Desperate Souls (16 page)

Parked once more across the street from the Polo Grounds, Gary and Frank noted that a new corner boy had replaced the one they abducted. His gaunt features made his pronounced brow appear Neanderthal.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” Frank said.

Gary scanned the front yard. Dozens of scarecrows sauntered across the asphalt. “The zombies are dealing Black Magic to the scarecrows. Prince Malachai is using zombies to push his shit.”

“Saves on payroll,” Frank said.

“Maybe the Magic turns the scarecrows into zombies.”

“No doubt.”

A silver Grand Cherokee pulled over to the curb closest to the projects. The new corner boss lumbered toward the vehicle.

“Bingo,” Gary said.
Delivery time.

The corner boss leaned inside the vehicle’s open passenger window, then turned around and returned to his station. The Grand Cherokee pulled into traffic.

“How much you think that package is worth?”

Gary started the engine. “Not as much as the driver of that vehicle.” He followed the Cherokee a couple of blocks before setting his portable siren on top of the roof of the car and activating it.

The Cherokee’s driver immediately pulled over, and Gary motored the unmarked car into position behind it. A number of pedestrians glanced at them but kept walking. The detectives climbed out of the car at the same time and approached opposite sides of the Cherokee. Rap music blasting from the vehicle faded, and the driver regarded Gary from behind dark shades through the open window.

Gary held out his shield in his left hand, his right hand resting on the butt of his Glock.

“What’s the problem, Officer?”

“Detective.
Take off your sunglasses, please.”

The man removed the sunglasses and held them in his right hand, visible on top of the steering wheel. He wore his hair in cornrows tight to his scalp.

“License and registration.”

Rolling his eyes, the man reached inside the CD compartment for his wallet and handed his driver’s license to Gary.
Leon Jennings.
Gary recognized the man by his street name GQ, one of Prince Malachai’s chief lieutenants. GQ leaned across the seat and reached for the glove compartment. His body tensed when he saw Frank standing outside the passenger door. Recovering, he gave the registration to Gary, who barely glanced at it.

“Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?”

GQ sighed. “Would you mind telling me what I did wrong?”

Gary remained deliberately impassive. “Get out of the car, GQ.”

Weary anger flushed the drug dealer’s eyes. “Man …”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” GQ opened the door and got out. He stood six feet two, just like his license said, and wore a sky blue muscle shirt.

“Turn around.”

“For
what?”

Frank circled the front of the Jeep. “For dropping off that package back there.”

GQ sucked his teeth. “Man, I didn’t drop off
nothing.”

“Our video camera begs to differ.”

“How do you know what was in that package? Maybe it was just some Betty Crocker cake mix.”

Frank stepped forward and took out his handcuffs. He looked comically small next to GQ, Gary thought. “Turn around so we can put these on, or we’ll make you put them on yourself the hard way.”

Shaking his head, GQ turned around. “This is bullshit.”

Frank snapped on the cuffs.

“I know you guys. I’ve seen you around. I know your rep. How much to let me walk?”

Setting one hand on GQ’s right shoulder and guiding him toward the unmarked car, Gary said, “Not today, Leon. This is city business.”

“This is
bullshit
.”

They took him to the same decrepit house.

“I don’t see no precinct house,” GQ said.

“You aren’t going to, either,” Frank said, leering into the backseat.

They guided him inside the house.

“Oh, man …”

In the basement, Gary saw GQ stiffen at the sight of the inanimate kid on the floor.

“Ah, shit.”

“Don’t pay him any mind,” Gary said.

They led GQ to the other side of the basement, and Frank leveled his Glock at the man.

GQ closed his eyes, possibly in prayer.

“Yeah, this is not your lucky day,” Frank said.

Gary unlocked the handcuffs. GQ gave him no trouble as he threaded the cuffs over a ceiling pipe and secured the captive’s hands above his head.

“No begging,” Gary said. “I like that.”

“Oh, he’ll beg,” Frank said, holstering his weapon.

GQ regarded them with his eyes surrounded by white. “What do you want?”

Gary raised one finger to his lips. “Shhh …”

Frank picked up the shovel from the floor. “Don’t say anything yet.”

Sweat beaded on GQ’s forehead and trickled down into his wincing eyes. “Oh, fuck …”

Frank swung the shovel sideways, like a baseball bat. The blade bit deep into GQ’s left knee, shattering ligaments, cartilage, and bone.

GQ let out an agonized wail absorbed by the basement walls.

“This one bleeds,” Frank said.

Although both the morphine and the sedative had worn off by the time Jake’s train pulled into Penn Station and the crippling pain had returned to his back, he felt better just being in Manhattan. Limping through the enormous train terminal, he could not wait to reach the Seventh Avenue sidewalk, which faced Thirty-fourth Street. In the shadow of Madison Square Garden, he inhaled the rancid odors of garbage bags piled to a ridiculous height at the curb—the result of a sanitation workers’ strike, now in its second week—and took out his cell phone. Men clad in rags surrounded him with outstretched hands, and he turned his back on them.

“Hello?” Larry answered on the second ring.

“What the hell was in that shot you gave me?” Jake said through clenched teeth.

“Morphine. Just like I told you. Why do you ask?”

“Because I had hallucinations you wouldn’t believe inside that MRI machine.”

“People sometimes react badly to those. I thought you were made of tougher stuff, though.”

