Corrupted Queen - Nicole Fox Page 0,18
he look like?”
“He was a big guy,” Bernard recalls. “Big as in tall and muscular though, not fat. Black hair, I think, about jaw length. I’d say he was probably in his thirties, but it was hard to tell from where I was.”
Gabriel.
That’s the moment I realize the ugly truth.
Gabriel is at the root of this epidemic. People are dying every day because of his greed and lack of morality.
I remember a white sheet fluttering in the breeze, draped over a motionless body. The thought turns my stomach.
Despite all the evidence I’d gathered thus far, I still wanted to believe that the Italian mob weren’t involved in purple heroin, or at least that Gabriel’s hands were clean of it. His men could have been working behind his back. But now I have proof that not only is the Italian mob involved, but Gabriel is running the show.
I ask Bernard a few other questions, but he doesn’t have any other helpful information. That’s just as well, since his late arrival means that I need to get back to relieve Debbie of babysitting duty so she won’t be late for work.
“Thanks, Bernard.” I hand him a slip of paper with the phone number for my burner. “Call me if you think of anything else or if you see anything else.”
He grins, exposing smoke-yellowed teeth. “What if I’m just feeling lonely? Can I call you then?”
My friendly smile drops. I have to deal with this kind of thing all the time and it drives me nuts. Men think that just because you’re asking them questions, that means you’re interested in them when in reality it’s your job.
“Bernard, if I were a man, would you be so quick to disrespect me?”
Bernard’s smile falters. “Uh, no. I just thought—”
“If you have more information and want more money, call me. Otherwise, piss off.”
“Yes, sorry.”
Bernard drops his gaze and leaves, and there’s something satisfying about having gotten to tell him off like that. I leave the docks on a bit of high.
Definitively learning that Gabriel is involved in purple heroin is a blow, sure, but I get to be the one to bring him down. In the past week, I’ve already pulled together enough information to start working on a piece. Who knows what I could accomplish in another couple of weeks?
“There’s my boy,” I coo, throwing my bag over the arm of the sofa.
Debbie is sitting on the rug with Harry while his favorite cartoons play on the TV. She shuffles to her feet and brushes out the wrinkles from her pastel purple pantsuit.
“How did it go?” she asks, grabbing her purse from the table. Then, without waiting for me to answer, adds, “I changed him and gave him breakfast already. There’s coffee in the pot.”
“Debbie, you’re a lifesaver.” I slide down to the rug and lift Harry into my arms. He giggles enthusiastically. “It went well. Bernard saw someone who matched Gabriel’s description overseeing a shipment a few weeks ago, around the time the drug first hit the streets.”
Debbie slides into her heels and rests her hand on the door handle, looking back at me. “Good work. Compile everything you’ve got so far and I’ll have a look at it when I get home tonight.”
“Will do.” Harry and I wave as Debbie leaves, then I kiss Harry’s head. “I need some coffee, little man. I’ve been up since four.”
Harry babbles something incoherent that I take as support of my plan, and I lift him onto my hip as I walk to the coffee machine. I grab a mug from the cupboard and fill it to the brim with steaming black coffee, inhaling the rich aroma.
I have grown accustomed to Debbie’s coffee, which is just as bracing and punchy as her personality. I take the mug back to the living room but pause by the window. Debbie only lives a few floors up and has a good view of the street in front of the building, where, right now, three black SUVs are parked in a line.
Oh, shit.
I rush to set the coffee down on the nearest surface, spilling it all over Debbie’s table in my haste. My brain goes into overdrive. Where did I put my go-bag? I race to my room and gaze at the clothes and toys strewn around the room in horror, realizing that I have gotten much too comfortable here in the past week. Harry fusses in my arms and I whisper soothingly to him as I snatch my duffel bag