I screw my eye socket into the tiny wedge of space between the railing and the pavement.
Deacon tugs on my pants. ‘What do you see?’
‘I see a leg.’
‘Just one?’
‘The other one’s bent back. I think she fell down those last few steps.’
‘Good. You see a weapon?’
I wiggle forward another inch. Goran’s hand is flapping like a fish out of water; her gun glints just out of reach.
‘Dropped it. Let’s go.’
I scramble to my feet, but Deacon is up before me, elbowing past to the first step.
She’s fast, but not fast enough. There is just time to register an impression of Goran’s battered and bloody frame, slumped like a broken mannequin, when the door behind her opens. An extremely hairy pair of hands reaches out, grabs Goran by the shoulders and hauls her inside. She’s gone in a second, like she was never there. The door slams and bolts are shot.
‘You see those hands?’ says Deacon, stunned. ‘Like goddamn monkey hands. Can you believe that?’
I push past her and knuckle the door. It’s steel-reinforced.
‘Get it open, McEvoy. Use some military trickery.’
I try to trick the door with my shoulder. The central panel buckles and wobbles but does not give.
‘Got an oxyacetylene torch tucked into your underwear beside that spy radio, Ronelle?’
‘I’m thinking of a word, McEvoy. Hobble. You remember that one?’
We don’t have time for this. Cloisters is a small place and shots fired is big news. Half the police force will be landing on this block any second, and I don’t think now is a good time for armed company.
‘So, are you waiting for backup?’
Deacon thinks aloud. ‘I can’t wait. I need to follow the monkey hands.’
‘You’re getting in deeper, Ronnie. Every step you take makes it harder to go back.’
Deacon has a look in her eyes, like she’s squinting at the horizon. ‘We’re getting in deeper, McEvoy. Us. Okay, we’re on a tangled road now, but it could straighten out.’
I’m not the only dime-store philosopher in the group. ‘Yeah. With a couple of bee stings maybe.’
Once again, it’s the bee stings that bring Deacon back. ‘Screw you, Daniel. We gotta get out of here. I need Goran alive; without her I’m finished on the force.’ She stares into my eyes and I glimpse a hopeful expression I haven’t seen before; makes her seem at least ten years younger. ‘If I bring Goran in, and you make a statement, I could salvage something out of this shitty day. They’ll bounce me back to uniform, sure. Maybe even make me take some psych sessions, but I can stay on the force.’
My palm is resting on the reinforced door throughout this speech and I feel a sudden shock wave run through my fingers as vibration from the building transfers through the surface. Door slam.
‘They’re out the back door.’
‘To a hospital, maybe?’
‘It must be Faber who’s behind this. And I sincerely doubt they took her to a hospital.’
Deacon smiles, and I am reminded of a wolf that tracked me through the Loup Valley once. ‘They gotta believe we’re on their tails,’ she says thoughtfully.
I see where she’s going. ‘So maybe they’ll drive around a bit.’
‘Except we know where they’re going.’
‘Maybe.’
‘So we can get there before them.’
‘Big maybe.’
Deacon lopes up the stairs.
‘Big maybe,’ she agrees. ‘I’ve survived worse odds than that.’
Deacon makes me sit in the back seat on the drive across town, which is completely ridiculous as I’m not under arrest and it’s not even a secure cruiser. There’s no mesh, and if I had a mind to, I could probably get at the shotgun cradled under the passenger seat. I don’t have a mind to. Instead I use the short trip to grab a little shut-eye.
Power napping doesn’t usually work for me. If I nod off for ten minutes during sunlight hours, I’m groggy for the rest of the day. But in this instance I have no choice. In spite of the few hours’ sleep in the apartment, I am so exhausted it feels like my eyes are bleeding.
Daniel McEvoy is not as young as he used to be.
True as God.
Deacon is driving faster than she should, drawing attention to herself, but I don’t mind. All the bouncing is rocking me to sleep. Even the drone of her voice, stringing together long and complicated litanies of swear words, is soothing.
I slide down on the back seat, cradling my head in the safety belt, which smells of marijuana. My thoughts are just dissolving into dreams when Macey Barrett’s phone rings in my pocket.
The damn thing is leaking radiation into my ear before I think to check caller ID.
‘Hmmph?’ I blurt sleepily.
‘You bloody AWOL asshole.’
‘Hmmph?’ I say again, not sure what’s going on exactly. The military term messing with my reality.
‘Are you stoned, you prick? I warned you about that.’
‘No. Not stoned, Major. Just dog tired.’
The voice is not happy with this. ‘What the hell did you call me, Barrett? Major? Are you trying to be fucking funny?’
Ghost Zeb decides to help me out. Come on, Dan. Whose cell phone is this? And suddenly I’m awake. This is Barrett’s phone, and that’s obviously Irish Mike on the other end.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s it. I’m trying to be funny, as per usual, Mikey boy.’
‘Mikey boy! Mikey boy?’
‘Too much intimacy? We’re not that close, I take it.’
Silence for a moment, then, ‘Who the hell is this? Put Macey on.’
Deacon clicks her fingers to attract my attention.
‘Here we go,’ she says, all business, as though we’re off to meet our accountant.
I glance out the window. The Brass Ring is closed for business at this ungodly time of the morning, but I bet there’ll be business going on inside just the same. I remember Faber’s Benz from the previous day’s stakeout and see it parked across the road, which pretty much confirms we came to the right place.
‘Hello!’ shouts Irish Mike. ‘Who is this?’
‘It’s me, your close associate,’ I reply deadpan, hoping the FBI are listening. ‘What do you want to talk about, Mike? The murders, the drugs or the prostitution?’
Irish Mike is suddenly sweetness itself. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister. Actually, I’m betting this is a wrong number.’
‘Nooo,’ I say. ‘I recognise your number, Michael Madden. I put you on my speed dial when we were in Brooklyn, setting up the cocaine pipeline. Remember?’
Irish Mike hangs up.
The Brass Ring has doormen to stop undesirables getting in, whereas Slotz has doormen to eject the undesirables as soon as they’ve blown their wad. It’s hard to understand why a man like Jaryd Faber would spend five seconds in Vic’s seedy den when he’s obviously top dog in this place.
Maybe I’ll ask him before I shoot him.
The club is locked down tighter than a nuclear bunker during the zombie riots the media seems to feel are more or less inevitable, with steel blinds rolled down over the door and windows and not one but two alarm boxes bolted to the wall.
Deacon puts the police mobile in neutral and we spend a quiet moment sizing up the joint. While we are sizing up, I wedge my bundles of cash down behind the cruiser’s back seat. It would prey on my immortal soul if Faber shot me and stole my money.
‘Pretty impregnable,’ Ronelle admits finally. ‘I don’t know if we can take this place down.’
‘Not going through the front door. But they’re not going through the front door, not with a bleeding cop in the back seat.’
Deacon nods slowly. Some of her gusto has drained away. Maybe the truth of this situation is dawning on her, i.e. she’s chasing a wounded officer into a fortified club with only a murder suspect for backup. The uncomplicated days of being a detective must seem like a rosy dream.