The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

behind him by maybe another thirty feet, struggling to keep up. Even though Charlie was several years younger than Jake, he was nowhere near his fitness level and also several inches shorter. His face was tortured, big strands of his wavy hair flopping all over his sweaty forehead. Poor kid. They’d been chasing Ranga for almost three blocks.

They zoomed past a windowless stretch of brick building with a green roll-down loading dock door. There was a wooden fence to the right with an open doorway, and for a moment, as Ranga pulled in that direction, Jake thought he was going to make a run for the exit. Instead, Ranga took a left into a cross alley.

And disappeared.

“Shit, Pete!” Charlie said. “We lost him.”

“No, we didn’t.”

Jake slowed as he approached the corner. A blind corner. He took out his Colt Detective Special, a small revolver that he’d chosen especially for his undercover alias at the beginning of the assignment. A belly gun seemed the perfect weapon for a car thief.

He hadn’t wanted to draw on Ranga. But he had to now. His life was in danger.

Charlie’s footsteps pounded up beside him, came to a shuffling stop. Jake glanced over, found Charlie’s big, kid-like eyes looking up at him. There was more fear in them than should have been in the eyes of a supposed career criminal. Charlie should have gotten out of this lifestyle when Jake told him to, a couple days ago in New Orleans when he had a golden opportunity.

The damn fool.

“Come on,” Jake said.

A deep breath and he cleared the corner, found a similar alley in front of him. Graffiti and mildew stains tarnished the walls. A metal fire escape to the left. A tall chain-link fence at the far end. Wind scraped a crumpled piece of newspaper in the corner. There was the pungent tang of rotten garbage.

But no Ranga.

Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe they had lost him.

Then a small ping of something glancing off metal. Jake’s eyes went to the roll-off container in the back, a massive rectangular block of rusty steel.

And saw a pair of eyes peaking around the corner.

Jake and Charlie bolted, Jake immediately building a sizable lead once more.

Ranga scrambled for the fence, and Jake saw that the hands at the ends of his wildly swinging arms were empty. Just as Jake had predicted, Ranga wasn’t the gun-toting type. So Jake shoved his tiny revolver in his back pocket as he sprinted to the back of the alley.

He made it to Ranga right as the man reached the top of the ten-foot fence. He grabbed Ranga’s flannel with one hand, the fence with the other. Ranga raised a foot and smashed it down. Jake pulled back, but not quite in time, and Ranga’s shoe scraped against the edge of his jaw. A sharp pulse of pain.

But Jake still had a firm grasp on his shirt.

He yanked hard, using his six-foot-three frame to torque the smaller man off the chain-link. Ranga fell to the asphalt and rolled, taking Charlie out in the process, bringing him to the ground as well.

Jake was the only one standing now, and in the moment when Jake’s back was turned to Charlie, when Ranga’s eyes went widest, when the man clearly thought he was about to be tortured, murdered, Jake pulled up on the bottom of his shirt, revealing the black plastic box poking out from the elastic of his underwear. The digital recording device. His “wire.”

Ranga’s quivering eyes flashed to the device then back to Jake.

I’m a cop! Jake mouthed.

A pause from Ranga. Then the tiniest sign of understanding. A small nod. But his eyes didn’t look any less frightened.

Jake grabbed two big handfuls of Ranga’s shirt. “Listen up you, piece of shit! You’re gonna have the two grand tomorrow plus twenty percent interest. Aren’t you?”

Ranga continued to look at him with those wide eyes. “Twenty percent? I can’t—”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes! I will, yes!”

Jake feigned a bit of struggle, an excuse to twist his hips to the right, reposition himself so that his back was to Charlie again. He gave Ranga a wink.

“And you’ll meet us downtown,” he growled and immediately mouthed a few more silent words: Downtown police station.

Another moment of hesitation from Ranga. He gave a fraction of a nod before replying.

“Yes, yes! Tomorrow. Downtown,” Ranga said, nodding vehemently now for Charlie’s benefit.

Jake stood. “Good. Then run along, asshole.”

There had been several moments like this where Jake had to either feign tough guy or somehow weasel his way out of the violence that was part of life within a crime family. He didn’t know how many more excuses he could make, how many more punches he could fake.

Fortunately, he wasn’t going to have to worry about that any longer.

The department was pulling him out of his undercover assignment that night.

The interior of Charlie’s 1985 Ford Taurus smelled like body odor, French fries, and dry-rotted foam, all of it mixed with a sharp chemical pine smell, courtesy of the tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the mirror. The seats and dash and door moldings were grimy to the touch—dusty in some areas, sticky in others.

“Dang, Pete,” Charlie said, slapping the steering wheel with appreciation. “I’ve never seen you get so hard-edged with a guy. This might just get you back on Burton’s good side after what happened in New Orleans.”

Charlie slowed for a stop sign, checked left and right, loose strands of his hair swinging across his face, then sped up again, never completely stopping.

“I don’t give a damn about Burton’s good side,” Jake said. “He doesn’t run the Farone family. He only thinks he does.”

Charlie took one hand from the steering wheel, used it to rub at his forearm. “Burton’s gonna make a move, man. Don’t you think? I mean, that’s what it looks like to me, like he’s gonna challenge Sylvester for control of the family. Oh, jeez, Pete, what are we gonna do? If Burton takes over, he’ll make life a living hell for us