by M. D. Thomas
“That tattoo on your cheek. What is it?” he asked. Like the knot on her shoulder, it had the look of cheap ink applied by someone without much talent.
Her eyes—a piercing green that gave her a bird of prey appearance—narrowed and the sneer grew. “It’s a butterfly. Why in the hell do you want to know?”
Seventeen
HARVEY
“What in the hell are we waiting for, Harvey?” Dave asked. “The rain’s only gonna get worse and SWAT’s been in place for five minutes.”
The three of them were in one of the narc vans, parked in the darkness a house away from Mack’s, the view from the windshield obscured by the rain. Harvey sat in the driver’s seat, Dave next to him and Costillo in the back. “Just waiting for the right time.”
It was as big as the moon… it was…
“You worried something’s off?” Dave asked, his voice serious, and Harvey heard Costillo perk up in the back seat.
Harvey shook his head. “No. Maybe it’s just the rain.”
“SWAT is gonna leave if you don’t move ‘em soon and then the three of us will have to clear the house by ourselves,” Dave said. “You and I could handle that, but I think it might be a little much for Costillo.”
Costillo snorted. “Stop pretending your dick is bigger than it is.”
“Fuck off, Costillo,” Dave said, but there was no anger in his voice.
Focus on what you need to do for Nonna, Harvey. Focus…
He picked up the small the handheld radio that connected him to the head of the SWAT unit and clicked it on, tried to push the kid and his baseball to the background. “Let’s do this.”
I’ll have to clean my gun tonight, Harvey thought absently as he trotted through the rain, his pistol pointed at the ground before him as the six SWAT guys approached Mack’s front door. Dave and Costillo were arrayed around the house with the rest of the team to make sure no one tried to duck out the back or take a shortcut through a window.
The judge had granted Harvey’s request for a no-knock warrant, and as soon as they were in place one of the SWAT guys ran forward with the master key. He swung the battering ram in a long arc by his hip and crashed it into the door, which popped open like a tank had plowed through it instead of thirty pounds of hardened steel.
“POLICE!”
Harvey went in last as SWAT swarmed into the house, continuing to identify themselves as they moved farther inside, guns raised before them. They’d already disappeared down the hall by the time Harvey walked into a living room occupied by a couple of leather couches and a big flat screen tuned to ESPN. Open beer bottles and half-empty glasses littered the coffee table. Shouts came from down the hall.
“Get the fuck outta my house!”
“Hands where we can see them!”
“On your knees!”
“Fuckin’ pigs!”
“Get your hands off of him!”
“All clear!” came a moment later and the shout was repeated throughout the house.
Harvey stepped into the hall at the same time as Dave and Costillo.
“No shots fired,” Dave said, nodding with approval.
“Goddamn miracle,” Costillo said as he holstered his gun. “How are you always so fucking lucky, Harvey?”
“Because he’s not an idiot like you, Costillo,” Dave said.
Mack and two others were face down on one of the bedroom floors. Harvey always kept double-cuff zip ties in his coat, but SWAT had already restrained them, the plastic bands dark against the lily white skin of their wrists. All three wore wife-beaters, their bare arms covered in tattoos, but Mack had more than the other two combined, the ink climbing up his neck like a parasitic vine.
“I’m suing the shit outta you motherfuckers,” Mack said as he was Mirandized. His buddies weren’t so vocal, and even Mack fell silent as SWAT dragged them to their feet and herded the three of them out of the house.
Harvey followed a few feet behind, confirmed the patrolmen were stationed outside. They’d keep an eye on the house and make sure the gawkers didn’t get too close, though the rain might keep the neighborhood busybodies away. Once Mack and his cronies were in one of the SWAT vans, Harvey went back inside. Dave and Costillo were staring at the television and bickering about the game.
“Dave, you start here in the living room,” Harvey said as he pulled a pair of gloves from his back pocket and put them on. “Costillo, you take the bedrooms. I’ll start in the kitchen.”
The kitchen table was covered by drugs and paraphernalia, but Harvey ignored it. He needed cash, had to find it before Dave and Costillo. They’d give him whatever they found so he could turn it into the officer in charge of asset forfeiture back at the station, but he couldn’t skim from what they might have counted already.
He went to the left side of the kitchen and started pulling open cabinets. Paranoid drug dealers hid money in crazy places—he’d found stashes inside mattresses, light fixtures, in zip locks inside toilets, even buried in a tub of dog food. That’d been a decent haul, nearly twenty grand in large bills stowed in the Alpo.
“Nothing in the living room,” Dave called out before Harvey was halfway through the lower cabinets. “I’ll get the bathroom next.”
Harvey moved faster.
There’s got to be some, Harvey. You need it. Nonna needs it…
Harvey moved on to the upper cabinets and found nothing.
“Both bedrooms clear,” Costillo called out.
“Bathroom clear, too,” Dave said.
Nothing in the drawers. Harvey raised his voice. “Check the laundry room and the hall closets.”
