The Firm Hand of the Law (2 page)

“One of these days,” Rex said, shaking a finger under her nose. “One of these days you’re going to have to say yes.”

His phrasing was ominous, to say the least.

“I don’t think my boyfriend would approve of that.”

Lily had briefly dated a semi-professional wrestler who had also acted as a bouncer for the bar. What Rex, and most everyone else in his circle, was unaware of was that she had broken up with him a long time ago.

“Oh yeah, your boyfriend,” Rex said, dropping back. Funny how powerful the memory of a guy capable of putting another man through a wall was in the psyche of a scumbag. “Well, I’ll see you around,” he said, stuffing the entire satchel into the false cask.

“See you.”

Lily saw Rex out, then finished shutting the bar down. She made her way upstairs, where the family had lived when she was small. She was the last Brannigan left up there. It had once felt crowded, but now she missed those cozy days when all three generations had been under one roof. With mother long since passed and Gammy in the rest home, the three rooms seemed horribly empty.

The original paper was still on the walls, peeling in places and yellowed with the stain from Gammy’s cigarettes. She should really have renovated by now. There was enough money to do it, but the act of erasing the past was a bit much for her to stomach, even if the past was gross and potentially carcinogenic.

Lily put a pan on the stove, cracked a can of soup, and poured it in. Soup was the easiest nourishment at the end of a long night and not too heavy to keep her from sleeping. With dinner attended to, she flicked on the television, catching a late night comedy show. The host was reading a list of puns, humor just banal enough to distract her from the serious concerns of her life.

It was completely by chance that she happened to glance out the window. Usually the curtains were drawn upstairs, but she’d left one window open to air the place out. Summer could make the upstairs apartments stuffy, and several generations of Brannigans had left all sorts of smells embedded in the carpets and drapes.

But something caught her eye as she shut the window. A car parked in the alley behind the bar. That was different—and not in a good way. It smelled of stakeout in a way she very much didn’t like.

Reaching for her phone, she sent another text.

Sum 1 is here.

After tense seconds, she received a message in return.

K

A few minutes later her soup was boiling and another car had pulled up behind the one in the alley. Lily kept a subtle eye on the goings on while the soup cooled. Funny how you had to heat it up, then wait until it was cool enough to actually eat. It would probably make more sense to just warm it to a comfortable temperature in the first place.

Two men got out of the second car and went to investigate the first. They didn’t seem to find anything, judging by the shrugs and the way they got back in their car.

Her phone rang.

A voice she would happily never have heard again in her life came over the line. “Getting jumpy, Lily?” It was Jasper. The local lord of the underground. His tones were silky and refined, but she’d never let them fool her. He was dangerous, that was common knowledge. The only time she got in touch with him was when there was a problem with a shipment, or if she suspected there was about to be a problem.

“No,” she said. “Sorry, Jasper.”

“Want me to come and stay the night?”

“No, thank you,” she said, trying to be polite. Having Jasper at her place would be like inviting a bull upstairs, with similar effect. Besides, it wasn’t a real offer. Jasper never stayed anywhere that didn’t have room service with five stars. He was really offering to send over muscle of the kind Lily didn’t want anywhere near her private areas.

“Okay, you let me know if you need any help.”

“Will do.” She hung up the phone and made a mental note not to contact Jasper even if the bar exploded. She rarely spoke to him, but every time she did she was left with a bad feeling in the very pit of her stomach. Her sense of unease was growing by the moment, leaving her very uncomfortable in her own skin.

She was on her own on this one, stuck between vying groups of bad guys, all of whom had some stake in the Brannigans thanks to Gammy’s fund raising in her younger years. The smart thing to do would be to sell the bar and move on, but it was hard to sell run down real estate in an area of town with a crime rate higher than the moon.

So there she was, sipping cooling soup and wondering what was going on with the car in the alley. In spite of the fact that Jasper’s men hadn’t found anything inside, it was still bothering her. It was too nice a car to be parked in a dodgy part of town in the middle of the night.

