Superbia (Book One of the Superbia Series) (2 page)

Frank tried to
get up but his leg wouldn’t work.
 
He dug
his elbow into the hard sidewalk and dragged himself forward like a mountaineer
scaling a mountain with an ice axe.
 

Heck’s sobs
filled the night air, “Fuck, oh fuck, I’m dying.
 
I yelled at Andi before I left because the
house was a mess and this fucking asshole shot me and, and—”
 
He started coughing again, choking on his own
blood.

“You’re not going
to die!” Frank shouted, dragging himself frantically forward, trying to keep
his gun up.
 
Trying to get eyes on the
kid.
 
Trying to ignore the thousand
shards of glass inside his leg.
 

“Help me.
 
Please!”
 

“Is he dead?” Frank
hollered.

Heck gagged on
blood as he turned his head to look back at the body lying next to him.
 
“Aw, Christ.
 
He’s just a kid,” Heck whimpered.
 
“Just a fucking kid.”
  

“He still has a
gun!
 
Heck!
 
Is the suspect dead?”
 

He finally reached
Heck and leaned over him to see the kid’s empty hands and the puddle of blood
spilling off the sidewalk, into the gutters.
 
He looked down at Joe Hector and shouted his name.
 
There was no response.

***

Nine hours before
the shootings, Detective Vic Ajax stood in the station parking lot, stuffing
his hands into his army coat’s pockets, trying to keep warm.
 
Headlights appeared at the end of the
driveway and he sighed with relief.
 
The
girl looked like she was sixteen years old with her blonde hair pulled back in
a ponytail.
 
She parked her beat up
unmarked next to where he was standing and got out, adjusting the tank top
under her heavy winter coat.
 
Vic looked
at the ground as she shifted her boobs around to reach inside her bra and
withdraw the heroin.
 
Maybe a brief look,
he thought.
 
Just to maintain the chain
of custody.
 

“How did I beat
you back here?” he said.
 
“You were in
front of me.”

Aprille Macariah
dropped the bundled wax baggies into the palm of his hand and shrugged.
 
“I got stuck in traffic.”
 

“How did it go?”

“Fine.
 
I still can’t tie him to the house, though.
 
He’s real cautious about the wife and
kid.”
 

“Damn.”

She smiled and
reached back inside of her bra, sticking her hand inside the cup covering her
left breast.
 
“Billy did give me a
present though.”
 
She produced a small
bag of white powder, the size and shape of a gumball, and said, “Here’s a free
eightball for my troubles.
 
Our boy’s
moving cocaine now too.”

Vic took the
baggie from her and felt it with his fingers.
 
“It’s warm.
 
You must have hot
boobs.”

She cupped her
breasts in her hands and said, “I might as well enjoy them now before they go
away.
 
At least I know the next time I
get pregnant I’ll have an awesome rack.”

Vic smiled
slightly at the comment and nodded but did not speak.
 

“What?
 
Am I supposed to mope about that shit forever?
 
Let’s go,” she said.
 
“I’m freezing.”

Sergeant Joseph
Hector was sitting in the roll room drinking a cup of coffee as Aprille walked
into the station.
 
He did not look
up.
 
“Hi Sarge,” she said.
 

Heck’s only
acknowledgement was a grunt as he continued staring at the newspaper.
 
Aprille clicked her tongue and turned to head
down the stairs toward the detective’s office.
 
She passed Vic and said, “I’m moving up in the world.
 
At least they grunt at me now.”

Vic stuck his
head into the roll room, “You can’t say hi to a fellow officer?”

“As far as I
know, she does not exist,” Heck said.
 
“The Chief of Police told all of us directly that we are not allowed to
discuss the existence of a female officer in this police department, period.
 
Even among ourselves.”
 

Vic rolled his
eyes, “That’s asinine.
 
You know she’s a
cop here.”

“All I know is a
blonde chick with big jugs spends a lot of time with you down in your
office.
 
You hitting that?”

“Nope.”

“Liar.”

“I’m being
serious.”

“Gay?”

“I’m married with
two kids, Heck.”

“Doesn’t mean
shit.
 
My cousin was married to a guy,
they had a kid and everything.
 
He turned
out to be a fag.”

“All I see is a
fellow officer,” Vic said.
 

Heck picked up
his paper and said, “Well since I’m not allowed to acknowledge the existence of
a female officer, I can openly refer to her as the blonde with big jugs.
 
You seen my patrolman anywhere around?”

“Nobody was in
the parking lot.
 
Just you and Frank
tonight?”

Heck nodded and
tapped a piece of paper, “Got an important new memorandum from Staff Sergeant Erinnyes.
 
Patrol is hereby ordered and directed to
increase traffic enforcement between the hours of four and six AM.
 
This is his big push for Chief, Vic.
 
Numbers go up and he can run and tell the
Township how he’s increasing productivity and revenue.
 
You mark my words.”

“Never happen,”
Vic said.

“You better pray
it never happens.
 
If he makes Chief
you’ll be pushing a black and white faster than shit runs through me after a
cup of coffee.”
 

“I meant him
running anywhere would never happen.
 
More like a wheezing jog.”
 
Vic
smiled and patted the drugs in his pocket, saying, “I’ve gotta lock this stuff
up and get going.
 
Be safe tonight,
Sarge.”

“Unless some
half-asleep asshole runs me over trying to get to work tomorrow morning, I
should be just fine,” Heck said.

Vic went down to
his office just as Aprille was shutting the door.
 
She turned suddenly and gave a start as he
came around the corner.
 
