Mae gasped.
“Nothing broken, fortunately, but he’s pretty sore. This morning he didn’t want to go back to school out of protest. Seems he doesn’t think anyone will discipline the Hill kids who beat him up. He came around, though, when Carolyn finally remembered that this is field trip day.”
“I don’t blame him for being upset,” Mae agreed, ignoring her ringing telephone. “It’s just not fair anymore. You know, when I was a little girl-”
Jake interrupted by pointing to the phone. “You gonna answer that?” He hated to be rude, but he’d already heard all he cared to about Mae’s childhood. She took the hint, and as she reached for the receiver, he disappeared around the corner into his office.
No sooner had he sat down than Mae’s face appeared in the window, smiling a snaggle-toothed grin. “Dr. Whittaker’s on line one for you. You know, the Mercedes?”
Jake made a show of grimacing. “Already? I just talked to him last night.”
She laughed. “Surely, you don’t think this is the first time he’s called this morning. I think he wants to bargain some more.”
Two weeks ago the good doctor had run his Mercedes into a concrete drainage ditch at better than thirty-five miles an hour, busting everything forward of the fire wall. Now he was furious that his car wasn’t ready yet. He was a cardiologist, don’t you know-way too important to be without his preferred transportation.
Jake reached for the blinking extension, but movement outside drew his attention to the front windows. People seemed to be gathering, even as they tried to stay out of sight. One of them had a gun.
Shit!
The lobby doors exploded open, releasing a flood of heavily armed men into the reception area. Jake instinctively jumped to his feet and yanked open the top right-hand drawer of his desk, snatching out his snub- nosed. 44.
“Federal officers, don’t move!”
The words boomed like a cannon. Jake jumped as his stomach fell. He moved to drop the revolver back into the drawer but hesitated. Then it was too late.
“Gun!”
He watched in horror as a dozen submachine guns swung around to bear down on him.
Mae shrieked as men in blue windbreakers pushed her to the floor and assumed shooting positions, aiming their stubby weapons through the Plexiglas window at her boss. Jake just stood there, unmoving, with his chrome- plated magnum pointing at the ceiling.
“Put it down!” the lead gunman commanded.
The voice startled Jake almost as much as the command itself. Somewhere under that helmet and SWAT gear was a woman.
Two of the cop’s cohorts darted out to flank their target and get a better angle. “Put the gun down! Now! Let me see those hands! Now!”
He didn’t know what to do. His stomach cramped with fear. If he tried to shoot, they’d drop him in an instant. Ultimately, his hands decided for him. As he gently laid the weapon on his desk, he wondered how they’d found out.
“That’s it,” the leader encouraged him. “Right. On the desk, just like that. Now keep your hands where I can see them, and come to the door.”
Jake faced his palms forward at elbow height, his fingers splayed wide, as he sidestepped from behind his desk and toward his office door. Slow, deliberate movements were his single best insurance policy against a catastrophic trigger-pull.
“There you go,” the cop urged. “Just keep moving. Right. Just like that. Good man. Just like that.”
The instant Jake crossed the threshold, he was gang-tackled by three SWAT team types: the two he’d seen flanking their boss, and a third who’d escaped his notice altogether. They took him down hard, first to his knees, then face-first into the carpet, driving the breath from his lungs. From the other room, Mae screamed again. Someone put a knee on his face to keep him from moving, while the others bent his arms until the backs of his wrists touched behind him.
Jake didn’t fight. Arrest was a given at this point. The only true variable now was the number of bruises he’d sustain in the process. He felt the ring of the handcuffs against his skin and winced in anticipation of the pain he knew was next. They didn’t let him down, ratcheting the bracelets tight.
“Stay put,” somebody told him.
No problem, Jake thought. As he lay on the brand-new maroon carpet-not yet four months old-the acid stench of the fibers irritated his nose. He fought back the urge to sneeze and tried to make the pieces fit in his mind.
We’ve been so careful.
A pair of black combat boots appeared in front of his face, obliterating any other view. “You Jake Brighton?”
Jake strained to look up at the lady cop who’d threatened to shoot him only a minute before. “Yeah. Who are you?”
“I’m Special Agent Rivers with the FBI. We’re here to search your premises for illegal contraband.” She’d stooped down to display the warrant, but Jake stared right through it.
His mind reeled. What the hell…
“And you are under arrest for assaulting federal officers.”
Oh, this wasn’t right at all. He craned his neck to get a better look at his captor, then abandoned the effort. “You mind if I sit up?”
A hand around Jake’s biceps helped to bring him to his feet and over to a visitors’ chair in the waiting room. Jake couldn’t believe the number of cops who continued to swarm into his shop. There had to be fifty of them, split evenly between FBI and DEA, with a few locals thrown in. The place seethed with activity. Beyond the heavy fire door at the other end of the waiting room, he could hear the feds rousting the body men and painters out in the shop.
Maybe the situation wasn’t as bad as he’d initially thought. DEA meant drugs.
Rivers started to walk away, but Jake called after her, “What the hell’s going on here?”
Her lips bent into a humorless smile as she lifted her Kevlar helmet off her strawberry-blond hair. “This is what you call a drug raid.”
Mae gasped, clasping both sides of her face with sausagelike fingers. “Oh, my goodness! Drugs! Here?” From the look on her face, she’d rather have believed that Eleanor Roosevelt was a prostitute. “That’s not possible! You tell her, Jake! That’s just not possible!”
He smiled uncomfortably. Mae had lived here in Phoenix since 1920, and despite her overall dyspeptic attitude, she still saw green grass under the sooty streets and happy families among the homeless bums on the corner.
“You think I’m involved in drugs?” Jake asked, bewildered.
“Are you? I think a lot of people who work for you are.” Rivers picked up the warrant and riffled through the pages. “I’ve got a Martinez, a Willis, a MacGonegal, and a Hummer. You know them?”
He nodded. His whole goddamn paint department. He should have guessed. “Selling or using?”
“Both.”
Shit. The paint crew was the one part of his team he’d regarded as a sore point. There wasn’t a man among them he hadn’t threatened to fire in the past five months. You name the offense: short attention spans, sloppy work, irregular hours. Classic druggie behavior. How could he have missed it?
Mae still didn’t get it. “Well, why is Jake under arrest?”
“Because he tried to shoot me,” Rivers answered coolly-gleefully almost.
Mae rolled her eyes. “If he’d tried to shoot you, you’d be dead now.”
Jake closed his eyes and sighed. “Um, Mrs. Hooper-”
“I’m serious,” the old woman persisted. “I haven’t shot a gun in fifty years, but at this range, even I couldn’t miss.”
Rivers glared at her. “Maybe your boss didn’t like what would happen after he shot me.” She nodded at a grim-faced, machine gun-bearing DEA agent standing a few feet away.
