“Okay,” Spivey said, standing in the abandoned warehouse. “I didn’t say anything in the car, but I feel like I should speak up. You overshot your sheriff’s office by an hour.”
Dani shoved the suspect with the mangled face into a lone chair sitting in the center of the expansive room. The hum of the electric current running through the exposed wires hanging from the ceiling was so loud it made your bones itch. A dozen bare lightbulbs swung about slightly, dangling from the rafters at the ends of shoddy twenty-foot wires.
“Yeah, well, if this piece of shit is connected to the group that shot up our station, I didn’t figure it a good idea to take him there.”
“I get that,” Spivey said. “But this place isn’t anywhere near Baptist Flats.”
“That’s the point,” Dani said.
“Y’all better just shoot me dead,” the suspect said with a cackle. “I ain’t selling out my boys.”
“Kind of figured that,” Dani said. She turned to Spivey. “Law ain’t gonna get nothing out of this dumbass cracker.”
Spivey looked around the abandoned structure and smiled. “I see.” He approached the suspect and said to Dani, “You probably should wait outside while I…question the gentleman.”
Dani laughed. “Yeah, neither of us is going to be questioning this…gentleman.”
Spivey, irritated by her laugh, said, “Making deals and persuading hostiles is kind of in my wheelhouse.”
“I’m sure it is,” Dani said. “But I’m guessing you ain’t muscled anyone who don’t own a closet full of suits and one of them financial portfolios in a long time.”
“Money or no, they all bleed the same.”
The suspect laughed this time.
“What’s so funny?” Spivey said, slapping him in the back of the head.
“That thing you said about bleeding the same. That’s some real tough-guy talk.”
Spivey grimaced and was about to unload on the mangled-faced suspect when the door to the warehouse opened.
“The closeout kings have o-rived,” a fat man said as he entered the building. A taller, skinnier man stepped across the threshold shortly after him.
The suspect who had been amused by Spivey bore a sudden look of terror.
Kenny and Step casually made their way under the first ring of illumination cast by a naked lightbulb.
“Shit,” the suspect said.
“Shit is right, boy,” Kenny said with a goofy grin. “Your day has gone seriously wrong when they call us in.”
Step lit a Porter 100 and tossed the spent match to the cracked concrete floor. “Name?”
“We don’t know his name,” Spivey said.
“That’s why I didn’t ask you,” Step said. “I was talking to shit-for-brains.”
The suspect swallowed. “Duncan.”
“Duncan what?”
“Bradly Duncan.”
Kenny hooted out a laugh. “Carl Duncan’s boy?”
“Yeah,” the suspect said, sounding agreeable.
“How do you like that?” Kenny said. “This is Carl Duncan’s boy. You remember Carl?”
Step took a deep drag from his cigarette before shaking his head. “Not familiar.”
“Sure. Titus Grove. Closed him out about three-year ago.”
Step nodded. “Yeah. Cried like a baby. Pissed himself.”
“That’s the one,” Kenny said.
Dani motioned for Spivey to follow her as she headed for the door. He hesitated. He’d never admit it, but his pride was hurt. He could beat information out of the mangled-faced cracker just as deftly as the two goons she’d called in, but he reluctantly gave in and followed Dani out of the warehouse door.
“I gotta take a shit,” the suspect insisted.
“So take it,” Step said. “You can talk and shit at the same time can’t you?”
“C’mon, man, don’t make me shit myself.”
“Seems fitting. Your daddy pissed himself.”
“Step’s got a point,” Kenny said. “In fact, you’d be outdoing your daddy if you think about it. He’d most likely be proud.”
“C’mon, I seriously gotta take a shit.”
“Ain’t nobody doubting you,” Step said. “Let’s get to the questions.”
“I can’t think! C’mon…”
“Who hit the Baptist Flats Sheriff’s Office?”
The suspect donned a pained look before Kenny jumped back, pinching his nose. “Lordy, he’s shitting himself.”
Step turned his head and held the burning embers of his cigarette under his nostrils. “Good God, boy.”
“I gotta go!”
“Go?” Kenny said. “It smells like you done went!”
“I ain’t. Not all the way. Please!”
“Fuck it,” Step said, moving back. “Take him to the bathroom in the back, Kenny.”
“Me?”
“You ain’t gotta wipe him. Just take him to the back and let him evacuate that shit.”
Kenny groaned and yanked the cracker out of the chair. “I’m always stuck with the unpleasant parts of our work.”
Step walked toward the entrance. “Should have studied harder in school.”
Kenny pushed the mangled-faced asshole in the opposite direction, vowing that this would be the last time he’d let Step tell him what to do.
Step exited the warehouse, pulling a new cigarette from the pack. As soon as Dani spotted him, she hopped off of the hood of her cruiser and approached him. “That was quick.”
“Nothing quick about it,” Step said. “Cracker’s taking a shit.”
Spivey leaned against the warehouse wall, shook his head, and grunted his disapproval.
“Got something to say, asshole?”
Spivey sent Step his best stony glare. “Glad to see you’re making sure all his needs are being met.”
“I’m meeting my needs, friend. I prefer not breathing in the foul odor of shit while I work.”
“He said anything yet?” Dani asked.
Step shook his head as he sparked a new cigarette to life. “He will. I know the boy’s bloodline. He’d sell out his own mother for a beer and a pack of peanuts.”
“Then why is it we need you?” Spivey asked.
“Don’t give a shit what you need. I’m here for Dani. You can fuck off anytime.”
“I’d love to, but I’ve got skin in this game…”
“The ATF agent,” Step said, blowing out a thick stream of smoke. “Dani told me. Fuckhead in there knows anything about her, Kenny and me will get it out of him. But I wouldn’t hold your breath that he knows anything more than a rumor or two.”
“What makes you say that?” Dani asked.
“Because little boy Duncan is low down on the organizational chart. Killing an ATF agent is a top brass move…”
“Killing?” Spivey said, seething. Just as he was about to tear into Step for making such an assumption, Kenny yelled out from deep inside the warehouse.
“Step!”
Step stooped past the doorway and yelled, “We back on?”
Kenny hesitated before answering. “We’ve been shut down! Permanently!”
Spivey, hearing Kenny’s announcement, quickly squeezed around Step and ran toward the sound of Kenny’s voice. He spotted a doorway highlighted by a waterfall of light seeping through the darkness.
Dani followed in a slow jog, while Step kept his pace at a disinterested stroll. Kenny’s message was loud and clear. Their day was done, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Knowing why wouldn’t change that fact.
“Fuck!” Spivey barked when he looked inside the bathroom.
Dani was the next to see what would prevent the further questioning of her mangled-faced suspect. “What happened?”
“The boy didn’t want to answer no questions,” Kenny said, fidgeting in the path of light stretched out from the doorway.
Step finally arrived at the open bathroom door and looked inside. Bradly Duncan sat on the filth-covered green tile floor next to a broken toilet. A metal rod from the tank’s interior was jammed into his neck, and a deep-red stream of blood soaked his shirt and pooled in his lap.