Uncle Petey the old man, the grandfather pedophile, came up from between Frank's legs with his mouth dripping blood, still laughing and said, "I told you, Frank. You're one of us now. And we'll have you forever." The old man smiled wickedly, as if he were recounting the moments of lust he'd enjoyed with the youngest of his victims and he sighed, "There are so many who are going to enjoy your company."

  They leapt on top of him, swallowing him into their ravenous maws, fangs to his flesh, leaking poison into his blood until he too began to fade into the shadows. The light inside of Frank slowly started to dim.

  He watched in horror as the light flickered and nearly went out. All the goodness, all of the hope and love and courage that he contained began to drain out of him like a body being leeched of its vitals. Cold overcame him. The cold of the grave.

  There was movement in the distance that began like the low rumble of an approaching train, rattling the floor and causing the shadows to separate. Uncle Petey stopped his heavy breathing and his head shot up to search or the source of the disturbance. His red eyes shimmered with hatred and he howled, "No! He is not yours! Get away! Get away!"

  A light appeared that drove back the monsters at the furthest edges of the circle, glowing so bright that Frank had to close his eyes at the sight of it. It would not be shut out. It was something that could not be escaped. It filled his face with fire.

  The light roared from a lantern held high in the air and the man holding it walked through the demons with his head raised. Unafraid, Frank thought. The man's long woolen coat was dark, even in the glare of the lantern, but the ancient badge pinned to his chest shined brighter than eternity. The Night Watchman walked to the place where Frank lay and stood over him, keeping the ghouls and freaks cowering in fear with the lantern's bright light.

  Frank heard footsteps and turned his head in time to see another figure approaching and realized it was Vic.

  Victor Ajax walked through the narrow gap in the crowd fast, coming up behind the Watchman and bent down to pull Frank into his arms. He cradled Frank's head and held him tight and said, "It's all right now. We've got you."

  "He's ours!" Uncle Petey howled. There was fire in his eyes and speech and it seemed to enrage the rest of them into such a state that even the magnificent light of the Watchman's lantern wavered.

  Vic smiled softly and looked down at Frank, "Never. He's belongs to us and always will." He patted Frank on the side of the face and said, "You did good. But now you have to get up. There's still one thing left to do, rookie."

  Frank heard Vic's words and gasped for breath as he opened his eyes and sat up, seeing nothing but the dark woods surrounding him.

  He was tangled in long lengths of vine and brush, and twenty feet below the rear of the train station and the door he'd burst through. Inside, he could hear someone shouting.

  Frank struggled to his feet and stifled his whimpering curses as he clawed his way back up the incline. His legs were like lead weights and his arms felt too numb to support him but still he climbed. Still, he fought.

  He went the long way around the station toward the parking lot and kept low, watching the front door carefully as he fished his keys from this pocket and unlocked his car door. A man moved past the door and bent down to reach for something. Frank couldn't tell what it was, but the man was certainly Dez, and Dez was turning something in his hands and pulling it up. The Psycho Rabbit's head. Frank crept around the side of the car to get a better look, now able to see the rabbit's foot, flopped sideways and motionless. The face of the man wearing the suit was obscured by shadows, but as Frank squinted to see who it was, Dez suddenly jerked his hand away in horror and screamed, "Fuck oh fuck oh fucking shit!"

  Fuck this, Frank thought. He quietly opened the driver's side door to his car and slid into the seat. He kept the lights off as he put his foot on the brake and shifted the car into neutral, cranking the wheel until the car's front end was gently coasting down the hill and away from the station. By the time he was half way down, he hit the brake, twisted the key to turn the engine on, and softly stepped on the gas, coasting down the rest of the trail until he reached the street below.

  He kept checking his rearview mirror, half expecting the night to turn into a horror flick where bright white headlights would suddenly appear and the bad guy would come roaring after him. A car chase and a gun fight through the dark streets of suburbia. But there was nothing.

