Oh, who are you kidding, old man. You didn’t come here to grab a can of Coke. You want this.
You miss it. Admit it. You miss the action.
Hank knew all about slavery rings. Too much, in fact. It was a disgusting and brutal trade, the kind where girls — the younger the better — were treated like chattel, passed from place to place, criminal to criminal. Someone like Faith — a blue-eyed, blonde all-American girl — would fetch a better price than most, and for a longer period. But would she last two years?
“Tell me the rest,” Hank said. “How does Allie plan on locating Faith?”
“By getting to the end of the line,” Lucy said.
“The end of what line?”
“Where the girls are being transported to. Finding the people behind all of this. And if that doesn’t work out…” Lucy shrugged. “I think Allie is playing most of it by ear. She’s pretty good at improvising.”
“It’s a dangerous game she’s playing. Ben’s Diner, these two guys she’s riding around with…”
“Trust me, lieutenant, you’re not telling us anything we don’t already know. Allie more than anyone.”
“Which leads me back here. Why did she give me your phone number?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Maybe she thought you could help.”
“Help how?”
“You’re a former police lieutenant, right?”
“State police lieutenant, yeah.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, one’s state—” He stopped and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. Why would she think I can help?”
“I don’t know, but Allie doesn’t do anything without a reason. If she gave you my number, that means she wanted you to contact me.”
“She read my files, so she would already know I’m retired.”
“That’s a given, yeah.”
“Meaning…what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. We never discussed bringing someone else into this. It was always just going to be the two of us. I guess when she saw you out there, she took advantage of it. So you’re right; she definitely gave you my number for a reason.”
Hank narrowed his eyes at the darkening parking lot outside. No matter how many times he rolled the question around in his head, the answers didn’t come. Why did Allie send him here? Why did she think he could help them? Or was there another reason he wasn’t seeing?
“Maybe the fact you’re retired is why,” Lucy said.
He looked back at her. “I don’t understand…”
“I mean, cops have rules, right?”
“I’m not constricted by procedure anymore, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is that a good thing?”
He shrugged. “It depends on what she expects from me. Cops have a lot of paperwork to file, hoops to jump through, before they can even take a fart. It’s a real pain in the ass, and one of the reasons I don’t miss the job. That’s the good news.”
“And the bad news?”
“I don’t have a badge anymore. All I got is that snub nose in the nightstand drawer. I don’t have people to answer to, yeah, but it also means I don’t have anyone who answers to me either, you understand?”
She nodded, and he thought she might have looked a little disappointed. Oh, who was he kidding. She looked a lot disappointed.
“So what does all of this mean?” she asked.
“I have no idea, kid,” Hank said. “I don’t even know where your friend is — and neither do you — so I don’t know how she expects me to help her in the first place. For all we know, she might have just sent me here to babysit you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I can take care of myself. Besides, Apollo is here.”
“He’s just a dog…”
Lucy smiled at him.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said. Then, “You said we don’t even know where she is right now, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I think I might know.” The girl stood up and walked over to him with the tablet. “One of my jobs is to monitor all the local and national news feeds. I saw this one earlier today before you showed up.”
Lucy pushed a small box on the tablet that widened by itself until it filled the whole screen. It was a video feed of a newscast showing the remains of a state trooper cruiser parked on the side of the interstate. Its front windshield was covered in holes, and Hank could make out blood on the front seat upholstery. Uniformed troopers were barricading the scene even as vehicles continued to flash across the TV camera on both sides.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered.
“Someone killed two state troopers earlier during what the news is calling a routine traffic stop,” Lucy said.
“And you think Allie has something to do with this?”
“I don’t think she shot them, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Kid, she shot me.”
“She clipped you,” Lucy said. “Trust me, if Allie shot to kill, you’d be dead right now. She didn’t do this, but look at that damage.”
“Automatic weapons fire.”
“Yeah. Who would carry that kind of firepower around and shoot up a state trooper car with it?”
“People who can’t afford to be stopped or questioned.”
Lucy nodded. “I think so, too.” She put the tablet away under her arm. “So now we know Allie’s last known location, along with the direction she’s headed.”
“That’s something, I guess,” Hank said. “Still doesn’t tell us where she is right now, or where she’s going. Or what she thinks I can do to help her.”
“I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, either,” Lucy said, “but she didn’t have to give you my number. And yet, from what you told me, she took a big risk doing it. She wouldn’t have done that without a reason.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“I know Allie.”
Hank didn’t reply. He looked out at the darkness instead.
Somewhere out there, two of his brothers were dead. They weren’t his brothers by blood, but that didn’t matter when you wore the same uniform. He wondered if he knew them or their families. Cops tended to breed cops; it was either a storied tradition or a vicious cycle, depending on your perspective, and it wasn’t unusual to have the kid of someone retired show up and assume the old man’s locker.
He glanced over at the small girl standing next to him. She barely came up to his chin, but she looked so much older than the first time he saw her standing at the motel door, greeting him.
“What is she, an ex-cop?” Hank asked.
“Who?”
“Allie.”
Lucy seemed almost amused by the question. “No.”
“Ex-military? Some kind of ex-government spook?”
“No, nothing like that. She’s just someone who cares.”
“Kid, you don’t do the things she’s doing if you’re just a civilian who just happens to care too much. Even if you are independently wealthy like you’re telling me she is. Bruce Wayne in the comic books, sure, but people like that don’t exist in real life.”
The girl smiled back at him.
“What?” he said.
“I’m just shocked you know who Bruce Wayne is.”
“Batman’s been around, kid. I know it’s hard to believe, but there are things out there older than me.”
“You’re right,” Lucy said, “that is hard to believe.”
He grunted. “Smart ass.”