“It’s called Karma, and it’s pronounced ‘ha-ha-ha-ha.’”
From the T-shirt collection of Anna Collins
Sub rosa work sucked. The coffee was always cold, the food was either fast or packaged, and because the food was such crap, the car inevitably smelled of farts.
I mean seriously. Cheese puffs farts were the worst.
At least it was a rental, so the stink saturation wouldn’t be my problem for long. Although at the rate my stakeout of Donnie “Junior” McConnell was going, my clothes were going to need a wash soon enough.
Junior’s apartment was on the fourth floor of a 1950s style cement-block building, with all the charm of a Soviet era gulag. The front gate was heavy and locked automatically, and every tenant I’d seen go in or out had to dart through it to avoid being crushed in the mandibles of iron that kept the place bounty hunter-free. I was pretty sure that all the criminals were on the inside, and even the postal carrier looked terrified of being caught in the jaws of death.
Public records had given me Junior’s parole officer, and he’d given me Junior’s brother’s address. The brother’s imagination as to why a woman would want Junior was clearly limited to sex, so he happily gave me the address where he paid Junior’s electric bill, and here I was.
I considered what I knew about Junior. He was forty-eight years old, born and raised in South Boston. He got popped for the first time on a weapons charge on his seventeenth birthday, and he’d been in and out of prison since then. He’d never married, though some people might consider him good-looking in an alcoholic child star way, and when he wasn’t doing time, he worked in a muffler shop that fronted one of the branches of the Irish mob.
He was also a barfly. So, I just had to find a bar within stumbling distance, and I’d get my guy.
The dive bar was a block away from Junior’s building, and the faded sign out front proclaimed Guinness Beer as the drink of choice in the no-name establishment. I was not a particular fan of Guinness – anything that mixed with Jägermeister was suspect at best. I had learned to sip whiskey when in dive bars where a person was lucky to find wine at all. It was a matter of self-defense when dive bar wine so often resulted in purple teeth. This place looked like a prime whiskey-drinking establishment, so I hitched up my tough girl attitude and strode in the door.
The bartender looked at the door when I walked in, and my first thought was that I couldn’t tell whether her deep wrinkles were from scowling or smiling. “You’re new,” she spat – literally spat on the floor – right before she slid a beer down the bar to an even more wrinkled man sitting at the end. Her voice wasn’t just gravelly, it sounded like the rock tumbler I’d had as a kid that took three weeks of constant grinding to turn out five semi-shiny pebbles. I was so fascinated by her I had to shake myself out of staring to take another step inside.
I was in a no-name dive bar deep in Southie, looking to extract a guy twice my size from a place where he likely had allies.
It was a neighborhood bar filled with an assortment of regulars – a table of young people, a couple of hipsters, a few guys who stopped by after work at the plant or the office, and Junior, lounging at his table, nursing a glass of something amber-colored without ice.
The bartender looked at me expectantly, and her rock tumbler voice sounded almost kind. “The happy hour wine is rotgut, but the whiskey is my brother’s blend, and it’s worth it.”
I wondered if it had given her that fantastic voice. “A whiskey then, please, and one for my friend.” I tossed my head in Junior’s direction, and the bartender’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“That one drinks alone.”
I shrugged and put a twenty on the bar next to the glasses she poured. “Then we won’t be disturbed.”
I took the two glasses without waiting for change and placed them on Junior’s table. Then I spun a chair around backwards and sat down across from Junior. I slid one glass to him and raised my own. “Sláinte,” I said, and took a sip. It was good, and surprisingly smooth. I raised my glass to the bartender and caught her eye. “It’s good,” I mouthed. She harrumphed and moved down the bar to help another customer, and my attention returned to Junior.
He watched me through narrowed eyes. “What do you want?”
“Your brother thought we should meet,” I said with a smile.
His eyebrow raised. “Why would Henry think that?”
“Maybe Eric thought we’d have things to talk about.” Using his brother’s correct name seemed to make Junior let his guard down slightly. He sat back and slugged the last of his own drink.
“What things?”
“Connecticut things,” I said, and took another sip. I watched him steadily; he’d definitely flinched at my words, and his guard was back up at full strength. I sighed and pushed my drink across the table to him. He was going to run, and I didn’t want to get splashed when he shoved the table out of the way.
“So, Junior, how does a guy like you dip his toes into the embezzlement pool? That’s pretty white collar for a Southie.” I deliberately let my accent slide south.
His elbows tensed, and I debated a right dive or a left dive. Then his fingers flexed. I stood up smoothly and pushed the back of my chair into the table to stop it from slamming into me.
