/

Chapter Four

\

Adam had long since begun to believe his city was the Grand Central Station of the underworld. If a criminal existed, at some point in their lives, they'd come here. Being a major port town, it made sense, in a way, but in the last few days the trend seemed truer than before. New faces. Old faces. They were all showing up. And if he couldn't get himself to stay focused he'd stay a step behind all of them.

Gripping the files in his hand, he looked up and down the street outside Malloy's, then held the door for Rothman.

In the entryway, he stopped.

Grady was behind the counter, standing by the register, completely motionless. His jacket was half off and he was staring into the distance, towards the back booths, expression frozen, like he'd forgotten what he was doing right in the middle of it. As Adam watched, Malloy went up and softly touched his shoulder. Grady shook himself and faced her, digging into his pocket to hand her a set of keys.

"Sarge?" said Rothman, bumping Adam's elbow.

"Sorry." Adam moved, trotting down the steps. "Hey," he said as he got closer. "Everything alright?"

Grady looked over and smiled. "Hey, B." His expression seemed easygoing, but his gaze darted back to Malloy before making actual eye contact. "Yeah, yeah, everything's great. I was just running a little late." He finished taking off his jacket and gave Rothman a nod. "Get you guys anything?"

Adam shook his head, pulling out a stool and setting the files on the bar's surface. "Not this time. We're on duty."

Rothman grabbed a stool of his own and sat next to him.

"In the bar?" said Malloy.

"We don't have a choice," lamented Rothman, planting his fists on top of each other, then propping his chin on top of them, deliberately forlorn. "The station is a little sieve-like at the moment."

"What do you mean, sieve-like?" asked Malloy, leaning forward to read the tab on one of the files. "Is that the Foley murder? I thought you closed it?"

"We did," said Rothman, slouching up onto his elbows. "Dave Mancini was the shooter, no question. We're just not sure anymore if he was sent to kill Foley, or if it was personal revenge. He and Foley had some, well, let's just say they had some questionable business dealings. Mancini did a job for Foley then executed Foley and his entire family when he didn't get paid. At least that's how it looks on paper. Foley screwed him over but probably thought he was safe from retribution because Foley was the Harbor Master."

Malloy shook her head. "And why does that matter?"

"Thee Harbor Master," reiterated Rothman. "Of one of the biggest ports on the west coast."

Adam cleared his throat. "We can't prove it, but we think he was funneling illegal shipments through customs. And not just for one criminal network. All of them. There are a lot of minor operations around, but any major smuggling—if you wanted it brought in without questions, Foley had a hand in it. The entire pipeline was in his control. Now, in the void left behind, there's a push to take over the network. Whoever reconstructs the pipeline controls all the major illegal shipping in the city. Instant king of the mountain."

Grady had his fists on the counter. He looked behind him, at the customers in the bar, at the booths, then down at his hands, a torn look in his eyes that made Adam frown.

"But not to worry, we have no shortage of contenders lining up for the job," continued Rothman. "Irish. Russian. Italian. Chinese. You name it. It's like an international mob convention. Suddenly everyone's in town. If Madagascar were big on organized crime, they'd have someone here."

"Wouldn't control of that kind of information just go to the new Harbor Master?" asked Malloy.

Rothman shook his head. "Harbor Master is an appointed position. There's no way anyone could know who the next guy would be—whether he'd be dirty or clean. Pay-offs, dirty customs agents, switch points, coded logs. Foley had it locked down. No one knew how all the pieces fit except him. But with the right information, with Foley's information, the network gets reconstructed, and it may not matter who the new guy is."

"Okay, so what does this have to do with the station being 'sieve-like?'"

Adam took his eyes off Grady, focusing on Malloy as he answered. "Someone's been hacking into the computer system at the station—accessing case files, personnel files, everything. And to get as far as they keep getting, they have to have inside help."

"A leak in the department?"

"Probably several," said Rothman, dropping his chin to his fists again. "Thus the sieve."

Adam nodded. "We figure until we know where to go with all this," he gestured at the files, "we need to keep the status of our investigation from falling into the wrong hands. At the moment that means staying away from headquarters. At least here, I don't feel like someone's watching our every move."

Grady looked pale. He opened and closed his mouth like he was about to ask a question, then coughed lightly and licked his lips. "Coffee instead, guys?" he asked.

"Sure, thanks," Adam answered.

Grady turned and started messing with the coffee pot. Adam cast a questioning gaze at Malloy. She started to speak, then pursed her lips instead, shaking her head minutely.

Adam's frown deepened. The sensation of fear and frustration leftover from his fragmented nightmare inched back up his spine.

"Hey, Grady," Rothman said suddenly. "Your nose is bleeding."

"What?" Grady glanced up, expression confused.

Rothman stood. "Your nose."

