Plugged

I slide down on the back seat, cradling my head in the safety belt, which smells of marijuana. My thoughts are just dissolving into dreams when Macey Barrett’s phone rings in my pocket.

The damn thing is leaking radiation into my ear before I think to check caller ID.

‘Hmmph?’ I blurt sleepily.

‘You bloody AWOL asshole.’

‘Hmmph?’ I say again, not sure what’s going on exactly. The military term messing with my reality.

‘Are you stoned, you prick? I warned you about that.’

‘No. Not stoned, Major. Just dog tired.’

The voice is not happy with this. ‘What the hell did you call me, Barrett? Major? Are you trying to be fucking funny?’

Ghost Zeb decides to help me out. Come on, Dan. Whose cell phone is this? And suddenly I’m awake. This is Barrett’s phone, and that’s obviously Irish Mike on the other end.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s it. I’m trying to be funny, as per usual, Mikey boy.’

‘Mikey boy! Mikey boy?’

‘Too much intimacy? We’re not that close, I take it.’

Silence for a moment, then, ‘Who the hell is this? Put Macey on.’

Deacon clicks her fingers to attract my attention.

‘Here we go,’ she says, all business, as though we’re off to meet our accountant.

I glance out the window. The Brass Ring is closed for business at this ungodly time of the morning, but I bet there’ll be business going on inside just the same. I remember Faber’s Benz from the previous day’s stakeout and see it parked across the road, which pretty much confirms we came to the right place.

‘Hello!’ shouts Irish Mike. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me, your close associate,’ I reply deadpan, hoping the FBI are listening. ‘What do you want to talk about, Mike? The murders, the drugs or the prostitution?’

Irish Mike is suddenly sweetness itself. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister. Actually, I’m betting this is a wrong number.’

‘Nooo,’ I say. ‘I recognise your number, Michael Madden. I put you on my speed dial when we were in Brooklyn, setting up the cocaine pipeline. Remember?’

Irish Mike hangs up.

The Brass Ring has doormen to stop undesirables getting in, whereas Slotz has doormen to eject the undesirables as soon as they’ve blown their wad. It’s hard to understand why a man like Jaryd Faber would spend five seconds in Vic’s seedy den when he’s obviously top dog in this place.

Maybe I’ll ask him before I shoot him.

The club is locked down tighter than a nuclear bunker during the zombie riots the media seems to feel are more or less inevitable, with steel blinds rolled down over the door and windows and not one but two alarm boxes bolted to the wall.

Deacon puts the police mobile in neutral and we spend a quiet moment sizing up the joint. While we are sizing up, I wedge my bundles of cash down behind the cruiser’s back seat. It would prey on my immortal soul if Faber shot me and stole my money.

‘Pretty impregnable,’ Ronelle admits finally. ‘I don’t know if we can take this place down.’

‘Not going through the front door. But they’re not going through the front door, not with a bleeding cop in the back seat.’

Deacon nods slowly. Some of her gusto has drained away. Maybe the truth of this situation is dawning on her, i.e. she’s chasing a wounded officer into a fortified club with only a murder suspect for backup. The uncomplicated days of being a detective must seem like a rosy dream.

‘Okay, so we go around back.’

‘We? I really think now is the time for you to call the cavalry. Faber will soon have a dying cop in there, if he hasn’t got one already. Nobody will believe a word he says. With any luck, he’ll get himself killed during the raid.’

Deacon pouts stubbornly. ‘No. The first thing Faber will do when he hears a siren is put the final nail in Goran’s coffin. And when I say nail I mean bullet and when I say coffin I mean head. I need to wrap this up myself.’

‘Be my guest.’

‘I thought you had a stake in this. Didn’t this asshole kill your girlfriend?’

This is true, and I had pushed it to the back of my mind, but even a reference to Connie sets my blood boiling.

‘Okay. We go around back. But let me have the shotgun.’

‘Not happening.’

I hold up the little Cobra.32. ‘I am not entering a building with this toy. I can barely get my finger through the trigger guard.’

We glare at each other like kids with trading cards until Deacon makes an offer.

‘I’ve got a blade.’

‘Good for you. Why don’t you throw it at the men with guns?’

‘I’ll take the Cobra and the pump. You take my Smith and Wesson.’

‘Any clips?’

‘Two on the holster.’

This is not a bad deal. ‘What about the blade? You going to use it?’

Deacon rolls her eyes, pulling an ivory-handled flick knife from its home behind the sun visor.

‘Anything else, McEvoy? You want my brassiere too?’

I mull this over. ‘What size are the cups?’

There’s only one obvious way around back, and that’s down the same alley where Deacon put half a dozen bullets into her partner. Ronelle moves quickly, keeping her eyes off the crushed bum-shack, picking her way through the black pennies of blood.

Then she changes her strategy, returns to the shack, pulls her gun and acts out the shooting again in total silence.

‘I’m dealing with it,’ she explains grudgingly, due to the fact that I’m looking over her shoulder. ‘By doing it again I dilute the act, making it less powerful.’

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Freud?’

‘John Wayne Gacy.’

I must look shocked, because Deacon half grins. ‘Kidding. Dr Phil.’

‘Okay. That’s much better. I bet you wish you were diluting the act with shoes on.’

Deacon nods. ‘Dr Phil didn’t mention that.’

There is a small parking lot at the rear of the club which services three or four service entrances for adjacent or opposite businesses. I spot two restaurants and a pet shop that is receiving a shipment of canaries. The little birds sing when their crates are moved. A cacophony of shrill panic.

‘That’s how I feel,’ I comment to Deacon, strategically exposing a sensitive facet of my character that Dr Simon once assured me would encourage a desire to bond.

‘That’s how you sound too, bitch,’ says the detective, who obviously hasn’t read Simon’s article.

The Brass Ring opens on to the north corner of the parking lot, and there is a guy at the door, checking cars every five seconds, looking like he would dearly love to strangle every one of the canaries.

‘They haven’t arrived yet,’ I deduce, crouching behind a green recycling dumpster that smells like smoothies and reminds me that I haven’t eaten. ‘That guy is nervous. Look at him, sucking on his cigarette like his life depends on it. They’ve called ahead, but they’re not here yet.’

‘I concur, Sherlock,’ says Deacon, squatting beside me. ‘Look at that moron. Jumpier than Bambi. All you doormen got patience issues.’

All us doormen. I bet we look the same to Deacon.

‘I have an idea.’

Deacon does not clap delightedly or otherwise seem impressed. ‘You have an idea? That’s what my ex said after he tore the last rubber in the pack.’