by Amy Faye
Specifically, the something that stopped me was a woman, walking into my bar. I could already feel the words 'We're closed' coming to my lips when I saw her closer.
Fire-red hair and broad hips, the kind of hips that wrapped around a man's waist. The kind of body that was made for pleasure.
"You open?"
She sounded like she was from out of town, a sure sign that I should leave her the hell alone. I didn't.
"Just about, yeah," I answered, reaching down to grab another frozen glass. "What can I get for you?"
"I'm looking for someone," she said, her dark aviator-style glasses giving her a strange air of mixed appearances. She looked like a cop, but the way that she walked told him that wasn't quite right.
"Well, I'm the only one here most nights."
"Most nights?"
"It's a family-owned place. My brothers and I. We rent it out sometimes, but it's pretty rare. Most of the time, it's just the three of us."
"So you're Ryan Beauchamp, then?"
I didn't like the way she asked the question.
"Now I didn't say that."
She didn't like the way I answered it.
"Well that's a damn shame, because I'm looking for Ryan Beauchamp, and if you were him…"
She leaned over, showing too much of her luxurious chest for me to resist.
"What did you need Ryan for?"
"Well, if you were Ryan Beauchamp, I'd tell you that I had heard all about the work you were doing, and between you and me, I'd say that I found that sort of thing very attractive."
"What work would that be?"
The woman continued as if I hadn't spoken. "And I was just thinking that you were so… intoxicating-looking, it would be nice if you were him."
I could feel myself growing harder, between the way that she was putting herself on display for me and the way that her deep, husky voice implied what was going to come soon, even as she didn't quite ever say what she was planning.
There wasn't any question in my mind.
"I know Ryan. He's a good guy. What did you want to tell him?"
She leaned across the bar, practically spilling out of the shirt, an attractive and convenient-looking woman. She pressed a kiss against my lips, a kiss that didn't leave any questions about where it would lead if it continued.
It didn't. She pulled away, breathless, her heavy breasts rising and falling with each ragged breath.
"Is that what I'm supposed to tell him?"
"I'm not stupid, Ryan. Just admit who you are."
"Alright, say I am him—"
The woman ducked her head and spoke into her tits. "That's it, we've got him."
The entire place exploded with a rush of activity, and by the time it was still again, I had three separate knees pressing me into the floor. My beer was already poured out on the floor.
As one of the uniforms pulled me up by my arm roughly, cuffs holding it in an uncomfortable position behind my back, I growled at the redhead, who was buttoning her blouse and straightening herself up.
"Oh, don't look so angry. You were never going to get away for long."
Chapter Three
MAGUIRE
My knuckles hurt where I'd pounded them into the steel table-top.
"I don't care what the hell Ryan Beauchamp has to say on the subject." I pull my hand back off the table and step back away from the table, against the dimly-illuminated wall. "Did I give you the impression of caring one god damned bit about his rights? You put the screws on him!"
Danny didn't look like he was going to enjoy 'putting the screws' to Beauchamp. He was a tough nut to crack, for sure. But then again, he would have been, wouldn't he? I imagined his face, a perfect representation after having seen his picture thousands of times.
He was handsome, even very handsome. He didn't look like a drug dealer, nor like a gun runner. He looked like someone who would fit in better at a magazine photo shoot, than a shoot-out.
If the description made him sound small, it would be a mistake. She'd seen plenty of hard agents come back from getting close to the guy. From getting too close, and letting him figure out who they were.
Spider was the first one to get through for real, the first one to positively I.D. Beauchamp as the ring-leader of the Raven's Call Motorcycle Club. The first one to find positive proof of what they were doing.
Ask anyone, and they'll tell you what the Raven's Call were doing. They didn't try to hide it, or at least not very well. Not well enough to stop the rumors.
But then you actually try to prove it, and the stories dry up. No proof from anyone. The members swore up and down it was just a group of friends who gathered for drinks in the bar.
Well, thanks to a man on the inside, they finally had the proof they needed, and they finally had the big man. The Ravens weren't the biggest gang in the country, though.
Hell, they weren't even the biggest gang in Arizona. But their spread had been as bloody as it had been fast, and there was no way that Ryan Beauchamp was going to ever get out of jail for it.
I had spent two years tracking them, since that handsome son of a bitch drove his big Indian into town. And now that I had him, he was going to squirm.
I smiled, my face hidden in the dim overhead light. He'd be worried right now about what was going to happen to his men. More than that, he'd be worrying about what was going to happen to him.
Danny seemed to think that he wasn't going to crack, but they always crack. And Beauchamp wasn't even big fish. He was just bait, and that meant that she was prepared to offer him quite a deal in exchange for his cooperation.
There was no way he'd get such a good deal, not with anyone else. Immunity up and down, for anything he'd done and anything he was about to do.
All he had to do was kiss the ring of Government, and start filing reports like a good boy. Maybe meet with some people who the A.T.F. had their eyes on.
Which begged the question, I thought as Danny slipped back into the metal chair opposite Beauchamp's seat at the table: why was he holding out so much?
