The front of the store was crowded with drug zombies. Old women with balding heads and morphine-thin arms limped toward everyone they saw with variations of the same story. "Do you have any change for a phone call?" or "Can you spare a dollar, I ain't eaten in two days."
It was all lies.
It was all drugs, and everyone knew it.
Some of the men would reach into their pockets and peel off a few dollars just to impress their women. They were generous though and treated the zombies with respect. "Here you go, Ma. Be careful out there," they'd say.
"Bless you. Jesus is going to bless you."
"All right, now."
There was a kind of dignity to the exchange that Frank admired. He'd seen cops practically shit on teenagers for carrying a dime bag of weed and call them "Asshole Druggies" more times than he could count. Somehow, a man wearing nothing but lime green could manage to show respect to a piper. Frank parked his car and walked toward the front entrance, instantly drawing the attention of the parking lot's entire complement of addicts.
"Can you spare a dollar, I ain't−"
"No," Frank said quickly. "But I will give one hundred dollars to the first person who can bring me a functioning cell phone. It has to be able to make at least one call."
None of them moved. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the one hundred dollar bill and held it up to show it to them, "I'm dead serious. But I need the phone quickly."
"Anything specific? One of them smartphones?" a man in the back said.
"I do not care. It can be a hand-cranked World War II field phone as long as it works."
They scattered like birds from an oncoming car, running in every direction, leaping over obstacles in their paths like Olympians. Frank had tried to chase down pipers before. It wasn't easy when they were motivated.
He stood in the parking lot for just a few moments before he heard the sound of glass shattering from down the street. It sounded exactly like a brick smashing through someone's car window, but there was no car alarm. Soon, a young man with rail-thin legs and arms came sprinting back to the parking lot and held up his hands in triumph, "Am I first?"
Frank nodded and held the bill back, "As long as the phone works."
The piper's fingers shook as he fumbled with the phone, scrolling through its pages to find the address book. He called the first number on the screen and listened carefully. "It's ringing," he said.
Frank waited, keeping his ear cocked toward the phone.
"Hello?" a voice on the phone said. "The fuck you doing calling me this late, girl?"
The piper immediately shut the phone off and held out his hand. Frank slapped the hundred into his palm and took the phone, running back to his car and turning the key before the rest of the pipers returned to find they'd lost the contest and there was a crackhead riot.
"Police 911 what is your emergency?"
The lights of Citizens Bank Park were unlit but Frank could make out the high-flying banners celebrating the Phillies wins throughout the years. He sat in his car looking up at the ball field and muffled his voice when he said, "There was a shooting at the Hilltop Train Station. FBI Agent Dez Dolos shot someone."
He could hear tension in the operator's voice as she typed furiously into her computer. "Sir, what is your name and callback number?"
"It's this old abandoned train station out in the country, away from the city. He shot a man. You better send help."
"Sir, what is your name and callback number?"
"Send help. I think he's dying!" Frank said and jammed on the end button to terminate the call as he swung around in the parking lot and headed for 95 South. Soon, he was crossing the last length of the Schuylkill River just before it merged with the Delaware, travelling over the brightly-lit bridge with Center City at his back. He rolled down his passenger side window and leaned over to fling the phone sideways, sending it over the bridge and down into the steel-cold water below.
Chapter Eleven
Special Agent Dez Dolos reached down to touch the neck of the man wearing the rabbit suit and felt for a pulse. There was none. There was nothing but a large bullet hole in the center of the rabbit's chest. An exit wound from where Dez had shot him in the back and the bullet came barreling through. "Fuck oh fuck oh fucking shit!"
He threw his gun down and felt a sheen of cold sweat develop on his face that he had to squeegee off with his palms. "Think," he ordered himself. "Think. Take a deep breath and think." Finally, he pulled out his cellphone and dialed the only number that made sense. The only person who could help him. "Honey?" he said the moment the phone picked up. "Baby? It's Dez. I need help."
