She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the list of numbers marked Taskforce, and called the FBI secretary assigned to them. "Hey, it's Aprille. Do you know if anybody's working in Hunting Park today? I'm taking a CI down there to scope out some new targets and don't want to step on anyone's toes."

  "I'll check," the woman said. Her fingers rapidly tapped on a computer keyboard and she said, "Nope. Not that I can see."

  "Does that include DEA and Philly?"

  "Nobody ever checks in with me, dear. They could be God knows where and I wouldn't have the foggiest."

  "Slackers," Aprille said, forcing a smile. "You're the best! Have a great day."

  She hung up the phone and headed into the heart of North Philly popularly known as the "Badlands." Long blocks of rowhomes that were capped at either end with vacant, crumbling structures that probably housed as many crackheads as it did rodents. Abandoned warehouses and vacant lots covered in graffiti and the trash of three decades worth of nobody giving a shit.

  Aprille tucked her gun between her seat and the center console and pulled onto one of the quiet streets under a long string of sneakers dangling from an overhead electric wire. It wasn't long till she was spotted.

  A dark-skinned boy emerged from one of the houses and checked up and down the street for other cars. He was sixteen at most and his skin was ashy grey under his soiled basketball jersey and low-slung shorts. He came up to her window and said, "What up?"

  "I need a bundle."

  The kid rolled his eyes, "Get the fuck outta here, officer. Nobody sells that shit on this block. We clean."

  She held up seventy dollars and said, "I'll snort a bag right here if you want."

  His eyes focused sharply on her, taking his time to look at her pretty, pale face and the sweep of her breasts between the buttons of her shirt. "You ain't a cop?"

  "Nope."

  He pulled up his jersey and showed her the small stack of filled wax baggies sticking out of his front pocket, "You show me them titties an' I'll sell to you. Otherwise, you a cop."

  "Get the fuck out of here," she scowled. But when she grabbed the transmission to yank the car into drive, the kid stepped back and hollered, "Five-oh, y'all! This white bitch right here is five-oh! Whoop, whoop!"

  Aprille sighed and said, "Fine. Come here." She quickly undid the buttons of her blouse and unsnapped the front hook of her bra, turning toward his young, hungry eyes and pulling the sides of her shirt open to show him both of her breasts.

  He muttered something lascivious and reached forward to pinch one of her thick, pink nipples, but Aprille snapped her shirt shut and said, "Now give me the goddamn bundle."

  Fifteen minutes later she pulled into a CVS parking lot on North Broad Street and parked her car between a white work van and a dumpster. She quickly slid one of the wax baggies out of the rubber band and opened it carefully so not even the tiniest speck of powder spilled. She squeezed her thumb and forefinger together to form a wide, flat surface and tapped the beige contents onto her skin in a thin line. The powder itself had several small chunks, but screw it. She wasn't going to break out a mirror and razor blade in broad daylight.

  Aprille stuck her nostril to her hand and inhaled sharply, sucking the length into her nose in one snort. She leaned back and gasped, squeezing her nose together until she could feel it running down the back of her throat. The smack dissolved into her bloodstream and washed throughout her body like warm water. She closed her eyes and laid her head back against the headrest, feeling it in from the top of her head to the bottom of her heels and numbing everything that was in between.

  At 1830 hours she walked into the Taskforce meeting room at the Federal building on Arch Street in Center City and said, "Sorry I'm late" to the group of men sitting at the table. Special Agent Dez Dolos looked up at her gravely and said, "Why are you here?"

  "For the meeting," she said with a confused smile.

  "I mean, why aren't you at the hospital?"

  "For that thing this morning? I got tied up on something. Those guys didn't need me to toast Fat Fuck's departure, believe me."

  "Not for that," Dez said. He got up out of his chair and excused himself to the rest of the men, taking Aprille by the arm to lead her back out of the office. "Frank texted me this afternoon because he couldn't reach you. Your Acting Chief was in a bad car crash. He might not make it."

