16. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
“It’s not that you did it, but you did it with him,” Murphy said as he laughed uncontrollably.
Eazy was laughing with his husband. “You actually took a fed on a car theft, and he drove behind you to the drop?”
“Yeah. It was great. I don’t think he’s lying. I’m not saying I trust him yet, but when you’re inside, you get a sixth sense and mine hasn’t worn off yet.”
“True shit,” Goldie said as he came into the kitchen.
They were gathering in Murphy’s kitchen that day to discuss the weekend ahead. When Cosmo woke up on the couch in the common area, he saw Abs walking around with Daiq, feeding him shrimp.
While the meeting was going on, the kids had Daiq in one of their bedrooms, spoiling him further. Murphy caught Goldie and Haze up on what Cosmo had done that night, and they freaked out for half a second, then laughed like Murphy had.
“I’m meeting with his partner today,” Murphy announced. “I don’t enjoy talking about this here. Get down to the basement.”
They all filed down the stairs, except for Eazy, and into the secret room, sitting around the table as Murphy sat at the head. “Okay, this is scary shit, but it might be the best thing for us. The other groups that have been squeezing us are bigger, stronger, and much more vicious. If we have a couple feds on our side…”
“But that makes us snitches,” Hippy pointed out. “We send them down the road to the other guys. No one who works with us will ever trust us again.”
Murphy pointed to him and said, “Name one group we work with that is trafficking drugs and humans. I’m not about to defend those motherfuckers.”
“So, after all of them are gone, who’s next? We’re getting into a scary partnership, man.”
Murphy was about to blow, but Cosmo broke into the conversation before he could. “Listen, they want to get rid of the really bad guys. If they want to push us for more, not only can we point the rest of their cops to them but also the other gangs. Their lives won’t be worth a dime, and they know that. Taran does, anyway.”
“ and I are going,” Murphy said. “That way the rest of you can claim you didn’t know shit. If I don’t like it, we’re out. But I’m a dad. I have two little kids, and if I thought for a second that anyone wanted to force them into some kind of bad shit, I’m gonna stop it. If I can help other dads not lose their kids to that same horror, you bet your ass I will.”
That shut everyone’s mouth, except for Mims, who said, “That’s our Paps.”
Goldie had taken a moment, but he agreed. “Damn right, Murph. We won’t work with those kind, but plenty do. If someone doesn’t take a stand on them, it could be anyone that gets taken by them.”
Hippy finally nodded and said, “I’ll get you guys hooked up before you go. Just in case.”
“The Just-in-Case man is back in action,” Abs chirped. “What do we do?”
Murphy said, “Take care of my family. Ryan’s coming home tonight. Introduce him to the cat, and everyone watches out for anyone that might look off.”
After everyone else left, Hippy waved Murphy and Cosmo over to the corner of the meeting room. “Cosmo, this is my secret place. You talk about it and you can pick which one I use on you.”
Another secret room. He wondered how many there were.
The floor looked like smooth concrete, with indentures around squares, like a myriad of concrete tiles had been laid to make the floor. He’d never thought a thing about it, but most basement floors were smooth concrete across each room, not tiles of the stuff.
All Hippy had to do was to step on the corner to his right and the door popped back and showed a dark square hole in the floor. Hippy started down the ladder and Murphy followed. Dumb as it was, after telling them he’d been hanging out with a fed, to go into some secret room inside of another secret room, he went anyway.
As he climbed down the ladder, the lights came on and the second he got to the floor below, he saw that on every single space on the walls were weapons.
In awe, he spun around and felt his eyes bugging out. Rifles, shotguns, automatic rifles, pistols, crossbows, and one entire wall were nothing but knives of every shape and size.
“What the fuck?”
“I told you, he’s the weapons man. He’s spent half his shares on this stash.”
Cosmo nodded at Murphy. “I respect that.”
“Come over here,” Hippy told them. “Gotta get you wired.”
“Wait, you’re wiring us?”