“I didn’t have an emotional reaction to the machine, you son of a bitch. Something was in that shot. The same thing happened on the LIRR on the trip home.”

Silence on the phone for a moment. “Did they give you anything at the clinic?”

“Yeah, a sedative of some kind.”

“Pill or injection?”

“Another shot.”

“Well, there you go. What did they give you?”

A wave of pain radiated from Jake’s left hip. “I don’t know. I didn’t write it down.”

“They must have given you paperwork.”

“It wasn’t the medication, Larry. They gave me that shot
after
I got out of the MRI. It couldn’t have been a contributing factor to what happened inside the machine.”

“Were the hallucinations the same in both instances?”

Jake bit his lip.
Damn it.
“No.”

“Then your theory doesn’t hold much water, does it? Let me ask you something: did you ever drop acid during your wilder, crazier days?”

Jake ran one hand over his sweaty face. “No. I never got high before I joined Homicide, and you know I was strictly into blow. I’m not suffering LSD flashbacks.”

“What did the MRI show?”

Jake’s stomach tightened. He didn’t want to say. “The pictures were inconclusive.”

“What do you mean? They either showed spinal injury or they didn’t.”

“They didn’t show anything.”

“So you made me drive you out to the island practically at gunpoint, where you suffered some hallucinations, it turns out there’s nothing wrong with you, and this is somehow
my
fault? I’m not in the habit of spiking my patients’ treats. It’s too expensive, for one thing. For another, despite the occupations of many of my patients, I do have ethics.”

Jake took a deep breath and let out a slow sigh. “I have to get going. It’s killing me to stand out here.”

“Call me tomorrow.”

“Right.” Shutting down his phone, Jake limped between homeless people to the street corner and raised one hand in the air. “Taxi!”

A yellow cab materialized in front of him, followed by another. These days, few people could afford private transportation. He eased himself into the backseat of the sedan and swiped his credit card through the slot.

“Where to, mon?” a man with a Jamaican accent said.

Jake gave him the address, then turned on the TV recessed in the back of the front seat. Soap operas, game shows, and doom and gloom financial forecasts. On New York One News, an update on the Black Magic epidemic.

Dark days,
he thought, holding back tears of pain as he bounced around inside the cab.

Staring out the window, sunlight highlighting the dirt on the glass, he felt alone. He had been alone since before Sheryl’s murder. As desperate as he had been on the morning when he had inserted the barrel of his Glock inside his mouth, threatening to blow out his brains as his father had, he felt worse now. Because now he was afraid to die. Now he believed in some form of afterlife, and he feared the revenge that the demon Cain would take on his soul … forever. The angelic Abel had told his brother that Sheryl had purged Jake’s energy of his sins, but Jake felt in no hurry to prove him right.

How had he landed in another fantastic situation? Seeing the scarecrows haunting the sidewalks, he knew the truth: he hadn’t become embroiled in the situation; it was all around him in every neighborhood and on every street corner, like a plague.

Who could he turn to for help? Who would believe the unbelievable tale he had to tell?

No one.

Edgar parked in front of a Brooklyn apartment house in the middle of the block. A working-class neighborhood, feeling the pain of an uncaring economy. Groups of young men—he hesitated to call them boys; they hadn’t known boyhood innocence for who knew how long— gathered at all four corners. Garbage stained the sidewalks, and potholes scarred the street.

“You okay?” Maria said.

“Yeah. I grew up around here. The place has changed a lot. I thought it would get better, but it’s way worse than I remember.”

“Brooklyn boy, huh? I had you pegged for the Bronx, like me.”

“I spent some time on the Grand Concourse, but this was definitely my turf.”

Getting out, he surveyed the houses on each side of the street. All of them looked the same to him: peeling paint, siding in need of repair, chipped concrete steps, graffiti scrawled on the walls facing driveways. Even the sky seemed gray here. They passed two RPM cars, an unmarked squad car, and a coroner’s van. The mainstays of any homicide scene.

A PO holding a clipboard stood in an open doorway.

They showed their shields to him. “Detectives Hopkins and Vasquez,” Edgar said. “Special Homicide.”

Nodding, the recorder wrote down their names on his clipboard. “Second floor.”

Edgar went inside first. He liked to walk through all doorways first, so that if anyone faced unexpected danger, it was him. Maria had complained that she wanted to take her share of risks, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The world had changed for him when the Cipher had murdered Sheryl Helman. He knew Maria could handle herself, but he saw no reason to take unnecessary chances. Against his better instincts, he had grown to think of her almost as a younger sister more than a partner.

His vision adjusted to the darkness, and he climbed the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor, followed by Maria. They entered the open apartment, nodding to another PO and the pair of Detective Area Task Force detectives inside. He didn’t know either of the men, something that occurred only when he was called to a crime scene outside Manhattan. But he recognized the dark stains on the apartment walls: blood.

“You Hopkins?” the Chinese man said.

Edgar nodded. “And Vasquez.”

The man thumped his chest. “Chang.”

The heavier set man raised his latex-gloved hands. “Manelli. I’d shake your hands, but…”

Edgar pulled on his own pair of gloves. “No sweat. What have we got?”

“Carmen Rodriguez and her grandson Victor. Both vics were dismembered.”

Edgar swallowed, a rare reaction of discomfort. He took homicides in stride, like a professional. He never allowed them to eat him up inside like Jake had. But Edgar had been raised by his own grandmother, a Baptist, after his teenage mother had run off to L.A., never to be heard from again.