by Amy Faye
35
The big man closed the door as he stepped into the room, stepped past Caroline. She was an adult by any estimation, but watching him walk by she felt like a little girl, and just as vulnerable as any little girl ever felt.
He looked at her with the same expression that someone might use to look at a rock as they passed by. He saw her, knew who she was, knew she was there, and then moved on without any particular feelings at all.
"Mr. Rice."
Her father let out a cough. "Harry," he said. "I know I'm a bit behind, but…"
The man let out a long breath and settled into a chair. Caroline stood stock-still and hoped nothing was going to happen to her. Something told her that the instant she allowed herself to move a single muscle was the instant that things would turn sour, and it held her in place like a stone statue.
"Please, Thomas. I know things didn't always go well, but I would have thought you'd at least call, and settle things up. Things could have been so much less… troublesome."
Dad looked tired. He laid his head back and rubbed his head with one hand. "I can get you your money, if you'll get me out of this hellhole. Unless Mr. C started taking checks all of a sudden?"
"Afraid not," the big man answered. His expression remained the exact same that it had been when he'd looked at Caroline. He might as well have been watching a particularly uninteresting television show, for all the interest he took in anything.
"Now what?"
"Now, I've got something to ask you."
The man was big enough to have killed Caroline with a blow, and with Dad in the state that he was, it wouldn't have been much more to snuff him out, either, if that was the man's goal.
And yet, he reached into his pocket, and with the tiniest movement his hand reappeared holding a blued steel pistol, pointed in the general direction of the bed.
"There's no need for violence." Dad's voice sounded unsteady as he said it, and he sat up a little straighter in bed, but he managed not to look too afraid, which was an accomplishment, at least.
"I'm afraid that there's a right answer and a wrong answer this time."
"Whatever you need to ask, just ask it."
"Fine. Do you know a man, tall, auburn hair, muscular? Calls himself O'Brien. He's a fighter, from out of town."
Dad's face twisted up in confusion, and Caroline hoped desperately that he wouldn't ask her. She knew instinctively that she couldn't manage the same look of absolute unknowing that he had on his face right now, and that expression might just be the only thing that would keep them both alive and out of trouble. So she looked away, out the door, praying for someone to happen inside and spook the big gangster.
"I don't know anyone by that name. Nor that description, for that matter. Why. Should I?"
The big guy frowned, looked at Caroline, and looked back at her father. "And you, miss Rice?"
"Please don't shoot me," she said, her voice tight.
"Look at me," he said. She looked. The gun was in his lap and she couldn't take her eyes off it.
"Please, I can't…"
"I'm not going to shoot you," he told her. His voice was low and almost soothing. "But you have to know, we know."
"I don't know what you're trying to say," she lied. She hoped that her eyes wouldn't give her away, but her hopes were not nearly strong enough.
"I think you have a very good idea, actually."
She tightened her jaw up. "I don't know him," she said. "And if I did know him, then I wouldn't know where to find him." The last part made her feel better. At least it was mostly true. "So I can't help you."
The man looked up at her with a frown, slipped the gun back into his pocket, and she could hear the sound of the safety clicking back into place. Caroline hoped that she didn't sound as relieved as she felt.
"Good. Don't let me find out you were lying to me, you got that? You don't know anyone named O'Brien, and you aren't going to meet anyone by that name. Forget you ever heard it."
He said it to nobody in particular, but he turned to her at the last. "And Mr. C would be very appreciative, if you were to forget that you'd ever heard his name, as well. If you were to forget the faces of the men who've had contact with you. And forget anything that might have happened."
Then, with a very deliberate timing that left no question of how related the two parts were, he turned to her father. "Tom? Don't worry about the money. Get well soon. The old man doesn't want to get a reputation as some kind of bloodsucker, you feel me?"
Dad nodded. "Thank you."
The big guy left the room and Caroline finally managed to take a breath that actually filled her lungs up all the way. "Did you know that man?"
Dad looked at her blankly. "I mean I wouldn't say he's a friend of mine, but I know him some, sure."
"And he's…"
"He's nobody, and that's the way I prefer to continue thinking about it. In fact, it was just you and I in this room."
"Dad, what the hell did you get mixed up in?"
"Forget me, what the hell did you get yourself mixed up in? You look like you about peed your pants right there, and he seemed to have some choice words for you in particular. Don't tell me you hired…"
"I didn't hire anyone, Dad. Don't be stupid. I'm not some kind of vigilante."
"Good," he said. "And make sure you remember that, because there's no way that is ever going to be a good idea. He sends his guys around from time to time, is all."
"For, what, protection money so he won't destroy your shop?"
"Well, you know," he said. The tone in his voice was almost joking, which worried the hell out of her. He must have seen something in her expression because he reacted immediately. "Come on, you know me better than that. It's like insurance. I'm not going to get my damn knees broken or anything."
"But your shop might get torn up a little."
"Well, I mean, that was just one time."
Caroline fumed. The second part of the message ate at her, though. Something niggling in the back of her mind.
