by D. L. Sparks
“Just chill out. I’ll be gone soon.”
He headed back to the living-room. Nate was sitting on the couch, rolling a blunt. Geech and his boy were standing by the door, talking. He was just about to pull his phone out, when there was a knock at the door. Linc walked up and Nate prepared to open the door.
Linc placed his hand on his gun. He nodded and Nate opened the door.
Twist entered the room, followed by Darius, who was carrying two big black duffel bags. But it was the one who entered behind Darius that got Linc’s attention.
He was the largest of the three and was eating a bag of Lay’s.
Their eyes met and they had a hate-filled, wordless exchange as Geech’s boy checked him for wires. The sound of the door closing snapped him out of his trance.
Linc stepped from behind the table, body tense with anger; he tried hard to hold it together as Darius set one of the bags next to his briefcase.
Darius spoke directly to Linc. “It’s all there.”
“Open it,” Linc ordered, never taking his eyes off the big dude with the potato chips.
He did as he was told. Unzipping the bag, he tilted it toward Geech, revealing multiple stacks of silver bricks of coke and clear bags full of multi-colored X pills.
Geech smiled big. “That’s what I’m talking about.” He slid the briefcases to the end of the table one by one. “It’s all there. Seven hundred and fifty large.”
When Geech made a motion toward the bags, Linc snatched his Beretta out of his waistband, setting off a chain reaction of guns being pulled out and cocked.
Still, Linc never took his eyes off the big dude; instead, he pointed his gun at Twist.
“I told you, don’t fuck up didn’t I?”
Twist held up his hands, eyes wide. “Yo, what the fuck I do?!”
Geech pointed his gun at Darius. “What the fuck is going on?”
Linc nodded in the direction of Darius, but spoke to Twist, “You brought this trouble to me?”
He watched as Darius’s eyes jumped from him to the guy and back again.
Darius shook his head. “Nah, man, I don’t know what he’s talking about, Twist, man.”
Linc cocked his gun. “You created this mess and you gon’ clean it up, Twist.”
“Yo, what you mean?”
He could see the heat and anger coming from big dude’s body. It wasn’t the agent he wanted, but it was a start. “You’re gonna put a bullet in Agent Porter and make this right.”
Phil’s had his .9 mm SIG trained on Linc. “If I don’t walk out that door real soon, it’s gonna get kicked in and you are gonna have agents attached to every inch of your ass.”
Darius broke for the back door, but Geech fired, catching him in the leg. That didn’t stop him from hobbling his way down the hall and disappearing out the back patio doors.
“Kill that fucking cop!” Linc yelled.
Linc pumped two rounds into Twist’s chest as he moved quickly in order to avoid the hail of bullets. Taking a hit in the vest, Linc spun around and managed to squeeze off two rounds in Phil’s direction. Nate took a bullet in the back, but not before pumping two rounds into Geech, hitting him in the chest and neck. Phil caught both of Geech’s boys before he went down and they collapsed at the door.
In an instant Linc snatched one of the duffel bags and threw it over his shoulder. He stuffed as much of the contents back inside the other duffel bag as he could before tossing that over his other shoulder, and grabbing two of the three briefcases.
His adrenaline was pumping and all his senses were on high.
He eyed the pool of blood spreading around Phil’s lifeless body.
He heard the sirens and the sound of footsteps running down the hall.
“Agent down!”
The last thing he heard as he sprinted through the back patio doors toward his car parked two streets over.
Chapter Nineteen
Trip
Inside the emergency room I pushed through the dense crowd of agents and officers huddled in the already crowded waiting room. Some faces were familiar to me; others I had never seen before. All of them might as well have been on the same force at this point. An “officer down” was a call no one in law enforcement wanted to hear come across his radio. When you did hear it, no matter who you reported to, you responded.
As I brushed past them, I read their eyes.
Some held pity.
Others question marks.
“Trip!”
I stopped and looked in the direction that the voice had just come from. I saw Lenny waving me in his direction. I headed toward him; my senses were on high. He ended a conversation he was having with a nurse and got in my face.
“Where the hell have you been?” he barked.
“Lenny—”
“You know what? I don’t care where you were, but I bet Phil is gonna wanna know if he makes it out of surgery.”
His yelling got the attention of everyone in the room, but I didn’t care, because that tiny bit of information caused some of the tension to leave my body in knowing that Phil wasn’t dead.
“If?”
Lenny placed his hands on his hips and dropped his head. His voice softened a little. “Yeah, if.”
“Where’d he get hit?”
“Right side. Collapsed his lung.”
I stood there, hands resting on my waist. My mind going a mile a minute. My thoughts went to Idalis, whom I’d left asleep in my room. I looked toward the ceiling and blew out some air.
My eyes went to the clock hanging over the nurses’ station: 2:30.
How the hell did shit get so fucked up, so fast? Less than an hour ago, I was in the middle of the best sleep I’d had in months, only to be awakened by the phone on my hotel nightstand ringing. I jumped up to stop the ringing before it woke Idalis.
