The second Sara’s parents showed up, something changed.
I knew she had a complicated relationship with them, but I didn’t know she’d shut down the second they told her to. That sort of dynamic, I can’t really understand it—my parents were a couple of dead drunks while my grandmother was a fucking saint, but she was too old and too busy to really look after me. I raised myself, always on my own terms. I helped Grandma buy food and make rent, and we survived, but that’s all we ever had. Just survival.
I didn’t hear what was said in that room, but I saw the way they looked at me like I was scum. Her mother in particular couldn’t have been more disgusted, like I might infect her with my poverty, but her father was even worse—he could tell what I was the moment he stepped up close and shook my hand, and somehow that makes the whole thing that much more messed up.
The arrogant little fuckers.
And now Sara’s pulling away. The day after I finally feel like we’re making progress, like we’re breaking through the walls she keeps pulled around herself, she retreats back into her fortress. Even though she’s miserable in here, beset on all sides by the expectations of her family and her own unceasing and impossible standards, it’s still the only place she knows.
Maybe it’s for the best. Her parents think I’m scum and maybe they’re right. I am what I am, and I’ll never be a part of Sara’s world. I’ll never be a man worthy of their daughter, of their time, and I’m okay with that. I’ve come to accept I am what I am.
Sara will never accept herself. Not with her parents whispering in her ear, and that’s what kills me the most. I don’t expect to let this little feeling growing inside of my chest bloom into something real, even if I know it could. With a little time, with a little effort, with some freedom and some joy, this could be massive, life-changing, stratospheric. This feeling, this thing I refuse to even name, it’s something I’ve wanted but could never have, could never let myself think about. Survival trumps whatever else. Until now.
And it doesn’t matter. Sara’s hidden herself away, and I’m not going to break her open again.
It’s late when I park across from the High Noon. I shouldn’t be here without Sara but there’s no way she’d agree to come with me right now. She’s back at the hotel room looking over her files and chewing her nails and acting neurotic, all because of one single visit from her parents, and I can’t sit in that room with her and watch that.
Especially not when she looks up and stares at me like I’m tainted.
Like whatever her parents said made her see me in a new light—or at least pulled closed the curtain and threw up the steel walls and made sure I’d never crack through her armor.
I’m here instead, outside of a cop bar at eleven at night watching people come and go with headshots spread out on the passenger side seat next to me. There are a few people in the Dallas PD that might be helpful, a few secretaries that work the night shift mostly answering phones, the sort of folks that might be willing to take a bribe in exchange for some information. If we’re going to find that interview with Wally, we’ll need someone malleable on the inside, someone that’s willing to break a few rules and doesn’t really give a shit about their job. That leaves out the day crew. Those are the lifers, the ones with pensions and dreams of retirement. It’s the weirdos that I need.
This is reckless. I know it’s dumb. Sitting here like this, watching a damn cop bar. It’s totally possible that some of the people inside know who I am and what I’m doing, and yet I can’t help myself. Every time I think about making the smart decision and driving off, I keep seeing Sara’s face, the look she gave me after her parents left and she told me to get lost too. It was sickening, like she was disgusted with herself and hated me just as much, and it sent a shiver of rage into my heart.
I want to hunt down her old man and bash his fucking skull in and make his wife watch.
There’s a noise toward the back of my car. A soft thump like someone’s tapping on the bumper. I frown and look in the rearview but I don’t see anything. As I turn to stare out the windows, the back passenger door opens and a guy gets in.
Adrenaline slams into my veins. I reach for the gun I have stashed under the seat, but something cold presses against my head before I can grab it, and I go totally still.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man says, low and rumbling. “Sit back up. Do it nice and slow.”
I know that voice. I know the tone, anyway. Those fucker’s a cop, no doubt in my mind, and cops are more dangerous than gangsters.
Criminals know they can go to jail. Cops think they’re above all that. Fuck up and at worst, they’ll get fired. Most likely they end up on leave for a few months, on a desk for another few months, before getting back into the thick of things like nothing happened.