Adam stood also, seeing the dark smudge of blood above Grady's lip.

Grady touched two fingers to his face. "Oh." He stepped back, replacing the fingers with the towel he'd been holding.

"Let me see," said Malloy, reaching for his elbow.

Grady waved her off, dabbing with the towel as he did so. "No. No, look." He pulled the towel away. "Barely bleeding. It's nothing."

"What happened?" asked Adam.

"Kids," said Grady with chagrin. "Overzealous student caught me with a kick to the back of the head." He dabbed at his nose, looking for more blood. "Must have got me worse than I thought."

"You got hit in the back of your head and it made your nose bleed? Grady, that sounds serious." Malloy stepped closer, like she was trying to check if she could still see red.

"No, no." Grady shifted away again, angling his body to toss the towel into the basket set aside for them. "Kid was sparring with another student and got in a lucky shot from behind, knocked me into the punching bag. Caught my nose at just the right angle, you know? Everyone at the dojo gets a little intense around tournament time."

Adam drew a preparatory breath.

"Hey, relax," forestalled Grady, that fake smile again. "No big deal." He glanced down, rubbing at the stray drop that'd smeared below his collar. "But, uh, I should go change my shirt so I don't scare the customers. Be right back. Malloy, the coffee?"

"Yeah, I got it," she said, after a slight delay. Grady was already halfway around the counter.

Adam watched him go, then pressed his palms to the bar and leaned forward. "Something going on I should know about?" he asked.

/

\

The solid wood frame of the backroom door muted Adam's knock when he tapped on it, but the opaque glass reverberated with the motion, loud and familiar. After a second or two with no response, he gripped the knob and pushed inward.

Grady was standing by the bed, pulling a new Henley over his t-shirt. He glanced at Adam, then beyond into the bar, and finished adjusting the shirt's hem. His face was neutral. His eyes weren't. Adam couldn't decipher what was behind them but it made his lungs constrict.

"Is it getting busy out there already?" Grady asked, playing it off. He sat down on the bed, pulling the laces on his shoe. The shirt with the bloodstain was bunched next to his hip. "Tell Malloy I'll be out in a sec. My shoes are still soaked from the rain. Figure I'll change them while I have the chance."

"It's fine," said Adam, still holding the doorknob. "But, uh, listen—I was thinking. Maybe you should take the evening off. Get some rest."

Grady rolled his eyes. "Not this again. I told you, I'm fine." He swiped at his nose, then bent one knee up to pull on a clean sock.

Adam took another step inside. "You know, it's not a crime to admit you're not feeling 100 percent."

"It is if there's nothing wrong with me. Look, B, I know you've been pretty stressed out lately, but you've got to relax. If you gave me the third degree every time I took a hit in class, we'd be having this discussion every week and Malloy would have to hire a new bartender."

Frustration clawed its way under the back edge of Adam's ribs, but he schooled his response, lifting his eyebrows a bland millimeter instead. "Are we really going to do this again?"

Grady cocked his head. "Didn't I just say that?"

"Hey, I'm worried about you, and this is not just me projecting." Seeing Grady stiffen his shoulders, Adam eased his tone. "Come on, man. I know something's going on with you."

Grady sighed heavily, pulling on another sock. "Nothing is going on with me."

"You're tired. You're on edge." Adam folded his arms. "You know, I was hoping by now you'd realize you could come to me. I was hoping we wouldn't have to do this anymore."

"Yeah, me too," Grady muttered, voice irritated.

"Grady, when are you going to figure out you can trust me?"

"This is not about trust," Grady said shortly. He finished lacing his dry shoes and stood, angling away as he picked up the bloody shirt. He took a deep shuddery breath as he did, and it was so familiar, sending Adam back to those first months after Grady's parents had been killed. Back to the way Grady would wake in the middle of the night, lungs hitching in on a tremble. So skinny and quiet otherwise in the beginning, it'd been the surest sign of his distress. Adam stepped forward, ready to set a hand on Grady's shoulder, but Grady turned back to face him before he could. "Before you go any further here, can I ask you just one question?"

Adam dropped the hand to his side. "What question is that?"

"How old was the little boy in the family that got killed last week?"

He started to shake his head. "Eight. Look. I know where you're going with this, but you're wrong."

"Eight," repeated Grady. Then he reversed motions, setting his hand on Adam's shoulder instead. "B, I know you. You take any tragedy with kids like a personal failure. But there's nothing anyone could have done to save the boy in that family, and I'm not a traumatized eight-year-old in need of rescuing anymore. Let it go." The grip tightened, then slid away as Grady turned, tossing the bloody shirt towards his dresser.

Perfect aim.

Grady smiled, tapping his fist to Adam's elbow. "I'm okay, B," he said softly, then brushed fast past his shoulder, going back into the bar.

