CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GRACE
Once we’re outside, the Captain swings around in front us looking like a kettle that’s been on the boil for far too long. “What in God’s ever-loving fuck do you two think you’re doing?”
“We’ve got you,” I tell him. “You going to deny it, or you going to start talking?”
The way the Captain’s lips crease is particularly disturbing. “You’ve got shit, Siddell. What exactly do you think I’m involved in?”
I’m practically standing on his toes. “So you weren’t the perp huffing and puffing over the fence then? It wasn’t your burner we recovered, the one I’ve got tucked away safe and sound where you’ll never fucking find it?”
That gets him.
The tell is immediate, but he glosses over it quickly with a laugh. “Enough.”
But I know the evidence we found on the burner isn’t conclusive—no concrete way to tie it directly to the Captain. As predicted, cameras down in the cages were switched off before he entered. It’s nothing out of the ordinary given the way he liked to beat on perps down there.
I try to appeal to what I hope are his better senses. “Captain,” I begin, “undo this,” but his hand goes up an inch from my face.
“Whatever bullshit conspiracy theory you think you’ve got going on here, it’s way off course. This case was cut and dry. A retard could have closed it, but you two? I’ll make sure you’re mopping floors until your fingers bleed. There won’t be an agency in the entire country that will take you two dipshits on.”
Hunter’s quiet. I can see him trying to work out what to do, which angle to take.
I only know one.
I step right up to the Captain, shoving him, my temper getting the better of me. “If you think you and your brother are going to slip out of this noose, you’re wrong.”
He shoves back, Hunter stiffening beside me, but I hold him at bay.
“That’s right,” the Captain laughs, “put your bitch back on her leash.”
The Captain puts his hand out. “Radios, now.”
Fuck.
I consider running, quickly trying to call this in, but Bobby’s standing there enjoying the show. He’s probably in on it. Who the hell knows how deep and insidious this really is.
I nod to Hunter. There’s no choice. We unclip them, hand them over, and, with it, our one lifeline.
“You can hand your badges in when we get to the station,” says the Captain, “when we make this nice and official-like,” He clicks his fingers. “Bobby.”
Bobby steps forward smirking. “Yes, sir.”
“Go with these two, will you? I’d rather work these two over at the station with an audience, know what I mean?”
Bobby smiles. “Yes, sir.”
He points at Hunter. “You. Follow me.”
“Bobby?” I plead. “Tell me you’re not part of this.”
“Quiet,” he barks.
I eye Hunter as we walk to the cruiser, but he’s not giving much away. A tiny sliver of doubt begins to worm its way into my head. Yes, the Captain is a hot head. Is it plausible we saw someone else in the alleyway, that he doesn’t actually know what his brother is into?
Think it through.
If he isn’t involved we have truly fucked ourselves. It will be the end of our careers.
But then I remind myself just how much evidence is stacking against the Captain here, the questions left unanswered, and his brother’s reaction? That guy’s guilty as Al Capone.
Bobby slides into the back of the Cruiser, Hunter into the driver’s seat, taking a left to follow the Captain’s car.
I look into the rearview as we drive, seething but somehow managing to put a cover on it for now, for Rachel’s sake. “You’re not actually buying all this bullshit, are you, Bobby? Or did he make you do it? Make you clean up his mess?”
Bobby grins. “I’m not buying anything. Far as I can see you guys are the ones shopping around for an ass-kicking. Coming to his fucking brother’s place of business? Do you know the level of power that guy has? He controls fucking everyone in this city. They’re all in his pocket—judges, cops…” He crosses himself, kissing the crucifix hanging against his shirt. “Jesus H.”
I don’t know how much Bobby knows, if he’s even involved at all. I thought we were friends, buddies even, but ever since Hunter’s arrived he’s been giving me the cold shoulder.
Bobby nods to Hunter. “What about you, Big Boy? Got anything to add?”
Hunter glances up. “Where were you the night of the sixteenth?”
Bobby bursts out laughing before his expression suddenly turns grim. He leans over the seat. “Rumor is Siddell here likes pain, the really kinky stuff, but you… You try that shit again and we’re going to have a problem.”
“Is that so?” replies Hunter, the testosterone level in this vehicle climbing by the second.
I look out the window and realize where we are. We’re not headed to the station. We’re headed away from it, down to the docks.
The Captain’s car pulls into a side street, Hunter indicating and following.
What the hell’s going on?
The Captain’s car stops ahead, brake lights red, the street too narrow for us to pass.
I look back to the rear-view in time to see Bobby raising his gun.
“Gun!” I shout.
Hunter shifts left just in time, the first two shots punching through the windscreen. It’s deafening, my ears ringing, but I jump up and manage to swat at Bobby’s arm as he lets off another round, this one barely missing Hunter’s head and shattering the driver’s side window.
I reach for Chewie… until I realize we handed in our weapons at City Hall.
Hunter turns and grabs Bobby’s wrist with one hand, punching him square in the nose with the other, the impact driving Bobby into the other corner of the car’s rear.
He’s dazed, but he’s not out.
I stretch to take his gun, but I’m forced to duck again when the front windscreen shatters.
I twist to see the Captain stalking down the street, his gun high.
I open my door and start to get out, keeping my head low as shots pepper the bodywork of the car. “Go!” I scream.
I’ve seen more bullets flying in three days than I have my entire working career.
Hunter does the same, the two of us moving around to the back of the car while the Captain continues to fire. He’s shown his true hand now. He can’t afford to let us get away.
