Chief Inspector Maureen Thompson combed through her reports, trying to fit Jonathan Tyler into the web of connections created by the reports in front of her. There was no sense to her fervor except a gut feeling, especially since the FBI was now in control of all but the abandoned baby case. They didn’t know her precinct had a directive to find Jonathan Tyler before they did.

Damn. She could use another cup of coffee. The flood of information squirmed through her brain like tunneling worms trying to get away from rising water. She reread the words. They crawled into her mind and then got lost in the intricate web that seemed to weave each of the reports together: dead teen at the river, missing person reported by grandmother, abandoned baby, gang retaliation over a birth gone bad, one of their own missing. Still unanswered: Who was the mother? Where was the midwife? Who was the kid that delivered the money?  

Evan Fischer stated twice that he had sent one of his father’s employees, a young male, age unknown, named Sawyer, on an errand to run one thousand dollars to the midwife of his pregnant girlfriend, Sobrina Morelli. Marchesi had hired Sawyer the night before.

Sawyer, Sawyer. What kind of parent named their kid Sawyer nowadays? Why would Evan trust him, someone he didn’t know, with that amount of money? Why didn’t he wait for his father’s right hand man, Allessandro Santorini?   

Evan Fischer, age nineteen, reported missing.

They now knew that the Morelli clan had sent an enforcer to teach Evan Fischer a lesson because he had knocked up their sister, Sobrina, sixteen years of age. That enforcer was a young Taiwanese national, dumped at the river.

Cause of death, stab wound.

They now believed he was the Morellis’ best new fighter, trying to make his way into their organization. Evan would not admit he had taken a knife to the fight. He repeatedly stated that he was not aware of a knife. Thompson’s team did not find a knife. 

A miscarried baby lay in their morgue. The FBI whisked Evan and his father away before she could ask about the baby, before she could swab for DNA. Without it, she could not confirm that the abandoned baby was his. Her wild card was Jackson Tyler. He had dreamed of watching a young woman give birth to a stillborn baby.

The timing of it got to her. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

One thousand dollars to the midwife…

…young man, age unknown, named Sawyer….

Had Jack seen through Sawyer’s eyes? Was the unfortunate witness to a tragic birth part of the equation, or was this birthing completely unrelated?  Sawyer. Wouldn’t it be more likely for Jack to see through Evan’s eyes? Or Jonathan’s?

“Oh, lordy, would Jon use an alias?” she said aloud.

“Talking to yourself on the job. Not a good sign,” said Officer Marcus Balmario. He was geared and ready to go when he approached her desk.

Until Jackson Tyler was fully on the job, Marcus Balmario was Maureen’s choice for temporary partner. He was young and unmarried, but he was extremely level-headed. She was comfortable working with him. Their last case had ended tragically with the loss of his partner. Like Jack, he preferred to keep working to keep his mind off his grief.  Even though he and his partner had worked together less than six months, she would keep an eye on his stress levels. At the first sign of trouble, he was going home. She could work alone.

“Thanks,” he said. He sat across from her. She knew he was referring to her willingness to keep him busy.

“No problem,” she replied. “I sent Jack home to make phone calls, but you and I both know he isn’t going to stay put for very long.”

“His emotions are too high,” said Marcus. “That’s dangerous. We should put someone on him.”

“That’s a little extreme.”

He shrugged. “I sent the FBI BOLO out on our wire. Every cop in this and the surrounding areas will have Jonathan Tyler’s picture by noon,” said Marcus.

“Good, thank you,” she said. Her desk phone rang. “Thompson.”

“Transfer from a gentleman named Rodney Heathe, asking for you. He’s reporting a missing person.”

“Connect us please.”  Maureen motioned for Marcus to stand by. “Mr. Heathe.”

“I don’t know what is going on with my people, but another employee has not checked in, and like Evan, she is extremely punctual and never sick. I am quite frankly worried that somebody is trying to sabotage my business.”

“Walgreens isn’t a franchise, Sir. Unless you fail the corporation, no one is after you. Who may I ask is missing today?”

“Emilia Rodriguez, one of my cashiers.”

Maureen capped the phone with her hand to tell Marcus, “Pull a car. We’re taking a trip.” To Mr. Heathe, she said, “We will be there in about twelve minutes.”

“Thank you. Thank you,” he said.

Maureen felt like she was approaching a hornet’s nest. During her original interview with Emilia Rodriguez, Maureen’s gut told her that Emilia had more responsibility than running errands and delivering pain medications. She had pulled Emilia in on Evan’s case because he needed pain medicine after his mix up with the Morelli gang. She had delivered them.

Had Emilia Rodriguez found herself in the Morellis’ crosshairs as well?

Eleven minutes later, Marcus pulled their marked car into the parking lot, front and center of the store. She was glad they were in a marked car, instead of her Corolla or Balmario’s Jeep. A show of police on the premises was just good business in case Heathe was part of Marchesi’s gang, which they suspected he was.

Together, they entered the store and jogged to the back where they found an agitated Rodney Heathe pacing in front of the ‘Employees Only’ entrance.

“Thank you,” he said, grabbing Maureen’s hand. He was a different man today, not the arrogant SOB they had interviewed earlier. “I can’t reach her. I’ve called a dozen times.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s sit in your break room. There is so sense in scaring your other employees.” Maureen guided Mr. Heathe with a hand on his elbow and ushered him down the hallway. She pulled a chair and settled him against a wall.

Then, she dialed dispatch, relayed Emilia Rodriguez’s contact information, and asked that they attempt contact.

While waiting on the return call, Maureen asked, “Have you worked with Sra. Rodriguez for a long time?”

“Three years,” he replied, but didn’t offer any more information.

“Has she always been a cashier?” asked Marcus Balmario.

“No, she started in the stock room, but she is quiet and pleasant, so I put her out front. It pays better, and she was a good employee. Still is, I mean.”

“Of course,” said Maureen. “What about calling in sick? Does she always call when she can’t make it?”

“She has never called in sick,” said Heathe. “And with Evan’s disappearance, I thought I should report hers right away.” Her gut told her that he was worried about more than another absent employee, but she was more worried about Emilia Rodriguez than his legal troubles or his involvement. Should they conclude that he was involved with Marchesi or the Morellis somehow, they could deal with him then.

She was, however, tempted to show him the picture of the dead Taiwanese boy again just to ask if he thought Emilia knew him. She was interrupted by her phone. “Thompson.”

“Dispatch. There is no answer from your contact. Over.”

“Roger that. Out,” said Maureen.

Maureen’s suspicion that Emilia Rodriguez could be the midwife involved in the tragedy of Sobrina Morelli’s death after birthing a stillborn child was growing exponentially. Jack had…suffered, for want of a better word, a remote viewing of a birth. In need of all her resources, she decided to include him, even though she had sent him home. She texted, asking him to meet them at Sra. Rodriguez’s address. Maybe, if he wasn’t too distracted by his runaway son and his recovering partner, his mojo would turn on and lead them to her.

“Mr. Heathe, you should know we found Evan Fischer. He is well. However, he will not be coming back to work at this time.”

“Why?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss that,” she replied.

Rodney Heathe folded his hands in his lap and looked at the ceiling. It was clear that a million different thoughts were bombarding his mind. Maureen and Marcus gave him a few moments for the information to sink in.

“We will check on Emilia. She has been implicated in treating Evan Fischer for some injuries he incurred during a fight.” She watched his expression carefully, looking for any hint that he knew about the fight. She added, “Sra. Rodriguez may be involved with the same people Evan was involved with.”

His facial expression showed distress, possibly knowledge, but she didn’t read complicity.

As they left, Maureen said to Marcus, “He automatically assumed someone was out to get him. Did you notice that?”

“I did,” he said.

“He’s involved in this whole mess, somehow. I’m putting someone on him.” She called the Captain and set that up. “I texted Jack, invited him to meet us.”

“I thought we agreed he was unstable at this time,” mumbled Marcus.

“Again, that’s a little harsh. He had a dream about a birthing experience. With all that we know, I think we need to factor in the possibility that he remotely saw something that may give us information. I don’t know if Emilia is involved, I don’t know if Sobrina is involved, I don’t know if the stillborn we found yesterday is involved. Maybe he can figure that out.”