He bolted for the door, but I grabbed his coat as he went past me. “Damn it, Junior,” I snarled as he shrugged out of the nylon coat and pulled a chair behind him to block me. I vaulted the chair and accidentally sent a full beer flying from the hand of a guy who stood up to stop us.
“Hey!” he yelled indignantly.
“Sorry. I’ll get your next one,” I called over my shoulder as I sprinted out the door after Junior. He was only about ten paces ahead of me, but whatever whiskey he’d consumed was fueling his rocket engines. Flames had erupted from the heels of his running shoes, and that’s what drew my eye to the fact that they were actual running shoes. They weren’t actual flames, of course, but when he put on a burst of speed, they flared bright orange. Running shoes. Really? Junior was a runner? How very inconvenient of him.
His lead increased to fifteen paces, and I mentally revised my plan. I was younger and not powered by rocket fuel panic, but his legs were longer and he seemed to be one of those strange humans who enjoyed running for its own sake. He could probably hold out a lot longer than I was willing to put into this pursuit.
I once took care of a friend’s young male Australian shepherd, and that lovely, pain-in-the-butt dog herded me all around my apartment. He cut me off and pushed against my legs until I had to either plow into him or veer around him. It was a remarkably effective way for a much smaller creature to dominate a bigger one, and when I saw some guys bouncing a basketball on the sidewalk at the intersection, I had my inspiration.
“STOP! THIEF!” I yelled, in my most terrified girl voice.
The guys looked over at the little blonde sprinting after the big guy, and I saw the moment on their faces when indecision shifted to purpose. Junior did too, because he muttered something unrepeatable under his breath as he changed direction to sprint away from the young guys, who suddenly joined the chase.
Young male herding skills are not to be underestimated.
The direction change sent Junior toward his own apartment building, and I counted on his homing instinct to send him into the safety of it. There was a second when he hesitated, and I sent a silent whisper up to the æther that he choose unwisely. At that moment the door to his building opened and an old woman stepped out. It was the deciding factor. Junior darted across the street and dragged the cell block door of his apartment building behind him. It slammed shut, and the woman stared at the door as if she could see the sound waves still rippling from the force of the blast. The basketball guys turned and shrugged their shoulders at me and walked away. I gave them a quick wave and then sprinted down the alley to the back of the building. During my stakeout in the fartbox I’d killed time by counting windows, so I had a better than fair idea of which apartment was Junior’s. I was on top of the dumpster and up the rusty ladder fast enough to see Junior explode into the apartment and throw a hefty deadbolt on the door he pulled closed behind him. Then he bent nearly double, hands on his knees, and heaved gasping breaths.
I saw all of this from outside the window, and then I heard his muttered curses as his eyes darted around the crappy little apartment. I recognized the signs of a cornered animal, and I’d seen enough of them to be wary. Junior had about fifty pounds on me, plus a hefty dose of desperation, but I had the element of surprise and a pocket full of zip ties. It would do.
He didn’t move away from the door for a solid five minutes while he considered his options. Someone must have walked down the hall, because there was a moment when he tensed and then looked toward the window like he was debating jumping through it, and I had to fight the instinct to duck back. The windows were dingy enough that he would have had to be looking for me to realize the shadow at the edge was human-shaped. As long as I didn’t move, he wouldn’t see me. Eventually, the absence of sirens or door pounding, or maybe just the need to pee sent Junior into the tiny bathroom out of the sight of the window. Of course he didn’t close the door, but the sound of urine hitting porcelain was hopefully enough to cover the slightly bumpy slide of the sash window. I paused outside the window for just long enough to hear that he was still peeing – seriously, how much whiskey had the guy consumed? A moment later I was inside and pressed against the wall next to the open bathroom door.
And still, Junior peed, while I contemplated the American habit of calling it a bathroom, despite the fact that most such rooms didn’t have a bathtub. Or worse, a restroom, where no one in the history of resting would ever choose to rest. Europeans called the room a toilet, which made far more sense to me, but even that concept was strange when considered from the point of a view of a dog, like Boris the Aussie, who always followed me in and inevitably gave me the side-eye when I peed into a bowl inside the house.
Finally, the flush. I readied, and a moment later, Junior emerged, still zipping his pants.
Ick.
Sigh.
I threw my shoulder into him, which sent him off balance into the wall. He put his arms out to fend off the attack, and I grabbed the one closest to me, turned, and flipped him over my shoulder. He landed with a thud and a grunt that signaled the breath leaving his lungs. So, while he gasped air back into them, I rolled him and zip-tied his hands and feet so he was trussed like the marinated turkey he was.
Then I rolled him back over and hauled him into a sitting position so his back was against the wall. His eyes opened wide to see me, and I rolled my own at the shock in them.