Harvey glanced at the table. There was at least fifty grand worth of coke and heroin, plus some random bottles of oxy and ecstasy. At least fifty. That much meant there had to be cash in the house.
He was closing the refrigerator when Dave wandered into the kitchen. “Anything?”
“Not a damn thing,” Harvey said. “You?”
“Nada except for some porn mags,” Dave said as Costillo wandered in.
“Zilch,” Costillo said. He stopped next to the table, looked down at the drugs. “They were in the middle of packing. Lucky again, Harvey. What we got here? Forty grand worth?”
“Closer to fifty,” Harvey said.
Dave scanned the open cabinets. “No way there’s fifty large in goods on the kitchen table and not a single stack of cash somewhere in the house. We missed it.”
Harvey nodded. “Go over it again.”
“Where are those porn mags?” Costillo asked Dave as the two of them left the kitchen.
Harvey looked slowly around the room. His gut told him if there was money in the house it was in the kitchen—it was usually close to the drugs. He’d searched every cabinet and drawer, every plastic container. What was left?
The food…
The pantry, if it could be called that, was a couple of cabinets half-full of food. He started with the breakfast cereal, pulled the plastic bags from the boxes and checked the bottoms of the cardboard sleeves.
Nothing.
A white box held nothing but rice, an open bag nothing but chips.
Then he opened a large box of Saltines and there was the cash. There were no sleeves of crackers on top, no farther attempt to hide the money. He peered inside, guessed there were at least twenty stacks. Without hesitation he grabbed the four on top and stuck them behind the waistband of his pants beneath his coat, spread them out so they wouldn’t be noticed.
“So you found it,” Dave said from behind him.
Shit…
Harvey turned around, held the box of Saltines up. “Cracker box. Good haul, too.”
Dave gazed at Harvey for a moment, his eyes weighing, then said, “Hey, Costillo! Harvey found it.”
Harvey walked to the table and put the Saltine box next to a bag of coke, started pulling out the stacks of cash. “Let’s see what we got.”
Dave only watched as Harvey arranged the stacks with gloved fingers.
Costillo walked in and whistled, started thumbing the cash. “This’ll make Robertson happy.”
Harvey finished emptying the box, avoided looking at Dave. Had he seen? If he had, would he tell? He and Dave had worked together for years, but loyalty only went so far.
At the same time, he couldn’t stop thinking about the cash pressed against his hip. How much had he gotten? Would it be enough to hold off the banks for another three months? Six? He wouldn’t know until he got home, and that was hours away still. They had to document everything, collect it all in evidence bags, and then take it to the station to hand in for forfeiture or destruction.
“Maybe thirty-five thousand,” said Costillo as he put down the last stack. “Lots of miscellaneous bills, so it’s hard to tell. Still, not bad.”
“Not bad,” Harvey agreed, hyper-aware of the cash against his hip. Even if it was only enough for three months, the night was a success. “Let’s get plenty of pics before we bag and tag everything. I don’t want to be here all night.”
Eighteen
JON
Jon had imagined finding her over and over, but the scene had always cut to a shot of the man and woman led away in handcuffs. He’d never considered what he would say or do when confronted by her and so he froze.
Her eyebrows drew down as she stared and he wondered if she would recognize him, another possibility he’d never considered. If so, what would she do? But Jon saw no spark of recognition in her eyes, only irritation.
“You want a drink or not mister? It’s kinda busy.”
He took a deep breath and found his voice. “Sorry. Budweiser.”
She grabbed a glass from the rack behind the bar, hurried to the nearest row of taps, and was back with the drink about fifteen seconds later. The expression of irritation was gone. “You running a tab?”
“Yes,” he said, afraid to look her in the eye again. “Yes, I am.”
Two hours and three beers later Jon still sat there—he and Sarah hadn’t discussed what to do if he actually found the girl with the tattoo. He’d thought of calling or texting Sarah, but the look on her face earlier that night made him want to figure it out on his own. For the time being at least. He could go straight to the police, but it seemed too soon—they would question her, but that was it, and all she’d have to do was say she was at home that night. As the accuser, the burden of proof would fall on him. Besides, those kinds of questions might scare her off, and then they’d never find the man that was with her.
Maybe if I follow her she’ll lead me to him… There was the question of what to do then, but he’d have to figure that out later. Figure out what he had to do first, and then do it, just like his father had always said. The path forward would reveal itself with each step he took.
So he choked down beer and watched her. She worked in tandem with the other bartender, her movements economical and elegant, smooth, nothing wasted while she smiled, sneered, cajoled, cheered the patrons into round after round after round, nudging along the atmosphere toward ever greater heights of jovial drunkenness while she danced behind the bar and raked in tips, not just comfortable in her element but thriving.
Last call came at two in Virginia—a fact learned after he began the search—but he already felt flushed and a little dizzy, and if he kept drinking he’d have to be carried out of the bar, and if he sat there without drinking she would notice him and he didn’t want that. So at half-past midnight he closed the tab, left her a twenty-percent tip—nothing noticeable, not too much, not too little—used the restroom and left, passed the mountainous bouncer once again on his way through the swinging doors.