Marcus didn’t say anything. She knew about his rivalry with Jack. She knew about the constant teasing he gave and the razzing that Junior Inspector Tomio Dubanowski put up with because he was Jack’s partner, but at this point, it was all in-house fun. They were professionals on the job. She expected the same today.

“I don’t feel right about putting him in that position,” said Marcus. “It’s too much.”

“Too much,” she said, revved to defend Jack if she needed to.

“Yeah. His son is missing. The FBI thinks he’s here. His partner is still in the hospital. He can’t have gotten over the last case. I haven’t.”

“Yet, here you are, ready, willing, and I assume, professional.”

“Yes ma’am. I’m just worried for him. You know?”

Relieved by his compassion, she said, “I know, believe me, I know.” Finding Emilia would go a long way towards relieving some of that worry.

Jon hit a wall.

Literally.

When he tried to swerve around a large cardboard box, he tripped and slammed into the back wall of a building. His knees gave way, and he slumped down the bricks, scraping the bare skin of his elbows in an attempt to brace himself. His butt slammed the cold cement beneath his feet. He pulled his knees to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, shut his eyes, and heaved great, rib-breaking sobs.

When he opened his eyes again, his body had finished crying, but his ribs were sore. He was in a narrow corridor between two buildings. There were no back doors leading into them. It was as if when the builders put them side by side, they left a hallway between them to create a watershed. Above him, wide eaves created shadow and shelter, seemingly built to direct the rain away from the base of the buildings. Beyond that, was a dark velvet sky.

Night had fallen. How long had he been asleep? The alley was sheltered, a cave in the wilderness of a big city he knew nothing about. He scooted back until he could fully lean against the wall to rest his head. It was blissfully quiet. There was no sound of traffic, no people talking; there was no commotion anywhere. He should get up and scope out the area. He should. He honestly would, if he could move. He shut his eyes for just a moment. He could stay forever in this quiet.

“This be my place,” a voice grumbled. “You is in my place. Get out.”

Jon rocked his head against the brick behind it.

“Is you deaf? I said, get outta here. This be my place.”

With difficulty, Jon opened one eye, a tiny slit through which to peer. What he saw couldn’t be real. Dressed in multiple layers of rags for clothing, a man weaved in front of him.

“I said, get out,” the spectacle said.

Jon opened both eyes. He was real.

“This be mine. You be in my place. You get out.” The man lunged toward him with hands ready to strike.

Jon tried to move out of the way, but his legs refused to cooperate, and he fell onto his side.

“Get out.” One of the man’s shoes appeared right in front of his nose. He had tied the shoe onto his foot with jute string. He could see two dusty toes peeking out of a hole on the outside curve. That same foot came off the ground and pushed at Jon’s shoulder. “Get out,” his voice grumbled again.

Jon tried to move again, but all he could do was crawl a few inches forward.

“You be hurt?” said the man. “Wha’da matter? You in a fight?”

“No, n-n-no,” stuttered Jon. He barely recognized the croak of his own voice.

“You stay,” said the man. His foot disappeared.

A few minutes later, it was back. This time, the raggedy man knelt in front of him, with a 26-ounce Campbell’s Tomato Soup can in his hands. He grabbed Jon’s arm and hauled him into a seated position. Then he held the can to Jon’s lips and said, “Drink this.”

Jon turned his head.

“Drink. Is water,” said the man. “From de fountain ou’dare.”

Jon sniffed at it.

“You calm down, drink,” said the man.

Jon took a sip, then he placed his hands over the man’s and pulled the can toward his mouth. Greedily, he gulped, but the man took away the can.

“Slow down, you,” he said.

“Th, thank you,” said Jon.

“Alright,” the man replied.

The man sat next to him. After a few breaths, he handed Jon the can. Jon took it and sipped twice, then held it in his lap. He was monstrously thirsty, but the man was right. If he gulped it too fast, it would all end up on the ground. After a few more breaths, he took another sip.

“Thank you,” he said again.

The man nodded. “Alright.”

When Jon finished the can of water, he handed the can to the raggedy man. The man pushed the can back toward him and said, “Keep. Now get out, this be my place.”

Jon didn’t understand at first.

“You get outta here, go, go. This be my place.”

“But, I, I…?”

“This be my place.”

Jon used the wall to brace his weight upon his shaking legs, and slowly pulled himself up. “Th-th-thank you,” said Jon.

The man nodded. Then he leaned against the wall, folded his arms and shut his eyes. “You be gone. This be my place.”

Jon wobbled out of the alley, which opened onto a small plaza. A drinking fountain was in the middle of it, surrounded by a patch of neatly shorn grass. Jon had no memory whatsoever of passing it when he ran through, yet here it was, a tiny oasis in downtown Detroit.

In his mind, he heard Rat say, “Run to the river. Don’t stop.” He could smell the river, but he had no idea which way to go.

He filled the tomato soup can to the brim and drank about half. Then he sat next to the fountain while he thought about what to do next. He was supposed to run to the river but what difference did it make? It seemed like anywhere he went in Detroit he was doomed. Either he contacted his father and met trouble that way, or he hid until the Morelli gang found him.

“Where’s the other one,” Morelli had said. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? The little creep who gave that old witch money for my sister, my dead sister, Sobrina. I want to thank him, too.” Jon had no illusions about what that meant.

Was she actually dead? He could not superimpose the beautiful girl in the alley with the one who fought for two lives on the floor of the kitchen in the midwife’s apartment.

How was any of that his fault? He was just an errand boy. That was all. How did that make him involved in any way that justified retribution? Maybe they wanted to know where the baby was. He had no illusions about that either. He had put it down and couldn’t pick it up again. He chose to abandon it in front of a derelict pharmacy. What would have happened if he’d taken it back to Marchesi’s Bar and Grill with him? Would that have changed the course of the lives that had been lost?  

While he sat there agonizing over the choices that he had made, a police cruiser rolled up to the plaza. Jon watched it approach and quickly scooted behind the fountain so he was not in direct sight of the officers in the car. The doors opened and shut. Headlights flashed. Through a bullhorn an officer stated, “Detroit PD. Clear the park immediately.”

Had they seen him?

“Clear the park,” the officer barked again.

They weren’t asking him to present himself; they were asking him to leave. So, he stood and trotted as best he could away from them toward another space between two buildings. However, he didn’t stop in its shelter. He tottered straight through, into an empty lot, and beyond that to an avenue that stretched forever in both directions. The whole time, he was asking himself, “Why?” Why didn’t he approach the officers and ask for help? It would have been so easy.

He stopped a moment to get his bearings. The officers had not followed him. Were they still there? He could go back, or he could go forward. He froze between the two choices.

A few feet ahead of him was another opening between buildings. Maybe it was another alley. He slowly walked toward it. This one looked large enough to hold a dumpster with room for a vehicle to pass. About twelve feet into the alley, the dumpster was flush against a wall. Cautiously, he wandered toward it. There was no one else here. He hunkered down and hid beside it, protected from any onlookers that might pass by. His eyes began to water, and his breath hitched. A sob escaped, and then another, and then another, until he couldn’t stop. He cried himself into oblivion.  

The beeping of a garbage truck backing up, alerted him. He scooted away from the dumpster just as the large arms came down and clamped onto it to lift it over the yawning hole in the side of the truck. He trotted up the alley away from the racket it made. The workers didn’t pay any attention to him at all, which made him think that they had probably seen their share of drifters hiding the same way he had.

Grilled chorizo, the tangy scent reminiscent of the Mexican food truck near Stagg High School in Stockton hit his nose. His stomach rumbled. In a lot next to a service station, a Mexican food truck was rolling out its wares. He still had some money in his pockets: the ten Rat had given him, and a few bills that Charlie Marchesi had given him that he had yet to use. He was the truck’s first customer. The breakfast burrito cost him four dollars and twenty-five cents with tax, an hour’s wage in this town. He wandered back to the little park and filled his can with water. He found a bench on the street that led back to the tiny park with the fountain, and sat. There he ate his burrito. He had never tasted anything so good in all his life.

The city didn’t seem so scary now that morning had come. He was sure he could be successful here.

As he sat enjoying his breakfast, a shiny Lincoln with blackened windows pulled up to the light a block away. How many people drove Lincolns in this town? How many had windows so black they obscured the inside of the car?

