Detective Steven Sachs took the second-to-last cigarette from the pack, then stared at the solitary remaining smoke before squeezing the pack in his fist.
“Shit,” he muttered, his fingers automatically fumbling for the box of matches in his jacket pocket. Box retrieved, he lit his cigarette and then waved the match out with his characteristic flourish.
Bryson pushed his chair out from his desk and turned it around to face his partner. He leaned back, placed his hands behind his head, and sniffed loudly. “One of those days, right?”
Sachs nodded, not looking up from the paperwork on his desk. “You got that right.”
“Lot of paper for those two drunks?”
Sachs sucked his cigarette and shook his head. “They’re being transferred. Look at this.” He held up one of the sheets of paper. It was onionskin, a carbon copy, and when Bryson took it it nearly tore. Sachs watched as Bryson’s eyes flicked over it before settling on the symbol at the top of the paper.
“Holy shit, this is from–”
“Yep,” said Sachs, snatching the delicate document back again without much care.
“So that stuff about the government?”
“Yep,” said Sachs. He pulled the typewriter on his desk towards him, adjusted the paper he’d carefully loaded just moments before, and selected a single key on the keyboard. There was a clack, and he leaned forward. “Ah, shit,” he said, adjusting the paper again.
“Detective Sachs?”
“The one and only.” Sachs didn’t move, but when Bryson sat up straight in his chair with a clatter, he sighed, sucked on his cigarette, and turned around.
Three men were in the office, dressed in black suits and black ties. They were young, clean-shaved, and each wore a black hat. Sachs thought they looked like a trio of advertising copywriters from Madison Avenue. He looked them up and down and sighed.
“Can I help you?”
The first man in black smiled. “We’re here to collect the fugitives.”
Sachs sniffed. “Bradley Bradley and the girl with the party mask she refuses to take off? Be my guest, buddy.”
The man’s smile tightened a little. “Thank you.”
“You’re too well dressed to be FBI,” said Sachs. “You CIA or NSA?”
“No,” said the first man. “Now, if you would be so kind?”
Sachs and Bryson stood. The agents looked at Bryson, who smiled self-consciously and straightened his tie. Sachs coughed, long and hard, and pulled his jacket from the back of his chair.
“OK,” he said. “Follow me.”
Sachs slipped into his jacket as they walked. After a few steps he saw the desk sergeant walking towards them.
“Sergeant Ross,” he said, the sergeant touching the brim of his hat and coming to a halt, expectant. Sachs indicated the three agents with him. “Those two in the cells, from Grand Central. We’re handing them over to…” He frowned as he glanced at the first agent.
The first agent smiled and gave a small nod.
“…these guys,” Sachs concluded.
“Sir?” The Sergeant switched the clipboard he was holding from one hand to another.
“We’re handing them over to another authority. They ready to move?”
The sergeant looked at Sachs and pursed his lips. He glanced at the trio of agents, and peeled the top sheet on the clipboard back and folded it over.
“Something wrong, Sergeant?”
“They’ve already gone,” said Ross, turning the clipboard around to show his superior. Sachs grabbed it and starting flipping through pages like he was a doctor surveying the chart of a dying man. “They were collected just fifteen minutes ago. An agent signed for them already.”
The men in black crowded Sachs; he could feel their breath, smell their aftershave. He continued to scramble through the paperwork until the clipboard was snatched out of his hand by the first agent. The detective didn’t protest, but in the silence that followed as the agent read the sheet he fixed Sergeant Ross with an angry glare.
“A Federal agent signed for it?” said the agent, turning the clipboard around, his finger next to the signature line on the release form.
Sergeant Ross peered closer, the color draining from his face as Sachs watched.
Sachs grabbed the clipboard back and read the line. “Agent…” he peered closer, deciphering the spider scrawl. “Shit. Agent ‘Kissmyass’? What are you, a moron?”
He slapped the clipboard against the Sergeant’s chest. Then he turned to Bryson, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor. “And don’t think you can squeeze out of this either. They only left fifteen minutes ago, we gotta be able to–”
A hand was on his chest, the fingertips only brushing his shirt but somehow there was strength and