‘Nicola Lopez,’ he sneered. ‘I thought that you would have learned to give up the last time you tried to send me down. Lack of evidence, if I recall?’
‘Two years in Cook County being somebody’s bitch, if I recall,’ Lopez replied. ‘Fancy heading back there?’
Dyson’s grim smile vanished as his features hardened. ‘I’m not going back to county, and you got nothin’ on me. You looked around you, Lopez? This ain’t no safe place for a lady.’
Lopez glanced at the cold metal of the overpass above them, the debris and rubbish gusting on the breeze.
‘Perhaps you ought to leave then?’
Dyson burst out laughing and then in a flash a pistol appeared in his hand and he aimed directly at Lopez. ‘No witnesses, no evidence but what they’ll find left of you floating in Lake Michigan.’
Lopez raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and smiled as she tapped the breast of her jacket.
‘Pinhole camera,’ she said, ‘wirelessly transmitting to a recording device in my office. Smile asshole, you’re on camera threatening a bail officer with premeditated homicide.’
Dyson snarl collapsed into a panicked grimace as he hurriedly stuffed the pistol back beneath his jacket and his white eyes sought a route of escape.
‘You don’t got power of arrest!’ he insisted.
‘Not until you pulled the piece on me,’ Lopez agreed as with one hand she pulled a nightstick from inside her jacket. ‘Now I got all the power I need. On your knees, hands behind your head!’
Dyson snarled again as he raised his hands behind his head, and Lopez took a pace toward him as she reached down for a pair of manacles attached to her belt.
The blow came from behind her, something hard and heavy slamming between her shoulders and knocking the breath from her lungs. She crashed onto the cold ground as the nightstick flew from her hand. The weight of a man landed on top of her and before she could react somebody grabbed her wrists and yanked them into the small of her back. She heard a cackle of delight from just behind her right ear and a stench of foul breath as the man on top of her whispered.
‘Bet your camera didn’t see me. Been a while since I had myself on top of a pretty little missy like you.’
Lopez looked up and saw Dyson striding toward her as he pointed. ‘Get that camera off her and shut it down!’
The man on top of her rolled her over and pinned her arms beneath her. Lopez recognised the scrawny face of the man to whom Dyson had sold the drugs, his wild eyes and stained teeth like a row of uneven tombstones between thin lips. The man unzipped her jacket and reached in and Lopez saw his expression change from one of delight to one of lust as his hand moved over her breast and he gripped it tightly. His breathing accelerated and she saw him lick his lips as he looked down at her and then up at Dyson.
‘Man, we could take her.’
Dyson looked down at Lopez and a cruel grin spread across his features, the gold tooth glinting in the faint light.
‘The camera first,’ he insisted. ‘I know where her offices are ‘cause my lawyer had to deal with her bail bondsman crap when he got me out of jail. We’ll go pay a visit when we’ve finished with her and make sure there’s no record of this.’
The scrawny man, his hand still grasping Lopez’s breast, grinned in anticipation as he fumbled in search of the camera inside Lopez’s jacket. He hunted for several long seconds before he frowned in confusion.
‘There ain’t no camera here,’ he said. He pulled on something inside Lopez’s jacket and a microphone appeared in his hand.
Dyson’s gaze moved from Lopez toward her car, which was parked behind one of the massive concrete pillars. From where they were a camera mounted on the dashboard would have had a clear view of both Lopez and Dyson and, if the lens had a high enough resolution, also be able to film the transaction he had just conducted.
‘Clever girl,’ Dyson said as he looked down at Lopez. ‘That’s the thing about you bail collectors: you’re that little bit more cunning than the police. What say we turn that against you?’
Dyson reached down and pushed the scrawny man off Lopez as he drew his pistol again and held it to her chest, then with the other hand grabbed her collar and yanked her to her feet. Dyson shoved Lopez towards her car and jammed the pistol into the small of her back.
‘Keep walking.’
Lopez stumbled forward as Dyson pushed to her car, changing his grip so the pistol was shoved under the small of her neck. They reached the car and Dyson pushed hard again so that her knees cracked against the vehicle’s front fender. Dyson shoved his weight against Lopez and bent her over the hood of the vehicle, and with the pistol pressed to her neck he moved his head next to hers as one hand cupped her chin and lifted her head to look at the vehicle’s windscreen. There, on the dashboard, the camera lens stared unblinkingly out at them.
‘That camera is going to record everything that’s going to happen to you now,’ Dyson snarled. ‘And then I’m going to go retrieve all that lovely footage and keep it, maybe watch it every now and again when I want to remind myself what it’s like to take a chiquita like you from behind.’
Dyson pinned Lopez in place with his weight, the pistol still jammed against her neck as with his other hand he reached down and began trying to fumble with his jeans. She could hear the cackling of his accomplice and the sound of a belt being undone.
‘The camera feed is live,’ Lopez spat. ‘Local law enforcement will be here within minutes.’
‘Minutes is all I need, honey,’ Dyson replied with a grim chuckle. ‘That’s what jail does to you. You reap what you sow, Lopez.’
Dyson shifted position as he reached down in an attempt to unzip his fly, and as his weight shifted off of Lopez’s back she hooked one heel around Dyson’s ankle as with her free arm she pushed hard off the car’s hood and jerked her head backward.
The back of Lopez’s skull impacted Dyson’s nose with a crack as with her left-hand she grabbed the pistol and pushed it away from her neck. With a boot hooked around Dyson’s ankle the big man was instantly thrown off balance and Lopez immediately lifted one boot onto the bumper of the car and pushed hard as she threw Dyson off.
Lopez whirled away from the car in one smooth motion and her right fist cracked across the scrawny man’s sneering face even before he realized what had happened. A spray of grey and broken teeth flew from his mouth as his jaw flicked sideways and he collapsed onto the ground.
Dyson let out a roar of anger and jumped up, one hand holding his jeans up as the other aimed the pistol at Lopez. She spun on her heel and flicked one boot up in a graceful high kick that smashed into Dyson’s wrist before he could get a shot off, and then she lunged in for the pistol.
Lopez managed to get a grip on Dyson’s hand and she twisted savagely. Dyson let out a growl of pain as he twisted in sympathy, his body doubling over as he fought to get hold of Lopez’s face and twist her away. Lopez instantly bit down on Dyson’s hand and heard him scream as he tried to yank his fingers away from her bite. She pulled Dyson up as he twisted away and threw him over her shoulder as she twisted the pistol hard in his grip.
Dyson slammed down onto the unforgiving asphalt as the pistol was ripped from his hand. Lopez stood and aimed the weapon down at Dyson, who stared up at her with features stricken with pain.
‘Assault and attempted sexual assault,’ Lopez growled with grim satisfaction as she stood over the cowering man. ‘That should go down well on film alongside drug dealing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.’
Dyson said nothing but he looked to one side, somewhere behind Lopez, and she turned to see the scrawny man staggering to his feet and holding his bloody mouth, and behind him dozens of men all advancing toward her. Most were wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, their haggard faces bearded and their eyes hungry now for more than just food. Lopez’s shirt had been yanked from the waist of her jeans and her collar ripped to expose bare, olive skin above her right breast, her hair shaken loose into long black veils that framed her face.