The Dark Path

by Kevin McManus

  “How the hell do I know, maybe he likes working late… maybe he is having an affair with one of the janitors.”

  “Tail him?” Bukowski suggested.

  Morrigan nodded as he put his car into gear.

  They followed the Benz for twelve miles. Simmons took several turns before pulling up outside an upmarket residential complex in Hudson Square. A valet took the car. A doorman opened the front doors for Simmons and bowed as he let him inside.

  Morrigan took a look around the surrounding area of the complex and saw several security staff. Cameras had their eyes on every corner. He knew that there was no easy way in. But he knew that a simple solution to draw Simmons out in the open had to be available in some form or another.

  “Looks tricky, John,” Bukowski said.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Sure, the fuck is.”

  “Flash the badge? Knock on his front door?”

  “No, no way. My face will be all over the building’s security footage.”

  “So, what then?”

  Morrigan sighed. How? he thought. What’s the easiest way in?

  He pulled the burner phone that Klein gave him. “Give me the number for Simmons office,” he said.

  Bukowski got the number and Morrigan dialed. Please pick up, he prayed inside of his head.

  The phone rang for several turns before someone answered. “Simmons, Young, and Kelly,” an officious voice answered. Morrigan figured it was most likely the guy working the security counter.

  “Yes,” Morrigan said. “This is Lieutenant Morrigan with the NYPD. Is Ross Simmons in?”

  “No. He left here about an hour ago.”

  “Gotcha. Look, I need to talk to Mr. Simmons as soon as humanly possible. Do you have a forwarding number I can call?”

  “I’m sorry, lieutenant. I can’t give out that information.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Hardy.”

  “Okay, Hardy, I’m going to get a warrant to come down there and get the information from you. Are you currently at the office? I can be there in twenty.”

  Morrigan heard the guy shifting his weight. “No,” he protested, worried that his job was on the line. “I can give you his home phone. Please, I don’t need any hassle from the cops.”

  “Much obliged,” Morrigan said before the guy gave him the number and he hung up.

  “What are you going to do?” Bukowski inquired.

  “It’s simple—call him up and draw him outside.”

  “Then what?”

  Morrigan dialed the number. “One step at a time, Bukowski.”

  The phone rang for several turns. No one answered. Flustered, Morrigan dialed the number again. This time the voice of Simmons answered: “Yes?”

  “This is John Morrigan.”

  A moment of silence. Based on the tension-laced static on the other side of the line, Morrigan knew that Simmons had heard the name before.

  “You shouldn’t be calling here,” Simmons said.

  “Well, I’m calling. Look, we’re going to make this simple—I’m out in front of your complex. You’re going to come downstairs and take a drive with me.”

  “The hell I am!”

  “All right—then I’ll call Klein and Connolly and tell them you’re giving me a hard time. It’s up to you, boss man.”

  Another pause. “Shit…” Simmons said. “Okay. All right, fine.”

  “Two minutes. I’ll pull up in front of the building.” He hung up the phone. Then he turned to Bukowski. “You need to go.”

  She furled her brow. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious. Look, I want you involved. But I want to make sure that I offer as much plausible deniability to you as possible.”

  She laughed. “After everything we’ve done together? That’s wishful thinking.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Andrea,” he said, “just go. I’ll talk to Simmons, see what he knows, and then I’ll call you. If anything happens, if I get busted by our people for all this shit, I want to be able to make it look like you weren’t a part of this.”

  “But I am, John!”

  “Andrea—please. Just go. I’ll call you in an hour.”

  Bukowski held her gaze on him for a few moments before she huffed, piled out of the car, and disappeared around the corner. A minute later, Simmons appeared on the sidewalk with a peacoat draped over a Cornell T-shirt. Morrigan put the car into drive and pulled up in front of the building. Simmons eyeballed the car before he got inside.

  “What the hell is this?” Simmons asked.

  Morrigan didn’t reply as he put the car in gear and checked the mirrors for any signs of a tail—Bukowski or otherwise. “You know me?” he said after a half block.

