by K'wan
This was Lieutenant Tasha Grady. She and Wolf had history that stretched back to when she was just a beat walker and he was still in the missing persons division. They both came from similar backgrounds: two street kids who had clawed their way up the ranks of the NYPD. Like Wolf, Grady’s career had been fast-tracked by cracking a newsworthy case sprinkled with scandal. The short version of her story was that she managed to convince the public that a man called Animal, who was rumored to have killed more people than cancer, had been secretly working with the NYPD to bring down a drug cartel. The end result was that Grady had spearheaded a bust that crippled the cocaine trade in the tristate area, and Animal received a slap on the wrist for his alleged crimes. The media ate it up, but those familiar with Animal knew that he would rather have died than work with the police. Still, the ruse went over well enough to earn Tasha Grady a promotion.
“I see you’re still the social butterfly.” Grady nodded toward the second cop, who was still staring daggers at Wolf.
“That ain’t on me. Some of these uniforms could stand to show a little respect when in the presence of their betters.”
“Betters?” Grady looked amused. “We all bleed the same when the bullets start flying, and the only thing standing between you and the afterlife is a fellow badge. The fact that you’ve lost sight of that probably explains why you can’t keep a partner.” The minute she said this, she regretted it. “I’m sorry, you know I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“It’s all good,” Wolf said as if the remark hadn’t stung. Richie Dutton had been Wolf’s partner and mentor in his early days of working undercover narcotics. They called him the Chameleon due to his ability to slip effortlessly in and out of criminal personas; he was so good because, at heart, he was more criminal than cop. Wolf always turned a blind eye to most of Dutton’s crimes, until the day came that his mentor crossed a line he couldn’t come back from. Wolf was the one who put him down. Wolf was eventually cleared of the charges—ruled a self-defense shooting—but the blood of one of his closest friends was still on his hands. It was the one stain Wolf had never been able to wash away. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of being called out on this late night, in which we’re still wearing clothes?”
“Jesus, could you at least try to show a little professionalism?” Grady glanced around to make sure no one had heard. She’d made the mistake of sleeping with Wolf once in a moment of weakness and had regretted it ever since. “A murder.”
“Lieutenant, I’m sure you’ve got at least a half dozen competent homicide detectives working under you, so why call me all the way out here for some stiff?”
Grady lowered her eyes. “I can show you better than I can tell you.”
Wolf followed the shapely lieutenant deeper into the alley. He had wondered why he only spotted two cops outside, and now he knew. The rest were crammed into the alley. Wolf had to walk sideways just to get through. Heavy police presence at a crime scene wasn’t unusual, but there were at least a dozen officers, in plainclothes and uniforms. All wore dark expressions, and from some emanated a palpable anger. There was only one thing Wolf could think of that would get this sort of reaction out of a bunch of cops.
When he reached the perimeter erected by the medical examiners, his suspicions were confirmed. It was indeed one of their own laid out in the alley. The corpse was missing the top of its head and part of its face, yet Wolf was able to make the ID by the poorly done tattoo on the right forearm; it was supposed to be a snake but bore a striking resemblance to a crooked penis. He’d given the guy shit about it on more than one occasion. They all had. The victim was none other than Detective Francis Cobb, the one cop in the department with more dirt on his name than Wolf, though Cobb had lived up to every nasty thing that was said about him. He had been suspended twice in his career for misconduct, and if the rumors were accurate, he was currently under investigation for the alleged rape of a prostitute. Without a doubt, Francis Cobb was a shitty human being, but he was still a cop, which meant there would be hell to pay over his death.
Wolf broke a long silence: “Somebody fucked ol’ Frank up.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Grady replied. “We’ve got a fair idea of what happened, but I need to see it through the eyes of a wolf before giving the official word.”
It wasn’t the first time Wolf had been called in to assess a crime scene. He had the uncanny ability to pick up on things that sometimes went unnoticed during routine investigations.
He breached the perimeter set up by the medical examiners, careful not to disturb any of the evidence, and began his work. He closed his brain off to the white noise of the outside world—the chattering voices, squawking police radios, droning traffic—and zeroed in on the scene. The first thing he noticed was the defensive wounds on Cobb’s arms and hands—he’d tried to fight his attacker off. In the palm of each hand was a hole. They could’ve easily been mistaken for stab wounds, yet they were too small and too clean for any knife Wolf could think of. They were the work of a stiletto, possibly some type of spike. Something else that immediately stuck out to him was the blood, or lack thereof. There was a good amount of blood pooled under Cobb’s head, but no splatter, not on the walls or the floor. When someone got their head blown off, it usually left a mess.
“He didn’t die here,” Wolf said over his shoulder to the lieutenant. “Frank bought it somewhere else, and his body was dumped here to be discovered. Not a small dude, so it likely took a lot of effort to bring him here from wherever he was killed. The question is, why? Frank have any connection with this neighborhood?”
“Not that I know of. There isn’t much out this way except a few warehouses, a cemetery, and that church, St. Anthony’s.”
The name hit Wolf like a jolt. St. Anthony’s was the church where they had found Father Fleming’s body.
