24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
They got to the old man’s shop in Aurora in less than an hour, taking back streets. The old man looked the same as the last time Liam had seen him, same dirty white undershirt, same cigar butt sticking between his stained teeth. Those few hairs in his comb-over had thinned, but he was very much the same guy.
“Mr. Daniels, hey.”
“That you, MacManus?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Thought you was sent up the river?”
That voice had haunted his dreams, and the roughness of it came from the cheap whiskey and cheaper cigars. “I was, yeah. I got out recently.”
“You steal that truck, didja?”
Murphy was standing there, waiting to be introduced. “Mr. Daniels, this is my boss, Murphy. The truck is his, but we’re looking to unload what’s inside.”
As he chewed the cigar, he eyed Murphy hard. “Heard o’ you. Big time for a fence like me.” He reached over and shook Murphy’s hand, but never took his bloodshot eyes off him.
“I’m afraid there is some competition for us now. The man I usually take this stuff to is…unavailable.”
“Unavailable. Ain’t that a shame? Those coppers givin’ you trouble, eh?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Ain’t a crook in town don’t know about the cops givin’ us a run for our money. Well, let’s see what ya got.”
Liam led Daniels to the back of the truck and the second he opened the doors, Daniel’s eyes widened. “What the living Jesus is that?”
“A Bentley.”
“I know that MacManus. I ain’t blind. What you expect me to do with it? You know that’s got GPS!”
“It’s disabled, and right now, we have an extra scrambler inside, just in case.”
“We can’t lie,” Murphy explained. “We’re pretty desperate to get right of it, so give us a number and a two-million-dollar car is all yours.”
After Daniels climbed into the truck, he walked up and down it slowly, eyeing it, stroking a hand along the top. “Hardly gives off exhaust, even running in a box truck. Ain’t that something?”
Liam was nervous. They needed the car gone, but if it was less than a hundred grand, they would barely break even with the surveillance, prints, disguises for the van and all.
“I got a guy, might take it whole. I’d make a nice chunk from it, but that doesn’t mean I want to give it all to you. I’ll give you one fifty.”
Liam let out a sigh that was relief and disappointment at once. They were all supposed to get a much bigger payday.
Once they drove the car out of the truck, Daniels said, “What you want for the truck?”
“People might be looking for it,” Murphy warned.
“Not when I get done with it. How much?”
“Paid forty for it. I’d take that, break even on it.”
Daniels walked back and forth around it before he offered, “Thirty-five.”
Murphy thought for a moment, then shook the man’s hand. “It’s a deal.”
Back at the pub, the entire crew was in the basement, and Liam finally got to meet Ryan, who’d insisted on being there. Murphy started on his blond-haired, blue-eyed, much younger twin. “You are out. In fact, we’re all out until we reconfigure and see what we have to do with this new threat.”
Taran was there, and Hippy stared at him, demanding, “What are you doing about them? They’re not only doing the fucked-up jobs, but they’re taking our jobs too.”
“We…we have a mole inside the organization. We weren’t sure it was working until this morning, but now…we have someone in the Denver PD, and he recently was brought into the BBC. He’s going to help us take them down, but only if we can keep him safe. And that might be where you all need to come in.”
“I’m in,” Ryan said, and his father threw a look at him that shut him up immediately.
Hippy was the one who asked, “How fucking deep in all this shit do you think we want to be?”
Murphy stopped them from murmured agreements with Hippy. “Listen, guys, we just got fucked out of a whole lot of money by these guys. If we want to continue with our side-jobs, then we are going to work to take those mother fuckers down. Not to mention, the reasons we had to want them gone to begin with.”
Eazy passed out the cash to all of them, but Abs pushed his into the center of the table. “I’m still donating my piece to the cat charity.”
Liam felt like crying as the rest of them did the same, even Hippy. The pile of cash, minus what had been spent on the heist, was all going to save cats, like Daiq.
