3 Time to Steele (4 page)

“But surely not
everyone
liked him,” said Steele. “He ran a repossessions business. I have to imagine some people got upset with him, and with you, when you came to collect on their debts.”

Gronk nodded. “Yeah, sure. Most of them do. It comes with the territory. They get heated and yell, sometimes they even make threats, but it’s all unfounded. Nobody ever takes action. That’s part of the reason Darryl hired me—to scare people into submission while we repoed their stuff.”

“Do you recall anyone you dealt with who got particularly animated?” asked Steele. “Preferably recently.”

Gronk nodded again. “Yeah. Just yesterday, as a matter of fact. Darryl and I called on a guy, something Patterson. Rudolph, I think. He owned a small rickshaw business where he’d rent the carts out to freelance drivers, except he was way behind on his payments, so we came and rounded up all the rickshaws to return them to the bank. He got mad.
Real
mad. Had some choice words about our sisters and where we could stuff things. Screamed at us as we left, saying stuff like ‘I’ll get you’ and ‘I’ll show you.’ I thought he was full of hot air. I had no idea…”

The waterworks started again. Great…

“Hey, Gronk,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you have an address for this guy? And a physical description, perhaps?”

He did, for both his home and his business. We collected the information and headed out, leaving Gronk to drown his sorrows in warm chai.

5

The business address we culled from the gogre’s paws was close enough to Gill’s Repossessions that we decided to walk, saving the department a few coppers on the monthly transportation budget. Besides, it was a beautiful day. Cool and crisp, with the city’s summer scents of sweat and warm garbage having been whisked away on the arms of the wind.

All around us, people took advantage of the weather while they could, chatting on terraces, sipping coffee at cafes, and snacking on meat pies purchased from unlicensed mobile food carts. Soon enough, the bitter winds of winter would arrive, driving people back into their homes and making my complaints about the summer heat seem unfounded in comparison.

Hints of butter and rosemary tickled my nose as we passed a trio of dissimilar ethnic pasty carts, awakening my salivary glands and stomach in quick succession.

“You know, we should probably stop and grab something to eat,” I said. “It’s about that time.”

Shay gave me a halfhearted roll of her eyes. “You always think it’s time to eat.”

Rodgers chimed in. “As true as that may be…”

“You’re hungry, too?” asked Shay.

Rodgers shrugged. “We didn’t have much in the house this morning. Breakfast consisted of a slice of wheat bread and a glass of milk.”

“Just bread?” I said. “Not even toast? You should file a civil complaint against Allison.” She was Rodgers’ wife.

“I’m trying to get back into her good graces, not end up like you, Daggers.”

“Ouch.” I held a hand over my heart. “Fair enough. I admit it was mostly my own incompetence that led my marriage past the point of no return.”

“Mostly?”
said Steele.

I gave her the evil eye before turning my gaze back to Rodgers. “Anyway, what are you trying to atone for?”

“The usual,” said Rodgers. “Staying at work too late. Snapping at the kids when it’s been a rough day. That sort of thing.”

Rodgers’ problems sounded like a carbon copy of mine while I’d been married to Nicole, except I knew when Rodgers left the office, and he wasn’t anywhere near as much of a workaholic as I’d been during the period that preceded my divorce.

“Don’t take that first one for granted,” I said. “Spending time with your family is more important than any job. I think even the Captain would agree with that.”

Shay looked at me with a smile on her lips, the kind that said she was about to hit me with a verbal jab but that, secretly, she admired what I’d said. “You know Daggers, for as often as you head home early, I have a hard time believing you ever burned the midnight oil to the point where it interfered with your marriage.”

“That just shows I’ve learned my lesson,” I said. “And before you say it, the fact that I have no family at home to return to anymore is immaterial. It’s a lifestyle choice. Reduces stress.”

Shay snickered. She appeared to be in a good mood, so I pressed my luck and suggested grabbing as a to-go option for our lunch some of the freshly baked beef- and cheese-filled pockets of goodness we’d passed our noses across. Normally, Shay would’ve declined. She was a stickler for finer dining—plated meals that weren’t complete without garnishes and sprinkles of spices and herbs and drizzled sauces. I, on the other hand, much preferred the simply glory of the sandwich and its many close relatives, namely wraps, calzones, and pasties, in whatever language or form they came.