“If you want,” Grady said, “I can have some officers canvass the neighborhood with photos of Frank to see if it jogs anybody’s memories.”
“Don’t waste your time or the manpower,” Wolf replied. Frank’s body being dumped in this particular alley in this neighborhood wasn’t a random occurrence, it was a bread crumb. As he continued his examination, something nagged at him. It took a minute, but it finally came to him. “Where’s his gun? You log it into evidence already?”
“No, he wasn’t armed when we found him. Figured he wasn’t carrying tonight.”
“Guys like Frank are always carrying, on or off duty. Too much bad juju on them to get caught slipping. Frank been acting different lately? Change of routine in any way?”
“I heard he put in an unexpected leave of absence this afternoon.”
“You should’ve led with that.” Wolf shook his head. “I’m willing to bet that Frank was running from something. The question is, what?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Grady said, then reached into her jacket pocket and removed a small plastic baggie. “Found it with the body. Figured it was best if this little detail didn’t make it into evidence. At least not right away.”
Wolf tried to keep his face neutral as he peered at the baggie. It held a small black flower. It wasn’t like anything that grew in the city, but he had seen it before. “That supposed to mean something to me?”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Wolf, we’ve known each other too long to play games. I know how the report was written up on the Johnny Gooden case, but I also have my own theory about how you were really able to solve it and who helped.” She paused. “I knew this would be personal to you, so as a courtesy I wanted to give you the first crack at making it right before I called in the big guns.”
Wolf chuckled. “If you know anything about the Lotus, then you know your people won’t stand a chance.”
“I’m not talking about the department. After the Red Widow incident, we put certain protocols in place to ensure that our faceless friends from under the mountain would think twice about how far outside the lines they color. Protocols that I hoped I’
d never have to enact—but I think a dead cop leaves me no choice.”
Wolf glanced from the body back to the lieutenant. “This doesn’t feel right. Regardless of whatever Cobb may have done, I can’t see him attracting the attention of the Lotus.”
“We both know that if the money’s right, anything’s possible.”
“For some of them, but not all. Cobb was a bottom-feeder, and there would be no honor in killing him.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that a cop is dead, and the best lead we have is this calling card.” She held up the baggie. “For as much as I’d like to disregard this, I can’t. Somebody has got to hang for this. The best I can do is try and delay the inevitable.”
“Fuck!” Had it been anyone else, Wolf wouldn’t have given a shit how it played out, but this was the Black Lotus. The time they had spent together hadn’t exactly made them buddies, but there was a mutual respect. In their last encounter, they seemed to agree that there was a line in the sand; crossing it would mean war. Apparently, Wolf was the only one who had respected that line. “How much time do I have?”
“Twenty-four hours . . . maybe less,” Lieutenant Grady said. “Then I gotta make it rain and turn a blind eye to whoever gets wet. You think that’ll be enough time to do what needs to be done?”
Wolf shrugged. “Does it matter? By this time tomorrow, I’ll have Detective Cobb’s killer in shackles or I’ll be dead.” He took the baggie from her and headed toward the alley’s exit.
“That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence!” she called after him. “Do you even know where to find the suspect?”
“Not a clue, but I know where to start looking.”
Chapter 6
Shortly after arriving at Voodoo, Kahllah was over it. It was too crowded, too loud . . . too much of everything. Sensory overload, making her nauseous. This was why she avoided nightclubs, except for business, which was what this night was supposed to be about. So far it had been one headache after another, starting from the moment she’d agreed to come.
After having lunch with Audrey, she’d gone home to begin the task of finding something to wear, which proved to be harder than it should have been. Her wardrobe largely consisted of jeans, leggings, and body armor, none of which were appropriate for the occasion. So she had to go shopping. Shopping was probably the only thing she hated more than nightclubs. She tried on three different outfits before settling on a simple black dress and a pair of heels that had been collecting dust in the back of her closet.
After that, there was still some time before she needed to meet Audrey at Voodoo, so she decided to pop into one of the many storage units she kept around the city. This particular one was in the Bronx. Inside sat boxes of files from jobs she had worked over the years. Most of them were coded, so she didn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling across them and figuring out what her other job was. Ever since Audrey had shown her that article, all she’d been able to think about were the claw marks on the van. Claws that could rip metal didn’t belong to any quadruped, but she knew of a two-legged beast that could inflict that kind of damage. She had been reported dead, but what if the reports were wrong? It was unlikely, but not impossible. In Kahllah’s years with the Brotherhood, she had learned that nothing was impossible, including resurrection.
Time must’ve gotten away from her while she was strolling down memory lane, because when she checked her watch, she realized she’d been in the storage unit for over two hours. She was left with barely enough time to go home, shower, change, and get to Voodoo. Before heading to the club, however, there was a loose end she needed to tie up.
She was supposed to meet Audrey at nine p.m., but it was a quarter to ten when she finally arrived. Outside, she tried calling Audrey but got no answer, likely because she couldn’t hear the phone over the blaring music. Kahllah was tempted to use this as an excuse to go home, but she didn’t want to disappoint her friend. There was a line of people trying to get in, and she reluctantly joined them.
