“Come on,” I said to Alex, taking his arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“The fuck?” Boris asked. “Why do we fucking pay these pigs if they don’t help us out?”
“Get out of here,” Rawls said to us. “Get the hell out. Check on your friend later.”
“Come on.” I led Boris and Alex out of the main lobby and back out front. “You idiots. Don’t you know how to be fucking subtle?”
“No,” Boris said.
“There’s something going on,” I told Alex. “Rawls seemed to want to tell me, but couldn’t.”
“Fuck,” he said. “We’ll have to go back to Vadik with this.”
“Looks that way.”
He grunted. “Fine. You two stick around here. I’ll go.”
“No,” I said. “First, we’re going to wake up that damn lawyer.”
Alex grunted. “Why do I have to come for that?”
“You know where the lawyer lives.”
He laughed. “Okay. Fine. I’ll go to Vadik after.”
“Fine.” I looked at Boris. “You stay here.”
“Why?”
“In case someone else shows up, you can tell them what we’re doing.”
“Okay then. All good.”
“Let’s go.”
Alex and I got back into his car while Boris found a bench to wait at down by the road. He couldn’t stay on police property, so he was going to have to sit around near traffic and kill time. I doubted anyone else would show up, but there was always a chance.
Alex headed back into town. The lawyer’s name was Rogers, if I remembered right. I had to deal with him one time when I got picked up for threatening someone and harassing him. Rogers got the charges dropped in two hours, and three hours after that I was back breaking the knees of the asshole that got me arrested. That was a pretty good night.
I didn’t know why Rawls seemed so hesitant about the whole thing, though. He’d been one of the more amiable cops in the past, but clearly something was happening in their department. Might have something to do with them cracking down on us, but I had no real clue. I could only guess, and that wasn’t worth the time.
It was going to be a long and boring night, I could already tell. At least I had the memory of Sadie’s body against mine to keep me going.
Chapter 5
Sadie
The next morning, I had a small hangover but at least I was on time to work. I got into my cubicle and sat down, surveying my little domain as I unpacked my belongings.
I placed the mafia file on the desk and stared at it. I leafed through it again when I got home from the bar and again I found myself getting sucked into it. I wanted to help, wanted to get those awful guys, but I didn’t know if I should.
Actually, I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I should stay out of it and take some easier cases where there was no real threat to my life. Truthfully, I wanted to get involved because I loved the rush of winning a case like that. I knew it would be dangerous, but it would also be incredible for my career.
Not many ADAs got to put away real mafia guys. That sort of publicity was almost always reserved for the top DAs in whatever county was prosecuting, or whoever the top dog was. Meanwhile, I was being given this golden opportunity.
That should have told me something right there. That my boss didn’t want to touch the case should have told me everything I needed to know about it. I was ignoring that fact, though. I was choosing not to look too deeply into that fact, because if I did, I knew I’d run screaming in the other direction.
“Sadie.”
I looked up. Rick was standing at the divider. “Good morning,” I said.
“Come with me.”
He turned and left. I got up quickly and caught up to him. We walked briskly together down the hall and back into his office.
He shut the door and walked around his desk, gesturing for me to sit. Hesitant, I sat down in front of his desk.
“Something came through last night,” he said finally, pulling out a file. “I thought you might like to see it.”
He handed me the folder. I knew I shouldn’t take it, but instead I opened it right away.
The man’s name was Evgeni Morov. He was a mobster with the Petrov Family, the same guys that were in my dossier back at my desk. Evgeni looked like a middle of the road kind of guy; not a big boss, but not a small fish, either. Apparently, he ran a bunch of drug dealers down in the south corner of the city, mostly meth and crack but some prescription pills, too.
“Why am I looking at this guy?” I asked.
“We picked him up last night.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“He tried to sell to an undercover cop.”