Curtis then leaned over Gartner and, using the pocketknife, cut the tape that was wrapped around his head and pulled the gag from his mouth.
"I think we all need a drink," Curtis said. "I know you've got to have something here, Danny Boy."
Gartner made a forced smile. "Sure. Bourbon. Vodka. Gin. What do you want?"
"Where is it?"
Gartner nodded toward a bookshelf across the room.
Will Curtis grabbed the first bottle he saw on the bookself. It was vodka, Stolichnaya, specifically Stoli Razberi. Beside it was a bottle of Jack Black and one of Bombay Sapphire. And next to those were six somewhat clean highball glasses.
As he walked back to the desk, Curtis didn't know what pissed him off more about the vodka.
That it's goddamned Russian, or that it's candy-ass flavored.
Well, maybe the raspberry will make the pills easier to swallow.
Gartner and JC watched Curtis's every move as he splashed about an inch of Stoli into each of two glasses. Then he took from the cellophane packet four of the Rohypnol pills and dropped two in each of the glasses of vodka. There was a little fizz as the pills began to dissolve in the alcohol.
He took the bottle of Stoli Razberi back to the bookshelf, picked up another glass, then the bottle of Jack Daniel's. As he poured, he turned to glance at Gartner and JC.
"If you're getting the clear stuff," Curtis said, "then I'm getting the dark stuff. Wouldn't want to get them confused, no?"
He carried the glass of Jack Black to the desk and set it down. Then he picked up one of the glasses of vodka. He took it over to where Gartner lay on the carpet. Grabbing Gartner by the arm, Curtis got him back up on his knees. Then he held the glass to his lips. Gartner shook his head. Curtis grabbed him by his thinning gray-black hair and yanked back. Gartner's jaw dropped open and Curtis poured in the vodka, then moved his hand under the jaw and closed Gartner's mouth. It took a moment, but Gartner finally swallowed most of it.
He repeated the process with JC, though he had to hit JC on the head with his pistol after he spit out the first glass of vodka. Curtis had then mixed two more roofies with another three inches of Stoli Razberi, then grabbed a stunned JC by his blood-soaked thick black hair and poured the drink down his throat.
Then Will Curtis went back to the desk, sat in the chair, and began sipping from the Jack Daniel's while watching the alcohol-fueled roofies take effect.
And for reasons he did not understand, particularly considering the circumstances, he suffered not one single flashback.
Maybe this is what they mean by finding peace through justice. "Okay, let's go, you assholes."
Curtis didn't expect a reply. Under the influence of the Stoli-Rohypnol mixture, Gartner and JC were more or less out cold. Even when he kicked them in the ass with his boot toe, they barely responded.
For the first ten minutes after he'd forced them to swallow the powerful sedative, he'd watched them slowly get sleepier and sleepier. Gartner faded faster, and Curtis thought that might be because of the cocaine he'd also consumed.
By the time fifteen minutes had passed, they'd basically become incoherent, slurring their words.
After the twenty-minute mark, with them curled up babylike on the carpet, Curtis had felt confident that they posed no problem whatsoever and had gone out to move the car behind the building.
Now, a half hour later, he struggled to get them-very groggy but agreeable, despite their wrists still being bound-one at a time down the corridor and out the back door of the office building. He'd parked the Malibu in the dark alley and left its truck open.
He dumped JC and Gartner inside the trunk, then took the clear adhesive tape and wrapped their heads so that the tape sealed the nose and mouth of both men.
As he watched their bodies begin to convulse at the blockage of their airways, Curtis wondered, Why don't I feel bad about this?
Then-boom!-a vision came of Wendy.
It was the one of her, spread-eagled, bound to the bed with her nylon stockings.
Shit! That's the hell why!
He looked at JC.
Because of what you did to my baby and to whoever else, you miserable bastard.
Then his eyes went to the other bucking body.
And you, Danny Boy, kept him out of jail so that he could.
Kept him and who the hell knows how many other miserable shits on the streets.
Curtis, suddenly furious, shook his head angrily as he took one last look at the pair.
Then he quickly pulled from his pocket two plastic garbage bags he'd grabbed in Gartner's office and covered their heads with them. He took the Glock from his jacket and put its muzzle at the base of JC's skull, angled toward the top of his head, and squeezed the trigger.
The.45-caliber round fired with a loud bang, JC made a primal groan, his legs kicked out straight, and the garbage bag on his head billowed briefly, the top of it moving violently as bullet fragments flew out, accompanied by bits of brain and blood, and lodged in the trunk floorboard.
The pistol automatically ejected the empty brass casing, which flew up, hitting the trunk lid, then landed beside JC's body, near where a dark stream of blood flowed from the bag, staining the white shirt and pooling on the football jersey.
Now you won't be going after those high school girls-or any others.
Then he moved the pistol muzzle to the same place at the base of Gartner's skull and squeezed off another round.
This time the ejected spent casing landed on the concrete of the alleyway. The brass made a tinkling sound in the darkness as it tumbled to a stop against a curb.
Rot in hell, you scum! Will Curtis thought, then slammed down the lid. [TWO] Loft Number 2180 Hops Haus Tower 1100 N. Lee Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:10 P.M. As Matt Payne looked out of Amanda Law's penthouse window, thinking about how much damn truth Amanda had written in his would-be obituary, he took a sip from the beer bottle and swallowed hard.
So then why do I feel the pull to be out there running down those animals?
Because of what else Amanda said, long before writing the obit? That it takes cops like me and her dad to keep the city as safe as possible from the bad guys loose on the streets.
Which she'd told me, more than a little ironically, right before those shits snatched her off the street.
At the memory of finding her bound in the gutted kitchen of that abandoned row house, Payne suddenly felt his throat constrict.
That place wasn't a house. It was a slum, and a fucking prison slum at that.
But there it is: I'll take the door of any place like that a hundred times over. That may or may not make me a good cop, but bagging bad guys is the right thing to do.
Proof of that being that Amanda is alive.
And further proof being that bastard Jimenez is on the fast track to serving a life sentence in Graterford.
Following his arrest at the row house, Jesus Jimenez had confessed to killing twenty-seven-year-old J. Warren "Skipper" Olde over what Juan Paulo Delgado claimed was a bad drug debt. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, Jimenez also ratted out everyone in their small band of thugs in a signed confession.
Payne drained the beer bottle, which helped ease the constriction. Then he grinned as he thought:
Too bad the bastard's about to become somebody's bitch.
Jimenez will hope he gets thrown alone in an RHU. The door to the bathroom swung open and Amanda Law, still starkers, stood momentarily backlit in the doorway.
My God, she's stunning! Matt thought.
"You take my breath away," he said. "In more ways than one, it would appear."
She flashed a sly smile. "That, Romeo, is my evil plan."
She clicked off the bathroom light and said sweetly to the dog, "Good girl, Luna. Lie down."
Then she smoothly and swiftly moved across the dimly lit bedroom, completely comfortable in her birthday suit. It reminded Matt of the second time he'd met her, just last month in Liberties Bar, when she seemed to float effortlessly across the well-worn wooden floor. Clothed, of course, but even then he'd been mentally undressing her.