by Amy Faye
"You're a real smart ass, you know that?"
"Guilty as charged," I tell her.
I let my finger trace circles around her nipple lazily. It stiffens immediately, her body absolutely ready to continue where we left off.
"Where is your brother?"
"He's at home, last I checked." A thought runs through my head and I dart for my phone. No missed calls, which means he hasn't run into any trouble.
"You've got someone on the inside. That job picking up the Crazy Horse stuff—someone must've told."
"I know," I tell her. I don't mention that I don't know who it is. If she brought it up, she's got thoughts on the subject, I figure.
"I don't know the details—but I think it was Spider."
I raise an eyebrow. "You figure?"
"He was working for us."
I let out a breath. Well, it's out there now. "I know. But if he had a way to talk to Scheck, then why would you have come to me?"
"We wouldn't. You'd be in a federal holding cell right now, Beauchamp."
"And I will be in another day or two."
She gets quiet. I guess that she doesn't like the reminder that, as 'friendly' as we've gotten over the past couple of days, we're not friends.
"He would've reported the job."
"So what you're saying is—"
"Someone in the chain of command is a leak, but you've got more suspects than you think."
I curse and lay my head back. "If that's the case, then there's going to be more trouble before we can clear this up. No doubt about it."
"If someone's on the inside, then they're either awful damn close to an arrest, or…"
She doesn't need to finish the thought. Or, someone saw what kind of money changes hands and decided they'd like to make some of it themselves.
If it's Agent Ball, well, they're probably fine. I think I can take him, if it's a straight fight. If I get the drop on him, it won't even be a competition.
But it could be anyone. All the way up. It could be the head of the A.T.F. for all we know, which isn't a pretty position at all.
I take a deep breath. "They must know you've got some idea."
"I think you're right." She pushes herself up onto her elbows. I try to make that moment last as long as possible, before we have to get back to the craziness that is coming, that's taken over my life the past couple days.
"So what do we do about it?"
"You don't have any ideas?"
I have a few, but they're not the kind of ideas that you enumerate in front of a cop. "Not really."
"Here, I figured, guy like you—we can just have them shot."
The way she says it is serious, as if she hasn't even grasped how crazy it would sound to an outsider. The thought makes me smile.
"Say we did, then what? We'd have to get Scheck and the big motherfucker—"
"Shane Rosen."
"If you say so," I agree. "Point being, we'd have to get them all at once, or they just send goons after us. We have to take over overnight."
"Are you saying it's impossible?"
I lay back and look up at the ceiling. It's got a crack in it that would worry me if I were staying here more than another few hours.
"No, I suppose I'm not."
"That's what I wanted to hear."
"You know what I want to hear?"
"What?"
"I want to hear that there's more to this than a few days of being used to further your career."
She gets quiet. "Ryan, I—"
"I don't even know your damn name, and here I am, lining up to take a hit at the biggest gang this side of the Mexican border."
I keep my voice neutral, but as the words come out of my mouth, I can feel the anger rising anyways.
She stays quiet. Is it so much to ask, I think to myself. I don't think it is. Just a name. A real name.
I push myself up and start dressing. My jeans slip up and the belt loops around my waist, cinching them tight. I turn around to pick up my shirt.
Maguire hasn't moved. Not an inch, not a single hair on her head. Her eyes are wet, but there's no marks of tears falling down her cheeks.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Part of me wants to leave it be. Always wanted to let it be, because in my business, if someone doesn't want to talk about it, you don't talk about it. But in my business, people don't ask you to risk your life, your brother's lives, your men's lives—all so you can maybe, possibly not go to jail this time.
"I don't want to have feds breathing down my neck. I don't want to march into a meat grinder for a cop who threatened to have my balls in a vice for the next thirty years if she had her way. But if it's for a woman—for you—then I'll do it."
"Ryan, I—"
"A name. It's not much to ask, is it? Your name."
Her voice is soft when she speaks next. There's a little tremor, a slow start. "Sa… Sara. My name is Sara."
"Nice to meet you, Sara."
I hold my hand out. She doesn't take it. Her voice is still fragile when she says, softly, "Don't call me that."
I take a breath and lean down. Her forehead is hot when I press my lips against it. Her arms wrap around my chest, pull me down onto her, and her face buries into my neck.
I lay there like that on top of her for a while. She doesn't say anything, but I can hear the sounds of her breathing, unsteady and unsure.
Whatever it is that did this to her, it hurts. I understand being hurt. Nobody gets on this side of the law without having hurt, and hurt bad. But now, with Sara Maguire, I don't know what to say to make it go away.
I don't think it's going to be that simple. So I cradle her head in my hands and let her do what she has to do until she pulls away from me a little.
Her eyes are wet, and her face has gone red and splotchy. But laid over top of all that, she's got her game face back on.
The one thing I've seen from Maguire this past week is, she's every bit a woman, but when she needs to be, she can be a cast-iron bitch. And now, when we need all hands on deck, the ability to turn the hurt off is what we need.