Haze said, “Listen, I hate these fuckers. I’m not a big lover of cops anyway, but dirty cops? Come on!”
“Yeah, I’m in too,” Mims said. “Taking over the city like they’re some kind of mafia.”
“Worse than mafia,” Murphy said. “Mafia fellas at least had a code. These guys, they don’t. Trafficking people’s daughters and sons, taking food from the mouths of small-time crooks. You know, most of those people steal to feed their fucking families.”
Taran said, “I don’t condone it, lawlessness, but I also am an adult. I don’t have idealistic dreams of good and bad guys. There are too many in the middle for that fantasy. Of the bad guys there are, though, these are the worst. And they’re growing almost too strong to take down.”
That hit home with the entire room. Goldie sighed. “The bigger they are, as they say.”
“Yeah,” Abs agreed with his friend. “It might take a lot, but we’re going to take them down hard.”
Mims changed the subject quickly. “Hey, I have someone that needs some help. The last time I worked by myself, I overheard Joe talking about this guy who’s getting booted out of his apartment. More gentrification in the city.”
“Are we really surprised?” Easy asked, defeated. “What can we do about it?”
“Outbid the ones trying to buy it,” Murphy answered. “We buy a rundown apartment and spend a fortune to get it to code.”
Liam thought about it, and he whispered, “Mafia.”
Taran asked first, even though most were about to. “What about mafias?”
“Isn’t that how they started? They started because the people needed protections and help, and…favors were traded. We could get a lot people on our side if we helped, while the BBC was fucking people over.”
“We’re not a fucking mafia, Cosmo,” Murphy scoffed.
“Not exactly, but if a cartel is moving in, one with connections we could never have, we could get something they’d never have. The people. The people.”
Taran laughed and said, “I should not be hearing this, but I have to admit I love it.”
Eazy asked his husband, “Can we afford this?”
“Mortgage, yeah. Take a couple hundred grand to fix the place to start, just getting the roof, electric, and plumbing up to code, but that sure spreads the wealth, too. We use local guys and we don’t raise the rent. Cosmo might just be onto something.”
Hippy smiled over at him, and for once, it was sincere. “Welcome to the family, Cosmo.”
“Thanks.”
The next day, Liam lay with Daiq while Daiq purred happily after his can of fancy food that Abs kept buying him. “You’re going to be the fattest, most spoiled cat in the world, and that’s perfectly okay by me.”
Daiq paid him no mind as long as Liam kept stroking his fur. The minute he stopped, Daiq would lift his little head and pitifully meow like he was being abused.
“I see through your scams, you know?”
Again, just purring and quiet snores.
The new collar Abs had bought him was shining in the lamplight. It was rhinestones, the expensive ones, and had a gold-plated tag announcing the phone number for the pub and his full name.
The beautiful cat was happy, and everyone was in love with him. If nothing else had convinced Liam of the goodness of the people at the pub, it was the way they’d taken to Daiq.
Then Liam thought of Taran, and how his eyes shone when they looked his way. Murphy was right, of course. He couldn’t go through life pushing people away because his childhood had been so horrible.
That pain, however, left scars that made a tough layer around his heart. Getting through it would not be easy, but Daiq had been the one to crack it. “This is all your fault, and if they all hurt me, I’m going to argue with you.”
“Meow,” he cried as Liam stopped petting him.
“Sorry. Bossy brat.”
Taran called him and asked to meet him outside the pub. It was nine in the morning, and he was barely dressed, but he got dressed quickly and toed on his sneakers before he rushed down the stairs, laughing at himself at how excited he was to see the guy.
Taran was parked right on the corner, illegally at that. “Must be nice to be a cop and park wherever you want.”
“It’s nice, yeah. I just came from a meeting with our…you know, guy, and I wanted very badly to see you.”
Leaning on the car with arms crossed on his chest, a cheeky little grin, crooked, and looking luscious, Taran’s smile warmed Liam right through. After a kiss hello, he asked what Taran was doing there so early.