He sat back against his chair, a chair that I knew was more than just uncomfortable, and looked as if he were untouchable. I could feel myself burning at that expression. That smug son of a bitch was going to get that look wiped off his face, and soon.
When Danny was done with him, then it would be my turn. But first, Danny had to convince him that he was neck-deep in shit, and that there was no way out. If he was still sitting there, smug and with that punchably-handsome face, then her part wasn't going to work.
I slipped out of the observation room while Danny started to work, making sure that the observation camera pointed the wrong way. Some of these bastards got what they deserved to get in those interrogation rooms, and it's all I can do to make sure I do my part to see they get it.
I poured myself a coffee and tried to calm my nerves. It wasn't as if Beauchamp was superman. He was a man just like anyone else.
Not exactly like any man, of course. Most men couldn't claim to be as good looking. Most men weren't killers. Most men didn't control a third of the gun running going through Tucson.
By some more recent estimates, more than that.
But even still, this wasn't a situation where his boys were going to come by. Especially not with Spider on damage control.
He was a good agent, and he'd follow his instructions well, like he always did. This time his instructions were simple: keep them quiet, keep them from causing too much trouble, and wait for further instructions.
I tapped my fingers on the desk I'd set up against the wall, waited for Danny to come out with the good news. When he didn't come, I poured a cup of cold water and headed back into the observation room.
The water was crisp and clean and cold. Nothing like the summer Tucson air. I almost felt bad about having turned down that drink in the bar. The cold would have been great.
And then again, that kiss—I shook my head. He was a crook, a killer, and a smuggler. There was nothin
g there, and I was smarter than that. I knew better.
Which made it all that much more frustrating when I looked through the one-way glass at his smug smirk, the way that he leaned back and the way his perfect muscles bunched up and loosed as he leaned back.
He sat in that God damned, pointy, angular, uncomfortable metal chair like it was his favorite hammock. I could feel my lips twisting into a sneer, Danny turning back to face the mirror and giving a shrug.
"Hey, is that hot bitch back there watching me?"
Danny turned back towards Beauchamp. I could already see that he'd put his hard face back on, as if any minute he might lose his temper and put a fist through Beauchamp's teeth.
"The only hot bitch you're going to be seeing is yourself, when you look in a mirror on Cell Block D. They're going to love you. Those boys, they can't get enough of a pretty boy like you."
"She's there, ain't she?"
"You worry about me, hot shot. I'm your problem."
Ryan made a kissy-face toward the window. "Maybe I'll talk when you send in that fine-ass redhead."
I didn't like the flare of excitement, the flash of imagination in my head at several ideas I could think of that would get him to talk.
There was no way that would happen. He was deluding himself. Fantasies or no, I wasn't going to go for it, and that was that.
That didn't make the fantasies less tempting. I pursed my lips and settled into the seat. Danny was just getting to work, and though he wasn't exactly the greatest at playing bad cop, he would learn.
We all had to learn how to be the bad guy some day. That's what being a cop was all about. If he couldn't learn how to turn on the dangerous, then there was no way he was going to cut it.
He had to provide a good example for Beauchamp, as well, if Ryan was going to work with us.
Not that Ryan Beauchamp needed a cop to teach him how to intimidate someone.
Chapter Four
RYAN
They were trying to sweat me. It would have been cute, if it wasn't so boring. It's not every day that you get to watch someone go through their entire playbook, step by step. It's certainly a new experience for me. But still—that cop thought he was going to scare me. Now they thought they were going to sweat me, and it would be cute—if it wasn't so boring.
They'll send someone in soon, I'm sure, a friend. Maybe it'll be that redhead. Finally, they'll offer me a plea deal, and all I have to do is sign a confession, plead guilty in a court of law, and report the names of… what is it now? Three or four people, I reckon.
That's how it always is with these cops. No vision. They want it quick and painless for everyone, and it doesn't much matter what all I confess to, I'll get two years tops, and then I'm back on my merry way.
I should've hired better guys. The kinds of guys who would see this shit coming. But it doesn't matter now. I'm already in this mess, and I just want to get back out of it in one piece.
The door opens, seemingly for the hundredth time. The man, too straight-laced to do anything to me. Then a light of hope, just for me—Oh, praise the Lord!
At least, that's what they want me to think. She's working with him, and I'd be a damned idiot to trust anything she says, but at least she's back in the room again with me.
I let my smile show as she walks in, carrying a couple plastic cups no doubt filled with water. When she puts one down on the table, I reach for it.
I already know the drill. They try to put the screws on me for a while, then they come back with a cup of coffee or a glass of water or whatever the fuck.
The nice guy comes in to tell me that they don't want anything to happen to me. The mean guy tells the nice one to stop being such a namby-pamby. Then they turn to you, and they want you to beg Mr. Nice Guy to save your bacon.
The woman picked up the cup before I could close my hands around it. I do my best imitation of not giving a shit. She takes a step back, now, and I can see in her expression that I read the situation wrong.
