Reaching in, he pulled the cotton folds out.
Underneath them was a black nylon wallet . . . and a cell phone. And as the caller hung up again, or things went to voice mail, the vibration stopped.
With a sense of total disbelief, José took a pair of nitrile gloves out of his pocket. Yet after so many years in his job, he’d learned to trust his gut.
And his gut was telling him that what he was about to find was going to break his fucking heart.
Leaving the phone alone, he picked up the wallet, tore open the Velcro, and—
Officer Leon Roberts’s face stared up at him from a driver’s license that had been slotted into the see-through half of the two flaps. And across on the other side . . .
. . . was the Caldwell Police badge the man had earned and done proud.
“You know, you’re quiet. Even for you, you’re really frickin’ quiet.”
As V stopped under the fire escape and looked up, he wondered, if he stayed silent, whether Rhage would move on to another topic. Like, food. Or . . . food.
Or maybe . . . food?
You know, just to mix it up.
“Hello?” Hollywood prompted.
“I’m focused on what we’re doing here.”
Rhage stepped in front, and given his size, it was like the earth had coughed up a big, blond, beautiful mountain. With a piehole that, with no pie around, was flapping in the wind.
“And we’ve walked aimlessly for how many blocks now?” the brother said. “What’s wrong.”
“Fine, you want to chat? Answer me this. How does getting in our three hundred and fifty thousand steps tonight correspond to conversation—”
“V, what’s up your ass.” Rhage crossed his arms over the black daggers that were holstered, handles down, to his massive chest. Then he winced. “Actually, how ’bout you just tell me what’s on your mind. I think I better leave your ass and what may, or may not, be inside of it out of this. No offense.”
V leaned back against the club. As the music was really bumping, the vibrations coming through the cement walls were like a massage chair.
“What did you dream about, Vishous,” came the question he dreaded.
He shook his head. “You don’t know me.”
“The hell I don’t. What did you see.” When there was no reply, the brother said, “Who died.”
“Who said anybody died?”
“You don’t get visions about happy shit, V. Like never once have you told me you’ve had a dream about a bag of Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion. Or Doritos. Hell, some Snyder’s of Hanover pretzel nubs would do nicely.”
“Nubs?”
“Yeah, with peanut butter in them. They’re awesome.” Rhage shrugged. “I mean, I’m assuming you’d mention it if you’ve seen any of these snack foods in my future. Like, have you?”
“Let me get this straight. You’re putting nubs in your mouth, but you’re worried what’s doing with my ass?”
“Don’t hate the pretzel. And let’s get back to the issue at hand.”
“Right. We’re trying to find the missing female officer posing as a dealer, and this is where we saw her last.”
“What the hell did you see over day.”
Okay, this was the problem with Rhage. The brother was a tenacious motherfucker—and he actually had spot-on instincts.
Oh, and then there was the ass-slapping fact that V kinda wanted to talk about it. Hey, Rhage’s shellan was a therapist, right? That was halfway to goal.
Not that he was looking to get his head shrunk.
The words came out of his mouth fast: “I dreamt that José de la Cruz’s head got blown off his shoulders.”
The brother rubbed his eyes like they stung. “Butch’s former partner.”
“No, another human with that name in Caldwell—” V put his hand out. “Sorry. I’m being bitchy.”
“It’s okay. You must be freaking out. I mean, what do you do with information like that?”
“And no timeline. None. It could be ten years from now. Or tomorrow night.”
“Or tonight—”
“Holy shit,” V cut in. “It’s that guy.”
Rhage wheeled around and squinted through the darkness. “You’re right. From that thing.”
V stepped around Hollywood and shitkickered his way across the street, falling into the wake of a human male who was six feet tall, but only about a hundred twenty pounds. The addict was in the same clothes as he’d been in the other night, when that undercover cop had walked him to the Holy Mother of Salvatory Stuff a couple streets over.
“My guy,” V called out. “Hey.”
The man glanced over his shoulder, got one look at the two pieces of trained killer on his tail—and took off at a surprisingly fast bolt. Then again, maybe he’d had training in these kinds of sprints.
V just loped along in his trail, knowing damn well that that body didn’t have a marathon in it. Sure enough, three blocks down toward the river, there was a sudden drop in forward motion. And as the classic respiration triangle manifested—the guy bracing his arms on his knees and making plenty of torso space for his labored breathing—Vishous and Rhage pulled up alongside.
Flash Gordon looked up from his panting. “I dint—I—dint—do—it—”
“Take your time,” V muttered. “We’ll wait.”
Palming his tin of hand-rolleds, he popped the top and put the offering in the human’s face—and like the cigs were the hookup to a ventilator, or at the very least an oxygen mask, the guy reached for the nicotine with quaking fingers.
“Here, I’ll get you one.” V did the job with his gloved hand. “Only tobacco. But it’s Turkish. The best.”
“Th-th-thanks, man.”
The cigarette went in between thin lips, and then the man kicked his head forward for the Bic that was offered. As he puffed up, the habit kicked in and calmed the hyperventilating.
Three inhales later, and the guy said, “I dint do it. Really.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything.” V thumbed over his shoulder. “Neither is my brother.”
Eyes that would have been considered rheumatic in an eighty-year-old went back and forth.
“We’re not related by blood,” V explained.
“Oh.”
“Listen, I know you’ve got to be somewhere.” V motioned around in a circle, indicating all of downtown. “So I’m not going to waste your time.”