The big man her father had called 'Harry' had known everything about the events of a few nights ago. He'd known enough to beat the tar out of some of his boys, and then slip her a picture of the beating.
So he had to have known that she was out with the exact man that he had been asking about. He had to have known the lie for what it was. He didn't need to ask, didn't need to stage any of this.
The only question he might have had, maybe, was whether or not Shannen worked for her dad. Whether he was a rival trying to muscle in on their territory. But he'd let her lie go. In fact, he'd been very clear, at the end there, and that was what worried her.
She'd never heard the name Shannen O'Brien before. If she just forgot it, then things would be easier. He wasn't worried about Shannen showing up again. He wasn't worried about her talking to him the second that she got home.
Wherever Shannen was, a sinking feeling in her gut told her that she wasn't at risk of accidentally running into him again. He almost certainly wasn't at risk of accidentally running into anyone.
36
There were things that Caroline didn't know. The truth was, she'd never wanted to know them. If there was some crime boss in the city, some guy who sent around knee breakers like it was the mid-40s and people still needed to fight over liquor distribution, that was fine.
It simply wasn't something that kept her up at night. There was crime in the city, some of it gang related, and that was enough information for her. The rest of the information she wanted wasn't names, wasn't faces, wasn't how she could reach these people.
She wanted to know how badly they were injured and how many more could be saved if there was one more woman in the field working her ass off.
So it wasn't a surprise when she didn't know who Coogan was. It also wasn't a surprise that the cops knew the name, even if they didn't know where to go to arrest him or have proof of anything that he'd done.
At least, not enough that they could arrest hi
m. Not enough that they could put him away for good. That was all fine, but Shannen wasn't answering his phone. It went to voicemail for the tenth time.
She hung up before the automated message started to speak, already knowing what it would say.
It wouldn't say how he could be reached. It wouldn't tell her where he was being held, or that he was okay and just laying low. The big guy hadn't seemed like he was looking for Shannen. He'd seemed like he was looking for information on why Shannen had gotten involved, and if he'd found it then it wasn't enough to act on.
That started her stomach twisting up, though. The fact was, he was involved because of her. She should have been worried about Dad from the beginning, should have spent all her waking time with him, because eventually, even though she hoped… no, she corrected herself, even though she knew, that he would be okay, he wasn't immortal. Eventually he'd move along, just like everyone eventually had to.
When that happened, she'd be the one asking herself why she hadn't spent more time with him. Why she had thought that a fling that would never amount to anything was more important than her own Dad.
The idea that he'd put himself in actual danger for her was another thing entirely. To think, further, he might have been kidnapped, maybe hurt, maybe hurt badly? That was another idea entirely.
A shiver ran down Caroline's spine, and she found herself chewing on her lip as she walked into the butcher's shop. That had been a little tip, and not one she'd enjoyed getting.
As a nurse, it wasn't hard to find people who were looking to get high, trying to convince you that they were in desperate pain. It was too easy, in fact. It was so easy that it was hard to find the opposite, someone you knew to a certainty hadn't just taken a knife to their own leg for another hit of drugs.
The woman had the look, and the man with her had the look that she associated with his type, as well. Like he owned the place. Like their wait was entirely the girl's fault. The girl had the look of someone who knew it was all her fault and felt terrible about it. It turned Caroline's stomach, but there was nothing to be done about it. There was no proof of anything, after all. Just a vague bad feeling.
She pulled them aside and showed the peek of a bag of pills, and their eyes lit up in sudden understanding. The woman reached into her purse for something and Caroline stopped her with a gesture.
"I need information." She hoped that they wouldn't be too careful in examining the pills, because sugar pills weren't impossible to identify.
"What do you want to know?"
Caroline took a deep breath. "You know a man named Coogan?"
The girl looked at her boyfriend, pimp, whatever he was. The guy's face twisted up in doubt. "What about him?"
"I need to find him."
"I don't know where to find him," he said with a hint of apologetics. His eyes never moved far from the hand stuffed into her pocket, the pocket where she'd shown him the pills. She could have pulled out a gun with the other hand and shot him and it would have caught him completely by surprise.
"Then no deal." Caroline hoped that her voice sounded hard and certain, because she didn't feel anything like that. It was a bluff, and if he called it then she was out and she'd have to hope that she could pull it again without too much trouble.
"Wait." The guy's face sunk in on itself, like a junkie's face tends to do when he feels his next fix running away from him. "I know a guy."
"You know a guy?"
"I… here." pulled out a paper receipt. "You got a pen?"
She handed the one from her breast pocket and he immediately uncapped it with his teeth and wrote something down.
"This address. Go here, and ask for Spider. Tell him that Coop sent you. I can't promise he'll work with you, but he owes me thirty bucks and if you remind him…"
"And he can get me in touch with Mr. Coogan?"
The guy shrugged, but he moved too fast and the motion came off like someone jack hammering his shoulders up and down too hard and too fast to look anything but wrong.
"Look, babe, I don't know. He's my guy for, you know, stuff. So if anyone knows one of Coogan's guys, then it'll be Spider. You got me?"