  Aprille's eyes blinked rapidly as she tried to assimilate the words coming out of Dez's mouth. "What?" she finally said.

  "Jim Iolaus is in the hospital. Frank said he tried to call you a dozen times."

  "I wasn't picking up for him. I thought he was just going to bust my balls for not hanging out with the guys."

  "Well he called me."

  "So why didn't you call me? You could have told me this hours ago!"

  "Because I thought you were already there!"

  Aprille looked back at the guys in the meeting room, all of them watching her through the glass wall. "It doesn't matter now. Let's go back in before they start to talk."

  She turned toward the door and Dez grabbed her arm, "What are you talking about? You're not staying."

  "What the hell do you mean? I'm part of this Taskforce."

  "You belong with your department right now."

  "I belong with you!" she shouted. "I'm a part of this Taskforce and I'm not leaving!" She looked down at his left hand and her face wrinkled in disgust at the sight of the gold band around his finger. "You're wearing your wedding ring again?"

  He reflexively moved it out of her sight and said, "She made a big deal about it, plus, some of the guys around here were starting to ask questions about us."

  Aprille felt hot tears sting the surface of her eyes as she forced herself to look away from him, focusing on the fire extinguisher and water cooler down the hall.

  Dez lowered his voice, trying to be gentle when he said, "I think it's best if you take a short break from the team until things settle down. The guys will understand."

  "No. Fuck that."

  "It wasn't a request, Ape."

  "You're kicking me off the team?" she whispered. She could hear the quiver in her voice, hated that it was there, but couldn't stop it. "Please, Dez, I'm sorry. I know things have been a little rough with us lately, but don't do that. We can get through this."

  "This isn't about us. Not everything is, okay? It's about the team, who I'm responsible for. I didn't say I was kicking you off. I said take a little time to get your head right."

  "How long?"

  "I have no idea."

  "A few days?"

  "No. I don't want you to rush it."

  Aprille glanced back to make sure no one was listening, "Will you come over tonight? I really just need to see you and talk with you."

  "I can't. We're working, and we might be late."

  "Come afterwards. I don't care how late it is."

  "I don't know."

  "Please, Dez. Even if it's just for a little bit."

  He sighed and said, "I'll call you, okay? If it's not too late, I'll stop by."

  "Okay, great," she said, breathing with relief. "I'll go home then, I promise. Be careful tonight, please."

  "Aren't you going to the hospital?"

  "Sure. Call me, okay?"

  "All right."

  "I mean it."

  "I said I will call," he said impatiently.

  She stopped on the way home and picked up two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and enough Chinese takeout to feed Dez if he was hungry. She stuffed the remaining bags of heroin into an envelope in her car and slid it behind her seat, leaving it there so it wasn't in her apartment. If it wasn't in her immediate reach, she wouldn't think about it, she decided.

  That evening she opened the blinds on her windows and cleaned her entire apartment. She stayed busy scrubbing the floor and not thinking about heroin. By making sure all the cards and letters he'd ever given her were taped to the refrigerator and doorway arches and not thinking about heroin. Not in the slightest.

  She checked her phone and scrubbed and vacuumed and wiped and folded laundry and watched the sun go down and the solar powered lights of the parking lot come on and she absolutely did not think about heroin. At 9:30, she thought, They'll be contacting the target soon.

  She stripped out of her clothes and jumped in the shower, standing under the powerful jets to let it massage her neck and shoulders. When she got out of the shower, she checked her phone again. No missed calls or texts.

  She turned on the television and fiddled with her laptop, trying to pass the time, but every movie seemed to be about love and all of the clothing websites reminded her of things she wanted to wear for Dez. Thoughts of him scraped against her mind like the steel edges of a cheese grater and she went into her Facebook account and searched through her photographs. Dez would never allow her to friend him (because of his wife, who was inherently jealous of Aprille because she was so beautiful, he said) but there were dozens of pictures from various conferences and seminars and parties they'd attended together that showed the two of them. Not together, she thought. Despite the late night sneaking back and forth from each other's rooms and the way they'd suspiciously show up late to after-hours functions. It was a game they all played. The, "Where were you two?" questions from their group and the "I was asleep in my room, I don't know where he was" answers she'd reply with, but always with a slight, mischievous smile.

