Morrigan didn’t acknowledge Menendez as he slowly made his way toward Garcia, his hands held up high as the other officers around him perked up and held their breath. Morrigan got closer… and closer… and closer. Finally, he was six feet away from the plumber.
“Some day, yeah?” Morrigan said.
“What the fuck do you know about it?” Garcia replied.
“More than you can imagine.”
“Yeah? You’re a cop. You guys got it made in the shade.”
Morrigan huffed. “Cops are always the enemy. Doesn’t matter how many good ones of us there are.”
“Bullshit. You’re probably one of those guys that plants evidence and shit, right?”
Morrigan bit his lip. If you only knew, he thought. “Talk to me. Tell me what I can do for you. I’m on your side.”
“No one is on my side.”
Morrigan nodded to Garcia’s gun. “You’ve got all the playing cards. Way I see it—you’re like Batman and I’m like his butler.”
The plumber squinted. “Alfred?”
“Right. That’s it.”
“So, what? You gonna fetch me fucking supper or something?”
Morrigan pouted his lip. “If that’s what you want. What do you fancy, I fancy a steak myself, medium rare, nice and bloody? What way do you like yours? I know a great place around the corner, they do the most fabulous steaks with fries and onions rings. Do you want to join me… what’s your name by way? I’m John Morrigan.”
“Tony… Tony Garcia.” The plumber squinted, sizing Morrigan up and adjusting his grip on the handle of his gun before he nodded to Morrigan and said: “You got a smoke?”
A nod. “Hell, yeah, I do. Let me get one for you, Tony. No—let me get two. I gotta reach into my coat. Is that okay, Tony?”
“Yeah… Yeah, but do it slow.”
Morrigan reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes, his gaze fixed on Garcia. He did it slow, reminding the plumber that he was the man in charge. He took out the pack, held it up. “The lighter is inside the pack, Tony.”
“Toss it over, no wait—slide it over.”
Morrigan got down on one knee and slid the pack over to Garcia. “Just leave me one, yeah? I fancy one myself, I’m meant to be giving them up, New Year resolution and all that baloney.”
Garcia nodded as he fished a pair of smokes out of the pack but made sure the gun was still held firm against his temple. He lit the tip of his cigarette, pocketed the second one, and tossed the pack back to Morrigan.
“You could’ve kept it if you wanted to, chief,” Morrigan said.
“What’s with the nicknames?” Garcia asked, the smoke dangling and quaking on his quivering lip.
Morrigan put the cigarette to his lips. “What do you mean?”
“Sport, brother, chief—you keep calling me names.”
“I never called you ‘sport.’”
“Whatever, you keep doing it anyway. That some kind of tactic? Is that how you get through to me?”
Morrigan shook his head. “I’m not a negotiator,” he said. “I’m just trying to see if there’s anything I can do for you.”
“Well, you can’t do shit for me. I’m going to blow my head off after I’m done finishing this smoke.”
Morrigan shrugged and sighed. “So be it,” he said. Then he looked at his cigarette—the tip unlit. “Shit,” he hissed. “You got the lighter. Can you light me?”
Garcia took a moment to think about it. Then he nodded. Morrigan leaned in for the guy to do him a solid. As the plumber flicked the flame to life, he said: “Don’t do nothing funny—”
In the flash of an eye, Morrigan took the palm of his hand, flattened it, and struck the guy in the nose to the point it broke. While Garcia was in a daze, Morrigan used his left hand to pull the hand down that the plumber was holding the gun in, twisted it, knocked the weapon from his grip, and then kicked out his knees where he then fell to the ground.
Morrigan, picking up the plumber’s gun, removed the magazine and clicked on the safety before he stuffed it in his pocket. Picking up the fallen lighter, he then lit his cigarette. “Much obliged,” he puffed as he stepped away and moved back toward the barricade.
“Move! Move! Move!” an officer shouted, dozens of uniformed NYPD officers flooding the scene as Menendez looked on at Morrigan incredulously.
“You serious?” Menendez asked.