After paying fifty bucks, Kahllah was finally admitted. The place was nicer than she remembered, but then again, the last time she was there she’d made a speedy entrance and an even speedier exit. The place had undergone a total makeover, courtesy of the new owners, and was actually quite posh with its velvet chairs and white marble floors. It was like walking into heaven.
She found Audrey seated in the VIP section, sipping champagne with a group of people wearing expensive clothes and plastic smiles. Hardly her type of crowd. Audrey waved Kahllah over and whispered something to the bouncer, who allowed Kahllah to pass through the velvet rope and sit with the beautiful people.
They had been waiting for about an hour and there was still no sign of the man who was supposed to be giving them the exclusive on Voodoo for their magazine, the elusive Magic. One thing that irritated Kahllah was people who didn’t respect her time. More than once she threatened to leave, but Audrey begged her to stay put, promising that Magic would be along soon. He was handling club business, as she put it. Kahllah knew that Audrey was full of shit and stalling, but she didn’t call her out on it. Instead, she busied herself people watching.
Most of the men and women gathered in their section proved to be as interesting as watching paint dry. All they talked about was what they had and who they were; they seemed substanceless, hardly worth entertaining, though the same couldn’t be said about Audrey’s new love interest. Ben was a handsome devil, with a smooth chocolate face and neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee. He was built like a linebacker, looking to be about six four with muscles that bulged beneath his smoke-gray tailored suit. He was an imposing figure, yet handled Audrey like a gentle giant; catering to her every whim and fawning over her like a schoolboy with a crush. Audrey seemed to glow in his presence, something Kahllah hadn’t seen with the other guys. It was possible that Ben’s intentions with her friend were genuine, but there was something more to him than what he was showing. She knew this by the way the other guests in their section reacted to him. Nervous energy. When they laughed at his dry jokes, it was obviously from a fear of displeasing him rather than actually thinking he was funny. She even caught one guy flinch when Ben turned suddenly to reach for one of the champagne bottles. According to Audrey, Ben was a simple businessman, so what was it about him that had his entourage on edge?
You’re reading too deep into this, Kahllah told herself, trying to shut off the side of her brain that was always on the hunt. She’d been retired for a while, but still had trouble letting her thoughts rest. She picked up the champagne flute that had been sitting in front of her for the better part of twenty minutes and sipped it. No sooner had it touched her tongue than a frown crossed her face. She pushed it away. It had gotten warm and flat, much like the rest of her night.
“Champagne is like revenge—best enjoyed cold,” a voice whispered in her ear. Startled, Kahllah leaped to her feet and spun so abruptly that she knocked over her champagne, spilling it all over the table and her shoes. She found a man hovering over her. He was tall, not as tall as Ben, but still above average. He wore his hair in a tapered cut, with thick black waves rolling over the top. Misty green eyes, set inside a high-yellow face, drank Kahllah in. Unlike Ben, who was wearing a suit, this man wore a simple black turtleneck and black jeans. Hanging from his neck was a gold chain with a bejeweled pendant shaped like a magician’s hat. Before Ben announced him, she knew who he was.
“Damn, Magic! Looks like you’re losing your touch with the ladies,” Ben teased.
“Sorry about that,” Magic said to Kahllah. He grabbed one of the white cloth napkins from the table and went down on one knee to clean up the mess.
Kahllah watched as he dabbed the moisture from her shoes. The whole time he was looking up at her with those green eyes, like a cobra trying to hypnotize a mongoose. She broke his gaze and focused on her shoes. She noticed that, in addition to the champagne, something red came away on the cloth. “I got it.” She quickly snatched the napkin from him.
; A hint of a smile touched the corners of his pink mouth as he stood. “Hi, I’m—”
“Late,” she cut him off. She didn’t mean to come across as rude, but she was still a little rattled about him being able to sneak up on her. People getting the drop on Kahllah was something that almost never happened.
“Kahllah!” Audrey shot her a look. “Magic, this is my partner—”
“Ms. Kahllah El-Amin,” he interjected. “I’m familiar. I’ve been a fan of your work for a very long time.”
“Really? You don’t strike me as the type of guy who reads Real Talk,” Kahllah said.
“I don’t, and truthfully, I’d never even heard of it until Ben brought it to my attention the other day. However, I’ve been keeping tabs on some of your other work. Your name is ringing in the streets.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kahllah responded.
“The work you do in the inner cities. You’re quite the hell-raiser when it comes to advocating for the rights of the underprivileged and wronged. I really dug the piece you wrote a few years ago on the Back 2 Life program.”
The Back 2 Life program had been set up by two rival gang members who’d managed to put their differences aside to focus on something bigger, the future. The program’s main purpose was to help young men and women looking to break away from gang culture and rejoin society. They provided résumé-building services, conflict-resolution strategies, and job-readiness classes. In the beginning, they’d been a small, privately funded organization, operating off the goodwill of the communities they were trying to service. But once Kahllah’s article was published, a national spotlight fell on them and the good work they were doing.
“Oh,” Kahllah said, relieved. Still unused to retirement, she was seeing phantom enemies everywhere.