“Phil’s been shot. He’s in surgery.”
Those were the last words I remembered hearing. Next thing I knew, I was standing in the ER at Grady Memorial, and my partner was fighting for his life.
According to Lenny, when he got the call about the bust, he tried to call me but didn’t get an answer. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity, so he went ahead with the sting with the agents we’d picked, without me.
That was confirmed by the voice mail he’d left on my phone.
“Partner, call me. No sweet dreams for either of us. I just got a lock on Darius. We gotta move now. It’s going down tonight.”
I leaned against the wall. “Lenny, I’m sorry.”
“Save it for Phil.” He turned and disappeared into the crowd of agents.
I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. There was no way this was happening.
Moments later I felt a presence standing in front of me, but I didn’t open my eyes.
“Yo, man, sorry about your pot’na.”
I lowered my head and his face came into focus, setting me off.
The next thing I knew, people were screaming and yelling, and I was going at it with Lincoln in the middle of the hospital waiting room. Nurses and patients waiting in the small area were shrieking and scattering like roaches.
Lenny and two other agents pulled me off him. Lenny was yelling, trying to snap me out of my rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I looked down at Lincoln, who actually had a smirk on his face as he touched the trickle of blood running down the corner of his mouth. I tried to break free and get at him again. By then, however, a sea of dark blue APD was between us. Lincoln stood to his feet and shrugged off the officers who had come to his aid.
Agents now stood on one side of the hall. APD on the other.
“It’s cool. It’s cool,” he said, keeping his eyes on me. “He’s upset. His boy just got shot.” He looked me square in the eyes. “I’d be upset too, if I wasn’t there for my pot’na.”
“Man, y’all better get his bitch ass the fuck outta here before I shoot him!” I yelled.
“Trip, you need to calm down,�
�� Lenny ordered.
I snatched away from them and stormed out the ER doors.
Behind the wheel of the Tahoe, I splashed out onto the streets of Atlanta, no real destination in my mind. The rain had stopped, but my head felt like it was full of thunder and lightning.
I called Trinity. She didn’t answer.
I thought about going back to the hotel, but I decided against it.
My mind went to Phil lying on that operating table.
Thought about the fact that I wasn’t there for him.
Thought about the bruise on Idalis’s side.
I wasn’t there for her either.
That made me hit the gas. The next thing I knew, I was on I-20, heading west.
I dialed Trinity again.
This time she answered. Her voice heavy with sleep and confusion.
Twenty minutes later I pulled up into Westview Cemetery. When I pulled up the drive, my headlights illuminated Trinity’s Acura TL. She was in jeans and an oversized, long-sleeved Spelman T-shirt. She was standing outside her car, with tears streaming down her face.
I slammed the truck into park and jumped out into the damp night air.
I walked up to her. “Where?”
Tears ran down her face. “Trip, I’m so sorry.”
“Where, Trin?” My voice boomed through the night air, causing my baby sister to jump. She turned around and started walking.
“Over here,” she said. “This is crazy! It’s dark and muddy, Trip.”
I pulled my department-issued flashlight off my hip, giving us light. Anger propelled me forward. I followed her through the wet grass until she came to a stop.
She turned and looked at me. Eyes pleading.
“Which one?” I snapped.
She pointed to the headstone situated to my left.
I shone the light on it.
Orlando Eugene Spencer II 1945-2007
Beloved Husband and Father.
My sister’s voice sounded like she was a mile away. “Trip, let’s go! This is crazy!”
Rage caused my legs to move.
I paced the small patch of grass in front of the grave site.
So much hate. So much anger.
Phil took a bullet, was fighting for his life and his ass got off easy.
“Son of a biiiiitch!”
My voice echoed through the cemetery as I snatched my .9mm from its holster, cocked it, spun around, and started firing rounds into his grave.
My gun roared angrily into the night air.
As each round pierced the ground, it carried with it a different level of rage and hatred. With each flash of my barrel, I saw my mother’s bruised and battered face, heard the sobs of my baby sister crying because of a beating I took in her place or my mother’s. But with each casing that the 9 mm expelled, I also felt a release.
“Trip, please stop. Please,” my sister sobbed, clinging to my arm.
I stopped shooting and looked at her; the terror in her eyes snapped me back to reality. She was looking at me the way I’d seen my mother look at my father many times—eyes wide with fear and panic.
I lowered my gun to my side and took a step back. My breathing was ragged as my chest rose and fell against the confines of my vest. My face was wet from tears, which I didn’t realize had fallen.
“Please, Trip,” she begged.
I holstered my gun and she wrapped her arms around my body and sobbed into my chest. Her crying shook my frame. I held her tightly, trying to soothe her. I could feel her heart beating.
“I’m sorry, Trin. I’m so sorry.”
My phone gave two short vibrations to my hip.
A text message.
I pulled my phone from my hip and read it: Phil is out of surgery.
“I gotta go, Trinity.”
She reached up and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Are you gonna be okay?”