Morrigan took Garcia’s gun and tossed it to Menendez. “Hey,” he said, “worked, didn’t it?”
Morrigan said nothing else as he slipped behind the wheel of his car, threw it into drive, and took off from the scene. Part of him wished that he hadn’t survived the bout with the plumber. Oh, well, he thought. Back to the grind…
30
Stains
Bukowski checked her watch. It was two hours later and she was still in Ricky Dyer’s kitchen. “Come on, John,” she whispered to herself. “Where the hell are you?”
She heard the unmistakable sounds of Morrigan’s Subaru pulling up outside. Footsteps approached the door, two knocks sounded, and Bukowski answered. “Fuck’s sake,” she said. “Where were you?”
Morrigan opened his mouth to tell Bukowski about the incident with the suicidal plumber—but instead he waved her off. “Where’s Dyer?” he asked.
“Same place,” Bukowski said.
Morrigan craned his neck to get a look at Dyer. He was still tending to his wounds with a slack and depleted look on his face. His legs were tied together. “Okay,” he said quietly to Bukowski. “Cut him loose.”
She flexed her brow. “Are you serious?”
“Dyer,” Morrigan called out.
Dyer shook his head. “What?”
Morrigan approached him. “I’m going to give you two choices.”
Dyer laughed and tossed down the bloodied towel he was using to dab at his nose. “I’m not going to like either of them, are I?”
“Probably not. But I don’t care what you like.”
A sigh. “What are my choices?”
“A bullet in the head by the people you work for, or you can skip town.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“I am. And if you ask that again, I’ll be the one who drops you. Understood?”
Dyer pounded a fist on the wooden floor in front of them. “I can’t believe this shit.”
“Believe it. Because it’s happening. I’m assuming you got money stashed away in this place, right?”
A nod.
“Good,” Morrigan said. “Then get it and get the fuck out of here. If I find you in the city again, I’ll arrest you and make this whole thing public. You’ll be so fucked you’ll be scared to break wind.”
Dyer looked away. “Fine…”
“Where’s your burner?”
“My what?”
“Your burner. The one that you used to get in touch with your employer?”
“Your partner has it.”
“When’s the next time you were planning on hearing from them?”
As if God himself was listening—the burner phone began to ring. Morrigan and Bukowski exchanged looks—Well I’ll be fucking damned.
“Answer it,” Morrigan said. “But be careful. Don’t you dare tip them off.”
Bukowski handed Dyer back his burner, Dyer taking it and answering after several rings. “Yeah?” he greeted.
Chatter from the other side.
“When?” Dyer said.
More chatter.
“All right,” Dyer said. “I’ll be here.”
He hung up the phone and tossed it on the table.
Morrigan shrugged. “What’s up?”
“I’m supposed to do another run.”
“When.”
“Twenty minutes.”
Morrigan looked at Bukowski and saw fate turning in their favor—for a change.
The cab pulled up outside Dyer’s place and honked twice. The driver, a Latino man with a bored and weary expression from making day-long deliveries, f
iddled with the car radio and kept his eyes glued to the dial. He went from oldies, to R&B, to classic rock, nothing satisfying his desires as he waited for his fare to arrive. Six stations in—three knocks came at the window.
The driver looked up and spotted a burly guy in a leather jacket with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He rolled down the window. “You Dyer?” he said.
The burly guy nodded. The driver disengaged the locks. The burly guy then slid inside, and the driver put the car into gear. Neither of them said a word as he drove for twenty minutes to a brownstone apartment with boarded and cracked windows giving off the impression that it was an abandoned shithole.
The cab came to a stop, and the burly guy got out. “Apartment 206,” the driver said, still fiddling with the radio, “I’ll wait here for you.”
The burly guy slid out of the seat, making sure his SIG Sauer was within reach inside his jacket along with his shield and credentials that read the name John Morrigan.
Morrigan shuffled up the staircase that led up to the second floor. A vagrant lay asleep on his side just outside the door of 206 at the end of the hall. Morrigan, who had checked with Dyer before he left about codes and signals, gave three solid knocks on the door and waited for someone to answer.