  A nod. “Yeah, I know who you are. You’re Klein’s lap dog.” He glanced out the window. “You shouldn’t have called me.”

  “Well, I did. And we have a problem.”

  “And what might that be?”

  Morrigan handed Simmons the envelope with the hit order inside. He opened it, spotted the photograph inside, reached into his jacket, produced a Walther PPK, and trained it on Morrigan.

  Morrigan, thinking quickly, stamped on the brakes. Smoke churned from the burning rubber as Simmons, not wearing a seatbelt, slammed his head into the dash before Morrigan slapped the gun from his grip. Morrigan picked up the Walther, cocked back the hammer, and pressed the gun against Simmons’s head.

  “That was real stupid,” Morrigan said.

  Simmons held up his hands. “Please… Please don’t kill me.”

  “I’m not going to. But I need to know why Klein wants you dead.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not going to fly.”

  “I’m serious! I don’t!”

  Morrigan pocketed the Walther. “Put your seat belt on, sweetie.”

  Simmons took the belt and clicked it into place. “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere we can have a little chat.”

  Morrigan drove to the only place he could think of that wouldn’t have any people around at this time of morning—Coney Island.

  They arrived fifty minutes after departing from Simmons’s residence. The entire boardwalk was abandoned with nothing but the churning waters licking the shore offering any kind of noise. Morrigan pulled his car up to the dock, checked around for any early morning joggers, and told Simmons to get out.

  Simmons held his hands up as Morrigan told him to start walking toward the beach. “You’re gonna kill me,” he said as his body trembled.

  Morrigan rolled his eyes—he wasn’t going to keep reassuring the guy that he wasn’t going to eighty-six him. When they finally made it down to the shore, Morrigan took one last look around before he said to Simmons: “I’m going to keep this simple. I want to know what you know. I want to know why Klein would want you dead.”

  Simmons fell to his knees on the wet sand and held his hands together like he was praying. “I mean it, Morrigan,” he pleaded. “I don’t know. I don’t know why Klein wants me dead.”

  “Then let’s start with what you do know. I’m talking about hard drives, to be more specific.”

  Simmons swallowed. His face turned a pale shade. “Hard drives?”

  “You know what that’s about?”

  Simmons shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Morrigan huffed and pulled out his Sig. “Get up Simmons, get up on your feet.”

  Simmons held up his hands and took two giant steps back toward the water. “You said you wouldn’t kill me!”

  “And I won’t,” Morrigan said. “But you’re lying to me.” He waved his gun. “That doesn’t mean I won’t pistol-whip you to find out what I need to know.”

  “Please!”

  “Don’t! Just don’t! I want answers, you slimy son of a bitch. I want to know. I want to know what this whole operation is that Klein has going on with the taxis, with all of it. The hard drives. Everything.”

  Simmons began to shake even more.
“Please, you don’t know these people. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself involved in.”

  “I’m already neck-deep in all of this shit. It doesn’t matter. Now tell me—what is this bullshit with the hard drives?”

  Simmons took a beat. “I… I can’t tell you.”

  Morrigan was fed up to the gills with Simmons. He lunged forward, hooked his leg around the lawyer, and dropped him to the ground. He grabbed Simmons’s neck and began to squeeze, his teeth gritting as Simmons clawed at Morrigan’s jacket.

  “I might not kill you,” Morrigan said. “But I will hurt you really bad if you keep it up with this crap.”

  “Please!” Simmons pleaded. “If I tell you, I’m a dead man for sure!”

  “Join the fucking club, so am I, you fucking asshole.”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Simmons pleaded as tears and snot ran down his chin.

  Morrigan popped the guy one on the jaw. Not enough to break him, but enough to bruise him. “Shit is going to get way more violent,” he said. “Now I’m going to ask you one more time.”

  “God, please!”

  “Answer me, you fuck! Tell me what I want to know! What’s on those fucking hard drives!”

  “I can’t!”