In an act of magnanimousness, Shay allowed us to stop and fill up on street food, but probably only because she knew Rodgers shared my culinary sensibilities. She also insisted we pitch in and buy a bag of pasties for Quinto. Given he’d grudgingly taken on the loathsome bank run, that seemed like a fair trade. I snagged a few beef and raisin filled pockets for myself, then filled a bag with an assortment for Quinto, everything from ham and cheese to potato and salted cod—a combination I personally couldn’t stand, but the big guy had a stomach that could withstand offerings even vultures would turn their noses up at.

We shot the breeze as we ate and walked, discussing the more pressing issues of the day such as why pastries were sold by the dozen when ten was such a more logical number. We’d long finished our lunch by the time we arrived at our destination, a warehouse about an order of magnitude smaller and more decrepit than Gill’s establishment. The metal roller shutters over the warehouse doors were locked tight, but as luck would have it, a horse-faced gentleman wearing a ratty jacket and khaki pants was exiting through the main door as we appeared. Based on Gronk’s description, I ID’d him as Rudolph Patterson, the rickshaw business owner.

“Excuse me, Mr. Patterson?” I said as we approached, stretching a hand into my coat for my badge.

The guy at the door took one look at us and bolted.

“Hey, wait!” I yelled, my arm still plugged inside my coat.

Rodgers and Steele took after the guy with me a bare two steps behind. At first opportunity, Patterson weaved into an alley. We barreled around the corner behind him, Rodgers and Steele making the turn cleanly while my momentum carried me into a stack of ill-placed metal trashcans. Ignoring their clatter, I kept going down the alley, skirting puddles of urine, feral cats, and a wine soaked hobo as the baggie full of Quinto’s lunch swung wildly in my off hand.

Unfortunately for us, Mr. Patterson had inherited more than just a face from his horse-like ancestors. The guy zipped along the deserted thoroughfare at a quick canter, not even pausing to glance back at us. Thankfully, Rodgers, with his light frame, was a match for him—something I’d have to thank Allison for later. He pulled away from Shay and I, closing to within a few arm lengths of Patterson before the alley spilled into the street.

Patterson darted into the traffic, narrowly avoiding a guy pushing a cart full of radishes. Rodgers wasn’t so lucky. He met the cart stomach first, sending a bushel of the small red and white tubers flying as both he and the cart crashed to the pavement.

“Go,” he croaked, waving his hand as we passed him. “Get that SOB.”

I tossed him the baggie with the pasties and nodded. I wouldn’t have stopped—it was just a radish cart, after all—but Rodgers’ command lessened my guilt over leaving him behind. Not that I had much time to think. Patterson had already ducked into another alley, and he’d gained ground on us. Steele had a better bead on him than I did, but as we entered the mouth of the second alley, I could tell we weren’t going to catch the guy. So, I did what anyone in my position would do and took a flyer on an action that had a chance of success somewhere in the teens.

“Steele! Duck!” I yelled.

Despite her usual argumentative nature, she did.

In one smooth motion, I ripped Daisy from the interior of my jacket, planted my foot, and threw her at the back of Patterson’s head with all the precision of a weekend barroom darts player. Through some act of magic or divine intervention, my truncheon flew true, impacting Patterson’s skull with a ringing thwack.

“Grawha!” he yelled, or something to that effect, as he crumpled to the ground, holding his injured decision maker.

I was on him in a New Welwic second, pulling his arms behind his back and securing him in my iron grip.

Quickly forgetting his pain, Patterson started thrashing underneath me. “Let go of me, you cur! Who do you think you are? I’m an honest man, you savages!”

I cuffed him in the back of the head again to get him to shut up as Steele approached.

“Nice shot,” she said.

“Thanks,” I replied. “It’s all in the feet, or so a professional knife thrower once told me. Can you snag Daisy for me?”

She did, wiping Daisy off on the hem of Patterson’s now somewhat rattier coat before leaning in close and sliding her back home into the interior of my jacket. As she did so, I could feel her breath on my neck and smell a hint of her perfume—lilac scented, if I wasn’t mistaken. Shay pulled back, taking with her a sliver of my own heart, one that wished I could tell her how nice it would be to have her that close to me more often.