Murphy laughed as he walked over and explained, “Yeah. Fight fire with fire.”
“They have a lot of info on us, so why wouldn’t we get some on them? Isn’t that what you were doing when you fucked the guy?”
Hippy was glaring at him, and he didn’t even try to hide the fact he didn’t like Cosmo much. If he was truthful with himself, he couldn’t blame the guy. “Yeah. That was why, but now, sorry, but I believe him.”
“You know they’re trained to lie? Undercover cops are trained to lie!”
Murphy got in between them and held a hand on each chest. “Enough. We’re on the same side.”
“You sure about that, Murph?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said, letting his arms drop. “I am sure of it. It’s not like I haven’t known so-called dirty cops before.”
Hippy pointed a finger at Cosmo and gritted, “If you hurt these people, I’ll fucking kill you with my bare hands. I ain’t gonna need one of these guns.”
If there was anything that Cosmo could respect, it was loyalty. He looked Hippy in the eye and said, “I’d do it myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“We’ll see.”
There was a drawer in a built-in wall cabinet that held guns along the top. Hippy pulled out two tiny pins that were no bigger than a BB for a BB gun.
There was a metal stud on it, so it could be used as a pierced earring or a pin on a shirt. “That’s a wire?”
“Yeah. Powerful and expensive too, but it isn’t great at ambient sounds, so try to stay close and not somewhere there are a lot of other voices or ambient sounds of any kind.”
Hippy pinned one of them onto Murphy’s button-up shirt. When he turned to Cosmo, and Cosmo saw the look of disdain, he set his hand on Hippy’s shoulder. “I know you don’t know me. I know you don’t trust me, even after all this. I don’t blame you. I will do right by all of you.”
Hippy’s head fell as he said, “Yeah, well, that’ll be seen or not, but…” He looked back into Cosmo’s eyes. “You don’t like family? I get why, believe me, I’d feel the same, but that doesn’t mean they’re all bad. This one is good. Don’t fuck this up.”
As he got the wire pinned on the hem of his T-shirt collar, he said, “I won’t. I swear that to you.”
“Well, all right then. Cosmo, let’s get the fuck over with this shit.”
As they drove, Murphy explained about Hippy. “That kid wasn’t much more than a bag of bones when I first met him. He’s been with me since the first crew was put together. I thought he was underage, to be truthful. He didn’t look older than twelve, but he was determined and he needed the work.
“He was in the foster system for a long time. He never once put down roots. Got in with a gang, and that’s where he learned the gun trade. After he saw some nasty shit, he left, and they don’t let folks leave easily, you know. This guy found him next to his place and hired him to wash dishes. His place was a blues joint, and that is where he found the love of his life. Music.
“When old Joe died, Hippy was pretty lost. The club got sold off. Now it’s an import/export store. He got himself into some trouble, but I have friends who know the right people and they sent him to me. I caught him before he got himself thrown into prison. We’re the first real family he’s ever had, like a lot of the guys. He’s protective.”
Cosmo listened to the story and felt how close it was to his own. “Foster homes fuck up your head. Even the good ones. Stay a while, get comfortable, and bam, something happens that drags you away from them. Over and over.”
“And that’s the good ones. Sure, there’s a lot of good people doing it, but a lot of bad ones too. That’s why I’ve put up a lot of safeguards for the kids. They’ll always have a guardian, no matter what.”
“That’s good, Murphy. I’m glad you look after them like that.”
“I’m gonna look after you the same way, and I don’t give a good fucking hell if you don’t like it.”
Cosmo felt his defenses nearly leave him completely as his lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “Yeah, I got that memo.”
“Good. Fucking punk.”
At the parking lot where the meeting was happening, Cosmo scanned around for more cars. Murphy caught him doing it. “You stole a car in front of a fed. I wouldn’t suggest doing it in front of two of them.”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. Even inside, we’d see the visitors’ parking lot, and I’d remember how to get into every car in the lot. Never really leaves my head.”