  Morrigan lifted the guy up and dragged him toward the water. A gull screeched off in the distance as Morrigan submerged the guy beneath the tide and held him down for several seconds. He pulled Simmons up, Simmons gurgling water as he panted and heaved. “No! No, I can’t!”

  “Wrong answer,” Morrigan said as he dunked the guy under again, submerging him for several more seconds before he pulled him back up.

  Simmons spat water, his face turning red as his energy became depleted. “This…” he stammered. “This… all… will blow back…”

  “Tell me, what is on those goddamn hard drives?” Morrigan roared as he dunked the guy under again.

  “I’m… drowning!” Simmons said as Morrigan pulled him back up.

  “Last chance,” Morrigan said. “Then I’m putting you in the fucking hospital.”

  Simmons held his focus on Morrigan for a moment. He was on the cusp of breaking—Morrigan just knew it.

  “Let’s count down from five,” Morrigan said. “Five.”

  “Please—”

  “Four.”

  “I can—”

  “Three.”

  “Please!”

  “Two.”

  “Morrigan!”

  “One—”

  “Women!” Simmons shouted. “Girls! That’s what’s on the hard drives! Okay?”

  Morrigan took a moment to let the info soak in before he pulled Simmons out of the water and threw him onto his back. “What the hell are you saying?”

  Simmons buried his head and curled up as he realized that his life was now on a fast-track trajectory toward something awful. “Those drives,” he said, “have a lot of information on them.”

  “You said women and girls—what the hell does that mean?”

  Simmons shook his head and took a long breath. “Klein and Connolly… that’s their business… that’s what they’re involved in.”

  “Be specific. What do you mean by women and girls?”

  Simmons turned his head up and looked sheepishly at Morrigan. “They buy and sell girls,” he said. “That’s what’s on the hard drives. That and the financials behind the operation.”

  Morrigan felt his blood boiling. “And the cabs?”

  Simmons hung his head. “It’s just the cover story for all the finances. Klein uses the drivers and couriers to go back and forth with prospective clients.”

  “Clients?”

  A nod. “It’s a big operation. Nationwide.”

  “Where are they getting the girls?”

  A sigh. “From all over. They recruit them into thinking they’re doing modeling gigs. Once they lure them in—they flip them.”

  Morrigan clenched his jaw. “Sick motherfuckers.” He centered his mind back to the task at hand. “How long have they been doing this?”

  “Way before I ever got involved… Maybe five or ten years, I’m not sure.”

  “And what do you do for them?”

  A shrug. “Any kind of legal interference they need.”

  “So, why would they want me to kill you? Huh?”

  Simmons looked away. “I don’t know…”

  Morrigan could hear the hint of a lie tracing Simmons’ words. “That’s bullshit.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You want to lie to me again, dickhead? We can take another swim if that’s the case.”

  He gave Simmons time to cough out the water from his throat.

  “Tell me,” Morrigan said. “Tell me why they’d want you dead.”

  Simmons continued coughing and spitting out water. A guilt-ridden look stretched across his face. “I did something,” he said. “Something that pissed them off. They said I was forgiven…” he shut his eyes. “I guess I wasn’t…”

  Morrigan got down on one knee. “Tell me. Now.”

  Simmons swallowed air. “Six months ago… I… I got involved.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With one of the girls…”

  Morrigan felt a sickly sensation overcome him. “Keep talking…”

  Simmons looked as if he was on the cusp of crying. “It was an accident. I swear.”

  “What?” Morrigan roared.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her… I didn’t mean to…”

  Morrigan stood up, his hand inching to reach toward his SIG. “Tell me what you did.”

  “I wanted to try the… product. Klein said it was fine. They delivered me one of the girls on the inventory, and… I don’t know. I was drinking. I can’t remember much, but…”

  Morrigan didn’t even need to hear the rest to know where the story was going. “You killed her,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

  Simmons nodded.

  Morrigan, needing to know a crucial detail of the story, looked Simmons square in the eyes and said: “How old was she?”

