If Amy's really going out of business, I need to see it for myself. I'm going straight to the source, her place of business—Kinky Amy's.
"Okay," Megan says, ending her call and breaking my train of thought. "I just got off the phone with the State Attorney General."
She stops for a moment and pulls a stick of gum from her purse, carefully peeling off the wrapper and placing it into her mouth.
Way to leave me hanging, I think.
"And?" I say. "Don't hold me in suspense. What did he fucking say?"
"Well, it's true—the State Attorney General has charged Amy as a sex trafficker," Megan says.
"So, the reporter was right?" I ask, slowly putting everything together in my mind. "Fuck, I can't believe this." My head is spinning.
"And not only that," Megan continues, "but the state troopers are coming right now. They're on their way to shut her business down."
Fuck. We have to hurry. I need to be there.
"Mike," I call out to the driver. "Step on the fucking gas now!”
23
Amy
“No!” I cry out, crossing my arms and standing right in front of the entrance to my office building. The sidewalk is swarming with state troopers in grey uniforms, all of them eager to storm into my office. “This is bullshit, you can’t simply --”
“I have a court order right here, ma’am,” one of them, the one in charge, says. He steps forward and picks a folded piece of paper out from his jacket. He shoves it toward me and, with a frown, I snag it from his fingers.
Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on? I think to myself as I glance over the document. I’m being charged with sex trafficking, and the state troopers are here to shut down my business. The document is signed by one Judge Andrew McGill, a name that rings a bell. If I’m not mistaken, he’s one of my mother’s political allies. Which makes perfect sense—since I’m tied with Parker, my ruin will surely mean his ruin.
“This is bullshit!” I say again, stomping my foot against the floor and standing my ground. If these troopers want to take down my business, they can do it over my dead body. No way I’m going to let them in over some phony charges.
“This is the law, ma’am,” the man who handed me the court order barks, his fingers resting on the butt of his revolver. Just perfect. “Now stand aside,” he says, lowering his voice until it becomes just a whisper. The threat is implicit; if I don’t move out of his way, the troopers are going to use force.
There are at least twenty of them, all of them standing in a half-circle around me, a scowl on their faces. They came in their SUVs as if I were a terrorist, jumping out from their cars and establishing a perimeter around me as if I had a bomb strapped to my chest. Not a happy sight when you’ve just woken up half an hour ago and your brain's still rebooting.
“No,” I growl, opening my arms wide and blocking their path. “Over my dead body,” I whisper back at the trooper in front of me, and I see a hint of a grin flashing on his lips. He pulls his gun free from his holster belt, and he’s about to point it at me when the loud sound of engines grabs his attention.#p#分页标题#e#
I look over his shoulder just in time to see a limo parking in front of the building, two NYPD cars flanking it. The cavalry has arrived, and just in time.
“What the fuck’s going on here?” Parker cries out as he steps out of the limo, buttoning his jacket and walking toward me in a straight line. He shoves two troopers aside and then comes up to me. “You okay?” he whispers, and I just nod, running my tongue between my dry lips.
“Yeah, but this is… This is complete bullshit.”
“I know. Don’t worry; I've got this,” he says, and then turns on his heels to face the troopers. “Care to explain exactly what’s going on here?”
“Uh, sir, there’s a court order,” the tall trooper says, pointing at the document I'm still holding in my hand. “We’re here to shut down whatever’s going on in here, and a judge has signed off on it.”
“A judge?”
“Yeah, Judge McGill,” the trooper continues, taking his hat off and wiping the sweat off his brow. He thought this was going to be a clean operation, and now he’s being stared down by the mayor. “Governor Meelios ordered this investigation, and the judge has approved of the proceedings.”
“Governor Meelios, uh? Well, trooper, I must ask you to get back to your cars and get out of here,” Parker tells him, a deadly expression on his face. NYPD officers have started climbing out of their cars now, and they’re hanging back around the limo, hesitantly watching the scene unfold right in front of them. A crowd of onlookers has also started to gather on the sidewalk, a voyeuristic kind of confusion washing over everyone’s face. They were mildly interested in the commotion the state troopers were causing, but now that the Mayor has stepped onto the scene, everyone’s hooked. This beats reality TV, I guess.