After Love (2 page)

Nick grinned. At his request, she had started adding the tip she felt she'd earned. Most nights she did well, but some nights she stiffed herself because she didn't believe he'd gotten the best service. It was a little weird, but she was always fair. “Great, I'm sure you deserved it. See you.”

“Hey, we need our bill over here,” the tall kid yelled at Gina.

She printed out their check and smiled as she placed it in front of them. “Here you go, guys. Thanks for coming in.”

The shorter guy laid a stack of bills on the bar and nodded toward Gina. “Keep the change.”

“Yeah, we gotta go.” As the tall kid stood up, Nick slid off his stool and staggered out to block the boys. They tried to walk around him, but he lurched forward and bumped into the shorter kid. Nick reached out and steadied himself by grabbing the boy's wrist.

“Whoa…Sorry, dude….My bad. One too many, ya know?”

“That's okay….No harm,” the kid muttered, giving Nick a disgusted look. The boys continued out the back door.

Nick straightened and watched them leave with a clear and steady gaze. He smiled as he glanced down at his cellphone and watched the little white blip on the screen following the tracking device that he had stuck to the band of the kid's expensive wristwatch. It would only stick on the metal for a couple of hours, so he didn't have a lot of time to waste. He gave Gina a wave and headed toward his car.

He snapped his cellphone into the holder on his dash and continued north on I-35, following a few dozen yards behind the pair from the Jackalope. He hadn't gotten a good look at their car, but from a distance it appeared to be a silver late-model BMW or Mercedes.

Traffic, as usual, was horrible, and he would have lost them several times without the locator's blip. He still hadn't heard back from Bobbi, but that was no reason to pass on this easy bust as they led him to their stash of blow. In good conscience he couldn't let them steal the illegal drugs and distribute them. After all, this wasn't Mexico, or even a drug cartel. It was Austin, blocks from the UT campus and thousands of kids who would have access to these little baby drug dealers. In his mind that was cause, and he had to shut this operation down before the drugs slipped out.

They turned into the parking lot of a multistory storage locker complex. The kid with glasses was driving, and he punched in a code on the keypad. The big iron gate slowly rolled open. Two other guys who had been hiding in the shadows ran in behind the car, seconds before the gate closed.

Nick parked where he could watch the gate, grabbed his cellphone, and selected a contact from his list.

“Larry, it's Nick,” he said, feeling that familiar rush of adrenaline.

“Nick? What's happening, man?”

“You working tonight?”

“Yes, why?”

“Got a big drug bust going down. I need backup, now.” Nick kept his gaze glued to the gate, hoping that removing the bags and cleaning up was a slow process.

“Backup?”

“Listen, dude…I'm alone here, staking out a storage locker full of blow….Interested?”

There was a moment of silence. “Of course, APD to the rescue. What's the address?”

“Bluebonnet Storage on Forty-first by the interstate. Hurry…No siren. Okay?”

“On my way.”

Nick ended the call and turned his full attention back to the gate. He checked his cell clock a half dozen times, his fingers drumming on the console as he waited. Being the only agent on the arrest would be hard with four perps, even though they seemed like goofy college kids. As he rethought his situation, any questions about timing were answered when the gate slid open and the silver BMW drove out with all four boys inside.

He glanced in his rearview mirror. No cops. This was a problem. If he let them go, they would split up and three fourths of the drugs would be completely untraceable. Nick shifted the truck into drive and roared forward, screeching to a stop in front of their car just as it cleared the gate. He reached into his glove box, pulled out his service revolver, opened the door, and jumped out of his car.

“Stop! DEA! Get out of the car and on the ground…now!” he shouted, his legs braced and the nine-millimeter pointed toward the driver.

The boys' eyes bugged as the driver slammed on the brakes. Tumbling over one another in their haste, they crawled out of the car and flopped facedown on their stomachs.

“If you have any weapons, slowly take them out and slide them over here,” Nick demanded in his best badass voice.

The four glanced at each other and shook their heads.

“I gotta pee,” the tall kid moaned.

