Eighteen

It was the first time that Mallen had seen this much H outside of the stuff they’d showed him during his training, so he’d be able to recognize it. Six wrapped bags that strangely reminded him of six wrapped hoagie sandwiches. He’d been moving up in the ranks, slowly but steadily. He had been a wheel man for a little bit but had shown smarts during what had turned out to be an ambush, not a “meeting of the minds.” He’d also had to stand guard, but only outside whatever building the meet was going down in. He’d done that with his usual attention to detail. No mouthing off or attitude. It was shit like that, just doing his job and paying attention to the details, that got him noticed for his current duty. It’d been a long haul, that was a fact, but here he was: inside with the buyers and sellers. This was his first eyewitness account to any sort of buy this large, but this was why he’d opted for the detail. Why he’d chased down the chance to do undercover work. This was Serpico. This was the French fucking Connection, man. This was the job. Right here, right now. He was inside. It’d taken a long time, but he’d made it. And now he was looking at a boat-load of death, sitting there on a folding table inside an abandoned store front in Potrero.

Jonesy, another soldier, stood to his right, shifting nervously from his bad leg to his good. Mallen knew it hurt Jonesy to stand for too long, victim of a stray bullet during some fucked-up assassination attempt on the boss man Franco that had ended with a lot of guys dead on both sides—and an unscathed Franco. Jonesy had taken one for the team, trying to defend his boss. Franco had granted him inner court after that, almost taking him to his breast. Mallen thought it was almost cute, in its way, how it really felt like some old world court, with kings, bishops, advisors, and, of course, pawns.

But he was no longer a pawn. He felt like a rook now. Maybe he could parlay that into becoming a knight. He stood there and looked down at the table containing enough horse to set him and Chris up for the rest of their lives in some South American country. He’d proven his worth, although not like Jonesy. No, he’d been diligent, smart, and had only spoken enough to give good advice when he knew for a fact that the department had told him when and where the raids were going to go down. He’d played it like he was just a whiz kid, moving with his gut instinct. He’d appeared to those around him as a guy who could see the playing field and adjust accordingly, even as the shit was hitting the fan. That had impressed.

And it had led him here.

Franco’s buyer in this scenario, a guy named Two-Bit, checked the merchandise. Ran the test to see how good the horse could run. It ran quite well. Two-Bit nodded to his assistant, a huge black dude who ran by the name of Wall. Wall then held out a plastic Safeway bag stuffed with neatly counted out bills, rubber banded together in one-thousand-dollar amounts. The other side of the buy, the suppliers, were a bunch of little Mexican dudes. They sent one of theirs to collect the dough.

And that was when it all fell apart. Just as Wall let go of the bag and the other side took possession, there was the sudden concussive sound of a tear gas gun going off. Mallen knew it immediately, as he also knew immediately that shit had just blown up in his world. The cops were not supposed to be here. This wasn’t one of the staged buys, set up so they could help him get higher up the chain.

This was now, as the colloquial phrase runs, fucked all to high heaven and back.

Suddenly it was every man for himself. No one wanted to be anywhere near the dope. Well, Mallen did see Jonesy stuff a kilo under his coat as he bolted for the door. Bravery and stupidity oft look the same, as another old saying goes.

Mallen ran for the nearest door, crashing through it full throttle. The damn thing almost came off its hinges as he charged ahead. The air was filled with yells and cops shouting their usual cop crap when they bust into a joint. “Down! Down! Down!” “Hands where I can see them!” “Eat the floor, motherfucker!”

He found himself running down a short hall, an old office door dead ahead. There would be some fucking anger over this, and that was a fact. He’d told his superiors to keep it cool, that he had it under control. Someone, somewhere, had fucked up royally.

The door broke apart like he was some superhero dude as he threw all his weight into it. A small office lay beyond. Maybe some manager’s, at one time, now empty except for graffiti and garbage. There was the door that would lead to freedom, right there. He registered daylight sneaking in under the bottom. Grabbed at the knob, twisted, yanked, and the door flew open and then he was outside …

… and there was Eric.

Glock in hand, regulation pose down to the feet being one yard apart. Uniform was immaculate, as it always was. Badge like a mirror shining in the sun. Poster boy for what a cop should look like, be like.

The look on Eric’s face would’ve made him laugh, if it were any other fucking time. Like Eric had just thought he’d bought a hooker on the sly, and that hooker turned out to be his wife living a secret life. Eric started to say something, but Mallen put his gun up, aiming right for Eric’s face.

“Nope,” Mallen said, “you’re gonna need to take me in, or let me ride over you, man.”