He held his hand out for the pills and she slapped them into his hand, label towards his palm and started moving. If she wasn't careful, he might be able to figure out the scam before she got away, and if she wasn't away then there was going to be hell to pay for all of it.
Which was what found her on the worst side of town, standing outside a high-rise building in her shitty Toyota and trying to convince herself that there was nothing to worry about. She wasn't buying it, but there was no choice but to go on up. She pushed the button for Spider's apartment, and a moment later a man's voice answered.
"Coop sent me," she said. "He said you could help me."
A second later the door buzzed and she pulled it open, and started into the lion's den.
37
There was an image in Caroline's head, of what a drug dealer's house was supposed to look like. She wasn't entirely sure where it was formed, first, but it had taken on elements from television shows, movies, books, and every other piece of media she'd consumed along the way, and it was entirely wrong.
Well, at least, for 'Spider,' it was wrong. First, the guy didn't fit anything that she would have guessed for him. The name reminded her of a biker, either bald or with long, stringy hair that fell in an unpleasant, ratty mess. His hair was long, and it was ratty, but 'Spider' had his tied up in a bun. His fingers were long and spindly, with knuckles that seemed to come out of nowhere and dominated the rest of his hand.
His arms were suited to match, too slender. Too long. Caroline was a petite woman but she guessed that she could have fit her fingers around Spider's wrist without having to squeeze. He smiled at her when she came in, showing off a gold tooth that did nothing to make him look more impressive.
If not for his heavy slouch, he would have towered over her, but instead he was only a few inches taller, and he was waiting at the door when she came up.
"Hey, lady. You said Coop sent you?"
"He gave me the address, yeah."
"Hey, come on in. Any friend of Coop's, you know?"
Caroline wouldn't call them friends, but she wasn't about to belabor the point. Spider sat down and killed the TV, but not before she saw that he was watching a camera-rip of the same cheesy action movie she'd seen the other night. "What can I do for you?"
She smiled and hoped he wouldn't be pissed at her. From the redness that rimmed his eyes, she supposed that it wasn't likely that he would get too mad at anyone. But there was a wide world of possibility out there. Likely had nothing to do with what would actually happen.
"I need information."
"I don't usually sell that kind of thing," he joked. "Mostly it's just, you know, the stuff."
"Well, I need to know."
"What sort of information were you hoping to get?"
"I needed to get in touch with someone, and I heard you might be able to put me into contact with him."
"And who is this mystery man?"
"Coogan."
The guy's eyebrows raised. "I don't know, babe. I mean, you're hot and all, and I'm sure I could think of plenty of things I'd take as payment, for whatever else you wanted, but…" He reached onto the table and grabbed a pair of glasses, put then on, and then took them off again almost immediately. "I don't know if I can really, you know? The big guy's not the sort of person I want to be fucking with on a regular basis, you know?"
"He would never need to know it was you who told me," she offered. "I'm not going to let any of this blow back on you. You have my word."
He let out a breath, and rubbed at his nose. She could see him reach out, grab the glasses and set them back down again. "Look, I really get you. But I'm not in a position to do anything like that. You know? I just, I'm sorry, babe. I'm just. Whatever it is, leave me out of it, alright?"
She took a breath and tried to imagine what sort of thing she'd have to do t
o convince him to change his mind. The things that sprang into her imagination told her that she wasn't ready to go quite that far.
"Coop said you owed him," she tried.
"Yeah, and you'd still owe me. You'd owe me… I mean, big. I'm not a big fan of shitting where I eat, you feel me?"
She let out a breath and pushed herself up. "Yeah, I get you. Sorry to have wasted your time."
He let her get most of the way to the door before he responded at all. "You gotta understand, okay? I'm not trying to fuck you up, right?"
"I understand."
He let out a long breath, and Caroline drew her coat around her tightly, hoped it wouldn't be too terribly cold, and then stepped back out into the hall.
The heat in Spider's apartment worked wonderfully; the rest of the building wasn't nearly so nice. She trudged down the stairs, not even close to trusting the elevators here, if they even worked. By the time she got back to the street, she was calmed down again. She eased herself into the Toyota, rubbed her knees and thighs, and waited for the engine to heat up enough to warm the car.
The trouble, she knew, was that she didn't have much else that she could do. There was a whole world of options out there. No doubt there were thousands, or tens of thousands, of people who knew Coogan. One of them would break.
She didn't have the time nor the resources to find out which ones those were, though. If she didn't reach him, and soon, then it wasn't going to matter one bit because whatever was hanging over Shannen's head would have already come crashing down, no doubt to disastrous effect.
Caroline closed her eyes as the air started to blow cold, and tried to think of her next move. There had to be something. Going to the cops made her skin crawl. There was going to be a reckoning for whatever he'd done, and unless Coogan was impossibly lucky, he hadn't made it to the position he was in without help from those among the Police force who had less than sterling morals.
If he did, then it wouldn't be hard to pin some or all of it on Shannen himself. The cops were an option, but they were a bad option. A last resort. A better option would be to talk to business owners around Dad's shop. If Coogan had hit one, he'd hit more than that, and one of them would have no love lost between them.