“Go ahead,” Nick told him. “They can hose down the driveway tomorrow.”

The boy gave him a horrified glance and muttered, “I can wait.”

Nick looked over his shoulder when he heard three Austin Police Department cruisers speed into the parking lot. They stopped, leaving their headlights on to illuminate the scene. The officers exited their vehicles with weapons drawn and aimed at the twentysomethings on the ground. The cops immediately moved forward and snapped handcuffs on the boys, then started emptying their pockets.

The flashing blue lights of a fourth police car bounced off the front of the storage locker building. A tall, muscular black officer with a wide grin climbed out of his car. He carefully placed his hat on his head and walked to where Nick stood. “Nick…long time, no see,” he said.

“Shit, Larry, I'm getting too old for this.”

“Relax, amigo. What's this all about?”

Nick looked at the four suspects, who were now lined up against the side of their vehicle, guarded by one cop while the other three searched the car. “The tall guy on the right and the kid next to him were bragging about the cocaine locker they'd found. They called their friends and came back here to steal some. Apparently there's a shitload stored in one of those lockers.” He jerked his head in the direction of the gate.

“Really? Let me guess…You were in a bar.”

“I was eating dinner, and the establishment had beer. Big difference.”

“Found it!” one of the cops called out.

Everyone who wasn't still searching the interior of the car or guarding the boys hurried to the back of the vehicle, where they all gathered around the open trunk. Inside, there were about twenty clear plastic bags, each the size of a five-pound bag of sugar, stuffed with fine white powder.

“Tested it yet?” Larry asked.

“Not yet.” Nick retrieved a small kit out of the backseat of his truck, then pulled out a plastic bottle of cobalt thiocyanate and a switchblade. He snapped the knife open and stabbed it into the top bag, pulling out the blade so that a small pile of white powder balanced on the tip. Then he dripped some liquid from the eyedropper onto the powder.

He and all the cops peered down and waited.

Nothing happened.

Nick frowned. He'd done this hundreds of times to cocaine and heroin, and the powder always turned blue. He repeated the test with powder from a different bag.

Same result. Absolutely no chemical reaction.

At the front of the car, the kids began laughing nervously. The night got worse when a news van from one of the local Austin TV stations rolled into the middle of the action and two reporters rushed forward with their camera rolling. The other cops started backing away, leaving Nick standing at the open trunk of the car with a pile of bags of unknown white powder inside.

Cops, kids, a DEA agent, and now a local television station, all standing around, waiting for something to happen. Nick began to have a really bad feeling about this whole scene.
A cocaine bust that had everything but cocaine.

“Negative?” Larry asked with a look of resignation on his face.

“Yeah.”

“Officer.” The TV reporter interrupted the moment. “Why is Congressman Grossman's son being arrested?”

“Fuck!” Nick whispered. A congressman's son? Louder, he said, “Uh, there's nothing happening here, guys. Go home.”

“Can we talk to the suspects?”

“Sure,” Larry said. “Guys”—he looked toward the three cops who were standing around nervously—“I'll take it from here.”

The three cops rushed to their cars, backed out, and fled.

The TV reporter and cameraman approached the four kids, thrust a microphone in front of them, and started asking them questions. Every word out of their mouths made Nick feel more and more foolish. No doubt the meeting with his supervisor first thing in the morning would now take on an even more negative tone…and possibly a different objective. He was still on probation for his little trip to Mexico. The last thing he wanted was to be suspended…or worse. He shook his head and exhaled as he walked back to Larry.

“Do you have anything else on them?” Larry asked. “Fake IDs? Drunk driving?”

“You could give them a sobriety test. I know they've been drinking.” He raked his fingers through his dark, disheveled hair. “The kid had all this white shit on his nose, and they were acting like they were high on booger sugar. I just put two and two together and…”

“Got screwed,” Larry finished.

“Any comment?” The TV reporter turned to Nick.

Nick ignored him.

“You okay?” Larry whispered, genuinely concerned.

“I've been better.” Nick shrugged. “Fuck if I can remember when.”

