Kill the King (13 page)

“All of my
life, I’ve done things—awful things—to survive. If I stay here any
longer, I will keep doing these things. If I don’t, they’ll take me
away again and I’ll never be a free man again. I can’t let them
take me back. . .
I just can’t.
I want to leave all of this
forever and take you with me. Aren’t you tired of just surviving
every day? I don’t want to just survive anymore. I want to
live.
Let me take you away from all of this. I know there
must be somewhere in this world where you and I can live in peace.
Come with me, Gloria. . .
please
. I. . .
I love
you.”

Tyler’s voice
shook at the expression of those last three words, yet they
resonated like thunder. Gloria had never heard him say them to her.
She fell into his embrace and caressed him tightly. Her eyes were
moist with tears.

“Tierra del
Fuego, my love?”

“I will follow
you all the way to the end of the world.”

One last kiss
goodbye. One last caress. One last touch. One more for the dark,
dangerous road that awaited them.

“
Mi valiente
ladrón.”

****

Shit, I still
have Khaled’s car. I can’t skip town in this fucking thing.

The car was all
too wrong for the job. The frame was far too wide and bulky. The
engine was powerful but much too loud and had shitty mileage. The
tires were more for aesthetics than performance, let alone the
shiny chrome wheels that spun whenever he loudly rolled down the
street. It had everything a gangster wanted to show off but not
what a fugitive needed to disappear.

Tyler figured
he might as well bring it back to him. He’d have to find a more
discreet car elsewhere before making it back to Gloria’s to gather
the money and skip town at the break of dawn the next day as he had
planned. He hopped in and drove off, not sure where Khaled might be
at the moment.

Three blocks
later while at a stop light, Tyler felt a cold piece of metal
tapping him on his right ear.

“Keep
driving.”

****

Tyler took the
long route to buy some time. If the man holding the gun to Tyler’s
head had figured out what Tyler was doing, it never showed. He wore
a black bandana over his mouth and aviator sunglasses hung over his
swollen nose.

“You can put
the gun down now. I only have a hundred bucks on me. It’s all yours
if you let me pull over.”

The gunman
tapped him in the back of the head. “This isn’t about money, Kwan.
Stop wasting my time and get us over to the cemetery.
Now.”

Tyler’s eyes
squinted. This person knew his name. It took him a few moments to
fit the puzzle pieces together. It was the nose that gave him
away.

“So how’s your
nose,
officer?
How long were you hiding in the
backseat?”

The gunman
pulled down his bandana and tucked his sunglasses into his bomber
jacket pocket. It was indeed the undercover cop he had tangled with
just a couple of nights ago.

“Never mind
that. I think we can work something out together, you and me.”

“Not
likely.”

The cop smiled.
“Don’t you want to know what I found in Metzger’s briefcase? Don’t
you want to know why he’s not looking so good these days?
No?”

Tyler peeked at
the rear-view mirror to study the cop’s face. He didn’t look like
he was bluffing.

“Okay. . .I’m
listening.”

The cop opened
his coat and pulled out two small plastic vials. He shook them
around to demonstrate they weren’t empty.

“You see these
pills? That’s all you’ll find in that briefcase you delivered. It’s
a bona fide portable pharmacy in there. Pills in every shape and
size you can think of, and every colour of the fucking rainbow! I
couldn’t have gained access to any of this if not for your
assistance. You’ve proven yourself to be a very useful ally.”

“Okay, it’s
nice to know that I helped you solve whatever undercover shit
you’ve been working on with the white boys. I still don’t
understand why you’re telling me all of this.”

The cop put the
vials back in jacket and smiled.

“Because I’ve
been on this fucking assignment for almost
two
years now,
and you’re my ticket out of this godforsaken place. My contact will
meet us at the cemetery. She’ll give you all the information you’ll
want to know on Frank Metzger. Consider it my goodbye present for
you as a token of my thanks. I’m hoping this can be a big enough
breakthrough in evidence gathering to put the Fourteens away for
good. . .but if we can’t, maybe the information you get today can
help your Family find a way to stop them yourselves. Hell, go ahead
and kill every last one of them for all I care. This city’s been
infested with too many men like you. Nothing personal, by the
way.”

