Chapter 50

50

"Scotty, can I have a Corona please," I said as I arrived at the bar.

"Where you been, cop?" Mario asked from where he stood three stools down on my left.

His eyes were glassy. I looked at the three beer bottles in front of him, the two shot glasses.

I looked over at Scotty behind the bar. He shook his head.

"I said where you been?" he said.

"Taking a leak," I said cheerily as Scotty gave me my beer.

"‘Taking a leak,' he says," Mario said, sneering at me.

He took another swallow of beer.

"That's typical. Never a cop around when you need one."

I knew this guy was scared. That he was looking for someone to feel superior to so his sad and scary feelings of helplessness would go away. But unfortunately for him, I didn't give a shit about his feelings.

I smiled at him as I stepped over until we were almost nose to nose.

"Can I ask you something I've always wondered about?" I said.

"Yeah, what's that?" he said, rolling his shoulders, squaring up.

"Are the bologna sandwiches at Rikers Island as good as they say?"

"Why you—" he said as Mathias stepped between us.

"Stop acting like a child and antagonizing everyone," he said to Mario as I walked away. "Aren't we in enough trouble?"

I brought my beer back to where Colleen and Jodi and I had retreated out of the booth into the smaller part of the restaurant near the banquet room door.

"Here, eat," I said to Jodi, offering her the plate of cold wings we'd brought with us.

"I'm not hungry, but, um, thank you," she said.

You will be , I thought, shaking my head at this unlikely Helen of Troy.

I looked over at Colleen as I sat. She smiled back as encouragingly as she could but even she had a great deal of fear in those beautiful pale eyes of hers.

As I reached and squeezed her hand over the table, I suddenly wished it was another table, our first table, the coffee table in her family's living room all those years ago.

Just had to have my bucket list date with Colleen, didn't I?

Be careful what you wish for , I thought.

For the next ten minutes, Mathias and Mario continued drinking at the bar. In the glow of the half-light from their phones, they huddled together, speaking quietly.

A brooding look had come over Mathias's face, I realized.

What they were thinking about wasn't too hard to figure out. They were thinking of making a run for it. I didn't blame them. We were all in a pinch here.

I turned my attention to Scotty behind the bar. He was taking glasses out of the dishwasher and just looking at them and putting them back. I noticed that a slowness and sloppiness had come over him, his dress shirt now hanging out of his pants at the back.

Inertia was setting in for Scotty. He was giving up, letting the mounting number of problems start to win. Full-blown unhinged panic wasn't with him yet, but it was on its way.

I watched Daisy at the window beside the front door standing as still and vigilant as a guard on a post. I suddenly noticed there was a lively French print on the wall beside her. It was of a can-canning woman beside a mustachioed waiter. Moulin Rouge , it said.

Daisy and Scotty in a previous happier life , came a thought in my head.

Despite the feeling of approaching darkness and gathering doom, I managed to crack a smile.

I was on my seventh cold wing when I saw the construction guys get up and walk toward the door.

I mopped up with a napkin as I headed over to them.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" I said.

"We're going to make a run for my truck. Try to get help," Mathias said.

"Is that right?" I said.

"Yeah, we're sick of this wussy retired-cop-waiting-around shit so sayonara, sucker. Goodbye and good luck," Mario said.

"Can I talk to you alone just for a second?" I said, gesturing Mathias over.

"Sure. What's up?"

"I want to show you something," I said as I led him to the banquet room door.

I took him inside and over to the still-open window. A cold wind blew in as I pointed across the parking lot.

Beyond the lot past the end of the factory, there was the flowing bend of the dark river and on the other side of that, the glow of lights on the canyon wall on its opposite bank were visible.

"Those lights are from a roadblock on Route 4," I said. "Even if you get to the truck on the other side of the bridge without getting killed, they'll just stop you there. So if you decide to go anyway, I recommend you get it up to ramming speed."

"What the hell?" he said, punching a palm. "A roadblock! Why didn't you say so before?"

"I just noticed it myself," I said.

"How the hell do they have a roadblock? Where are the real police? Dead?"

I looked at him.

"Wait. You know more about this than you're letting on, don't you? Don't lie to me. What's really going on?"

I didn't want to spill the beans, but at this point I realized I would need this guy's help, so I had no other choice but to trust him.

He was trapped now, too, so what did it matter?

"Okay, Mathias," I said. "You're right. I do know more. I held off to save everyone from freaking out. We need to work together here or we are screwed. I mean done. Over. Do you understand?"

"What is it? Tell me," he said.

"Here's the story. You know this is a college town, right? Whole area is run by Beckford College."

"Uh-huh. The big money school with the basketball team."

"Well," I said, "the blonde woman with me is the wife of the college president. She's blowing the whistle about a girl who died last year at the college. Her husband, the college president , is involved and the local Beckford cops including the chief of police helped cover it up. See, so it's not a drug cartel out there. It's a hundred times worse. It's the real local corrupt cops and because we all saw the murder of Big Joe, they are going to come in here and kill every last one of us if we don't figure something out."