Jon shoved the last bite of burrito into his mouth and ran. He made it to the alley where he’d sheltered for the night and hid behind the empty dumpster. The Lincoln rolled past the alley. Perhaps he should have turned himself in last night, to the cops who chased him away from the fountain.

It was too late to worry about that. Now, he had to learn how to stay out of sight. 

Chief Inspector Maureen Thompson wanted to scream – or punch a wall – or shoot the hell out of a target practice mannequin. Her recourse was to bite off a hangnail. Now, the darn thing burned like a bitch.

Sooner or later, Captain Jamison would call on her, ask her why she was holding Rat Snatcher in interrogation so long. She needed answers. That’s why. He was a possible suspect, possibly posturing as an FBI agent. He was a silent stone sitting in that hot seat. She directed question after question. He didn’t ask for counsel, he didn’t answer. He didn’t twitch. But the most peculiar thing was his calm, softly alert eyes. They weren’t the eyes of a criminal.

Damn this day. It had started with huge questions and was now ending with more. Who left the baby? Poor little girl never had a chance. The coroner confirmed she was too premature to survive. Where was the mother? Who was the mother? Why had she left it on the cold, dirty cement in front of a derelict pharmacy?

Her office phone rang. “Thompson.”

“My office, now.” Captain Jamison sounded as snappish and tired as she felt.

He didn’t even wait for her to get all the way through the door when he barked as predicted, “What the hell do you know about this guy in Interrogation One?”

She and Balmario had raced to the scene and then changed course when he roared past them in his beat up van. It was apparent he was fleeing something, and coming from the direction of the shootout.

“He’s not talking, Captain. Balmario has worked him. I’ve worked him. He’s a clam.”

“Has he lawyered up?”

“No, he hasn’t done that either. He just sits and stares.”

“So we cannot confirm that he was the shooter. What about the other two? What are they saying?”

“Charlie Marchesi and Evan Fischer. I have them separated. I’d like to call Jack Tyler, sir. He was first on the Fischer case. I’ve already called the grandmother.”

“Do it.”

Jack answered his phone before the first ring ended. “Tyler.”

“Jack, it’s Maureen. How’s Tom?”

“Slowly hobbling down the corridor fighting every second of having to use a walker.”

Maureen chuckled. “Sounds about right.”

Jack mumbled, “For someone who wants to go home he grumbles a lot.”

Maureen listened as Tom called Jack’s name and said something she could not decipher. She was sure it was a snappish quip in Jack’s direction.

Jack replied, “Keep walking.”

Tom mumbled again, and Jack said, “Whatever.”

Maureen chuckled and then she said, “Jack, Evan Fischer is in protective custody.”

There was silence on the phone. She assumed he was updating Tom on the missing child case.

When he came back on the line, he said, “I’ll be right there.”

“You should know; we put his father in protective custody as well.”

Jack jumped to the same conclusion she had. “Conti?”

She said, “He is using the name Charlie Marchesi. He owns Marchesi’s Bar and Grill.”

There was silence. When came back on, he said, “What? Do you think one of them called me earlier?”

“I don’t know why they would ask for you specifically.”

“I have been obsessing about that since the call came through.”

Jack had received a phone call from someone who asked for him, but the caller hung up. He traced the call to a street booth in front of Marchesi’s Bar and Grill.

Maureen said, “I arrested Rat Snatcher, aka Phillip Morris.”

“Whoa, really?” said Jack. “I can hardly wait.”

“Mr. Snatcher is sitting in Interrogation One. There is a lot to tell you. Fill you in when you get here.”

“Roger that.”

Twenty minutes later Jack leaned against the wall near the door to the bullpen watching a tearful Claudine Fischer reunite with her grandson. He had no idea what they were saying, but he was relieved to see them together. Evan’s face was a mess. Poor kid lived through a brutal beating to witness the execution of Allessandro Santorini. His own life had been threatened by the eldest Morelli brother, Santorini’s executioner.

There was no information on Santorini other than what Evan had haltingly explained. Santorini was his father’s right hand man, helped to run the staff at the restaurant and at the food and drinks booth during mixed martial arts meets. He kept everyone in line. Now he was dead. They would never know for sure, but this explained the name “Alles’ on the mysterious note that Maureen found on her windshield while she was interviewing at Walgreens. It was clear after today’s events that Alles Santorini would have known Evan’s whereabouts at the start of their investigation into his disappearance.   

Jack left Evan and his grandmother to their business. He walked past the room where Charlie Marchesi sat. It was hard to believe that Marchesi was Calogero Conti, the notorious mob boss turned State’s witness. He was a short man, light boned and much younger than Jack imagined. Now he sat with the slumped-shouldered posture of defeat. Jack was unimpressed.

He turned and went to the observation booth adjacent to the interrogation room that held Rat Snatcher. Maureen was there, staring at Snatcher through the mirrored window.

“Is he the shooter?” said Jack.

“Don’t know. He doesn’t have residue on his hands, his jacket, or his shirt. The lab is testing a pair of gloves we found in the back of his van.”

Jack stared at Snatcher. He was every bit the bear sitting in the chair behind the table, as he was the night he first met him on the street in front of Evan’s apartment building.  

Maureen grabbed the tagged evidence bag with the FBI credentials off the table in front of them. “This was found on the console between the two front seats. No other identification was found on him.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s his,” said Jack. He took the bag and stared at it a moment. Then he said, “Claudine Fischer called him Phillip Morris. This could be real.”

“He won’t talk to any of us. Maybe he will talk to you,” she said.

Jack kept the bag with the credentials and opened the door. Before he stepped all the way through it, Rat Snatcher reacted by standing. The look on his face was that of shock, mixed with recognition.

Jack froze, and stared at Snatcher.

“Hey, Pig,” Snatcher said.

Jack’s shoulders dropped. He closed the door behind him and walked to the table. He pulled out the chair across from Snatcher, sat down, and said, “So nice to see you again, Mr. Snatcher, or should I call you Agent Morris?” Jack held up the evidence bag with the credentials. Then he threw it onto the table.

Snatcher stopped it from sliding off onto the floor and sat down to hold it in front of him. It seemed like the reaction of a man who was taking care of something that belonged to him.

Jack tapped open a picture of Evan Fischer on his phone and held it up toward Rat. “Tell me about this kid,” he said. “Why was he threatened with execution?”

Rat looked at him with a sharp, surprised expression.

Jack stared back for a full minute. “He’s in protective custody,” he said.

Rat relaxed an infinitesimal amount.

Jack was an intuitive thinker. Otherwise, he may not have noticed that change.

Rat said, “That’s not the kid you should be looking for.”

“What?” said Jack.

Snatcher shrugged.

“Where did he take the baby?” Jack was surprised at the words that just rolled unbidden out of his mouth.

If the look on Snatcher’s face was any indication, he was as surprised as Jack was.

Maureen knocked on the window.

“Excuse me a minute.” He pointed his finger at Snatcher. “You will be telling me when I return.”

Maureen was agitated. “Whoa. Jack?” she said. “What the hell?”

Jack glanced at her. He glanced at Rat.

Rat, stunned, bent over the table and cradled his head in his arms.

Maureen scolded. “What do you know about the baby?”

Jack threw his hands into the air. “Hey, I’m not the one in Interrogation.”

“You sure as hell are if you are going to crawl into everybody’s head.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the baby. How did you know about the baby?”

“It was just a dream. I have no idea why I said it in there.” He pointed to the interrogation room where Rat still cowered under the cover of his arms.

“Oh Lordy, Jack.” Maureen put her hands on her hips and paced a circle. “Okay, listen. Before we got the call about a shooting in North Corktown, Balmario and I were investigating an abandoned infant case north of there. Someone left a premature stillborn on the steps of a shut-down pharmacy.”

Jack’s expression turned inward. “Oh god,” said Jack. “I wondered what happened to it.”

Maureen stared at him for a full ten seconds. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, okay. Quickly, in as few words as possible, what the hell do you know?”

“Umm. Woman struggling on floor, baby born still, midwife shoves baby in arms of the person I was. I assumed that was Evan, prayed it wasn’t Jon. People were knocking hard enough on her door to break in. I left…took the fire escape and ran. Does that help?”

“No. sort of.” She shook her head at him. She took a deep breath. “Did you see the midwife?”