I nodded. “Phil just came out of surgery.”
“Trip, I’m sorry about Phil.”
I hugged her tighter. “Not your fault, baby girl.”
“You know it’s not your fault either, right?”
I let that question hang between us. I kissed her on her forehead.
“I’ll call you later.”
I walked her back to her car and made sure she pulled off okay before I jumped into my truck and sped off into the night toward the hospital.
When I made it back to the hospital, the halls were just as crowded as when I’d left. Everyone was standing around, waiting for news of Phil.
I found Lenny. “Where is he?”
He nodded toward the window to my partner’s room. “Doctor says all we can do now is wait.”
I stood and looked at my partner laid out in the bed. Tubes were snaking their way around his large body, giving him support.
Support I wasn’t there to give.
“I have a call in to his mother and his brother,” I heard Lenny say.
My heart ached at the thought of his mother and younger brother having to see him like this. And explaining that I wasn’t there when it happened.
I stood there and watched his huge chest rise and fall. There were two nurses tending to him, and a doctor stood over him, scribbling notes in a chart. The scene was too surreal, too much for me to handle.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
How did this happen?
Lenny grabbed my arm and steered me down the dimly lit hallway, away from the agents and the officers who were still hovering around.
“If there is anything going on with you and Briscoe you need to tell me now Spencer?”
I let out a sigh. “Lenny—”
“No bullshit, Spencer. What’s the deal?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Well, it sure as hell didn’t look like nothing to me. Not the way you laid into him.”
“Look, I’m fine. I’m just on edge.”
He stepped up to me and lowered his voice. “I need you at one hundred percent, Spencer. I can’t afford to have you flipping out and losing focus. What happened tonight is a direct result of what can happen when you’re not on your game.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” His tone was stern but caring. “Because I don’t think you do. Your partner is fighting for his life right now. Does that sound like focus to you?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t.”
Lenny looked down the hall, then back to me again. “Don’t make me pull you off this case, because, God help me, I will.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Whatever crap you and Briscoe are dealing with, I suggest you table it, Trip, before I do it for you.”
He turned and headed back toward the crowd.
It was almost six in the morning.
It wouldn’t be long before the sun would be coming up.
Shedding light on things that were best meant to be kept in the dark.
Chapter Twenty
Idalis
“Trip, this is Idalis. Can you please call me when you get this message?”
I left Trip a second message before hanging up. When I finally woke up and rolled over he was gone, no note or anything. I was a little disappointed because I didn’t get a chance to talk to him about what was going on with Linc. I knew if anybody would be able to tell me what to do, he would.
I stood in front of the huge bay window, which had my mother’s front yard on display. The colorful flowers we’d planted for Mama were struggling to take their rightful place in the garden in spite of the heat. I guess that was the approach I had to take. No matter what my environment was, I had to make the choice to wither or to bloom.
My cell phone rang; it was Lincoln. I thought about letting him roll to voice mail, but changed my mind. His temper was the last thing I needed right now.
“Hello.”
“How’s your grandmother?”
“No word yet.” I sank down onto the couch.
“Anyone there with you?”
“No. I don’t know wh
ere India is.”
Linc got quiet for a moment. Cameron was playing in the hallway rolling cars back and forth on the hardwood. Somehow that simple playful act seemed much louder now than it had in the past.
“You hear about ya boy’s pot’na.”
I stood to my feet. “No. What about him?”
“He got popped last night.”
My hand shot up and covered my mouth. “Oh my God.”
He let out a small chuckle. “Yeah. He over at Grady. Don’t look good.”
My heart dropped.
I wasn’t sure what time he’d left, but I figured he’d gotten a call at some point and didn’t want to wake me. That had to be why he wasn’t answering his phone.
He asked, “So you haven’t talked to him?”
“No, Linc”—I walked to the front door and peered out—“I haven’t.”
“What’s Cameron doing?”
“He’s right here playing. Where are you?”
“Getting ready to leave the house.”
I asked, “You stayed there last night?”
“Yeah. It was weird not havin’ you here.”
I swallowed hard. For a moment he seemed “normal.” There was no anger or hatred in his voice. For a brief moment I thought I might have wanted things to go back to the way they were, but I knew they would never be the same.
His voice cut into my thoughts. “When you plan on comin’ home?”
“I’m not sure. I may try to get by there tonight.”
Again. More silence.
I cleared my throat. “I really would like to sit down and talk. We have a lot going on that we need to sort out.”
“Idalis, I already told you. We’re not canceling the wedding.”
“I know what you said, but—”
“I gotta go,” he said, cutting me off. “We’ll talk later.”
He hung up without giving me a chance to say anything else.
I stared at my phone for a moment before placing it on the table.
A couple hours later, India made it back. She looked refreshed, like she’d had a hot shower and something good to eat. Her hair was slicked back in a ponytail and her face was fresh, no makeup, just a thin shiny layer of lip gloss. She’d obviously stopped by a friend’s house and got herself together.