The driver’s side rear door opens and another person gets inside. “The balls on this fucking guy,” the new man says. “Sitting there watching us like we’re not going to notice.”
“You must think we’re idiots,” the first one says.
I slowly raise my hands. One false move and these state-sponsored killers will wipe me out. “Idiots might be going far. I definitely think you’re stupid though.”
The second guy laughs as the first grunts and sits back. The gun leaves my skull, but it’s still pointed at me.
I twist to get a good look at my assailants.
The man on the left with the weapon is a narrow bastard. Denim shirt, denim pants, cowboy hat. Fucking Texas through and through. His mustache is bushy and ugly.
But the guy on the right sitting directly behind me makes my stomach crawl.
He’s a big man, thick shoulders, thick neck, like he grew up eating nothing but eggs and steak. He’s pale, wearing a Houston Astros ballcap, with a polo shirt and a pair of faded jeans. He’s in his forties, face grizzled and unshaven.
It’s the guy Detective Vance left with the other night. The one we assumed was her partner.
My heart races. My head spins. What the hell is happening right now?
“What can I do for you fellas?” I ask, trying to play it cool, but I’m on the edge of something bad.
I’m glad Sara didn’t come.
Mustache keeps the gun trained on me. “Right now, you can start the engine and drive.”
“I’d rather stay here.”
“Not up for discussion. Drive, or I kill you here and now and be done with this whole fucking mess.”
“I’d do what he says.” Vance’s partner grins at me. “I wouldn’t fuck around right now, Angelo.”
I turn around and jerk the key. The car roars to life and I pull out. Mustache gives me directions: left, right, left, straight for a while. The gun never leaves me. I see it glinting in the few streetlights we pass. We’re on the back roads now, away from the bar, away from anyone. Neither of them speaks as we keep going, further and further, and my brain’s doing flips trying to figure out what they have planned.
They could kill me. There’s no reason they wouldn’t, but I suspect that if they pull the trigger and end me here, it’ll only make Sara push that much harder. And on top of that, Carmine’s strength has been growing down here ever since he married Brice, and I doubt the locals want to fuck with him if they can avoid it.
No, murdering me is going to be a huge headache for them. These guys might be thugs but they’re still cops, and cops have to pretend like they’re following rules. There are too many eyes on them. Yeah, they’re nothing more than thugs with a pension, but I have to keep telling myself that killing me will be worse than keeping me alive. I gotta hope I’m right.
They’re probably trying to scare me. But it’s a big risk. They revealed their faces to me, which means I know which guys are a part of the coverup, and I should be able to find more of them if I look hard enough.
So murder might really be on the menu this evening.
Fucked up that I’m going to die while Sara’s back home thinking I’m a worthless piece of shit.
I hope it doesn’t hurt her too badly. Maybe she was right trying to avoid me from the start. I’m only bad news. Only ever been bad news. I think of Grandma smiling at me as she watched her black and white Westerns, smelling like dryer sheets and dirty denim. Grandma loved me at least, even if she was always too busy working to show it. Maybe Sara can meet Grandma one day, but I’m not sure it’ll ever happen.
“Pull over here,” Mustache says.
“Where? There’s nothing but fields.”
“Pull the fuck over,” Mustache says again.
I jerk the wheel to the right and come to a stop, tires bumping over dirt and grass. We’re in the middle of nothing, no lights nearby, no houses, only endless stretches of fields reaching out in all directions broken only by trees in the distance. The shoulder’s barely big enough for the car, but there are no other vehicles in sight and haven’t been any for a little while.
Vance’s partner exits first. He walks to my door and yanks it open. “Out,” he says.
Slowly, I step onto the pavement. Gravel crunches under my feet. I’m calculating how I’m going to survive this but my chances don’t seem good, not without a gun of my own, but I don’t have any weapons on me. Mustache walks ahead and beckons for me to follow him.
Vance’s partner shoves me. “Go,” he grunts.
I shuffle into the beam of my headlights. Mustache leads us further down the road, about fifty feet from the car, and stops. My mind’s calculating. If this is my last moment, I’ll meet my end standing up. Fucking Sara. Fucking hell. I’m glad she’s not here for this. He turns to face me, gun held out. Vance’s partner looms behind me.