Adam gripped the doorknob tightly, letting his eyes flicker around the room. His gaze landed on the picture of the two of them on Grady's dresser—the one he could have sworn just that morning used to be housed in a kapok-wood frame.

He clenched his teeth, fighting the line of tension in his spine. "I know you too," he murmured.

/

\

Rothman closed the file in front of him and reached for his coffee, rubbing at the space between his eyebrows like he was catching Adam's frustration. "I hate to say it, Sarge, but if half the mafia world can't reconstruct this pipeline, I seriously doubt we're going to get a line on it. Not to go overboard with the puns, but Foley's financials are watertight. Rafferty or Castano would be the most obvious connections, maybe Scolari, possibly Chen Dao, but there's nothing."

"Yeah," muttered Adam, taking a sip from his own mug, then adding more cream. His eyes strayed to Grady, watching as he set three beers in front of the ladies at table four, then delivered a clean wineglass to the man in the back. His movements were stiff and overly casual and his eyes kept ticking around the bar in a show of hyper-vigilance Adam hadn't seen from anyone for a long time.

But his nose hadn't started bleeding again.

And at least he was here, where he could be seen—if something were wrong.

If.

Adam clenched his teeth, then looked down and flipped open another file. "There's got to be something here to give us a starting point."

Rothman sighed, dragging a stack of papers forward. "Let's go through it again."

The phone by the register started to ring.

"I've got it," said Adam, rising from his stool.

"No, sit, I've got it," Malloy countered, hand already on the cradle. "Malloy's."

Adam sat.

"Hey, Julie. Yeah, yeah, he's here." She started to lower the receiver, eyes swinging towards Grady, then pressed it back to her ear. "Yeah, of course, I can tell him. You don't need him back at the dojo again already, do you? With all the work you've been… Oh. Oh. Yeah. Sure, okay." Her expression changed.

There was a pause.

Grady came back up to the bar, setting his tray on the lip of the counter as he started removing empty mugs and loading back the new beers Malloy had set out. Malloy stared at him and he stopped mid-motion, lifting his eyebrows in question. "Yeah," she said again. "Yes, that's great. Thanks. I'll tell him. Yeah. Me too. I'm sure he'll be glad to hear it."

Slowly, she hung up the phone.

"Julie from the dojo?" asked Adam, glancing between the two of them.

Malloy nodded.

Grady swallowed, peering down at the mugs on his tray. When he finally looked up, he locked eyes with Malloy, resigned but stoic. And pale. Oddly pale. Grayish pale.

Malloy stared back at him and recited Julie's message with a calm that felt incongruent with the sudden tension in the air. "She told me to tell you that it's no problem if you extend your week off—with all the students being done with competition, it's been a slow month anyway."

Grady glanced at Adam, then closed his eyes, breathing out through his nose. There was a small tremble in his stance. Pale shadows stretching down his throat. Body frozen, like a bump might shatter him.

"Grady?" Adam said, rising from his stool, suddenly more concerned than upset.

Grady's eyes came open instantly. "I have to leave," he said, voice toned so low it took Adam a moment to register that he was already moving.

Slivered clips from the recent reincarnations of his nightmare flooded Adam's senses. "No," he ordered, rounding to intercept him, registering in a flash-pan way the reality of no-extra-morning-workouts and a bloody nose that couldn't have come from sparring. He caught Grady just as he reached the corner of the bar, two hands to his shoulders. "Not this time. Whatever this is… if you're in trouble, let me help."

"Let me go," Grady growled, but it felt more like fear than anger.

"I can't do that. I can't let you leave like this."

"It's not up to you to let me or not let me do anything," said Grady. "And if I wanted your help, I would ask for it." He brought his hands up defensively, dislodging Adam's grip with a shove, then he spun, heading towards the back exit instead. Adam reached, catching his elbow, fully expecting a kick to his face. That's for leaving me in Da Lat! It didn't come.

Grady jerked, breaking Adam's hold before catching his wrist and twisting quickly to shove back with his other hand, but the action died mid-motion. Grady's face went completely white. He stumbled sideways, nearly going down, staying upright with a clumsy palm to the bar.

"Grady?" Adam took a step, attempting again to close the gap.

"Stay away from me." Grady held out a hand, as though trying to ward Adam off. Tucking his other arm close to his chest, he leaned back from the bar, trying to straighten. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he crumpled, hitting the floor hard as a smattering of patrons stood in surprise and started murmuring.

Adam surged forward but it wasn't fast enough to catch him. He dropped to his knees, bracing one hand behind Grady's neck, the other tapping his face repeatedly. "Grady. Grady."

Nothing. Not even a flicker.

"Call an ambulance," he ordered, looking behind him and shouting through the crowd, honing in on Rothman and Malloy's stunned faces. "Rothman," he said specifically. "Get to the unit and get a bus here now."

/

\

tbc