“Where is he? Is he hot? You crushing on him too? More important, if the answer to that is yes, can I kick his ass?”
“I don’t know. He’s pretty tough. He’s got these nice arms, heavy biceps. Very sexy. But, alas, I’m already crushing on you.”
Liam kissed him again and chuckled. “You must really want to get laid.”
“Yeah, I sure do. Should we go to my place or is here okay?”
“I don’t think I could wait to get to your place. Still, you’d better park across the street and put in a few hundred bucks for parking into the meter.”
A heavy sigh as he gave into Liam’s request. “Okay, but don’t you go anywhere. I want to watch you walking up the stairs. That view is…”
“I’ll wait right here for you.”
The car was pulled away from the curb on the corner and Liam watched him crossing the street and do an illegal U-turn to get into the one parking spot left. He parked and messed with the meter for a minute, then jogged straight across the caddy-corner from where he’d parked, ignoring the crosswalks.
“I am being a very bad influence on you,” Liam called, and then…everything changed.
A man neither of them had noticed walked out into the street and as he pulled a pistol out of his hoodie pocket, Liam started screaming at Taran.
He felt like his feet were in cement, and he couldn’t move as fast as he needed, but the shot sounded, echoing off the buildings all around them, and Liam watched in horror as Taran was thrown forward, the coward shooting him in the back.
Liam got to him, rushing into the middle of the street, holding up his hand at the two cars approaching the five-way stop. “Taran! Taran!”
On his knees, he cupped Taran’s cheek, his tears falling on Taran’s face. It all hit him, everything, but topping it all was the anger at himself for letting himself care again. Everyone he cared about, those he loved, they all died.
Then, like a fucking miracle, Taran’s eyes opened, those shocking blue eyes wide as he coughed and writhed on the ground. That was when Liam realized there was no blood. He ripped open Taran’s shirt to find a Kevlar vest on him.
“Taran?”
“I’m okay,” he croaked. “Who was that?”
Liam barely heard the question as his head turned to see the man ducking into the parking garage where Murphy kept his SUV halfway down the block across the street.
He ran as his vision went red. It had been so long since that kind of anger had come over him, but the world was awash in a blood colored haze and he couldn’t think, couldn’t stop himself. He ran after the shooter, and the cries behind him were lost in the rampant beating of his pulse in his ears.
Like he was flying over the pavement on the wide street, heading to the garage, his sneakers slapping to match his heart rate, he was hyper focused on getting to the man and beating him to death.
Both hands were curled into fists as he rounded the corner, and the parking attendant screamed at him as he ran past. He didn’t care or see, but he saw the man pulling out from a parking spot, the hoodie still pulled over his head.
He was headed right for Liam, but Liam didn’t stop, didn’t turn and didn’t dodge away from the car as it barreled at him, gaining as much speed as he could coming from his parking position.
Liam jumped on the hood of the car, and he pulled himself up by the hood where it hinged on the windshield. The man behind the wheel stared, amazed, but he stopped the car, like he couldn’t believe Liam would jump on the moving vehicle.
The thing was, when Liam felt that old familiar fury, his body reacted on its own, and what was worse, he gained a strength that could only be from rage and adrenaline. He slammed one elbow into the windshield and the thing cracked, spider cracks over the face of the man.
He got out of the car, and Liam saw him reaching into his pants for the gun that he’d shot Taran with, but Liam was quicker, sliding off the hood and grabbing the man by the throat with one hand while the other started hitting his pale, ugly face.
The feeling of it, a hard fist punching into the bones of a face, like that fist was trying to punch through it, like one would a piece of wall made of nothing more than sheetrock. The blood matching the red glare of his eyes, the cracking of the skin of his own knuckles blending in that blood.