“No.” Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “I mean, yes. No.” He shook his head. “I saw her, but…,” but, he would have to sit somewhere quietly to try to remember what he saw. “She did seem familiar at the time.”  

Maureen said, “That is not helpful.”

She pointed at Rat. “He’s rattled. See what you can get from him. I am going to go find out what Evan can tell me the abandoned baby.”

Jack nodded. “Fine.” He returned to his chair in the interrogation room.

“Sorry about the interruption,” said Jack. “You were saying about the baby?”

“I wasn’t sayin’ no thing about a baby,” said Rat. “What are you anyway, some sort of psycho?”

“Uhh, the word is psychic, but I suspect you know that.” Jack glared at him. “Let’s start again.” He pulled out his phone and flipped on the recorder. “Please state your name.”

Rat glared back. “Rat Snatcher,” he said very deliberately into the phone.

“And, I’ll ask again,” said Jack. “Please state your given name, not your street name.”

“And I’ll say again, Rat Sna – ”

A tall FBI agent stormed through the door and flashed his badge. Maureen, obviously agitated, stood behind him.

Jack jumped up.

The agent announced, “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

Rat stood, grabbed the evidence bag, and retrieved his ID. Then he threw the bag on the table and stuffed his ID into his back pocket. Defiance shot from his eyes, slapping Jack as he watched the proceedings in disbelief.  

As the agent ushered Rat Snatcher out the door, Rat turned to Jack. His eyes were gentle, as if he suddenly dropped the charade. He said quietly so only Jack could hear him, “I told him to run toward the river. You need to find him before they do. You need to find him before we do.” He took a step out the door, then turned again to Jack. “It’s remarkable how much he favors you.”

The scene in front of Jack disappeared, replaced by a gray mist. Feet slapped pavement. Cars honked. Tires squealed. Someone shouted, “Fuck you.”  

Maureen grabbed his arm.

Slowly the interrogation room came back into focus.

The agent pushed Rat Snatcher into the hallway to usher him out of their precinct. Four other agents awaited them, ushering Charlie Marchesi, Evan, and his grandmother Claudine Fischer out of the building, as well.

Jamison shouted, “Debriefing. My office. Balmario, Tyler, you too.”

As they clustered in the office, Jamison barked, “Shut the door and listen up. The FBI now has jurisdiction over the shootout behind Marchesi’s Bar and Grill. It’s a turf war I would rather our officers stay out of. The word is that the Morellis were out for blood over the death of their little sister. Seems she and Evan were involved.”

“What about the abandoned infant, Cap? Is that part of it?”

“Unknown. Pick a team to follow up on that. You three have a bigger problem.”

Captain Jamison grabbed a bundle from his chair and spread it on his desk: a green and gold letter jacket. In one of his visions, Jack had grabbed it while transported to a Greyhound bus. At the time, he thought maybe it was Evan’s jacket, and it gave him comfort to think that maybe Evan was safe.

Jamison slapped a flyer on top of the jacket – an FBI BOLO for a missing teen.

Jonathan Tyler.

Jamison said, “Seems our little boy here was involved with Marchesi’s gang. He was not at the scene. The Morellis are looking for him. If they find him, he’s dead. The FBI is looking for him. If they find him, he is arrested as a State’s Witness and disappears in the system. We are going to find him first.”

Jack barely heard what the Captain said. His heart was beating so hard, it hurt.

In his mind, he heard Rat whisper, “He favors you. You need to find him before we do, before they do. I told him to run toward the river.”

His running feet slapped the pavement beneath him.

Chief Inspector Maureen Thompson stood over the tiny wrapped body, wondering if she was going to find a dead, teen aged girl close by. “Have you searched the neighborhood?” she asked Balmario.

“We have two teams doing that right now. Nothing to report, yet,” he said.

“Look at this,” said a young member of the investigation team. He knelt in the corner next to the boarded up door of the closed pharmacy.

Maureen squatted next to him. Someone tried to scratch the cement. “It looks like an address.”

“This isn’t knife scratch, maybe a rock,” he said.

The team looked around for the rock, but nothing popped out at them.   

“Well, at least get a picture of it,” said Maureen. When she stood, she felt the pressure of a rock under her shoe. She bent down to look at it. “Do these look like scrape marks to you?”

Marcus Balmario grabbed a tweezers from his kit and picked it up. He walked into the street to catch an early morning sunbeam and turned the rock this way and that. “No,” he said.

“Bag it anyway, but keep looking. Look for anything. Something made those marks in the cement.”

“We don’t even know if these marks mean anything,” said the young investigator.

“No. We don’t,” said Maureen. “We don’t know anything, so we look at everything. And we look everywhere for it. Search the sidewalk and the gutter. Maybe the person tossed it when they finished scraping that message. We don’t know what he or she was thinking, but we do know they were hurting.”

Her phone buzzed. “Chief Thompson,” she answered.

Dispatch said, “All available units, Pine and Brooklyn, shots fired. Repeat, shots fired.”

“Balmario, we can leave this with the CI’s. Come with me. Shots fired about five blocks from here.” She ran to her car.

Balmario jumped in the passenger seat as she finished radioing intent to attend the call. Radio chatter was coming in from multiple units. This was bigger than a simple domestic altercation. As she turned south onto Brooklyn, a van sped past her going away from the call. The driver looked hell bent on getting out of the area.

“That can’t be good,” said Balmario.

“No. Call it in. We’re changing course.”

While Maureen turned around, Balmario called it in. “Dispatch, this is car 1132, disengaging shots-fired call, redirecting toward possible suspect driving a gray van, plate white on blue, Andy-Robert-Sally,  niner, niner, three. Northbound Brooklyn, repeat Andy-Robert-Sally, niner, niner, three. Over.”

“Car 1132, directing assistance. ETA one minute. Over.”

“Ten-four, out.”

“Here we go,” said Maureen. The driver in the van slowed the vehicle and pulled into a deep vacant lot behind an indoor mini-mall. He came to a stop in the shadow of the large building. If they had not been following him, he would now be undetectable from a casual street drive-by, especially if the persons exceeded the speed posted.

Balmario got on the radio and redirected back up, while Maureen parked. Maureen hoped the CI’s had packed up the abandoned infant scene and left. She wasn’t sure how she felt about leaving an unarmed crew alone at an investigation in a neighborhood that was experiencing a shoot-out somewhere. She radioed Dispatch to send them packing if they hadn’t done so already.

As Balmario’s secondary teams arrived, they lined up with her, one behind and one in front essentially creating a barricade with their vehicles should the need arise.

She grabbed her field glasses to get a look at the man sitting at the wheel. The driver was a statue, young and probably impulsive.

 “He’s not moving,” said Balmario.

“No. I’m a little worried he’s been hit, but I can’t see blood.” She passed the glasses to him.

He watched for a minute, and then said, “No. I don’t either. If he was hit, he was hit low.”

“He could be bleeding out.” Maureen took the glasses back from him.  

Rat Snatcher sat in the vehicle contemplating the decision he was about to make while the officers sat in their vehicles watching for his next move. He could not believe all the time he’d spent on this case, wasted, blown to bits with one stupid act by a horny teenager who thought he was in love.

Fuck.

He stared at his hands for a while as if he could find answers there. His head was telling him this was over, his heart was weeping it wasn’t. While he stared at his hands, he could see the officers in his peripheral vision gearing up.

A woman, armored with a vest, stepped out of the unmarked police car and pointed her service weapon at him. She kept her focus as she stepped between the cars. He knew what she expected: black man behind the wheel of a vehicle fleeing shots fired.

Choices, choices, choices.

He pulled his wallet from his pocket as unobtrusively as he could. He didn’t want to make any sudden changes. He knew that any movement they saw could trigger a response, and it would not be in his favor. He flipped it onto the console between the seats.

Choices.

Should he try to preserve his cover or blow all his efforts these past months? He hoped to God that Detroit PD had Marchesi and his son in custody. It was the best way to keep them safe. However, there was no chance they rounded up all of Morelli’s men when they raided the event. If he was right, the second Morelli brother had probably slipped back into his hole after sending his men to hunt him down. He had just killed the older Morelli brother. That was a fact, however righteous it was. Rat was now a marked man.

Which meant they had eyes on this – whatever this turned out to be. Choices.

