Kill for It

  Kill for It

  Narc #9

  Marc Olden

  A MysteriousPress.com

  Open Road Integrated Media

  Ebook

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Copyright page

  Chapter 1

  BAREFOOT IN FREEZING SNOW almost up to his knees, John Bolt shivered from the twenty-four-degree February cold. And from fear. He thought: Christ, this black cocksucker is aiming that fucking gun right at my nose. Jesus! Don’t let him pull that trigger, don’t let him blow my ass away.

  Cold night air filled Bolt’s eyes with tears. But he didn’t blink. And he didn’t breathe. The narcotics agent stared at the gun, a shiny new Colt Python, his mind now far away from the pain in his bare feet.

  Damn, it had all gone wrong!

  A trap, a setup. And Bolt had stepped into it, he and his partner, Kramer.

  In the dark, narrow alley behind Ramona’s, a Cuban bar on Manhattan’s West Side, the two federal narcotics agents were getting ripped off by three men: a muscular black and two Cubans. Ain’t this a bitch, thought Bolt, eyes still on the black man’s Colt Python. We’re supposed to be drug dealers from Detroit, hot to make a cocaine buy, and we’re getting taken off by assholes supposed to be New York City cops.

  Except they’ve got guns and we ain’t got shit.

  The black man was impatient. Angrily snorting air through his flat nose, he mumbled, “Shit!” his breath soft white steam in the cold. He blew warm air into his gloved right fist, keeping his left arm fully extended, as though in a shooting gallery, the Colt Python aimed at John Bolt’s head.

  The black man didn’t like standing around in the cold, and he didn’t like this white son-of-a-bitch standing in front of him. Whitey wasn’t moving fast enough for him.

  “Said fo’ you two chumps to face that wall behind you and spread, goddamnit! Spread! Shit, you be knowin’ what the fuck I’m talkin’ about. Ain’t gon’ say it no mo’. Too cold out here be talkin’ all that much. Shit, you fuckin’ turkeys can’t afford no goddamn attitude, you understand what I’m sayin’? Don’t you be actin’ smart wif me!”

  Gypsy Walker, the thirty-year-old black gunman, thought: Damn! Whitey be actin’ like he somethin’ special. I got the piece, and he eyeballin’ me like he got somethin’ else in his goddamn pocket besides chewin’ gum. Hell, I tell a dude to move, he best move. Cold out here. Want to get this shit over with and split, get my ass where it’s warm.

  Spread.

  John Bolt, breathing again, stiff and shaking with the cold, knew how to do it. So did Kramer, the black agent who was his partner and one of his best friends. And like Bolt, Kramer was smart enough to do what the man with the gun said.

  Both agents turned slowly, awkwardly in the snow, bare feet numbed and hurting. Spread. Face the wall, legs apart, arms wide, and lean forward, palms flat against the wall. And don’t goddamn move.

  Bolt’s right hand pressed against ice frozen solid on the brick wall. His right knee nudged a snow-covered garbage can, sending empty beer cans plopping softly to the snow at his feet.

  His feet. They hurt like hell, burning, then stinging, then going numb, and suddenly starting the cycle of agony all over again. The cold was going through him like a bowie knife, and his nose and ears felt as though they had been sliced with razors.

  The ripoff artists had taken the agents’ overcoats, shoes, socks. When your business is stealing, you make sure nobody’s hiding anything.

  Gypsy Walker stamped his feet to keep warm, his brown eyes on the two men silently facing the alley wall. He snorted again, a put-down at the men in front of his gun. Chumps. Suckers. Come to the big city to deal dope, and instead they get themselves taken off. When Gypsy spoke, he didn’t turn to look at the two Cubans crouched behind him in the snow, searching the agents’ overcoats, shoes, and socks.

  “Anything?”

  “No!” snapped one of the Cubans in anger, hurling John Bolt’s shoes and socks to one side and reaching for the agent’s overcoat. “Fucking people don’t believe in carrying bread in their shoes, least this sucker don’t.”

  The Cuban shook his head in disgust. So far, there wasn’t much to show for this job: $500 from the white guy, $850 from the black. No sweat. The big bread was yet to come. On its way. No sweat at all. He reached for Bolt’s dark-blue overcoat, moonlight bright on the switchblade in his right hand.