Outside the entrance was an awning-covered area where a few groups of people stood smoking and cursing and flirting, protected from the rain that continued to fall. Jon passed the girls in cowboy hats from earlier, one of them puking onto the concrete while her companion stood over her smoking a cigarette and capturing the moment on her phone. Jon skirted the vomit and ran through the rain to his car.
Back in the Volvo, he started the engine, put the wipers on intermittent so he could watch the doors. The lights outside the Hill were generous and he could see well despite the steady rain. There would be at least one side or rear entrance where food and liquor would be delivered, but he didn’t think the woman could slip out unseen—there was only one way in and out of the parking lot.
Jon sat in the dark and watched the door to the bar as his clothes dried, as he wished that Lee was in the passenger seat, glancing occasionally at his cell as time marched slowly toward two.
She came out at a quarter to three.
Jon had moved the Volvo across the street to a bank parking lot when the Hill really started to empty, and from that distance he wouldn’t have been able to tell it was her if not for the mass of curls. She wasn’t alone, hunched beneath an umbrella with another woman, and a moment later the two of them stopped next to a small sedan. They talked for a few minutes and then the woman with the butterfly tattoo got into the sedan. The one with the umbrella walked to an old Jeep Wrangler a few spots away and disappeared inside. As soon as the lights on the sedan came to life, the car pulled out of the lot and sped south. The Wrangler followed an instant later and headed the opposite direction.
Jon cursed as the sedan’s taillights receded into the rainy distance. He cursed again when he realized how stupid it’d been to park front first. He backed up, watching the distance to the sedan grow and hoping he didn’t hit something. The Volvo’s tires spun on the wet pavement as Jon shot out of the bank parking lot, narrowly avoiding the lone car that happened to be speeding past, earning him a loud honk and a flash of high-beams. He leaned forward, his chest pressed against the steering wheel as he peered through the wet darkness toward the fading taillights.
Thanks to the late hour the street was green lights wall to wall and he was able to catch up a minute later. Half a block back he slowed, unsure how close to get, tried to think of what he’d seen on a million stupid police shows, painfully aware they’d probably all gotten it wrong.
He felt anxious, stomach roiling, and considered putting down the window in case he needed to vomit on the asphalt streaming along beneath the car, only discarded the idea because the rain had begun to fall in heavy sheets.
The sedan turned twice in the next five minutes and then pulled into Shady Acres Apartments, the sign at the entrance covered with faded paint, a couple of letters missing from the name. She parked in front of the building closest to the street.
Jon followed her into the complex and continued past without slowing, not taking a spot until he was in front of the third building from the street. He turned off his lights before he had come to a halt, put the gearshift into neutral and killed the engine. He stepped out of the car into the rain, and his clothes soaked through within seconds as he peered over the roofs of the nearby cars and in the light from the sodium arc lamps above he saw her run through the rain toward her building.
How many apartments in each one? Ten? Twenty?
Keeping the cars between them, Jon scurried after her. Lights danced in the windows of a few apartments, televisions watched or slept before, and he worried someone would notice him, but for the most part the buildings were dark. If someone did see him the downpour would hide his features.
He lost sight of her as she stepped into the building’s shadowed entrance. He forgot about being noticed and moved faster, drew near enough to see that each apartment had a wall sconce next to the door, but only a couple were turned on, lighting the tunneled stairwell that split the building in half front to back. It wasn’t a lot of light but it was enough to see the woman tramping up the stairs, her back toward him. If she turned at the top of the stairs she’d be looking right at him, so he ran forward as she neared the top of the flight, her footfalls loud above. Just before she reached the top he stepped into the stairwell and halted against the wall. His heart thumped so hard he felt like the increased pressure might blow his eardrums.
Calm…
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You’ve got to follow if you want to see which apartment she goes into…
Her footsteps continued to trudge upward. Eyes raised, he slid forward and saw her step off the stairs onto the landing far above him before she turned toward the back of the building. A moment later keys jingled, the metallic sound carried through the air.
Jon choked down the nervous bile in the back of his throat and sprinted toward the stairs. His shoes slapped quietly against the concrete as he ran, changed to muffled thumps as he took the treads two at a time.
He slowed close to the third floor landing, head swinging as he searched for her. A narrowing crack of light at the far end of the stairwell disappeared a moment later as the door met the jamb.
Jon slumped against the railing, leg muscles quivering, had to sit down on the steps so he didn’t tumble down them. He was overwhelmed by what he had done, by the recklessness of it.
But he knew where she lived.
So?
The insidious question sucked away the sense of success that had filled him, made him aware for the first time that he was wet and uncomfortable. So what if he knew where she lived? The knowledge wouldn’t make Lee better. It would only nurse the grudge that Jon had toward the man and woman who’d taken away his son.
Jon forced himself upright. Water dripped off his fingertips as he trudged up the last steps and walked across the landing until he stood in front of the door she’d entered. The sconce outside of the door was off, but there was more than enough light to see the number on the door.