He shook his head slightly as if that would help. He turned and watched the woman step across the sidewalk. Her entire team aimed their weaponry at him. Choices.

He sat straight and slowly slid both empty hands around the wheel of his van until they rested on top of it where her team could see them.

She slowly approached.

He kept his eyes forward, looking straight ahead instead of at her and kept his hands still.

He heard the click, as she engaged the handle of the door.

“Step out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them,” she said, calm and collected as if she was accustomed to being obeyed. Impressive.

He knew when he stepped out of the vehicle, her attitude would change. He was big. Big and black. A perfect scenario for regrets if he didn’t handle this exactly right. He let her open the door, then slowly raised his hands to clasp them behind his head. He shifted his legs to stretch them toward the ground so he could stand in front of her.

“Get down on your knees,” she said.

He did. It was at that moment he noticed that another officer had joined her. That officer quickly stepped behind Snatcher and grabbed one of his wrists, a little more roughly than he should have. He allowed it. He allowed the officer to zip tie his hands behind him. He let the cop haul him to his feet.

Maureen said to him, “Name please.”

“Rat Snatcher,” he said, lowering his gaze to look at her directly. He knew it would seem defiant. Might as well keep up appearances.

The woman, who was obviously the ranking officer, wasn’t intimidated. She chuckled and said, “Mr. Snatcher, it’s so good to finally meet you.”

“What?” he said. What the hell?  What was she talking about? Why would they ever have a need to meet each other? It threw him, and he backed up slightly.

Five officers, including the woman in front of him, prepared to shoot. The man holding him threw his body into the hold.

“Easy, easy,” said Rat. “Just lost my balance for a moment.”

Keeping her gun focused on him, Maureen said, “We are detaining you as a suspect in a shooting incident. Furthermore, we wish to question you about another case. You were seen by one of my officers in front of the building of a missing teen aged boy.”

Rat nodded. Evan Fischer. He remembered the cop that took the call. The man had not backed down when Rat hassled him. 

To the officer holding him, she said, “Read him his rights.” She lowered her gun. She backed up a few steps while she stared at him, daring him to make her reestablish her aim. When he didn’t respond, she turned and walked toward her Corolla. The other officers at the arrest surrounded him to accompany his walk into custody.   

Choices. As they go, keeping his cover was probably the best one for now. He had no idea what Detroit PD had found at the Marchesi/Morelli showdown. He knew only his part. He had shot the eldest Morelli because he’d executed Allessandro Santorini, and then had threatened Charlie and his son. Rat had run like hell after that. He hoped it was enough to distract the other brother from taking the shot at them. He prayed to God that Sawyer, aka Jonathan Tyler, had turned into a rabbit. It hurt to think that another lost boy might not survive this monumental fuck up.  

As the team secured Rat Snatcher in the car behind Maureen’s Corolla, Balmario combed the van for evidence. He ran back to the caravan with two evidence bags in hand. “Found this in the car.” He held up the first bag so that Maureen could see the gun within it. “Also this.” He held up the second. It contained an open wallet with the prisoner’s ID.

Badge number on an FBI insignia.

Maureen turned to glance at the car behind them. Great. “What did we step into?” she muttered.

“There’s more,” said Marcus. “There are shovels in the back covered with fresh dirt. I found a green and gold letter jacket that is clearly not his. There seem to be traces of body fluids, maybe blood, at least that’s what it smells like. He has a lock box in the spare tire well. I think we need to tow that thing before we take eyes off it.” He glanced back at the van.

Maureen sighed. “Agreed. Call for a tow. Send the car with our friend to the precinct. We’ll wait for the tow and cover for each other.”

“You don’t want to talk to him?” Balmario tipped his head toward Rat Snatcher who sat gazing at his lap in the back seat of the car behind them.

“No, not out here. Somewhere safe. We need to get him to the precinct, play the game to an expected result.”

“Roger that,” said Marcus Balmario. He popped out of the car and ran to the one behind them. He spoke to the officer in the passenger seat. When he was done, he tapped the car, nodded, and ran back to Maureen’s Corolla and got in.

“Guess we hang out for now,” he said.

“Yep,” she answered.

They watched as the car behind them pulled away with their prisoner on board. Whether or not he was really FBI she would know soon enough. She could hardly wait to hear his story.

The van wasn’t cold after sitting in the sun by the side of the trail. However, Sawyer’s teeth chattered. He clamped his jaw to stop them. Silent and shivering, he was empty, a husk instead of a boy. He wondered if death felt hollow like this. Was it cold like this? Did the fear keep stabbing like this? He couldn’t get rid of the idea that Lincoln was still alive, even after he saw a shovel full of dirt hit his face. Why couldn’t he let go of that?

Rat Snatcher glanced at him, but said nothing. What could he say?

They had just illegally buried a young boy in the woods next to the Detroit River, a young boy who had been brutally gang raped. Rat said he probably died of a heart attack. Sawyer would have had a heart attack if he’d suffered what Lincoln suffered. He wasn’t sure it would have killed him.

“Tell me again,” he said. “He was dead, right?”

Rat glanced at him, horror evident on every curve of his face. “Yes. Yes. What kind of question is that?”

Sawyer couldn’t help the tears that suddenly fell from his eyes with Rat’s rebuke. He quickly scrubbed them away.

The drive back to Marchesi’s Bar and Grill seemed twice as long as the trip to the woods, defying his conventional understanding of the return-trip effect. Under normal circumstances, the return would seem shorter. In fact, it was provable that it often felt shorter by more than five minutes. Sawyer turned to Rat to tell him about this observation, but Rat was laser-focused straight ahead as if the only thing holding him in place was the concentration it took to negotiate the city traffic. Sawyer resisted the impulse to geek out, figuring it was counterproductive in this situation.  

As they neared North Corktown, Rat sat up tall, peering ahead for all he was worth.

Sawyer looked too, trying to figure out what made Rat nervous. A shiny black Town Car with darkened windows caught his attention as it pulled across an avenue ahead of them at a light. Beautiful and sleek, it was a car he’d always admired. His grandpa Hank drove one when he was younger. Sawyer had a picture of him standing in front of it as a young reporter. “That’s the life,” he thought.

As memories rolled through his mind Rat shouted, “Hold on.” Then, he gunned the engine and raced to the nearest parking space. The tires of his van squealed and the chassis rocked as he pulled into it and yanked on the brakes. He unlocked his door, but he didn’t get out. Instead he stared through each mirror and ahead at the street in front of the van, as if counting every car parked around them.

“What?” said Sawyer.  “Why did we stop?”

“We walk from here. Keep your head down, follow me, and for chrissake, keep your mouth shut.” Rat flung open the door and stepped out.

Sawyer did the same. As they walked away, Rat aimed his key fob toward the van and locked it.

Sawyer could smell the sour stench of fear rolling off Rat as he kept a brisk pace. But he stopped often, and pushed Sawyer behind him while he scoped the area with a 360º sweep of his gaze. Each time the stench of fear grew stronger. Each time he muttered, “This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid.” 

After the third time, Sawyer said, “What? What is stupid?”

Before he could blink, Rat rounded on him and grabbed Sawyer’s shoulders as if to shake him. “I told you to be quiet. Did you think I was kidding?” His fingers dug into Sawyer’s triceps, pinching muscle to bone.

Then he dropped his hands from Sawyer’s shoulders, put a paw on top of his head, and looked straight into his eyes. “Keep. Your. Damn. Mouth. Shut.”

Sawyer gulped and nodded.

When they were across the street from Marchesi’s Bar and Grill, they heard men shouting. The sound seemed to come from the alley behind it. Rat grabbed Sawyer by the front of his shirt and growled, “You stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you run as if your life depended on it. Run back to the river. You don’t stop for nothin’. You hear me?”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know yet, but I know it isn’t going to end well. Just do as I say.”

Sawyer nodded again.

Rat shoved Sawyer behind him and sauntered toward the noise. He stopped before turning into the alley and grabbed Sawyer’s arm. He whispered into his ear, “Quiet as a mouse, Topino. We listen from here.”

Sawyer sank into the shadow against the wall, but not before he caught a glimpse of the shiny black Lincoln Town Car parked across from the back door of Marchesi’s Bar and Grill. He was barely able to comprehend the rest of the scene in the alley. 