  Frank stopped at the next traffic light and did not move. The light cycled from green to yellow to red, and he did not move. He sat in his car, staring forward, unable to focus on anything more than the light as it changed. Dez tried to kill me. He shot that fucking asshole in the rabbit costume. What evidence did I leave behind?

  It was hard to breathe and he found himself panting so hard his windshield fogged. He's not going to come after me, Frank thought. He's too much of a coward to do it alone. No…he'll try and set me up. He'll come up with some fucked up scenario that makes it sound like it was all my fault.

  Think, Frank yelled at himself. You're smarted than that Ivy League asshole. Special Agent. Bullshit. That dude's a glorified bureaucrat and you're a down-and-dirty garbage-picking-detective. So think.

  An idea shot forth into Frank's mind and he punched on the gas, flying through a solid red light. It might not be the best idea and it certainly wasn't the most well thought out, but fuck it. It was an idea, and it was movement, and it was better than sitting at a red light. He could tweak it as he drove.

  He flew down 611 checking for cops, driving fast but arrow-straight. At that time of night the road dogs were looking for drunks and they'd give him a few extra MPH as long as he used his turn signal and didn't swerve. Well-maintained, suburban apartment complexes and synagogues became desolate shopping centers and trash-strewn intersections as 611 emptied into Broad Street. Bums roamed the sidewalks pushing shopping carts filled with dirty clothes, because it was safer to sleep during the day on a busy street corner than it was to be found in a dark alley at night by the wrong person. Or pit bull.

  Frank picked up his phone to check the time. At that exact moment his phone's signal was bouncing off of every cell tower he drove past, leaving a digital signature of his movements. All it would take was someone who knew how to look. Outthink them, Frank told himself. He turned off the GPS on his phone and powered it off.

  The Walgreens at Broad and Hunting Park Avenue was brightly lit and its parking lot filled with people heading out to the bars. Dark-skinned men in perfectly matching outfits. One had on lime-green shoes, a lime-green suit, and a lime-green bowler hat. Their women ranged from ghetto fabulous big ladies to small firecracker girls in skimpy black dresses. Frank admired a few of the women as he pulled in. They were sexy enough to be distracting.

  The front of the store was crowded with drug zombies. Old women with balding heads and morphine-thin arms limped toward everyone they saw with variations of the same story. "Do you have any change for a phone call?" or "Can you spare a dollar, I ain't eaten in two days."

  It was all lies.

  It was all drugs, and everyone knew it.

  Some of the men would reach into their pockets and peel off a few dollars just to impress their women. They were generous though and treated the zombies with respect. "Here you go, Ma. Be careful out there," they'd say.

  "Bless you. Jesus is going to bless you."

  "All right, now."

  There was a kind of dignity to the exchange that Frank admired. He'd seen cops practically shit on teenagers for carrying a dime bag of weed and call them "Asshole Druggies" more times than he could count. Somehow, a man wearing nothing but lime green could manage to show respect to a piper. Frank parked his car and walked toward the front entrance, instantly drawing the attention of the parking lot's entire complement of addicts.

  "Can you spare a dollar, I ain't−"

  "No," Frank said quickly. "But I will give one hundred dollars to the first person who can bring me a functioning cell phone. It has to be able to make at least one call."

  None of them moved. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the one hundred dollar bill and held it up to show it to them, "I'm dead serious. But I need the phone quickly."

  "Anything specific? One of them smartphones?" a man in the back said.

  "I do not care. It can be a hand-cranked World War II field phone as long as it works."

  They scattered like birds from an oncoming car, running in every direction, leaping over obstacles in their paths like Olympians. Frank had tried to chase down pipers before. It wasn't easy when they were motivated.

  He stood in the parking lot for just a few moments before he heard the sound of glass shattering from down the street. It sounded exactly like a brick smashing through someone's car window, but there was no car alarm. Soon, a young man with rail-thin legs and arms came sprinting back to the parking lot and held up his hands in triumph, "Am I first?"

  Frank nodded and held the bill back, "As long as the phone works."