Rap music with a thick vibrating bass was audible inside as someone yelled out: “Shut the fuck up, bitch! Answer the door.”
Morrigan drew a breath. Easy, he told himself. Easy…
About a minute passed before the door opened, a woman with pock marks, frizzled hair, and a tube top answered. She stared at Morrigan for a long moment, a skeptical look in her eye as she placed her hand on her hip. “You the guy?”
“Depends,” Morrigan said. “What kind of guy you looking for?”
She looked him up and down, a lecherous look in her eye. It was meant to be flirty but it came off more vile than anything else. “You the guy?” she said again, pressing the point.
Morrigan sighed. “Yeah. I’m here to pick up the stuff.”
She took another few moments to weigh him up. “Come in.”
Morrigan stepped inside, cocking a look over his shoulder and praying that Bukowski was waiting in the wings like they had planned. He looked around as the bass-heavy rap music flooded his senses. It was playing from a boom box in the corner of the derelict apartment that smelled of mildew and weed. Stains were on the walls, the floors, the rugs—a real flophouse.
“Shit!” someone screamed from off to the left and made Morrigan jump.
He turned and laid eyes on three men gathered around a card table playing poker. One wore a tank top. The other had a gold chain around his neck. The last one was wearing a parka. Gold chain looked up at Morrigan. A scar running down the left side of his face caused a gap between his eyebrow. From the timbre of the voice and the color of their skin, Morrigan knew the guys were Puerto Rican.
“Two pair!” tank top said. “You fucking fools need to learn to play better, man.”
Gold chain tossed down his hand. “Shut the fuck up, maricon,” he said. “You fucking cheating or what, eh?”
Morrigan stood in the doorway and cleared his throat.
“We can see you,” parka said, shuffling the deck and dealing a new hand. “Sit down, man. Play a hand, no?”
Morrigan shook his head. “Just need to pick up the stuff and get out of here. I’m on a schedule.”
“So are we—this is called break time.”
Morrigan shook his head. “Just give me the bag, man. I don’t have time for this shit.”
Parka looked up, his mouth open to say something until he laid eyes on Morrigan—and then he shut it. After a moment, he smiled, like he was recalling something that he had forgotten. “Baby,” he said to the pockmarked girl. “Come here.”
The girl walked over and parka whispered something in her ear. The pockmarked woman then nodded, headed to the back bedroom, and closed the door behind her.
“Sorry,” parka said. “Just dealing with my woman.”
Seconds later—a mechanical whir emitted from the back bedroom.
“The hell is she doing?” Morrigan asked.
“Playing with her vibrator,” gold chain said.
The group cackled in unison as the whirring sound came in increments followed by something reminiscent of metal grinding on metal.
“What’s your name?” Parka asked.
“Dyer,” Morrigan said.
“Ah, that’s right. Dyer. Dyer, Dyer, Dyer. They said you’d be coming.”
Morrigan held out his arms. “And here I am.”
The whirring and grinding in the back room continued.
“Sure you don’t want to play a hand?” tank top asked.
Morrigan shook his head. “Just here to pick up the stuff.”
Parka nodded as he shuffled the cards—it was all too apparent to Morrigan that the bastard was milking his time. “Want something, man?” he asked. “Beer? Tequila? Weed?”
Morrigan shook his head. “Just the stuff.”
One more whir rang out from the back bedroom before the door opened and the pockmarked woman stepped out. She walked around Morrigan, looked at parka, and nodded.
“Thank you, baby,” parka said before slapping her on her behind.
Morrigan sighed. “So—we gonna do this, or what?”
“Shit,” parka said. “I’m sorry, man. We got way too lost in the game.” He stood up. “Come on. It’s in the back.”
Parka stood and headed for the back bedroom, gold chain and tank top staring at Morrigan with disdain in their eyes as the pockmarked women set about lighting a cigarette.
“Come on, man,” parka called from behind him. “You’re the one that said you don’t got all day.”