  The Cuban sliced the lining, mouth twisted in greedy determination, hands quickly feeling the inside of the coat. Nothing. Not a fucking thing. Shit!

  John Bolt, looking down at the snow-covered garbage can in front of him, thought: Up yours, spic. You got our flash rolls—over $1300. What the fuck more do you want? That’s enough to buy you garlic and comic books for a whole week.

  Flash roll. Enough money to impress Angel Jorín and his friends, the friends Angel swore could get the agents the best cocaine coming out of Chile. Dynamite shit, said Angel. All the keys you want, man, twenty, thirty kilos. No problem.

  Anytime someone could come up with that much cocaine, federal narcotics agents wanted to know about it, it and him. So Bolt and Kramer, pretending to be dealers from Detroit, had made contact with Angel, via an informant, and tonight was the fourth meeting between both sides.

  That is, it should have been.

  No buy was on for tonight, just some more talk, more feeling out on both sides. That’s how it was in the drug world. Trust nobody. Make sure you know who you’re selling to or buying from. Make sure.

  Angel Jorín. Skinny, with rotten teeth, and dark glasses he wore day and night. Always nervously fingering a thick gold ring with his initials on it. Always smiling and calling you “my friend.”

  Angel Jorín. “My friend.” Your ass, Angel, thought Bolt. When I get out of here, I’m coming for your greasy little behind, and I’m going to set fire to it before I stomp it and kick it back to Cuba. You set me up, me and Kramer.

  We come here to meet you, and instead, we get dragged out back by three assholes pretending to be cops, one of the oldest ripoffs in drugs. Phony cops are common these days, taking off dealers for drugs and money, knowing the dealers can’t complain to the law. A lot of money changes hands that way. Most of the time, the dealer doesn’t even know he’s been had by a jive cop. The dealer’s just glad to stay out of jail, happy to be out on the street making money as usual.

  And the jive cops keep on ripping off until they get caught by real cops or blown away by a dealer big enough and determined enough to come back at them. But most of the time, the bastards get away with it. People see that badge, that ID, that gun, and they don’t ask questions. They just do what they’re told.

  Like me and Kramer.

  A setup. And we walk right into it. Angel doesn’t show, but three phony cops do, take us outside, and now me and Kramer are standing around freezing our balls off while these pricks slice our overcoats into rags.

  No back-up tonight, no reason for any. No buy going down, so why call out agents to stand around watching us and Angel get drunk and bullshit each other? Worse, thought Bolt, me and Kramer go in without guns. Got to. No other way. Cops carry guns, cops or bad guys. We’re not supposed to be cops, and we haven’t yet proven we’re bad guys.

  Angel. Your ass, Angel. Or …

  Bolt frowned, blinking his eyes to clear them of water. Jo-Jo. Jo-Jo was his informant, the man who had introduced him to Angel. In the past, Jo-Jo, a small-time black fence with three gold teeth in the center of his mouth, had been reliable. Sure, Jo-Jo dealt in stolen goods. Shit, a cat had to make a living.

  But he had never betrayed John Bolt. Not once. Still, there was always a first time. Jo-Jo or Angel—one of the two had set up Bolt and Kramer, betraying them to the ripoff artists, setting them up to be ripped off, maybe killed.

  Jo-Jo or Angel. When Bolt got out of this, if he got out of this, he was going hunting for both of them. And when he found the sucker who had given him up …

  Bolt shivered, turning his head slightly to the right to peek at Kramer. The lean black agent was calm, eyes on the stained red-brick wall in front of him. Street-smart and together, that was K.

  That’s why Bolt liked working with him, that’s why Bolt liked him as a man. Always the right move, never panic, never uncool, never impulsive. A damn good agent, a damn good man.

  Bolt cursed the cold that wouldn’t stop gnawing at him, lifting a corner of his mouth in a tiny smile. Bet I know what K’s thinking: he’s thinking about his goddamn hat.

  Kramer’s hat. His pride and joy. The envy of every pimp, junkie, whore, dealer, and loser hanging out on street corners. It was made of black-diamond mink, shiny, thick fur with a wide brim that hung down low over Kramer’s left eye. He’d added a band of Spanish silver dollars around the crown.