“I get it. But…no more with the fed. I think I understand why you did it, but no more.”
“Okay, boss.”
The car pulled up with a man driving that looked so much like a fed, Cosmo doubted he’d ever had to show his badge. Hair short and perfectly combed to the side, shaved so clean, Cosmo wondered if his five o’clock shadow was scared to show itself before nine at night.
Once he was out of the white sedan, it got worse. The cheap gray suit and cheaper red tie screamed federal agent. Taran came around the back of the car, smiling over to the two of them. “Cosmo, Mr. Murphy, this is Special Agent Campbell Rymes. Camp, this is Connor Murphy and Cosmo.”
“No need to use his codename, Rochester. I know all about Cosmo MacManus.”
Cosmo’s eyes narrowed at the man, and he asked, “You know what is in your folders. That doesn’t mean you know all about me.”
“Granted, but I know enough.”
Black hair and blue eyes were the nicest parts about him. The rest was plain as a brown paper bag, but Cosmo suddenly felt like he knew the guy.
As his dull blue eyes stared into Cosmo’s, he saw that he, like Taran, was disenchanted with his life. He thought he’d begun a career to get the bad guys until he saw he was getting few, and the real bad guys were the ones disguised as heroes.
Murphy started, “We can dispense with the niceties. We’re here to strike a deal, correct?”
“We are,” Taran said, and his partner nodded. “We have a group that you may or may not know about. There’s no way we’ll get them quickly or easily, but they know you all and they work with pretty much all your enemies.”
Murphy laughed and grunted, “The BBC?”
Cosmo watched Campbell’s eyebrows rise as surprise took him. “You know?”
Cosmo was lost. “Who’s the BBC?”
“The Blue Badge Cartel,” Taran answered. “They’re a group of former and current cops, federal agents, shit, even forestry officers. They were tired of earning a living that didn’t compete with the crooks, so they made their own cartel.”
“You want to work your way up to them. The head of the snake, so to speak,” Murphy said flatly.
“Yes. We do. Not only do they give us all a bad name, but they’re hurting people. A lot of people.”
As he shrugged, Murphy asked, “And you need us how?”
Cosmo stopped either of them with, “You want us to help you get up the snake by the tail so you can get the head.”
“No,” Taran said, then backtracked. “Not completely. In a way, that’s it, but there’s a lot more than that. Let us hang with you, like we’re part of you. When I said I was undercover, I meant it. I have no close ties like a spouse or kids and my parents live far from here and have different names. Bring me in, with Camp as my handler, and let me break off from you and into these other organizations. Maybe they don’t like you, but they know you’re like them to an extent. Keep up my relationship with you, vouch for me. Then, if there are other things, we can negotiate from there.”
“You’re telling us you just want our okay on your forehead? That’s it?”
“Yes. I need an in and you all are that in.”
Cosmo barked a laugh and pulled Taran away from the other two men, and as they walked along the parked cars in the big lot, he whispered harshly, “You are not up to this!”
“I’m getting there,” he said as a timid defense.
Cosmo stopped him and pulled him between a tall SUV and Suburban. After pushing him to the Suburban, he held him there with a flat hand on his chest. “You are going to get yourself killed.”
“Would that bother you?”
The guy was smiling, and it tore at Cosmo’s heart. “Yeah, okay. I…”
“I like you, too, Cosmo. Maybe you’ll help me get ready for this then. Teach me what the bureau couldn’t.”
Cosmo stepped to him and pressed his lips to Taran’s, and for a second, they felt cold, like he was already dead from the stupid in which he encased himself.
When his lips were warm, however, Cosmo felt the man more than he ever had. He, like Cosmo, didn’t like the harder parts of the world. He was idealistic at best and foolhardy at worst. But he had a heart, he had a soul, and that was damn hard to find in the world.
Whispering on Taran’s lips, Cosmo said, “I won’t always be able to protect you.”
“Maybe one day, I’ll protect you.”