Tyler wasn’t
sure whether this information would be of any real use to him. He’d
already botched his assassination attempt on Marko and stolen a
quarter million dollars. Gloria was probably on her way out of town
at this very moment. Soon he’d be a fugitive from not only Marko,
but Dr. Nieuwendyk as well. Tyler had grown weary of yet more
intrigue. Unfortunately for him, the cop was feeling very
chatty.

“I tell you
man, deep cover ain’t for me. Before I was given this assignment, I
really thought that this was my calling. I wanted some action and
adventure. I had no clue of just how naïve I truly was. I
understand that now. I’ve seen and done things that will haunt my
conscience until the day I die. I need to leave all of this as soon
as I can. If I can’t be a hero, then I’ll settle for just being a
man. There are worse things to be in this world.”

All this inane
lecturing from a cop in deep cover posing as a violent skinhead was
irritating enough; his cruel hangover only made things worse. He
wasn’t in the mood to be harangued by the law yet again. Tyler
fumbled around in Khaled’s glove compartment in the hopes of
finding a lighter. He was desperate for a smoke. The cop pulled one
out of his pocket and offered it to him.

“Here, take
mine. We might be here a while.”

Tyler lit up
and took a few puffs in the brief silence between the cop’s
long-winded sermons. It looked like he was going to be a captive
audience for longer than he hoped.

This
information better be good. If he keeps running his mouth like
this, I might just leave him in Khaled’s car and walk away in the
rain.

On he went.
“You know, my wife is due to give birth in a week from now. It’s
our first. I want to get my ass out of this crime-infested city
before my son comes into this world. I want to start him off right.
I’ve had enough of being on the wrong side of life. I don’t want
any more part of this nightmare you live in every day. I’m checking
out, man. The stakes are too high in this game and I don’t want to
play anymore.”

****

They hit the
road again as soon as the contact hopped in. She was short and
thickset and had a pale freckled face, with strawberry blonde hair
tied in a neat bun. Moreover she was jittery from paranoia and took
frequent glances over her shoulder, on the lookout for anyone who
might be trailing her. She insisted the car keep moving as long as
she stayed inside.

“Alan, are you
sure we can trust this man?”

With a hint of
condescension in his voice, the cop tried to reassure her. “No need
to worry, sweetheart. He’s our kind of scum. He’s the one who
helped me steal the pills. We’re not in any danger with him driving
us around. In fact, he’s so well-connected you might even consider
us
protected.”

She breathed a
sigh of relief. “Okay, well. . .that’s good to know. I have to say,
you really went all out to give me a challenge this time! I’m sorry
it took so long to give you the analytical results. The lab is busy
this time of year and it’s hard to conduct this kind of research on
the down low without the boss getting suspicious.”

Gwendolyn as it
turned out wasn’t another cop but actually a pharmacy technician
with good enough connections to get discreet assistance from more
qualified pharmacologists. Detective Alan Lewis didn’t want to
present such a breakthrough to his superiors just yet. If this
proved to be nothing useful but the wrong people found out about
his skulduggery, it could blow his cover and even potentially cost
him his life. Gwen was a long-time friend that Det. Lewis could
trust.

“Some of the
samples you gave me were not really out of the ordinary; things
like caffeine, Loperamide, and antihistamines. They’re all generics
but nothing looks sketchy. They seem to be legitimately made for
mass commercial purposes. However. . .”

She stopped,
having noticed Tyler’s repeated checks in the rear-view mirror.

“Wait, are we
being followed?”

Tyler didn’t
answer right away. He turned on to a side street to put his
intuition to the test. Within thirty seconds after making the turn,
he noticed a black sedan looming in the background.

“We might be.
I’m not sure. You might want to hurry with your explanation.”

The rain was
getting harder outside. Before Gwendolyn hopped in the car there
was just a faint mist outside, but the longer they drove around the
harder it poured. The rain was cold and it fogged up the car
windows. She took a deep breath before continuing.

