“That’s about the size of it,” Patrick answered with a smile.
The skinny guy nodded slowly and stepped back, taking his hand off the door.
“Just don’t make too much noise, okay?” he said, padding back into the living room. “My grandma’s asleep upstairs.”
Patrick followed the skinny guy into the house, his eyes roaming around the room warily, keeping his hand close to his holstered pistol.
“Hey, Hector,” the guy said as he walked through a doorway into a dimly lit room beyond. “Get your ass over here, already.”
Patrick stopped in the doorway. Inside, a handful of teenage boys crammed onto a couch watched as two others mashed buttons on video game controllers while computer-generated soldiers in powered armor exchanged fire on a flatscreen TV. Patrick recognized Hector in the bunch, as the boy turned to him with a guilty expression on his face. There were beer cans on a low table, and the smell of marijuana smoke hung heavily in the room, but Patrick didn’t see any sign of Ink injectors.
“Come on, kid,” Patrick said, “I just want to talk for a second.”
Hector pushed himself up off his chair reluctantly, and slouched over to where Patrick stood.
“Yeah, what?” the kid said, trying to sound tough. “Your sister thinks that you and your friends were planning to try Ink for the first time today,” Patrick answered. “Any truth to that?”
Hector’s eyes darted to the kids on the couch, who were studiously pretending not to notice the police officer standing in the room.
“My sister’s just a dumb kid,” he said, turning back to Patrick. “I don’t know anything about . . .”
Patrick held up a hand to interrupt him.
“I’m not here to arrest you again, okay?” Patrick said. “And this isn’t about your probation. I just want you to know that Ink is bad news. Seriously. It will destroy you. And I’m not talking about some kind of ‘Scared Straight’ gateway drug lecture stuff, either. It will literally rot your brain, and once you start using there’s no going back.”
Patrick could see from Hector’s glowering expression that he wasn’t getting through to him.
“You would be better off taking literally anything else, kid,” Patrick went on. “Shooting heroin directly into your eyeball would do less damage than one injector’s worth of Ink.”
Hector’s eyes widened slightly. Patrick knew that he wasn’t expecting a cop to recommend one illegal narcotic over another.
“Where did you get the stuff?” Patrick looked around the room, and raised his voice to address the rest of the kids. “Who’s got the Ink connection?”
The skinny guy who lived in the house stood in the corner, hands shoved deep into his pants pockets, and the kids on the couch were continuing to pretend that they couldn’t hear or see Patrick.
“You could answer me,” Patrick continued, “or maybe I call up a couple of squad cars and we arrest the lot of you for underage drinking.”
The skinny guy had a startled look on his face. “Hey, now . . .”
“Those were there when we got here, man,” one of the kids on the couch said, trying hard not to slur his words.
“We don’t have the stuff yet, okay?” Hector raised his hands in front of him, palms forward. “Vincent’s cousin is coming to drop it off.”
“Hey!” One of the kids on the couch—Vincent, Patrick assumed—turned and glared at Hector. “Not cool, man.”
Patrick motioned for the kids to settle down with a wave of his hand. “All right, all right. And when is Vincent’s cousin supposed to get here?”
Hector glanced over at the kids on the couch, then back to Patrick.
“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Supposed to be here already. I guess he’s running late.”
Patrick pulled out his phone to check the time. It would be sunset soon.
“Okay, kids, I’m going to head out,” he said as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. “You can go back to your video games and weed and what not, but seriously, stay off the Ink. I’ve seen what it can do to a person, and trust me, you do not want that to happen to you.”
He pointed a finger at the skinny guy in the corner.
“And if I find out that anyone here did dose themselves with Ink after I’m gone, I’m holding you personally responsible. And considering that I’m looking at a half-dozen cases of aiding-and-abetting underage drinking and drug use here, you’d be lucky to get away with just a few grand worth of fines and community service. You end up in the right court room, and you might even be looking at jail time.”
The skinny guy blanched, swallowing hard.
“Don’t worry,” Patrick went on, turning to go. “I can see myself out.”
The front door was still partially ajar, and through the gap Patrick could see a plain white delivery truck parked out front. As he was walking outside, a guy wearing dark sunglasses and a ball cap was climbing out of the passenger side of the truck, carrying a paper bag in his hand.
“Hey, you live here?” the guy said as Patrick turned onto the sidewalk.
Patrick’s stomach roiled with nausea and an unpleasant taste stabbed his tongue. His hand moved closer to his holstered pistol as he turned in the guy’s direction.
“Who’s asking?” Patrick said, eyes narrowing. “Are you Vincent’s cousin?”
Were they really using a delivery truck to drop off illegal drugs? And hadn’t Izzie talked about almost being run down in the street the day before by the same kind of white delivery truck?
“Hey, I know you.” The guy reached up with his free hand and took hold of his sunglasses.
Patrick could hear the driver’s side door slam shut. He reached for his pistol.
“Lieutenant Tevake.” The guy pulled the sunglasses off his face, and Patrick got the inescapable sense that someone else was looking out at him from behind those eyes. “Patrick. My man.”
Dark blotches bloomed on the guy’s cheek and forehead, as his lips curled in a sinister smile.
“I’ve had my people looking all over town