"What's wrong?" Aprille said.
"I fucked up. I fucked up so bad and I need you."
"Whatever it is, we can fix it," Aprille said calmly. "Where are you?"
"I'm at the Hilltop Train Station and oh God one of our guys is dead and I am so fucked right now. I'm so fucking fucked!"
"I'll be right there," she said. "Don't move, and don't call anyone else."
"Okay," he whimpered. He dropped his phone on the floor as he slid down and sat, staring at the stupid fucking bunny costume and the stupid fucking asshole inside it that got in the way of his bullet. He cursed and cried and grabbed his hair in both ends and screamed until his voice went hoarse, but with each passing moment, he regained control. His training took over. He was a highly-trained agent built to overcome complicated situations. This was just another one. He reminded himself of who he was and what he meant, not just to himself or his family, but to the greater good. Was the justice system better served by a man like Dez Dolos losing everything due to an accident or by him taking the steps necessary to allow him to continue fighting crime?
The answer was obvious.
It was just another operation. Planning, personnel, and execution were all it required. He looked around the empty station and assessed what assets he had. Frank O'Ryan's blood was probably there somewhere. His fingerprints were certainly on the police baton. He lured me here, Dez decided. He lured me here and tried to kill me, so I shot at him and accidentally hit…what, the man inside the bunny suit?
Dez mentally scrubbed the plan and started over.
What if Frank lured me here and I walked in and oh my God, there's a big fucking rabbit trying to kill me, so I shot him in self-defense, then fired on Frank as he ran away. He played the opposite role as well, being the investigator. "You fired your weapon multiple times, Special Agent Dolos. Did Detective O'Ryan fire at you?"
Dez cursed and scrubbed that plan as well. The answer is here, he told himself. You just have to find it. It was like a mental Rubik's Cube. Something to be twisted and turned, to be manipulated into position.
Why did you fire your weapon so many times, Agent Dolos?
Because Frank was trying to kill me.
Did he fire his gun at you?
Of course he did.
That was the right answer, Dez thought. That was the only right answer possible because nothing else was going to make sense. Headlights came up the trail and Dez leapt to his feet, smoothing back his hair as he waited for her. Aprille parked her car and got out, walking in a wide arc around the front of the building, taking in the perimeter, still in cop mode. She had left work only twenty minutes earlier and was still dressed in her police pants and boots. She'd left her shirt and vest in her locker and her white t-shirt was still wet from the long shift sitting in the patrol car, from vomiting in the bathroom.
Reynaldo's heroin baggie was still in her pocket. The excuse she had ready was that she'd forgotten to put into evidence. The reality was she was going to take it home and replace seventy-five percent of the dope each baggie with anything she could find in her pantry. The heroin behind the heart-shaped stamp looked dark inside the blue wax baggie. She was thinking she'd use cocoa powder.
Thank God I didn't get high the second my shift was over, she thought. That would be just my luck that Dez finally calls and I'm too busy nodding ou
t to help him. To help him, she thought over and over, the words better than any fucking heroin. They had power. Dez called me to help him, and everything was going to be okay. It was a sign, she decided.
Still her training and experience told her to take her time, look around, and be prepared. She tucked her duty pistol in the small of her back and pulled her t-shirt out over it, keeping it concealed enough to be hidden from whatever Dez was afraid of, but ready to use if necessary. And then, almost as an afterthought, she reached inside her pocket and pulled out her keys, fingering through the various club cards and trinkets attached to the ring, and found a small electronic device. She pressed the button and kept the keys firmly in her hand to keep them from jingling.
Dez was standing inside the dark lobby, just past the entrance, looking pale and vulnerable. "Are you hurt?" Aprille said.
"No, no, no," Dez said, nearly weeping with relief. "Thank God you came. I needed you and you came. I love you so much." He grabbed her by the face and pressed his lips to hers, wanting to smother her with affection.