Allessandro, the tattooed man, was on his knees at the base of the staircase with his hands duct taped behind him. Two giant men, one dressed in greasy coveralls and the other that looked like he just jumped off his cruiser, stood over him with large automatic rifles. Marchesi was on the stoop near the back door. Evan cowered behind him. The door was shut.

Sawyer thought, “The door automatically locks when it closes. You won’t be able to get back inside.” Those were the words Marchesi said to him his first night as he showed him the room he was renting. That seemed like years ago.   

He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed the back of Rat’s shirt and hung on. Rat’s attention was diverted momentarily to acknowledge his clinging, then he held up his finger to his mouth to remind him to keep quiet.

There were several other men in the alley standing guard around the men with guns. Two of them stomped up the stairs and grabbed Marchesi and Evan. They pulled the couple off the staircase and shoved them to the pavement, forcing them to their knees next to Allessandro. One of them taped their hands behind their backs.

“Where’s the other one,” barked a man as he stepped out of the Town Car that Sawyer had so admired. He was dressed in a black tuxedo. His polished shoes seemed incredibly out of place as he stamped across the greasy pavement. “Where is he, huh?” He loomed over the three captives and pulled Evan to his feet. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? The little creep who gave that old witch money for my sister, my dead sister Sobrina. I want to thank him, too.”

Sawyer gasped and tightened his hold on Rat’s shirt.

Evan started to sob. The man threw him back to the ground.

Marchesi leaned toward Evan and said something in another language.

Rat muttered, “Be a man. Don’t give them anything.”

One of the armed men used the butt of his gun to club Marchesi’s ear. The cartilage cracked and his ear began to bleed.

Rat Snatcher turned to Sawyer and whispered, “Listen up Bitch. I have to get help, and you have to run. Run.”

Sawyer froze.

Rat shoved him and vehemently whispered, “RUN!”

Sawyer ran. When he passed the van, he realized Rat was not behind him. He heard three loud pops. His feet didn’t wait to process the information. They kept running. In the distance, sirens screamed toward him. Lots of them. His feet didn’t wait for those either.

 Sawyer’s feet slapped the pavement behind him, moving farther and farther away. Rat pulled his phone from his pocket and punched the number three. He said, “Extraction, Marchesi’s Bar and Grill, send back up, armed confrontation.” When he hung up he crept to the corner. He was a good shot. He knew he could knock the automatics out of the hands of the goons standing there, but he knew the Morellis. The backup gang would come at him like a herd of crazed elephants.

At that moment, the eldest Morelli brother pulled a twenty-two from a vest holder hidden under his fancy suit. He shot Allessandro Santorini in the head. Evan screamed as Santorini fell against him. Little twit, this was his fuck up. When Morelli trained his gun on Charlie Marchesi, Rat Snatcher aimed and took him out. Then he ran.

He ran as if his life depended on it, because it did. He hoped his runaway bitch had run far enough. If anyone from either side saw Jonathan Tyler, he was dead. He beeped open his van, raced to it, and climbed into the driver’s seat. It took a half a second to ignite the engine. He heard shots. A bullet pinged off the back of the van. He roared out of the parking space as flashing lights headed toward him. He only hoped he’d created enough distraction to save the lives of Evan and his father.

Rat had a choice: find a place to hide or give himself up. With either choice, it was case closed, blown to smithereens. All these months trying to find the connection to the traffic business out of Taiwan, to derail the train, was wasted. The greedy belly of Detroit would continue to feed off Taiwan’s primed-to-fight young men. It made him sick.   

(Warning: Street life often ends in violence. This is one of those scenes.)

Sawyer huddled in an alcove, leaning against the door of a small pharmacy, hidden from the terrors of the night. The body of the baby rested next to his feet. He never should have put it down, but he was cold, hungry, and scared out of his mind. In his haste to get away from whatever terror was knocking down the door at Emilia Rodriguez’s flat, he ran past the streets he recognized. He would have to retrace his steps to find his way back to Marchesi’s Bar and Grill.

He stared at the body. He couldn’t bear to pick it up. Would it be safe here? Surely, someone would find it when the shop opened in the morning. He had to get going. Rat was expecting him. Marchesi expected the hundred dollars. Evan expected to hear the outcome of his desperate plea for help.

Sawyer couldn’t bear to leave it. But he had to, didn’t he? Shaking, he stood. With his back solid against the door, he said, “Bye, baby.” His feet refused to move. With as much will as he could muster, he pushed away from the door and took one step. “I have to go now,” he said to it, shaking his head. “You’re safe here. Someone will find you in the morning.” He took another step.

Three more steps took him out of the alcove. He stopped, wanting so much to look behind him and reassure the little baby that all would be well. Tears blurred his vision.

The baby was dead. There was no baby, just a body. Sawyer felt his stomach lurch, but before he allowed it to empty the sadness that filled it, he ran. He ran back the way he had come.

Numb and cold and shaking with shock, Sawyer stumbled down the alley behind Marchesi’s Bar and Grill as the first kiss of dawn rose above the building. He felt death in the crook of his arm, though the tiny stillborn baby was no longer there. A scream ricocheted off the walls of the alley, but it registered in his mind as an after burn of the screams of a broken, beautiful girl birthing death.

The second scream, as desperate and haunted as the first, surrounded him where he was, in the alley. The person screamed a third time. It came from an empty garage beyond the bar. He ran to it and froze outside a sliding door made of corrugated metal. From inside, he heard jeering men, like the men in the warehouse championing the mixed martial arts fighters of their choosing. Yanking on the heavy door, he pulled it half way open.

Inside a mob of men circled around a commotion on the floor. The same voice screamed, “No-o-o-o,” before gasping another sobbing breath.

Sawyer ran to the edge of the circle. He couldn’t see what was happening, so he jostled the preoccupied men until he slipped through them to the center. Allessandro, the tattooed man, pressed Lincoln, the other server at the fighting event, into the cold, grease stained, cement floor. His heavy hand smashed the poor boy’s cheek into his own spit and tears. 

Lincoln’s clothes, ripped and bloodstained, hung off his naked arms and legs. A second man stepped up to him. While Alles held him down, the second man grabbed his torn pants and yanked them to his knees, leaving Lincoln bare-assed. Then he motioned obscenely to the crowd, rousing a cheer before he pulled down the zipper of his own jeans.

Sawyer yelled, “No,” as he shoved the man away from Lincoln. Sawyer fell onto his knees and put a gentle hand on the younger boy’s face. Alles let go of Lincoln to grab at Sawyer but immediately slammed his hand on the younger boy when he tried to squirm away.

Simultaneously, three men grabbed Sawyer, one on each arm and another that pulled him by his hair. He twisted and kicked. He tried to grab the hand that was clawing at his scalp, but the men on each arm held him too tightly and he couldn’t reach the fingers digging into his head. Sawyer shouted and bucked, trying to free himself. As a team, they jerked him out of the circle, which opened up to let them through. “This ain’t your business,” shouted Allessandro. He sat on Lincoln who sobbed uncontrollably, face first on the cold, dirty cement.

“Leave him alone,” said Sawyer, jerking against the hold on his arms.

Someone in the crowd tittered.

“Or what?” sneered Alles. “You gonna take me down?”

Someone else said, “Yeah, he’s gonna slap you with a dishcloth.”

The crowd roared with laughter.

“I’m not going to let you hurt him,” said Sawyer, furiously struggling with the men on either side of him.

A woolly, bearded man with a slashed and scarred face said, “The new little kitchen pet is gonna bust our butts.” He made kissy noises at him. “Thinks he’s gonna take away our fun.”

Several grumbled, “Yeah right. No way, fool. I’d fancy his ass, next.” The crowd agreed.

A loud crack resounded against the metal garage door. Everyone froze. The men that held Sawyer turned. Rat Snatcher stood in the doorway with a jaggedly cut two by two in his hand. His face snarled when he growled, “Let Sawyer go before I break some heads.”

Alles sneered. “He’s interrupting some business. That’s going to cost him.”

The crowd hooted.

“He’s my business. I’ll deal with him.”

“Since when, Rat,” said Alles, stepping away from Lincoln to yank Sawyer’s hair.

Rat swung the two by two against the door, and the crack resounded through the alley.

Allessandro let Sawyer’s hair go, and the men threw him at Rat.

Sawyer fell to his knees in front of Snatcher who also grabbed his hair to pull him up.