He felt hands on him, and he tried to strike out at them, but arms were around his arms, pinning them to his sides, and he was taken from the shooter. The screams of frustration were echoing loudly in the garage, and he spit and fought to get back to the man to finish beating him to death.
Then he heard the voice yelling in his ear. It was Goldie. “Calm the fuck down!”
Murphy, Mims, and Haze were holding the shooter on the ground and the gun was kicked away as they all heard sirens in the distance.
The parking attendant was there, asking what the hell was going on, and Liam came around enough to realize he was the one who’d called the police.
“That motherfucker tried to kill a man,” Murphy screamed.
“Yeah, I saw that,” he screamed before getting back on the phone with 911. “They got him, they’re holding him!”
Abs started screaming then, and it snapped Liam out of his rage enough to respond. “What?”
“The guard guy thinks you are the one that shot Taran!”
Goldie felt him change and let him go. “Don’t start beating him again.”
“Where’s Taran? Is he okay?”
Just then, Taran was walking in, with Eazy helping him. “Liam! I’m okay!”
When the cops got there, they first listened to the security guard, and he took them into the booth to show them the tape of Liam jumping onto the moving car, but Taran, when he could breathe better, told them what really happened.
It was a mess, shouting, Liam seeing the man standing as they took him to an ambulance, and the red covered his vision again. Luckily, the others kept him from going back after him in front of the police.
Liam was taken into custody, but Taran promised him things would work out once he could get to the station.
After he raged, Liam swam in a deep pool where everything was off kilter. Things slowed, like he was walking along the bottom of that pool, and lights refracted strangely, voices were warbled and muted.
The cops in the car's front were talking, but Liam caught little of what they said. That was until the cop in the passenger seat turned his head and looked Liam in the eye. “Beating a fucking cop, on camera. This guy is fried.”
“And he’s on parole,” the cop driving said.
“Fucking fried.”
The guy who’d shot Taran was a fucking cop. It all became clear. “That guy was a cop?”
“Oh, he speaks,” the one in the driver’s seat snarked. “Yeah. You shoot a fed and beat a cop. You must not want to live long. If you make it to death row, that is.”
Knowing there was no point in arguing, Liam sat back in the seat and stared at the city as they sped past the intersections.
He was placed in a cell by himself, where he paced, worried over Taran’s injuries, worried over his freedom, just about everything he could worry over.
Then, the door of his holding cell opened, and Taran was there. He wanted to fly to him, hold him, thankful that he was okay, and not dead, like he’d first thought when he was shot but Taran shook his head just enough to remind him that wouldn’t be a good idea.
“Mr. MacManus, come with us, please,” he said.
He moved slowly, and one of the cops that had brought him in looked away from Liam in embarrassment, but the other actually apologized. “Agent Rochester told us what happened. Not that beating the guy half to death was okay,” he started, then Taran threw him a dirty look, and the cop backed away from where he was going with that. “He’s in custody at the hospital.”
Taran and one of the cops took him into interrogation, and as soon as the cop left, Taran told Liam, “I told them you were my CI. Dangerous to do here, but there was no other way to explain why I was there with you.”
“Right. A cop and a criminal fucking would likely not be a good idea.”
“No. Not…now. Not with all this mess. The good thing is, it’s not like they didn’t already know about you. They may have a few moles of their own.”
“So now what?”
“I’m getting you out of here and prosecuting the shooter. He’s claiming to be acting on his own. We won’t break him.”
“How can you know that? Will he seriously go to prison for these guys?”
Taran moved in and whispered, “Yeah. Think about it, Liam. A cop in prison doesn’t have a snowball's chance in hell, but with other cops also pissed at you for snitching?”
“A snitch, a cop killer, and a cop. Yeah, he’d have everyone after him. So now what for us?”
Taran’s sweet smile warmed the cold places inside him from his revisiting of his old self. “You went after that guy for hurting me. All that…anger, it was for me. Sorry, but I think it was romantic as hell.”
“You’re very…weird.”
“Yeah. I am.”