Morrigan took another look at gold chain and tank top before following parka to the back bedroom. He rounded a corner as parka began whistling, his sixth sense tingling as he made his way into the bedroom—and that’s when parka took out a shotgun from underneath the bed and pumped a shell into the chamber.
“Shit!” Morrigan hissed as he ducked out of the room.
The shotgun blast took a chunk out of the doorframe just as Morrigan ducked out. The blast was far enough from Morrigan that it didn’t hit him, but close enough that the shards and splinters of wood that made up the doorframe flew out like confetti and cut up the right side of his face.
“Kill him, man!” tank top called out from the right as he and gold chain stood up and took out a pair of pistols.
“Bukowski!” Morrigan cried out.
The front door was kicked open as Morrigan drew his pistol. Tank top and gold chain prepared to take aim at Morrigan, but they were quickly dropped by some fancy shooting courtesy of Andrea Bukowski.
Parka, firing off two more shells from the shotgun, hollered at the top of his voice as he advanced on Morrigan. “Fuck you!” he screamed as smoke choked the air and Morrigan shuffled away from the room.
Morrigan turned on his back as the barrel of the shotgun peeked out of the room. He took aim at the wall in the general direction of the shooter and squeezed off six rounds that made him go temporarily deaf.
Parka’s body hit the floor, four of the shots landing square in his sternum and dropping him dead where he stood.
Morrigan, shocked at how quickly everything had unfolded, loaded a fresh clip, stood up, and cleared the room. “Shit,” he said again as he saw parka’s eyes roll over white.
Morrigan shook his head. How could I forget that face? he thought.
Bukowski moved to clear the kitchen, her pistol raised and scanning left—and that’s when the pockmarked woman jumped her and knocked the gun from her grip.
“Fuckin’ bitch!” the pockmarked woman hollered, pounded on Bukowski’s head as Morrigan moved in to intercept.
Bukowski, the woman hanging on her back like a monkey, backed up into the wall and slammed the woman into it repeatedly—one, two, three, and four times. The woman’s head made impact with the wall until she was knocked out co
ld on the fourth time.
Morrigan, entering the kitchen just as Bukowski knocked the woman out, pouted his lip in approval as Bukowski picked up her gun and checked herself out for injuries. “Crack strength,” she said as she gestured to the passed-out woman.
“Zip cuff her,” Morrigan said. “I’m gonna search the back room.”
Bukowski set about securing the woman but as she did the pockmarked lady swung back into life and sprung to her feet as she ran toward the nearby kitchen worktop. She grabbed a breadknife tightly in her right hand and ran toward Bukowski. As the blade was pushed toward the detective’s chest, she screamed. Morrigan quickly responded by squeezing on his trigger and planting a bullet dead center into pockmark’s forehead. Bukowski fell to the floor.
“Are you okay, Andrea? Did she get you?” Morrigan leaned over to examine his comrade.
“I’m fine. A little shaky, but I’m fine… thanks, John.”
“Good, take a breather,” Morrigan said as he cautiously entered the adjoining bedroom. Only a dresser, a mattress, and a closet occupied the grounds, so it didn’t take Morrigan long to uncover the duffel bag on the top shelf. “Bingo,” he said as he pulled down the bag.
Bukowski entered the room. “We in business?”
Morrigan nodded and slid the bag over. “We’re in business.”
Bukowski, feeling like they were finally getting a line on Klein, Connolly, and all of their bullshit, opened up the bag and looked at the contents inside—five silver hard drives, all of them bound together by duct tape like bricks of heroin.
“Think we can get someone to look inside of those?” Morrigan asked.
Bukowski nodded. “Most definitely. I think—” Her mouth dropped open into an O-shape. “Fuck me…” she seethed.
“What?”
“Look,” she said as she removed the duct tape and held up one of the drives—peppered with holes that were most likely made by a drill.
Morrigan cocked his head. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Bukowski tossed the drive back into the bag. “I can’t believe this… I can’t fucking believe this.”
“Looks like our boy Dyer was dropping off busted drives.”
The Dark Path Page 17