Sawyer winced and cried out in pain. With both hands, he grabbed Snatcher’s wrist.

Alles said, “Get your bitch outta here before we jack roll him after we’re done with this little thief.”

Lincoln’s screams escalated.

Alles strode back to the struggling boy, squatted over him, and shoved one of his filthy hands into Lincoln’s mouth to gag him.

Snatcher yanked Sawyer out of the building.

Lincoln’s screams turned to agonized gurgles. Sawyer fought, swinging his arms ineffectually. Snatcher tightened his hold. When they were clear of the alley, Snatcher sat and pulled Sawyer down with him, wrapping his neck in a bear choke.

“They are gang raping him,” gasped Sawyer, struggling against the hold.

“Obviously,” said Snatcher, tightening his arms around him. “He’s been pocketing money. He’ll have to pay for that. Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do about it. It’s best if you mind your own business or you’ll find yourself on the floor of that garage in the same position, Jon.”

Sawyer quit struggling and lay against Rat’s chest, panting and trembling.

Snatcher loosened his hold slightly. “That’s right. Jonathan Tyler, fifteen. That’s what the flyer said, you little twit. How the hell do you get the name Sawyer out of that?” He jerked Sawyer, aka Jon, firmly against his chest and tightened the bear choke.

Jon squirmed and kicked against the pavement trying to loosen Rat’s hold on him. “My name is Sawyer. Who are you anyway?”

“Yeah, that’s a good question, isn’t it? One I’m not going to share with you. This is what’s going to happen next. That hungry crowd back there is expecting you to crawl back to them with some sense beaten into you. Guess that falls on me.”

“Who are you!” screamed Sawyer, trying to twist out of Snatcher’s arms.

“I’m the guy that’s going to teach you just what you stepped into. Stand up.” Snatcher let him go, stood, and backed away two steps.

Sawyer scrambled to his feet, swaying on the corner like someone who was too drunk to see straight. Snatcher crouched in a fighting position, one leg back and angled for good balance. Recognizing the basic stance in mixed-martial arts, Sawyer mirrored him, but he couldn’t focus.

Snatcher sent a forward jab against his right shoulder and knocked him to the ground. “Get up,” he ordered.

Sawyer put his feet under him and rose.

Snatcher jabbed his cheek.

Sawyer’s head flew back and he fell flat against the cement. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he saw stars.

Snatcher straddled him, hand held out for him to take. Sawyer took it. Snatcher, pulled him up, threw his arms around him, and rolled. He locked Sawyer’s right knee between his legs.

Sawyer’s leg muscle bunched into a Charlie horse and he screamed, “Aaugh. Stop. Stop.”

Snatcher held tight.

Sawyer’s leg slowly relaxed and with it, the fight went out of him.

Snatcher did not release him. “Detroit’s a long way to come from Stockton. What are you running from?”

Sawyer hunched a shoulder, the only part of his body he dared move.  

“Not an answer,” said Rat Snatcher. For good measure, he pulled Sawyer’s body into a tight bear hug. The pressure pulled against his trapped leg, causing pain. It also caused Sawyer’s breath to whoosh out of him in a grunt. Then Snatcher let him go and sat on the sidewalk next to him.

Sawyer rolled onto his belly and lay there, too stunned to get off the ground. He mumbled, “What now?”

“Now you tell me where you’ve been all night.”

Sawyer wiped his nose with his fingers. They came away bloody. “Here, in the alley.”

Snatcher slapped his back.

Outraged, Sawyer sat up and faced him.

“I don’t appreciate it when people lie to me,” said Snatcher, backhanding Sawyer’s chest. “I saw you run out of the alley last night. You’ve been gone hours.”

Sawyer shook his head and pushed away from Snatcher, putting some distance between them.

“Not going to talk? Let me see if I can fill you in. Evan talked you into taking some money to Emilia Rodriguez, Sobrina Morelli’s midwife. You delivered that money, but you never came out of the building. Where did you go? Obviously, the Morelli brothers didn’t catch you, although Sobrina and Emilia were hauled outta there pretty fast.” He stared at Sawyer.

Sawyer stared back.

“Okay. I will finish the story then. You ran out the back window and down the fire escape. However, that was hours ago, and it doesn’t take that long to get from there to here. So I will say it again, where were you?”

Sawyer bent over his knees and grabbed the back of his neck with his hands. Who was this guy and why did he care so much?

“We can’t sit here much longer waiting. I’ll be late again. Hawg, our esteemed cook, threatened to throw me in the cages, and I have to stay outta there to get done what I need to do.”

Sawyer looked up, still crouched beneath the shelter of arms thrown over his head. “Why do you care?” 

“I do, that’s it. That’s all you need to know. I told you Hawg and I will look after you, but if you can’t be straight with me, I gotta cut you loose. A run-away puts a monkey wrench in my plans.”

“How, how did you find out?”

“My business. Assume I know a lot. You still have that money I gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Now we go back and face the consequences. First thing you gotta do is pay Marchesi. He thinks you’ve been working. You owe him.”

Sawyer looked up. “Why? Why do I own him?” Sawyer had a suspicion but refused to wrap his mind around it. “Why did you give me this money?”

Rat Snatcher scrubbed his face with both hands. “Oh my god, kid. He thinks you ran out of the venue last night to go with the man in the brown suit. Why do you think I gave you money to give to Charlie? That is how much you are worth, at least for a good blow job.” 

Sawyer crawled to the curb and gagged. The only thing he had left to heave was air.

“You shittin’ me?” said Rat. “Haven’t you been payin’ attention? Marchesi owns every fool’s ass in this place.”

Had Marchesi been in the garage directing the attack on Lincoln? Sawyer didn’t see him there. 

His face must have shown his surprise because Snatcher said, “That’s right. Who do you think ordered that little display of affection?” His voice dripped with sarcasm, but it didn’t make Sawyer feel any better or any less scared for Lincoln.

“He owns that mob, he owns that boy on the floor, he owns Hawg, he owns me. He owns you.” Snatcher stretched a leg and kicked the sole of Sawyer’s shoe.

That was the last straw for Sawyer. Defeat crashed down on him. He felt no bigger than the beetle scuttling across the sidewalk away from the heat of his body.

Snatcher’s face softened. “I have your back, but you are my bitch now. You go where I say you go, you run when I say you run, and you hide when I say you hide. I can keep you safe, but only if you follow my lead. You hear me, Bitch?”

Sawyer gulped and nodded. He sure as hell didn’t want to end up on the floor of that garage at the mercy of Marchesi’s mob. Who was Rat Snatcher? What did being his bitch mean? Rat Snatcher extended his hand to help him off the ground.

Sawyer took it.  

The long bus ride from Stockton, the demands of his first paid job, and the stress of calling his father had exhausted him. Sawyer needed to decompress. Calling Dad had been more of an emotional experience than running away to Detroit. He grabbed an empty bucket from the kitchen and went out the back door. The alley was empty. Careful to prop the door with the brick that was there for that purpose, he stomped down the back stairs, and set the bucket against the wall in the alley behind the staircase. It was relatively quiet except for the expected city noise. He sat on the bucket and stared at his feet, grateful to be blessedly alone.

Why stay? He had a few dollars in his pocket. Marchesi had not paid as much as he expected, but his debt was covered. However, he wasn’t any better off than he was when he arrived last night. He didn’t have enough money to set up another situation. At least here, he had a job that paid for a cot and a daily meal, and Marchesi offered him a second shift.

A loud bang reverberated through the streets. Sawyer crouched against the building in the corner between it and the staircase. How fast could he scurry back into Marchesi’s Bar and Grill?

Scurry…like a little mouse, Topino. The tattooed man had given him that nickname when he woke Sawyer this morning. He sat up a little. The noise was probably backfire from an old engine.

The back door banged against the wall when Rat Snatcher stormed out.

Again, Sawyer crouched as the noise reverberated around the alley. Don’t look this way, he thought. Rat was a whisper-in-your-ear kind of guy, and Sawyer needed some peace.

“Hey, Topino. Whatcha doin’ out here?” said Rat.

So much for peace. Sawyer sat up. “The name’s Sawyer,” he said, as anger flared at the nickname.

“Yeah, whatever. Answer my question,” said Rat, as he jogged down the steps.

