Chapter 2: The Girls Plan

Exactly how I convinced Billy to accept Brown’s demand, I will probably never know. I had to make a few promises myself, and beg a little. But deep down, I think he was in all along.

The kid’s disappearance had affected us differently. I felt my intelligence diminished, something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I was responsible. It was my duty to foresee those things, to prevent them.

I never relied on Billy or Sullivan, not like they could be smarter than me anyway. I did my job thinking I was the only one protecting the mom and child. And before the incident, I had a perfect record.

Billy, on the other hand, didn’t see his honor touched. He simply thought he was the one that was supposed to jump in front of the bullets instead of Sullivan. He was the big guy, he didn’t think, he acted.

Of course, Billy and I had been subdued before either of us could realize the magnitude of what was happening. There was simply no chance of us getting outside of the car. But he was wounded. He should have gone after Lily, he should have posed as her armor. That was his job.

Yes, Billy didn’t need to see the boy’s picture, he’d had enough when he heard his name. He was still pretty shaken about the idea of kidnapping Toes, and mostly focused on how to live to tell the story rather than pulling it off.

Both of us had things to do, so we set off to play our routine characters and agreed to meet again at three at Catalo’s Bar, a place that held lots of memories of our past lives. But before we headed our ways, we had our first assignments set. Billy would reach out to a couple of guys he met back in the old days that were still working with Toes. In my opinion, talking to somebody that close to him was a bad idea, but he insisted they all owed him. Plus, having someone on the inside was comforting for him, so he wouldn’t let me argue with it.

Since I was the smart one, I came up with my own assignment. I was going to track Brown’s activities and try to figure out what he’d been doing, who he was talking to and most importantly, anything I could find out about where he was last Thursday.

Billy, in a sudden inspiration of brightness, had kindly reminded me that Brown was a poor excuse of a man, and that we shouldn’t trust a word he’d said. Still, I thought that piece of info had slipped out of his mouth before he could even think about what he was saying.

I started driving back home, going through everything that had happened. Anyone would think they’d remember killing somebody as one of the most significant events of their lives. They’d think a fresh image of the look in the eyes of the one who was about to die at their hands would flash inside their heads every night, giving them nightmares.

Me, on the other hand, I’d completely forgotten all about Billy’s friend. Last night I had the best meal I’d tasted in months at Ginny’s. We weren’t supposed to stay, we had tickets for the latest chick flick at nine thirty, but things heated on too quickly and we decided to drop that plan.

Virginia Miles was a hot girl I’d known my entire life. We’d been friends ever since I could remember, yet we always argued for the smallest things. We were always picking on one another, trying to make the other one snap. Our friends hated that. It sometimes got physical, and not in the good way. But we were always there for each other.

By the time she first slept with a guy I’d already been with almost half of the volleyball team, and some other girls too. Of course, that first guy happened to be my oldest brother Johnny, something I found out years later, and I still considered that kind of made us even.

That got us apart for some time until we happened to attend to the same Christmas party two years ago. In a second, I’d realized that every fight, every argument, every mischievous plan I’d plotted against her, was simply a reflection of my most secret intentions: to be close to her, to have her attention, and have her thinking of me… even if it meant trying to work out how to get back at me for something.

It suddenly became so clear to me it was painful to my own intelligence. Anyone would have realized the nature of the hostility between us was pure attraction, yet that never crossed my head. She certainly felt the same way I did, both attracted to me and frustrated for not being able to figure it out earlier. And that was how our relationship was reborn into… well, whatever it was now.

Ginny was good for me in a lot of ways. She reminded me of who I was when I needed it the most. No matter what happened, she was always there for me. And most importantly, she was the one constant in my life.

She never knew much about what I did. Partly because I didn’t want her to get hurt, and also because even though I enjoyed my edgy way of living, deep down I’d always been a bit embarrassed of it.

I grew up in a fine family who taught me well, went to good schools and made friends with the right kind of people. But nothing was ever enough. I just had the urge of more.

I’d always been very curious and daring. My two older brothers practically pushed me to that state.

Johnny was a role model. He was good at anything he did, and he was absurdly modest. He had more college degrees than the rest of our family altogether, and he was always giving in some way. Scott, on the other hand, was a showoff. Sports were his drive and he had his own trophy cabinet.

Growing up in their shadow wasn’t easy. It was true that I could have focused my desire to stand out on something less dangerous. I’d always believed I could have won a Nobel if I wanted to, but I chose the easy way.