I join Hunter, the two of us sprinting for the end of the street.
Another shot echoes off the walls of the buildings enclosing us, a white jab of pain following around my upper thigh.
I stagger forward but Hunter’s got me, helping me to my feet. “Come on.”
Ding. Something goes pinging off a street sign as we hit the main road and break left. We’re running out of time. They’ll be on us soon, but at least we’re in the open now.
I spot a taxi up on the next road, shoving both my fingers into my mouth and whistling as hard as I can.
It continues ahead. Please, please.
It takes a right and darts towards us, coming to a quick stop.
I open the rear door, Hunter bundling me in from behind. “Drive!” he shouts.
The driver, a young Latin man with pompadour has clearly watched enough procedurals to know the drill. He plants it and we take off, a final glance out the window to see Bobby arrive first, his gun in hand, blood streaming from his nose.
The Captain joins them, the two of them standing there like a couple of wayward tourists as we rejoin the flow of traffic.
Hunter takes hold of my leg, examining it. “Are you hit?”
I roll over slightly onto the other ass cheek, my thigh out. My pants are torn, bloody.
Hunter reaches down and tears at them, looking over the wound.
I wince as he tests the surrounding area. “No entry, a graze at most. You’re lucky.”
I relax back into the seat, the bullet graze burning like hellfire. “What now? We’re pretty low on options here.”
“We could go to the press,” Hunter suggests.
“We don’t have enough evidence. Hell, we don’t even know the full story here, how deep this shit show goes or who’s part of it, but one thing is clear.”
“What’s that?”
“We can’t stay here with targets on our backs. They just tried to take us out. We’ve got to run.” My head’s telling me it’s the coward’s option, but given the choice of being a coward or being dead, I think we have to go with the former.
“Run to where?” asks Hunter.
“It doesn’t matter as long as we cover our tracks and keep a low profile. We need time to think and plan and work out what in god’s good name we’re going to do to stop our heads being blown off, because the longer we stay here, the higher the chance we’re done away with just like Rachel. She knew too much, and they killed her,” I snap my fingers and fight back a sudden splinter of emotion, “like that. Sure, taking out two detectives is certainly levelling it up, but apparently that’s not an issue either now.
Hunter takes out his cell, removing the SIM. He opens the window and tosses it into the wind. “Let’s get to it then.”
I take mine out and do the same, crushing it under my heel on the taxi’s patchwork carpet for good measure.
There’s no point going back to our apartments, so I have the driver take us to an address in Queens.
The taxi drives off, the sky overhead a blunt gray as Hunter takes in the terrace house before us. Its state of dilapidation probably isn’t filling him full of confidence. “Is this some kind of safehouse?”
I run up the front stairs and hit the doorbell. “Not quite.”
The door cracks open, two beady eyes staring out of the darkness. There’s a beat before it opens fully, the elderly man beyond stepping forward. “Grace? Is that you?”
I smile. “Hi, Arthur.”
He whistles. “Boy, have you grown. What’s it been? Five years? How’s your Pop?”
“He’s… not doing so well.”
Arthur rubs at the furrows in his brow. “Oh, hell, is he…?”
“No,” I shake my head, “he’s fine, but,” I gesture down to Hunter, “my partner here and I need a favor, two cops to another. We need Rosanne.”
*
We’re standing in the tiny garage around the back of Arthur’s place.
Hunter leans over to me, whispering. “Who is this guy?”
“He used to work with Dad back in the day—vice squad. We can trust him.”
Arthur pulls a sheet off the car in the center of the garage, a cloud of fine dust fanning out through the space.
I cough, admiring Dad’s old 1971 Buick Gran Sport in custom ‘TNT’ red.
Arthur stands with his hands on his hips, nodding in approval. “Been sitting here for nigh-on ten years now, but I keep the fluids up, air in the tires, start ‘er up every so often… It hasn’t been registered in years, you know.”
I open the driver’s seat and slide in, breathing in the soft leather. “That’s going to be just fine for our purposes.”
Arthur leans on the door sill. “Is it something I can help with?”
“No,” I state, “thank you, but we’re on our own here.”
He hands over the keys. “She’s all yours.”
Hunter pokes his head through the passenger-side window, his voice low. “There is no way this thing is going to star—”
I turn the key and the 455-cube eight rumbles into life. “What were you saying?”
*
On the road, the Buick’s surprisingly well-balanced.
Hunter’s smiling from the passenger seat, his hand running over the dash. “Isn’t the idea to remain inconspicuous? We’re driving around in the vehicular equivalent of an A-bomb here.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll keep off the toll roads and drive east, see where we end up. You like it? Ol’ TNT here?”
He grins with appreciation. “I like a woman that knows how to handle a couple of cubes, sure.”
“You know a bit about cars?”
“My brothers and I had something of a pet project, a 1966 Mustang. Cayden’s got it now, but I don’t know. We had everything growing up, but puttering on that thing? It kept us grounded.”
I think of my own father asking me to hand him various items as I sat on a milk crate next to the toolbox, the smell of grease and transmission fluid, the sun baking the concrete underfoot… It feels like so long ago now, before the Alzheimer’s ravaged his mind and body. “I get it,” I reply, applying pressure to the accelerator, the Buick purring. “Good cars get you from A to B. Great cars… Well, they just get you into trouble.”
We drive for the better part of four hours, finally pulling into a roadside diner-slash-motel when the color above abandons the sky.