Chapter Four
Madison
Another day had passed since Max had gone against my warning and told the team about the bust. I’d walked out of the meeting in anger and had not come back for the rest of the day. The following day I saw a message on my desk from Max asking if I wanted to go for coffee. I scrunched it up and threw it away. I was still mad at him, and it was going to take me a lot to get over what he had done. The following day he went straight to the den while I sat and listened to him through the surveillance set up. He’d sent me a message telling me that he would meet me once he was done.
I was sitting in the van now, listening to him and wondering how many times I’d done this over the past year. It had been strange at first, listening in on Max, but now it felt normal. This time, though, the more he spoke, the more annoyed I got at the fact that he had put himself in a dangerous position. After everything we had been through to get to this point, it seemed crazy to me that he would endanger himself this way. For a man who portrayed himself to be such a tough guy to the world, he certainly hadn’t shown it in this situation. Why on earth did he want to tell the team? I still couldn’t believe it. I’d gone into the office that morning and already heard a few team members talking about it. They were talking to each other, but anyone could’ve overheard.
Max was talking to Shell and some of the other guys, and I marveled at how different he was when he was with them. I couldn’t help but be impressed with how he had managed to fool them. He seemed just like one of them and nothing he said ever betrayed who he really was. I listened closely for any signs that they might be on to him, but I couldn’t find any. According to Shell, everything was still set for Friday.
It was late when Max finally came back. I’d gotten into the van in the afternoon, but it was almost nightfall when he climbed in. I was starving, and desperate for something to drink. I’d wanted coffee all afternoon, but I wouldn’t have said no if someone handed me a bottle of whiskey instead.
“That was long,” I said to Max. “You were in there forever. It’s already starting to get dark outside.”
I quickly drove down the road before anyone could see, and made my way back to the office where Max’s car was waiting.
“Yeah, longer than usual. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Obviously, I couldn’t rush out, though. I cannot believe that this whole thing is happening tomorrow already. This week has gone both fast and slow at the same time, if that makes sense.”
“Yep,” I said. I kept my eyes on the road so that I didn’t have to look at him.
“Yep? What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know mean anything by that. I’m just agreeing with you. That’s what yep means, in case you didn’t already know that.”
“Wow, you’re in a good mood today,” he said.
I glared at him. “Did you honestly expect me to be in a good mood?”
“What’s going on with you?”
I sighed. “For goodness’ sake, Max, don’t you know me at all? I’m annoyed that you told the whole damn team about tomorrow. Surely you know that. I didn’t exactly storm out of the conference room for nothing. What was the point in asking for my opinion in the first place if you weren’t going to listen to me? In fact, the very act of asking me what you should do and then going against what I said was a complete slap in the face. Don’t you care at all about what I think?” I felt annoyed at myself for showing him how upset I was, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’d been holding all of this in since the meeting.
“Of course, I care what you think. But they’re part of our team. I think it’s good that we’ve included them. I think it’s a good thing.”
“You’re infuriating; you know that?”
“Madison, this is ridiculous. I’m the one going out there and putting myself in danger. Me, not you. Surely I have more of a say than you do over who knows and who doesn’t?”
“Oh, wow, nice one, Max. I thought we were a team? And anyway, that’s not true at all. I’m always right there. I’m always at just as much risk as you are.”
“We are a team. But so are the other members. Yeah, I know it’s been you and me doing most of the dirty work here, but they’re still a part of the team regardless. And yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, maybe I’m the one that is too trusting in this whole thing, but so what? What is done is done. I can’t change what happened, so you’re going to have to just man up and accept the fact that I told them.”
I didn’t say anything after that. I felt too annoyed with Max to talk to him, so I just drove to the office and dropped him off. He tried to say something else to me, but I waved him off. We’d had arguments before, and we always made up after a while. But right then I was just too angry at him and annoyed that he still thought he was in the right. There were times, like this, when I saw what the rest of the world saw when they looked at Max. A tough guy, with no time for other people and no concept of when he was in the wrong.
I made my way back home and wondered if I was spending too much time with him. The two of us had been friends for a long time, ever since I’d first started on the job. But this past year we had been thrust into a situation that neither one of us had been prepared for. If we weren’t on the job together, we were off the job but still talking about the job. The whole year had been the two of us focused on this drug ring.
I didn’t enjoy letting other people get close to me. I’d lost way too many people to ever want to get too close to anyone again. But, despite this, I had to admit that I was close to Max. He’d become more than a friend to me over the years. He had become part of my family. And no matter how annoyed or frustrated I was with him at the moment, it didn’t take away from the fact that he meant a lot to me. I couldn’t have something happen to the bust, or even worse, to Max. Not after everything we had been through together. I knew that the only reason that I was so upset with him was because of how much I cared. And because, deep down, I was a lot more nervous about Friday than I was letting on. I had been nervous about it for a long time, and with every passing day, that feeling just seemed to intensify. Please don’t let anything happen to Max. I thought it, but couldn’t bear to even say it out loud.
I took a long shower and made myself something to eat. I couldn’t be bothered with cooking after these long days at work, and I had started to rely on those ready-made meals that you get from convenience stores. I had a whole stack of them in my freezer. I took one out and popped it into the microwave. Exactly five minutes later and my meal was ready to eat. I cracked open a beer and sat down to watch TV, but I couldn’t get the thought of Max out of my head. Finally, I sighed and got out my phone.
How about we get a good cup of coffee on the weekend? Not that horrible office crap.
Max and I weren’t the sort to apologize after a fight, but I knew he would read that message and take it as it was intended to come across. The meaning was clear—let’s not fight anymore. Moments later a message came back to me.
Good idea. Let’s put some whiskey into that coffee and make it even better.
I smiled. Everything was going to be fine. The only thing left to do was somehow get some sleep and get ready for the next day. The big day that we had all been waiting for was finally about to happen. I flipped through the channels until I found an old movie that I enjoyed, and watched without really watching at all. After a few hours, I got ready for bed, climbed in, and tried to imagine what sort of holiday I would be going on with Max once everything was done. Every time a bad thought came into my head I pushed it away and tried to replace it with an image of us lying on a beach drinking a cocktail.