And this was a perfectly good example. There I was, driving my car in a lonely road, thinking about how on Earth I could kidnap a head gangster only to figure out where a lost boy was being held and risk my life trying to save him and give him back to his mother, who I hadn’t seen in years. Too complicated, even for me.

But enough with that, I really needed to focus on Brown now. He was the key, he held all the questions. Why would he want Toes for? Why would he ask us to do it? Was he involved in the disappearing of the young Oliver Turner? A million ideas danced in my mind.

Brown was always very mysterious and acted as if he was above the law. This alone left endless possibilities to the extent of our problem. In addition, he worked by himself and never cared about any soul other than his. This could explain why he didn’t mind exposing the kidnappers of Lily’s son. But still, there was something fishy about the whole situation.

As I was considering this, I realized I was almost home. I left the highway and took the first road to the left, avoiding the traffic on 1^st Avenue.

I was driving down the street when I realized it was practically deserted, unlike the weekends. This was comforting since it didn’t give me much to think about. I’d always tended to overanalyze things, which often ended up distracting me from what was going on.

A light breeze brushed my hair back through the half rolled-down window as I passed the last intersection and I started slowing down. I parked in the same spot my car was last night, right before I left to Ginny’s.

I got out of the car and crossed the lawn almost running. Even though until then I’d felt no rush, a sudden sense of urgency flooded my mind. I stopped once I reached the door and started going through my pockets looking for the keys. You could tell how full of useless stuff my jeans were just by touching them. A low wrinkled paper sound announced its contents, and just thinking about how many pieces I kept gave me a headache.

I always kept every receipt, wrapping or anything of the sort with me. My mother was very strict when it came to littering and forced me to keep everything with me until I could find a trash bin to dispose it. Of course, I inherited my father’s short term memory for things that weren’t important, which left my clothes and baggage overcrowded with garbage.

It took me a minute to find the front door key, which I remembered was safely stored in the left pocket of my shirt. I got inside and took a moment to breathe before I went back to thinking.

Somehow I realized there were other things going on in my life that I’d forgotten completely about in the last few hours. I had to attend to my niece’s play tonight, and I’d promised Ginny I’d take her with me; it was almost June, which meant I had to start thinking of an alibi to avoid my mother’s annual party, which was too populated for my taste; and last but definitely not least, I had to look for those damned DVDs my boss gave me before she kicked me out. Yet, nothing presented a good excuse for what I was going through right now. After only days of getting back with Billy, I was over my head already.

It wasn’t that Billy was a bad influence. In fact, sometimes I thought I was the bad influence, but that wasn’t true either. The real damage happened when we got together. Somehow that triggered the worst of us. It was like dusting the little demon over my left shoulder and watching it push the sleeping angel on my right one.

Yes, Billy and I did plenty of things together, and the score was scarily against us. I wondered if finding the Turner kid would call it even.

My cell phone started vibrating frantically in my jacket. As I took it out, I noticed my lost weapon hanging heavily in the inside pocket. After all, it was a good thing I found it just now. It would have been a real mess if I’d attacked Brown back on the frozen lake. If I’d done that, I would have never found out Oliver was still alive, nor would I be figuring out how to abduct a feared man whose drive was looking for excuses to massacre people. I would have probably been back at my original plan of getting back what was mine, as I was last night.

The buzzing sound in my hand slapped the thought out of my head. I looked at the caller ID; it was Billy.

“Already bugging me, sweetheart?”

“I got a lead from one of the guys.” He said at once. That was fast. For him, obviously.

“It turns out Toes is on a special treatment for hair recovery, and he has an appointment with his doctor this afternoon.”

I wasn’t even going to start on the hair issue; that would have driven Billy crazy. Instead, I thought I had to focus on his recent discovery and avoid the nagging.

“Too soon.” I sentenced. “We can’t do this today, there’s a lot of research we need to do, I’m not taking any risks.”

“Me neither, but this might be the perfect chance.” He continued. “The doctor’s office is at Silver Palace, and it’s just a couple of floors below Mooney’s office.”

Come to think about it, it was a good chance. We’d been in and out of that building thousands of times. Our good friend, Urban Mooney, had been working there for the past seven years. He had a regular sized office on the eighteenth floor. It even had a window.

Mooney worked at the travel assistance office of GoneTouring Agency, part of the Wholly Group. His only job was to make sure all travel insurance applications were properly filled and delivered. It was an easy job, too easy in fact. Anyone would think he would get tired of doing that after a year, but Moon thought differently. It was a simple job that could be done without thinking, and that’s what he needed.