  D-3, the Department of Dangerous Drugs, had paid for the hat. Four hundred dollars. That was Kramer’s way of being careful. Make sure you look like the cats you want to do business with. You’re walking the street, not a nursery, and if you wan
t to get into their game, you start with the right threads.

  Nobody was better at picking the right threads than the black agent, a former Alabama schoolteacher. He looked like bad news. Pimp flash, street hustle written all over him, and more than once it had gotten him in trouble with real cops. He looked so much like a mean nigger that he’d been arrested, punched around, shot at by cops, white and black, more than once.

  He’d survived, sometimes laughing it off. Sometimes.

  Tonight was too real, too real for him and John Bolt. “Nothin’, man, not a fuckin’ thing. Just the bread we took offa these dudes.” The Cuban who had slashed and searched John Bolt’s overcoat stood up, blowing on his bare hands. He was Billy Brazil, twenty-nine, handsome, with a moustache he constantly stroked with his thumb. Time to take care of business, he thought, to do what they came here for.

  Raymond María, the other Cuban, a short stocky, twenty-six-year-old man who was a cousin to Billy Brazil, stood up, stepping on Kramer’s slashed overcoat, holding the agent’s mink hat in his hands. Raymond hated New York weather. Cold as hell here, worse than he ever imagined it would be. He missed Cuba. He even missed Miami.

  But New York was where the money was. That’s what Billy had said, and Billy was never wrong.

  “Ain’t nothin’ in this hat, either,” said Raymond, turning it around in his hands. “Tough hat, though. Shit, man, I dig this fucking hat.” He smiled at it, petting it as though the hat were a friendly animal.

  “Keep the fucking hat,” said Billy Brazil, stepping up to Gypsy Walker and taking his own Colt Python from his pocket. Who the hell cared about a hat, when they were on their way to almost three million dollars?

  Billy Brazil had things to do. “O.K., you two turkeys, turn around, come on, come on!” Jesus, it was cold! Billy Brazil shook his head in disbelief at this weather. He’d heard about it from other Cubans, but he’d never taken them seriously. Now he knew they had been right.

  When you’ve lived in Cuba most of your life, with a few years in Miami, you just ain’t ready for this kind of shit, this fucking snow up to your balls, the cold wind that peels your skin off. Well, ain’t nothin’ they could do about the weather.

  The money was here, somewhere in New York, and if they wanted to get their hands on it, they would just have to live with this freezing weather.

  Billy Brazil took one step forward, eyes darting from Bolt to Kramer. “O.K., we’re leavin’. Now, I’m sayin’ this once, just once, so you fucks better listen. You …” Billy Brazil pointed his Colt Python at Kramer. “Come over here. Yeah, yeah, don’t look around, man, I said get the fuck on over here!”

  Kramer took a deep breath, let it out as soft white steam, and stepped forward slowly, walking in the freezing snow as though he were walking on broken glass. Shit, he didn’t like this, not one fucking bit. Not just walking barefoot in the snow, oh, no, not just that. What he didn’t like was the way the Cuban had said “come here.”

  Bolt didn’t like it either. He frowned, tensing, wondering whether he ought to jump these assholes anyway, especially if they were going to waste him and Kramer. Nothing to lose.

  Except his life.

  As if reading the narc’s mind, Gypsy Walker turned to him, grinning, as if to say, “Try it.” Gypsy’s left arm was still extended, gun aimed at Bolt’s nose. Yeah, I’d blow whitey’s ass away. Sure ’nough would. Splash his brains all over that wall.

  Bolt sighed, shifting his feet in the snow, feeling nothing in his toes. He wasn’t going to do a goddamn thing except watch.

  Kramer stopped two feet in front of Billy Brazil, eyes on the Cuban’s face, a strange coldness that had nothing to do with the weather wrapping itself around the agent’s brain and stomach. Is this the guy who does it to me? Is this the dude who puts my lights out for the last time? The agent chewed the inside of his mouth and fought against the sour-bitter taste creeping up into his throat.

  Billy Brazil stared at Kramer as though trying to learn more about him in a hurry; then he shifted his eyes to Bolt. “Takin’ your friend here with us.” The Cuban’s voice was calm, sure of himself. He spoke as though he were a doctor prescribing a rest cure.