“You two do this a lot?” I ask, staring Mustache in the eye. If I’m going to die, I might as well die like a fucking man. “I thought you guys were cops. Protect and serve.”
“This is how shit gets done,” Mustache says. “You’ve been poking around a lot lately and that’s not smart.”
“I’m investigating.”
“We do the investigating. And don’t tell me you’re working for that fucking lawyer girl. She’s not stupid enough to employ someone like you, not officially at least, so there’s no trail linking you back. Once you’re gone, you’re just gone. Poof, just like that. Nobody’s going to come looking. You think anyone’s going to give a fuck about a guy like you? A worthless fucking criminal?”
“Sara cares. You must’ve realized that by now. She’ll search for me, and she’ll find me, and then she’ll find you. That girl’s like a fucking cannonball blasting everything out of her way. You really think Carmine Scavo’s going to hire someone incompetent? She’s young, but she’s good. You’re fucked.”
“Maybe,” Mustache concedes with a shrug. “But lucky for you, that’s not what’s happening here.”
Before I can speak, Vance’s partner kicks me hard in the back of the knee. I grunt, crumple down, and he hits me again, this time in the side of the skull. I topple and slam into the ground hard, try to roll away, manage to avoid a sharp kick to the ribs. I scramble to my feet, swing wildly, and catch Vance’s partner in the guts with a lucky glancing blow, but Mustache is there before I can follow up. I want to kill them, I want to murder them with my bare hands, but my ears are ringing and my legs are on fire—
The butt of a gun hits me right above the eye. Skin breaks and blood oozes down from the wound. I’m dizzy, losing strength now. I try to fight back, but I’m blinded and in excruciating pain and outnumbered, and it doesn’t take long for them to get me back on the ground, their boots pummeling my side, my back, my head, over and over again. Pain flares, hot and fresh and horrible, and I feel something crack in my chest. Each breath is a struggle, and this is how I die, on a random road beside some empty fucking fields, getting my shit kicked in by two dirty cops.
But as I’m ready for the end to come, they stop. The night goes quiet. There’s only the sound of my ragged breathing. Mustache looms over me and he’s a shadow in the headlights, haloed by distant stars.
“Stop looking,” he says and wipes sweat from his face. “You hear me, Angelo? Stop looking. You won’t like what you find.”
“Nicolas didn’t kill them,” I croak at him.
“We know that, you stupid prick,” Vance’s partner says. “But someone’s going down and it might as well be your lowlife friend. Stop trying to save him. Someone’s gotta pay.”
Mustache bends over, hands on his knees, and stares into my face. “Tell you what. If you’re smart and you back off, we’ll go easy on the kid. Maybe he doesn’t get death row. Maybe he only gets life. How’s that sound?”
“Fuck you,” I say and show him my teeth. “You’re going to have to kill me.”
“We can do that,” Mustache says, head tilted. “This is your last chance.”
“Stop looking,” Vance’s partner says again.
“Good luck getting home.” Mustache walks off with Vance’s partner in tow. They get into my rental and pull out into the darkness, barely missing me as they drive past, spraying my face with dirt. I spit blood and grit onto the cold grass.
I’m left alone. But fuck, at least I’m alive.
I wipe the blood way with my shirt. I have at least one broken rib, maybe more, and the cut over my forehead is going to be a bitch to stitch up. Breathing isn’t easy, but I’m not dead at least.
I slowly get to a sitting position and lean back on my hands, staring up at the beautiful sky.
There are so many fucking stars without any light pollution around.
I grin and start laughing.
Fucking dirty cops had me going for a second there.
I pull my phone from my pocket. My fingers feel heavy and numb, but I manage to dial Sara’s number. It rings and rings and no answer. I call again, and again, and I curse her parents straight to hell but finally she picks up.
“Angelo?” she says. “What do you need?”
“A ride would be good,” I say with a sigh and squeeze my eyes shut. “Maybe a doctor too. I know who’s trying to cover up what happened to Nicolas.”