Once upon a time there was an awkward little family, the Mooneys. Mommy Mooney, daddy Mooney and young Peter Jay lived in a small apartment in the second worst neighborhood of Blarywood City.

Silvia, the mom, was completely deaf from her left ear. She was also slightly paranoid and kept insisting a man in a blue suit followed her to the dry-cleaning every Saturday.

Our friend, Urban, was special. Having three older sisters, he had always been his mom’s favorite and his dad’s pride. This gave him the green light to do pretty much anything he wanted, including what he was better at: nothing.

When we met him he was already married to Silvia, and had the poor girl working all day long while he… did nothing, of course. A little over a year later they had Peter Jay, and Moon stopped being the spotlight and became a thirty-year-old man with no working experience whatsoever and a family to provide to. So when he got his job at GoneTouring he thought he had hit the jackpot. It had no chances of career advancement, and his salary was frozen like a deer in the headlights of a car, and yet, it was Moon’s dream.

Billy and I had been in that office so frequently people often confused us for the agency’s employees… and naturally we took advantage of their confusion on a regular basis.

But that was another story. The fact was that we knew that building like the palm of our hands, which made Billy’s tip worth considering. What wasn’t comforting at all was the short time we had to prepare our plan.

“Let’s pretend we have a flawless plan.” Suddenly I figured I had to think out loud to let Billy into my mind. “It’s Tuesday. How are we going to hold Toes till Friday?”

Silence. I could picture Billy’s frown yanking as he thought of an answer. It was a really good question, actually. Brown made it very clear that he would meet us on Friday, which sounded like he was trying to give us at least some time to pull this off. But what if we had him before then? Should we call him and try to get rid of the package sooner? Would Brown accept this change in the deal?

“You’ll figure it out,” he finally said.

I had to give it to Billy, he wasn’t that stupid after all. He must have known such a compliment would reach that tiny piece of courage I kept hiding, and make me ride with him in this nonsense.

I’ve always been the smart one. How could I argue the guy?

We agreed it was worth taking it into consideration and went back to our original plan: we were meeting at Catalo’s at three.

I looked around and realized I was lying on my bed, toying with the remote. Surely my body had slowly dropped me there while I was on the phone.

The sheets on my bed were all tangled, and the more I searched through them the more I found: an mp3 player, my wireless phone, another remote, which belonged to my CD player… and sweet honey from heaven, Ginny’s lost purple push-up bra. She brought it with her last Saturday, but left braless after what she defined as a thorough search of the entire house. I’d seen the bra and pushed it under the bed right after she checked there. I knew it was somewhere in my room, but this was still a nice surprise.

As I played with Ginny’s underwear I remembered I had things to do. I had to find my laptop and start working on Brown. By this time, I’d had more than enough time to think about Brown’s words. I decided I should avoid the whole trust issue and needed to try and track down his latest activities. The first thing in my priority list was to check for his whereabouts last week and try to narrow down the possible locations where the kid could be held captive. The second, find out what he’d been up to the past few weeks, and try to connect that with the Turner kid.

I went to the desk and confirmed what I was suspecting: the computer wasn’t there. Given the general appearance of my home, this was no shock. I got out of the room and started searching the house. In the meantime, I thought I could save some time and started calling a few friends I had at the police station.

I called Fran first. She worked at the Payroll office, and surely she could tell me about every minute Brown had been on duty.

“He was in all week.” She dragged every word out of her mouth in the most repellent way I’ve ever heard. “I remember because the newbies arrived and he had a lot of work training them.”

She made a pause and I could hear her breathing in excitement. “I might be able to check who he was with on Thursday, but that might cost you a bit.”

Somehow that revolting feeling I had in my throat turned unbearable. I kept picturing Fran’s long curly hair scattered all over her sweaty body, and her droopy eyes looking at me over that eagle nose of hers. But the worst part, the thing that had always kept me away from her, was the thick fuzz over her upper lip. The woman never looked at a mirror.

Anyway, it was time for me to play my part, or else I would have to start digging information from another source.

“Sugar, nothing would please me more than to owe you that much.” Sick freak, I should have been hanged for saying such a lie. But of course, that line combined with my deep tone of voice was a guaranteed success with such a heated female.

An instant later, a keyboard sound announced she was crazily looking for something, anything useful that would give her the excuse she was after.

“On Wednesday he had Officer Gates go with him to a crime scene at Moira Valley. On Thursday…”

Her sudden silence was not encouraging. “That’s strange,” she meditated, “I have no record of his whereabouts on Thursday.”

