Chapter 1: Reunion

“What do we do with the body?” That wasn’t a question you could easily avoid. I could have tried to ignore it and change the subject, maybe ask a question myself. But, what was I suppose to ask? What could I possibly say that would make him forget about the body question? Certainly the weather wasn’t such a good idea. And just when I thought we could be friends… at least later on.

Come to think about it, it was actually a very rude question. What kind of a friend would ask you that? Who would put such a decision in your hands? Let’s care about the body, not the feelings of the idiot standing beside me. It was rude. I should have told him that. I should have screamed, I… could have cried if I really wanted to, I know I could have.

And who did he think he was, talking to me that way? After all we’d been through, all the cold, the pain… the Margaritas. That was actually a good idea: Margaritas. We should have gone and have some, leave the body issue for some other time; that would have cleared my head.

“Snap out of it and tell me what the hell we should do with the body!”

He was very rude indeed. No wonder he didn’t have a girlfriend. And to think I almost considered him my friend… pathetic. No, he was pathetic. Well, quite honestly, there was nobody more pathetic than Mr. Body here. He didn’t even look dead with those shiny teeth and that friendly smile. Who dies smiling?

Ouch. An my head got hit by an empty bag. Again, pathetic. I guess it really was time for me to say something.

“Let’s go get some Margaritas.” Ouch. Wrong answer. I got the zipper this time. Alright, focus. Dead body, icy floor, almost sunrise, empty bag. And no Margaritas. “Let’s drag him somewhere, away from here.”

I got his feet, I definitely wasn’t going anywhere near those teeth. Billy grabbed the guy by his armpits and started lifting the body slowly while he looked around, probably thinking. The thing with Billy was you could never tell when he was thinking. He just had a frowning look. Possibly a dead nerve on his face or something. Chicks found it hot, I found it stupid.

So there we were, standing in the middle of the frozen lake, holding Mr. White Teeth in the air, waiting for Billy’s frown to come up with some idea, when we heard a clap not far from us.

I lost my balance, almost dropping death right next to Smiley for the electric punch I’d just felt in my heart. I started climbing up his legs trying to find my gravity center again, which wasn’t a good idea. I ended up with my arms wrapped around his waist and my face covered in blood.

My eyes, wide open, started looking through the dark for some sign of what could have caused the clapping sound. It looked like Billy was doing so too, paralyzed yet looking as if he could jump at something at any moment.

We couldn’t see far from where we were standing, not with the weak light Billy’s lamp gave, laying on the floor just a couple of feet next to us. Another clap. It was really disturbing being there, in the middle of nowhere, actually having been there for hours, with no sound other than our own words and steps, and suddenly hearing something so loud and so clear.

Another clap. And another. Five, and ten more. The eco made it hard to know where it was coming from, but now we knew it was coming from someone. I let go of the bloody body, got up and begun searching my pockets. Where did I put it? How could I have possibly lost it just now, when I needed it the most?

Footsteps. Clear footsteps on the snow that soon hit the frozen lake. Someone was coming, but where? I gave up trying to make a thing out of the darkness and looked at Billy. Frown or no frown, he didn’t have a clue either. Could it have been Dr. Hale, following us all the way from the city? Perhaps it was Moon, who got lost, yet again, and thought he could join our party. One thing was certain: there was no way it was Miss Know-It-All, I left her sleeping in her bed right after dinner.

“Bravo,” a deep voice announced. That was a voice anyone would recognize. It was more than deep, it was dark, and no good thoughts came out of that mouth. I should have known it was a lie, he never went to Rocky Island; he was here, all this time.

His name was Detective Julius Brown, and he hated me. I hated him too, with all my heart. Every silver hair on his head, though there weren’t many left, was Darth Vader bad. He had a frown too, like Billy, only his was tattooed on his face after decades of thinking and plotting and deceiving. Yes, he was no good.

“I wouldn’t have dreamed of it,” he continued. “Reeves and Townsend together again, after so many years, and not one of them ends up dead. Sadly we can’t say the same about your friend here,” he looked at the bloody guy, “Is he… smiling?”

Oh good, he noticed. No wonder he was a famous killer hunter.

He was somewhere on Billy’s right, thought it was hard to tell how far. I was still looking through my pockets when I realized I’d taken the jacket off my back right after Billy got here with his now deceased friend.

The feeble light showed a red sleeve a few steps back. I could try and reach it, that’s if I knew exactly where Brown was and whether or not he was aiming at me with something. I shouldn’t have actually doubted that. After all, he’d been waiting for this moment ever since we met in Delaines Alley. He sure had his gun pointing at my face, waiting for me to try and do something. No, the jacket wasn’t an option.