“But—”

Mallen strode forward, knowing there wasn’t time, hoping for any extra seconds. He swung his gun at Eric’s face. The barrel slashed a deep gash across Eric’s cheek. Eric dropped his gun, and Mallen let his fall to the ground as he piled into Eric, driving a knee into Eric’s midsection.

“Make it look good, man,” Mallen whispered.

Eric gave him a good chop to the ribs. He thought that the rib might have actually broken, the pain was so heavy and intense. Then they were down on the ground, rolling in the muck of the back alley. It reminded Mallen of being back at the academy, when they’d have to try and disarm each other in a drill, or use each other as tackling dummies. They exchanged kicks and blows in the alley, some heavier than others, both knowing that Mallen’s life now depended on it looking real. People had to buy into it.

Then Mallen felt himself hauled off of Eric and slammed against the hard brick of the building. He was turned around and shoved into the wall, blood getting in his eyes, his vision turning red and blurry. There was the sharp stab of the cuffs on his wrist. He was turned around and again shoved hard into the wall.

Eric walked up to him then. Winked, then slugged him hard in the gut. Not too hard, but just enough. Enough to make Mallen think his friend had enjoyed it.

“Come along now, little bad man,” Eric said as he made a show of leading Mallen back to a cruiser, “and if you’re really good, I won’t face-plant you into the gravel and tell the judge you were so whacked out on smack you kept falling.”

He tossed Mallen into the back of the car, the door slamming tight behind him. The windows of course had the wide metal bar across them to prevent anyone from escaping. On a whim, he angled around and gave the glass a few good slams with his boots. For effect, he told himself, but actually because he was fucking pissed that someone, somewhere, had fucked it up. Badly. It was entirely possible that Franco, already paranoid, would equate this outcome with Mallen being there. Maybe Franco would want to play it safe, meaning that Mallen would be put down like a syphilitic mongrel with three legs. He’d heard worse stories. Eric hit the bar welded across the window with his billy club a couple times. To “calm the passenger” as it was called. Then he climbed behind the wheel. As Eric started the engine, he said without looking at him, “Sorry man, we didn’t know.”

“You sure?” He didn’t like it. The fact only reinforced his uneasiness. The raid had been planned without the knowledge of them having a man inside, or it had been planned because someone knew a man was inside. There was no third option. Either someone was incredibly fucking stupid, or someone knew he was there.

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Mallen got better situated in the back seat. “This is fucked.” He sighed. “Well, at least hit the AC, okay? Then take me down to booking. Call Stevens, tell him you ‘caught a blackbird.’”

The cruiser was out in the street by this point. Eric did a double take back at him. “Caught a black bird? What the fuck kind of horseshit spy crap is that?”

“Hell, I just do what they tell me.” Mallen gazed out the window for a moment, trying to guess at all the angles he’d need to cover to make Franco relax enough to keep him on the inside. Maybe he could use his being in jail until bailed out to lend the needed authenticity. Hell, could fuckin’ happen. “Who set up the raid?” he asked.

“Dietrich.”

That didn’t make him feel any easier, either. That fucker was almost worst than Jas. Jas with a badge, for fuck’s sake. Could it really be that way? Could he have been set up? But why? He wasn’t even high up yet. He was still a street dog. “When was it planned? When did you hear about it?”

“Why?” Eric replied. “What’s going on?”

“Just fucking tell me, man!” he yelled. He was feeling strung out, worn out.

Eric guided the car onto the next street. They were close to booking now. Had only a few minutes. “Just this morning,” came the reply. Told quiet. Flat. “Everyone just looked at each other, and then we went out. We were voluntold, basically.”

And that made him feel way worse than any other news could’ve. It was sounding more and more like someone either had it in for him, or at least wanted to send a message to Franco that people were in his tree, getting ready to shake his leaves.

Mallen lay back on the seat. Stared at the ceiling of the cop car. Something was going on. But what was it? He tried to get comfortable. Couldn’t. If—if—he had been ratted out, then jail was the worst place for him to be. He’d be dead, right down there in the holding tank, maybe. He had to get a message out. But, to who?

“Hey,” he said to Eric, “remember to call Stevens, yeah? And then call Chris for me, okay? Let her know when you dropped me off. Let her know what you just let me know.”

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “What will that do? If it’s bad, like you’re saying, what the fuck will that do?”

“It’ll go on the fucking record, if nothing else,” he replied, but not with much heart. He knew he had to get ready. There would be signs ahead. He had to be ready to read them. Would he be put in solitary? Or with the rest of the dirt? Would Stevens get him out fast, or would he spend days behind bars?

Either way, he noted with growing anxiety, he’d have to suffer that lovely dance known as the strip search.