That was it. That was what I was looking for: a blank.

“I do know, however, that on Friday he was back with Gates, at least until noon. You know he takes Friday afternoons very seriously.” She made a snorting sound louder that should be allowed and giggled like a teenager.

“So I guess this is all I can tell you.” Her voice was back on lugged mode. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine some hot chick before I replied.

“I owe you, baby.” Disgusting. “I’ll stop by next week and make it up to you.” Ha! What she didn’t know is that I wasn’t probably going to make it till the weekend. But that wasn’t funny for a number of reasons.

I started forgetting her words as they traveled to my ear. And with good reason. So far, I’d asked Fran simple things, the kind that can be made without feeling guilty. In exchange, I’d let her flirt with me and feel better about herself. I was a hero, no man would willingly act the way I did with her.

I went to the kitchen and drank what was left of the orange juice I had in the fridge. This whole situation got my mouth dry.

The good part was that Brown went to work on Wednesday and Friday. This meant that whatever he did on Thursday, wherever he went, it wasn’t far away. I had to check with Ali, my good friend at the airport, and beg he could find out if the Detective’s name appeared on any manifest. Knowing that meant rolling out a lot of places.

But before I drifted away again, I thought I should call Gin and let her know we had to cancel tonight’s plan. Otherwise I would have probably forget all about it and stand her up… again.

I still had my phone on my right hand so I might as well got it done with. She was the only person I had on speed dial.

After a few rings her voicemail popped up. I wondered if she was still sleeping. She didn’t like sleeping late; she loved sleeping but knew she could just lay on her bed all day long if she didn’t find the will to get up. Of course, nobody could have blamed her if she used a few extra hours to recover; after all, we’d had a crazy night.

I thought about leaving her a kinky message referring to our recent adventures, but I gave up on that idea as soon as I heard the beep. Instead, I smoothly said that I couldn’t make it tonight and that she should go out and have fun on her own. It wasn’t a detailed message, but then again I knew she was going to understand. That was another good thing about Gin: I didn’t need to come up with any excuses.

All of a sudden, I realized I was starving. I wasn’t just hungry, my guts were screaming for loads of food, fast. I turned around again, facing the fridge. Obviously, that wasn’t a good idea. As a good old bachelor, my refrigerator was full of useless junk. The best thing I could have hoped for was finding some leftovers from God knows when and cross my fingers, but something told me I had to look somewhere else.

I took a quick shower and put on my best pair of jeans and a white shirt. As I searched for my snickers I noticed a black suitcase under the bed. I probably would never know how it got there, but at least I’d solved the laptop mystery.

With my Toshiba under my left arm and my jacket half on, I closed the door behind me and started walking East. It wasn’t even one o’clock yet, but I decided to eat at the bar when Billy and I had agreed to meet and save some time.

As I order the first thing I could think of, I placed my computer on the table and started digging through last week’s newspapers. A few articles caught my attention when I searched for crimes perpetrated late last week. The first one was a frustrated robbery at a local supermarket that ended up with a dead criminal and another in the ICU after a cop furiously opened fire to them.

The second one was described as a crime of passion: murder-suicide. The deceased couple lived in a little town a few miles from here.

Even though the third one didn’t qualify as a crime, somehow I felt I had to go over it. There was a small picture of a car crushed against some trees and a Do Not Cross sign. It read there were three adults and a child inside the crushed car, and nobody made it out alive.

They were presumed to be going on a short getaway, police informed, although they didn’t bring with them more than a backpack with the girl’s school books. They couldn’t find any reservation made under any of their names in the nearby and not so nearby hotels either. Tire marks suggested the vehicle had turned right abruptly a few feet away from the crash scene. After further investigation, the forensic concluded there were rests of a recreational drug on the driver’s system, though there was no formal statement.

I read the article about four times before sitting back to think. I noticed the waitress leaving my table just then. Good timing.

I must have finished the sandwich in three bites, I was really hungry. I thought about ordering another one, but that thought abandoned my mind as soon as I remembered the article.

A few things didn’t add up. For once, the kid heading out of town in the middle of the week was fishy. The fact that she carried her backpack with her probably meant she’d suddenly left school.

The driver being high, on the other hand, was odd too. The paper didn’t say anything about the others being clean or not, but with two other adults in the car, chances are at least one of them should had been able to drive.

Finally, for the vehicle to have left such intense marks on the asphalt it had to be speeding the devil out of it, not the traditional way of skipping town for a short vacation.

