Chapter Nine
“What’s your name?” the woman interrogating me asks. She had introduced herself to me a while ago, but I can’t remember what she said her name is. I blame it on the raging headache.
“I don’t know,” I say, wondering if this is the part where I am supposed to start my new mantra or if that is supposed to come in later.
“Were you staying at the Renaissance Hotel?”
She’s an older lady that looks like she could beat the bad right out of me with just a look. I bet she is also the kind of lady that looks hard as hell, yet cries when an animal dies in a movie. Then again, only a heathen wouldn’t.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Do you want a lawyer or something? Is that what you’re waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “That one I really don’t know. What I do know is that my wrist really hurts, so can you take these handcuffs off?”
She stares at me for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she says in a mocking tone.
I grin. “I like you,” I say.
“How’d you get hurt?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“This is a waste of time,” she says as she gets up and leaves the interrogation room.
I expect her to return right away, but after a while of sitting in that room and contemplating my life, I begin to wonder if she ever will. To pass time, I decide to just take a nap. So, I lay my head down on the table and close my eyes, but I can’t sleep.
Thankfully, a minute later the door opens, so I quickly sit up.
It’s the same lady as before and she looks none too pleased to see me.
“Well, Felix Wake, there’s someone here to pick you up.”
“There is? Is that like a euphemism for like Satan or something? You going to send me to hell if I don’t answer?” I ask.
“Here, I brought you some clothes,” she says as she tosses them on the table.
“Oh? You’re tired of seeing me half-naked?”
“Just leave,” she says as she walks over to me and undoes my handcuffs. “Please. Just clothe yourself and leave.”
“I’ll take it,” I say as I rub my aching wrists.
I pick up the shirt and see that I clearly pissed off the wrong lady because it’s a woman’s shirt. I pull it on and tug on the bottom, but it seems to be missing the second half of it.
“Is this a belly shirt?” I ask. “Great, I’m wearing some diseased hooker’s clothes. There should be a rule against that.”
“They’re my daughter’s clothes. You should feel lucky I didn’t go digging through the clothes that get left behind. Now put them on and leave.”
“Nothing a bit more…covering in your car?”
“Just be happy I’m helping you.”
I pull the sweats on that are bright pink and match the bejeweled top. Then I follow her out of the room and into a different one where Lane is waiting with a man I don’t recognize.
“This him?” the man says. “Oh…sorry, I forgot you can’t see him.”
“This is ridiculous,” I say. I’m not sure if I’m talking about my clothes or the situation or basically my life in general since meeting Lane.
“Yeah, that’s him. Let’s go,” he says as he turns his head in the other man’s direction.
The man starts walking, and Lane quickly follows close behind. I wave to my new favorite interrogator before rushing after them.
When we step outside, I can’t believe it’s already light out. Then again, it felt like I’d been in that dungeon for years. The man walks up to a red, four-door car and gets in.
I grab Lane’s wrist, so I can help him to his door, but he starts to pull away. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I can do it myself,” he says, but he doesn’t pull his hand from me, so I keep guiding him. It’s almost like he’s embarrassed to be helped in front of this guy. Like he’s lost all the confidence he had earlier. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. You?” I ask.
“Yeah…took them far too long, but I’m fine,” he says as he reaches out and feels along the car door.
I slide his hand over to the door handle and he pulls it open and gets in.
I get into the back seat and buckle up before sinking into the cushion.
At this point, it feels like my bruises have bruises.
“So…I’m Felix,” I say as I look at the man in the driver’s seat.
He glances back at me and smiles before holding a hand out. “Sorry for not introducing myself in the police station but they were making me furious and I just wanted to get out.” His grip is tight as he shakes my hand. “Mick Reed.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
He’s a man in his early forties with dark brown hair and a round face that gives him a young appearance. He’s tall and lanky, causing his sports hoodie to look too short in the sleeves but too big everywhere else.
“This was my partner for my last job on the force,” Lane says.
Finally, I’m given some confirmation that Lane did work in law enforcement. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s finally opening up, but I can tell the secrets don’t end there.
“We were relatively new partners, but I learned a lot from Price,” he says as he nods at Lane.
“I can’t imagine what you would learn from Lane other than how not to act toward people,” I say.
He laughs as he looks over at Lane for his reaction.
“You can drop Felix off on any street corner. If you can find a cardboard box, I can write ‘Free’ on it,” Lane says with a grin.
“You’re stuck with me, buddy. The moment you aimed a gun at my head you burnt that bridge of pawning me off,” I say.
“You seriously still want to hang around?” Lane asks in disbelief.
“Of course,” I say. Maybe it’s feeling that same thrill I got as a kid when I stole shit, or maybe it’s feeling like someone cared, but I don’t want to go anywhere.
“What I’m confused about is if they sent a threat your way, why would they not wait to see where the threat went before just trying to kill you?” Mick asks.
“Red didn’t come to the hotel. He’s the one that sent the threat.
I’m not quite sure, but it sounded like Carter was the one at the hotel.
He said I killed his brother and that’s the only one I could think of.
He was in it for revenge. Red wants us to back off and he knows that killing me isn’t the way to make that happen.
That would have just made the police work harder to find him and his group.
Red sends a threat and there’s really nothing we can do about it.
They beat up Felix, but Red didn’t touch him so we can’t arrest him.
Felix’s word against Red’s isn’t going to fly in court and Red knows it. ”
“So…are they like the mafia? Or like a street gang or something exciting?” I ask.
“You don’t need to worry about it. The less you know the better,” Lane says.
“Seriously?” I ask as I lean forward so I’m right next to his ear. “ Seriously ?”
He sighs, and I know that I have finally broken him down.
“Victor Red owns a successful business handing out loans to anyone that will take them. It’s a perfectly legal business, but a while back a police officer was killed while associating with them.
There wasn’t any proof that Red or any of his men had anything to do with it, but there were rumors.
There were also speculations about drug trafficking going on, but again no proof.
Pinning them down isn’t easy, though, and the department needed proof.
They wanted to dig a little deeper, which is where I came in.
They brought me in from out of state to work undercover and try to piece things together. That is all you need to know.”
“Did you get caught?” I ask.
“That is all you need to know,” he says sternly.
“Yes, papa!” I say sarcastically.
“For now, we’ll just get you both back to Chicago, and we’ll go from there,” Mick says to Lane. “You guys can stay with me for a few days until we figure out where to put you.”
“Alright,” Lane says. “We can stay at a hotel if that works better. I don’t want to be intruding.”
“Not at all,” Mick says with a smile. “Honestly, it’s fine.”
“Alright, thanks again. We won’t stay long.”
They begin to talk about mundane things and my headache is back, so I lie down on the back seat and close my eyes. Mick is talking about some café his sister opened as I slowly drift away.