“Just taking a breather.” Sawyer stood, tall and straight.

“Yeah, well you’re gonna need it,” said Rat, standing in front of him, close enough for Sawyer to feel his words when he added, “The night shift is rough.”

The morning shift was a brutal learning curve, but Sawyer had survived it. How much worse could a night shift be?

“There’s a meet tonight, big money, lots of clients. You know what I mean?” Rat, playfully punched his cheek.

No. Sawyer had no idea.

As Rat moved a step closer, Sawyer shrank the wall.

Rat’s face darkened, and his voice lowered when he said, “Word of advice? Don’t look into the eyes of the people you serve. That’s an invitation. Keep your mouth shut, just… don’t engage them. If you can do that, you’ll come out unscathed.” Rat pushed a button on the key fob he held in his hand. In the distance, a car beeped. Rat slapped the railing, then, poked Sawyer in the chest. “Just keep your head down.”

Rat jogged out of the alley.

What the fuck was he talking about? Keep your head down? No problem, head down, mouth shut, don’t look. How hard was that? Sawyer settled back onto the bucket. As the day cooled to sunless gray, he was confident the evening shift would be easier, even though a little voice in the back of his mind whispered, fool. But if he ran into real trouble, he could call Jack again.

Could he? Would he be brave this time and speak up?

Hearing his father’s voice had spooked him. He wasn’t a little mouse, not a little mouse. He was almost a man. No way would he let his father send him back to Stockton.

He shifted on the bucket and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. Tucked inside, next to the measly ten-dollar bill, was a worn and ragged piece of stationery, a letter from his father. He didn’t need to read it again; he had it memorized by now. Jack had written it after his last visit because during it, they barely said two words to each other. In it, his father had apologized that they hadn’t taken more time to get to know one another again. He was sorry he hadn’t made more of an effort to stay in touch. Sawyer didn’t know his father, didn’t know how to talk to him. Rick, his older brother, shared camaraderie with Jack Tyler that Sawyer just didn’t feel. Most times, Sawyer never thought about his dad, but every time he did, anger clogged his throat until he felt like screaming. He slipped the letter back into his wallet and stuffed his wallet back into his back pocket.

So, sue him, he had hung up on his father. He didn’t need to run to Daddy. He could make due here until he figured out something better for himself.

A shiny black CT6 with windows tinted black pulled into the shadows at the end of the alley. Fear frizzled through him, so he hunkered into his corner once again. He lifted his head just enough to peek over the landing.

The door opened and a young woman stepped out. Her clothing floated around her body like a diaphanous cloud, giving her an air of seduction that hit him in the gut. As soon as she shut the door, the driver gunned the engine and the car leapt away from her, tires squealing. She stared toward its departure, presumably watching to see where it went.

She flipped her heavy, dark hair behind her. It cascaded into place like liquid, black silk. She turned and began walking toward him. Her hips swayed, her heavy breasts rolled. Each step sent shivers of delight through him. Sawyer’s fear slipped away, and he sat straight up, heart pounding with a different emotion. As she neared, her eyes knocked him breathless. Dark pools of coffee, ringed with fire, flashed danger he didn’t understand until that fire ignited his manhood. Embarrassed, he pulled his shirt as low as he could.   

“Hello?” she said.

He stared, her captive.

“Excuse me,” she said again.

He stood slowly, careful to pull the hem of his shirt lower.

“Do you speak English?” she asked. “English?”

“Uh, uh, yes. Yes, I speak English,” he finally said.

“I came to see Evan?”

“Evan?” He had not met anyone named Evan. “I-I don’t know who that is, but if you wait right here, I can get someone who does.”

She turned as if to look back at the car even though it was not at the end of the alley. As she did, her swollen, turgid belly was very apparent under her flowing clothes. When she saw that he noticed, she covered it as best as she could with her arms. “Evan,” she repeated, “I want Evan.”

Sawyer motioned to the bucket and offered it to her. She eased herself onto it, and said, “Grazie.”

“Uh, you’re welcome. I’ll be right back.”

He ran up the stairs and banged into the kitchen. It was empty. He heard men talking in the bar.

Marchesi and his men sat at a table in the far corner speaking heatedly in a different language. They quit talking and stood when he stepped into the room.

“What do you want, Topino?” said the tattooed man.

“There is a woman in the alley that wants to see someone named Evan,” said Sawyer.

Marchesi pounded a fist on the table. “Take care of it,” he ordered.

The tattooed man strode toward Sawyer. As he passed, he grabbed Sawyer’s arm and said, “Where is she?”

“She’s sitting out back, behind the staircase, on a bucket.”

Tattoo Man laughed and clapped his shoulder, but then he shoved Sawyer forward. “Introduce me.”

“Uh, I don’t know her name.”

The tattooed man looked down at Evan’s crotch and laughed again. Evan pulled his shirt low.

“Heh, I do,” said the tattooed man.

Well, why then did he need an introduction? Sawyer stumbled after him, holding onto his shirt.

The girl was on the bucket, rubbing her swollen belly.

“Bree, che diavolo.” Tattoo Man rushed down the staircase and grabbed her, pulling her onto her feet. She tottered, unbalanced by the heavy load in her belly, and fell against his chest.

“Bitch,” he said, and shoved her.

She fell against the staircase, and her elbow hit it with a crack. Her eyes filled with tears. “I need to see Evan. His baby,” she looked at her belly. “She’s due and I need money for the curandera.”

Marchesi appeared in the doorway. “Why is the Morelli bitch still here,” he said in a threatening voice.

“Please, I just want to see Evan.” Tears flowed freely down her face.

“She needs money for the curandera,” said Sawyer, pleading with him.

Tattoo Face backhanded his mouth. It knocked him hard enough against the wall of the building that he saw stars and scraped the knuckles of one of his hands as he fell to ground at the base of the staircase. “This ain’t no business of yours,” he growled.

Tattoo grabbed the trembling girl and shook her. “Fuck the Morelli clan and their get. No one cares if Evan is the father. You hear me? Least of all, Evan.” He looked up at Marchesi.

Marchesi had murder on his face.

Tattoo Man grabbed the sobbing girl and hauled her down the alley. She fell once, landing hard on her knees and hands. As she struggled to her feet, Tattoo Man yelled back at them. “Bitch comes back here, she won’t live to regret coming.” Tattoo shoved her forward. By the grace of God, she remained on her feet. Sawyer, frozen, too horrified to look away, watched until the tattooed man and the scared, pretty girl were around the corner and out of sight.

He didn’t notice Marchesi who had walked down the steps until he offered his hand to help him up. He ran his thumb over Sawyer’s lower lip. It came away bloodied. “Get yourself cleaned up. There is a lot to do tonight, and I expect you to show well.”

“Show well?”

“Yeah. You’re running drinks tonight at a meet. Put on some clean clothes.” He walked up the steps and disappeared into the bar.

Sawyer slowly followed. He couldn’t get the sobbing girl out of his mind. He failed her. He hated that he had not protected her. Who was Evan and where in hell was he?

Was Evan the boy that Marchesi’s men carried up the stairs last night? At first sight of him, Sawyer thought that the boy was dead, but then he heard his labored breathing. His face was a nightmare of bruises and rips. It made the couple of beatings that Sawyer had endured at Stagg High School seem like mild harassment. The tattooed man seemed enraged, Marchesi was yelling. Sawyer had run back to his closet to hide.

He looked toward the apartment above the bar. Upon consideration, it was probably why Tattoo Man had dubbed him ‘Topino.’

He went back to that closet now and sat on the cot. Which emotion was burning hotter: shame, anger, or fear? What kind of person stands by and watches while a crazy man beats a girl? Why didn’t he see the strike coming toward his own face? How did he let Tattoo Man get him like that? Where was his head? He needed to grow some balls.

God, Marchesi looked at him like, like…he didn’t want to think about how Marchesi looked at him. He was beginning to suspect that Marchesi did not have altruism in mind when he rented this room. What the fuck did he want? To be truthful, the danger he felt the moment he walked into the pub intrigued him, and was in part, the reason he stayed for a second shift.

And now, the wheel turned back to shame. Why didn’t he keep walking last night?

“Hey, Sawyer.” There was a knock against the wall. “Hey, Topino.”

Dammit. Rat was back. It was probably time to go and he hadn’t changed his clothes.