I saw nothing and kept going, hoping they stayed on the path. I couldn’t chance a call to Sniff. I didn’t know if Roam and whoever Roam was following would hear it. So I just moved as fast as I could without making any noise.
What seemed like an eternity later, but was probably five minutes, I saw Sniff’s gray sweatshirt. We were almost to Broadway when I got to him.
He was standing, trying to hide but you could see his sweatshirt. I approached him from behind and touched his shoulder. He jumped and whirled, dropping his phone with a clatter.
“Shit, Law!” he hissed.
I bent down, got his phone and gave it to him. “Roam still here?” I whispered.
“Yeah, up ahead,” Sniff whispered back.
I handed him my car keys. “Camaro’s in the Fox station lot. Go to it, get in, lock up and wait for me.”
“Law…” he hesitated.
I got close and clipped, “Move!”
He took off.
Told you my word was law.
I moved forward enough to see that there were people in front of me, standing, pretty as you please, next to a street light. A dealer making a sale. Anyone else might have thought they were just talking, on the Speer bike path, at midnight.
I knew it was a sale because I’d witnessed a lot of them the past four months.
Roam was nowhere to be seen.
I got into the shadows, watched and waited.
The sale went down, the buyers took off West, the dealer came my way.
Shit.
The dealer got close and I recognized him. Name was Shard, low level player, just a piece of scum caught in the wheel of the big drug machine.
I made a decision, came out to the path and started toward him like I was taking a moonlight stroll. I figured I’d walk by him, find Roam and get the hell out of there.
Shard noticed me, hesitated and then, for no apparent reason, his body jerked and he whirled.
I stared, not knowing what was happening and wondering if maybe he suffered from epilepsy or something.
He jerked again then again then caught sight of something and ran toward it, away from me. He jerked again while he was running and I finally noticed Roam, standing a bit away, throwing rocks at Shard.
Oh shit.
I ran after Shard. Roam saw us both and shot out of his hiding hole and took off.
We were all running, flat out, and I realized in a panic there was no way I’d catch Shard and Roam. Roam was quick. Shard was quicker.
I did catch up with them, though the only reason I was able to was that Shard caught up with Roam, did a flying tackle and brought him down. They struggled, he rolled Roam to his back, reared to punch him but before he did I made it to them, grabbed Shard’s wrist and twisted it, spinning him off of Roam.
Shard rolled into me, took me down and my stun gun went flying.
“Roam, run!” I shouted as Shard got on top of me. We were struggling, his hands at my wrists, he was stronger than me, way stronger. I looked for my opening to knee him in the ‘nads when Roam body tackled him sideways.
We all went rolling, Shard taking me with his hands at my wrists.
We stopped rolling still scuffling. Shard was working to free himself from Roam and me when, all of a sudden, he was lifted clean up into the air, like he was levitating, arms and legs reeling.
I stared in shock, Roam went still and then Shard was slammed face first on the ground next to me.
That’s when I saw Crowe.
He was crouched low. He planted his knee in Shard’s back, pulled Shard’s hands behind him and secured his wrists in cuffs like Shard wasn’t struggling like a mother (which he was).
Then Crowe straightened, jerking Shard up with him. Crowe cocked his knee to the back of one of Shard’s, taking Shard down.
I was lying on my back, staring up, unable to move.
Roam was lying on his side next to me, up on an elbow.
We were both (I hate to admit it) in awe.
I didn’t have to wonder why Crowe was there. He was following me in order to “shut me down”.
Shit.
Crowe pulled a gun out of a holster on his belt and trained it on Shard. “Don’t move,” he said to Shard, his deep voice was scary.
Then his head turned and even in the shadowed light I knew he was looking at me. I knew it because I felt his eyes burning into me.
“Get up,” he ordered.
I did as I was told, frankly too scared to do otherwise (he was holding a gun and he seemed a bit pissed off and he’d made a grown man levitate, even I wasn’t fool enough to spit in the eye of that kind of tiger). Then I turned and helped Roam get up.
Crowe pulled a phone out of his back pocket, flipped it opened one handed and hit a button.
I breathed heavily, staring at him.
“You… are… the… man,” Roam whispered. He was staring at Crowe too, eyes wide with wonder.
“Jack? I got a pick up,” Crowe said into the phone. “Speer bike path, South side, close to Broadway,” he hesitated, listening, then went on briefly. “Yeah. Out.”
Then he flipped the phone shut and looked at me again.
“You wanna tell me what the f**k’s goin’ on?” he asked me, his voice still pissed off.
I didn’t, really, so I didn’t say anything.
“How’d you do that?” Roam asked, cutting into Crowe’s short, one-sided conversation with me.
I looked at Roam. He was still staring at Crowe like he was a god among men. Then I remembered to be angry at him and turned to face him.
“What did you think you were doing?” I shouted.
Roam’s eyes came to me. “Law –”
“Don’t ‘Law’ me. I should knock some sense into you. You could have got hurt, pelting drug dealers with rocks. Are you nuts?” I yelled.
“You do it,” Roam said, assuming a teenage boy’s pissed-off-yet-pouty stance of jutting lip and slightly leaning body.
“I do not pelt drug dealers with rocks. That’s a fool thing to do. Honestly, Roam, what am I gonna do with you?”
“You’re Law?” Shard said, butting into my tirade and looking up at me.
I caught his look and, even shadowed, it made me shiver.
“Quiet,” Crowe told Shard but Shard kept staring at me like he was memorizing me. I knew this wasn’t good and that shiver turned into a quiver.
“Eyes to the ground,” Crowe ordered Shard and when Shard hesitated, Crowe’s hand snaked out, shoving the back of Shard’s head so he faced down.
I felt the disquiet of fear crawling along my skin but I pushed it away and turned back to Roam.
“We’re not done. Go find my stun gun, I dropped it. I’m taking you back to the Shelter tonight, tomorrow, we’ll talk.”