Aprille saw the face of the man lying on the floor from the corner of her eye and said, "Oh my God. Is that…"
Dez nodded. "It was a horrible tragedy. That fucker Frank tried to kill me and I fired back in self-defense."
"Frank did what?"
"He went crazy. It was awful. Thank God you weren't here," he said, trying to wrap his arms around her again.
"Wait," Aprille said. "Tell me exactly what happened. Start at the beginning."
Dez began to pace back and forth on the floor, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke, "Well, I was at the office all day because of court and some of the cases we're working on. I had a meeting at nine, and then one at eleven, and I had to help someone from the DEA who has this big international case he's working on."
"Okay," Aprille said.
"And then I went to lunch at Reading Terminal Market. I had pizza, but it made me sick, so I went to the Rite Aid. Then I had another meeting and got a phone call to go pick up my kids from school because their mother was running late."
"Right," she said, nodding.
"We're not doing too well, you know. She knows I'm going to leave her for you, and I basically told her that, which I'm sure you don't want to hear about now, but it's one of the reasons I haven't been in contact so much."
"When did you hear from Frank?" Aprille said.
"He called me," Dez said quickly. "He called me and said he wanted to meet up at his place, but I'd never been here, so I had to call Skip and ask him if he knew where it was, and he said it didn't sound right, so he wanted to come."
"Skip was here too?"
"No, wait. I mean, he didn't actually come in. He drove up here and showed me where it was and then he left."
"He left?"
"Right."
Aprille frowned as Dez spoke but she said, "Keep going."
"And then I came in here and it was dark and scary and Frank shot at me!"
Aprille looked around the dark room and said, "Let's go find the bullet holes."
"Well, that's the thing," Dez said. "That's why I need your help. I don't think there are any."
"How could there not be any bullet holes if he shot at you?"
Dez closed in on her, taking her shoulders in his hands and pressing their chests together, "Because I think he was trying to set me up and he just shot blanks, but I didn't know that. How could I know that?"
Aprille put her hand between them and gently pushed him back, "None of this makes sense, Dez."
"I know! That’s what I'm fucking trying to explain to you! Don't you understand? That motherfucker's trying to bury me and you don't help me, I'm fucked!"
"How can I help you?" she said.
"I need your gun."
"My what?"
"You carry the same type of gun he does. If we just fire a few rounds from it into the walls, and then dig out the bullets, no one will ever know it came from your gun. They'll think it was him."
She stared at him for a long moment without speaking. She took a deep breath and put her hand against his face and said, "Honey, I can help you and this can be fixed, but I can't do anything for you if you don't tell me what happened. All of it."
"I can't," he sputtered.
"Of course you can."
"You're going to hate me."
"I could never, ever hate you. Just tell me what happened."
"Frank was trying to set up the unit. He must have gone to Internal Affairs and told them about the rabbit and the warehouse, because they showed up during an interrogation and grabbed Ondrey. Then he came to my office and tried to get me to talk, so I know he was wearing a wire. We brought him up here to scare him and try to find out who he was working with. That's all, I swear to God. Nobody was supposed to get hurt!"
"Okay," she said, letting a small smile escape her lips. "That is exactly what I wanted to hear."
Dez sobbed into his hands and tried to breathe. No matter where he looked, he could not help seeing the large pink rabbit sprawled out on the floor nearby. "I'm going to jail," Dez muttered.
"No you aren't," Aprille said pointedly. "But your story sucks and your idea of how to explain it is bullshit. The first thing we need to do is pick up all your shell casings and anything you might have left behind. Are you okay staying here by yourself?"
"Why?" he said, suddenly panicked.
"Because I need to go get a flashlight, some trash bags, and a few gallons of gasoline."
"Gasoline? For what?"
