“I’m Duke Fallon.” The man sounded like his sinuses were filled with concrete. “And I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee.”
Wade knew who Fallon was. After a bloody coup a few years earlier, Fallon became the leading crime lord in Darwin Gardens and used it as his base to expand his operations into other areas of the city. The MCU taxed Fallon on his additional revenue.
The mention of Fallon’s name momentarily distracted Charlotte from Billy. She’d opened Billy’s shirt to reveal a bullet caught in the Kevlar mesh in the center of the vest. There was no blood, and Billy was beginning to suck some air into his lungs again.
Wade looked past Fallon out on the street, where he could see an S?Class Mercedes parked in front of Pancake Galaxy, Timo and two of the guys he’d faced down yesterday glowering at him. There were a few people standing on the sidewalk, brought out of the shadows by either Fallon’s arrival or the gunshot or maybe both.
“That’d be nice,” Wade said and glanced over at Charlotte, who glared furiously at Wade. “Just give me a moment.”
“Sure thing,” Fallon said and stepped outside.
“The squad cars out back need to be cleaned and disinfected,” Wade said to Charlotte. “I’ll be across the street having coffee.”
“With a man responsible for countless killings and a good chunk of the drug trade in this city.”
“I’d rather meet him over a cup of coffee than the end of a gun.” He shifted his gaze to Billy. “Come get me when you’re ready to return fire.”
Wade went outside and joined Fallon on the corner. They both took a moment to gaze out at the onlookers.
“They seem surprised to see me,” Wade said.
“You can’t blame them. They saw me go in and heard a gunshot,” Fallon said. “They probably thought that I’d killed you.”
“Why would they think that?”
“I’m told that I have a nasty temper.” Fallon gestured to the station. “Apparently, you do too.”
Wade looked back and saw Charlotte helping Billy to his feet. “That wasn’t anger. That was a demonstration.”
Fallon smiled. “I like that. A demonstration. I might steal that from you.”
The two men strode diagonally across the empty intersection toward the restaurant. They took their time, everyone watching them.
“I saw you testify on TV,” Fallon said. “It was like the OJ trial, only with cops instead.”
The way Wade remembered it, the cops were on trial in the OJ case too-they just weren’t sitting at the defendant’s table.
“As I recall,” Wade said, “your name came up a few times during the trial.”
Fallon waved off the remark. “Nasty rumors and innuendo. But I don’t care about that. I’m just glad justice was done.”
“You mean you’re glad you don’t have to pay off the MCU anymore. You underwrote Roger’s kitchen remodel.”
“Is it nice?”
“He replaced the linoleum flooring with travertine and the tile countertops with granite.”
“What was he thinking putting in all that rock? It must be like eating in a fucking cave,” Fallon said. “How’s your kitchen? Does it need updating?”
Timo crossed his arms under his chest and amped up the intensity of his glower as Wade approached the S?Class.
Wade smiled and gave Timo a little wave as he passed. “Are you offering me a home improvement loan, Duke?”
“It would be a gift,” Fallon said, opening the door to the restaurant for him. “I give them to deserving individuals. It’s not very hard to be deserving.”
“It would be for me,” Wade said and went inside.
There were no customers inside, just the Guthries and a cook in the back, an old woman with her hair in a net. Peter Guthrie sat behind the register, snorting his oxygen, and Mandy was sitting at the counter, reading a newspaper.
Fallon went to one of the window booths. Wade took a seat across from him. Mandy approached with a coffeepot.
“What will you have, gentlemen?” she asked as she filled their mugs.
“Coffee is fine for me,” Wade said.
“You have any apple pie left, sweetie?” Fallon asked.
“We always save a slice for you, Duke.”
“I’d kill you if you didn’t,” he said with a grin, then turned to Wade. “I don’t like it when people leave me the crumbs.”
Wade took that comment as a clumsy allusion to Fallon’s reasons for overthrowing Gordon Gansa, who was dismembered while he was still alive, his body parts scattered throughout Darwin Gardens. Rumor was that Fallon cut him up with a handsaw and made Gansa’s crew watch, which effectively quashed anyone’s will to attempt a coup.
Mandy went off to get the pie. Wade took a sip of his coffee.
“I heard you had a little scuffle yesterday,” Fallon said.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“You were lucky. Did you know that the last cops who came here were gunned down?”
“A couple of rookies who were pursuing a stolen car,” Wade said. “I went to their funerals.”
“It was a sad, tragic day,” Fallon said. “I’d hate to see it happen again.”
“So would I,” Wade said.
Mandy came up and set a slice of pie, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it, in front of Fallon.
“Enjoy,” she said and turned away.
“Thanks, sweetie,” Fallon said and started to devour his pie.
Wade studied Fallon and sipped his coffee.
He was aware of Mandy and her father looking at them while trying to appear as if they weren’t. There were no other customers to serve and the tension created by the emptiness, and the presence of Duke Fallon, was palpable.
He was aware of Timo outside, leaning against Fallon’s car, staring hard at Wade. It was a wonder the window didn’t shatter from the intensity of the hatred.
It was a moment or two, and several mouthfuls of apple pie a la mode later, before Fallon spoke again.
“This can be a peaceful neighborhood if everybody follows the rules.”
“I agree,” Wade said.
“What you and I need to have is an understanding,” Fallon said.
“That would be good,” Wade said.
“So here’s what you need to understand. I make the laws here,” Fallon said, poking himself in the chest with his thumb. “Now that you’re a resident, you’re going to have to follow them just like everybody else.”
“What are your laws?”
“There’s only one,” Fallon said, leaning over the table toward Wade and looking him in the eye. “You stay out of my fucking way, or I will lay waste to your little station and everybody in it. I’d probably get a big gift basket from the chief for doing it too.”
Fallon leaned back, satisfied with himself. Wade held out a napkin to him.
“You need this. You got ice cream on yourself while you were terrifying me.”
Fallon looked down at the ice cream on his chest.
“Shit!” He snatched the napkin and dabbed madly at the stain, rubbing it in even deeper, matting the silk. “This is a twenty?five?hundred?dollar tracksuit.”
“Maybe you should wear a bib,” Wade said.
Fallon lifted his head and glared at Wade. “Maybe you should watch your fucking mouth.”
Wade took a sip of coffee and set down his mug. “Has it occurred to you, Duke, that ‘laying waste’ to me and the police substation might be exactly what the chief wants?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“It’s the excuse the chief needs to invade with five hundred officers, decimate your operation, and parade you and all of your crew in chains past the media.”
“There’d be a lot of cop funerals before that happened.”
“Yes, but what better way is there than a war on crime to rehabilitate the department’s image and push the corruption scandal out of the news? You might still get that big gift basket from him, but it will be delivered to you in your prison cell.”
Fallon tossed the wadded?up napkin on the table and pushed his plate away. “Either way, you lose.”