“You shouldn’t have come back here,” Brown said. His voice sounded loud and clear like a deafening gong in the endless silence. He seemed to have noticed that, spelling every word slowly, almost singing. He stopped walking and breathed loudly. “This time you are mine.”

“You are right,” Billy said out of the blue, “You caught us. Here we are and there’s blood in our hands,”

I wasn’t expecting that. What, he was going to describe the scene to him now? Hello, the guy is a freaking bloodhound! He probably knew more about what had just happened that we did.

“You can go ahead and arrest us now, take us downtown. Everyone will think you are a hero. I’m sure they won’t mind the fact that the real murderer here is you. Oh, that’s right: you wiped out every soul who knew about that.”

Well, that was actually smart of him, reminding Brown that we knew about his dark hobby. There was no way he could drag us with him, we’d be a liability. He’d just had to kill us, and we all knew he couldn’t take us both down before one of us got lost in the darkness and reach him first. Of course that meant he would kill one of us… I hoped he chose Billy, I had a better life expectance.

“You’re still as smart as a hammer, Townsend,” said Brown. He was on the move again and it wasn’t long before we could see his shiny black boots on the ice. He stepped into the circle of light that staged our scene and walked right to me. His ragged overcoat covered most of his beaten up body: we could only see half his face, hidden under an ugly hat. His hands, however, were in his pockets.

“Why don’t you let your friend here do the talking,” he continued, still heading in my direction, “After all, he’s the brain of the couple, right?”

I could have taken that as a compliment if I knew he wasn’t comparing me with a cave man. Not that I really needed to be told I was brilliant, that was merely a fact.

Brown had stopped just a few inches away from me, and though I couldn’t see his eyes, I was sure he was giving me the same look he had when he caught me leaving from Santa Clara’s Hospital, fairly wounded, but with a gorgeous brunette on my side. That girl had the longest pair of legs I’d ever seen. And that’s exactly what I told her when we met. She was standing in the middle of the beach wearing nothing but a blue dress and flip flops, waiting for some guy that never showed up, or at least not until we left.

I caught her long black hair in the corner of my eye as I was running away from an angry man I’d pissed off a few moments ago, and that was it. I froze as my head turned to her beautiful body, thinking how on Earth I could have possibly looked at any other woman and call her pretty: her skin was white and opaque just like a shy cloud in the middle of a sunny day. Her eyes were darker than her hair, if that was even possible, crowned with a thick set of eyelashes. Her thin lips were pale and hidden in a smile the sun had forced out of her.

She suddenly realized I was standing close to her, probably drooling, and took half a step back with a curious look on her face. That’s when I dropped my line, just a second before the mad man tackled me down.

I got beaten up in a matter of seconds. Three broken ribs, a black eye with a deep cut underneath, a swollen nose, my whole body covered in bruises and man, I would do it all over again, ‘cause it was all worth it. Of course, she didn’t have a clue why the guy had started hitting me like a punching ball and felt either pitiful or responsible for it, so she ended up walking me to the hospital. If I could just remember what her name was.

“Well?” Brown spoke again, reminding me he was waiting for me to say something.

“What do you want?” I asked with an extremely polite tone as I stood up as straight as I could, looking down at him.

“That’s the way I like things: right to the point,” he answered as a smile started to show on his wrinkled face. “I want you two to get me Toes,” he continued, and words started pouring out of his mouth so fast his lips looked like a blur. “I want you to find him and bring him to me alive. I don’t care if he’s missing a limb or two as long as he can look at me and talk to me. I don’t care what you do to get to him or how many people go down in the process. I want him here at this very spot by midnight this Friday, and before you ask me how I think you’ll do it in time, let me tell you this: that’s not my problem, that’s yours.”

Wow. I don’t… I could have... Wow. Speechless, that’s how I felt.

Actually, I had so many questions and thoughts and no idea where to begin. I felt a ridiculous request coming from him before he even talked, but Toes? The man who was feared by cops and thieves alike? The one who had set a new record of fresh graves in four cities at a time? The guy whose thirst was only satisfied after a bloodbath at the hands of his army of pumped up monkeys?

Toes was the most dangerous person I’d ever met. He was extremely smart and cautious, almost paranoid, but not quite. He was the last person anyone would mess up with. And he was also my uncle.

And why would he want Toes anyway? The two of them had an unspoken pact to stay out of each other’s paths. Anyone could have said they even liked each other: they always shook hands whenever they came across one another; they even laughed together when Brown brought me to the station in triumph so long ago. What had he done? What could make such an unprotected man as Brown was risk everything to get to the toughest criminal this town had ever seen? What had been the detonator? And most importantly, how could…? Giselle! I knew I couldn’t forget her name.

