Narcos…

Almost a full week had gone by and things were moving fast in the criminal underworld. At least, they were for me. It was a different world once you were patched-in to the Knights of Crescentia, and I had front row tickets to the main event. I was learning all sorts of shit, having given none of these motherfuckers a reason to question me or doubt me. It was a fine line to walk and one that was about to be blown all to hell when King called out, “Joker! Whiskey! Step into my office, boys.”

I backed away from the bar and the random bitch I was talking to and took a swig of my beer. I looked over at Joker, who gave me a chin lift from by the jukebox. We moved down toward one of the last booths along the wall opposite the bar, and slid in across from King.

“What’s up, oh fearless leader?” Joker asked, licking along the edge of a rolling paper. He didn’t do cigarettes, but dude was way too into his fuckin’ weed. They smoked like fuckin’ chimneys in this bar; just one of the many laws these motherfuckers broke, but least among them. The ceiling was yellowed with the tar from their cigarettes. I waved Joker off when he offered up the blunt to me first.

“Suit yourself, man.” He stuck it between his lips and scooped up King’s lighter off the table, putting flame to tip then clicking the Zippo closed.

“You done yet?” King demanded, and Joker grinned, holding in his lungful of the overpowering, earthy smoke. I didn’t say anything, just took a drink of my beer and waited King out.

“You oughtta take a page outta Whiskey’s playbook, here,” King said decisively. He sighed heavy and said, “I got some disconcerting news.”

I perked up a bit on the inside but played it close to the vest on the outside, keeping my expression neutral, waiting for King to spill it.

“That don’t sound good,” Joker said and finally exhaled. He laughed, and I hated this guy’s laugh. He sounded like a hyena that had yet to finish fuckin’ puberty.

King pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I may not have liked the son of a bitch, but on this, I could sympathize with him. Joker was a fuckin’ headache.

“Shut up and let the man talk,” I said with a scowl, and Joker opened his mouth to snap something off at me but King interrupted him with, “Thank you.” I gave a nod and smirked at Joker, who glowered at me.

“Word from inside the pigpen is my bitch ain’t dead and is willin’ to turn state’s evidence. I need you two to go finish the job.”

I felt my blood run cold. Word from inside the ICPD? What the fuck?

“Reliable intel?” I asked and King’s eyes snapped to mine, his brow drawing down into a scowl.

“As reliable as it fuckin’ gets.” He slid a folded piece of paper in our direction. “Now, you wanna keep that patch, you go finish what you started.”

I drew the paper toward me and frowned at it, squinting in the dimly-lit bar’s interior to read it. It was where we housed witnesses, all right. The same hotel we’d kept Chrissy at. Their intel was good. Shit.

“On it,” I declared.

“Should only be one guy with her. Cutbacks, don’t you know?” King asked, sucking in air between his teeth. He tapped the blunt he’d taken from Joker against the heavy glass ashtray overflowing with butts. I stopped my slide out of the booth and gave a nod.

“We’ll get it done,” Joker said.

“Kill her, no fucking around.”

“Awww…” Joker bounced on his feet and pouted.

“I mean it. She’s still my fuckin’ property regardless of if she’s sold me out. That pussy is, and always will be, mine. Double-tap her and be done with it.”

“You got it,” I said.

My adrenaline was coursing hardcore. I had a wire on. I’d caught everything this motherfucker had said, but that wasn’t why. It was because I didn’t know how to warn Driller without tipping these assholes off and getting myself dead. That, and I was still reeling on the inside from King’s bombshell.

They had intel on the inside of the force, but not enough intel to know I was a cop. Maybe it wasn’t the force, then. Maybe it was the prosecutor’s office? My mind was racing the whole way out to our bikes, Joker chattering away a mile a minute as he was apt to do, fuckin’ meth-head.

“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded, and I had to think fast.

I scowled and said, “You heard him, right? I wanna keep these colors, bitch needs to die.”

I cut off any further conversation with him by starting up my bike, revving the engine to drown out his noise. I had no idea how I was going to fucking do this. We rode through night-blackened city streets, the pavement dry, but the air slick with heat and humidity. The summer was bearing down on Indigo City with a vengeance and I felt bad for the rest of my true brothers in blue. The temperature went up, and so did tempers, and along with them, the crime rate and incidences of domestics.

What I wouldn’t honestly give to be walking a fucking beat right now.

I rode through a yellow that Joker had slowed for and took my fuckin’ life into my hands to shoot off a text one-handed, then pulled off and waited for Joker’s ass to catch up. We were blocks from the hotel and I was hoping that I’d given enough warning, that Driller was there and on duty, and that he could, at least, get Silence out of the line of fire. It was mandatory that Driller, or whoever it was who was with her, was wearing a vest, so at least there was that.

We got to the hotel, took the garage elevators up to the lobby, and took advantage of a blind spot for the front desk to skate into the stairwell. I made some mental notes to pass on to the higher-ups. This hotel was compromised six ways to Sunday and weren’t no good for housing witnesses no more.

We took the stairwell up one floor and sauntered to the elevator like we belonged here. The elevator took no time at all whisking us to Silence’s floor and I hoped I’d been able to tip off whoever was on the other side of that door that we were coming in time.

Too soon we were standing outside the room number listed on the piece of paper King had passed us and Joker was grinning at me like a fool. He nudged me with his elbow and said, “If the bitch is dead, ain’t no one to tell King what we did.”

I grimaced on the inside and scowled on the outside, playing the ever-loyal foot-soldier to the bitter end.

“King told us to kill her and be fuckin’ done with it,” I whispered harshly. “So that’s what we’re gonna do. You can get your dick wet back at the club.”

Joker, a weasel-looking motherfucker, with eyes too close together and a nose for days, rolled his deep brown eyes at me so hard I was pretty sure he saw the back of his own skull.

“You’re a fuckin’ downer, Whiskey.”

“I’m fuckin’ loyal, you should fuckin’ try it.”

That earned me a glare and amped him up. He kicked the door to the hotel room, once, twice, until it gave way with the third well-placed kick. I had my gun out, and he went through the door, right into Driller’s tazer, which he held with one hand, and his firearm, which he aimed with the other.

Joker jerked, went ramrod straight and flopped onto his back, the two electrodes protruding from the front of his Ozzy Osbourne tee shirt, adding a couple more holes to the already pretty threadbare material.

I shoved my gun into the back of my pants and rolled Joker onto his stomach. Driller put up his gun and lifted his handcuffs from the back of his belt and tossed them to me, smooth and efficient, like we were trained. I slapped the cuffs on Joker, who was moaning and groaning, trying to recover from having his synapses fried.

“You good?” I asked Driller.

“Yeah.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Bathtub, in case bullets started to fly.”

“You get my text?”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“Yeah. Backup coming?”

“On their way, but your cover is fuckin’ blown.”

“Yeah, but it came with getting these sons of bitches dead-to-rights on attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.”

“You got it on tape?”

“Every bit of it.”

“You’re a fuckin’ cop?” Joker screamed, his voice muffled by having his face mashed into the carpet.

“Surprise, motherfucker.” I pushed off of him and went to the bathroom.

“City isn’t safe,” Driller called.

“I know.”

“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he asked.

“Yeah, but not in front of the kids. Nothing out loud.”

He grunted and nodded, and I went through the bathroom door.