Perhaps I was being delusional. After all, I was really hungry when I read the news for the first time and I still had the Margaritas thumping my liver. I figured I had to wait until the food kicked in.

I used the spare time to make the calls I’d delayed earlier. I found no useful information, but at least I got to discard some possibilities. As I suspected, Brown hadn’t boarded any flight in at least the past 10 days, which meant wherever he went had to be at enough driving distance for him to be back at least on Friday morning.

My other informant at the station was a junior detective who had worked next to Brown on some occasions. We’d grown up in the same neighborhood, a little fact Brown knew nothing about, probably because the only thing we shared back then was a couple of twins: Sheila and Shona. The girls looked exactly the same, and they both liked to party as… well, as I did, probably.

The stories we had together were… distracting enough for me to deviate my thoughts, hence I took those brunettes out of my mind and tried to concentrate again. Maybe another sandwich.

The chair in front of me made a sharp sound against the wooden floor. As I looked up I saw Billy all dressed up sitting down. Was it three already?

“Is it three already?” I repeated, out of my head this time.

“No,” He replied tilting his head as if he was trying to swallow a big pill. “I needed to grab a bite.”

I could see those Margaritas blurring his mind too.

He hurried the ordering and after doing so, he checked nobody was close enough to even have an idea of what we were talking about. Then he relaxed –all but his frown, of course.

“What do you have?” He asked -poker night flashback.

For the first time in my life, I felt smaller than Billy. He’d found a lead, a good one, in little time, while I’d come up with barely useful data that didn’t point us in any direction, it just told us where not to look, and it wasn’t very specific. And I even had to flirt it out of Furry Francine.

I told Billy about my conversations and my thoughts while he just looked at me and nodded every other time. When I was done, he waited in silence looking through the closest window.

“Have you thought about what I said?” He said anxiously after providing me with a decent amount of time to believe he was digesting my inside information.

I exhaled loudly in disapproval. But I’d given up defending my speech; next to Billy’s founds it was almost worthless.

“I have.” I said looking at him. “I still think we have little time.”

“I thought about that too,” he replied quickly taking some kind of paper out of his pocket, “so I figured we had to start on it right away.”

He stretched what looked like a map a ten year old had drawn on the table and started pointing at different parts of the drawing with a pen.

“This is the building. “ He started. “Here’s Moon’s floor, and here’s the practice of Dr. Richards.” He pointed at two large squares separated from a bigger one on the middle. “There’s only one entrance to the Doctor’s office, which is here. It leads to a large reception. There are two assistants at the front desk, one that takes care of the phone and the doctor’s schedule, and the other one welcomes the patients and gets them through.”

It looked like Billy had done a good job finding out everything about our destination. The picture, though silly, included what seemed to be every door, window, hall and room of the seventh floor. Even the chairs were numbered.

“The first room on the right is where he takes the consults. It’s connected to the sterilized room where he performs the treatment Toes is getting, among other things.”

As Billy explained the functions of every corner of Dr. Richards practice, I started picturing a plan in my mind. There was enough to work with, and soon enough the sketch started whispering its flaws to me.

First of all, there were three rooms which were all connected and each one of them had a reason to be locked and keep people away. This would provide us with the opportunity to somehow maneuver Toes and not raise suspicion.

Then, there was the doctor’s staff. As Billy had delightfully explained, besides the two receptionists there were three other employees: the doctor’s personal assistant, an anesthesiologist and an intern. Each one of them a different opportunity we had to gain territory and infiltrate ourselves into the office.

At last, there was the lack of security in the floor. The building itself was extremely well protected. It had eight guards at the lobby, two metal detectors at the front and back entrances, dozens of cameras in every elevator, hall and stairs, and alarms on every office that summoned another four officers that patrolled through the building in a matter of seconds.

But the Doc’s office had no defense whatsoever, and that was essential. That meant that we only had to worry about Toes’ bodyguards, and that we seriously had a good chance.

I took the pen and started scrabbling on the piece of paper while I put together a few ideas I’d came up in the last few moments. I realized I’d interrupted Billy when I did this, which was strange since I hadn’t heard a word out of him in the past several minutes.

I was on my game and it felt just fine. Everything started falling into place as if the answer had always been right in front of us, plain and simple. And Billy was himself once more, staring at the mastermind in silence.

By time we were supposed to meet at the bar, we were heading out and into my car towards Silver Palace with a thorough plan and a couple of beers.

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."