  The piper's fingers shook as he fumbled with the phone, scrolling through its pages to find the address book. He called the first number on the screen and listened carefully. "It's ringing," he said.

  Frank waited, keeping his ear cocked toward the phone.

  "Hello?" a voice on the phone said. "The fuck you doing calling me this late, girl?"

  The piper immediately shut the phone off and held out his hand. Frank slapped the hundred into his palm and took the phone, running back to his car and turning the key before the rest of the pipers returned to find they'd lost the contest and there was a crackhead riot.

  "Police 911 what is your emergency?"

  The lights of Citizens Bank Park were unlit but Frank could make out the high-flying banners celebrating the Phillies wins throughout the years. He sat in his car looking up at the ball field and muffled his voice when he said, "There was a shooting at the Hilltop Train Station. FBI Agent Dez Dolos shot someone."

  He could hear tension in the operator's voice as she typed furiously into her computer. "Sir, what is your name and callback number?"

  "It's this old abandoned train station out in the country, away from the city. He shot a man. You better send help."

  "Sir, what is your name and callback number?"

  "Send help. I think he's dying!" Frank said and jammed on the end button to terminate the call as he swung around in the parking lot and headed for 95 South. Soon, he was crossing the last length of the Schuylkill River just before it merged with the Delaware, travelling over the brightly-lit bridge with Center City at his back. He rolled down his passenger side window and leaned over to fling the phone sideways, sending it over the bridge and down into the steel-cold water below.

  Chapter Eleven

  Special Agent Dez Dolos reached down to touch the neck of the man wearing the rabbit suit and felt for a pulse. There was none. There was nothing but a large bullet hole in the center of the rabbit's chest. An exit wound from where Dez had shot him in the back and the bullet came barreling through. "Fuck oh fuck oh fucking shit!"

  He threw his gun down and felt a sheen of cold sweat develop on his face that he had to squeegee off with his palms. "Think," he ordered himself. "Think. Take a deep breath and think." Finally, he pulled out his cellphone and dialed the only number that made sense. The only person who could help him. "Honey?" he said the moment the phone picked up. "Baby? It's Dez. I need help."

  "What's wrong?" Aprille said.

  "I fucked up. I fucked up so bad and I need you."

  "Whatever it is, we can fix it," Aprille said calmly. "Where are you?"

  "I'm at the Hilltop Train Station and oh God one of our guys is dead and I am so fucked right now. I'm so fucking fucked!"

  "I'll be right there," she said. "Don't move, and don't call anyone else."

  "Okay," he whimpered. He dropped his phone on the floor as he slid down and sat, staring at the stupid fucking bunny costume and the stupid fucking asshole inside it that got in the way of his bullet. He cursed and cried and grabbed his hair in both ends and screamed until his voice went hoarse, but with each passing moment, he regained control. His training took over. He was a highly-trained agent built to overcome complicated situations. This was just another one. He reminded himself of who he was and what he meant, not just to himself or his family, but to the greater good. Was the justice system better served by a man like Dez Dolos losing everything due to an accident or by him taking the steps necessary to allow him to continue fighting crime?

  The answer was obvious.

  It was just another operation. Planning, personnel, and execution were all it required. He looked around the empty station and assessed what assets he had. Frank O'Ryan's blood was probably there somewhere. His fingerprints were certainly on the police baton. He lured me here, Dez decided. He lured me here and tried to kill me, so I shot at him and accidentally hit…what, the man inside the bunny suit?

  Dez mentally scrubbed the plan and started over.

  What if Frank lured me here and I walked in and oh my God, there's a big fucking rabbit trying to kill me, so I shot him in self-defense, then fired on Frank as he ran away. He played the opposite role as well, being the investigator. "You fired your weapon multiple times, Special Agent Dolos. Did Detective O'Ryan fire at you?"

  Dez cursed and scrubbed that plan as well. The answer is here, he told himself. You just have to find it. It was like a mental Rubik's Cube. Something to be twisted and turned, to be manipulated into position.

  Why did you fire your weapon so many times, Agent Dolos?

