The air around him quickly became a cloud of exhaust as he breathed heavily into it, trying to fill up his lungs with all the cold air he could, loosening the collar of his coat until a sharp spike of chill drove into his chest and he felt like the threat of overload had passed.
His leather gloves squealed in complaint as he clenched and unclenched his fists. The thing that had followed him into the alley slumped down with him and was then silent. A horrifying, terrible kind of silence.
“Not good enough for you?” he grumbled. “Sister can’t clothe her kids? Huhn. I can fix that.”
He pulled the remaining money out of his pocket and threw it to the ground, shoving it away from himself when a gust of wind brought it back. He looked down at the three twenties scattered around him in the snow and ice with contempt. He felt ashamed, foolish and stupid all at the same time; a feeling he could only quench in the coldness of the air around him.
He stared at the hungry eyes that were stalking back towards the alley. He scooped up the cold pile that was one of the bills and threw it towards them.
“You hear that?” His voice dropped to little more than a whimper as he rested his forehead on the knees pulled up to his chest. “I can make everything better.”
Jonah McAllister Gets Interrogated
Brendan Lamonte glanced at the clock on the car dash for the tenth time in several minutes. The two lights between the minutes and hours blinked with their irritating regularity. Reaching for the soda in the console at his right hand he pulled his hand away as the sound of Fenderman outside pissing against the dumpster struck him. He exhaled in a loose raspberry and tapped on the steering wheel.
"Christ, F-man," Lamonte half hollered through the passenger side window, "We're supposed to be incognito here. Can you piss a little quieter? Exactly how big is your bladder?"
He continued drumming his fingers on the wheel.
"Incognito," he repeated, more to hear the sound of it than as a reminder to the giant of a man waving his dick around outside. "Cop work pays the rent. For everything else there's incognito."
The streetlight in front of the motel flickered and Lamonte thought that if there was any justice in the world he would be at home with a beer trying to figure out the instructions for the new crib he had bought Stacy for Christmas. But, he needed a way to pay for the damned thing and for that there was... incognito.
"Where the hell is this kid? Some girl's place?"
Looking at the surveillance photo pinned to the home screen of his phone he tried to recall if he had seen anyone like that leaving the place since arriving two hours prior. They had knocked at the room number they had been given, but the kid didn't answer and looking through the windows hadn't yielded anyone lying inside. Both had had an evening to kill: Stacy was out of town visiting her folks, and the less he knew about Fenderman's hobbies the better.
Just then a shadow flicked out of the street and paced towards the motel. Lamonte flicked his phone on again, his eyes glancing through the windshield and then back to the phone. Exhaling slowly he lowered the glove compartment door, retrieving an old-style flip phone from inside. The phone trilled in his hand several times before a bleary voice on the other end answered.
"What?"
"Got this kid here," Lamonte said.
"So why are you calling me?"
"Just need to make sure this is still what you want. 'Cause this sorta thing isn't exactly easy. There was no evidence for any kinda warrant—"
"Christ," the voice on the other end hissed. "There was no evidence that my client was at fault. Nothing wrong with the pipes, wiring, nothing. So, they ain't paying the deductible. That means we're on the hook. Okay? And I pay you to keep us off the hook. I need my goddam bonus this year, Bren. You seen the price of toys the kids want lately? Get me off the hook and put this kid on it. You said it yourself in these reports. Kid's got no income, but he's paying up somehow. Get him to sign something. Anything. No judge is gonna side with a criminal over us."
Lamonte exhaled as the voice continued.
"I've seen the documentaries. That's what you guys are good at, right? Getting people to admit to things they didn't do? The kid's dirty, somehow. Everyone is. Make your money."
The line clicked dead and Lamonte pursed his lips before putting the phone back into the glove compartment. The caller—'Jim' he insisted on being called—was right about one thing. Toys... and cribs were expensive as hell these days. And the money coming out of Jim's wallet was as good as any, he supposed. And when pay was getting slashed and the union didn't seem to care one way or another it was good to have some extra cash. The kid was definitely guilty of something. Just because he couldn't tell what it was right now...
He opened the door and nearly jumped clear of his skin at the sight of Fenderman towering over him. He regained his composure and grabbed the large man by his tree trunk of a forearm.
"Come on, man. Time to make some cash."
He figured a few minutes in the can with F-man would be enough to make any skinny university kid cop to pretty much anything.
"You, uh, used something on your hands, right?"
In the pallor of the lone streetlight on the corner the exterior of the shitty motel looked like the dank den of some drug lord from a bad cable show. As the wind blew snow plumes from the drifts on the roof, Jonah shrugged his
