Wolfe stepped out of the Uber and onto the steps of the West Noimore police station. Voluntarily. Not something he had thought he would be doing, but the last two days had been full of a lot of stuff he hadn’t thought he would be doing, from working with Nico to cleaning up rats. It was what it was.
Even at three in the morning, the station was a busy mess. People were going in and out, most either officers or various small-time crooks—an older, strung-out woman in far too little, and most of that leopard print next to a fat, pasty guy in sweatpants with food stains on them being walked into the police station by an officer. A thin, weaselly guy with blackened front teeth who sweat like he was trying to end a drought all by himself was walking down the steps, nervously glancing at the police officers around. A rat-looking fucker in a too-new sports jacket was being pushed in.
Whores, pimps, johns, druggies, and petty thieves all. Wolfe could recognize most of the crimes from the dress or the general vibe. What a useless fucking skill.
Shel came around their ride from the other side. “We ready?”
Wolfe nodded. “Yeah, let’s go get your damned brother.”
Shel glanced at him and steepled her fingers.
Wolfe laughed. I think she’s doing that all the time because she subconsciously thinks that gesture works on me, or makes me less likely to lash out. Maybe it does.
His laugh seemed to startle Shel and she smiled at him hesitantly. “You’re not going to, um, hurt Kevin, are you?”
“If he doesn’t do anything else, I’ll let him go pain-free,” Wolfe responded. “For your sake. You’ve been doing him one last favor just by being your precious cinnamon roll self—I woulda killed the fucker if I didn’t dislike the idea of making you cry.”
It was Shel’s turn to laugh. “‘Cinnamon roll’?”
“You heard me.” Wolfe started up the steps.
Shel followed as Wolfe climbed up and pulled open the thick door to the station. The inside was done in a bland beige, and the floor was peeling linoleum. A lot of sickly or otherwise questionable characters were sitting in chairs, and only a few even glanced up as Wolfe entered. He quickly spotted a double-paned glass window, smeared, with a corpulent officer sporting a slat-and-pepper moustache behind it.
“Can I help you?” the officer drawled, channeling every bored, surly DMV worker’s soul into his bland, bored, and very slightly hostile voice. His nametag read, “Officer C. Porte.”
I bet it stands for ‘Chuck.’ With a small laugh, Wolfe resolved that he would call the officer “Chuck” in his head if nothing else.
Assuming he was going to hate every moment of the interaction, and with only his tiny joke to mitigate it, Wolfe stepped up to the window. “I’m here to bail Kevin Lyon out of jail and to get my car out of impound.”
Chuck didn’t answer, simply glancing down and tapping away at his keyboard. After a while, he looked up and stared at Shel. “Are you Mr. Lyon’s sister?”
Shel nodded, then cleared her throat. “Yes.”
Chuck checked the computer and then slowly glanced back up. “Officer Whitehall wants to speak to you.”
“What?” Shel asked, glancing at me nervously. “Why?”
“It doesn’t say,” the officer said, then he added unnecessarily, “and I wouldn’t tell you if it did.”
“Do I… have to?” Shel asked.
“If you want your brother back, you do,” Chuck said, his voice filled with obvious disinterest.
“I… um… Okay,” Shel said.
Chuck heaved himself from his chair and honest-to-the-gods waddled over to the door, which buzzed open. Shel gave Wolfe another look, and he shrugged. She turned back and entered the door.
“Go back three hallways, turn right, first door on the right. Knock before entering,” Chuck said.
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The officer then turned back and sat down in front of Wolfe again, and tapped at his computer. After a moment, he glanced up. “Which car is yours?”
“Black Chrysler 300 SRT with a busted driver’s-side window,” Wolfe responded.
Chuck tapped slowly at his computer again, then gave a phlegmy little wheezing chuckle, like he had chosen to min-max his entire status chart’s personality section by placing all his points under ‘fat.’ “Your car is a lot more busted up than just the window. Your friend ran it into a streetlight pretty hard.”
Joy. At a certain point, the news was just starting to blur for Wolfe—it was honestly becoming hard to give a flying fuck. I need to sleep and restore a healthy level of ‘rage’ to myself.
“Sure, whatever, what do I need to do to get it back?” Wolfe asked.
“It’s five hundred and twelve dollars and fifty-three cents,” the man said.
“Easy.”
“And you’ll need to fill out this paperwork,” Chuck said, pushing a whole sheaf of papers across to Wolfe.