“Will you be arresting Congressman Grossman's son for cocaine possession?” the reporter asked.

“Not tonight,” Larry answered as he removed the boys' handcuffs. “But we are considering DWI charges. Protecting our citizens is our number one goal. Let's head to the station, boys.”

Nick fell into step with Larry as they walked to the patrol car with the boys reluctantly shuffling in front on them. “Thanks for getting out here….Tell them I appreciate it.”

“Will do. I'm going to get these guys processed.” Larry slapped Nick on the shoulder and continued herding the boys to his car.

Nick tried to ignore the camera pointed at him as he got in his truck and drove off.

Nick was in his office earlier than requested because he knew he didn't need to piss off his boss, Bobbi Carter, any more than she already was. His only hope was that she hadn't seen the TV report, but he knew that was unlikely. From the looks he'd gotten when he came into the building, it was obvious that everyone else had.

Bobbi was middle-aged, about Nick's height, and wore her sandy-blond hair short and straight. Nick had never seen her wear anything but dark pants, a blue or white blouse, and a matching suit coat. Completely professional and always serious, her only touch of femininity was a whimsical brooch. A dachshund in a bun, a frog wearing a top hat, a tiny Ferris wheel that actually moved…Every day it was something different. Her supply must be endless.

At one minute before eight, Nick walked down the hall and knocked on her open door. “Ready for me? If not, I can come back.”

“You wish,” she answered, looking up from a newspaper on her desk. “Sit down, Agent Archer.”

Damn,
he hadn't thought about the newspaper. Who the hell read newspapers anymore? Nick sat on the small wooden chair that was centered across from Bobbi's highly organized desk. Today's choice of brooch was a pair of handcuffs. He wondered if that was foreshadowing of how this meeting was going to go. Plus, she was calling him Agent Archer instead of just his first name like she usually did. It was the equivalent of his mother shouting out
Nicholas Andrew Archer
when she was mad. That had been his cue to disappear until she cooled down. Unfortunately, there was no such escape from his boss.

“So, Agent Archer, how are things with you?”

A pleasant enough question, but Nick knew she was offering him a chance to fess up about last night's activities. Unfortunately, Nick wasn't a fess-up kind of guy. His motto was to deny everything…until there was proof.

“Not too bad. Did you read my report?”

“No, because I was too busy talking on the phone.”

“Oh?”

“Congressman Grossman called me this morning…early.”

What the hell could he say at this point? Nick stared at her, waiting for the rest of the story.

“I was impressed he had connections enough to find my cellphone number at two a.m.,” Bobbi continued.

“I have an explanation…The kid came into the Jackalope with white powder on—”

Bobbi wagged her index finger back and forth at Nick. “I don't care if he had poppies growing out of his ass, you shouldn't have moved in until you cleared it with me.” She shook her head in disgust. “I've heard enough. Let's just say last night validates my decision about your future.”

Nick felt his mouth go dry as he waited to hear his fate.

“I've thought about the two years you've worked under my command, Agent Archer, and I've come to the conclusion that you have a tendency to make reckless decisions that embarrass this agency. Remember the Mexican drug cartel you tried to bring down alone? That's not to mention last night's attempt to arrest a congressman's son on cocaine charges when all he had was powdered caffeine.”

“What?” Nick shook his head.

“Powdered caffeine. Seems our congressman has a small business venture with an energy drinks manufacturer. He imports caffeine—legally—from Mexico and makes the drinks here. It's all quite aboveboard. But apparently there is a small black market for the caffeine powder on campus and his son found a way to make a few extra bucks.”

“Wow. Caffeine,” Nick muttered. He'd never made a caffeine bust before…mostly because it wasn't a drug.

“So the congressman will deal with his son, not us. Understand?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“On the positive side, your old supervisor, Peter Santos, had nothing but good things to say about you and, frankly, your arrest and conviction rates are the best in the department. On the negative side, you've been working alone because no one will work with you. Peter said you had gone through at least ten partners and none lasted more than a month. True?”