“You ok, Daggers?” she said.

“Um…yeah,” I said, dragging Patterson to his feet. “Let’s go see how Rodgers is doing.”

6

Rodgers was fine, though chagrined that he’d been bested by a gaggle of root vegetables. With Patterson in tow, we hightailed it back to the precinct, though Rodgers limped a little as we walked. I asked him if he wanted to spring for a rickshaw, but he seemed determined to walk his injuries off, so much so that he offered to go rustle up some background info on Patterson for use in our case against him.

Who was I to turn down an offer like that? With a tip of my hat, I bid him adieu, then stuffed Patterson into an interrogation room at the precinct and cooled my heels at my desk for a half hour or so while I indulged myself in the finest coffee-flavored sludge the 5
^th
Street Precinct had to offer.

Shay sipped a mug of tea in the seat at the desk across from me, as cool as a cucumber. She’d come a long way since our first case. I could remember her, pacing back and forth, wearing a rut into the floor of the pit as we waited to interrogate our first suspect, a drug addled dwarf. At the time, she hadn’t understood one of the fundamental principles of interrogation: that time is one of your best friends. The longer the suspects sat in the interrogation room, working up a sweat while staring into the bright lights and shiny mirrors, the easier the truth would flow.

I glanced to my side at the Captain’s office, a glass-walled cubby that made the communal workspace the rest of us detectives shared and affectionately referred to as ‘the pit’ seem like the very thing we’d nicknamed it. The Captain, who sat at his desk staring into a stack of papers, looked as if he’d been chiseled out of stone. His high and tight sat motionless on the top of his head as he flipped a page. Only a flicker of his jowls revealed any hint of humanity in the old bulldog.

As if sensing the weight of my eyes, the Captain turned his gaze up and glared at me. I didn’t think I’d done anything to anger him—I’d cleared my morning trip to the fair with him before leaving, after all—but years of my pig-headedness had made that his go-to look whenever he regarded me.

Shay finished her tea and set it down upon her desk. “You ready?”

Eager to remove myself from the Captain’s line of sight, I nodded. “Let’s go.”

We set off down the hall, working our way through the center of the pit over to our destination. Upon arriving, I twisted the knob and entered the interrogation room, where I found Patterson seated behind a metal table, his wrists shackled to its surface for good measure. A trickle of sweat dripped down the side of his strangely equine face. The lights had done their trick.

“Hey, there you are,” he said. “I’ve been calling for someone to get me a glass of water, but no one would answer the door. I was afraid you guys forgot about me and went home.”

That was the point, but I didn’t bother explaining it to him. I sat down across from the guy, and Shay took the seat to my right.

“Rudolph Patterson?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said. “Look, I know I ran and everything, but are these shackles really necessary? They’re kind of cutting into my wrists.”

“You tell me,” I said.
“Are
they necessary?”

Patterson didn’t take the bait. Instead he looked at me with furrowed brows and a half-open mouth. “Huh?”

I tried a different approach. “You own a rickshaw business, don’t you?”

Rudolph’s face darkened. “Well, I did…until all my cabs got repossessed. I’m not sure I have anything left now other than a few office supplies and a lease I’m three months delinquent on.”

“Losing those cabs must’ve hit you pretty hard,” I said.

“Yeah, no shit, Detective,” he said. “Those rickshaws were my livelihood. What the hell am I supposed to do now? How am I going to feed my family? Huh?”

Shay poked her nose into the conversation. “We talked to an employee at the repossessions company that reclaimed your rickshaws yesterday. He said you had some pretty
vicious
words for him and the business’s owner, Mr. Gill.”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” said Patterson, his cheeks flushing. “And you know why? Because that guy’s a vulture. A goddamned vulture, that’s what he is. Preying on innocents like me. I’m just trying to make a living. I was
trying
to pay off the bank. I thought we’d come to an agreement on a delayed installment plan, and then those damned savages show up and take all my rickshaws, claiming they had no idea what I was talking about and to take it up with the bank. So yeah, I got pretty damn
vicious
. That bastard Gill deserved it. I told him to—”