A big part of me wants to make it go away, forever. But we don't have have that luxury. It's her strength that will get her through this. Then, maybe, we'll be able to see about healing whatever cut her so deep that she can't stand her own name.
Chapter Thirty-Three
MAGUIRE
I feel better as soon as I can get back to work. That's how it is, and that's how it's always been. I don't want to talk about it and I don't want to think about it.
So when we climb back into the car, and Ryan tells me to start driving, and we'll figure out a plan on the road, I couldn't have asked for more.
"We need Logan," Ryan starts. I couldn't agree more.
"Okay."
"He thinks you used us as bait, though. He's not going to want to see your car out there."
"That's too bad. I'm not leaving you alone. You know what that could be risking? No chance."
"Then we'll need something of mine, at least. Come on. We need some way to raise a white flag and let him know not to try to blow my brains out. Hell, not to blow your brains out."
I don't like it, but I can't find any fault in what he's saying.
"So we go pick up your bike. You can hide it anywhere else, right?"
I look away from the road. I can't afford to keep looking at his face as long as I want to, but I have time to see him nod.
"Yeah, that's no problem. I've been getting a lot of practice lately."
My jaw tightens. I don't like this plan one bit. It's dangerous, and it's the sort of risk-taking that I've come to expect from Beauchamp. One of these days, it's going to come back to bite him in a bad way, but right now we're going to have to count on it.
"Okay."
I pull into the left turn lane at the last second as the light changes and put my foot down on the gas. The car lurches under us, but it makes the corner just fine.
Two and a half blocks back
to Ryan's house. The place is dark, and I take a lap around the block before pulling up to the driveway and letting him out.
There might be surveillance. I can't guarantee there isn't. But it's better than our usual work, if there is. Nobody sitting in a car eating a cheeseburger and waiting for him to step out of my sedan.
He steps out, and my entire body tenses up, ready for someone to jump out at any minute. Nobody does. It's a bit anticlimactic as he walks up to the bike, steps into the saddle, and turns the key, and the bike growls to life.
I start driving, getting myself turned around so I can follow him. He starts moving, not too fast to follow, but he's in a hurry and I can tell.
Part of me feels bad about it. He's under a heavy pressure, and anyone can see it. But that doesn't mean that I can afford to change anything for him, either.
No, we're both under a lot of pressure, and there's not going to be any sort of release valve until Scheck and her boys are out of the picture.
I try not to think about alternative ways of getting them out of the way. I'm a cop, not a judge. Certainly not an executioner. My hands tighten around the wheel, and then I relax them again.
No reason to get crazy, now. I just have to keep myself under control. That's all. Nice and easy, no problems.
Ryan's hand comes up to signal a turn. How delightfully old-timey. I don't have anything I can do to signal that I've seen him, but I flick the indicator with my finger-tip. When he turns, I follow him.
It only takes five minutes, give or take, for the groups of houses to start looking in better repair, for the roads to be clearer under my tires, and then Ryan pulls off into one of the side streets.
I've been this route once before, but I was too busy trying not to fall off the bike to really remember it. Now that we're almost here, I'm recognizing more and more of it.
I pull up behind him in a driveway. The place looks empty, the lights all turned off. But then, the garage is closed, so there's no reason to assume that he hasn't just pulled his stuff inside, and it's still early morning. Might be he's not an early riser.
Ryan steps up to the window and knocks. I roll it down.
"Stay here. Keep the engine running. I'm gonna go get him, we'll follow you back to the hotel once we're out."
"Don't take too long. There might be someone watching, and if there is—"
"I get it," he says.
"As long as you know what's at stake."
He leans in and presses his lips against mine. He has a long way to go, and I have a long time to figure out what's going on, but somehow it still catches me off-guard. My lips are tingling when he pulls back from the kiss.
"I'll be back in just a minute. Trust me."
"Okay."
He has a key ring in his hand already. Hasn't even slipped it into his pocket. He flips to a key, undoes the front gate. It slides open real easy, and then he unlocks the front door and heads inside.
I can't hear anything. The house is quiet, and he doesn't turn on any lights. For all I know he closed the door and now he's standing right there inside the door, and in a minute he'll open it without having searched.
Or, just as likely, he's tearing the place up and the whole place is going to look like a hurricane ran through. The seconds tick by like minutes, and the minutes feel like hours.
I don't keep an exact count, but the digital car clock shows that six minutes pass before I see any movement in the house. Ryan opens the door, and then stops himself halfway out the door, leaning stiff-armed against the door frame and trying to catch his breath.
He doesn't move for a long time. I don't know what's upsetting him, but I know one thing for sure: Logan Beauchamp isn't right behind him. My stomach twists up, and I get a sick idea of what he might have found.
Ryan pushes himself off the wall and makes his way over to my car. I roll the window down as he comes up. I want to say how sorry I am, but I keep it to myself. He's not the kind of man who wants pity.
"Everything alright?"
"No, it's not fuckin' alright."
"What's the situation?"