“Christ, you
scared me,” she said.
 

“You leaving?”

She nodded
quickly and braced against the hallway wall to let him past.
 
“I’m still having some issues from the
miscarriage.
 
Not feeling well at all.”

He looked her
over and frowned, “You look tired and sweaty.
 
You all right?”
  

She clutched her
stomach and said, “No.
 
I’m gonna
go.
 
Take care.”

“You need to stop
hanging out with junkies all the time, you’re starting to look like one of
them,” he called out as she hurried down the hall.
 
He pulled out his keys and let himself into
the office, tossing the bundle of heroin and eightball of cocaine onto his desk
as he sat down.
 
It was five minutes past
seven.
 
Overtime was paid in half hour
increments only.
 
If he left before seven
thirty, it was working for free.
 
His
phone rang.
 
He opened it and said, “Hey,
hon.
 
I’m almost finished, I swear.”

“You said you’d
be home on time tonight, Vic,” Danni said.
 

“It’s not my
fault the drug dealer was late to the meet.
 
You know how these guys are.”

“I had dinner
ready at five.”

“Good, because
I’m starving,” he said.

She sighed and
said, “I’ll put it in the refrigerator for you.
 
When will you be home?”

“I’m leaving here
by seven thirty.
 
Guaranteed.”

There was no
answer.
 

“I promise.”

“All right.
 
See you soon,” she said.
 

“I love you.”

“Love you
too.”
 

Vic hung up the
phone and put it away, then pulled a pair of blue rubber gloves out of the box
on his desk.
 
He photographed the bundle
of heroin and the eightball separately, then placed a small ruler next to each
piece and photographed them again.
 

He opened up the
report on his computer and wrote:

1900 Hours:
 
Undercover Officer (UC) provided me with one bundle (fourteen bags) of
Heroin and one plastic baggie of Cocaine.
 
Per the UC, the Cocaine is an “eightball,” which based on my training
and experience I know to mean 1/8
^th
of an Ounce or 3.5 grams.

Vic picked up the
cocaine and placed it on the small digital scale on his desk.
 
The numbers spun on the display and landed on
3.54 grams.
 
“Perfect,” Vic said.
 

He dropped the
eightball into a small paper envelope and sealed it with evidence tape.
 
He picked up the bundle of Heroin bags and
was about to drop them into a separate envelope, when he decided to photograph
them again.
 
A shot of them spread out
individually would look better in court.
 
Vic undid the tight rubber bands holding the bundle together and spread
the baggies across his desk.
 
He picked
up his camera and paused.
 

Two of the bags
in the center were empty.
 
Bags he never
would have seen if he hadn’t taken the bundle apart.
 

He looked at
Aprille’s desk and cursed under his breath.
 

FALL

2. The leaves formed
a canopy of crimson and gold over the back roads Frank navigated toward the police
department.
 
He massaged his knee as he
drove, trying to rub away the throbbing ache deep within his reconstructed knee.
 
He stopped using the cane a month
before.
 
The doctors said he could return
to light duty.
 
The doctors said he could
walk with his full weight on it and the pain would be manageable with the
proper medication.
 

He glanced at his
watch.
 
Just two hours since his last Percocet.
 
He looked at his watch again, eager for
another dose.
  

Officer Jim Iolaus
came around the side of his patrol car, inspecting the bumpers.
 
He made notes of all of the dents and
scratches, checking off his list, absolving himself of responsibility for
anything he found before the start of his shift.
 
His uniform fit him tighter than spandex and
the short sleeves of his shirt were tailored to be extra tight.
 
Better to show off his biceps.
 
Iolaus was one of the guys who shaved his
forearms.
 
It gave Frank the
heebie-jeebies.
 

Iolaus looked up as
Frank limped across the lot and said, “You back already?”

“Got tired of
sitting around the house.
 
You’d think my
wife would have some sympathy for me, but her honey-do list tripled when she realized
I was a captive.”

“How’s the leg?”

“Hurts like
hell.”

“Sissy.
 
You talked to Andi?”

“Not since Joe’s
funeral.
 
Has anybody here been keeping
in touch with her?”

“Not really.
 
I sent her some pictures of the car, but she
never responded.”
 
Iolaus pointed at the police
vehicle away from the others, a large ornamental badge decal emblazoned on the
hood.
 
A thick black stripe ran through
the center of the badge, and decorative banners both above and below it read
In M
em
ory of Sergeant Joseph Hector, Badge 214
.
 
“Looks good though, don’t it?” Iolaus said.

Frank looked at
the car briefly, then looked away.
 
“Sure
does.
 
Be safe out there.”
 

***

Photographs lined
the walls outside of the office.
 
One showed
an old man with bushy white hair looking out over a horizon of flat top
mountains, sitting atop a horse.
 
Another
showed him leaning up against a wooden fence in front of a herd of cattle.
 
Frank looked up at the horseshoe hung over
the Chief’s door and wondered if he was supposed to touch it.

Chief Midas smiled
broadly from behind his enormous pedestal desk as Frank came to the door and saluted.
 
He didn’t stand up to return the salute.
 
“Come on in.
 
How’s the leg?”

“It’s fine,”
Frank said.

“What do they
have you on?”

“A very small
dosage of Percocet.
 
Nothing I can’t
handle though, and it will not affect my ability to do police work, Chief.”

The Chief
shrugged and said, “I was popping them like candy last year when I broke my shoulder
riding Patriot.”
 
The Chief cocked his
head at a picture of a horse sitting on his desk.
 
“You should have asked them for OxyContin.
 
That’s
the good stuff.”