Chapter 1 - The Move I Watched Him Make
I was standing on the sidewalk on Vernon Street when I felt his fingers brush my chest.
It was a Tuesday afternoon in late September, bright and warm, the kind of day when everybody in the neighborhood has their windows open and nobody is paying attention to anything.
I had on my charcoal-black suit jacket, the one I wear when I want people to underestimate me, and I was looking at the parked cars along the curb like a man waiting for a ride.
I wasn't waiting for a ride.
I was watching Officer Dale Rennick work the block.
He came up on my left side, close, the way cops do when they want you to feel them before you see them, and he said my name like he already knew it.
"Well, well, well.
Look what we've got here."
I turned my head slow.
He was stocky, mid-forties, short light-brown hair combed neat, dark navy-black uniform with the short sleeves and the duty belt sagging with equipment.
He had that smile on his face, the one that says I already won and you just don't know it yet.
"You really thought you could walk around like nobody was gonna check your ass?" he said.
I didn't answer right away.
I let him have the silence, because I wanted him to keep talking, and because I already knew what he had just done.
I had felt it.
A small, flat press against the inside of my breast pocket, quick and practiced, the kind of move a man makes when he's done it a hundred times and never once been caught.
"What's wrong, tough guy?"
Rennick said.
"Cat got your tongue?
You don't look so damn confident now, do you?"
His grin got wider.
He tilted his head at me like I was a stray dog he was about to call animal control on.
I kept my hands at my sides and my eyes on his.
"You really wanna play this game?"
I said.
"Because I saw that sneaky-ass move you just pulled."
His eyebrows came down a little.
Not much.
Just enough.
"Don't stand there grinning like some smug little asshole," I said.
"You know exactly what you did."
The smile stayed on his mouth but it stopped reaching his eyes.
"Watch your fucking mouth," he said.
"You think you can accuse me of something and just walk away?"
I took one step closer to him, slow, so he could see I wasn't going anywhere.
"I'm not accusing you of some imaginary bullshit," I said.
"I watched you slip that packet into my pocket.
You're a dirty fucking clown."
That did it.
His face twisted up and he came at me, arm swinging, mouth open, shouting something about showing me how tough he was.
I caught his arm on the way in.
I turned my hip into him and let his own weight carry him past me, and then I put him down on the asphalt beside the parked cars, hard but clean, the way I was trained to do it a long time ago.
He scrambled to get up.
I stepped in and kept him from getting his feet under him, and then I walked him backward, both hands on his uniform, until his back and shoulders hit the hood of the silver-gray sedan parked at the curb.
He ended up flat on his back across that hood, head tipped toward the windshield, eyes wide, arms spread out like he couldn't believe what was happening to him.
"YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!" he yelled.
"YOU JUST PUT YOUR HANDS ON A COP!"
I leaned over him and kept one hand flat against his chest.
"A cop?"
I said.
"That's what you call yourself?
You plant bullshit on somebody and then throw a tantrum when you get caught?
You're a disgrace to the damn badge."
He was breathing hard through his nose.
I reached into my jacket with my free hand, slow, so he could see every inch of the movement, and I pulled out my black ID wallet.
I flipped it open and held it six inches above his face.
He went quiet.
His eyes moved across the card, and I watched him read the words at the top, and I watched his mouth fall open.
"Read it, asshole," I said.
"INTERNAL AFFAIRS.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR.
You understand how badly you just fucked up?"
He stared at me.
"Wait… Internal Affairs?" he said.
"What the fuck?
Hold on, man, this is a misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding?"
I said.
"You planted a packet on me, laughed in my face, and came swinging.
Don't insult me with that pathetic fucking excuse."
He didn't say anything else.
He just lay there on that car hood with the sun on his face and his badge shining on his chest, and I stood over him with my ID still open in my hand.
"That smug smile's gone now, huh?"
I said.
"You wanted to ruin somebody's life with a dirty little setup.
Now explain your bullshit to Internal Affairs."
He didn't answer.
And that was the thing that stayed with me after I finally stepped back and let him sit up.
Not the packet.
Not the takedown.
It was the way he said the word misunderstanding, like it was a door he thought he could still walk through.
I already knew this wasn't random.
Men like Rennick don't pick a stranger off the sidewalk for no reason.
Somebody had pointed him at me, or at somebody who looked like me, and I needed to find out who.