Abandoning her soup, she stepped out onto the fire escape and looked down at it. It was a black sedan, assuming in the most unassuming way. She stepped back indoors and returned to her soup, but the car’s presence was irritating, a thorn in her mind. There was no way she could go to bed while it was still there.

She decided to do something about it. The car was below her apartment more or less, which gave Lily an idea. She went to the junk drawer, which housed items dating back more than twenty years. Bottle caps, rubber bands… and water balloons. She filled them in the kitchen sink, adding a little something from the junk drawer to the mix.

Taking the filled balloons out to the fire escape, she tossed two in quick succession. They flew straight down as if made of lead, not water, and burst in great wet crowns, soaking the car in not just water, but a burst of glue and glitter, which would royally mess with the finish on the car. It looked clean, or rather it had done before Lily unleashed her ire upon it.

“Hey! Cut it out!”

A deep voice evinced immediate frustration. Someone had been caught in the splash, judging by the way his shoulders glittered in the limited light reflected from the street lamp outside the alley.

“Get out of here!” Lily shouted down. She couldn’t make out who it was, but she didn’t care. Whoever it was needed to go away. “Next time, it won’t be water!”

A dark chuckle floated up the iron girders. “Little lady, you think you can chase me away with a few water balloons?”

“The water’s just a warning!”

There was a squeaking sound as the man pulled down the ladder leading to the fire escape. Panicking, Lily hurled down the remaining three water balloons, catching him in a cascade of fabulous pink and gold glitter. Then she slammed the door shut, bolted it, and closed and pulled the shade so he couldn’t see in. Having run out of courage for the evening, she hid behind the couch, phone in hand in case things got any worse.

A solid knock at the door jangled her nerves. “Come on,” that deep voice rumbled. “If you’re bold enough to do the crime, be bold enough to own up to it and face the consequences.”

“Water balloons aren’t a crime,” she shouted. “I’m about to make a call that’s going to mess your night up if you don’t get out of here.”

“Oh yeah? Who are you planning on calling?”

She was trying to intimidate a door. She got the impression that trying to intimidate the man himself wouldn’t be any easier.

“What do you want?”

“Right now? I want to smack your little ass until you learn picking fights with strangers is a bad idea.”

Now she was being threatened by the door, though as threats went, it wasn’t a particularly fearsome one. It was almost flirtatious really. Obviously he had some sense of humor. A lot of men Lily knew would have flown into a cursing rage at being caught by water balloons in the middle of the night while wearing what looked like a fairly expensive leather jacket.

“This isn’t that sort of place,” she shouted. “Try Girls Girls Girls, down the street street street.”

“I’ve found the girl I need to deal with,” the man behind the door said. “And now she’s hiding because she knows she’s in trouble.”

How in hell was he making her feel naughty? She was squirming behind the couch, hiding like the girl he accused her of being.

“Who is it? Who are you?” He had piqued her curiosity enough to make her take her fingers off her phone. She had been on the verge of calling for back up, but now her instinct was telling her that the man on the fire escape was no threat, even if he was looming wetly in the dead of night.

“Someone who isn’t going to converse through the door. Either open up and face the consequences or our conversation is over.”

Lily smirked. “Go away,” she shouted, “and take your sparkle wagon with you.”

There was a moment’s silence, then she heard footsteps moving away. Whoever he was, he was a man of his word. A minute or two later, the car’s engine purred into life. She was alone.

There was a little spring of triumph in her step as she made her way to bed. Car gone. Job done.

* * *

Lily’s week didn’t give her a lot of time to think about what had happened that night with the man and the car. There were other men with other cars, trucks, and packages, all passing through the bar at various hours of the day and night, sometimes stashing goods in the cellar, sometimes cutting deals in the bar itself, sometimes panicking and getting into fist fights. There was no shortage of excitement about The Fox and Stoat for sure. Lily presided over it all, staying out of the deals themselves, but making sure that things ran smoothly.

