“Which leaves a chunk of cash still unaccounted for, Tice’s crew beefing internally, and now, suddenly, a power vaccuum,” Agent Farmer said. “If Briggs and Salcedo are suddenly open to talking business, maybe we can work toward developing a line on their product source in Chicago.”
Worth said, “What makes you think they want to talk business?”
Agent Terry Farmer looked at him casually. He had an average build, a level manner of speaking, and a vaguely outdoorsy air.
Worth looked at him back.
“Just speculation,” Farmer said. “Either way, Officer, here’s your chance to convince some people you’re one of the good guys here.”
“Not that there are doubts, right?”
Farmer gave him a smile that could have meant just about anything.
“Okay,” Detective Granger said. “Let’s go run it down.”
They all filed out: Vargas first, followed by Granger and Torres. Followed by Special Agent Farmer, who carried the duffel bag Granger’s team had dummied up with department cash based on consultation from Derek Price.
The audio guy stayed behind, packing up gear.
Down the hall the rest of them went, to a meeting room filled with more cops. Detectives, officers, commanders. A sergeant from weapons and tactics. Terry Farmer’s crew from the DEA.
In their midst sat an off-duty checkout girl, looking pale, out of place, and alone. Worth smiled and joined her at the table, a hell of a grocery bagger if he did say so.
There was a lot Tony Briggs could take.
Pain? No problem. Stupidity? Sure. Bullshit? Went with the job.
He’d soothed crack babies and been puked on by drunks. He’d taken his ration of shit from pencil-necks. Death, dismemberment, blight, decay: Welcome to his and Ray’s little corner of the world.
But he couldn’t take the sight of Aunt Joanie.
She’d made it all the way through until dinner before the weight of the day finally brought her down. The shock, the heartbreak, the disbelief. The flat-out indignity of it all.
Thirty years together, her and Eddie. Half a lifetime in the foxhole, back to back. It hadn’t always been pretty, and it hadn’t been perfect, but they’d stuck together through sunshine and shit. Thirty years of working, fighting, worrying, laughing, crying, raising their kids.
And it all came down to this:
Eddie, shot in the head. Her husband, shot to death sitting in his chair. Murdered in his office at two in the morning with his cheap little office whore.
Tony stayed with the family at Uncle Eddie’s big house in Gretna until the place cleared out, long after dark. A little after 10 P.M., he left his mom and his cousin Carmen with Aunt Joan, his pager number, and enough Xanax to knock down a horse.
He made it back to the apartment by ten-thirty. He stripped down and took a scalding shower, and by 11 P.M., he was almost ready to go.
Tony dressed in jeans, a black sweatshirt, and mid-top boots. He laid out a selection of equipment on the bed. After debating a minute, he picked up a Beretta Tomcat, secured in a pocket holster.
It was a palm-size .32, easy to conceal. Good for tight spaces. He flipped the barrel and checked the load.
He took off the safety with his thumb.
Then he turned fast, leveling at the footsteps behind him.
Ray Salcedo stopped in the doorway, showing his palms.
“Yo,” he said. “Go easy, Crockett.”
Briggs grinned and lowered the gun. “You don’t knock anymore?”
Ray was still decked in his patrol gear, mobile radio turned down low. He slipped his lock picks back into their leather sheath, snapped the flap, put the case back in its spot on his belt.
“I knocked for ten minutes.”
“Guess I was in the shower,” Tony said. “How was shift?”
“Nice and quiet.”
“Catch any bad guys?”
“Gave ’em the night off.” Ray strolled in, glancing at the bed. “How’s your aunt?”
“Deeply tranquilized. You ten-seven?”
“Not yet. On the way now.”
Tony nodded slowly. “So what’s up?”
“I don’t know,” Ray said. “You want to tell me?”
Tony faced him and said nothing. No point insulting anyone’s intelligence.
“You left the phone we’ve been using to call the Mullen girl in my truck,” Salcedo said. “I checked the outgoing numbers before I posted on shift.”
“No shit.”
“Last call I made was last night.”
“What’s your point?”
Ray nodded toward the belly gun in Tony’s hand. “Going out?”
Tony chuckled, tossed the Beretta back onto the bed. He pushed by Ray and went over to the dresser, grabbed his wallet and watch.
Ray said, “I thought we were on the same page.”
“Don’t worry, partner,” Tony told him. “You still get your share.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
When Tony came back over, Ray stopped him. One hand to the chest, five fingers spread. Like stopping some punk trying to duck a scene.
Tony looked down at Ray’s hand for a long time.
He finally looked at Ray.
31
The irony was that just about every piece of furniture in the whole damned apartment had come from Uncle Eddie at one point or another.
The bedroom set, the kitchen table. The leather recliners and the sofa sleeper. Not only the stereo system, but the cabinet where the stereo system lived.
So maybe he’d only gotten the forty-two-inch television. When you got down to it, Uncle Eddie had done pretty well by his favorite nephew over the years.
He and Ray made a mess out of all of it. Out of the bedroom, down the hall, into the living room. They chopped and gouged and grappled, Tony in his street clothes and Ray in his uniform, throwing fists and elbows where they could.
Ray caught him with a short uppercut. Tony’s head popped up but he rolled with it, slamming his elbow into the back of Ray’s head.
Right on the funny bone. His fingers went numb. Ray stepped back and threw his weight. They went over the couch.
The bitch in the apartment below pounded on her ceiling. Tony pounded Ray in the ear. Then he got caught with his legs in a twist, and Ray found a gap.
He scrambled around, driving his knee into Tony’s cheek. Once, twice, three times.
Tony took each shot full force. He couldn’t make a move to evade. By the third shot, he felt his vision start to wobble.
He tried to roll over, but Ray had capitalized. He hooked up an arm lock and cranked it, powering Tony over, onto his face.
Tony reached across, grabbed Ray’s thumb. He pretended he was twisting the cap off a beer bottle.
Ray punched him in the side of the head.
Right in the goddamned stitches.
When Tony didn’t let the thumb go, he did it again.
“Motherfucker,” Tony wheezed. He threw his head back but didn’t connect with anything. He bucked, putting all his strength in it, and tried to twist.
Ray shifted his weight and drove him back down.
“Eddie wanted to be a player,” he said. He used his leverage, driving Tony’s face into the carpet. He was panting, but not as hard as Tony. “He got to be a player. Right? You said that shit yourself, man. Think about it.”
Tony couldn’t move. His whole head was throbbing, and his arm couldn’t go over much farther without tearing out of joint.
He drove with his feet, but Ray hooked a leg and bore down. Tony’s shoulder popped. Slowly, he began feeling the edges of the answer to the question he’d always wondered about but never had reason to ask.
Fair fight. No holds barred.
Could he take Ray?
“Okay,” he said. He spat blood, dragging in a breath. Let himself go limp. “Fuck, dude. Okay.”