“We haven’t heard your threat yet,” said Billy in a low voice, “Why should we help you?” Brown’s smile got wider. He shifted his eyes slowly to Billy and took a deep breath. “Are you going to tell on us?” Billy continued, “Or will you hunt us down and kill us, like you said last time?”

It was true, that’s exactly what he promised last time. It seemed so deep in the past, having him look at us through the thick glass, screaming with all his might, and the two of us waving goodbye. So what was he going to say now? But Brown had an answer that was going to shock us both.

“I know where Lily’s son is.”

I hadn’t heard her name in months. It was painful to even think about her, about her lost child. It’d gotten worse when we realized there was nothing we could do, when all the money in the world couldn’t get us close to that sweet little boy, and every filthy contact we all could have was worthless in our pursuit.

Lily was the wife of Jacob Turner, a much respected yet extremely corrupted politician whose career had quickly been pressed forward, landing on a well established national designation. His many dirty deals had gained him endless enemies who continuously attempted to end his perfect life and those of his wife and son, Oliver.

Given that he spent most of his time away from the family, she’d had to assign a small group of bodyguards to escort her and the kid wherever they’d go. Lily personally selected three of his husband’s men to be their lead and company: Derek Sullivan, Billy Townsend and yours truly.

Though we went everywhere together, we were not a team: we worked individually and each of us had different responsibilities and different strategies.

Sullivan was Lily’s shadow; he always stood fairly close to her but in the darkness. A master of camouflage, he could blend in anywhere and never be identified as part of the committee.

Billy was the face of the team, the one everyone stared at. With his built up body and daring look, he didn’t even need to suit up and wear black glasses to be tagged for what he was, though he always did.

I was the straggled one, keeping a good distance from the group, analyzing every possibility, thinking ahead.

Sullivan was a lonely character and left whenever he was off duty. The two of us, on the other hand, didn’t have much to do, and soon started to invent our own habits. That wasn’t actually how I met Billy, but it was how we became… well, not friends, but something like that.

One day, after two years of flawless service, we were driving the mom and kid to school when we got intercepted by a large convoy of white vans. A quick shooting started right after our driver hit the brakes, just inches away from the closest of their vehicles. We took some of them down, but we were outnumbered and they soon reached the inside of our car.

Though we shot and kicked and hit anyone we could, three masked men overpowered us and took first Lily and then the boy. They dragged them out of the car and into the closest truck.

As they were closing the back door, I could see Sullivan, who was until then out of sight, darting through their men, getting close to our lost protégées.

In a fraction of a second, he busted the door open, and reached inside with his left hand while holding his gun with the right one, and fired a few times, making a blinding flash every time he did so. He got shot in the chest and both legs, but by the time the convoy started to speed away, he had Lily in his arms, tightly seized. He held her just enough time to wait for the vans to leave; after that, he collapsed on the asphalt, motionless.

For months we waited for some news of Lily’s son. We searched everywhere twice and followed every lead, but there was no sign of him. Nobody ever contacted the Turners with ransom demands, or attributed the kidnapping as their deed to have any leverage on Turner’s parliament decisions. Billy and I were no longer assigned to Lily, and almost a year after the boy was taken, our services were no longer required. I would have given some of my own time to help locate the kid if I knew there was any chance of finding him. Not because of my hard working reputation but because, having worked for Lily Turner so long, I was very attached to her and the boy.

Unlike her husband, Lily was a sweet woman with a golden heart. She obviously had made a bad decision marrying that two-face puppet who was her exact opposite: a jerk with a heart of stone. But, after all, he had given her the one thing she wanted the most: a child. And she loved that child more than anything in the world, more than her own life. This was the reason why nobody, not even us, had ever seen her again after the taking of Oliver.

It was odd hearing about Lily’s son again. After all, the boy had disappeared over four years ago, and no one could dare thinking he was alive.

Personally, and this was something I kept for myself, I thought whoever had kidnapped him had accidentally killed him before contacting the Turners, because, quite frankly, I couldn’t think of any other reason why he would be simply taken. But Brown’s words got me thinking again. What if…?

I looked him in the eyes deeply, trying to read his expression while thinking what to do next. It was impossible that Lily’s son was still alive. It was impossible, but then again, why would Brown come up with something like this now? He was smart, all right, but why would he make something like this up?

Come to think about it, it wasn’t the brightest threat: Billy was grateful to Lily, but felt no debt to her. And he would always choose whatever option would keep him away from Toes. It was definitely not the right means to get him to head off to such a dangerous quest. But Brown must have known he would get to me… And I, as I’ve done endless times before, could persuade Billy.

“What do you know about the boy?” I finally said, giving up trying to deduce what Brown was thinking.