Struggling with a ridiculous amount of paperwork just to get his car back, Wolfe discovered that he could still be made angry this night.
***
About thirty minutes later, Shel came out into the parking lot next to the impound with Kevin and joined Wolfe where he was waiting for his car. Kevin was still a mess, his carrot hair wild, and his too-pasty face sunken in with dark bags under his eyes, his medium-tall frame nearly emaciated to the point he appeared barely heavier than his sister.
He was like every South Park joke about gingers rolled into one person. He was also cut up and bruised even more than he had been the last time Wolfe had seen him, but he was moving fine. He was also standing a bit behind Shel and not saying anything.
Wolfe was pretty sure Shel had prepped Kevin because Kevin didn’t even try to apologize—he just stayed back and a bit out of the way, which was what Wolfe preferred, frankly. He was impressed that Shel already knew that much about him, and he appreciated her taking care of the small things for him.
Shel herself, however, also appeared shaken. Wolfe raised an eyebrow at her, but she mouthed, “Later” back at him.
Wolfe’s car came around the corner. The entire front was smashed in, and the hood dented up, although not enough to completely block visibility. As it came around, Wolfe glanced back at Kevin, who shrank back and bumped Shel, nearly tripping.
The car pulled up in front of them and an officer, a younger one, probably half-Asian, with muscled arms that felt like a repudiation of everything that Chuck was stepped from the car and handed Wolfe the keys. “Here you are, citizen. Everything should be in order.”
Wolfe checked out the officer’s badge, which read, “M. Davenport.”
“Thank you, Officer Davenport,” Wolfe said.
The officer nodded. “No problem. Sorry, it’s probably been a rough night for you…” Wolfe laughed. The officer had no idea. “But try to keep your friend out of trouble. He’s not to leave the city, and if he commits so much as a trespassing, we’re gonna be up his butt so hard.”
“No need for colorful threats, officer,” Wolfe said with a smile. “This guy isn’t going anywhere—he’s not safe outside.”
“Well, that’s probably for the best.”
The officer walked off, and Wolfe turned back to Kevin and then hooked a thumb at the busted car. “Get in the back.”
Kevin slunk past Wolfe, giving him a wide berth, and opened the door and sat in the back. Wolfe walked over to him and stopped him when he tried to shut the door.
“Wha—What’re you doin’, man?” Kevin asked.
“Keeping you from doing something incredibly dumb and screwing us both up,” Wolfe said.
Kevin’s eyes practically doubled in size as Wolfe took handcuffs from his pocket and cuffed him. Kevin tried to push Wolfe away and then tried to pull away himself, but Wolfe effortlessly put his hand up to the “Oh, shit” bar at the top near the door and cuffed him to it.
“Should… Should you be doing that at a police station?” Shel asked, glancing around nervously.
“If they want, they can come out and ask Kevin how he’s doing. And then Kevin can tell them he’s doing great.”
Kevin was still wide-eyed, staring at Wolfe in fear. “Why would I do that?”
Wolfe stared at him. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to let you go, on the street. Where you can do your best to survive Nico and the other Cobras coming after you. If you have even a fraction of your sister’s brains, I’m sure you can figure out your best route here.”
Kevin nodded quickly, surprising Wolfe, who had expected more pushback. “Yeah, man, I’ll do that. I don’t ever want to go back to them.”
Tears started to gather in his eyes, and Wolfe rolled his own. What a jackass.
“They were blaming me for stuff that’s not my fault!” Kevin said. “It wasn’t my fault!”
“What wasn’t?” Wolfe asked.
Kevin waved his free arm around inside the car spastically. “I didn’t know they’d decided to make nice with you when I convinced Frank and Leo to burn your house down! I thought I was just taking vengeance for my team!”
Wolfe was briefly enraged. This little shit I saved had the balls to put the hit out on me?
Then he calmed. “You have all the common sense of a starving squirrel. Imagine telling the guy who’s wacked a third of the deckbearers in your entire organization that you, personally, burnt his house down and then acting like you’re the victim and need sympathy.”
It took a moment, but Kevin paled at Wolfe’s words. Wolfe just glanced up at Shel, who was nervously clutching her hands. He nodded to Kevin and mouthed, “This guy” to her.
She laughed, seemingly almost instantly relieved that Wolfe wasn’t going to beat her brother, and went around to the passenger side.
Wolfe got into the driver’s side and started the car up. Somehow, it didn’t sound completely wretched.
He drove out of the police station, heading for the motel, hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep before he had to go save another dumbass—the big man’s son.