  Bolt frowned, his mouth opening. He took one step forward.

  “Oh, no,” said Gypsy Walker, smiling. “Oh, no, my man. Ain’t nobody said for you to come along. No, no, no. You gon’ stay behind, you got things to do.” Gypsy Walker’s grin was wider. This was why they’d come out in this fucking cold tonight; this was the reason for standing around in this goddamn alley.

  Gypsy always felt better when he had had something to do. Like now.

  “Don’t fuck up, man,” said Billy Brazil, taking a step to his left so he could see John Bolt. “You doin’ O.K., know what I mean? You’re breathing, man, so don’t go and spoil it. Just listen, and you be alive to take care of business. Now, we’re taking your friend here, Mr. Cole. We’re going to hang on to him for two days, forty-eight hours. Just forty-eight hours. Now, you are going to contact his brother in Detroit and tell him that his little brother’s been kidnapped. Tell him some bad people holding on to old Alfred here, and unless he comes up with seventy-five thousand dollars, he ain’t going to see Alfred again. I mean, he see him dead, but shit, that ain’t where it’s at, right?”

  Bolt licked his lips. Oh, shit! Shit! Unbelievable! Ripped off, then kidnapped. The narc shook his head as though he was having trouble hearing the Cuban speak. But he wasn’t. He heard it right the first and only time. Billy Brazil’s voice was level, as calm as if it were a spring day and he was asking for a cold beer.

  Kramer was going to be held for ransom. An undercover narcotics agent held for ransom by ripoff creeps. For a split-second Bolt almost yelled out: You can’t do that, he’s an agent, it’s all been a shuck. We’ve been jiving Angel so we can get close to some big coke dealers. Hey, man, it’s a shuck, a lie!

  But Bolt knew better. These clowns in front of him didn’t care about anything but bread. What’s more, they would probably blow away both agents and not lose sleep over it.

  Kramer turned quickly to look at Bolt, no expression on his face. But the black agent’s mind raced with a hundred quick questions. What the fuck’s going down? What makes them think I’m worth grabbing? Who set us up? What …?

  Bolt said, “Hey, man, I—”

  “You shit!” said Gypsy Walker, taking a step forward, face tight with anger. Whitey always had something to say. Well, ain’t nothin’ he could do now but get his ass movin’ and get up that fuckin’ bread.

  “Gypsy!” Billy Brazil’s command stopped the muscular black man when he was almost on John Bolt, left hand pulled far back and ready to bring the Colt Python down on Bolt’s head.

  “We waste this dude and ain’t nobody gonna be around to tell ’bout the ransom. We gonna need him to be the man in the middle, somebody to take messages back and forth and bring us the seventy-five. Ain’t that right, chump, ain’t you gonna do that for your friend here?” Billy Brazil smiled, hugging himself for warmth as well as in satisfaction. Everything was going along smoothly, just as he planned.

  “Everything’s gonna be cool,” said the handsome Cuban, his eyes never leaving John Bolt’s face. “You came along so you can speak Spanish to the Cubans. O.K., that’s fine, that’s fine. But you ain’t the one, I mean, you ain’t the important one. My man here”—he pointed to Kramer—“my man here, he’s the brother of the big man, he’s Winfred Cole’s little brother, and Winfred Cole’s the boss, the man with the green. So ain’t no sense in grabbing you. Little brother here, he’s the one, he’s the one that’s gonna bring in the loot. Like I said, you got forty-eight hours. You don’t come up with the money, and Alfred here, he’s gonna get his head blown off. Forty-eight hours. That’s it.”

  Bolt nodded, lips tight together, heart pounding in frustration and anger. Jesus! Losing the thirteen hundred’s nothing. But a kidnapped agent, oh, shit! If they find out who he really is, oh, damn! Jesus!

  “Seventy-five,” mumbled Bolt, nodding his head in agreement.

  “You got it right,” said Billy Brazil, turning to look at Kramer, who didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. How about this shit? An undercover narcotics agent kidnapped because somebody thinks he’s a dealer and he’s going to be held for $75,000 ransom. Ain’t this a bitch?