“I know who took him,” he answered looking down as if he was talking to the ice under his feet. “I’d heard some rumors in the past, but couldn’t be sure if they were true, until I saw him with my own eyes.” His voice was flat. As a matter of fact, he sounded remorseful, ashamed. Could he have had something to do with it? Did he owe the Turners in any profound way I couldn’t figure out? Whatever it was, it was getting to my nerves. He obviously knew something I didn’t.

“I know where he is, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know once I get Toes.”

I could have been going mad but he sounded… sincere. What if he was lying? That wouldn’t be far from his normal behavior. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere near Toes without being a hundred and one per cent sure I had a good reason to.

“I have a picture of the boy, Reeves.”

I started to feel the man could actually read my mind.

“I took it last Thursday with my cell phone. I’m sure you’ll understand why I can’t do more than show it to you.” Brown put his right hand on the left inside pocket of his coat and when he pulled it out he held a cheap squared phone that had definitely seen better days. He looked at it for a moment while he toyed with its buttons, looking for the photo of the kid.

After a few seconds his eyes reached mine again, and it looked like he was measuring my intentions. He took a step forward and stretched his arm to get the scratched screen just inches away from my face.

The quality was very poor, but it was clear that I was looking at an older version of Oliver Turner. The three year old I used to know was feebly smiling to me now. His hair was short and a little darker than it used to be. He looked very tired, and had purple circles under his eyes.

For three and a half seconds I had that image in front of me, and after looking at the who, I used the remaining time to focus on the where. 

This was very hard since the picture had been taken from a short distance, which meant that the boy’s face covered most of the frame. It also looked like Brown took it in a rush, since the edges of Oliver’s face were a little blurred. Still, I could see short grass of the brightest green right behind him, and a small shiny dot on each of his eyes, probably the sun since the image was very well lit. There was also something black in the top left corner. Could it be a tier, part of a vehicle? But Brown had taken the picture out of my sight before I could even think of any other possibility.

My head was spinning while I concentrated hard on what I’d seen and heard, and the shock of knowing that there was the smallest possibility that Lily’s son was alive. I tried to focus on the real facts, before I decided whether or not to play along with Brown’s plans.

It was true that the boy was thought dead for years. Even the family had lost hope and stopped searching after a while. Surely Brown wouldn’t have gone after him, he wouldn’t have even bothered following a lead so long after the kid disappeared. That was what an honest cop would have done, but certainly not him. And he couldn’t have just run into him… and recognize him. I saw the resemblance at once, but that sure would have been hard for anyone outside of the family and close friends to see. No, Brown was definitely part of this.

On the other hand, he did sound honest when he said he had only recently known of the truth behind the rumors. This meant that Brown was contacted by someone who either held the boy prisoner, or had something to do with it. But why would anyone invite a detective to their home where they kept an innocent boy captive. This felt wrong. I could see “Trap!” written all over it.

And to make matters worse, everything I was thinking, along with all of the pros and cons of doing something for Brown and getting something in return, was based on the sole assumption of the kid really being alive. Because everyone could take an old picture of the boy and enhance his features to make it look like the image I’d seen. It wouldn’t take a genius to do it, I bet Billy could.

Having been so shocked about the news and taken it so personal, I had put aside the question of Detective Brown’s integrity if we were to make an exchange of favors. I could only wonder if he would return the kind gesture and actually give us some more details about the kid’s location.

But that wasn’t important at that point. What mattered then was to decide whether or not I would accept his challenge. There was going to be plenty of time to think about what we would do with Brown to make sure we had some power over him.

“It’s going to take longer than that to even get to Toes.” I murmured while I exchanged looks with both Brown and Billy.

“You’ll figure it out.” Brown whispered while he tilted his head in Billy’s direction.

“There’s no way…” Billy started saying but he stopped and looked down with his mouth still open as if trying to figure out how to continue. “You just can’t get away with something like that.”

I could notice the fear coming out of his mouth in every single word. He had been close to Toes in the past. He worked for him three years ago in an operation he insisted on calling “Death to go”. As Billy described repeatedly, those were the worst six months of his life. And the way he put it, it seemed like hell on Earth.

Oh yes, Billy was terrified. He couldn’t even hear Toes’ name without having his eye twitching like a fish out of the water. He, of all people, knew how impossible it would be to even get near Toes, and his little army.

But still, Billy was eyeing me from time to time. Would he know how to get to Toes? Did Brown know he did? Was that why he looked at him just a second ago? So many questions. I was stunned, my ears were buzzing, and to make matters worse, I had just remembered I left the camera in Gin’s room. God, I hoped she wouldn’t find it.

“I’ll let you girls come up with your plan now,” Brown started to back away, still looking at us.

It was brighter now, and we all could see the messy picture we were standing on. He must have realized that too, since his eyes met our departed buddy on the floor. "And please, take out the garbage before you leave."