  Dez's facebook was locked down with privacy, but his wife's not as much. Aprille searched through the woman's available pictures, hating her more with every click. She studied portions of their house in the background of each photograph, until she could walk through Dez's living room and kitchen in her mind.

  She clicked the woman's homepage and saw a recent status update with a heart that read: "Share this if you have a wonderful husband."

  Aprille cried out in outrage and tossed her laptop, sending it across the room with a sharp snap of its plastic case. She pressed both her fists to her face and screamed, "He's not yours, you fucking cunt!"

  A foot stomped on the floor of the apartment above hers in response, the age old method of telling a noisy neighbor to shut up. Aprille called out, "Oh, fuck yourself," before she curled up on the couch clutching her stomach.

  At 11:30 she told herself the unit was probably still working, especially if the target was the kind who didn't show up on time. Her stomach was like a cauldron of bubbling acid, but it didn't matter. She was going to wait for Dez because he was going to show and if he saw she was high, he wouldn't want anything to do with her. That's why I'm perfect for him, she thought. I understand things like this in ways his wife can't.

  At 12:30 she sent him a text: Just checking on u. Almost done?

  At 1:15: I've got food here if u r hungry hun

  At 2 AM, she ran out of her apartment and snatched the dope bags from her car and ran with them back inside. It was that or drive back down to his house to see if he'd gone home and fallen asleep without calling her, but that would be desperate and probably make her feel pathetic.

  Chapter Three

  Reynaldo knocked on the detectives' office door and said, "Good morning. You got a minute?"

  Frank rubbed his eyes and kicked his feet down from his desk onto the floor, "Yeah. Come in. I was just closing my eyes for a minute. Long night."

  Reynaldo looked at the empty space on the wall where a large faded rectangle of paint framed the former resting place of an evidence poster. Instead, a small framed picture of a grumpy-looking detective hung on the wall under a metallic placard that read, Detective Victor Ajax. Reynaldo nodded at the wall and said, "What happened to your penis?"

  "It's evidence, and the DA's office needed it for an appeal."

  "Well, I hope they take good care of it."

  "Don't worry. The DA's office knows how to handle a big, black penis. Let me tell you. So what's up?"

  "Did you read what I sent you about the heroin overdose yesterday?"

  Frank nodded. "Jessie Pincher, yeah? I arrested him a few years ago for stealing loose change out of cars. He was doing two hundred cars a night, easy."

  "He won't trouble you with that again," Reynaldo said. "So what do you think of my plan to arrest the supplier? In the Crimes Code, Drug Delivery Resulting in Death is a murder charge. Will you help me get the criminal complaint together? Man, I don't think anybody here has ever filed murder charges in their first two years on The Job. Not even Detective Ajax did that, right? It's a first, right?"

  The kid looked so eager that Frank almost didn't have the heart to voice his next question. He nodded and said, "I read everything you sent me while I was sitting in the hospital, and you've got a lot of great stuff, but there's one thing I didn't see. Did you collect the wax baggies of heroin on the floor?"

  "No. Was I supposed to? They were empty."

  "I know," Frank said. "They also probably would have had the supplier's fingerprints on them. That would be a key piece of physical evidence in a murder trial. More than a few text messages anyway."

  Reynaldo's face flashed with indignation, "But I have the text messages."

  "Can you prove Moses is the one who sent them? Can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that nobody else had his phone, or that Moses actually gave him the drugs?"

  "It's obvious, though. Moses gave him the drugs that killed him."

  "It might be obvious, and it might be true, but if you can't prove it in court, it's useless, Rey-Rey. That's the difference between a seasoned investigator and one of these ignorant dickheads running around losing cases. You file the ones you can win and don't take chances. Make sense?"

  Reynaldo's shoulders slumped in his seat and he nodded quietly, "I understand."