The last deal was done, the bar was cleaned, the staff had gone for the evening, and she was taking the trash out when a little flutter of glitter heralded the return of the mysterious stranger. No sooner had she put the lid on the trash can than he was there, tall and dangerous, still sparkling in a few places.

This time she recognized him as the same man who had given her cause for concern when ordering beer. His glinting eyes caught her in their gaze and pinned her to the alley floor.

She was not dressed for conflict. A light tunic top and skin tight leggings were comfortable to work in, but they provided no protection from tall, dark, and dangerous men with scintillating gazes which shot through her and seemed to read every thought she had.

“You!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man drawled. “Me. I think we ought to go upstairs, quickly, before any of your associates happen to see what’s going on.”

“I think you ought to get in your sparkly car and leave.”

“Not happening,” he said, taking her by the upper arm. “Move.”

There was no way in hell Lily was going to allow him into her home. She did not have much at her disposal in the way of self-defense, but she knew how to execute a flawless shot to the groin. Her knee was in motion the moment he touched her, flying with precision towards the most sensitive and prized part of his anatomy.

If she had performed the action against any other man, it would have worked flawlessly, but this one moved quick as a snake, blocking her knee and twisting her around so that she was facing away from his body.

“No you don’t,” he murmured in her ear. “Just do as you’re told and nobody gets hurt.” He emphasized his point by slapping her bottom—hard. The slap sounded like a gunshot in the alley and was followed by an involuntary cry of complaint which she knew nobody was going to investigate.

The promise that nobody would be hurt had already been broken as far as she was concerned. If this was to be the end of things, she would not go quietly into the night, or into her apartment as the case might be. She lifted her foot and kicked him in the shin. “Get the hell off me!”

“Settle down,” he growled. “I’m a police officer.”

“And I’m a fucking nun,” she swore, now quite terrified.

“If I was going to hurt you, I would have done it by now. Stop making this dangerous for the both of us and get your butt upstairs.”

There was authority in his tone which made her feel he was probably telling the truth. Only a police officer would be arrogant enough to order someone around the way he was doing. A criminal would have been either more aggressive or much nicer about the whole thing.

“Go.” His palm landed hard across her bottom cheeks again.

Lily made her way reluctantly back into the bar and up the stairs to her apartment with the officer at her heels. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Her bottom was tingling, along with her sense of danger. Trouble was in the air, thick as smoke and twice as bitter.

“Here’s the deal,” he said, sitting her down in the armchair Gammy had once loved. “I’m a detective.” He showed his badge, confirming his identity. “And you’re part of a criminal organization. I think we can help each other out, though.”

Lily sat back in the chair, giving him the same look Gammy would have, a steely blue gaze which once unnerved an infamous gangster. “Do you have any proof of that? Do you have a warrant to be in my house? Or do you think you can scare me by breaking into my home and intimidating me?”

“If you want me to get a warrant, we can do things that way. Bring you in on formal charges, make it known to your associates that you just became a weak link in their chain. What happens to weak links, Lily?”

Biting her lip, Lily felt her heart begin to beat faster. The detective had a point. If anybody found out that the police were onto activities at The Fox and Stoat, things would get very nasty very fast. She wasn’t going to let him know he’d rattled her though. She had to stay strong. Men like him sensed weakness and exploited it. She’d seen it happen a hundred times before and she was not going to let it happen to her.

“I’ve been arrested plenty of times,” she shrugged. “It’s never been a problem for me.”

“Tough girl, huh?” He stood in front of her, powerful legs spread shoulder width apart in a stance that was undeniably dominating. His presence was large in the small apartment, threatening, but not in the way Lily was used to being threatened. “Let’s see how tough you are after a night in the cells.”

“What are you arresting me for?”

The officer smirked at her, his lips quirking in a way that made the planes of his cheeks become unyieldingly hard. “My brief was to keep an eye on you until I had enough evidence to press charges. It didn’t take very long.”