“The large
stash of green pills is what will really interest the both of you.
I had to call in a few favours to get them analyzed. They’re
definitely not legit but they’re not party drugs either. What we
have here is a combination of elvitegravir, cobicistat,
emtricitabine, and tenofovir. These are all antiretrovirals
combined into one dose; three of them are designed to help suppress
viral reproduction, and one to help better metabolize the other
three.”

Det. Lewis
rubbed his temples, annoyed and yearning for plain language. “Okay,
that’s fine and dandy. I just don’t have a damn clue what any of
that means. Are you trying to tell me that this patient is very
sick?”

“Yes, but it’s
more complicated than that. Whoever this patient is, he’s taking
these pills to subdue a very powerful virus. . .a life-threatening
one that doesn’t yet have a cure. It’s a terminal illness seen all
over the world. Can you guys guess what I’m describing?”

Tyler glanced
into the rear-view mirror and locked eyes with Gwendolyn. A flirty
smile crept up on her face. It took him a few seconds to put
everything in place; the coughing, the emaciated physique, the hot
flashes, his reluctance to speak of his illness. It suddenly all
made sense.

“Wait. . .do
you mean to tell me that Metzger’s got fucking AIDS? Him?
Frank
Metzger?
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, lady!”

She pushed her
glasses up before clarifying. “Well, I’m not sure who the patient
is, but whoever’s taking these p—”

All three
passengers were violently thrown forward. The black sedan had
caught up with them. Then the second bump came—this time it was
harder. Gwendolyn screamed in terror.

Tyler shifted
gears and clumsily swerved between cars. Whoever was chasing them
wasn’t doing so with friendly intent; Tyler had to find a way to
shake them off before things got worse. The faster he drove, the
more he realized that the tires were underinflated and had little
traction on the slick asphalt. The car slipped with each lane
change and bounced whenever they hit a muddy pothole. A peek at the
fuel gauge revealed that they were running low as well. This
definitely wasn’t the ideal getaway car.

Goddamn it,
Khaled. . .

He made a sharp
left turn through opposing traffic and cut into a narrow alleyway.
The pursuing sedan made it through only seconds later. Both pursuer
and pursued busted through the alley, recklessly knocking over
crates and trash cans in their path and smashing through a
chain-link fence on their way out. Gwendolyn’s hysterical screams
were loud enough to crack their windshield.

Det. Lewis
grabbed Gwendolyn and pushed her down, her face touching the floor
mats.

“Stay down and
try not to move. You’ll be safer if you stay low and quiet, okay? I
won’t let you get hurt.
Kwan
—where the fuck are we
going?”

“I have an
idea. There’s a storm drain not far from here. We can maybe—oh
shit. . .
shit!”

Tyler overshot
his turn over a wide puddle and the car spun out control, slamming
sideways into a parked car. Det. Lewis was violently shaken from
the impact and his head collided with the passenger window, leaving
a crack in the glass and a large weeping gash on his shaved head.
Tyler hit the gas to its limit again. The car fishtailed as they
desperately tried to escape the incoming black sedan. Its bright
headlights now faced them directly.

Come on, come
on. . .

Tyler regained
control of the car and sped away, nearly hitting their pursuers
head-on in the process. Det. Lewis was impressed by Tyler’s
actions.

“Nice work.
You’ve got
balls,
man! How far is this storm drain from
here? What do we do when we get there?”

“It’s not far
away and we might have just enough gas to make it there. This car
is pretty high off the ground and the engine’s strong enough.
There’s a good chance we can cross the water. If they try to follow
us they might get stuck. It’s a shit idea I know, but it’s all I’ve
got. Do you have anything better?”

Det. Lewis had
his eyes fixed on something else. He pulled out his gun and used it
to smash through the rear window. The heavy rain poured into the
car, soaking everyone inside.

“What the fuck
are you doing?”

“There’s a big
SUV cutting through traffic and it’s coming our way. It looks like
we’ve got two on our tail now. Get to the storm drain as fast as
you can!”