I moved swiftly and quietly.
It was nearing midnight, it was dark, the street was bright but the bike path wasn’t well-lit.
I saw nothing and kept going, hoping they stayed on the path. I couldn’t chance a call to Sniff. I didn’t know if Roam and whoever Roam was following would hear it. So I just moved as fast as I could without making any noise.
What seemed like an eternity later, but was probably five minutes, I saw Sniff’s gray sweatshirt. We were almost to Broadway when I got to him.
He was standing, trying to hide but you could see his sweatshirt. I approached him from behind and touched his shoulder. He jumped and whirled, dropping his phone with a clatter.
“Shit, Law!” he hissed.
I bent down, got his phone and gave it to him. “Roam still here?” I whispered.
“Yeah, up ahead,” Sniff whispered back.
I handed him my car keys. “Camaro’s in the Fox station lot. Go to it, get in, lock up and wait for me.”
“Law…” he hesitated.
I got close and clipped, “Move!”
He took off.
Told you my word was law.
I moved forward enough to see that there were people in front of me, standing, pretty as you please, next to a street light. A dealer making a sale. Anyone else might have thought they were just talking, on the Speer bike path, at midnight.
I knew it was a sale because I’d witnessed a lot of them the past four months.
Roam was nowhere to be seen.
I got into the shadows, watched and waited.
The sale went down, the buyers took off West, the dealer came my way.
Shit.
The dealer got close and I recognized him. Name was Shard, low level player, just a piece of scum caught in the wheel of the big drug machine.
I made a decision, came out to the path and started toward him like I was taking a moonlight stroll. I figured I’d walk by him, find Roam and get the hell out of there.
Shard noticed me, hesitated and then, for no apparent reason, his body jerked and he whirled.
I stared, not knowing what was happening and wondering if maybe he suffered from epilepsy or something.
He jerked again then again then caught sight of something and ran toward it, away from me. He jerked again while he was running and I finally noticed Roam, standing a bit away, throwing rocks at Shard.
Oh shit.
I ran after Shard. Roam saw us both and shot out of his hiding hole and took off.
We were all running, flat out, and I realized in a panic there was no way I’d catch Shard and Roam. Roam was quick. Shard was quicker.
I did catch up with them, though the only reason I was able to was that Shard caught up with Roam, did a flying tackle and brought him down. They struggled, he rolled Roam to his back, reared to punch him but before he did I made it to them, grabbed Shard’s wrist and twisted it, spinning him off of Roam.
Shard rolled into me, took me down and my stun gun went flying.
“Roam, run!” I shouted as Shard got on top of me. We were struggling, his hands at my wrists, he was stronger than me, way stronger. I looked for my opening to knee him in the ‘nads when Roam body tackled him sideways.