  Because Frank was trying to kill me.

  Did he fire his gun at you?

  Of course he did.

  That was the right answer, Dez thought. That was the only right answer possible because nothing else was going to make sense. Headlights came up the trail and Dez leapt to his feet, smoothing back his hair as he waited for her. Aprille parked her car and got out, walking in a wide arc around the front of the building, taking in the perimeter, still in cop mode. She had left work only twenty minutes earlier and was still dressed in her police pants and boots. She'd left her shirt and vest in her locker and her white t-shirt was still wet from the long shift sitting in the patrol car, from vomiting in the bathroom.

  Reynaldo's heroin baggie was still in her pocket. The excuse she had ready was that she'd forgotten to put into evidence. The reality was she was going to take it home and replace seventy-five percent of the dope each baggie with anything she could find in her pantry. The heroin behind the heart-shaped stamp looked dark inside the blue wax baggie. She was thinking she'd use cocoa powder.

  Thank God I didn't get high the second my shift was over, she thought. That would be just my luck that Dez finally calls and I'm too busy nodding out to help him. To help him, she thought over and over, the words better than any fucking heroin. They had power. Dez called me to help him, and everything was going to be okay. It was a sign, she decided.

  Still her training and experience told her to take her time, look around, and be prepared. She tucked her duty pistol in the small of her back and pulled her t-shirt out over it, keeping it concealed enough to be hidden from whatever Dez was afraid of, but ready to use if necessary. And then, almost as an afterthought, she reached inside her pocket and pulled out her keys, fingering through the various club cards and trinkets attached to the ring, and found a small electronic device. She pressed the button and kept the keys firmly in her hand to keep them from jingling.

  Dez was standing inside the dark lobby, just past the entrance, looking pale and vulnerable. "Are you hurt?" Aprille said.

  "No, no, no," Dez said, nearly weeping with relief. "Thank God you came. I needed you and you came. I love you so much." He grabbed her by the face and pressed his lips to hers, wanting to smother her with affection.

  Aprille saw the face of the man lying on the floor from the corner of her eye and said, "Oh my God. Is that…"

  Dez nodded. "It was a horrible tragedy. That fucker Frank tried to kill me and I fired back in self-defense."

  "Frank did what?"

  "He went crazy. It was awful. Thank God you weren't here," he said, trying to wrap his arms around her again.

  "Wait," Aprille said. "Tell me exactly what happened. Start at the beginning."

  Dez began to pace back and forth on the floor, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke, "Well, I was at the office all day because of court and some of the cases we're working on. I had a meeting at nine, and then one at eleven, and I had to help someone from the DEA who has this big international case he's working on."

  "Okay," Aprille said.

  "And then I went to lunch at Reading Terminal Market. I had pizza, but it made me sick, so I went to the Rite Aid. Then I had another meeting and got a phone call to go pick up my kids from school because their mother was running late."

  "Right," she said, nodding.

  "We're not doing too well, you know. She knows I'm going to leave her for you, and I basically told her that, which I'm sure you don't want to hear about now, but it's one of the reasons I haven't been in contact so much."

  "When did you hear from Frank?" Aprille said.

  "He called me," Dez said quickly. "He called me and said he wanted to meet up at his place, but I'd never been here, so I had to call Skip and ask him if he knew where it was, and he said it didn't sound right, so he wanted to come."

  "Skip was here too?"

  "No, wait. I mean, he didn't actually come in. He drove up here and showed me where it was and then he left."

  "He left?"

  "Right."

  Aprille frowned as Dez spoke but she said, "Keep going."

  "And then I came in here and it was dark and scary and Frank shot at me!"

  Aprille looked around the dark room and said, "Let's go find the bullet holes."

  "Well, that's the thing," Dez said. "That's why I need your help. I don't think there are any."

  "How could there not be any bullet holes if he shot at you?"

  Dez closed in on her, taking her shoulders in his hands and pressing their chests together, "Because I think he was trying to set me up and he just shot blanks, but I didn't know that. How could I know that?"

 

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