving around selling nutmeg or baking soda for all that he could do about it.

  But while the evidence all seemed to point to Z3X being a red herring, Will was getting report after report from his guys on the inside that this new stuff was legit. Some of the crazier pushers had even tried it straight, claiming that even without a real drug to mix with, it would tear you up. Plus, it was cheap. Dirt cheap, and getting more so by the hour. This morning, before the burn ward incident, one-pound bags of Z3X had been going for a mere five bucks. Now, at midafternoon, bags were going for a buck or less. Some dealers even claimed to have gotten theirs for free.

  Under normal conditions, this kind of price free-fall would have triggered people to hold off buying until they saw how low it got, but this situation was anything but normal. It was so strange, and the new Z3X so good, that the exact opposite was happening. Every dealer, wannabe dealer, and addict in the city was in a buying frenzy, scooping up as much Z3X as they could before the madness ended and prices went up again. Even normal people who didn’t touch drugs were catching on. In some neighborhoods, it wasn’t uncommon to see normal shop clerks and people waiting at bus stops break out running when they saw one of the trucks, chasing the driver down to get their own share of the Z3X craze.

  The end result of this insanity was that Z3X had gone from a filler additive known only to people buried deep in the narcotics business to a household name in less than eighteen hours. Nothing should be able to move that fast. But while it was clear that whoever was behind this had pulled off the marketing coup of the century, Will still didn’t understand why. Even if Z3X was made of the cheapest junk in the lot, someone was still paying to have it cranked out, packaged, and driven around all over Chicago. The scale of the operation was staggering, and in Will’s experience, people with the kind of money needed to pull a stunt like this off didn’t waste it. Someone had to be planning to make bank off this, but damned if Will could figure out how, or even who. The trucks and drivers were all rental operations who weren’t obligated to tell Will anything without a warrant—a warrant he couldn’t even request since he wasn’t supposed to be working on this case in the first place. He was about to say screw it and just go follow one of the trucks home himself to see where all this stuff was coming from—because with this much in the city, they had to be making it in town—when he heard someone clear their throat behind his desk.

  “You just couldn’t let it go, could you?”

  The tight, angry voice sent Will’s fingers curling into fists. “Afternoon, Chief,” he said, closing the windows on his monitor before spinning around in his chair. “Didn’t expect you back here so soon.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Korigan said, arms crossed over the front of the rumpled chest of the tux he still hadn’t changed out of. “And I’m pretty sure that’s because I told you to go home.”

  “But this is where I like to check my Facebook,” Will said with a smile. “There’s no rule against being at work if you’re not working.”

  Korigan’s eyes flicked to the case files spread all over his desk. “And what’s that? Light reading?”

  Will shrugged. “Leftovers from this morning. I’m normally neater, but I figured cleanup could wait. It wasn’t like anyone would come looking for them since you took everyone off the new drug case to handle your hospital hush-up.”

  The chief’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he pulled out his phone. “Front desk, this is Chief Korigan,” he said, glaring at Will. “Send a team up to Vice to escort Detective Tannenbaum out of the building.”

  “Whoa,” Will said, putting up his hands. “There’s no call for—”

  “I gave you a direct order to go home and leave this be,” Korigan said coldly. “You didn’t. That’s reason enough for me. And since you clearly have an issue when it comes to following simple orders, I’m also revoking your security clearance until further notice.”

  Now it was Will’s turn to get pissed. “You can’t do that!” he shouted, leaping up from his chair. “Dammit, Korigan, I’m just trying to do my job! There’re drugs on the streets, and—”

  “You’re going to be on the street if you keep this up,” the chief said, glancing at the door where two uniformed officers were coming in to remove Will from the building.

  “You can’t do this,” Will said as the men came over to grab his arms. “I’m a ten-year vet. You’ve been here six months. I’ve solved more cases than you’ve seen, and if you weren’t in my way, I’d be solving this one! No one’s going to let you—”

  “No one has to let me,” Korigan replied calmly. “I’m in charge here, Tannenbaum, and I’m not the one breaking the rules. You have a good record, but your lack of respect and compliance with the safety regulations of this department make you a danger to yourself and your fellow officers, and since you clearly don’t care about that right now, I have to. Trust me, this is for your own good.” He held out his hand. “Badge.”

  “You can’t fire me over this,” Will said through clenched teeth. “I’m doing my job.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Korigan said. “I could fire you five times over, but I’m not.” He smiled at the uniformed officers. “We need good cops, which is why I’m putting you on leave until you remember that’s what you are. I’m just taking your badge to make s
ure you stay there.”

  Will shot a pleading look at his fellow cops, but they just looked at their feet. “But—”

  “Badge, Tannenbaum,” Korigan said again, his dark eyes narrowing. “Don’t make me do this the hard way.”

  That was not an empty threat. Will might have been in the right, but all the laws were on Korigan’s side. If he fought now, the chief could do far worse than fire him. He could have him locked up for impeding a case, and then he’d never get to the bottom of this.

  That was a risk Will couldn’t take, and so, reluctantly, he pulled the lanyard holding his badge off his neck and handed it over. “You’re making a big—”

  “Gun, too,” Korigan said coldly. “Now.”

  Gritting his teeth, Will pulled his weapon and laid it in the police chief’s hands as slowly as possible. The moment he let go, Korigan turned to the officer beside him.

  “Get him out of here.”

  “Come on, Will,” the officer said gently as he grabbed Will’s arm. “Let it go.”

  Will jerked his arm away, but it was an empty gesture. There was nothing he could do. Even if his fellow officers were on his side, Korigan was technically in the right on this, and thanks to that little “danger to your fellow officers” speech, everyone knew it. Looking out for your fellow cops was rule number one in the precinct. By invoking that, Korigan had just put Will on the outside of his own force even more than he had by taking his badge. If Will kept pushing now, Korigan could fire him on the spot and everyone would say he’d done the right thing. And from the crooked smile on the chief’s face, they both knew it.

  “Make sure Detective Tannenbaum makes it to his car,” Korigan said, his voice warm with perfectly rehearsed worry. “I don’t want to lose a good officer to his own hot head.”

  The other cops promised to look out for him as they led Will down the stairs. They watched him like hawks as he gathered his coat from the lockers, and then, as ordered, they followed him to his car, all but shoving him into the driver’s seat and slamming the door in his face. “Go home, Will,” the officer in charge said in that friendly but “seriously, don’t try me” voice all cops get when they put on the uniform. “Don’t make us send a car to tail you.”