She's not the good cop. She's the bad cop in a world of bad cops. Well, it's nice to at least work with someone telling it like it is for a change.
"Beauchamp, we've got you nailed to the fucking wall."
Her voice is nice, as nice as her tits, and they're out of this world. She's got a bit of huskiness to it, like she might have done too much smoking or too much shouting or both.
"I'm sorry, Miss—"
"You shut your fucking mouth. You think we want to hear from you? Fuck you, you small-fry piece of shit."
I can't afford to get riled up over that kind of shit, but I'll be God damned if I'll let anyone talk about me like that. That goes double for doing it right in front of me. The fact that she's a woman isn't going to get her off.
Instead, the chains around my wrists are what get her off scot-free. I can feel the steel bracelets digging into my wrists.
"What the fuck do you want, then?"
"What we want is for you to know that we fucking own you." She set the cup down, a tiny reminder of how thirsty I was. "You can't do any God damn thing without us knowing about it. If we let you go, ever, it'll be because the United States of America decided to let you out, you slimy son of a bitch."
A snarl was already starting to form when she started saying it, and now I can feel my face, twisted in rage into a horrifying mask of fury. Even I can tell, though, that's exactly what she wanted.
She wants me angry, because there's not a thing I can do about it, no matter what I try. Well, I'm not going to let her get to me, not forever. I've got better things to do than let some bitch get my goat.
"Fine. You want to let me go, let me go. I promise I'll never do it again, massa—you kin' trust me!"
Nobody laughs, me least of all.
"Danny, get out of here."
The guy who's been trying to get a staring contest going, the one sitting on the other side of the table, looks over his shoulder for a minute. I guess that's his loss. You break eye contact, you lose, right?
"You got him?"
"Oh, I know exactly how to deal with this smug snake son of a bitch."
"Raven," I corrected her. It felt like the right moment to smart off.
"Shut the fuck up, you moron."
The guy across the table stands up, the sound of the chair scraping on the floor ringing between the concrete walls around us. "I'm not finished with you, Beauchamp. Not by a long shot."
He's already loosening his tie by the time the door presses open, and he's gone by the time the door slams shut behind. Out of my memory, like he was never even there.
Not, on the other hand, like this woman in front of me. She's got a hell of a lot more going on in my head. And besides that, it's clear that she's running the show. If I want to figure out what's up, then it's going to be talking to her.
She settles into the steel chair opposite me again. She's got to know what she's doing to me, the way her shirt is cut, the way she leans forward onto her elbows, propping her breasts up on the table so that they stay in sight.
The way she presses them together with her elbows, giving me a perfect shot of her cleavage. The smile that splits her face tells me all I need to know. Of course she knows what she's doing. She's doing it on purpose, after all.
"Ryan Beauchamp, born March twenty-first, nineteen-eighty five to one Martha Beauchamp. You grew up in Dayton, is that right?"
"Cut the bullshit, lady, who are you and what do you want?"
"Is that you, Ryan?"
"Say it is," I shrug. "What's it matter?"
"For my records, because you're not going to be around answering questions forever."
"No, I'm not. Eventually, one day, when you get done with your goddamn song and pony show, you're gonna tell me what you fuckin' want from me, and I'm going to go to jail for the rest of my life, or I'm going to give it to you."
"And you want me to tell you what it is we want, exactly?"
"Damn right."
"Fine, if you say so." The woman leaned f
orward more, pressing herself up so I got a look down her blouse, a look I couldn't help noticing. "I want everything you know, and everything you're ever gonna know."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"You have a real dirty mouth, you know that, Beauchamp?"
"Don't like it? Wash my mouth out with soap."
"Is that how your mother did it?"
"You shut your mouth about my mother, how about that?"
"Oh, a sensitive subject, I see."
"Why don't you just tell me what the fuck you wanted?"
She took a deep breath, straightened back against her chair, and then she did.
Chapter Five
MAGUIRE
I don't like it when he looks at me. He looks like he's seeing right through me. But I'm in control, and I know it. I repeat it to myself. I'm in control, and there's not a damned thing that he can do about it.
"What we want? We don't want little shits like you, I'll tell you that."
I don't like the way he looks at me, but I like the way that hit him. Right between the legs, where it hurts. I keep myself from smiling at the thought.
"What do I have to do with this?"
"I just want to be clear about what we're trying to get out of you, Ryan. If you were our biggest concern? Hah. We'd leave you be. You're nothing."
His teeth grit together in frustration, but he doesn't respond to my jab. Smart boy. Smarter than I'd expected, to be honest. But that doesn't much matter, not in the long run. I turn back to the observation room, as if to say 'this is how you do this, Daniel.'
"What I want from you is to get in with the big fish. I want you to get an in with Brent McCallister."
He sucks in air through his teeth. That's what I wanted. A real response.
"That doesn't just happen, babe."
"No? You don't say. They don't just hire on any old body?"
"Cut the sarcastic bullshit."
I lean back in, giving him another view he's going to enjoy more than I'd like him to. Well, whatever. Whatever I have to do to nail McCallister.