  Simmons lipped quivered—he couldn’t bring himself to answer.

  Morrigan drew a breath like a bull and insinuated all he needed to. “How old?”

  Simmons closed his eyes. “Thirteen,” he said. “She was thirteen. One of Klein’s guys helped dispose of the body.”

  Morrigan heard a buzzing noise in his ear. He felt nauseous, his legs felt like they had the consistency of rubber as he backed away from Simmons a few feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Simmons said. “Really. It was an accident.”

  Morrigan wasn’t hearing Simmons—he was only picturing the family of the slain girl. They were probably still up at night trying to figure out what happened to her.

  “That poor girl, you sick, twisted and evil fuck… you deserve what’s coming to you, you deserve to fucking die, you slimy bastard,” Morrigan roared in a rage.

  “Look,” Simmons said as he stood up. “I didn’t—”

  Morrigan rushed the guy and push him to the sand. It knocked the wind clean out of Simmons as his back made contact with the beach. Then Morrigan whaled on him—one punch, two punch, three… pounding constantly on his face until it began to turn into a pulpy mess as Morrigan took out his SIG, disengaged the safety, and aimed it point-blank at Simmons’s head.

  “Oh, God!” Simmons said, on his knees with his hands held up high. “Please! Please!”

  Morrigan shook his head. “I was wrong,” he seethed. “I’m going to fucking shoot your brains all over the tide.”

  “Oh, fuck!”

  “You sick, depraved motherfucker. You…” the rage was choking the words in his throat. “Oh, shit… Oh, man. I am going to kill you.” He took aim. “You evil motherfucker!”

  “Please! Please! Please! You can’t! I’ll help you! I will! I’ll help you get Klein!”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Morrigan!”

  Morrigan prepared to squeeze. “Say goodnight, shit heel.” />
  Simmons wept as Morrigan prepared to fire, all the backlogged animosity, and adrenaline, and pain he had endured had finally caught up to him. In that moment, he thought that Klein and everyone else who pointed out the fact that he was bent was accurate in their summations. As he prepared to put a bullet in Simmons head, one thought entered his mind—I am the bad guy…

  He squeezed the trigger, a quarter inch away from blasting Simmons into oblivion. He squeezed… and squeezed… and squeezed…

  But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  “Fuck!” Morrigan yelled as he aimed his weapon at the water and fired off six shots into the tide—BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Simmons shuddered with each shot as Morrigan pocketed his weapon and began to pace. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill anyone anymore, even a prick as sick as Simmons. And he knew Simmons was right—he needed his help to get Klein and Connolly. If there was a chance to take them down, Simmons was his in—and it wouldn’t serve him well at all if he put a bullet (or several) in the guy’s brain.

  Morrigan sat on the beach, trying to think straight, trying to figure out his next move. After a few minutes, Simmons slowly got up on his feet and staggered toward the detective. He kept his hands held high and looked at Morrigan. “Are you…” he began, “are you going to kill me?”

  Morrigan sighed. Shook his head. “No,” he replied, depleted. “But I sure as hell want to.”

  He then took his SIG and fired off a shot into the fat of Simmons’s thigh. Simmons clutched his leg and howled as Morrigan stood up and produced his cell phone. “Don’t be surprised if I shoot you again later,” Morrigan said as he dialed Bukowski’s number.

  She answered in two rings. “Yeah? You okay?”

  “Coney Island,” Morrigan said. “On the beach. Hurry.”

  He hung up. Thirty minutes later—Bukowski arrived.

  Morrigan gave her the skinny of the situation. After learning about Simmons’s “accident” with the thirteen-year-old girl, she wasn’t as dismayed at the fact that Morrigan had popped one off in Simmons’s leg. If anything, she was just envious that she didn’t have the chance to do it herself.

  “Jesus,” she said. “That’s what was on the drives?”

  Morrigan nodded. “Yeah. Pretty messed up, no?”

  “That might be the understatement of the year.”