“Who’d you expect?” I snorted in disgust as I stood up and went in to wash my hands. I dried them on my jeans rather than risk the towel that hung from a hook on the wall. “Also, gross. You didn’t wash your hands after you used the toilet.”
I returned to glare down at him. “Donal McConnell, you are under arrest for being an idiot.”
“You can’t arrest me,” he snarled.
I sighed. “I just did.”
“Show me your badge.” He was trying to intimidate me, which was pretty funny considering he bore a remarkable resemblance to Thanksgiving dinner.
I smiled. “How about I show you my bail piece instead,” I said, referring to the paperwork that showed that he was a fugitive, and which gave me almost more rights over him than a cop had, since I didn’t need a warrant to be in his apartment.
“I want to call my lawyer,” he huffed, not yet giving in to the inevitable defeat.
I squatted in front of him just out of spitting range and studied the subject of my pursuit. “That’s the thing, Junior. When you signed that little piece of paper at the bail bondsman’s, you gave up your Constitutional rights. You don’t get to speak to your lawyer until you’re back in police custody. In Connecticut.”
The bluster in his voice shifted to something like a whimper. “Come on. I just need to make a call.”
I stood up in one fluid movement, a direct contrast, I suddenly recalled, to the way I’d stood up in my sister’s hot pink silk dress. And with that flash of memory, I felt a sudden, aching emptiness where a Disney prince had once stood right in front of me.
Memory Darius smiled at me before I blinked him out of existence, and my throat constricted with the tears I would never cry about his absence.
I shook my head. “Sorry, bud. You’re worth too much to me to risk with calls to guys named Guido or Mac.”
Junior shook his head. “Nothing like that, I promise.”
“You do realize exactly what your promises are worth, right?” I said, beginning to get exasperated with him. “You signed a piece of paper that said you wouldn’t run, and then you ran. And that piece of paper is why I’m here.”
“I needed to see my mom,” he said petulantly.
I sighed. “Well, now she can visit you in jail.”
“What if I traded information? I’ll give you something the Boston P.D. wants, and you let me go,” he said quietly.
“Not a chance.” I hauled Junior up by his armpits and then immediately wanted to go wash my hands again.
“Call them. Ask them if they want a name for the Gardner heist.” Junior was starting to beg, and it sent ants skittering up my spine.
“Nope.”
“C’mon, Blondie, give me a break. Just let me make a call.”
I patted down Junior’s pockets, removing his wallet and a pen knife, both of which I stuffed in my own pockets.
“Reach in my front pocket and you’ll get a surprise,” he said in a smarmy voice.
I spun him to face me and he almost toppled over. Granted, I may have zip-tied his ankles a little bit too tightly for proper balance, but that was a tactical decision based on relative size. “Be honest, Junior. Has an invitation like that ever worked? Has a woman, when propositioned with a front pocket surprise, ever reached in and said ‘oooh, Junior, give me some of that surprise’? Because I’ve got to tell you, on a scale of mildly disturbing to properly revolting, a pocket surprise in your pants is about as appealing as biting into a hot dog and finding a vein.”
He winced, and I gave myself three points.
“Let’s go,” I said, spinning him toward the door so I could cut the zip tie at his feet.
“Seriously. The Gardner heist. They’re going to want what I know, and you could be the one to give it to them if you play your cards right.”
I opened the apartment door and pushed Junior through it ahead of me. “Or I could take you in, collect my bounty, and then you’re someone else’s problem.”
I could feel his scowl through my hand on his arm, and I stepped back from him so I didn’t accidentally catch his bad mood. I was in a fine mood – cheerful, even. Junior didn’t speak again until I shoved him into the back seat of the fartbox and got in behind the wheel.
“Take me to the Boston P.D. then.” He sounded near tears, and I looked up sharply into the rear-view mirror.
“Why?”
“I’ll make my own deal with them. You’ll still get your bounty if I’m in custody.”
I studied him in the mirror. “Why put yourself at the mercy of B.P.D.?”
He stared back for a long moment, and I had the thought that there was a wrestling match going on in his head. “My little sister tried to commit suicide last month. She hates me and wants nothing to do with me, but my mom’s having a hard time with it, and I’m the only one who can get her to talk about it.”
I closed my eyes against the plea in his voice. “Crap,” I muttered under my breath. “I’m not letting you go,” I said, when I finally started the car.
“Fine. Just don’t take me out of state yet. Mom needs to stay here with Darcy, and I don’t want to leave her alone.”
I started driving. “What’s the Gardner heist?” I said after ten minutes of silence.
The only noise that came from the back seat was the sound of Junior’s snores.