"The place isn't looking too great. Signs of a struggle, you might say. No blood. The place is empty."
My face pinches into a frown.
"Do you think—"
"He promised to call me if he heard anything, that son of a bitch. Someone came in and got him, and he musta heard it, but he didn't call me." Ryan pulls a phone out of his jacket and unlocks it, shows me the call log. "No missed calls."
I take a deep breath.
"Who do you think took him?"
"I don't know. Your people might do this kind of shit, wouldn't they?"
It doesn't take me much thought before I nod. "Sure. Might have been the Crazy Horses, though."
"Yeah. I know."
He takes a deep breath and opens the passenger-side door.
"What's the plan, then?"
Beauchamp looks tired, even deflated. I don't know what to say to make the worry go away. I don't even know how to fix the exhaustion that I know lines my own face. He works his own way out of it.
"We can't go off half-cocked. We need to know who's got him."
"I agree," I say. I keep my voice as steady and confident as I can. He needs all the support he can get right now, and that's the best I can do.
Chapter Thirty-Four
RYAN
I have the bike hidden next to a dumpster behind a warehouse. I don't know what they're storing here, but it doesn't look like the kind of place that gets checked often, and I don't have much worry about a dump truck coming and mistaking my bike for it.
After all, I'm leasing the unit half-a-block over, and I happen to know that trash collection is Thursday morning. So now I'm just leaning out enough to see. I don't know where else I'm supposed to go.
The Crazy Horses are big enough that they've got layers of protection. One of those is that some places, like the Irish pub that I did my part to roughen up, are as legit as they come.
I can walk into them, and sure—I'm not really supposed to go in. But they might not even know who they're being paid by to watch the place. They certainly don't realize that there's any connection to the drug trade.
Then you get the clubhouses. Maybe sometimes a guy with real connections—someone who's met Scheck, once or twice. Someone who McCallister might have heard his name. They go there to drink. But to call them friendly? Hardly.
And of course, Scheck wouldn't go in there, either. But someone might know about the business. That's where we usually get our information. People who are too stupid to keep their mouths shut, and know just enough for us to make money off it.
Then you have places that Scheck might go—warehouses, places where guns or drugs are moving through. But that's not going to be her usual haunt, either. Nor any of her goons. They'll go there to check up.
The place they took me when I got myself picked up looked a hell of a lot like a warehouse, on the outside. But I've been in warehouses plenty of times. Working places.
This wasn't that. So if they're going to hang out anywhere, then this place is as good a chance as anything. Fortified, familiar, comfortable. I don't know that this is the only place that fits. It probably isn't. But I have to hope that this is the one that someone picks today.
There's parking in the back, but I'd have to get far, far too close to the front door for that. They've probably got guys on surveillance. They're not just standing outside, though, which is why they haven't noticed me yet. At least, that's what I hope. It's what I tell myself.
I have to wait a long time before there's any movement at all. A truck passes by. It's bright red, probably five years old. The springs creak as it turns onto the street, and then it passes right on by. It came from somewhere else, and it's going somewhere else.
A long time passes. I stopped keeping track after the first hour. With the long odds I have to deal with, there's nothing to do but just assume that I have to wait all day for someone to come out. When I do,
then I can make decisions.
More movement. This time, a car pulls out of the driveway next to the warehouse that isn't anything like a warehouse. I get a glimpse of a woman with big, dark glasses covering most of her face, but I wouldn't mistake that hair anywhere. Not even through the thick tint.
I make a mental note of the license plate, make and model. I'll recognize it again if I see it, and I intend to see it quite well. The bike's right where I left it, and it starts on the first try. I resist the temptation to thank it.
By the time I slip back onto the road, the sun is already pretty high in the sky, and the street is just as empty as it has been the rest of the day. I take a guess at the light and risk it.
There's nothing else I can do, not really. Besides, I have to assume that she's just finished the night's business. If she's heading home, that's into town. Not out of town. So it's a little bit of an educated guess.
I speed a little. I only have to make up three minutes, but at these speeds, that's a little over two miles, and two miles provides a lot of opportunity to lose someone who can't see you.
She doesn't lose me, though. It only takes three or four minutes to catch a glimpse of that black sedan. It stands out, classic Volvo sharp lines.
It's polished so well that it looks brand new. The sort of thing you might find at a car show. There might have been something to talk about between us, if she hadn't decided to cause trouble for me.
It takes another minute to catch her up properly, but I can't afford to get close. The minute she recognizes the bike, it'll be all over. She'll just walk me right into a trap, and I'll be dead before I can get the kick-stand down.
Scheck pulls off into a residential area. Somewhere about as nice, I figure, as Logan's place. Not the same, though, and not close.
I follow her through the streets that twist in on themselves like a snail's shell until she pulls into a driveway. I keep going and double back a couple streets over.
Just like I'd hoped, the car is empty when I pull the bike up. I kick the stand out and pull the weapon from my pocket. This is going to have to go fast, because I'm not exactly a hard man to identify—and I'm certainly not a man without enemies.