The pouring rain gave me every reason to move hastily, as I didn’t have an umbrella. I leapt into his car within a fraction of a second after opening the door, wiping my face. Shelton, always prepared, handed me a towel.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I was surprised to hear from you so soon, Beckett. That usually means you need to get the hell out, or things have gone uncommonly well. Which is it with you?”
“I’ve made contact with the suspect, sir.”
I gave my hairline one last wipe, hoping to preempt the next several drips that would fall across my face, folded the towel up, and handed it back to him. He threw it in the back seat.
“Already? Where? The club?”
“Yes, sir. He showed up the first night I went there.”
“Anything interesting happen?”
Something about the way he looked at me almost made me break out in a cold sweat. He had this all-knowing quality about him that all my most efficient superior officers had over the last several years.
I licked my lips and gave my face another wipe with the back of my hand. “A lot of things, actually.”
“Go on.”
“The suspect arrived at about eleven thirty on Wednesday, and I saw him exchange something for money with multiple individuals.”
“OK, so, if that was F, he’s still got a source.”
“Yes, sir. After a short time, he joined us on the dancefloor.”
“Us?”
“Some of the girls from the dorm. I managed to get his attention and ended up talking with him in a booth in private. He… um… expressed an interest in becoming romantically involved with me.”
“Understood. Go on,” the deep all-knowing voice came, as he looked out through the blurry windshield at people rushing to and from their cars.
“So, my plan at this stage is to string him along for a while. Get to the friendzone, so to speak.”
“Watch yourself, Officer Beckett. You’re not the first undercover cop to opt for that path. It’s got more blind corners with freight trains coming the other way than you might think. Especially for our female officers. These people…” He shook his head.
“I’ll… I’ll be careful, sir,” I said, weaker than I would have liked.
“Did he talk about F at all?”
“Not yet, sir. He avoided the topics of drugs and money altogether and I don’t think I could have pushed it any further than I did.”
“Agreed. You’re already ahead of the game, no need to get too cocky and blow it all. Anything else?”
“Oh yes indeed. Ryan Crewe has some kind of link with The Cannibals.”
Sergeant Shelton looked at me sideways. “The Cannibals? What kind of link?”
“I’m not sure, sir. All I know is that they showed up and Ryan immediately excused himself to talk with them. I couldn’t hear a word they said, but things got very violent very quickly. I was forced to intervene because the suspect was outnumbered, and one of the Cannibals produced a knife.”
“Intervene, you say?”
“With a bottle of champagne over the head.”
My CO closed his eyes, raised his eyebrows and sighed. “Go on.”
“Between us, we subdued the other gang member, then we made a getaway like a regular Bonnie and Clyde. We went to his apartment, on Fifty-Seventh, for a short time, and I was still unable to steer the conversation to drugs or money. Then I returned to my dorm.”
My heart was hammering in my chest as I watched him for signs of arresting me for my blatant omission of a few choice details. I could see him running his tongue over his teeth inside his closed mouth for a few moments as he mulled my story over.
“Something’s not right here,” he said.
My heart exploded, and all of a sudden there was nothing booming in my ears at all, just the background noise of rain hitting the roof of his car. I’d just screwed myself bigtime.
I could feel my mouth creaking open as if on rusty hinges, with a torrent of begging about to pour out, when Sergeant Shelton continued his musings.
“This isn’t exactly in The Cannibals’ wheelhouse. F isn’t crack, it’s not like any junkie looking to make a quick buck can make it in a dirty old bottle. We haven’t even been able to find a lab that can reproduce it accurately.”
“Th-that’s what I thought too, sir,” I said, scrambling to recover. “But it’s still possible, isn’t it? All the rumors say the F King is one guy, so if he chose to work with The Cannibals… who knows, right?”
“You’re not wrong there, but don’t take it as a given. Keep looking for other possibilities.”
“Yes, sir.”