  Frank smacked the table with his hand to break the mood and said, "Hey, lighten up. Moses doesn't know that. We'll drag his ass in here and see how he holds up under the hot lights. If we get a confession, it might change the game."

  "You mean I could file the murder charge?"

  "Even if not, we might get something good out of him. Goddamn, Rey-Rey, once the FBI hears about you, they're gonna make you National Director or something. You'll be J. Edgar Guadalupe Santo Domingo Rodriguez in no time."

  Reynaldo laughed and pushed up from his chair, "You want me to get him in for the interview?"

  "That's a complicated job. You think you can do it? You can't scare him, or he'll show up with an attorney. And you can't tell him what it's about or he'll never show."

  "I keep him in the dark and feed him shit like a mushroom, right?"

  "Exactly. Did you watch the movie yet?"

  "No. I haven't had time."

  "God damn it, Reynaldo. The Departed is mandatory viewing for all undercover operatives. The next time I see you, you'd better be able to recite the whole movie, line for line. Otherwise, I'm revoking your status as S.J.N.E.P.O.A.D."

  Reynaldo scrunched up his face trying to remember, "Special…Junior…"

  "Special Junior Not-Even-Promoted-or-Assigned-Detective. Christ, you don't even know that yet either?"

  "I'll drag him in here one way or the other, boss."

  "Go get 'em, tiger," Frank said. He watched Reynaldo hurry out the door and chuckled lightly to himself until he happened to catch the framed picture on the wall from the corner of his eye. Vic's grumpy face stared back at him, perpetually unimpressed no matter what Frank did. "Don't even look at me like that. I never gave you that much of a hard time and you know it," Frank said.

  The phone on Frank's desk rang, lighting up a small box on his computer screen that read Township Supervisor's Phone. He picked it up and said, "I'm not interested."

  "Sorry?" the voice on the other end said.

  "I'm just letting you know I'm not interested in being Chief, or Acting Chief, or whatever you guys come up with. Jim is going to pull through, he's the right guy for the job, and I'm not sticking it to him while he's recovering."

  "Oh. Okay. That's actually not why I was calling."

  "It isn't?"

  "This is Mister Frederick, from the Township. Can you let all the guys in the department know that there's a mandatory meeting tomorrow morning at noon?"

  "Mandatory says who?" Frank said.

  "The Township Supervisors. I'll be attending along with Mister Jones."

  Frank detested people who referred to themselves or other people as "Mister." It was like they were forcing you to refer to them by an honorific. For that matter, he hated people who referred to themselves as Chief, Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant, General, Doctor, and Professor as well. Chief, not surprisingly, was the one he hated most of all. "Are you paying us for this?"

  "It's already been approved with your PBA."

  Frank tapped the phone against the side of his head, the gears of his brain grinding up the bullshit of the conversation to try and strain any nuggets of truth that might be found.

  "Are you still there?" Frederick said.

  "I'm here," he finally said. "Mandatory meeting, twelve hundred hours. I'll have to see who's around and let them know."

  There was a pause. "Mandatory means everybody, no exceptions, Frank."

  "No kidding," Frank said. "But since it's the day before, I'll have to see if everyone is available."

  "Just make it happen," was the last thing Frederick said before the line went dead.

  Frank looked at his receiver and shook his head before he hung up. "I know that dude did not just talk to me like that," he said to himself. "Keep that up and I'll make it my job in life to lock up every single person you know, dickwad."

  The phone rang again, this time coming from one of the squad desks upstairs in the patrol room. "I just talked to Moses. He's on his way," Reynaldo said.

  "Oh yeah? How'd you rope him in?"

  "The S.J.N.E.P.O.A.D is an unstoppable force of indestructible law enforcement power!"

  Frank hung up the phone and headed for the stairs, looking up in time to see the mammoth form of Brian Boxer heading for the exit. "Hey!" Frank called out. "What's this shit about a mandatory meeting tomorrow?"

  Boxer's face instantly flushed red and his jowls wobbled indignantly, "What makes you think I have any idea what you're talking about?"

 

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