"Nobody is going to buy your story, honey. This place is far enough away that it will burn for hours before anyone sees it. Plus, that rabbit costume is going to go up like a California cornfield in August. By the time the police are done sifting through the rubble, there won't be anything but ashes. And we'll be long gone."
Dez stared in mute astonishment at her. The plan was so utterly perfect and her voice so flat and completely devoid of emotion that he could not help but say, "All right."
"In fact, we'll spend the week in Atlantic City to give ourselves a proper alibi," she said.
"That sounds amazing," Dez said. Reality began to creep in on his situation and he said, "But if I spend that much time away from the house, my wife might get suspicious. And the kids, and all. I mean. They'll notice and might think something's up."
"No they won't," Aprille said. "Because you're going to tell them that you're moving out tonight."
"I am?"
"Oh yeah," she said firmly. "That part of your life is over now."
"But it can't just be over," Dez said. "What about my pension and house and money and everything else? I can't just snap my fingers and undo all of that tonight."
"Yes you can, and you will, or else."
Dez felt a cold shiver run down the length of his body like arctic waters from the top of his head to the base of his spine. "Or else what?" he whispered.
"Or else, I will play them this," Aprille said, lifting her hand to show him her set of keys. He didn't need to see the small recording device designed to look like a keyfob to know what it was. He was the one who'd taught her about such things. "I will play them this recording and all the other ones I have of you and your precious team, Dez."
Dez took a fumbling step back from her like he was standing on the bow of a ship as it lurched sideways and prepared to sink. "It was you," he said. "It wasn't Frank. It was you." He looked up at her with wide eyes and said, "But why? Why on earth would you do that to me?"
She scooped a length of blonde hair over her ear and said, "For us, of course. I did it so you could finally get rid of the things in your life that were keeping us apart. Now it will just be you and me, the way it was supposed to be."
"Supposed to be?" he hissed. Aprille came toward him with her arms open and he shoved her away, "Supposed to be! You fucking psychopathic nutjob! You ruined my fucking life! You think I'd leave my fucking family for some two-bit goddamn weekend cooze? This is exactly why I kicked you off the
team. You're nothing but a goddamn junkie. Get out of my fucking sight. I don't want you here. I'll figure this out on my own, you asshole."
"You're just upset," she said. "Let's deal with this and then we'll go back to my place and talk about it."
"There's nothing to talk about. I don't want you anywhere near me."
All of the power she'd been collecting during the conversation flushed through her fingers at that moment. Dez calling her. Dez needing her. Dez wanting her to be the one to save him. She'd been drunk on validation and spoken too soon. Dropped all of it on him too quickly, and while he was in too vulnerable a state. "Listen, I'm sorry," she said, trying to throw the brakes before the train went over the cliff. "That all came out wrong. Let's just take a deep breath and get past this immediate issue."
Dez's eyes turned black and hard and he raised his fist and held it under her chin, "Don't you understand, cunt? I'd rather have a million investigators here than you and your little bullshit tape recording. Good luck getting someone to listen to it. Everybody from Washington DC to New York knows you're a psychopathic groupie whore. I was in idiot to ever think you could be more than that."
With that, Aprille reached around the small of her back for her pistol. She pulled it out and pressed the black barrel to Dez's chest and before he even looked down, she fired. Dez careened backwards in an arch, forming a bridge with his body as he clutched his chest, like he was still trying to catch the bullet before it burst through his heart. His legs kicked out spastically, an ant frying beneath a white hot magnifying glass, his fingers knotting together as he seized. He choked on his own fluids as they bubbled up from his lungs and filled his throat and sinuses.
Aprille watched him suffer and realized it did not bother her. She got to be with him in his final moments. She got to be, what no one could argue, the most important person in his entire life by becoming the one who ended it.
It was three o'clock in the morning before she got the cars moved and wiped down and everything prepared. She hailed a taxi and told the driver her car had broken down. She had him drive her to the gas station where she purchased two red gallon containers of gas and then back to a residential street near the driveway to the train station.
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